Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory Book 2)

by Lauren Gilley

  She set the lamp down in a clear space, where its light could spread out toward the walls, and began opening trunks.

  Bixby was a widower, he’d said, and Rose quickly realized she’d found the late wife’s things. She’d been slender, and only a little taller than Rose, judging by her hemlines. She found pants, and shirts, and skirts, and dresses, and sensible boots good for muddy streets; sweaters, sweatshirts, ponchos, and coats. All of it smelled of mothballs – but not unpleasantly so. Probably conduits had no concept of mothballs, nor what the scent of them would mean.

  Rose chose a gray turtleneck that would go with her black pants and boots, and a black, collared, waxed wool coat with brass buttons. A little formal and military chic all together, but none of it screamed “soldier,” and the jacket had plenty of cover and pockets for weapons.

  She stripped down to her tank top and stood holding the sweater a moment, longing for her black leather coat with the hood and flared hem, back at home base – and when had base started to feel like home?

  A throat cleared at the door, and she whipped her head around to find Lance standing there, shoulders nearly too wide for the jambs.

  She resisted a sudden, stupid urge to cover herself with the sweater. She was covered. The tank top was hardly indecent, and she had a sports bra beneath.

  She couldn’t help the prickling of goosebumps down her arms, though, nor the sense that she was allowing him to see her vulnerable, again, like the night he’d waited outside her shower.

  His expression was caught somewhere between readiness for the job that lay ahead – and something softer. Something that felt like another intimacy. He just kept wanting, and he didn’t push, but he also just kept – being there. Being good. Being nice to her.

  And she was…lonely. Hungry.

  They were about to walk into a totally new, totally uncertain, totally dangerous situation, and so that was her weakness, she reasoned, as she allowed herself to enjoy the sight of him there, poised on the edge of a question. Allowed herself to imagine.

  Envisioned throwing down the sweater and crossing the room in a few hurried strides. She would have to go up on her toes to get to him, and if she was off-balance from that, and from hurrying, then his arms were more than sturdy enough to grab on to her and grip tight. Her eyes would already be closing as she tipped her head back, and she would get to see the fast flare of surprise in his gaze before he threw caution to the wind and pressed his mouth to hers. She wondered how he would kiss: if he’d be gentle and careful at first, or if he’d plunge right in and fuck her mouth with his tongue.

  The pulse of hot want that flared in her belly shocked her. Left her shivering, a little.

  “Find anything?” he asked.

  She tugged the turtleneck on. “Yes,” she said. “I think it’ll work.” She turned her head, so he wouldn’t see the heat in her face, and picked up her holsters.

  He breathed a quiet laugh as she shrugged into it. “Plenty of knife room?”

  “Yes. The jacket should cover everything.” She slid knives and guns into their appropriate slots, and finally looked up to meet his gaze again when she felt like she had her expression under control. “What about you?”

  He stepped into the room, into the puddle of lantern light, and she saw that he wore his black pants and shirt, but that he’d traded his boots for a pair of too-small looking Oxfords, and that he’d pulled an ill-fitting gray suit jacket over it. “His dad was taller than him, apparently.” The jacket was at least twenty years out of style, same with the shoes. The effect was – less than stellar.

  “You still look like a military guy,” she said, after tilting her head to the side and giving his slow twirl serious consideration.

  “Really? With this?” He plucked at the jacket and made a face.

  “It’s not the clothes,” she said. “It’s just – you. The hair, and your face, and your arm situation.”

  His brows went up. “Arm situation?”

  “They’re – large.” His biceps strained the jacket’s sleeves. Bixby’s father hadn’t been half as fit, judging by the pinched lines across the jacket’s shoulders. One wrong move would have burst a seam.

  Lance’s brows climbed a notch higher. “And my face?”

  “It’s–” She felt her own heating again, damn it. “Angular,” she said. “Square.”

  “Squares have angles, yes,” he said, and sounded like he was choking down a laugh.

  “You look like you beat people up for a living,” she corrected. “Not like a doughy lawyer or ambassador or…whatever.”

