Abandon the Night

by Joss Ware

  “From what I was able to tell,” Quent explained again, “the crystal comes from the ocean. Deep in the ocean.”

  “Not a surprise, given what we’ve been able to find,” Theo said. He wore his jet black hair cropped short around the ears and neck, almost militarily so, but longer and spiky on top. “Between all the damn crystals and the new landmass that seems to have erupted in the Pacific, plus the fact that, thanks to you, we know that the Strangers were all members of the Cult of Atlantis before the Change, the clues continue to point in one direction.”

  Quent nodded. Atlantis. Indeed, he’d been the one to recognize the symbol used by the Strangers as one identifying a group to which Fielding had belonged. He’d had no idea that the Cult of Atlantis was anything more than an exclusive club of powerful and wealthy world players until a few weeks ago. His knowledge had collided with the information Lou and Theo had collected over the last half-century, and the results were nightmarishly disturbing.

  “Fifty million American dollars to even join the fucking cult,” Lou said, shaking his head, eyes sober. “According to what Simon was able to find out from that female Stranger.” Who was, now, also dead—despite her unnatural crystal.

  “What a fucking bargain for immortality,” Quent said. His head had begun to pound, and everything felt tight and stretched. He always felt this way whenever he thought about his father and the hand he’d most certainly played in causing the Change.

  No one was certain exactly how it had happened, of course, but the curious Lou and Theo had hacked into satellites about a year after all hell broke loose and saw that the rest of the world was just as damaged as what had become known as the city of Envy. And they’d recognized a new continent in the Pacific Ocean that may have caused the great earthquakes, tsunamis, and violent weather that followed for almost two weeks.

  Quent realized his jaw hurt from clenching it so hard, and that his shoulders seemed unable to move. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to find him and, this time, I’m going to fucking kill him.

  I should have done it years ago.

  That had been his first thought on seeing a picture of his father, of Fielding, standing with two others who, with Fielding were known as the Triumvirate of the Strangers. One of them was now dead. That left two more, and countless other members of the cult. He stood, suddenly needing to get out of this room.

  “I’m going now,” he explained, knowing that his decision was abrupt. But he also read the understanding in Elliott’s eyes. “Up. See you in the morning.”

  If Fence, the big, bald guy who always had to make a joke—whether appropriate or not—were there, he would surely make a comment about whether Quent was going up alone or not. Admittedly, Quent was relieved the guy wasn’t there to do so.

  Because he’d be hitting too fucking close to home.

  “It’s raining,” Wyatt said.

  Quent shrugged. But his friend was looking at him knowingly and that made him feel like even more of a wank. “Later,” he replied, gathering up his gloves and leaving the room.

  He passed behind Sage, who actually glanced up as he swished by, but neither of them paused to exchange pleasantries. She offered a vague smile, then returned to her five computer screens, keys clicking noisily, aqua blue eyes focused on the monitor.

  On the spiral staircase that snaked up inside an old elevator shaft, Quent met Simon, who was likely coming down to see if he could drag Sage away from her work and up into his bed, since it was nearly midnight.

  Power fucking to ya, old chap.

  Gloves back on, Quent knew it was safe to jab angrily at the numbered buttons that would, at one time, have selected the floor and opened the door to the elevator, but now acted as a passcode to enter and exit the secret stairs to the computer room.

  Great buggering sense of humor the Waxnickis had. Too damn many spy movies. They thought they were fucking James Bond.

  Yet, Quent accepted the fact that the computer network and the information they were collecting had to be kept secret, not only from the Strangers, but from everyone else in Envy. Very few people believed or even knew of the horrors their fellow man had suffered at the hands of the Strangers—both during the Change, and in the fifty years since. And since the few who had tried to make their knowledge public had disappeared or otherwise been destroyed, the Waxnickis stuck with their plan of stealth and secrecy.

