“Roger,” answered the pilot.
Diamond took stock of his tattered and bloodstained garments. “And another good suit shot to shit,” he said as he collapsed next to Thorne.
“Take it up with accounting,” Ross said, staring out at the dwindling city.
As they ascended, Thorne saw Castle Amusements engulfed in flames. The roof had caved in on itself, sending a shower of sparks into the night sky like the mouth of Mount Etna. For the men and women who’d lost their lives tonight, it would be their funeral pyre. She turned to Ross. “How many made it out?”
Ross was silent for a moment. But just a moment. “You’re looking at them.”
Thirty-One
ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY
Beth knew she probably shouldn’t have turned on the TV. The crappy motel’s ancient tube set only got three channels, and all of them, even the Spanish-language one, were still spitting out reports on what had happened in Asbury Park.
By now, the “official” story was pretty much calcified. Responsibility for the blaze had been pinned on Castle Amusements’ ancient wiring. No mention of a cadre of shadowy men in designer suits driving away in long black land yachts. No clips of the charred skeletons their comrades had no doubt become inside that smoldering ruin. And definitely no reports of a twenty-foot, bulletproof snake woman, either.
Beth stared at news-chopper footage of what remained of Castle Amusements, nothing but a few fire-blackened walls ready to crumble. She clicked off the TV. Looked like those greedy developers had won, as usual. They’d get to put up their boardwalk condos after all.
She sank deep into her chair and looked up at the drip-stained ceiling, wishing that that was all there was to worry about, that the only fight was between real estate scumbags and landmark amusement park preservationists.
The motel room reeked of mold, sour smokes, and cheap cherry-scented air freshener. The carpet was a dingy yellow, marred by coffee splotches and cigarette burns. She tried not to think about what mystery stains were on the bedspread that Jack now lay under, still unconscious.
At least they hadn’t asked any questions at the front desk. Beth got the impression, in fact, that avoiding questions was a job requirement at this no-tell motel. The clerk didn’t seem to mind that she had no baggage to speak of. Or that she looked as if she’d just returned from a tour in Afghanistan. Or that two minutes later, she would be hefting a semiconscious Jack up the stairs. No, the man had simply nodded, eyes on the floor, when she handed him their cash-up-front payment and asked for nothing else, not even a signature.
Maybe it was a Jersey thing. She’d gotten the same I see nothing treatment from the taxi driver who’d picked them up at the Perth Amboy marina where she’d ditched the stolen boat. And again from the two other cabbies she’d daisy-chained to get here. She wasn’t about to make the same mistake they’d made in Camden. Even if the Division tracked the boat and managed to wring intel from that first driver, they’d be searching for them five towns over. They were safe, at least for a little bit.
After they’d checked in, Beth had managed to clean Jack up. She’d scrubbed him of all the blood and put him to bed. He was still only barely alert, not caring or even noticing as she stripped him naked and climbed into the shower with him. She dried him off. She even brushed his teeth. And then helped him collapse into the room’s only bed. After she’d showered herself, she came out to find him dead to the world.
There was a twenty-four-hour Jamesway across the street from the motel. While Jack slept, she ducked inside and bought new clothes. Nothing fancy, discount jeans and black T-shirts for them both, plus fresh socks and underwear at three bucks a bag. It left exactly forty-three dollars and sixty-eight cents in her pocket. If she couldn’t hack an ATM soon, they might have to think about sleeping someplace else tomorrow night. But tomorrow night was still a lifetime away.
After she’d coaxed Jack into a pair of brand-new boxers, she curled up beside him and gave in to exhaustion. Before drifting off, she realized it was the first time she’d slept in a real bed in almost a year. And she wondered how long it had been since Jack had had such a luxury. Ten years? Maybe more?
And then a memory struck her. It was of the first night she’d spent in Jack’s van. He’d offered her his thin sleeping pad and threadbare blanket—all he had—and he’d slept in the front seat with his dog. Beth cried at the memory, silently so as not to wake Jack, tears still streaming as she fell into darkness.
