Afterlife (16 page)

Angelique:

A blanket covered me. A blanket of dark sky and bright stars. My skin prickled, every inch of it like needles carving stories on my flesh. My eyes were closed, but I could see Isabelle sitting in the corner, humming while she colored pictures of fairy tales. Snow White, I think. Or Sleeping Beauty.

Coloring pictures of me. Sleeping.

Chaz had put me to sleep, then left Isabelle and me here. With Pete.

Darkness descended, rolled over me in waves. Something dangerous was coming, I could feel it. I had to break free, had to wake up. I pushed my way through layers of gray and blue, layers of cotton and flesh. Voices swirled around me, sharp, staccato. Somebody was upset.

Wake up.

I shook off the dream, felt a cold chill wash over me and a surge of nausea. I leaned over, still fighting nightmarish tentacles, opened my eyes. I was alone in the bedroom. Isa
belle stood in the doorway, looking out. Sucking her thumb.

Voices in the other room.

“Did you see that?”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Shuddup! Listen.” The last voice was Pete.

Isabelle glanced at me and smiled. I held my finger to my lips as I crept toward the door. I heard the electronic echo of a VR screen. Pete and some of the guards were watching something, some news broadcast. I peeked around the corner. No one was looking in my direction. They all stared at the screen.

“We're going to play that video again,” a woman newscaster said. “This time we'll explain what we think happened.”

A gritty video began to play, electronically enhanced to compensate for the failing light.

“This is the City of the Dead,” she said. “A man was found dead here this morning, apparently mauled to death by a pack of wild dogs. And this video camera captured what happened afterward. If you notice, right now, both of the dogs appear to be dead.”

A massive black German shepherd sprawled on the ground, his body ripped and torn. It was Omega, it had to be. I fought the emotion that rushed over me, fought against what I saw.
He couldn't be dead
. Just then the camera wizards went in for a close-up. His face was shattered, his muzzle gone. I covered my mouth with my fist, fought against a sob.

“Watch this. Here.”

But I couldn't watch. Instead I pulled Isabelle into my arms, turned her face away so she wouldn't see it either.

“Look. Do you see that?” the newscaster's voice continued, brazen, boasting. “His face is just…just rebuilding itself. And if you notice the gaping hole in his chest—”

I opened my eyes.

“Criminy! What the hell is goin' on with that dog?” one of the guards said.

Pete held up his hand to silence him.

The dog's face had almost completely reconstructed itself. And the wounds in his chest had disappeared. It looked like he was breathing. Low and shallow.

“Now look at his eyes,” the newscaster said.

Omega opened his eyes. Moaned. Took a deep breath. He struggled to his feet, shaky at first.

The dog jogged over to the silver wolf, sat beside her, nudged her with his nose. She didn't move. He licked her face, licked her wounds, nudged her again. He lay beside her, his head on her chest, licked her wounds another time. After a few moments, he howled, a long heart-wrenching cry to the heavens.

And then the dead wolf came back to life.

“But that can't, it can't happen, boss—”

“That's not resurrection, that's not what we do, not the way that other dog—”

“I tolds y'all, shuddup!” Pete yelled.

Omega and his mate circled the area once before slipping away with their pack, before they became invisible in the morning shadows. One more time he trotted past the video camera, brushed his nose against the lens, testing it, probably attracted to the light.

But a shiver ran over my skin. It seemed as if the dog knew that I was on the other side of the lens, as if he was looking right at me. As if he wanted me to know…

Suddenly I remembered. I couldn't breathe for a couple of seconds as the last memory came back, the final missing piece.

I knew what I had done with the last dose of serum.

I glanced down at Isabelle as she leaned against my leg, her soft hair falling in curls over her shoulders, her soft
life spilling all over the room like blood. I remembered the attack, how she had almost died from the liquid light. The monsters who broke into her bedroom would come back. They wouldn't stop until they got what they wanted.

I knelt beside her, pulled her away from the door so the others couldn't hear me.

“Isabelle, I have to go somewhere,” I whispered. “Will you help me?”

She nodded, but her dark eyes said no. Some part of her didn't want me to leave.

