Long Dark Night

by Janci Patterson

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe we do stand a chance. If we don’t, why are you so afraid of us?”

  All eyes fixed on me. I’d said the words as a hunch, a bet, because I thought if I challenged them they might let me live. But they tasted like truth.

  Leather leaned back in his chair, his grin pulling so tight I could see the full outline of his jawbones. “What makes you think we are?” he asked me.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Jack asked.

  Braids leaned toward us, like a lion about to pounce. If we so much as faltered, we were dead.

  This was either going to be my best idea, or my last.

  “We’re powerful,” I said. “That’s why Vance is after us. It’s why Thorpe hates us. It’s why you want to kill us. Everyone is afraid.”

  “You’re right,” Braids said.

  I looked her straight in the eye. “But why?”

  “Because you have the potential to be just like us,” Braids said. “Barnabas can see every corpse in the world; Minas can command armies of thousands of corpses.”

  “And I did,” Leather said. “Fourth century.”

  “But I can take them from him,” Braids said, “every time.”

  “But not corpses like us,” I said. “We can’t be controlled.”

  “No, we can’t,” Leather said. “And that’s why everyone is afraid of you.”

  The emptiness of the room seeped into my bones. Maybe it would be easier to be someone Vance could control. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel the need to threaten and torture me.

  “I’m not a threat to you,” I said, “because I don’t care about power.”

  “You don’t care today,” Leather said. “But you might change your mind tomorrow.”

  “No,” I said. “I just want to be safe, and live my undeath in peace. That’s the difference between me and Vance—maybe the difference between me and you. I might have power, but I’m not inclined to use it to take over anything. That’s why you don’t need to worry about me.”

  There was a long silence, and the Old Ones exchanged looks. At last Braids nodded, and the other two followed.

  “If you kill Vance,” Leather said, “we’ll see what happens then.”

  “If I don’t fight you for the territory,” I said, “I’ll have proven it’s the truth.”

  The three of them looked at each other.

  “Yes,” Braids said. “I suppose that would be more compelling than your word.”

  Leather smiled. “And more likely, Vance will take care of you, and that’ll be the end of it.”

  Jack glared at Leather, but he wisely stayed quiet.

  “Very well,” Tux said. “I’m mollified. Best of luck to you.”

  “Best of luck in our suicide mission,” I said.

  All three of them smiled.

  And Jack and I stood up and left while we still had the chance.

  Nineteen

  Alicia waited for us just outside, biting off her long fingernails and watching them grow back. She looked up at us, a nail currently jammed in her mouth.

  “You’re okay,” she said.

  “You sound surprised,” I said.

  She didn’t deny it. “Did they say they’d help?”

  I elbowed Jack. “Genius here offered to assassinate Vance in exchange for protection. That’s the only reason they let us go.”

  Jack smiled.

  Alicia gaped at us, then ushered us up the stairs and away from the listening ears of the Old Ones’ corpse guards.

  “You really think you can do that?” Alicia asked as we climbed.

  “No,” I said, at the same time Jack said “Yes.”

  I smacked him in the arm, hard, because I could. “It was a good tactic. But we have about as much chance of killing Vance as a housefly has of killing a horse.”

  Jack climbed the stairs ahead of me, shaking his head. “I don’t see what choice we have,” Jack said. “When he comes for us, we have to be ready.”

  “There is no ready,” I said.

  Jack stopped short and wheeled around so fast that I ran right into his chest. He grabbed me by the shoulders and held on tight. “What do you want to do then?” he asked. “Walk out into sunlight? Cut off your own head? Or just lie down and wait for him to come take you?”

  “Jack,” Alicia said from below me. But Jack didn’t even look at her.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what else we’re going to do.”

  I stared at him, my whole body shaking. We’d come to the Old Ones for help, but barely gotten out alive. What was I going to do? Wait for Vance to get me? There was no help coming. There was no one to fight for us, except us.

  What am I? I thought. An infant crying in the night. An infant crying for the light and with no language but a cry.

  “We’re not going to wait for him,” I said. “That’ll never work.”

  Jack paused, looking at me.

  I drew a deep, steadying breath, and held it until I was ready to speak again. “We’re going to go after him,” I said. “If we want to survive this, we take the fight to Vance.”

  Alicia put a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  And she was right.

  But going after him was the least bad of a lot of hellish options.

  Jack was right. I’d rather die fighting than ever be his victim again.

  The drive through Los Angeles felt like it took longer on the way back, even with the water bottles of blood Drew produced from the cooler in the trunk. He and Alicia looked nervously back at me, as if they wanted to say something, but didn’t know what. Even Jack stared quietly out the window, not fidgeting, not bending his limbs improbably.

  “You can’t do this,” Alicia said finally. “You can’t surprise him, right? He’ll know you’re coming.”

  She was right. But I’d been running from him for so long. Every time he’d come after me, I’d been unprepared.

  “He’ll know we’ve been to see the Old Ones,” I said. “He’ll probably think they threatened me and sent me back.”

  “I suppose that’s something,” Alicia said. “But it probably won’t take him long to figure out why you’re really there.”

