"Well?" McDole's voice was encouraging.
"I got something to do today," the dark-haired youth finally managed. "Could someone else help Calie and the doctor?"
McDole studied him, then turned his attention to draining the coffee filters, layering the air with the rich smell of the brew. "If you think it's important, then yes. Someone else can be found."
C.J. hesitated. Was what he wanted to do really that important? Enough to put the rest of the people with whom he lived to extra trouble? He hung his head.
"What was it you wanted to do?" McDole asked. "Do you need help?" He offered a steaming mug and C.J. reached for it, his callused hands oblivious to the heat.
"I, uh—"
"Well, it's none of my business anyway." McDole's tone was carefully level and C.J. glanced at him suspiciously. Just what was he up to? "You seldom have time for yourself, something we all need," McDole continued. "But if you happen to be outside, you might keep an eye out for that girl we saw the day before yesterday. She looked about your age."
C.J.'s breath drained silently through his nose and he fought a grin. That sly old fart, he thought admiringly. He knew the whole time; he just wanted to see me squirm.
"Sure," C.J. responded as casually as he could. "I'll keep my eyes open." McDole raised his cup in a toast and hid his smile behind the steam.
"But only if you think of it."
~ * ~
C.J. found the motor scooter, a yellow Vespa bearing a sticker that read VESPA OF CHICAGO and listing an address fifty blocks north, abandoned on the bridge, and he knew stale gasoline had probably done it in. There was nothing to indicate where its owner had gone and he wandered into the congested buildings of central downtown more out of boredom than anything else. It was doubtful he'd find the girl unless she showed herself on purpose, and what was the chance of that? Still, he couldn't give up so soon. Once C.J. had craved privacy and the safety it offered, a harbor away from his father's brutality and the squalor and violence of the housing project in which he'd lived. Now Chicago's empty buildings hulked like great boxes with a million brooding eyes. Did the girl watch him from behind one of the windows that sparkled at every turn?
He ambled along, finally stopping at the White Hen Pantry in the apartment building at Lake and Dearborn. The market's door had already been shattered, but from the dust layering the fragments of glass it had happened a month ago or longer. Water stains crept past the threshold of the cracking linoleum, and while the contents of most of the shelves were still intact, here and there it was evident the rats had been at work. In the early months the rats had multiplied with frightening speed, becoming a major danger to the health and food supply of the humans who'd managed to survive, then starvation had hit among the vampires and the number of rodents had dropped dramatically. They still bred in the deep tunnel system and sewers, though they were seldom seen in the open. C.J. scanned the shelves but the signs of another person—an opened rather than chewed box or an empty can or two—were few and crusted with age. A deli counter ran beneath the southern windows, but he averted his gaze and breathed through his mouth as he went past it, and he'd learned long ago not to open freezer doors. Not much to see and he didn't want to eat in here anyway. Most of the liquid—ketchup, soda, bottled juice, you name it—from exploded bottles and jars had dried up; still, the smell was overwhelming.
He grabbed a can of soup that looked free of rust stains or punctures and a box of Ritz crackers. Outside it was damned cold and heavily overcast, but still better than the store, with its smell of rot and crumbling sense of claustrophobia. Lake Street and its overhead grid of train trestles cast too many shadows, even in the daytime, and after a minute C.J. moved on, the hope that he'd find the girl finally starting to fade. He circled the convoluted Dubuffet sculpture that graced the patterned sidewalk at the main doors to the State of Illinois Center, then spotted the granite wall that rimmed the entrance to the Daley Center's underground garage across the street. He settled there, a good twenty feet above the entrance, where he could see the Picasso and the plaza through the glass walls around the lobby of the Daley Center. Directly in front of him was the fountain, dry and filled with bits of trash. He still remembered a third-grade field trip where his teacher had shown them the plaza and the building when the name had just been changed from its former title of Civic Center. C.J. pried the can open and sniffed it, then ate and hoped for the best. One of these days he and the rest of the underground would probably end up with food poisoning when the stuff started to go bad. Most of the jars and cans had burst over the winter; only the denser items with less water, like beef stew, canned meat, or thick soup, were left. C.J. figured they'd end up existing on mixes of dried soup and lake water. If they made it.
When he was through with his lunch, C.J. gathered his trash, stuffed it in the empty cracker box, and thought briefly about leaving it on the wall in the hope that someone would see it and know that there were still people in the city who lived and ate what they'd been meant to, then he looked up at the dark glass of the Daley Center and changed his mind. What if by leaving this sign of life he endangered someone's hiding place? He couldn't risk it. He leapt off the wall and took a step to regain his balance when someone behind him spoke.
"Hi."
C.J. whirled and brought the crossbow to firing position with deadly speed; beneath his finger the trigger was only a fraction of an inch away from killing as his heart slamdanced in his chest. The practice and danger of the past months showed in his skill; even with his pulse thundering his aim was steady.
The girl never flinched. "My name is Jo," she said.
"Joe?" he said stupidly. He was acutely aware of everything: the sound of the wind turning the corner of the County Building from the west, a scrap of paper scuttling along the street in its wake like a half-crazed squirrel, the rise and fall of the girl's chest beneath the prominent bones of her shoulders. Somewhere to his left a sparrow twittered. "That's a boy's name." Flash thought for the day, he thought disdainfully.