Every bump, every hallway footfall, every drunk conversation drifting through the thin walls was a bucket of cold water on her, however. And she shivered, knowing, just knowing, that the next sound she’d hear would be the door breaking inward, followed by shouts of Freeze! and On the ground! Eventually, she simply got up and waited for Jack to do the same. By then, it was close to noon.
Jack shifted. She watched his eyes stutter open. A look of terrified confusion flashed across his face. The bed’s sagging springs creaked under his weight as he wrenched himself up. “Where . . . what . . .”
She went to him, placed a hand on his shoulder, his skin hot under her palm, and eased him back down. “The body needs sleep, Jack. Every body. Even yours.”
Jack compromised by shrugging himself halfway up the headboard. Beth handed him a tumbler of lukewarm tap water. He sipped hesitantly, hands shaking. “What happened?”
“Don’t you think you ought to be telling me that?” She took the empty glass and set it on the wobbly nightstand.
“I remember running and . . . and then things get hazy.”
“You don’t remember passing out in the boat I stole?“ Beth climbed into the bed. She put her arm around him, feeling his muscles tense as she drew him close. Jack had long been a stranger to physical affection, but she could think of no other way to let him know that this wasn’t an inquisition. That it was her turn to protect him, and to do that, she needed answers that were long overdue. “You don’t remember coughing up about a pint and a half of blood? Christ, I thought you were having a seizure.”
Jack’s gaze fell to the overwashed bedspread. He gripped his temples between his thumb and forefinger, bearing down so hard his nails went white. “Seizures. That means it’s spreading.”
“Spreading? What are you talking about? What’s spreading?”
Jack shook his head. He coughed slightly, then took her hand gently from his shoulder and slipped from the bed. He went to the window and stood with his back to her, wearing only those brand-new boxers and his old scars. “Nothing. It’s nothing. I’m just pushing myself too hard. I’ll scale it back.”
“Pushing yourself too hard? Jack, this isn’t like you got shin splints. You were coughing up blood. Your eyes rolled back to white. I saw it.”
Jack stared at the thin strip of daylight knifing through the seam of the drawn drapes. He poked a finger in between, teasing it open. “Where are we?”
“That doesn’t matter right now. What matters—”
“I’m fine.”
“You are not fine.” She hopped up and crossed to him. She cupped one bicep, gently coaxing him back to the bed. He was having none of it. “We need to get you to a doctor.”
“No doctors.”
“Look, I know you don’t want to tip off the Division, but there has to be someone who’ll look at you on the sly. I bet the creep at the front desk has at least five mob MDs in his Rolodex—”
“No doctors.” His voice was firm, flat, final.
Beth would be, too, if that was what it took. “Jack, we have to find out what’s wrong.”
“I know what’s wrong,” he said, not turning to face her, just staring at the mildew-splotched drapes. “No doctor can help me. It’s too far gone now.”
The way he’d said those words—too far gone now—was as final as a crypt door. “What’s too far gone?”
His glance fell on her, searching for someplace safe to land. Those diamond-hard eyes of his had gone soft as poached eggs. “Me,” he said. “I have cancer.
”
Beth’s heart thumped like a blown tire. Her throat tightened to a marsh reed. The motel’s cheap carpet became a morass, swallowing her whole.
“Lung cancer,” Jack added. “It’s the snap-vial gas that did it. I’m pretty sure, anyway. Ironic, huh? Considering that’s what the Division is after. Wouldn’t that be a laugh if they got it and then they all died from it?”
Beth didn’t feel like laughing. She felt as if someone had scooped out her insides, carved her chest into a jack-o’-lantern. “That’s why . . .” she eked out. “That’s why you haven’t been letting me use it. You weren’t rationing the gas. You were . . . you were . . .”
Jack nodded. “I was protecting you.”
This couldn’t be happening. Not now, after all they’d been through. Not here in this shitty roach motel. “How long?”
