Night Beyond The Night (5 page)

“Right. When’s the last time you slept?”

“About fifty years ago. So did you find the van?”

“It’s deader than a fucking cell phone,” Wyatt said. “No chance to get it working again. Kids patched it together from a bunch of parts, and they rusted right through the damn floor. I can’t believe it made it five hours on this terrain.” He walked away, clearly disgusted with the situation.

Quent crouched next to Elliott. “The bloody van wouldn’t work, and then a band of
gangas
showed up. Just before we tossed in a bottle bomb, some Robin Hood shot a few of these arrows and scrambled a bunch of zombie brains. I pulled this out of the back of a
ganga
skull.” He showed him the slender rod he was carrying. “It’s an arrow. Or crossbow bolt. Look at this. Bloody clever design.”

Quent demonstrated how the shaft worked. It had slits near the sharp head, and when the tip met resistance—such as slamming into the skull of a
ganga
—a weight inside the hollow shaft released and slammed forward, shooting out five lethal petal-like points like a starburst around the tip.

“A little more innovative than our Molotov cocktails. But not nearly as efficient,” Elliott said, taking the bolt—but without touching Quent’s fingers. Last thing he wanted was to break his friend’s arm too.

He turned the bolt over in his hands, tilting it from side to side. The dull slide of the weight shifted back and forth, and the spikes fell in and out around the tip.
Pretty fucking cool
. “So not only does it penetrate the skull, but it makes mashed potatoes out of the brain.”

That was the only way to stop a
ganga
: destroy its brain. Smash it. Burn it. Explode it.

“Got three of them, the last one right as I threw our only bottle bomb. Three shots, three victims. Boom, boom, boom.” Quent peered over Elliott’s shoulder into the night. “A Robin Hood like that would be handy in our little band of Merry Men.”

“You didn’t see anyone?”

“Not a hint.”

“You couldn’t tell anything about him by touching the arrow?” Elliott asked, knowing that Quent was still learning the extent of his ability to read inanimate objects.

“A little. Not much.” Quent shoved his hands in his pockets. “Hey, I’ll watch for a bit if you want to rest. Dawn’ll be here soon.”

Elliott shook his head. Tension rode along his neck, aching his shoulders. “I’m fine. Go on.”

Moments later, Elliott found himself staring out the window again. He leaned against the wall, tipping his head up and back, folding his arms over his middle. The only sounds were the distant rustling of a breeze through the leaves, and the quiet scrabbling of some rodent or other nocturnal creature on the hunt. The moon cast a swath of pearlescent light over the choppy, shadowy ground beyond.

Funny. It was the same moon he’d stared at back in Chicago, fifty years ago. The same moon under which he’d strolled hand in hand with Mona, listening to the fringes of the blues fest, thinking about whether she was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. The very same moon had shone down on him when he’d walked out, sweaty and pumped, from a fierce basketball game. The same one glowed while the sky lightened with dawn as he drove home from an afternoon shift after saving the life of a hemorrhaging woman.

Hard to believe it was the same one when everything else was so different.

A different sound caught his ear and he stilled, listening. He didn’t turn because . . . well, because he knew it was coming from the corner where Jade was sleeping.

Or, rather, pretending to sleep.

Always keen, his ears seemed even sharper now, and he could tell she’d risen from her place on the floor. If she was in pain or needed him, she would have called out. Or said something.

But . . . then he heard the soft metal clunk. She’d found her pack and picked it up. Preparing to leave? Or simply needing something from the bag?

He waited until she was well away from her pallet before he turned his head. “Jade? Is everything all right?”

“Oh,” she said, her voice still low and husky. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I was just . . . I needed to. . . .” Her voice trailed off in embarrassment.

“I wasn’t sleeping.” Elliott pulled to his feet. “Sorry we don’t offer indoor plumbing here,” he said, moving toward her, willing to pretend he didn’t know what she was up to. And, good God, the white T-shirt she wore was like a magnet for the moonlight, showing off the curves of her torso. As if he needed a reminder.

Her face remained shadowy and she seemed to be moving smoothly, without pain. Had he really healed her completely, then?

