Night Betrayed (4 page)

He really had tried to curb his recklessness, his yen for adventure, in hopes that he and Sage would get together. She was quiet and studious and shy, and he hadn’t wanted to intimidate or worry her. But that had obviously not mattered—because Simon was a man with a past of violence and death.

Now, in darkness cut only by the wisp of moonlight and a distant glow beyond the cloth dividers, Theo pulled himself upright with sharp, frustrated movements. Easier to do now anyway, when he couldn’t see the room spinning quite so well. Head pounding. Ugh.

He had to contact his brother. His feet touched the floor, identifying some sort of bumpy, soft covering. He shifted off the edge of the bed . . . and had to grab at the table to keep himself from crashing to the floor as his knees buckled.

Guess I was only mostly dead. The reference to the old movie made him smile in spite of himself, and he imagined Lou responding, Have fun storming the castle!

Seated on the edge of the bed, once again stable, Theo closed his eyes and extended a tentative thought, searching for Lou in his subconscious or whatever it was that connected the two of them so closely.

That was why Lou hadn’t ever stopped searching for Theo after the Change. They’d both been in Vegas together, working on that high-level computer security project for Casino Venuto. They liked to tell people they did stuff like in Ocean’s Eleven or Ocean’s Thirteen (never Ocean’s Twelve, because that movie sucked).

After all hell broke loose, Lou claimed he knew Theo was still alive. What he didn’t know at first was that Theo was buried, three levels below ground in a computer safe-room under Venuto. Theo had not only survived the Change, but he’d been physically altered.

After the Change, Theo’s body was almost frozen in time; he hadn’t aged for decades . . . or, at least, had aged but very, very slowly. His nails and stubble hardly grew at all for the first thirty years; and the day he’d found his first gray hair—long after Lou had gone white—was a time of celebration for Theo. But this wasn’t the extent of the changes to his body that had occurred in the computer safe-room, deep below the surface of Vegas. Something else had happened during the cataclysmic events, when everything in the room of mainframes and computers and wires had exploded and shifted and sizzled into darkness . . .

When Theo woke up, he’d found his body battered, bruised, and lacerated. And, in the lower part of his back, a wound that took too long to heal. It wasn’t until weeks after Lou had dragged him from beneath the ground that Theo realized a small integrated circuit had become embedded there in the soft flesh at the back of his hip. And it wasn’t until weeks later that Theo realized this little IC could send a surge of energy through his body at will.

He was, in short—Holy shock-me-Batman, let me light your fire!—a superhero: Theo the Energizer.

Now, miles away from the place he’d considered home for fifty years, that connection was still there with Lou. Theo reached out, felt that little sizzle of awareness . . . and just as it connected, he drew in a deep breath . . . felt his brother . . . and that wave of familiarity. Hey.

Theo! The response was immediate, and Theo felt a wave of guilt for not remembering to contact him sooner.

I’m here. I’m fine. Tired. Safe. His reply wasn’t so much sent in words but in sensations and feelings. They understood and read each other thus.

Thank God! Worried, damn you!

Theo nodded to himself. Sorry. More later.

Hands closed tightly over his knees, he stared into the dark and allowed the connection to sever. He wasn’t ready for more, yet. Nothing more than that brief Yo, I’m here and safe. That, at least, would keep his brother from coming to look for him. Bringing Simon.

He needed . . . time. Time to figure out what he was. Who he was.

And why in the hell he’d been resurrected, so to speak, for a second time.

“Ruuuuuthhhhhhh.”

The groans pulled his attention back to the world outside.

Holding on to the bed and then the table, he leaned toward the window, then braced himself as he thrust his head through its opening. The cool breeze, tinged with the foul scent of rotting ganga flesh, brushed over him.

The flicker of orange lights, always in pairs, caught his attention. They might be coming closer, but the zombies were far beyond the wall that had been erected around this . . . building. A large house? Maybe some sort of apartment building? Theo hadn’t seen enough to be able to tell exactly what it was, and now it was too dark.

But whatever it was, he and the other occupants of the structure were safe from the gangas. They couldn’t climb, so there was no way they could get over the walls. And even if they were smart enough to find an entrance, they’d never be able to figure out how to open a gate or door.

