That was when he looked at me with hollow eyes. That was when he started to talk.
“I just…I just don’t know how I can keep doing this crap,” he confessed. “I feel like my soul got sucked out when that Stringer died.” He stared at the floor, as if he could see invisible monsters swimming in black water. “I know it’s not my fault, but I feel like I killed him. Like I pulled the switch too soon, or I hooked up the clone wrong. Or maybe I shoulda seen somethin’ on his chart, some red flag, some misdiagnosis…”
Just then I saw a shadow move on the wall, like a long alligator snout raised above bayou water, ready to strike. I think that we both saw it, that we both knew something had always been there, just below the surface, stalking us. Hungry. Insatiable.
“I feel like I swallowed a rock,” he said, “like my heart is missing and I got this damned rock in its place.”
Russ had never opened up like this to me before. I didn’t know what to say.
His eyes searched the room, as if the answer would be written on the walls and he would find a window of escape. “What should I do, Chaz? I don’t know how to get rid of this rock, or this darkness that surrounds me. I don’t know how to live when somebody else died because of me.”
I didn’t know the answer. And I didn’t have the power to save him. I only had a vague memory of hope, something I’d heard over and over but never really put into practice.
“This thing, this guilt”—I paused, uncertain how to express what was in my heart, especially when I knew that a black monster was swimming through the room—“it isn’t between you and that dead guy. Not really.” I thought I heard the swish of a reptilian tail. “It’s between you and God. He’s the one that you need to talk to.”
“Do you think I haven’t tried?” There were tears on his face now, glimmering in the darkened room. His own personal river of pain. “I feel like He hung up the phone on me. Like He isn’t taking my calls anymore.”
“Then let’s call Him together,” I ventured. I expected him to laugh and tell me to leave, to go back to my pretty little childhood while he drifted off into dark, unfamiliar streets. I expected the black water to swell, to come to life, to swallow him whole right in front of me.
But that wasn’t what happened.
Instead Russ lowered his head and wept. Then he got off his chair and knelt on the floor. I suddenly forgot about the monsters and knelt beside him.
For the first and only time in our lives, my brother and I prayed together.
My life changed after that. From that point on I knew God in a different way. It isn’t something I can easily put into words and I don’t even try very often. For the first time I realized that heaven was real and I wanted to go there. And I wanted to make sure I never saw that swimming black monster again.
I don’t know what happened inside Russ. Because we never talked about it. A few days later he went back to work in the plant. But he never performed a jump again. Not even after he took over Fresh Start.
After we prayed together, the darkness that had surrounded him disappeared.
Until that day I stood in the cemetery and watched all those kids put to rest in the dirt.
And this time I had a feeling that it was after me.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Chaz:
The crowd began to move—somnambulistic—zombies walking through a desolate wilderness. I had reached my own ground zero. My lowest, darkest point. After this, it gets better, I decided. Somehow.
Russ and I hugged briefly, then parted ways. We were going to meet back over at the hotel suite on Bourbon Street; he was going to pick up Isabelle—him and a small army. I was going to try to forget about this, finish up my week with Angelique. We had an emergency board meeting scheduled for the next morning. A crew was trying to put together a makeshift VR connection with our plants in India, and we needed to do some damage control before the media could—
Someone brushed up against me, blocked my way. The crowd snaked past. Bodies without souls or purpose. I lifted my head to see who wanted a piece of me.
Skellar.
I was too tired to be surprised.
“Just what kind of game is your brother playin’?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?”
The crowd had thinned. Only a few stragglers remained and none of them were listening to us.
“Maybe you’re just as bad as all the other ’sitters and maybe you’re not, I don’t really care,” he said. Maybe that was his way of apologizing for letting one of his mugs fry my hand. It still didn’t make up for his snake-pit interrogation tactics. “But your brother is in trouble with some nasty Uptown boys—”
“Look, we’re not afraid of you or your mug buddies.”
“I’m not talkin’ ’bout mugs. These guys make us look like Girl Scouts.”
I grinned. It was about time Skellar realized his team wasn’t so tough.
“You ever seen this woman?” He spun a hologram in his palm. I watched as a dark-haired beauty in a lab coat checked her makeup, then glanced over her shoulder to talk to someone I couldn’t see. I thought she looked familiar at first, something about the way she held her head, maybe a glimmer in the eyes. But I’d never seen her before. At least that was what I thought until I heard her voice when the audio kicked in.
Still, I couldn’t quite place her.
I shook my head. “I don’t know her,” I said.
“Well, this girl, Ellen Witherspoon, she went missing ’bout three days ago. She was workin’ on some pretty important stuff. These people are lookin’ for her. Gotta lotta money too. They’ll pay almost anything to find her. And your brother was the last one to see her.”
“You think Russ is involved in this?”
