Night Quest

by Susan Krinard

  “There was no need to go elsewhere for blood,” he said. “You could have come to me anytime.”

  “I...didn’t want to impair you before we left Delos,” she said, scrambling for an explanation. She met his gaze. “Garret, no matter what I have done up to this moment, my loyalty has not altered since the day I promised to come with you. As long as you want me by your side, I will never leave you again.”

  She felt something inside him let go. His aura flowed over and around her, soft and fierce at the same time. He wiped her mouth with a cloth and cradled her head in the curve of his shoulder.

  Against all reason, Garret had believed her. Did believe her. And he still wanted her.

  “There is something more I must tell you,” she said, burrowing more deeply into the protective curve of his body. “Pericles was the one who urged me to speak to the prisoners. He was persuaded by my mentor’s story before I knew who Nomos was. Or who he pretended to be. I am no longer certain of Pericles’s motives.”

  “It’s a little late to worry about that now. I let him go.”

  She wriggled out of his arms. “What?”

  “I think it was all a setup,” he said, his humor evaporating. “I think Daniel still believed you were an enemy, and that you’d tricked me into trusting you. He left Pericles unguarded and only one soldier to watch the other prisoners, expecting you to try to communicate with them. He just didn’t anticipate that the rogues outside would cause so much of a distraction, and that you’d be so efficient in helping the other Freebloods.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know if he actually believed that Pericles was a child-stealer, but I can’t accept anything he told me without wondering how much of it was true.”

  Real anguish radiated from his mind. If his speculation about Daniel was correct, then his friend had never trusted him.

  “Perhaps he meant only to protect you,” she said.

  “Or you were right when you said his experiences made it easier for him to pass judgment on Opiri enemies who fall into his hands.”

  “Will Beth be safe there?”

  “Daniel will protect her with his life. I’m sure someone in the colony will adopt her.”

  Artemis closed her eyes. “Where is Pericles now?” she asked.

  “I told him to run. I don’t know where he went.” He glanced up at the sky again. “We should move. Do you need blood?”

  The idea of telling Garret the truth about the blood-bond still terrified her. Soon, she told herself. Soon.

  “No. I...only had a slight reaction to the other... To Johan’s blood. I took enough nourishment.”

  To her vast relief, he didn’t pursue the matter. They gathered their things, and continued west and north through tracts of woodland, decaying city blocks and open areas where buildings had collapsed like fatally wounded soldiers. The shattered road they followed passed through an increasingly narrow neck between the hills and the river. Artemis warned Garret when she heard sounds of pursuit, but those who followed them never seemed to gain much ground. Artemis began to wonder if Daniel was letting them escape.

  The thought did not comfort her.

  The sun was beginning its westward arc when they reached the bridge Garret had identified as the St. John’s. Except there was no bridge at all—nothing but a few pylons still standing on either side of the river.

  “We’re out of luck,” Garret said. “There aren’t any other bridges farther west than this one.”

  She looked up at him. “Can you swim?”

  “It must be a good eight hundred feet across here, and I don’t know how strong the current is.”

  “Yes, but can you swim?”

  He met her gaze. “In the Enclave, we used to go to Ocean Beach. It was cold, and the currents were dangerous, but we used to dare each other to swim as far out as we could. I usually won.”

  “I happen to be a very good swimmer. I believe I can beat you,” she said, pretending her body hadn’t just decided to declare war against her.

  Chapter 16

  Garret’s approval rode on waves of warmth and admiration. Artemis basked in it the way a human might bask in the sun, forgetting the hollow feeling in her body and the hunger that had returned with such a vengeance.

  “We’ll need to wait until nightfall,” he said, “or you’ll be too exposed. But I accept that challenge.”

  She smiled. Moving as quickly as an Opir, he grabbed her and captured her mouth with his. Her knees nearly buckled with the force of her desire and relief and happiness. And his, pouring into her through their kiss. Hard muscle—and more—pressed against her, raising an exquisite ache in her nipples and between her thighs.

  When they separated at last, she could still feel him all through her body. And it wasn’t enough. She wanted to find the nearest shelter, fall with him to the ground—soft or hard, wet or dry—and join with him, with no thought to the consequences.

  But Garret had more sense than she did. He led her away from the river in search of a safe place to wait out the rest of the day. The hours passed with no sign of their pursuers, and at sunset they returned to the riverbank.

  It was a hard swim. Artemis was most concerned about Garret’s exposure to the frigid waters of the river, but he swam strongly and reached the other side without faltering, beating her by two yards. She insisted that they build a small, sheltered fire while their clothing dried. He slept the sleep of exhaustion while she watched, and by dawn they were ready to move again.

  Before the detour to Delos, they had originally planned to cross the Columbia River at Government Island. But they agreed to take a chance on the shorter route to the bridge at Hayden Island, some five miles to the northeast. They cut across a neighborhood that had been old and worn even before the War, then waded through a slough and a soggy wetland onto the abandoned marina beside the Columbia River.

