No Less Days

by Amanda G. Stevens

  “Where is he?” Zac asked.

  The automatic ice maker dropped cubes with a clank, and David jolted. He tromped back to the kitchen, where Zac was tugging his coat from a chair and shrugging into it without taking his eyes off Moira.

  “We’re always going to know now,” Zac said, “and we’re not going to give this up. Tell us where he is.”

  She shook her head, a bit of the spark returning to her eyes.

  “Fine.” He motioned her toward the back door.

  David armed himself, though Moira said Colm hadn’t. Zac declined to carry any of David’s other weapons. If his mental scars were deep enough, he might not be able to handle firearms anymore. That, or he couldn’t fathom putting a bullet into Colm.

  David drove them into town in more silence. Nothing to plan. They’d find him or they wouldn’t. They’d be able to restrain him or they wouldn’t. In twelve minutes he parked at the dark edge of the lot behind the Harbor Vale Family Inn.

  Fewer witnesses here than at the big chain hotel. Fewer places to hide too. But if Colm didn’t know they were coming, this might be his preference. It was the shy cousin of the Best Western—no continental breakfast or usable pool, but no hundred rooms either. It was a two-story building with ten rooms per floor, noise restrictions enforced by the owner himself.

  Zac would have stayed somewhere glitzier. Colm might be quiet enough to crash here.

  “Take care,” Moira whispered.

  Of themselves? Of a killer? The ugliest edge in David’s gut could gag her and leave her zip-tied to the steering wheel. He couldn’t gauge when she would shift again, from fear and remorse to defiance and detachment. He got out of the Jeep and opened the passenger door for her.

  “Are you going to start yelling for help?”

  She glared at him. Defiance was back.

  “It’ll do him no good. Any witnesses will be more likely to notice him if he makes a dash.”

  Still not a word. David held her elbow in a grip he had to check. He looked across the top of the Jeep. Zac stood on the other side, watching him, eyes bright in the floodlight.

  “I want to talk to him,” Zac said. “First.”

  “Zac …” Sentimentalism might not be the best plan.

  “David, I’m going in there to talk to him. You can come if you want to.”

  “No, go on. I’ll guard the perimeter.”

  More sensible anyway than the three of them getting turned around in a corridor while Colm made it outside and vanished. Zac nodded.

  “Take me in with you,” Moira said.

  “Not a chance.”

  “It’s important that I speak to him—immediately. Please, Zachary.”

  He didn’t bother to answer her.

  The building was old, but the management was modern and conscientious about identity protection. Tony Grissom knew David the way David knew him—the bookstore guy, the little hotel guy—and that knowledge would by no means earn an affirmative that Colm was here. Better to rely on the vulnerabilities of the structure itself. The staff entrance at the back was often unlocked for late-night arrivals to bring in their luggage without disturbing the rest of the floor.

  For a silent hour they waited for someone to come to that door—a family hauling four kids and more bags than seemed necessary. The youngest child looked no older than three, and she whimpered in her father’s arms as they all plodded around the building to the back. The hotel clerk escorted them, pointed out their room from the outside, and disappeared back to his desk. Amid their coming and going, Zac sauntered up to the door and walked through it as if he owned the business. The worn travelers didn’t look at him twice.

  From David’s vantage point behind the building, both side entrances as well as the back door were visible. The front was only windows, balconies on the second floor. A brisk wind kicked up in his face as he and Moira stood against the Jeep.

  Zac couldn’t make inquiries door to door. He might spend the night in some corner waiting for Colm to show himself. David and Moira might spend the night out here judging each other.

  At least the sun would be up in a few hours. David loosened his grip on Moira’s arm, and she leaned against the passenger door and huddled into her coat.

  This was the woman who’d hugged him in the Phoenix airport with a beaming smile. The woman who’d spoken with understanding about the future facing him and Tiana. She resembled herself but little now, a distance in her eyes that David couldn’t bridge. As if she could have carried this secret forever and its uncovering, not its keeping, had broken her.