  The elevator shaft opened, and Quent stepped into the dark, ruined hallway of what had once been a casino resort in Las Vegas. At this far side of the building, in an area that hadn’t been maintained after the Change, the corridor seemed deserted and abandoned—a state the Waxnickis carefully preserved, despite their daily visits to the lab.

  He could make his way along the halls back to the occupied area of the hotel, and up onto the fifteenth floor, where he had been given a hotel room for his own residence. But when it came time to make the turn that would take him in that direction, he kept straight on.

  Outside, rain poured. Heavy, steady, but straight so that it looked like a gray and black shower curtain obstructing the night.

  If Quent had hoped Wyatt was wrong, or that it might be little more than a soft drizzle, he was bloody disappointed.

  Still, not because he expected anything—he wasn’t that cocked up—but because he needed to feel, he stepped out of the building and into the downpour.

  Since the Change, the climate in Vegas had shifted from that of a dry desert to an almost tropical one. Rain was plentiful, the temperature mild or hot, and the air humid and too close at times.

  Having lived in England until he was eighteen—when he moved an ocean away from Fielding and his riding crop—Quent was used to the damp. And now, as the heavy rain pounded on him, he walked, letting it soak through his stretchy silk shirt, suede jeans, and leather sandals. Good, practical clothing wasn’t always easy to find, but he’d been lucky and had come across an old suitcase filled with duds from a guy about his size. And the guy had had decent taste, which helped.

  The city known as New Vegas, N.V., or, more commonly, Envy, was the largest settlement of people in hundreds of miles—and as far as anyone could tell with the limited communication and transportation, it was the largest in the world. The irony that the formerly hedonistic city, with its superficiality and flashiness, should now be the cradle of humanity was lost on no one who’d ever visited the Strip—including Quent.

  Now, with the massive shift in landmass and tectonic plates, what had been the North Strip was under water—covered by the Pacific Ocean, which, unbelievably but irrefutably, now covered California and part of Nevada and Washington. Only a cluster of high-rise casino resorts remained standing, and of those, many of them were in disrepair.

  The Strip’s neon lights still glowed red, blue, yellow, and green, but much more feebly and in less abundance than they’d done a half century earlier. And the part of the Strip that remained visible was empty of people—a condition that would have been inconceivable back then.

  Quent couldn’t help himself. He looked up, trying to peer at the jagged rooftops and glassless windows above him, searching for a lanky shadow, slender and sure and sleek.

  But all he got for his trouble was a face battered with sharp raindrops and another wave of anger.

  At himself of course. For his foolishness. For wasting his time.

  For not fucking swinging that damned five wood sixty-some years ago.

  Hell. Could his one decision have made a difference? Kept the Change from happening? He might have spent the rest of his life in jail back then, but at least he’d have had a life.

  Quent drew in a deep breath of clean, damp air, then exhaled. Turned his thoughts from the rage that never seemed to completely leave him.

  Zoë wouldn’t be out in this weather, lurking in the shadows as she was wont to do. She wouldn’t be slipping down, all warm and slender and bold, to join him in a dark corner, hot and urgent and sassy.

  A combination of lust and fury tightened his
jaw, hitched his steps.

  What the bloody hell was he doing out here in the buggering rain?

  All he wanted to do was find Fielding and kill him. Quent’s life, his purpose for being, had funneled down to nothing but that.

  Everything else was just a fucking way to pass the time.

  Even walking uselessly in the rain. Even rolling in the sheets with Zoë.

  He wasn’t cold, though he was as soaked as if he’d been swimming, and he kept inhaling random droplets of rain. Wet grass and bushes brushed his bare toes as he trudged away from the inhabited area of the city. The clean smell of fresh rain mingled with the underlying must of decay and mold, here in this narrow walkway. Two buildings rose, half destroyed, jagged, and overgrown, the one on the left taller and more forbidding than on the right. If he straightened his arms to the sides, his fingertips would brush the brick. Soggy leaves and the gentle give of wet dirt softened the cracked and uneven concrete beneath his feet.