  The bridge itself was impassable. A large portion of the first span had tumbled into the river, leaving half a mile of unbroken water from the buckled road on which they stood to the bank of Hayden Island.

  “The damage seems recent,” Artemis said. “Could the colonists have destroyed it in order to prevent the child-stealers from traveling north by this route?”

  “It’s possible,” Garret said, a grim set to his mouth. “We have to assume that the bridge is down on the other side, as well. It’ll be much too wide to swim across there, even if the currents aren’t too powerful and we make it to the island. We’ll have to head for the bridge at Government Island and hope it’s still standing.”

  “If the colonists know of this,” Artemis said, “they may be waiting there.”

  “It’s a chance we’ll have to take.” He squinted at the sun. “It’s only about ten miles to the southeast as the crow flies, but we don’t want to push too hard, or we’ll be useless if it comes to another fight.” He eyed her critically. “Artemis...”

  “I am well,” she said. But not for much longer. “Let us continue as long as we can.”

  He nodded, accepting her word, and gestured for her to precede him.

  * * *

  The Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge was empty.

  Not, Garret suspected, that it had been that way for long. Though portions of the span had fallen away and the rest was badly rusted, the buckled road rising onto it was guarded by a small, fortified brick building, barely large enough to house a dozen people but strategically placed so that no one could pass without coming under fire.

  “Do you sense anything?” he asked Artemis, who crouched beside him in the thick brush encroaching on the old freeway.

  “No,” she said. She wrinkled her nose. “There were humans here not long ago. Opiri and half-bloods, as well. But they have been gone for some time, perhaps as much as half a day.”

  “If Daniel got word to them to stop us,” h
e said, “they wouldn’t have deserted their post.”

  She gazed at him, a trace of anxiety lingering in her eyes. He guessed what she was thinking. Sometimes it felt as if he knew every single thing she was feeling.

  Including what she felt for him. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, just as he wasn’t sure when he’d realized how much he cared for her. The way she’d looked after Beth and Pericles, her courage, her capacity for compassion, the way it felt when he and Artemis made love—with all the closeness and joy that came so easily to them when they touched—had convinced him that his ability to care for another woman hadn’t died with Roxana.

  Still, though he couldn’t conceive of feeling this way about any other living woman, there was a hole in his heart that had scarred over, impenetrable and hard as stone. Inside that hole were words he couldn’t speak, that he never expected to speak again.

  But that didn’t change his need for Artemis, even though he feared that this ugly conflict might finally come between them.

  Not if she keeps her word never to leave me, he thought. If they survived all this, if he got Timon back and found some way to make Artemis happy...

  “I do not smell blood,” she said, relieving him of thoughts he didn’t want to examine too closely. “At least not...” She hesitated, biting her lip. “At least not in quantities that would suggest death.”

  “No bodies, and no killing,” Garret said. It should have been good news, but he knew—as Artemis clearly did—that something was very wrong.

  “Did Nomos pass this way?” he asked.

  “I think—” Artemis released her breath in a sharp puff. “There are Opiri nearby,” she said.

  “Where?” he asked, scanning the area intently.

  “Behind us.”

  They rose and turned as one, facing south toward the labyrinth of intersecting freeways and ramps that ended at the riverbank.

  “We can try to cross before they get to us,” Garret said.

  “There are several of them,” she said. “If they are hunting us, they will not stop.”

  “And if they catch us on the bridge or the island, we’ll be at a disadvantage.”

  Artemis picked up her bow and nocked an arrow. Garret checked over the VS and held it muzzle down, but he could see Artemis stiffen.

  “I won’t use it unless I have to,” he said. “If they’re rogues, I may not have a choice.”

  “And if they are from the colony?”

  “I won’t let them take you.”

  “Garret—” she began. She broke off, lifting her head. “They are not enemies.”

  He knew what she was about to say. “Nomos,” he said.

  “Yes.” She lowered the bow. “They are no danger to either one of us.”

  But how the hell did they get here after us? Garret thought.

  Releasing his grip on the rifle, he tried to relax. He’d chosen to suppress his doubts and accept Artemis’s faith in this Opir. Now he had to put his commitment to the test.

  “I will meet him,” she said, starting forward.

  He put out his arm to stop her. “Wait.”

  The Opiri emerged from the woods rising around the freeway—nine, not the five who had been imprisoned in the colony. There wasn’t enough light left for Garret to make out faces, but he didn’t doubt that the one in the lead was Nomos.

  “It is all right,” Artemis said. Her voice was breathy with excitement. Before Garret could stop her again, she began to run toward the Opiri. They stopped when Artemis reached them, and she gestured toward Garret with an expressive wave of her arm.

  The leader inclined his head, and the Opiri continued toward Garret, Artemis speaking to her former sire with great animation as she walked beside him. It was obvious to Garret that the two Nightsiders had been very close. He could see the rapport between them even though he couldn’t hear their conversation.

  No wonder she had set him free.

  His body chose that moment to ignore the advice of his mind and he tensed up again, instinctively preparing for a fight. Or a challenge to a rival. A challenge any Nightsider would sense within a dozen yards of him.

