Abandon the Night

by Joss Ware

  She swam with long, strong strokes, playing hard-to-get and keep-away, making progress against the current…knowing that the float back would be sweet and relaxing. And as she turned to take an easy breath, she saw it—them.

  Holy crap. White fingers, half curled and palm up, protruding from the tall grass onshore.

  Zoë gasped and nearly choked on a mouthful of water, then struck out toward the hand.

  From her very first impression, she knew it didn’t belong to someone who was simply taking a nap in the sun. Splashing onto shore, disregarding her nakedness, Zoë hesitated, then walked toward the…body.

  Yes, indeed, and holy-mother-lode-of-shit, it was a body. Fully clothed, lying half on her side, arms and legs akimbo as if she’d collapsed, or been dropped. Dark hair cascaded over her face, and for a moment, Zoë was afraid it was that Remy woman. Again.

  But when she knelt and rolled the woman onto her back, feeling the warmth of her body and the shudder of a breath, the hair fell from her face. Not Remy. The woman’s eyelids flickered and her mouth moved as if she meant to speak. Then she half groaned and tried to push Zoë away.

  But the woman was weak and could do little but brush against her arm. Her white shirt and pale green trousers were stained with brown splotches—dirt for certain, and, she was all too certain, blood.

  “Hello,” Zoë demanded, lightly slapping the woman’s cheek like they did in movies. “Wake up. Wake the hell up!”

  For fuck’s sake. Who the hell decided that she was going to be the finder of people in trouble lately? First Quent, then Remy. Now this not-dead person.

  The woman’s shirt buttoned down the front, and Zoë figured she might as well see if any of those bloodstains were from injuries that needed to be staunched. Just as she began to pull the fastenings apart, she saw Quent swimming up from the corner of her eye.

  “Hey!” she shouted, waving to him from the shore.

  He stopped and turned toward her, and she had a moment—just a moment—to admire the sparkling droplets of water on those big-ass shoulders before she turned back to the injured woman, who had begun to shift beneath her ministrations. She rolled her head around as if in some sort of terrifying nightmare. “No, no…I don’t want—”

  Her hair clung to her grimy, sweaty face, and her breathing grew faster, but she didn’t attempt to keep Zoë from looking beneath her shirt. Zoë pulled the fabric away and sucked in her breath, lurching back on her bare haunches in the cool grass.

  Holy fucking shit. A Stranger.

  The crystal, just barely bigger than Zoë’s thumbnail, nestled in the soft flesh just below the woman’s collarbone. Its edges flush with her skin, the ice blue stone rose in a smooth, shallow dome. Despite the fact that she lay in the shade, the sunlight was too bright for Zoë to tell if the crystal glowed with life or not.

  She’d never been this close to an Elite. Her heart began to pound. This must be the bounty that had escaped from the Marcks last night. It had to be.

  But she didn’t appear to be injured anywhere…there were no marks on her skin. What was wrong with her?

  “What th—Bloody hell!” Quent said when he saw the woman. He squatted next to her and looked at the crystal. “Is she dead?”

  “No,” Zoë said, and at that moment, the woman shifted again and groaned out something that sounded like “Father.” She rolled her head and the obscuring hair fell away, exposing her face.

  Quent did stumble back onto his ass. “Oh my God. Bloody mother-fucking shit. No fucking way.” He scrambled onto his knees, leaning toward her now. “Marley?” He took her by the shoulders and gave the woman a little shake as Zoë began to ease back. “Marley!”

  He knew her? What the hell kind of name was Marley?

  The woman groaned and shifted, and somehow she ended up in Quent’s arms. He stood, gathering her up as if she were a rag doll, and the woman was easily as tall as Zoë, but rounder in the ass, and thighs too. Oh, and the boobs. Zoë resisted the urge to frown.

  Standing there in the tall grass with his bundle of woman, Quent looked like some feral warrior, all naked and glistening from shoulder down to the flat muscles of his belly, and that wicked cock of his, at the moment fully at ease. His blond hair, dark with water, was slicked back from his face, which still bore the tension of an ass-crap amount of shock and disbelief. And, now, cold anger.

