Night's Fall (Night's Champion Book 2)

by Richard Parry

  The color started to stain the world, the honesty of black and white fading with the clarity of her thoughts. There was another, someone else who wanted to come forward. It had a name, as if names made a difference.

  Please, said the other. We have a little girl. She’s all alone in this world. Let me go to her.

  Pack. That was all that mattered. She looked around, past the woman — tiny, frail — in front of her. She saw the black mechanism that had carried them here, built with all their puny strength. Fragile, it stood in the snow, a face plastered against the glass of its windows.

  Please, said the other, again. Don’t you remember? She’s our baby. She’s our Adalia.

  Adalia. She allowed her gaze to fall back on the woman in front of her, glanced down to see if there was a weapon hiding inside the woman’s jacket. She remembered the sting of its pellets, the fire of them yapping at her like small dogs. She felt the flash of anger hit her, wanted to reach out and—

  NO. The other pushed at her, her mind holding the will of the hurricane. She is not to be harmed. She is … she is Pack.

  Pack. A named formed, a concept hard to hold on to. Carlisle. Carlisle was one of pack. The Shield. The protector when … when…

  She’s the one who protects our baby, said the other, when you make it impossible. You take my will from me, and she stands against us when you would kill our little girl.

  Never. Never would we hurt Pack.

  Then you won’t hurt Carlisle. Give it back to me. Give me back my life.

  It is not your life to have. It is ours. And we have things that need to be done. The world is broken, corrupted and black at its core, the carcass rotting in this old sun.

  Give me back my life, said the other, and we can fix it together.

  She snarled. It’s not yours to have. It is mine.

  If it can’t be yours, and it can’t be mine, then it is ours, said Danny, and I will not have you hurt them.

  It is ours, she agreed. The other, this Danny, was strong, her will burning bright. She felt herself fading again, the feeble hands at the end of her arms feeling more natural, as if they belonged.

  Do you promise? That we will fix the world.

  I promise, said Danny. Our little girl lives in this world, and we’ll make it safe for her.

  Safe. Yes. Safe for Pack.

  ∙ • ● • ∙

  “Hey,” said Carlisle. She was crouched down, the snow crunchy underfoot, the chill of the air leaving her head dry and clear. She watched as Danny’s head came up, an edge to her movements that reminded Carlisle of a skittish animal. She watched the yellow eyes scan around, looking between Carlisle and the Yukon sitting behind them. Watched as Danny looked for her sidearm, and let a breath out she didn’t know she’d been holding as Danny’s eyes moved on, the yellow leeching away.

  “I—” Danny’s mouth moved around the word, as if it was unfamiliar. “Do you remember the dragons?”

  “No,” said Carlisle. “Also, what the fuck?”

  “I … I think I dreamed about them,” said Danny. The woman rubbed her bare arms, a circle melted in the snow around her. Heat was coming off her in waves, the air shimmering with it. Her eyes found Carlisle’s. “Did I hurt anyone?”

  She means, did I hurt her. “You didn’t hurt Adalia.” Carlisle looked back at the Yukon. “She’s fine.”

  “What about you?” Danny’s eyes were hooded, something desperate in her voice. “I don’t remember.”

  “I told you before.” Carlisle rocked back on her heels. “It’s going to take more than a werewolf to take me out. You’re all Hulk rage, no finesse.”

  The ghost of a smile landed on Danny’s lips. “Did she see?”

  Carlisle thought about that for a little while. How much do you tell her? What’s going to help her? What’s going to hurt? Your problem, Carlisle, is that you’re just no damn good at this shit. “I … she was there. She saw. Danny? I tried to get her out. I took her out to the damn car, I actually put her inside before I came back for that waste of oxygen, Ajay. And she came back inside.”

  “For you.”

  “No,” said Carlisle. “Yes. Hell, I don’t know. She’s a teenage girl. It’s been a long time since I was a teenage girl.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I understand more about nuclear physics than I do about the teenage girls of today.”

  “Me too,” said Danny. “She’s growing up too fast.”

  “All mothers say that.”

  “All mothers don’t kill people in front of their children,” said Danny, and something broke in her voice.