“For certain?” he said. “Since Kentucky. I gave myself an X-ray at the vet’s office.”
“No, Jack. Not how long have you known.” A pilot light of fury lit up somewhere deep inside her. Just a flicker now, but it wouldn’t take much for it to blaze. “How much longer do you have left?”
“I don’t know. But it’s bad, Beth. It’s everywhere.” A small cough escaped his lips, as if it were a punctuation mark.
Beth clutched him by both arms, her thumbs digging into the hollows of his elbows. “How could you keep this from me?” She shook him. Shook him hard. And he let her. “How could you be so fucking selfish? You think you’re protecting me by hiding this? Is that what you think?”
“Beth—”
“You aren’t protecting anyone but yourself!”
Jack reached for her hands.
“Get away from me!” she spat.
“Beth—”
“I said get away!” But she was already butter at his touch.
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
Beth melted against his chest, blinking away the tears he’d be too proud to shed for himself. He wrapped her tightly and held her till the trembling began to subside. “Now what?” she asked finally, the question a whisper against his skin.
“It’s not over yet. That thing’s out there. She’s collecting creatures. We have to find out why. And we have to destroy her.”
“But—”
“No. There is no but. What if the Division gets its hands on that thing? If they’re so desperate to weaponize the creatures, just imagine what they could do with her.”
Beth had been trying to keep that exact scenario out of her head the entire time Jack had slept. And just when she thought she’d banished the image for good, here it was again. “But you’re dying.”
“We’re all dying. Every day we’re dying.”
Beth wrenched herself from his grip. She stalked across the carpet, putting as much space between them as the tiny motel room would allow. “Can you drop the tough-guy act? Just drop it?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“What do I want you to say? Say that we’ve done enough. Say that you’ve done enough. Say that we’ll find Blood and that we’ll run away and live in a cabin somewhere, that we’ll eat croissants every morning and drink lattes, and that we’ll spend what little time you have left pretending . . .” Her tears came in a torrent. Her words in strangled sobs. “Pretending that we aren’t us.”
“You think I don’t want that?”
“Then take it!”
“I can’t. There aren’t any retirement plans for guys like me. No 401(k) golden years. We fight until the fight is over, one way or another. That’s what we do. That’s who we are.”
“And then what? You want me to be the one to bury what’s left?”
“I’m not saying that.”
“What are you saying, then? Because that’s what’s going to happen. That’s what’s going to happen if we’re lucky! You die. I keep going, until what? Until I join you?” Why couldn’t he see how crazy this was? No man, not even the great, unsung Jack Jackson, could keep going in the face of something like this. “You deserve better. You deserve a little peace.”
“My whole life has been a fight, Beth. My whole life has been pain. Why should my death be any different?”
“And what do I do? What do I do after I watch you die tilting at another fucking windmill? What do I do when you cough up so much blood there isn’t any left? And all because you were too proud to know when your turn was over.”
Jack’s face frosted like a Minnesota lake. “You’ll get over it.”
“Get over it? Get over it? You’re the one who dragged me into all of this! And now I’m supposed to just get over it?”
“I didn’t drag you anywhere. You’ve always known the door was open. You could walk away anytime. You’ll get over it. You’ll get over it because there’s work to be done. Even after I’m dead, there’ll still be work that needs to get done. It’s up to you if you still want to do it.”
Beth crossed the distance between them. She fought to keep the tears where they belonged. She was past tears. “How can you say that?”
Jack wasn’t giving an inch. His façade was titanium-tough. “You got over your friend Zoë, didn’t you? Your boyfriend, too. You’ll get over me. You’ll get on with—”
She cut him off with a slap so hard her bones hurt. How dare he say those things. How dare he try push her away like she was just another one of the ignorant masses. She was better than that. And what’s more, he was better than this. And knowing that ate at her as completely as any cancer ever could.