  Her tone – forcefully stern, accompanied by a scowl – didn’t deter him. “Uh-huh.” He smiled. “We leave in five.” He turned around with one last lingering look, and she wished she had something to throw at his back.

  ~*~

  A lack of appropriate clothes decided it, but it was a good idea, anyway: Lance, Rose, and Gallo were set to approach John, while Gavin and Tris stayed dressed-out and fully armed. They would hang back, circle the perimeter, and stay on the radio, ready to intervene when the time came. Tris had a frankly stupid amount of Wraith Grenades, and both of them had obsidian-tipped rounds in their sidearms.

  The rain had picked up, by the time they walked the last stretch up a low rise to the gaping black mouth of the mine shaft. Bixby had offered umbrellas, and Rose didn’t like the way the rain drumming against them drowned out all other sound. She could hear the squish of their boots in the mud, and the occasional low, moaning call of the wind in the pines, her own heartbeat, but nothing else. A series of gas lanterns hung from the support joists at the head of the shaft, bobbing in the wind like fireflies. Beyond lay shadow; the deep of the earth.

  She wasn’t afraid, often; had never truly felt fearful on an op. But fear bit at her now, sharp and unwanted, its teeth sunk deep behind her ribs.

  She didn’t realize she’d come to a halt until Lance touched her arm, and then she startled hard.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, frowning.

  She forced herself to take a slow breath. “Fine.”

  Except the earth wanted to swallow her whole; drag her down to the pit. Where at least she would be with Beck, again…

  Lance stepped in closer – had to walk to her, because she’d halted and fallen behind them. He lifted his umbrella up over hers and leaned in, breath puffing as white mist between them. “If something’s the matter–”

  “Nothing’s the matter. I’m fine.”

  He searched her face a long moment – a wasteful moment. “I trust your instincts.”

  “My instincts are saying we need to get a move on.”

  He sighed, another boiling puff of vapor, but nodded, and pressed forward.

  Thankfully – and she hated the way she’d gone cold and clammy inside her borrowed clothes; the way her breath was unsteady and her legs wobbly – they didn’t have to go down into the mine. Lights glowed from inside the office: a mud-spattered double-wide trailer, outside of which the citizenry had heaped offerings: wilted bouquets, waterlogged stuffed animals, snuffed candles in glass votives.

  “Damn,” Gallo murmured. “It’s like a shrine.”

  “A false idol,” Lance said, darkly, and started up the short, wooden stairs.

  They knocked, because they were playing ambassadors here. A moment later, the door was opened by a young woman in a flowing cream dress, her hair in loose, frizzy waves down her shoulders. She wore a massive silver cross on a cord around her neck, and her pupils were dilated.

  Cult, Rose thought, immediately, a surge of assuredness. This conduit was running a damn cult out of this town.

  Lance introduced them, flashed his credentials quick enough to impress, but not long enough to reveal that he was a Rift Walker sergeant, and after a long moment of consideration, the girl nodded, and stepped back, opening the door. “You may come in.” Her voice had a low, dreamy quality to it, and Rose realized just why when they stepped in and were assaulted by the cloying scent of opium.
>
  All resemblances to a mining office had been cleared away from the interior of the trailer. Sad, upholstered furniture had been crammed into all the corners; Rose spotted bookshelves, and a small dining table, crystal decanters that looked pilfered from the mayor’s house. Steamer trunks, and wardrobes, and rugs layered one atop the other across the whole floor, once-white shag, and modest woven rope, and faded Persians. Young people dressed in cream and brown, men and women, sat cross-legged on the floor, a haze of smoke above them, passing a hookah pipe back and forth. And beyond them, sprawled elegantly in a wingback chair, watching, was a conduit.

  Even above the fug of opium, and body heat, and damp, Rose picked up on the conduit buzz; she clenched her jaw against it, and fought not to reach for her dagger, because this man? This heaven-sent body stealer? He was powerful.

  Morgan was powerful, too, she reflected, but the energy lifting off of her had never set Rose’s teeth on edge like this.