  “Let’s get her out of here,” he said, already starting toward the river. “At least get her somewhere where we can see to her.”

  “Who is this woman?” Zoë asked as he stepped into the shallow edge of the current. “How the hell do you know a Stranger?”

  “Her name’s Marley Huvane. Goddammit, I should have known. I should have fucking known.” He started walking downstream, avoiding the overgrowth along the edges. “It’s a long story,” Quent told her, his face tight and angry. And he kept walking.

  Now Zoë did frown, despite the fact that she had a perfect view of his tight ass as he manipulated his way in knee-high water, over and between slippery rocks as gracefully as a cat.

  The woman began to move in his arms, her legs and arms beginning to struggle. “Water,” she murmured, flailing so that her dangling toes skimmed the river. That was what she’d said earlier, not “Father.” “Water. Need…”

  “You want something to drink?” Quent asked, holding his burden with one arm as he scooped up a palmful of water and tried to dribble it into her mouth.

  She didn’t seem to care, instead she twisted her face away and repeated, “Water.”

  He just gave you water, dumb-ass.

  By now they’d reached the bushes where their clothes lay, and Marley of the assy name and big boobs seemed to have settled down a bit. Quent stepped onto the shore and let her slide to the ground in a gentle heap. No sooner had she been released than Marley began to look toward the rushing river and, determination marking her face, reached for it.

  Meanwhile, Zoë snatched up her black tank top and pulled it on. She had no desire to be butt-naked when the wench became aware of her surroundings. Apparently, Quent had the same idea, yanking on a pair of shorts with a variety of pockets as he watched the woman struggle toward the river as if her life depended on it.

  “Do you want a drink?” Quent asked again, walking toward her, his T-shirt in his hand.

  Marley shook her head. “No…water.”

  Zoë shook her head. What-the-fuck-ever. She was ready to ditch them both and get on her way.

  There were always gangas to be shot. Or, if she got Quent to teach her how to make his fancy-shit bombs, she could blow them all up at one time without any interference from him. Zoë pulled on her panties and cargo pants with stiff fingers.

  Marley had reached the river and now simply trailed her fingers in the water. Her eyes closed as she sagged onto the ground, but her movement was one of relief, not exhaustion.

  Quent, still shirtless, crouched next to her. “Marley,” he said in a voice that was more commanding than coaxing.

  The woman opened her eyes, and recoiled, obviously seeing him for the first time. Her eyes bulged and her mouth dropped open. Not a particularly welcoming response, Zoë noted snidely. Especially for the guy who carried you to safety.

  “Quent!” she half gasped, half whispered. Marley seemed paralyzed, unable to move except for her chest, which was heaving in shock beneath her open shirt. “Oh my God. My God, he told me you were dead. All these years…he told me you were dead!”

  To Zoë’s surprise, Quent rose to stand over the Elite. His dark expression had not eased and he put his hands on his hips as he looked down at her. “He assumed I was. He certainly didn’t attempt to offer me the same arrangement they obviously gave you.” His tone slapped flat with revulsion and loathing.

  He watched impassively as Marley pulled herself into a more upright position, but even Zoë could see that she was too weak to stand. She kept her hand in the water and Zoë realized it must have something to do with her recovering her strength. She
needed to touch water, not drink it?

  “Which, by the way,” Quent added coldly, “I would have told him to go fuck himself if he did. Then I would have goddamn killed him before I let him do what he did.” He stepped closer to Marley and pulled her firmly to her feet.

  Zoë, who faced down gangas single-handedly, nearly recoiled herself when she saw the burning hatred in his eyes.

  “My God, Marley. I can barely stand to look at you.” His voice shook.

  This was a different man. There was nothing about him—his expression, his stance, his voice and attitude—that even hinted at the tenderness she’d seen last night, when he’d covered her hand on the choir loft rail. Nothing that indicated he was the same man who’d kissed her gently, or the man who’d made bawdy jokes to coax her to bed, or the man who’d eye-fucked her at the bar in Envy.

  This man was vibrating with restrained power and anger, and at this moment, he alarmed her more than Raul Marck, Ian Marck, or even any of the Strangers she’d ever seen.