  With a pop of her knees — getting rusty on the inside — Carlisle stood up. “Well, that’s a bit shit, true. But what are you going to do?”

  “It’s more about what you’re going to do,” said Danny. She pulled herself into a sitting position, knees up to her chest, arms wrapped around. “Is it cold?”

  “It’s freezing,” said Carlisle. She nodded at a pile of clothes in the snow. “I pulled some of your clothes out.”

  Danny seemed to notice her own nakedness for the first time. “I’m … have we been having this entire conversation without clothes?”

  “I’ve got clothes,” said Carlisle. “For the record, I’m fully clothed. You’re the weirdo sitting in the snow, naked as a newborn baby.”

  “You haven’t answered my question,” said Danny, starting to pull some clothes on. A pair of old denim jeans. A woolen sweater.

  “I answered. I said it was cold.” Carlisle rubbed her arms, trying to get some warmth back.

  “I asked what you were going to do about Ajay.”

  “When the hell did you ask that?” Carlisle played the conversation back in her head. “You didn’t ask me anything about that. Did you get hit in the head, you know, before?”

  Danny gave her a flat stare, one leg poised over a pants leg. “It was implied. It’s girl talk.”

  “I’m not real good at girl talk,” said Carlisle.

  “Get better,” said Danny.

  “I want to kill him,” said Carlisle. “I … want him.”

  “Those are different things,” said Danny as she tugged her clothes straight. She ran a hand through her hair, perfect — the bitch — bouncy curls raining free. “How do I look?”

  “The good news is that if you ever get tired of running from your boyfriend and changing into a hideous beast, you’ve got a career made in modeling. You look like you just stepped out of a fucking salon,” said Carlisle. The idea of Ajay sat in her mind, a dangerous object like a grenade with a freshly pulled pin. We wouldn’t be here without him. We’d not be in this mess, but we’d also be in fucking Alaska, away from the people who need us. “I get they’re different things. He’s a little young. I don’t know. I guess I want to have sex with him.”

  “Is he in the car?”

  “He’s unconscious,” said Carlisle. “You threw him into a wall.”

  Danny looked at her feet. “I don’t remember that.”

  “It’s okay,” said Carlisle. “I’ve wanted to throw him into a wall before too. I think it’s his superpower.”

  “Okay,” said Danny. “Okay. Well. I remember … I remember something.”

  “What?” said Carlisle. “About throwing him into a wall?”

  “I remember why I threw him into a wall. I remember we started this trip with five people in the Yukon, and now we’ve got four. When we were sleeping on the drive from Alaska to here, one person in the car went … they went somewhere else, Melissa.” Something went hard in her eyes. “Let’s go wake him up.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Adalia sat in the Yukon, the heater whispering as the big car idled away some time in the snow. She watched her Mom and Carlisle talking outside. She spared a glance at Ajay — yup, still unconscious, being thrown into a wall will do that — laid out in the back seat. He doesn’t look so good. The man’s suit was rumpled, his skin a lighter shade, a hint of gray around his lips.

  “He’ll live,” sa
id the boy.

  Adalia glanced around the cabin. There was no one else there. “Where are you?”

  “I’m … I’ve never had that happen before,” said his voice. “I don’t know where I am. It’s dark. It hurts.”

  “My mom hit you,” said Adalia. “I don’t think she meant to.”

  “She meant to,” he said. His voice seemed to come from everywhere around her. “It’s crowded in here. Did you know that? I can feel them.”

  “How was it that she could see you?”

  “I don’t know,” said the boy. “I think it was the Night.”

  “The what?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. She could imagine him lowering his eyes as he said this, lashes black against his skin, and wished she could see him. “It’s what it’s called.”

  Adalia tried for a joke. “Is there a Dawn? A Day? Maybe a bunch of little Afternoons coming home from school?”

  His voice left the cabin for a moment, the sound of Ajay’s ragged breathing behind her overlaying the sound of the heater blowing warm air into the car. Then he said, “I don’t make up the names, okay? I don’t even know my own damn name.”

  “Sorry.”

  She felt his voice soften the air around her like a warm mist. “No. I’m sorry. I told you to go in to the store.”