  The certainty of what I was going to do settled over me. I couldn’t live like this anymore—always on the run, waiting for Vance’s next move. He thought he could herd me like a sheep, and the truth was, he could. Even though I got away from Vance physically, he still defined my every movement. That life wasn’t worth living. Not anymore. I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

  I’d be free of Vance either way.

  I wrapped my hand around my cross, printing it into my skin. I’d had enough. Vance wanted me back, I would come. And only one of us would make it out alive.

  “I’m going,” I said. “As soon as possible.”

  Alicia fidgeted with her sleeves, and Drew kept glancing at Jack and I in the rear view.

  I closed my eyes. In my gut, I felt a pit, cold as the absolute zero of the Old Ones’ room.

  My eyes flew open again. That empty sensation wasn’t coming from my gut. It was radiating from Jack, so faint I wouldn’t have noticed it if it didn’t remind me so much of being near the Old Ones. I concentrated on it.

  Seeing Jack wasn’t visual, the way it was with regular corpses. Jack warped the space around him slightly, like a black hole, sucking in energy. The lack of him was there, tugging at me so gently I’d missed it repeatedly. There was nothing there. A howling pit of nothing.

  An invisible person.

  “Besides,” I said. “I can think of a few more things we might have in our favor.”

  When we drove up the narrow road to the mortuary, I reached ahead, going over the area a bit at a time. It took me a few minutes, but I found them: two spots, cold and empty, like less than nothing was in them.

  Thorpe and Delia.

  If I could find them, I’d be able to find Vance.

  When we parked, I climbed out and h
eaded straight into the house, headed for Thorpe. Going after Vance, we needed every advantage we could get. Now that I understood something, perhaps I could bargain for more.

  I found Thorpe in the mortuary office, tabulating numbers in a finance ledger, each number small and square and perfectly aligned.

  I leaned against the door frame. “They have computers for that now, you know.”

  “And I have one,” Thorpe said. “Right there.” He jabbed his pencil behind him at a dust covered ancient monitor.

  “We’re going after Vance,” I said. “We’re going to try to kill him.”

  “Good riddance,” Thorpe said. “You’re shark bait, and I won’t miss you swimming around in my pond.”

  “The deal,” I said, “is that we let the Old Ones have the territory when Vance is gone, proving we aren’t a threat to them, and they let us live unmolested.”

  That got Thorpe’s attention. For half a second he forgot to look cynical. “They agreed to that.”

  “They did,” I said. “For the people who take out Vance. Which isn’t you, unless you come with us.”

  Thorpe snorted. “If you didn’t notice, I live here unmolested already.”

  “On the border of their territory,” I said. “Unless you happen to live in the middle of nowhere by choice.”

  Thorpe raised an eyebrow. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t like people.”

  I shrugged. “You’ve tolerated us well enough. Besides, you run a mortuary. You have to deal with people.”

  Thorpe glared at me. “You’re going to die. You know that, right?”

  I thought of what the Old Ones said—Vance killed his failures. That meant he feared us. And I was a threat—so much of a threat, even ancient corpses worried about leaving me alive.

  “Vance went to a lot of trouble to scare me into submission,” I said. “I think that means I’m powerful enough to hurt him.” But a little voice nagged at me, reminding me that I could barely speak in the man’s presence.

  Who was I to stand up to a monster like Vance?

  An infant crying in the night.

  Thanks for nothing, Tennyson. Perhaps I needed to lean toward Dylan Thomas and rage against the dying of the light. Even if I was likely to die along with it.

  I looked Thorpe in the eye. “I have to go. And if I die, I die. I’m going to save the last dart for him—the same kind I used to shoot Delia. It’ll give us a fighting chance, at least.”

  Thorpe snorted. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  He opened his ledger again, as if the conversation was clearly over. “I know how to find you, now,” I said. “I can feel you, and Jack, and Delia.”

  For the second time, Thorpe looked surprised. “How’d you figure that out? I thought you were denser than a brick wall.”

  I ignored the slight. “You feel like little bits of the Old Ones. Like emptiness that gathers strength over time.”

  “That’s a rather poetical way to put it,” Thorpe said. “Doesn’t mean I’ll revise my opinion of you.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “But I’d still like your help.”

  “Girl, if I wanted to face down Vance, I’d have done it years ago. You’re all going to die. It’s a stupid waste.”

  “And what do you think I should do?” I asked. “Hole up in a mortuary for the rest of my life like you?”

  Thorpe gave me a hard stare. He’d just finally been willing to help me, so I should have stopped there, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “You’re a coward,” I said. “You lost a fight eighty years ago and you’ve been sulking ever since. You know why Vance leaves you alone? Because you’re nobody, and he thinks you’ll always be nobody, so you’re not worth his time. So don’t tell me about waste.”

  I turned and walked away. We had a lot to do and only a few hours to do it. Thorpe was probably right. I was probably going to die, no matter how much we prepared.

  But better dead than Vance’s pawn.

  We waited for the next day to leave for Salt Lake. We could take one of the sun cars, but even then, we might have to stop for gas, or step out into the light while approaching the hospital.