“Maybe. Don’t really matter what I think. It’s what they think that matters.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“The way I see it, she mighta jumped. And she’s got some mighty important information that this Uptown crowd needs.” He paused. Looked around. “Word has it there’s a new game in town.”
“New game?”
“What you guys got down at Fresh Start is nothin’ compared to what’s comin’. You’ll be outta business in less than a year when this stuff hits the streets.”
He just walked away then. Didn’t ask me any more questions. Didn’t ask to look at our Stringer records to see who had jumped in the past two weeks. But it didn’t really matter.
Because I suddenly knew the answer.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Chaz:
I think I always liked breaking the law. Even back before I got my magic Get-out-of-Jail-Free card, the tattoo that lets me break more laws than the mugs can invent. Sure, I wanted to be a musician, to spend my days and nights immersed in the jazz clubs that ring the city, to breathe in the smoke and the stench of liquor, to watch the world around me rot, even as it regenerates. I wanted to laugh and tell stories and philosophize about life with other burned-out, jive-sweet musicians on the street corners while the sun slid over the horizon. I wanted to watch the color bleed from society, drop by bloody drop, until there was nothing left.
Nothing left but the painful need for redemption.
But instead, the family wanted me to donate my musical ear, wanted me to sort through the myriad languages and dialects, from ancient to new, so I could converse with Newbies, until they adjusted to the newspeak of the day.
I wanted to run away, to live on dimes and nickels and drink in the pure music of jazz night and day. Instead I settled for a warm bed and a billion dollars and a saxophone that saw the light of day about once a month.
For all my tough talk, I sold out. I’m no rebel.
But that Get-out-of-Jail-Free card still comes in handy from time to time.
Like when I was twenty-three and my fiancé, Jeannie, died in that car wreck and jumped to some obscure, unknown life. I went after her. I broke every code in the Right to Privacy Act. I hunted down her files, hacked through the f
irewall into her personal records, found her new identity and her new life. If Skellar or one his buddies ever finds out what I did, they’ll either cage me or kill me.
But I don’t care. I’d do it again, if I had to.
In hindsight I guess you could say I stalked her. I found out where she lived, worked, shopped; who she hung out with; what she did in her free time. And then I found a way to meet her. It’s not like I could just walk up to her and say, “Hi, remember me? That guy you were going to marry?” I had to be both discreet and romantic, I had to play it out like it was the first time.
It was great in the beginning. It had all the electricity of a first kiss, all the magic of falling in love at first sight. Almost.
But despite the faint promise of a renewed relationship, there was something missing. She had a strange, vacant look in her eyes. I kept thinking I would see some spark that said she remembered me. I mean, she loved me before, right? She had to remember. That’s the way it works.
See, there are two memories we can’t erase. Death is one. As ugly as it is, all the terror and pain and finality of dying becomes part of you and it refuses to let go.
Love is the other. You can pretend like it didn’t exist, you can try to reprogram it or cover it up by attaching other memories, but the down-and-dirty resurrection bottom line is: if you’ve ever loved someone, that love will follow you. Like a stray dog you accidentally fed on a street corner, it will hunt you down. It will sleep with you, wake up with you, walk down a dark alley with you.
But Jeannie didn’t remember. She had wiped me from her memory banks on purpose, and there was only one reason why she didn’t remember me now.
She had never really loved me.
So I walked away.
It wasn’t pretty and I don’t regret it, even though I broke the law in the process. Believe it or not, there really are limits as to how far I’ll go, what laws I’ll break and which ones I won’t. The list is pretty long for a Babysitter. Almost anything is permissible.
But something was hanging over me right now, a venomous cloud of suspicion and doubt, forcing me to reevaluate everything.
Murder.
Had my brother really gone that far? Had Russell stepped into that treacherous territory where the rules didn’t matter anymore?
I didn’t know for sure if what Skellar had said was true or not, but I didn’t want my world to change. I didn’t want my own brother to become the enemy. Because if it came down to it, I didn’t know who would I choose. Russ or Angelique? Someone I had known all my life or someone I had known for only a few days?
The boundaries in my little kingdom were shifting, that well-worn safe map that guided me was gone, and I couldn’t see where I was supposed to put the next step.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Omega:
Rain soaked the pavement. City sounds echoed through the forest of brick and stone. The smells were stronger now; the fragrance of food came with the wind, thick and sweet.
Omega climbed onto the hood of a car, lifted his nose, took several short sniffs. He could almost see the scent in the air, like gold dust. It seemed to float in front of him, then trailed off down the narrow street, around a corner and into a nearby alley. He turned toward the Others, let out a short bark—his command to follow. The pack watched him eagerly, backs bristled, tails curled, ears forward.
In a collective heartbeat, they were padding through a network of alleys, heads down, hunting. Dusk shadowed the city in morning half-light: a colorless world, a land that belonged to them.