  Silence stretched for a moment, broken only by what should have been the soothing rush of water and a bird-call.

  Then, “Well, screw you, Quent Fielding,” Marley spat, shifting away to look up at him. “You don’t know a damn thing about what happened and how I came to be here.”

  Fielding? Zoë’s brows knit together.

  “Right. I sure as hell would like to hear your story,” he said. His voice rang cold. “I’d love to hear your excuse for how you became one of them.”

  Marley swayed a bit and though Quent held on to her, his face showed no sign of sympathy for her weakness. He suddenly turned to look at Zoë, fastening those angry blue-brown eyes on her as if she were on his shit list too.

  Well, screw him. She straightened, lifting her chin.

  “I need to go somewhere…safe. Your hideaway. Wherever the hell you go—”

  Zoë was already shaking her head. No fucking way was she bringing this Stranger to her home. “Forget it.”

  Quent shook his head. “Zoë,” he said, his voice marginally—marginally—softer. “This is important.”

  “You said it was a long story,” she bristled, throwing his words back in his face. “Too long and complicated for me to understand, I’m certain.” Her hands had found their way to her hips and she glared up at him.

  “Goddamn it, Zoë. I need to be somewhere hidden for a while.” His eyes focused on hers and behind the anger and revulsion, she caught a hint of the man she knew. And with that, a flash of desperation. “This is my—my Raul.”

  Fuck. Zoë pressed her lips together and ground her teeth. She crossed her arms, glared at Marley, who was staring at Quent’s fingers around her arm as if they were a coiled snake, and finally said, “All right. But she’s blindfolded. You would be too if I knew how to drive one of those things.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” Marley told them. She looked up at Zoë, who recognized not only weariness but a shitload of stubbornness in her eyes.

  “I need information, and you’re going to give it to me,” Quent told her in a matter-of-fact tone. “Figure it’s part of your penance for what happened.”

  Fascinated in spite of herself with their conversation, annoyed as shit that she’d agreed to take Quent to her place, and realizing she was hungry, Zoë turned sharply and started back toward the church. “You two figure it out. I’m leaving.”

  Quent was relieved when Marley got into the back of the humvee with a minimum of fuss, despite her earlier protestations. He didn’t like to think about the fact that he would have had to force her if she hadn’t. Didn’t particularly care for the thought of restraining a woman…except under more pleasurable circumstances.

  They had a history together, he and Marley. If he’d ever considered a woman to be a friend as well as a lover—occasional as any of their interactions had been—it would have been Marley Huvane. Yet, that wouldn’t have stopped him from doing what he had to do to get her in the vehicle and somewhere where no one would find them—gangas, bounty hunters, Strangers—until he got the information he needed.

  Like, everything she could tell him about the Elite and the Cult of Atlantis. And most of all, his father.

  And Marley, who looked exactly the same as she had fifty years ago, actually seemed ready to recline on the backseat of the truck. Whatever had happened to her, she was weak and exhausted, and, according to Zoë, hungry.

  “We’re almost there,” Zoë said, breaking into his thoughts. They’d been driving for about two hours, perhaps fifteen miles or so.

  Quent turned to look at her, realizing that, despite her reluctance to take him to her hideaway, she had agreed to do so—and without understanding why. Without him telling her the story.

  Did that mean she was beginning to trust him? Or did she have some other trick up her sleeve?

  “Do you want to blindfold me and drive the rest of the way?” he asked. Marley was asleep in the back; he could hear her exhausted little snores. “It’s not hard.”

  Zoë looked at him suspiciously as they bumped along, and he could see the calculation in her eyes. At last, she shook her head. “No, but you’re going to teach me how to drive one of these things, and how to make those fancy bombs. I’ve got work to do.”

  The implication being that she’d be on her own doing her work.

  Quent adjusted his grip on the steering wheel and turned to avoid a tree. Zoë made an annoyed little noise, but at least she wasn’t clinging to the handgrip anymore.

  “I’ll tell you my story,” he offered. “If you want to hear.”