“I'll come back,” I said as I gave her a hug. “I promise.”

Then I told her what to do, how to distract Pete and the guards so I could sneak out. All the while, hoping that I would be able to keep my promise and come back.

 

I was running again, just like the night I was killed. Down the hallway, away from the suite I shared with Chaz, my Babysitter. My protector.

I kept reminding myself why I was leaving. Every step got harder. I could feel my thoughts begin to scatter, voices on the nether wind. All of my lives seem to blend into a winding blacktop road that stretched out forever over unfamiliar hills.

The elevator snapped open up ahead.

I froze, suddenly afraid. I was too scared to get inside. Instead I slipped into a nearby shadowed doorway, clenched my knuckled fists to my chest, every muscle shaking. I forced myself to be still, to be calm. I was leaving my Babysitter. And it took all my strength to fight the need to go back. It was programmed so deep that I started to feel sick. I curled over.

I needed to get back to the City of the Dead. It's there. I had to go back.

Then I heard voices as a second elevator opened; people were coming toward me.

One of them was Russ.

I turned my face away from the hallway, tried to imagine that I was invisible. One of my hands slid over the door handle and instinctively pushed. The door opened. A stairway stretched before me.

I quickly slipped inside and started running down, running away. Russ couldn't find me, he just couldn't. Because if he did, he would kill me.

Again.

Neville:

Silent as an empty midnight mass, the silver-and-black chopper thumped to a velvet halt, descended like light from heaven, landed on the roof of the Carrington Hotel. A ragtag team of misfits climbed out, the one thing that united them a gen-spike stench, an odor of skin that had been stretched and pumped so many times that it began to decay from within.

“Follows me, boys,” I said, leading the way toward the stairwell. “And makes sure yur darts is loaded. Like I says, ya might not needs them.” I grinned over my shoulder at Seth, a lanky nineteen-year-old who still couldn't grow a beard. “But ya might wants to use them anyway.”

Seth returned the smile, exposing crooked teeth, yellow from years of jive-sweet. His skinny arms were pockmarked from street-grade gen-spikes, something that had changed after he hooked up with my gutter brothers. Now he only got the best stuff. Jive-sweet was yesterday's candy. Today it was all about that euphoric high of genetic alteration.

A beam of sunlight glanced off the chopper, cascaded into a rainbow that turned everyone around me into faceless sil
houettes. I felt an apprehensive shiver, crammed a handful of jive-sweet in my mouth. Something about the way the light sparked around us reminded me of that night in the bar, that 'sitter and his liquid light, the feeling I was being watched by something that transcended my understanding.

“Boss?” Seth hovered, uncertain, in the doorway, a shock of black hair falling across his forehead.

I lifted my chin and laughed. Pushed my way back to the front of the line, inside the door and down the stairs.

My laughter ricocheted and bounced throughout the narrow corridor. Like the fire of a machine gun. I pulled out a blowgun and slid it between my lips. Long and narrow, about the length of two cigarettes, it felt good as it rolled into place, a hollow slot between my first and second bicuspids.

I sucked in a deep breath through the tube, trembling slightly at the traces of bliss, the latest designer drug, that flowed into my lungs. Just enough to wipe away any lingering fear.

We all had our blowguns in place now; we all grinned as we jogged down the stairs.

I is light and freedom, I brings power to the people. Them that gots no hope.

I brings them what they needs.

Immortality.

Russell:

The world flowed past my window, like a river of color. The images smeared and blended. My eyes couldn't focus on anything. Not even Marguerite, although she sat beside me in the company car. But I hadn't been able to see her for years. She'd been a wisp of smoke, her emotions transparent and inconsequential. More of an irritant than an inspiration.

Ellen. Memories of Ellen clouded my vision.

I thought we had a chance together. Then she betrayed me. I glanced down at my lap, realized my hands were knotted in fists.

I had been a fool. But those days were over. I was tired of trying to fix the problems with the rest of the world. I only wanted to salvage what I could. The jet was ready. A villa hidden in the Andes waited. As soon as I was finished at the hotel, I was leaving. Taking Isabelle and Marguerite and flying off into the blue horizon.