  “Steady,” Lance whispered.

  The conduit who called himself John spotted them, tilted his head in mild interest, and unfolded himself from the chair with quiet poise. He skirted his – followers, they could only be called followers – and approached them with a serene smile pinned to his otherwise unremarkable face. His beard was brown and shapeless; his short hair was all that prevented a Jesus comparison, but even this close a resemblance felt like heresy.

  “Hello,” he greeted, and his voice was so – soft. The aural equivalent of rubbing just-washed skin with fine velvet.

  Rose fought back a shudder.

  “Sybil,” he asked, inclining his head a fraction toward the girl. “Do we have new friends?”

  Definitely a cult.

  “They’re ambassadors,” the girl, Sybil, said. “From Washington, they said.”

  “Oh.” John’s brows lifted a fraction. “We don’t usually have visitors from quite so far away.”

  Lance offered a smile – and his hand, for a shake. Rose nearly grabbed him. No, she thought. Don’t let him touch you. She wanted to insert herself between them, dagger drawn.

  Lance said, “I’m Dr. Lancet, and these are my colleagues: Dr. Rosings, and Dr. Galway. We’ve heard about you, Mr…?”

  “John, please.” The conduit took Lance’s hand – Rose bit her lip – but it was only a handshake, harmless and unremarkable, though her own palm burned as if she’d been the one to touch him. “Though I confess I’m not sure what to make of that: you having heard of me.” His brows went concerned, his smile questioning. An innocent look – calculated innocence. Conduits didn’t react like humans, and the perfection of his human façade was unsettling. To say nothing of the high-as-a-kite young people strewn about his living room.

  “Well,” Lance said, smiling like a politician, with lots of teeth and too-obvious polite enthusiasm, “as you can imagine, most of the stories of – well, higher authority – that make it back to Washington are of a tragic nature. We’re always sending the military off to…well, to handle things. It’s rare that we hear of actual miracles.”

  John’s face smoothed. He folded his hands together in front of him. “I wouldn’t say miracles…”

  “Oh, but you should,” Sybil said. “There’s no other word for what you do.” The adoration shining in her eyes was repellent to Rose. “My arm,” she said, thrusting it toward them for inspection. “I burned it terribly. Dr. Watts couldn’t do anything! But, then, John…” Here she blushed, and bit her lip.

  John touched her shoulder, and she shifted so she could press more firmly against his palm; his fingers flexed.

  Rose knew, then, that he wasn’t merely helping these people. She traded a glance with Gallo, whose brows jumped once, suggestively, a smirk teasing at the corner of his mouth. She rolled her eyes.

  “You’re under no obligation, obviously,” Lance said, “but I wondered if we could maybe talk somewhere a little more private. The three of us. This world is a battered place. If possible, I’d like to see if powers like yours could be used to help rebuild it – rather than burn it to the ground.”

  John tilted his head, so the light glinted in his eyes, a quick pulse of a blue glow, there and gone. He seemed pleased. “Of course. Whatever I can do to help.”

  ~*~

  They went into the mine shaft.

  That fucking mine shaft.

  Only a little way, beneath the swaying lanterns, still within sight of the wide, pale rectangle of the opening.

  But Rose’s chest felt cinched with steel bands. The air was damp, and cold on her face, a poor comfort against the stress sweat sliding down her temples, and beneath her clothes. Her pulse pounded, and her palms itched, and if pressed she couldn’t have said what was wrong, only that she didn’t want to be down here.

  She’d never felt this way, and she hated it.

  Gallo and Lance seemed unbothered, though.

  “This was where the collapse happened?” Gallo asked, gaze trained on the rocky ceiling.

  “No, that was deeper in, at the first offshoot,” John said. “But I can take down one of these lanterns and we can see it.”

  “No,” Rose said, before she could stop herself.

  Lance shot her a concerned glance over his shoulder, before he put his smile back in place for John. “No, we believe it occurred, there’s no sense hiking all the way back. I’m curious, though, how you managed it.”