  If that was true, though … “Why aren’t you running?” David said. “Why did you come back at all?”

  She stared across the blacktop lot and folded her arms.

  “If you believe we’re right, you believed it long before now. If you knew Zac would do what you couldn’t, you’d have told him.”

  “No,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t have told Zac. Ever.”

  “He’s not as broken as you think he is.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  Ten minutes later, the back door opened.

  TWENTY

  Zac stepped outside first. Colm came close behind him, and David surged forward a few steps before he got a glimpse of the man’s hands. No gun. He wasn’t prodding Zac forward. He was following him.

  David spared a look for Moira. She was watching the approaching pair like a white-eyed hare in a trap. “Surrender?”

  “No,” she said.

  Nothing made sense. “You’re not afraid we’ll kill him. Are you?”

  She was trembling. She bit her bottom lip and didn’t look away from Zac and Colm.

  “Moira, I need to know. Do you fear Colm? Has he made you fear him?”

  She didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Then she shook her head.

  He couldn’t decide whether to believe her.

  Zac and Colm reached them, and Colm held up his hands.

  “Thank you,” he said, maybe to all of them. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”

  More words that made no sense. David slid behind the wheel and curled numb hands around it. Zac got in beside him and met his eyes, a long empty look.

  Not a word was spoken as David drove. Back to his place—nowhere else to go—but bringing that calm, quiet man sitting behind him inside his home, letting Colm know where he lived, rubbed against the grain of David’s instincts. He drove with palms sweating on the steering wheel, his mouth dry. The race of his pulse felt like more than adrenaline. And all the while, watching Colm in the mirror, he tried to see a true killer. And failed.

  Dawn was creeping around the silhouettes of trees when he reached home. The moment the Jeep was fully stopped, Zac flung the passenger door wide and got out. He stayed in the yard as David led Colm and Moira inside.

  Not enough beds or couches. But no one was ready to sleep yet.

  “Have you discussed it?” Colm said when they reached the living room. “You know. What’s to be done with me.”

  “Suggestions?” David bit the word.

  “Execution wouldn’t be out of the question.”

  “Of course it is,” Moira said. “No one wants that, Colm.”

  “Hold on. Zac should hear this.” Colm walked out into the yard.

  They should restrain him. Lock him in a room somewhere. Something. Instead, they were following him, David and Moira both. The surreal had taken over.

  “You could exsanguinate me.” Colm spoke to Zac. “Put a little suction behind it, and I’m sure it’s possible to drain our blood before the serum can replenish it.”

  “Shut up.” Zac seemed to choke on the words.

  “I’m not going to stop being what I am.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Immortal, mate. Displaced from the cycle of life and death.”

  “Colm, it was an accident. That’s all it was.”

  “I thought you believed in God.” Colm advanced on him, halted just outside Zac’s per
sonal space. “No accidents. We have a purpose. It’s just you three—four, judging from David’s scowl—are hell-bent on denying it.”

  “Then why did you pick up your phone at the hotel? Why did you come out of that room and follow me outside?”

  Colm’s gaze darted around to all of them, came to rest on Moira. “I guess I owe you one.”

  She ducked her head.

  “Decided to bring the real me into the light?”

  “David found the body. Put it together. I had no part in it.”

  “Hmmm,” he said.

  He might bolt any moment. David’s muscles tensed. Preparing. He might have to tackle the man. At least his privacy fence meant only one direction Colm could flee—through the gate to the front yard. The wind kicked up, stinging David’s eyes.

  “I’m not going to stop,” Colm said. “And I don’t want to keep going.”

  The chill on his skin wasn’t from the wind now. “Speak plainly.”

  “I’m asking you to put an end to me. I can’t be other than what I am, so it’s time for me to stop being. I’m ready.” He looked to Zac. “Really, I am.”

  “No,” Zac said.

  “You were never supposed to know, but you do now, so that’s no accident either, mate. I don’t want to end myself. I want to be ended by all of you.”