After I got rid of Angelique. At this point I didn't care whether she was neutralized or given to Neville. I just wanted her and her Ellen-past gone.

The flow of color outside my window stopped. The world came back into focus. Sharp and immediate.

“We're here.” Marguerite's voice. Already I was looking forward to the jet ride that would get us away from New Orleans.

One of the guards opened the car door and I stepped out. Took a shallow gulp of city air. Stared up at the towering hotel. Then I headed toward the lobby, unconsciously wiping my hands on my shirt.

As if that bloodstain splatter I had been dreading was already here.

 

“Where y'at, boss?” Pete stood in the door, a shallow husk of who he had been two weeks ago. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. Like something horrible haunted his dreams.

“Where y'at?” Marguerite answered him with a grin. She gave him a hug, then strolled inside Chaz's hotel suite. “Isabelle? Where are you, sugar?” she called out. “It's Mama.”

Our daughter came dancing out of a bedroom, ran and jumped into my wife's arms. Her hair was neatly combed and she wore an oversized T-shirt that came down to her knees. But she was fine.

My heart skipped a beat. I hadn't realized until now just how terrified I'd been that something might happen to her.

“Mama, Daddy.” She nuzzled her face in my wife's shoulder, then reached an arm out to me. We embraced as a trio for a long minute. For a crazy moment it felt like this was going to work out after all, the three of us together, us against the world.

“Boss?” Pete stood over by the VR screen. “I needs to show you somethin'.”

I nodded. Kissed Isabelle on the cheek. “We'll be going home in a couple minutes, baby,” I told her. Then I met Pete by the monitor.

“The news gots a video that's been runnin' all morning,” he said as he hit a
REWIND
button.

“Where's the Newbie?” I asked, keeping my voice low. I didn't have much time. Chaz could be here in a few minutes. I needed to erase my past mistakes before he got back.

“Sleepin' in there.” He pointed a thumb back toward the room where Isabelle had been. “Trust me, you gots to see this first.” He hit the
PLAY
button.

The video began to run. For an instant I forgot about everything else. The dog we had experimented on was alive. But there was something going on that didn't make sense. “It's Omega,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“But that other dog, how did it come back to life?”

“See hows he licked her wounds?” Pete asked.

“But that shouldn't make any difference.”

“There weren't never any tests like this, boss.”

“Still—”

Just then Isabelle tugged at my shirt. “Daddy.” She held her arms outstretched.

I picked her up and cradled her close. “Where was this taken?”

“They says it was the City of the Dead.”

I thought I heard something, Marguerite talking to someone, probably a Verse call from one of her
sous-terrain société.
I shrugged it aside, tried to stay focused on the dog and the Newbie, tried to figure out what my next move should be on this complicated chessboard. But that was probably my biggest mistake. I had been focusing all of my attention on pawns and rooks.

In retrospect, I should have been guarding my queen.

Angelique:

My legs trembled as I ran down the stairs, as the map rolled out in my head again, the same map I'd seen that night in the car when Chaz handed me the marker. I could see the whole city of New Orleans laid out, street names, addresses. And a series of hot pockets—warehouses, buildings, houses, all marked in red.

It was all preprogrammed information. Embedded.

Dizzy, I paused to lean against the wall, tried to figure out what the location tags meant. Maybe they were places I had been in a previous life. The City of the Dead was there too, the brightest of the bunch.

Somebody put this map in my head for a reason. But who and why?

Nausea forced me to buckle over again, to catch my breath.

Pete. It had to be him. He must have been the other undercover agent in Fresh Start. Must have been the one who resurrected me, who told Neville where I was, who made the marker in my hand.

A thunder of footsteps charging down the stairs roused
me to attention. A few floors above me, sinister laughter. Gutterspeak. And one voice I recognized instantly. Like a jagged arrow, it ripped through my memories.

Neville
.

He must have been waiting for my memories to resurface—

But none of that mattered anymore.

Because right now Neville and his bad boys were tromping down the stairs in my direction. And this wasn't some serendipitous coincidence. I was a big part of the puzzle here.

They were after me.

I forced myself to a standing position and started running down the stairs. As fast as I could.