“I’m afraid you’ll have to go down and outside. I’ll come with you,” he said.

Holding the pack she’d slung over her shoulder, she shifted on her feet and looked up at him. “Well, isn’t that awkward. You don’t need to come—I’ll be fine. There aren’t any
gangas
around—we’d hear them if there were.”

“Or smell them.”

She gave a soft laugh and nodded. Elliott gestured toward the opening in the floor where the rope ladder hung. “Awkward or not, I’m going with you.”

“If you want,” she said as if it was her idea, when she clearly preferred to be left alone. Then she turned and started down the ladder.

Elliott followed and remained a prudent distance away, standing in what had been a street a half-century ago, as she disappeared into the shadows. Scanning the area for the orange eyes of
gangas
or the yellow ones of wolves, he waited, resisting the urge to follow her.

As nearly everywhere he’d been, decrepit, overgrown buildings loomed over and around him, barely recognizable as the establishments they’d once been. A diner, with its sign peeling away. A gift shop. A pharmacy. In the morning, he’d check to see if there was anything salvageable for his bag of medical supplies.

Far as he could tell, this had been the downtown of a quaint little Main Street
USA
town. Probably one that had already been on the verge of extinction fifty years ago, with its Mom-and-Pop shops threatened by big box stores and lifestyle malls on the outskirts of town. But big box or little, all of them had been reduced to jungles of bush and vine. Not for the first time, Elliott wondered what town this had been, once upon a time. And who had died here, and who had lived, when It all happened.

Then he realized that Jade had been gone for quite a while, and he sharpened his attention, turning toward the shadows.

A few steps toward the darkness, listening carefully, he wondered if she had indeed melted into the darkness, never to return.

Just like the mysterious Robin Hood Quent had told him about.

Would it matter if she had? Other than the fact that she was a woman alone in the night, with
gangas
and wolves and other dangers, would he care?

Obviously, she had already been alone earlier, when she blazed in Annie Oakley-style . . . hadn’t she? Or was Jade secretly returning to her own band of companions, now that she was healed?

“Jade,” he called, stepping closer to a shadowy alley, now overgrown with bushes and trees. “Are you all right?”

His heart was suddenly pounding. He was worried about her being alone in the night . . . but he also didn’t want her to be gone. To just
poof
. . . and disappear.

A soft rustle drew his attention, and then she reappeared. He felt a leap of relief . . . and delight . . . as she emerged from behind a tree. “I didn’t mean to be gone so long.”

“I thought you might have taken the opportunity to run away,” he said, looking down at her, trying to catch her eyes in the dim light. He felt oddly off center, unusually tentative.

“Run away?” Jade stilled and returned his gaze, easing back a bit. “Would you have tried to stop me if I had?” The bruises and scrapes on her face looked like dark splotchy shadows, but her eyes gleamed up at him, steady and sharp. Tension fairly quivered from her.

“Only because I’d be worried for your safety. Not because . . . not because you wouldn’t be free to go.”

“Really. So if I said I wanted to leave right now, you’d stand aside and let me?” Her hands settled on her hips in that way women had when they challenged their menfolk, but her voice was mild. Ready to pick a fight, but not quite there yet.

“I’d think it was pretty foolish, but I have no reason to keep you here. I saw your performance tonight, riding in to save those kids. It was brave and beautiful . . . and reckless.”

She seemed to relax a little, her shoulders easing and her hands dropping from her hips. “Reckless?” she laughed, and the sound lingered, low and dusky, in his ears.

“But nevertheless effective.” His smile faded. “So are you going to leave?”

She shrugged. “I might. If I want to.” But she made no move to go.

“You seem to be feeling all right. Are you in any pain?” he asked, realizing that if they were talking, she’d be less likely to melt into the shadows again.

“For flying through the air and landing on my ass, I’m feeling surprisingly well,” she replied. “Maybe you are a real doctor.”

“I told you I was.” He wished suddenly that he could see her face better, but the close buildings and trees cast shadows that kept them nearly in the dark. “But as I recall, the last time we were having a conversation about my credentials, you demanded I take my shirt off. I confess, I wasn’t sure whether I should have been flattered . . . or worried.”