  The first time he’d met Zoë, she’d saved his life, appearing from nowhere to skewer the ganga that had attacked him. She’d shot an arrow that lodged in the skull of the zombie-like monster, which scrambled its brains and dropped it dead.

  No sooner had the creature collapsed than she demanded that Quent return her arrow.

  He hadn’t even been certain she was a woman or a slender young man…until she came close enough to touch his face.

  And that first time she touched him, just a faint brush of fingertips over his cheek, as if she wasn’t used to doing such a thing, it had seeped into his skin, warm and gentle. Hesitant, and yet…solid.

  Now Quent leaned against the ivy-covered wall, sending an additional shower of droplets scattering from the leaves. And he looked up again into the unrelieved darkness. Still fucking searching.

  Rain blinded him once more, and he turned away, frustrated.

  After their first meeting, she’d disappeared, slipping into the shadows, without her precious arrow. He’d taken it with him here to Envy, but before he turned to go, he called after her, into the dark, and invited her to come and retrieve it any time.

  A few days later, she had found him in Envy, walking beneath a clear moon, and once again demanded her arrow to be returned. Despite her belligerence and god-awful haircut, Quent was compelled to kiss her.

  And that had been all either of them needed. It felt as if something had been released, unleashed…snapped.

  The sex that night, and the few other times they’d gotten busy since, had been hot and fast and urgent. It had left him with curled toes, breathless—and, despite its ferocity…comfortable. Settled. Until she sneaked off into the night without a word. Taking her precious arrows with her.

  After that first night, it had become sort of a game. From up on a rooftop, or a high window, she’d shoot an arrow where he’d be sure to find it, then disappear into the night. A day or so later, Zoë would show up, all self-righteous and annoyed and demanding it back, as if he’d stolen it right from her quiver…and then they’d get to it. On the bed. In the stairwell. Against the backside of the hotel. Wherever they managed to tear each other’s clothes off. This had been going on for two weeks, but he was unable to keep her out of his mind for long.

  He spun suddenly, his foot squishing into mud and then jolting against a wedge of sidewalk, nearly tripping himself. Bloody buggering hell.

  What the fuck was he doing wandering in the rain looking for a rude female Robin Hood when there were plenty of other willing partners inside?

  Galvanized, he started back.

  But once he got inside, rain dripping audibly from his hair and shirt and rolling off the hems of his jeans, Quent knew he had too much of a bag on to go to the Pub. Though the pints were plenty and the waitresses friendly, and Elliott’s lover, Jade, often sang onstage in a definite foreplay sort of way, Quent walked past. His leather sandals squished softly.

  Maybe after he changed into dry clothing—the suede jeans were already shrinking from the rain—and did something with his hair, he’d change his mind. But unlikely.

  What he really should do…what he suddenly wanted to do…was to go back to the computer lab and touch that crystal again.

  If Elliott hadn’t interrupted him earlier and pulled the stone away, Quent might have been able to get more from the gem. The blur of faces might have eased from the fast-forward of a video to a slower parade, and he might have learned something. Identified someone. Seen his father.

  He might be able to discover where the Strangers lived or came from. And then he could do what he had to do.

  After that…Quent had no thought. He’d probably die in the process, for surely he couldn’t simply kill a leader of the Strangers and walk away unscathed.

  Inside his room, Quent moved directly to the closet and felt up behind the lip of its shelf. Force of habit, first thing he always did when he came back into his space. And when he realized he’d been checking to see if the latest of Zoë’s precious arrows was still there—it was—he felt yet another blast of fury that he was still playing this game.

  That he still cared to play it.

  “So that’s where you’re hiding them now.”

  Quent froze. A rush of heat and anger, a sudden weakness in his knees, and the tug of a smile, conflicting and paralyzing, caught him for a moment. He collected himself, emptied his expression, and turned.