  Going at night would be safer.

  Thorpe ordered extra blood from their supplier, since they’d been feeding both Jack and I, and Drew packed several pints into the cooler for our trip. He pulled the cars into the garage before sunrise, and the four of us spent a good chunk of the day hidden behind the tarp Thorpe had used to patch the wall, searching them for more of the drug.

  We didn’t find any. If Vance didn’t give her very much at a time, it was even more likely it worked on him.

  I practiced shooting with the empty dart that had hit Delia. Drew tried to teach me to shoot a pistol on the concrete slab of the garage, but my first bullet hit the drywall instead of the target and went right through, and we decided we were better off not punching more holes in Thorpe’s garage for the sun to beam through.

  “A weapon’s only your friend if you know how to use it,” Drew said. “Otherwise, it’s better to be unarmed. You’re not bringing a liability that can be used against you.”

  I nodded. “And that’s why you’re staying here, too.”

  Drew glared at me. “This is my fight, too. Alicia should stay, but—”

  Alicia spoke from the doorway. “Alicia can speak for herself,” she said. “And she wants to come, too.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve just barely begun to use my powers. I won’t be any match for Vance. Without Thorpe, you’ll be turned against us instantly. And even if he came, if anything happened to him, Vance would own you, and there wouldn’t be a thing I could do about it.”

  They were both quiet. They’d known that already, of course. But I appreciated their offers, even if they could only be offered in spirit.

  “When I come back,” I said, “we can go anywhere.”

  Drew nodded, and Alicia looked like she might have cried if she could have formed tears.

  “Jack and I will do this alone,” I said. “Though he can’t shoot a gun any better than me.”

  Drew and Alicia looked at each other. I knew they were thinking they were never going to see us again.

  They were probably right.

  I wandered downstairs and found Jack lying on a Love Sac next to Drew’s foosball table. He sat up as I walked in.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  “I’ve been trying to find Alicia and Drew in my mind like you can,” he said. “But I haven’t been able to do it.”

  “It’ll probably take some time,” I said. “I didn’t develop the ability for months.”

  Jack nodded. “I just wish I could be more help.”

  I sat down next to him on the sac and let myself fall naturally into him. Jack looked surprised, and I realized this was the first time I’d come to him, instead of just allowing him to touch me.

  Still, it felt like what I wanted.

  Jack wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. “Before you ask,” he said, “no, I still don’t hate you.”

  Jack’s Zippo lighter fell out of his pocket and slid between us, and I picked it up and flipped it open, looking at the flame.

  “Our hair grows back,” Jack said.

  I gave him a dirty look, and he laughed. “Don’t freak out. I tried it in the shower, so I wouldn’t burn the place down or anything.”

  “You are ridiculous,” I said. But I flipped the lighter closed and cuddled into his chest. His arms tightened around me, and we lay there for a minute, breathing our unnecessary breaths.

  I turned and looked up into his eyes.

  “I’m still sorry this happened to you,” I said. “But I’m glad you’re here with me.”

  “Me, too,” Jack said. He looked down at my lips and then back at my eyes, like he was asking permission.

  And then I kissed him.

  Last time had been rushed and terrifying, with Vance calling and Jack dying and Leo lying in his own blood. Thi
s time we both moved slowly, taking our time. Our dead bodies muted the physical sensation, but the thrill of being close to him, of touching someone I trusted and who trusted me back—

  It was more than I thought I’d ever feel again in my life.

  It was one more thing I knew I had to fight for, even if I died trying.

  Night fell again more quickly than I wanted. Now that I’d decided to face Vance, it seemed like the seconds ticked forward too quickly, bringing me inevitably toward him.

  When the sun set and we went out to climb in the car and begin the drive, we found Thorpe sitting in the front seat of the car.

  “You’re coming?” Jack asked him.

  Thorpe waved a hand at me. “I can’t let the little girl show me up, can I?”

  No one argued with him.

  “Besides,” Thorpe said. “After he kills you, he’ll be coming for me. April painted a giant target on this place.”

  I wanted to apologize, but I didn’t. It wasn’t my fault I was running for my life.

  “Then you have one more thing to kill him for,” I said.

  Thorpe grunted, but he didn’t disagree.

  As we pulled onto the freeway out of Baker, past the world’s tallest thermometer, I stared out the window, watching the road that would bring us closer and closer to Vance. I wrapped my cross in my palm again, trying to remember all the words to that poem I’d memorized for Dad. And yet we trust, I thought, over and over. And yet we trust.

  Twenty

  We rolled into Salt Lake at four AM. Whether or not Vance was tracking the car, he’d already be able to sense us. He’d know we were here.

  All three of us. Thorpe’s help was welcome—even necessary.

  But it also meant we couldn’t even pretend we were coming in peace.

  Thorpe drove us directly toward the hospital.

  “Are you nervous?” Jack asked me as we drove through the nearby streets.

  “Yes,” I said. In truth, everything in me said that this was a mistake. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I said. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Jack said.

  “I don’t know if it will,” I told him.