Stupid, slow, and single-minded, the zombies nevertheless were tall and strong—and a threat to everyone. They fed on human flesh, tearing into it and leaving nothing behind but piles of bone and tendons. The only way to destroy them was to smash their brain; though they were afraid of fire and light, they were impervious to it, to falling, or to bullets or even knives. Bottle bombs had become the defense weapon of choice for humans, knowing that the explosion would destroy many at one time.

The darkness wasn’t spinning any longer, and Theo pulled carefully to his feet. Still holding the edge of the table, his fingers brushing the wilted sage leaves, he paused to get his bearings.

Moved by curiosity as well as the mundane desire to relieve himself, Theo eased toward the entrance to his corner of the hospice. The fact that he remained upright emboldened him further, and he walked with more confidence beyond the dividing wall.

There he found that he was in a sort of corridor that was made up of more sheets. Dark spaces between the colorless fabric walls indicated other “rooms” or spaces for patients, and Theo paused to determine which way might take him to a lavatory. Or at least something more interesting than billowing blankets hung from a high ceiling.

A noise in the distance caught his attention. It wasn’t the muffled voice he’d heard earlier, nor did it sound like someone soothing another in pain.

It sounded like . . . urgency. That was the only thing he could think of to describe the dull noise, quick and short, followed by the low snap of a voice. And another in sharp response.

Despite his weakened state, Theo moved quite rapidly down the hall toward the sounds. A thump and bump reached his ears as he walked through an entrance—an actual entrance in the building not one constructed of blankets or sheets—and found himself in another room. Beyond it, he saw the gleam of metal counters; and farther on, a sink. A kitchen. So he was in a dining room, perhaps, and there ahead was a kitchen.

A huge one, he saw when he got closer, with a large island in the center and gleaming countertops stretching for miles. The voices, low and staccato with need, came from a dark corner somewhere in there. He paused when he heard one of them say, “Shush. You’ll wake—”

“I don’t care,” replied another low one, this with anger spiking it. “You’ve got to stop doing this. My saints. Look at you.” The volume rose, sharp with fear, and Theo recognized Vonnie’s voice. No longer sounding enthusiastic or sunny.

“I didn’t finish. I’ve got to—”

“No. You’re not.”

He peered around the corner and saw two figures struggling in the corner. Not with each other; that was immediately clear in the dim light from over the kitchen sink. No. The larger, cushier one had her arm around the slighter one and was moving awkwardly toward the island counter. The fall of sleek dark hair identified Selena as the one staggering in a steadying embrace.

Something gleamed on the front of her clothing. Something dark and shiny. Wet.

“What happened?” Theo said. He couldn’t call what he did bursting into the room, but he moved pretty quickly considering that he’d been dead three days ago.

Both faces lifted to look at him, a pale circle and a shadowed oval marred by dark streaks. Shock widened two sets of eyes. A slash of light bounced over unbound hair and a face tight with pain.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Vonnie said, looking as if she’d been caught with her hand in some cookie jar. “Go back now.”

Theo suspected that Selena would have looked furious if she hadn’t been moving so slowly due to the blood that shone and glistened on her shirt and face. She opened her mouth to say something, but whatever it was turned into a gasp as her companion clumsily bumped her into the edge of the counter.

Theo was there in a heartbeat, shoving Vonnie out of the way and sliding Selena’s arm around his shoulder. Despite her agitated attempts at protest—which included a feeble shove at him and a muttered, “Go back to bed”—he easily got her to a chair in the corner of the kitchen. It was only then that he realized the room was tilting a bit and that his knees threatened to give way again, but there was no chance in hell he was going to let them go right now.

“What the hell happened to you?” he asked, clutching the counter as an overhead light came on.

“I’m fine,” Selena said with a definite glare as she sagged in the chair. “You shouldn’t—be out of—bed.” The hitch in her voice told him that she was struggling to keep her breath steady.

Once relieved of her awkward burden and turning on the light, Vonnie had metamorphosed into calm efficiency. Water splashed in the sink and cupboard doors thumped and banged as she, presumably, searched for first aid supplies.

But from what Theo could see, Selena needed more than simple first aid. “Where are you hurt?” he asked, plucking at her shirt with one hand while steadying himself against the counter with his other.