  “What the hell were you doing out in the rain for so long?” Zoë said in her low, rusty voice. She looked like a Bollywood actress with a rubbish haircut—exotic features, cinnamon-skinned, and her ink black hair cropped and falling every which way around her high cheekbones and jaw. A wide mouth, pointed chin, high, plum-sized breasts, and long, lanky limbs completed the package.

  She leaned nonchalantly against the wall across the room, behind the door through which he’d just come. The quiver and bow she normally wore over her shoulder rested on the floor. Her entire being shouted condescension and belligerence—but for her dark almond-shaped eyes. Even in the dim room, lit only by a small lamp in the corner, Quent felt the weight of their gaze. Hot.

  Blood surged through his body. “Were you waiting for me?” he asked, his arrogance matching his haughty gaze. “Or was it just that you hadn’t discovered my latest hiding place?”

  She stepped away from the wall, graceful and lean in her tight black tank top and baggy, hip-riding cargo pants, and moved farther from the door. Just into the room. Watching him. His mouth dried. The blood rushed through him faster, his heart pounded.

  “You’ve gotten a hell of a lot more creative since the first time you stuck them under the bed,” she said.

  Damn straight. Quent still remembered the impotent fury he’d felt when he discovered that Zoë had come into his room and taken back another arrow he’d retrieved…without seeing him. Without playing the game.

  Without the wild, hot tumble on the bed or against the wall bang he’d come to expect.

  His body felt alive, awake, ready, but he maintained the blank expression and a casual stance…although he had a feeling his bedraggled state might take the edge off his insouciance. “What’s so special about these arrows that you have to keep stealing them back?” he asked, keeping his voice idle as he retrieved the last one from the closet shelf. He’d touched it so many times that it didn’t bother him to do so anymore; same as the other parts of his room.

  “What’s so special?” she retorted. “Do you have any idea how fucking hard it is to make them?”

  Quent gave her a look that clearly said he didn’t care, but that he had other things on his mind, and was rewarded when he saw her swallow. Hard. He submerged a grin…and a flare of hope. “Right, then. You make them yourself?”

  He tipped the arrow from end to end, and inside, the small metal weight rolled from one end of the hollow shaft to the other. It was a bloody brilliant design, and he could well understand how difficult it would be to create one, let alone multiple bolts like this. When the arrow slammed into its target, the li
ttle weight barreled into the tip. It lodged into a mechanism that shot a starburst of metal spikes from the sides of the point.

  Perfect for scrambling ganga brains. A bloody fine way to kill them, if a chap didn’t have a small explosive like the bottle bombs he and his friends used.

  “Yeah, I make them myself, genius. And it takes a long damned time. So I’d appreciate it if you’d give it back to me.” She held out her hand as if she actually expected him to put the bolt there.

  “Come and get it,” Quent said. His voice dipped way low and he met her eyes.

  She met his right back. Hot. “My clothes will get wet.”

  He smiled. Not with joy or mirth, but with promise.

  Her lips moved, parted just a bit, softened, in blatant promise.

  Fuck. He had a hard-on the size of a cricket bat and she hadn’t even bloody touched him.

  “Right, then,” he said, marshalling his control, keeping his voice nonchalant. “You can always take off your clothes. And then they won’t get wet.”

  She turned away suddenly, and for a moment, for a catch of his breath, he thought she would reach for the door. Turn the knob, leave. But then, her back to him, with one swift, smooth movement, she whipped off her skinny little tank top. And sent it flying in a soft arc.

  Quent smiled, this time with relief and delight. But he didn’t move. Not yet.

  Her bare back was smooth and taut, and her cargo pants rode low on the gentle flare of her hips. He’d never found that look sexy until now. Ragged, dark hair brushed the nape of her neck, but that long, sleek expanse of mahogany skin from shoulder to bum made her look like a slender Shiva.

  She kicked off her shoes, some nondescript dark ones that tumbled against the wall, and then he heard the quiet snap—unsnap—of a fastener. Zoë turned back to face him then, and in spite of himself, he caught his breath.