"It's short for Jovina." She raised a hand and pointed south; C.J. watched her finger float upward, then jerked and stared at her suspiciously, wondering if she was hypnotizing him. Most of the upper half of her dress was ripped away; the rest fell in burned tatters. She didn't seem to notice that one of her breasts, pale and hardly developed, could be seen through the ruined material, nor did the thirty-five-degree temperature seem to bother her. "I live in St. Peter's," she said.
"I've been in there," he said flatly. "It's empty."
She smiled then, and the sight made C.J. think he was going a little crazy, because he'd just met her, only thirty seconds ago, and she was standing here half-naked and weird, yet he was thinking already that she might be okay. "You were there a couple of weeks ago," she said calmly. "I watched you."
"But why didn't you say something?" His cool facade fell away and he looked at the girl in astonishment. How could someone see him without him knowing it?
"It wasn't time yet." She turned and C.J. found himself staring at a mass of impossibly long white hair that was nearly indistinguishable from the pallid flesh of her back.
"Can you come with me?" she asked. "There's someone I'd like you to meet. She can't stay with me forever."
"Who can't stay with you forever?" Score another intelligent question, he thought. Christ.
"Her name is Louise." Jo's eyes found his and for an instant he sort of got . . . lost in them, like fading out or locking into a light stupor when you were tired. Only he wasn't staring into space, he was staring into Jo, and when he came back a moment later, he knew without a doubt that he had to do whatever she said. It wasn't a matter of trust at all; it was . . .
The future.
He lowered the crossbow.
"Lead on."
2
REVELATION 12:16
And the earth helped the woman. . . .
~ * ~
Amazing, Louise thought. Un . . . believable.
Sitti
ng on the front steps of St. Peter's and waiting for Jo to return, Louise ignored the cold and held up her hands, turning both front and back, flexing each finger and enjoying the feel of the wind between each digit. It was, indeed, a miracle that they were healed, but this went even further—every single scar or blemish that had ever been present on her hands was totally gone.
The cold had seeped through her clothes and Louise hoisted herself up and went back inside, still peering at the side of her right hand. Before her fall onto the street grating, she'd had a twisted, inch-long scar there, caused by shattering the glass door in the foyer of her building with the heel of her hand the summer she was eleven. Now the scar was missing, and even her fingernails, always so cracked and bitten, were smooth and healthy—long, too, grown to manicure length past her fingertips. As she settled onto the front pew, voices drifted in from the vestibule and Louise glanced up. The sound was so fitting that for an instant she didn't pay any attention, then she realized it was voices, and not just Jo. She jumped to her feet, then stopped uncertainly as she heard Jo tell someone to follow her in.
"Good morning!" Jo called. "How do you feel?"
"Fine." Louise cupped a hand around her mouth to help carry her voice. "Where've you been?" The question was automatic as Jo led another person up the aisle and Louise strained to see. "Who's that?"
"His name is . . ." Jo glanced at the man walking next to her.
"C.J.," he said as he and Jo stopped in front of her. "That's what everyone calls me."
"Hi." Louise couldn't think of anything else to say. "This is Louise," Jo told C.J. "She came in the day before yesterday."
C.J. shifted his gaze back to her and Louise saw that his eyes were a discomforting golden tan. She tried to smile and knew immediately that it was more of a sick grimace than anything else. For the first time in a year she wondered what she looked like, and she couldn't stop her fingers from smoothing her hair. She'd started using her hunting knife months ago to hack off chunks of it, impatient with the care it needed just to keep it neat. Now her thoughts touched regretfully on the memory of four-inch locks of hair floating to the floor on a bright, long-ago afternoon. Her face—was it even clean? She was mortified; her eyes, an unremarkable shade of vague blue, were the only thing left. Big damned deal, she thought miserably.
Oh yes—and her brand-new hands.
C.J. cleared his throat uncomfortably and looked away, his eyes instinctively searching the darker areas of the church nave before returning to Jo. Louise blushed and realized that Jo had lost most of the neckline and front of her dress, and half her childishly formed chest was in full sight. C.J., however, regarded her with an almost clinical interest, much as a boy would watch a small and interesting pale frog. "So," he finally said. He slipped a medieval-looking contraption from his shoulders and placed it carefully on one of the pews. "You've only been here two days?"
Louise nodded and swallowed her nervousness. "Yeah."
"Where'd you come from?" He leaned against the side of one of the benches and folded his arms. "Were you with anyone else?"
Louise shook her head. "No, just me and Beau.”
"Beau?"
Louise couldn't wait any longer. "Jo, what happened to you?"
Jo looked at her strangely, then made only a semiconcerned effort to pull her dress together. Louise's mouth dropped open when she saw that Jo's hands, so terribly mutilated last night, were as white and unblemished as her own. "Your hands—"
"I think I'll go change," Jo interrupted. Her voice was muffled and sleepy-sounding. “And splash some water on my face." She smiled sweetly. "You guys get to know each other."