  “I—”

  “Wait. It was necessary. You need her to be the Shield. You’ll need it before the end.”

  “Why?” Adalia realized that was the wrong question. “Whose shield?” She could see her mom getting dressed in the snow outside, Carlisle and her in some conversation. The set of both of their shoulders said it wasn’t a conversation for kids.

  “Adalia,” he said, “your mom almost set me free. Do you understand? I was almost free of … all of this.”

  “What?”

  “You need to find my name,” he said. “Please.”

  Adalia sighed in frustration. “I don’t even know who you are,” she said. “I don’t even know what you are. I don’t know if you’re real.”

  “Yes you do,” he said. “You know all of those things. You know me, as I know you. We were born in different times, but that doesn’t stop us from being linked. Joined, across the Universe that spins around us.”

  Adalia looked down at her hands, realizing they were clenched in her lap. “I don’t know how to help you,” she said.

  “I do,” said Ajay, from behind. “I know how to help them all.”

  She felt the boy leave the cabin then, his presence blowing away like gossamer. She turned to face Ajay. “You made him leave.”

  “No,” said Ajay. “He will always be with you. Until you set him free.”

  “Free?” said Adalia. “How?”

  “It is—” Ajay was interrupted as the year door was yanked open, her mom standing outside in the snow, her eyes wild.

  “Now,” said her mom, “tell me. Where the fuck is your friend?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  It’s shit like this that had got Rex out of the job. It wasn’t getting tossed around like a Tinkertoy, or even landing face first on the floor. Hell, that happened on any day ending in Y. It was the waking up hurting, a full body hurt from your toes to the tips of your ears. Even his damn hair hurt.

  “Whuuzzz,” he said. He tried to open his eyes before realizing he was lying on his face, trying to suck in blanket instead of air. He pushed a hand up, clearing the blanket away, then he opened his eyes.

  “Rex?” Just James’ young face was close to his, leaning down. The kid looked excited, a little glassy-eyed maybe, but otherwise okay.

  Rex felt something inside him relax a little. He tried for his voice again, finding it this time. “Hey,” he said. “What time is it?” His eyes focused past Just James, taking in the room they were in. Small, decent for an apartment, kind of bad for a house. Probably an apartment then, the furnishings looked new enough. Sky was standing a long way behind Just James, fussing around in a kitchen. He saw a silver briefcase standing against a wall, two men standing next to it. Possibly they’d been talking about the seven pounds of blond hash inside, possibly they were talking about the old man lying out cold on their couch. They both looked fit, somewhere between capable and dangerous. Too early to tell if they were dangerous to themselves or to others.

  “Does it matter?” Just James looked around, anxious. “I mean, I can try and find a clock or something.”

  “You don’t have a watch?”

  “Watches are for old men,” said Just James.

  “Hey,” said one of the men by the wall. “I wear a watch.”

  Just James turned to look at him. “John? You’re an old man.”

  The other one standing by — John? — standing by John laughed, turning, and that’s when Rex felt really awake, the kind of awake you only felt when someone had taken a big bucket of ice water and dumped it over you. He started up from the couch, swinging his feet under himself and swaying upright. “It’s…” He took a step back, his foot catching on the couch, and he fell backwards. “It’s you.”

  And it was. The man who’d pulled him and Just James from that terrible crash, the one that had been Rex’s fault. Rex knew he’d never forget that face, the sense of care that came from the man. Except, this time, there was something not right. Rex felt it in his old bones, felt it in the twinge in his back.

  “It’s me,” said the other man, stepping forward and holding out his hand. “We’ve never been introduced. I’m Val.”

  Rex looked at the extended hand, then reached up and shook it. “Rex.”

  “Like a dog?”

  “Like a fucking Tyrannosaurus,” said Rex. He didn’t feel like this was real, he just sat on the couch shaking the other man’s hand, a big dumb smile on his face. “I mean. Not like a fucking Tyrannosaurus, just an ordinary one. Dinosaur. It’s a big lizard.” He trailed off.

  “I don’t mean anything by it,” said Val, easing his hand from Rex’s. “You could say … you could say that dogs and I are the best of friends.”