  Zac backed away.

  “Colm,” Moira whispered.

  He swiveled toward her, and she stepped back. “Hush, pet.” He turned back to Zac. “Together you’ll find some way to do it. Call up Simon. He’ll have theories.”

  Zac grabbed Colm by the arms and shook him. “I said no.”

  Colm returned the grip. “Don’t make me bear it forever.”

  David’s breath scraped his lungs. Such familiar words. From him, a prayer. Almost a psalm.

  “Do their loved ones still bear it?” Zac shoved him away, and Colm staggered.

  “I should have come to you years ago.” Colm’s breaths seemed to come as difficult as David’s. “But you’ve just made that point for me, Zac. It’s mine to bear. And besides, it was you.”

  Zac braced his hands on his hips and clenched his jaw.

  “I knew you wouldn’t embrace our purpose. Of all of us, you never would. And it helped, seeing myself the way you saw me. I didn’t want to lose that.”

  “Solution: stop murdering people.”

  “That option isn’t open to me.”

  “Do you enjoy it?” Zac spat the words at him.

  “I’m performing a predetermined task. Enjoyment isn’t required.”

  “Answer me straight.”

  Colm gave a slow blink. “No.”

  It was the last thing anyone said. Zac tramped back into the house, and after a moment they followed him. Once inside, David expected the deliberations to continue, but everyone remained quiet, exhausted more from the ordeal than the night without sleep.

  He offered Moira the only bed. Colm stretched out on the couch, and David tied his hands and feet with coarse twine from a catch-all drawer. Zac motioned David out of the room, all the way to the end of the hall.

  “Your home’s been seized and occupied,” Zac said.

  David opened the linen closet and scrounged for the sleeping bag he’d months ago shoved onto a shelf somewhere. He offered it to Zac.

  “If you want to sleep, I’ll take first watch over him.”

  Zac shook his head. “You go ahead. I’ll stay up.”

  “All night?”

  “What’s left of it.”

  No explanation needed. Zac wouldn’t sleep whether he was guarding Colm or not. David nodded. “I’ll sleep in the tent.”

  “Tent?”

  “In the backyard. I sleep outside by choice often enough.”

  “I’ll wait a few hours and let Simon know we have Colm … in custody.” Zac looked away. “This isn’t your catastrophe.”

  “If that were true, I’d never bring you all back here.”

  “Chances are good you’ll live to regret it.”

  David gripped the man’s shoulder, and Zac looked at him, eyes bleak but steady. “You’re my people now. I’ll not desert ye.”

  A corner of Zac’s mouth tried to smile. They exchanged a nod, and David went outside.

  He shuffled into the yard on old feet. Raked old hands through old hair. His bones didn’t creak and grate with arthritis. But the spirit housed by this ageless frame was convulsed with Colm’s words.

  David knelt in the grass at the door of the tent. “Lord …”

  His voice broke something. He fought for words beyond that one, but Colm’s blotted them out.

  “It’s mine to bear…. Don’t make me bear it forever.”

  “Lord.” He had to pray. But that awareness was guttering toward darkness, and the words didn’t come. Couldn’t.

  He lay for an hour with the canvas roof above him, eyes open, unblinking until they dried out. The prayer would not come—not a word of it. At last he sat up, groped for the door zipper, and emerged into the damp new day. He slipped into the house. All was dark, quiet. David took his keys from the rack by the landline phone and crept to the living room.

  Colm lay asleep, and Zac sat in a chair across from him, head in his hands.

  “Hey,” David whispered.

  Zac jerked up straight in the chair. He hadn’t been asleep, but his thoughts had been elsewhere.

  “I’m driving for a bit.”

  Zac nodded and made a gesture of dismissal without meeting David’s eyes.

  He trudged to the Jeep, got in, and turned the key. He drove until he realized where he was going, then kept driving until he got there.