“Oh.” She looked up at him, and, wonder of wonders, stepped into a patch of moonlight. Her upturned face, scraped and half shadowed by her thick hair, was nevertheless arresting in its simple beauty. He saw the smooth rise of a scraped cheekbone and the soft angles of a perfect nose. “I had really hoped I’d dreamt that.”

“We could pretend it was a dream and never mention it again,” Elliott said, his mouth twitching in a smile.

“That would be good. Can we do that?”

“Done.”

“So . . . is your name really Dread?”

“It’s Elliott. Elliott Drake. My friends started calling me Dred when I . . . when I became a doctor. Dr. E. Drake was shortened to Dred.”

“Oh,” she said, as if considering this information. “So who
are
you?”

That damn question again . . . but for some reason, he didn’t feel that same blast of frustration he’d had earlier. Not that the explanation was any easier now. . . . “You had a fractured ulna—a broken arm,” he said instead. “How does it feel now?”

She reached automatically for her left arm, closing her fingers over the bands she wore around her wrist. “It’s not broken anymore. It feels normal.”

“I told you. I’m a doctor.” He smiled, but it felt rickety. He was a doctor . . . and now, thanks to some oddity, he was also a healer that taketh the pain away . . . and giveth it back. Wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am.

And then she tripped or slipped or something, reaching toward him, but he reared away before her fingers could brush his arm. “
Don’t!
”

Jade caught herself and sort of stepped back, looking up at him with wide eyes. “I’m sorry. I just . . . tripped.”

“No,” Elliott said, feeling foolish. “I’m sorry. I . . . didn’t mean to startle you.”
Christ
. How much should he tell her? “You just surprised me. I didn’t . . . uh.” He sounded like a fucking idiot. “I think I might have something . . . contagious. I don’t want you to get sick. Again.” He tried to sound blasé, but from the way she was looking at him, he didn’t think it was working.

What
would
happen if she touched him? Would her arm break again? Or nothing?

How was he ever going to find out? Because, holy hell, he really wanted to touch her. As in
touch her
, as Elliott the Man who hadn’t had sex in five decades, not Elliott with the Hippocratic Oath and hospital ethics board breathing over his shoulder.

Just then, he heard it . . . the low grating, groaning.
Ruuu-uuthhhh
.

“They’re back,” he murmured, moving automatically toward her, but without actually touching her. “Are you coming inside?”

“You’d better come inside,” she ordered as if it was her idea. As if she were going to protect him.

That clinched it. He had the hots for a control freak.

She slipped ahead of Elliott, taking obvious care not to brush against him in any way, and started up the rope ladder.

Which meant that he was right behind her and got a firsthand glimpse of the way her jeans shifted lower than the hem of her shirt as she climbed, showing that bit of skin. What was it about such an innocuous sight that made his gut tighten, and yeah, sue him, but his cock shift? If he got a hard-on every time he saw a flash of white ass in the hospital, he’d have spent the majority of his days walking around with a woody.

And it was just ridiculous that he was distracted by a little flash of skin when there were fucking
gangas
coming after them.

At the top, filled with disgust for himself, Elliott pulled the ladder up after them, coiling it in a circle on the floor.

The sounds of the
gangas
drew closer, and Jade moved to the mildewed window to look down. As much as he felt compelled to be near her, Elliott resisted and walked over toward the cluster of teens as the groaning of the night creatures became louder.

All six of them seemed to be sleeping soundly.

Six?

He paused and counted again. Aw, hell. One of them was missing. He looked closer. It was one of the guys. Geoff.

Maybe he’d just stepped aside somewhere to take a piss. Out a window, he hoped.

Turning to look around the darkened room, Elliott hissed, “Jade.”

She turned from the window, fully outlined by the moon, and for a moment, Elliott’s words dried up in his mouth. Her face glowed like porcelain, and for the first time, he could see the hint of a red nimbus in her thick, dark hair.

Just then, a loud shriek pierced the air.

The
gangas
had found their prey.

From a vantage point high above, Zoë Kapoor heard the shriek of fear rise beyond the groaning of the
gangas
.

Stupid kid
. Now she was going to have to waste another of her arrows.