  John’s brows went up, his smile small and almost embarrassed. Are you really going to make me say it? his expression asked.

  “I’ve met conduits who can heal flesh – and who can render it to liquid,” Lance elaborated. “Who can wield fire. I’ve never met one who can lift a ton of rock and dirt off of a group of miners. I’m impressed, is what I’m getting at.”

  “Yes, well, we aren’t all the same, you know.”

  “I know. Of course.”

  You’re frightened.

  The voice seemed to come from behind her. John’s voice, though he was still actively speaking to Lance.

  Rose whirled around, flashlight beam swinging wildly across a dirt floor, and a rock wall, and nothing else.

  “…inanimate objects,” John was saying.

  In the blank space in front of Rose, John’s voice said, You are, aren’t you? I can feel it.

  His voice, she realized, going cold all over, was coming from inside her head.

  She turned back, but slowly. Gallo caught her gaze and mouthed you okay?

  She nodded, and tried to control her expression.

  “You lifted the debris back into its original place and fixed it there?” Lance asked.

  “Not exactly,” John said. “It was more a case of making it as if it had never happened.”

  That caught Gallo’s attention. “You can reverse time?”

  John’s expression turned pained. “Not time as a whole. I can alter the particular timeline of an object. Or of a person. That’s what happens when a conduit heals someone. The damage isn’t stitched; the body reverts back to its previous state.”

  “That’s not true,” Rose said, earning startled looks from all of them. “If it was, Gallo would have his old hand back. It would have regrown.”

  John stared at her a long moment. “You have experience with miracles yourself, I see,” he said, smiling.

  Gallo, the voice said inside her head, and she realized her mistake with a lurch.

  “Dr. Galway,” Lance said, sharply, shooting Rose a glare, “was involved in an accident not long ago. A conduit was able to provide advanced motor function for his prosthetic.” He turned back to John, trying to recapture his attention. “But it seems like your brand of healing works differently. We’re only trying to understand so that we can help more people – just like you’ve helped them.”

  John wasn’t listening, his gaze fixed on Rose.

  I could heal you, you know, his voice said, silky-soft inside her skull, almost like – no, no, she wouldn’t allow herself to make the comparison. She wouldn’t even think his name.


  But it was too late. John’s smile widened. Your precious King Arthur. Roasting in hell. I could make it so you don’t remember. You’d never have to shove thoughts of him aside again, because you wouldn’t have any thoughts of him at all.

  Rose reached inside her jacket. “Shut up,” she hissed through her teeth.

  “Rose,” Lance said, his tone commanding. He took a step toward her, all bowed up and about to rip his jacket seams. She was putting the op in danger; she was ruining everything.

  Not that it mattered, at this point.

  “He knows who we are,” she said. “He knows why we’re here.”

  “What?”

  “He’s inside my head.” She was shaking, but her grip was sure when she curled her hand around her dagger. “He’s talking to me in my mind.”

  “They can do that?” Gallo asked.

  Rose held the conduit’s stare, refusing to flinch. His irises had started to glow blue. “This one can.”

  “Rose,” Lance warned again, taking another step, hulking and authoritative in her periphery.

  If he reached her, he could stop her. She wasn’t strong enough to break loose from his grip, she knew.

  But she was faster than him.

  Out loud, John said, “It’s very charming how you still grieve for him. That you think he was worth it.”

  Rose moved.

  Lance made a grab for her, but she evaded him with a quick duck and whirl, crouching low beneath his swipe. When she came up, John had raised both his hands, glowing blue fire kindling in his palms.

  But she already had her own weapons drawn. The hell dagger in her left hand. Her gun in her right. She fired before she’d finished turning, and the obsidian-tipped round caught him square in the chest.

  He looked smug, in that first second of impact, but then his eyes popped wide as an exit wound painted the wall behind him with blood, and the obsidian hit his blood stream. Then he staggered back, hands falling to his sides.

  Rose wouldn’t get a better chance than this; she pursued. Dimly, she registered Gallo behind her, shouting into his ear piece, telling Tris and Gavin that they needed backup.