  His shaking hand bounced the keys around until he caught the right one. He let himself into the bookstore and flipped on the light. Quiet enfolded him in an embrace that should have softened his edges, calmed his heartbeat, opened his lungs. Sometimes the books seemed to breathe on the shelves, to add their personalities to the store’s old soul. But tonight it was a building. The books were lifeless, paper and ink. No comfort while he fought whatever it was, this squeezing distress that stopped his tongue from forming needed words.

  He needed …

  Habit tried to push the thought away, but the moment it formed, it burned away all other thoughts.

  He needed someone here to pray. For him.

  No. Praying aloud with Tiana yesterday—it had been the first time he’d done so in many years. Someone here with him, praying for him? He couldn’t.

  “I can’t be other than what I am, so it’s time for me to stop being.”

  Skeletons. A row of them. Eleven. Soil caking them, deep underground, worms crawling between ribs and phalanges.

  “God,” David said. Loneliness opened like a grave before him, and headlong he toppled into it.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket.

  Her phone rang a long time, but he couldn’t focus to count the rings. Then her voice came slow, husky. Sweet.

  “David?”

  He looked across the foyer at the old regulator clock between the windows. Five ten in the morning. He tried to speak.

  “David, are you there?”

  “Tiana.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I … I …”

  “Are you home?”

  “No.”

  Fabric rustled over the line, and then her voice came sharper, awake. “Where are you? What’s going on?”

  “I needed to hear a voice.” The absurdity of the words didn’t strike him until they were out in the air, irretrievable. “I’m sorry. Go back to sleep, please.”

  “I will not. Talk to me, tell me what’s wrong.”

  “It’s …”

  “Did something happen with Zac and Moira?”

  He propped his throbbing head in his hand. “Aye.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The store.”

  “So I’m not the only one who hides away there.” A smile lifted the words.

  He couldn’t speak
.

  “David?”

  “It’s … worse than … Tiana, I …” Yours to bear now. Forever. He let the nearest bookcase take his weight.

  “Can I help?” Her voice was quiet now.

  “Would you pray?”

  A surprised pause. “You mean after we hang up?”

  “No, now, for me, for …” He sat in a corner, knees up. “For strength.”

  The next twenty minutes blurred. Tiana’s voice anchored him, first a prayer, then a quiet monologue. She should have been a lifeline. Knowing she was there on the other end of the line, knowing she knew his true self, should have been enough. But some darkness still lurked nearby.

  He jolted as a key rattled in the back-door lock. On his feet by reflex, so fast his weary head grew light for a moment, but then the room steadied. He was staring at the door when it opened and Tiana stepped through the doorway.

  She wore a purple zip hoodie and heather-gray lounge pants and neon-green tennis shoes. Her hair was wrapped beneath a red silk scarf. Not a bit of makeup touched her face. She went to him in a few strides, dropping her keys on the front counter as she passed, halting before him and taking both his cold hands in hers.

  “Now,” she said, “we can talk.”

  “Why …?”

  She squeezed his hands. “It felt important for me to come. Like talking on the phone wasn’t enough right now.”

  He pulled her into his arms and clung to her. Surely this would dispel the shroud around him. Tiana held him in return, and they stood a long minute. But the quaking in David’s core didn’t stop. Soon the outer shell would be trembling too.

  “You haven’t slept at all,” she said.

  “No.”

  “Can you tell me about whatever it is?”

  “No.” His arms tightened around her. “You were right about Zac. He’s an innocent party.”

  “And … Moira isn’t?”

  “I hope she is. I can’t figure her. But it’s …” He had to say it. “I think the thing is too great for me. I don’t think I’m strong enough to bear it.”

  “Don’t make me bear it forever.”

  He shuddered.

  Tiana rubbed a circle over his back. “Maybe you’re not.”

  Ice trickled into his bloodstream to join the cursed serum. If even Tiana thought he wasn’t able to do this … His voice shook. “Years I’ve asked Him to make me able to carry it, what He’s given me to carry. But now it’s …”