  She inclined her head regally, as if she were doing him a favor by allowing him to tell the tale. For a moment, Quent nearly smiled. What a hell of a woman she was. Then he remembered. He had work to do too.

  “It’s hard to know where to start, but I’ll begin with the basic. Have you heard of Fielding? One of the leaders of the Strangers?”

  “Yes. What—are you related? Is he your father?”

  Quent nodded. Quick study, she was. “Yes, but here’s the hard to believe part. I was born in 1980. Before the Change.”

  “Before…” she began. Her voice trailed off as she seemed to consider. “You’re not crystaled. And you sure as fuck don’t look eighty years old.” Her eyes narrowed and he saw her reach reflexively for her bow. “What, are you a vampire or something?”

  Despite his dark thoughts, Quent couldn’t hold back a twitch of his lips. “If I were, wouldn’t I have tried to drink your blood and turn you into one?”

  “Maybe you were just trying to lull me into trusting you before you did,” Zoë replied, giving him a sidewise look.

  He laughed a little, in spite of himself. “Right. I’ve certainly been attempting to lull you into something.” Then he sobered. “I’m not a vampire, but I don’t really have any explanation for why I’m…like this.”

  “Like what? Immortal?”

  Quent shook his head. “I’m not immortal.”

  “How do you know?”

  He opened his mouth to answer, then snapped it closed. Damn good question. How did one know if they suddenly became immortal? “I’m quite certain I’m not immortal because one of my companions, one of the other men who was in the cave with me, died after we came out.” He drew in a breath, knowing that he was approaching the story backwards. But she didn’t interrupt, obviously trusting that he would fill in the blanks.

  “Fifty years ago, some friends of mine and I went into some caves in an area called Sedona. There was an earthquake or something and we blacked out. When we woke up, it was five decades later and the world had changed.”

  “So you’re really from that time, before the Change?” Zoë’s voice was rife with skepticism. “That’s how you know her?” She thumb-pointed toward the backseat.

  “Yes.” He looked over at Zoë again. “But there’s more.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Since I’ve come out of the cave, I’ve discovered that I have a special power.�
�� Quent gave her the details about his psychometric capability. “Which is what had happened when you found me in the alley in Envy that night.”

  Zoë didn’t respond after this speech, and he presumed she was digesting the information. Perhaps for someone who’d grown up with Strangers and gangas, having a paranormal ability wasn’t so unbelievable.

  When she spoke again, it was to give him directions. “Over there, behind that big building with the Star-M on it.”

  He drove past an old Wal-Mart, the Star-M, as she’d called it, for that was all that remained of the letters on the building.

  “You do realize that Marley was the bounty that the Marcks were taking back,” she said at last. The words came out reluctantly, as if she were admitting some great fault. “Did you notice that the gangas were moaning differently last night? They were saying ‘Marley Huvane’ not ‘Remington Truth.’”

  “And why would an Elite be a bounty? Don’t they control the bounty hunters and the gangas?”

  “Not if they’re running away from the Strangers. Then they’re a bounty,” came a rusty voice from the back of the truck.

  He looked into the rearview mirror and saw that Marley had sat up. Her thick brown hair, streaked with highlights, was tousled around a face that was still dirty and a bit bruised. How much of their conversation had she heard? Over the rumble of the truck, and with him and Zoë in the front, she probably hadn’t heard much.

  “Hey,” Zoë said, turning around to face her. “Lay down or put a blindfold on.” Then, to his surprise, she added, “Don’t worry. There’s a big stream nearby.”

  Marley almost smiled, but then she looked back at Quent and her face tightened. “We have a lot to talk about, Quent Fielding. Like how you managed to still be alive. Who the hell did you sell your soul to?”

  Not waiting for him to answer, she lay back down, and there she remained for the next fifteen minutes of navigation beyond the old Wal-Mart and through an old schoolyard to what looked like a ghost town of Main Street USA. Every structure that lined the little street had had a brick façade. Many of them appeared to have been built well before the twenty-first century, perhaps even in the early twentieth. They would have been quaint little shops in their day; he recognized the town for the upscale clientele that it must have attracted, filled with overpriced knickknacks and high-priced martini bars and cafes.