He realized it was testament to her weakness that she allowed him to yank at her shirt after trying so hard to push him away only moments before. In fact, she tilted her head back, eyes shuttering, and leaned against the wall behind her. And let him have his way, so to speak.

Theo hadn’t undressed a woman in more than a year, but there was nothing about this moment of tearing (literally) the blood-soaked shirt from her body that he found erotic. Beneath the tatters of the thin cotton, he found gashes in her left shoulder, nearly to the top of her breast. He also noted that she wore surprisingly interesting lingerie, a rarity in this world—lacy pink shells, one of which was now dark with her blood.

Ganga slashes. Deep and ragged.

“Out of my way,” Vonnie said, barreling over. Theo complied and she snatched in a horrified gasp when she saw the four bloody slashes. “My God,” she breathed. “Selena. You’ve got to stop. You’ve got to stop.”

The other woman hissed—a warning, or was it the pain? And rolled her head from side to side in a quick jerk of negation. But that didn’t keep Theo from asking, “Doing what?”

What the hell was so important that she had to go out of the walls at night? Alone? Even Theo, who’d done his share of ballsy and crazy things over the years, rarely took such a chance.

“I’m going to have to send for Cath this time,” Vonnie said, her voice unsteady as she stared at the gashes without making any move to touch them. A cloth dripping with steaming water dangled in her hand.

“No.”

“Who’s Cath?” Theo asked, maneuvering Vonnie out of the way so he could examine the wound. He’d seen and treated more than a few ganga marks in the last fifty years—and those people were the lucky ones.

These gashes were deep but not life threatening, that he could tell—unless they got infected, which was a real possibility, considering where those filthy, flesh-tearing hands had been. She’d need stitches probably. “What do you have to put on them?” he asked, taking the warm cloth from Vonnie’s hand. “Any alcohol?”

“Cath’s the closest thing we have to a doctor,” Vonnie told him, coming back to life as Theo began to gently dab at the gashes. “Here. We have this balm to put on it. I’ll get bandages.” She set a lidless jar on the counter next to them and bustled away.

“Yeah,” Selena said, her voice tight, her face raised back to the ceiling after her emphatic negation a moment earlier. Other than that, she seemed unmoved as Theo shifted a pink bra strap out of the way. “Cath gets to save the ones who can be saved. I get to watch the rest die.”

The bra strap hung, useless, halfway down a toned arm that curved with sleek, feminine muscle. Theo noticed . . . then moved on from the fact, and also noticed that one of the lacy pink shells now gapped away from a nice handful of breast. “Ganga nails are probably going to cause an infection,” he said, wishing that Elliott could be here. “You need to be stitched up. Have you got anything to clean it with, Vonnie?”

His voice was calm, if not peremptory, but the thing that scared the shit out of him was the fact that she’d been that close to a ganga. Close enough that she could have just as easily been torn to shreds and devoured. “What the hell were you doing out there?”

Selena pressed her lips together, but if she meant to glare at him, she didn’t succeed. Her face, grimy and blood-streaked, seemed to have gray undertones, although it was hard to tell for certain in the faulty light. She had long thick lashes that fanned over her cheeks; and her straight hair was plastered to her chin and temples. As he brushed it out of the way, exposing slender shoulders and an elegant neck, he noticed a long thin cord around her throat disappearing in a deep vee beneath her arm, as if something weighting it down had fallen to the side.

She must have realized he noticed it—maybe his fingers had pulled on the lanyard, tightening it against her skin—and she sat upright suddenly, clapping one hand over her half-bared breasts as the other gripped and slid down along the cord. “You should be in bed,” Selena told him.

A fierceness blazed in her eyes as she stared him down. Ferocity and determination.

“I’m in a lot better shape than you are,” he said. Much as he wanted to, he didn’t allow his gaze to travel along that cord to see what she was trying to hide. That would give her too much satisfaction.

“I wasn’t dead three days ago.”

“No, but you could have been tonight. How the hell did you get away from them?” He looked at her. The peace and serenity he’d admired earlier was gone. She was bedraggled and clearly exhausted; in pain and yet in control—and for a minute, her look reminded him of Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy: defiant, and yet weary. World-weary.