He could almost taste it now, somewhere up ahead. A tiny stone city within a city; the wild dogs were weaving between stone sepulchers and mausoleums. The smell of death hung in the air, but it was old, musty. Another smell, strong and sweet, called.
Trinkets lay scattered in front of the whitewashed crypts. Shiny necklaces and flowers, candles and fetish bags. And baskets filled with sweet cakes.
Omega and the dominant female, his mate, ripped open the first basket together and then wolfed down the pastries drenched in icing. The other dogs began to tear open other baskets, and the cakes rolled out. Two of the males got into a fight, teeth shining in the murky light. Omega snapped a warning bark and growled. The brawling males stopped, hackles still up.
Then a noise sounded behind them, and two humans came out of the shadows.
The stench of fear surrounded them, metallic and sharp. The humans were looking at Omega’s mate, a wild danger in their eyes.
Omega growled and tried to step between them and his female. But he was too late.
A crashing sound shot through the air and his female screamed, a high whine.
She fell to the ground. Blood. Her blood. Her life flowing out on dirty cement.
Omega leaped through the air, caught the first man by the throat and wrestled him to the ground. Sweet, dark blood. Bones cracking. The man yelled, fought, then finally fell still after a long shudder.
Another cracking boom shot out. A shock of pain struck Omega in his chest, then another caught him in the stomach. He tried to jump, to attack the second man, but the third shot got him right in the jaw.
Omega fell limp on the ground. Darkness was coming and with it, his old friend, Death. The dog looked at his mate, saw her feet twitching. She was going into shock. She was going to die. And then a wave of black washed over him, carried him away to the land of no tomorrows.
The second man panicked. Four more wild dogs growled, took a step closer. He dropped the gun when he ran away, dropped the knapsack filled with stolen cameras and wallets.
One of the video cameras fell out and switched on.
Red light focused. Lens open.
The recording started.
The Others chased the human until he vanished in the shadows. Then they returned, faithfully, to Omega and the female. They sniffed both bodies. One dead, the other dying. One of the males crouched down beside the dying female, pushed her with his nose, tried to make her get up.
But the dominant female wouldn’t move.
Thunder sounded. A hundred miles away, somewhere on the other side of the Valley of Death. Lightning sparked across a black sky, then shot into his veins. Omega felt oxygen flooding into his lungs. Pain. The first breath always hurt. He didn’t want to open his eyes.
He didn’t want to see his mate. Dead.
Then he smelled it. Sunshine. Somewhere nearby.
He forced his eyes open.
There she was, his female. Still. Not moving. Not breathing.
He crawled to his feet, pain shooting through his muscles, fire in his veins. The Others cowered. They always did when he came back to life. He padded, soft and slow, over to her.
She was the only one who hadn’t been afraid of what he was.
He lowered his head. Nuzzled her face. Licked her nose, her mouth. She was growing cold. He fought the pain that centered in his chest. Nudged her again. Saw a trickle of blood seep out from her side. He knelt beside her, laid his head on her chest, then licked her wound. Remembered a time when she had been brave enough to lick his wounds.
He licked her wound again.
Then he lifted his head to the heavens. And howled.
The video camera clicked and whirred, a mechanical beast that captured everything without emotion, without reaction. It watched, impassive, as the big, black German shepherd got up, resurrected from death. It hummed as he crouched beside the dead silver wolf, licked her wounds, then cried out in anguish.
It recorded everything—
The dead wolf jolted back to life, her body trembling and shaking. The convulsions grew stronger, then finally faded.
Then the wolf got to her feet, nuzzled her head against the shepherd, her mate.
A few moments later, the pack of wild dogs padded off, shadows against shadow, black shapes against pale gray.
And the camera lay on the ground, with a flash and a whir, staring into the gloom of another dawn.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
O
mega:
Twilight bled into morning. Sunlight whispered through the city canyons. The dog crouched, hidden behind the statue of an angel, a stone memento of forgotten faith. False light splashed through the forest of tombs. Humans. Voices called out to one another, seeking solace in their aloneness, in their confusion. They centered around the dead man, still sprawled on the ground, bloody and torn, his life spent in violence.
Omega hid from the humans. He was alone. His mate and his pack were safe, waiting back in a shadowed alley. He lifted his nose and sniffed the indigo sky. A few stars still colored the heavens, blinking, winking, fading. The coming day was only a promise, slow and hesitant to reveal itself.
And yet, he could smell it. Here. Somewhere. Sunshine.
He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. Fragrant. Beautiful.
The smell of love.
He opened his eyes, analyzed the breath-of-heaven perfume. She had been here, somewhere. The woman. The one human who loved him. The woman who had fed him, who had knelt beside him and stroked his fur through the cage bars. The woman who had tears in her eyes every time he shocked back to life. The woman who had set him free and told him to run and never come back.
She had been here. He needed to see her again. The desire flowed through him like hunger. He needed to find her. In some secret way she belonged to him. She was his. She was part of his pack.
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