  John snorted, turning away and moving to the kitchen where Sky stood. He grabbed her in a hug, and they kissed. That’d be her man she was keen to get to. Rex felt something else unkink inside of him.

  “Rex,” said Val, “I owe you some thanks.” He looked over his shoulder at John and Sky behind him, then turned back. “You brought some of my Pa… some of my family home.”

  “No,” said Rex. “No, you don’t have to thank anyone.”

  “I don’t follow.” Rex watched the concern cross Val’s face. “You … you brought her. Back to him. That’s something … I owe him a lot.”

  “I’m here,” said Rex, it coming out in a rush, “because you pulled a dumb old man from a burning car.” He reached over and ruffled Just James hair, the boy pulling away with a half grimace, half grin. “You got Just James out. You got us all out. Son? You’ve got a gift. I’d say it was just being paid back.”

  “Okay,” said Val, pulling away from Rex. “Okay. It’s not … it wasn’t a gift.”

  “What?” Rex blinked at him. “You saved me and Just James.”

  “He does shit like that all the time,” said John, from the kitchen. “What he’s trying to say—”

  “John,” said Val, half-turning. “John, what are you doing?”

  “I got this,” said John. “What he’s trying to say is that five years ago—”

  “John.” Val’s tone had turned a little hard, and Rex looked between the two of them.

  “You said I could tell her,” said John.

  “Tell me what?” said Sky.

  “I said we could tell her,” said Val. “There’s…” He gestured at Rex and James. “There’s other people here.”

  “Oh, sorry,” said John. He looked over at Rex. “What’s your story?”

  “This guy,” said Rex, jerking a thumb at Val, “jerked me out of a burning Prius. My wife wanted it, before she died.”

  “A burning Prius?” John looked blank. “That�
��s a hell of a thing to ask for on your death bed. I mean, did she stop to think about how hard it would be to get a car on fire into … well, wherever you were. Hospital? Nursing home?” He looked at Val. “You never said you went to a nursing home.”

  “Hospital,” said Rex, then shook himself. Talking to this guy was like trying to follow the damn bouncing ball on karaoke after seven beers. “She wanted a Prius. She died. I set it on fire.”

  “That seems weird,” said John. “Why’d you do that?”

  “I crashed it,” said Rex, then looked at Val. “Help?”

  “It’s his thing,” said Val.

  “What’s my thing?” said John.

  “You know,” said Val.

  “Okay,” said John. “What I’m not clear on—”

  “You’re not clear?” said Rex. He rubbed his face, closing his eyes for a moment. “Look. It’s like this. I was thinking about women—”

  “With you so far,” said John. He yelped as Sky punched him in the arm. “What? All I’m saying is that I empathize with the man. We’ve all been there.” He looked at Val. “Right?”

  “Right,” said Val, then caught a look from Sky. “No, wait. Pretend I didn’t just agree with you. Sky? Seriously. It was an honest mistake, I didn’t mean to—”

  Rex burst out laughing. Couldn’t help himself, it came from somewhere deep in his gut, and felt good coming out. When he stopped, he could see grins and smiles around the room. He nodded at John. “I get it.”

  “What?” John blinked at him.

  “I get what your thing is,” said Rex. “I get it. It’s … it’s good.”

  “It is,” said Val. “Try living with it for a while before you decide, though.”

  “You guys have no focus,” said John. He leaned his hands on the counter that stood between them. “We still haven’t heard what happened to the Prius.”

  “So it was like this,” said Rex. He looked past Just James, then back to the group. “I was driving. I was distracted, thinking about women. It’s a thing that never stops, right? So I was thinking about women, or a woman in particular, and I got hit by a bus.” He rubbed a hand across his head, then looked at the fragments of burnt hair in his hand. That was a close one. “That makes it sound like the bus was at fault, but I was pretty sure it was me. Just James was on the bus. And we were going to die. I didn’t know Just James was there, I didn’t know him at all. But … but Val pulled me from the car. Just James, too.” His voice softened. “News said that it exploded after, some kind of fire. Be a hell of a way to go. Hell of a way.” He looked up at Val. “I promised. I didn’t tell anyone.”