Jack took her hand, the one she’d struck him with, and held it to his cheek. The skin was warm and red. His eyes scoured the floor as he massaged her fingers. “I deserved that.”
“You did.” Her eyes bored into him, bored through him. “Get over you? Get on with my life? That’s what you were going to say. Did you do that? Did you get on with your life after Sarah?”
He shook his head slightly, still cradled in her hand, his rough stubble sandpapering her palm. “Don’t. Please don’t.”
But there was no stopping her. She was a ship cut loose from her moorings. “Did you get over Sarah? Did you get over her?”
“That’s different,” he said, finally lifting his gaze to hers. “I loved Sarah.”
She watched as the understanding broke over him, sweeping away everything he thought he’d known in one colossal wave. “Jack . . .” Again, she clutched one shoulder, much more gently than before. “I love you.”
There was no sound in the room other than the air-conditioner hum. Both of them had stopped breathing. It was a new Jack who looked at her then. Or perhaps it was just one who had been lost for so many years he no longer recognized home, not even when he was staring straight at it. “I . . .” he started, the next word breaking against years of captivity. “I . . .”
Beth brought a finger to his lips. She pressed it there. “I know you do.” And then she replaced the finger with a kiss.
Jack’s lips were warm and wanting. She opened her mouth for him. He tasted of mint and salt and longing. He clutched her waist, drawing her tight against his chest. She breathed deep of his heat and musk. She felt the T-shirt, the one she had just bought, torn from her. Her bare skin sizzled against his. Her heart thumped like a locomotive piston as she felt his length rising hard against her. And together they fell into bed, fell into each other, and lost themselves there.
Thirty-Two
NEW HARBOR, CONNECTICUT
Agent Ross looked down at his Go board. On it sat a game in its final stages. It was a match he’d repeated many times, one he’d first played against Jack Jackson more than a decade ago. That was back when Jackson was the Division’s guest, and he himself just an ambitious agent with lofty dreams. He and Jackson had shared many matches back then, but this one was different. This time, Jackson had beaten him.
Ross’s eidetic memory had seared every move into his brain. He would replay them—sometimes on his antique kaya-wood board, sometimes in his head. It was something he did when he needed to
rid his mind of the crush of so many remembrances jostling for space. Every time, he would try to figure out where he’d gone wrong, where Jackson had beat him. Every time, he’d come up empty.
Ross’s near-photographic memory might have been his most closely guarded secret. And Ross was a man whose stock in trade was secrets. Not even his all-seeing Division superiors knew about it. He’d learned early on that when the divine clockmaker gifts you with a small amount of power, you keep that power to yourself. That is, unless you want those who wield all the power to come and take it away or press it into their service or simply make you vanish.
Over the years, he’d amassed an arsenal of tricks to keep unwanted memories from overwhelming him. Reliving the game with Jackson was the best of them, but there were others. When he was under duress, however, nothing, no gimmicks, would keep the memories at bay. They would pop up like dandelions on a well-manicured lawn, just waiting for the next breeze to carry their infective spawn to any spot yet untouched.
His quarters, the ones he sat in right now, were another self-deceptive ploy. The stark decor, the scent of bergamot, the Switched-On Bach concertos he so loved, the game itself—all of it usually kept those memories as nothing but wallpaper.
But not today. None of his feints could blank out the image of what he’d watched Dr. Kander do shortly after they’d arrived in New Harbor—what he’d not only let the doctor do but what he’d actually helped him to achieve.
Ross pushed back from the board. There was only one way to get through this, and he knew it. He’d have to give the memory time to burn itself out, to become just another ghost in a very crowded haunted house. Sometimes the only way out was through—it was a lesson he’d learned the hard way long ago.
He loosened his tie, undoing the top button of his starch-stiff shirt. He stretched out on the floor, hands clasped over his chest like a corpse laid out for viewing, and stared up at the ceiling. He counted backward in time with his own steady breathing and watched the memory with the cold detachment of a man observing insects in a jar.
As the Worm Turns Page 50