  He let the rifle swing back on its strap and held himself still as Artemis and Nomos approached. Now that he was no longer in a cell, the Opir—with his handsome, ageless face and long white hair drawn back in a queue—seemed more like the elite Bloodmasters Garret had known in Erebus. He exuded authority and the natural arrogance of his kind.

  And when he looked at Garret, there was no particular friendliness in his eyes, even when he smiled with his teeth carefully hidden.

  “Garret Fox,” he said, extending his hand in the human way. “Artemis has spoken of you in the most glowing terms. It’s fortunate that we have been given the opportunity to meet again under more favorable circumstances.”

  “I assume you weren’t lying about stealing children.”

  “Garret,” Artemis said, casting him a reproachful glance.

  Nomos laughed. “You have courage, even when you aren’t on the other side of a cell door,” he said. He nodded at the VS. “Or is it the weapon that gives you such confidence?”

  Artemis stepped between them and glared at Nomos. “If it is your intention to bait Garret...”

  “I apologize,” Nomos said, brushing his fingers across Artemis’s cheek. “My experiences in Delos have somewhat soured my mood.” He nodded regally to Garret. “You saved her life. That alone earns my gratitude.”

  Shove your gratitude, Garret thought. But he knew he was being irrational. The sight of Nomos touching Artemis fed his visceral dislike, but he couldn’t trust his emotions where she was concerned.

  Belatedly Garret remembered the outpost and looked over his shoulder. No sound, no movement. If there had been a single living soul left in the place, they would have reacted by now. And Nomos would know that, just as Artemis had.

  “You needn’t be concerned with those who kept watch here,” Nomos said, following his gaze. “We convinced them that retreat was the better part of valor.”

  “You were here before?” Artemis asked, taking a step away from Nomos. “You attacked them?”

  Garret touched the barrel of the VS, and Nomos’s eyes snapped down to Garret’s hand.

  “There is no need to be alarmed,” the Nightsider said. “I believe they meant to prevent you from crossing. We told them to abandon their station and they would not be harmed.” He met Garret’s stare. “We even escorted them part of the way back to Delos, so that there would be less chance of their being attacked by rogues fleeing the failed attack on the colony.”

  “You went back,” Artemis said, “even though you said those same rogues wanted to kill you for opposing them?”

  “Now that we are free, we are capable of protecting ourselves,” Nomos said. “And as we wish to stop our fellow Opiri from provoking another war, it would hardly do to drive the sentinels from shelter and leave them vulnerable.” His gaze returned to Artemis. “Have you forgotten the rest of what I said? You can still help me end this threat and save the misguided, desperate Freebloods who have fallen under the power of this madman in the north.”

  Garret stiffened. “Artemis is with me,” he said.

  “Garret,” Artemis said, turning to face him, “Nomos has offered to help us find Timon.”

  “Has he?” Garret asked, making no attempt to hide his suspicion.

  “Of course I would not attempt to interfere with your plans in any way,” Nomos said with another smile. “I merely thought that I could be of assistance, and you have proven yourself unlike those humans who, like the leader of Delos, hate all Opiri because of the actions of the worst of us.”

  “Daniel isn’t human,” Garret said. “And he doesn’t hate all Opiri, but he’s had plenty of experience with ‘the worst of you.’�
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  “Garret,” Artemis said. She laid her hand on his arm and looked at her mentor. “Nomos, you do not know—”

  “It’s no matter,” Nomos said, speaking to Garret over her head. “I am aware that you and Daniel were serfs, and that you have reasons for your opinions.”

  “You must have had a longer conversation with him than I realized,” Garret said to Artemis.

  “I said nothing of that,” Artemis protested.

  “Do not blame her,” Nomos said. “I had already heard of Daniel and determined his motives.”

  “And what have you determined about me?” Garret asked him. “That I don’t have a chance of getting my son back without your help?”

  Nomos shook his head. “I am not here to bicker with you. I have offered my assistance, and you may accept or not as you choose. But I would suggest that you cross the river quickly, in case Delos sends a larger party to deal with us.”

  “He’s right, Garret,” Artemis said. “We should cross while we can.”

  “And we must hunt,” Nomos said. “It would be better if we did so on the other side, if you can tolerate our company for a brief while.”

  Artemis looked at Garret steadily, watching to see if he would accept her reassurances. He knew he couldn’t disappoint her.

  “I have no objection,” he said. “Artemis said you saved her life when she became an Opir. I’ll be very interested to hear the rest of that story, if she’s willing to tell it.”

  “Then let us be on our way,” Nomos said. “Oh, and I should correct a misapprehension. My name is Kronos. Nomos was a name I used to conceal my identity from those who wished to kill me. But I am out of their reach—for the present.”

  He walked past Garret and Artemis, his men and women behind him, and continued onto the bridge until he and the others were lost in darkness.

  “I am sorry,” Artemis said, reaching for Garret’s hand. “I should have told you more about him on our way here. You were not prepared, and neither was he.”

  “You didn’t know we’d meet him again. I didn’t exactly make things easier for you.”