Louise quickly scanned the aisle. "Beau—“
"—is in the back," Jo said calmly. "I guess he's tired, too."
"Who's Beau?" C.J. asked again.
Louise had taken her gaze off Jo for only an instant, but the white-haired girl was gone. In another moment Louise heard a door close somewhere in the northern end of the church. C.J. was still waiting, his eyes like some bizarre pair of sparkling yellow stones. "My dog," Louise finally managed. "Beau is my dog."
"You have a dog? Wow." He sounded impressed. "That must've been a trick. Were you always by yourself?"
This time she answered his repeated question with a nod. "Were you?"
He shrugged. "Sometimes." Again he looked briefly at the dark rear of the church; it was a habit Louise understood well. "But . . ." He hesitated.
"But what?"
"There are . . . a few others now," he finished at last.
Louise's tense expression spread into pleasure. "Well, that's great! How many? And where are they? I was starting to think I was the only one left before yesterday, because I hadn't seen anyone else in so long, you know—" She stumbled slightly over the last word and stopped. She was babbling and he was staring at her like she had two heads. And why not? Her face turned scarlet. Where did I get off thinking I was the only person with brains enough to survive? She choked back the sudden urge to cry and closed her mouth.
C.J. grinned abruptly and the smile lit up his face and made him look like an impish little boy. "Hey, don't stop now—you're on a roll!" He glanced around the dim interior, lit only by the richly colored but feeble glow from the stained glass overhead. "Let's get out of here. I'm sure it's holy and all that, but I just don't like dark places." Louise followed him outside without speaking, then was shocked to feel the drop in the temperature in only the last quarter hour. She threw a worried glance at the sky.
"It's going to snow soon."
C.J. jumped at the sound of Jo's voice floating from just inside the door to the church, and Louise dredged up enough courage to touch the sleeve of his jacket reassuringly. The only living thing she'd touched for the longest time was Beau. "She's always doing that," she told him. "I think she likes to surprise people."
"Person could get killed that way," he muttered.
Louise thought of the dangerous-looking weapon inside and wondered just how badly Jo had startled him earlier in the day. "Not her," Louise said.
C.J.'s eyebrows lifted and Louise shrugged. She might sound as odd as Jo acted, but she believed every word. Jo rejoined them, wearing a white dress that except for the sleeves was the same as the ruined one. Her porcelain-tinted skin glowed when she lifted her face and breathed deeply of a swirl of frigid wind sweeping the thick sheet of her hair. She turned back to them, her gray eyes a strange reflection of the tightly layered clouds. "We have to get you back to Water Tower."
For the first time, C.J.'s iron composure cracked. "How did you know about that?" he demanded. "Who else knows?"
"I know a lot of things." Jo's soft voice was reassuring. “And only Louise knows—now. You're quite safe.” Watching Jo, Louise had the queer notion that the younger girl's eyes changed to a darker, brooding gray that had nothing to do with the snow clouds overhead, like some kind of optical chameleon. It was scary and Louise's belly gave a single, dreadful twist. "Let's go," Jo said. "I'll walk with you, but I cart stay when we get there."
"Why not?" Louise asked nervously. She was distinctly aware that she could be an uninvited intruder into C.J.'s life. He'd never invited her to Water Tower Place. What if—
"Of course you can," C.J. interrupted Louise's jumbled thoughts. "What're you going to do, hike all the way back? By the time we get there, it might be dark. No way."
Jo shrugged. "Then let's not waste time. Why don't you tell Louise about your . . . what would you call them? Family?"
"Whatever."
Louise bristled at C.J.'s snappish response but Jo didn’t appear to notice. "Get Beau and your things," she told Louise. "You won’t be coming back."
"I won't?" Confused again, Louise glanced at C.J., but he only stared crossly at Jo. A flicker of irritation stirred, warring with uncertainty and the sensation of homelessness she'd had ever since leaving the north side; had he and Jo planned this without even asking her? "Suppose they don’t want any more people?" Louise plunged on. "Or—"<
br />
"There's room," C.J. said. His tone made it clear that he thought her questions were yet another waste of time.
"I don’t want to impose," Louise continued stubbornly. She felt like the unwanted relative during the holidays. "I can take care of myself and I don't have to stay with Jo to do it." Louise was getting angry and embarrassed. What was happening here anyway? One minute Jo was saving her life and performing miracles, the next she was kicking Louise out on her butt.
C.J.'s expression was rigid. "Get your stuff."
"I refuse to be a burden!" Louise said hotly. "I'm not so stupid I'd go where I'm not wanted!"
"Oh, he wants you to go, all right." Jo's voice was smooth and sweet, like warmed honey. "He's just too shy to say so."
Louise was about to retort when she realized that despite his fighting stance and protectively folded arms, C.J.'s face was deep red. "I–I'll get my backpack," Louise stammered. "Here, Beau! Come on, boy!" She fled to the small confessional office where her dog and small cache of belongings waited; as the door closed behind her she could hear the tinkling of Jo's laughter, the sound light and not at all cruel.
A few minutes later and they were on their way, Beau tucked safely in his customary place inside Louise's jacket as the trio wound through the downtown streets. They were only four blocks from St. Peter's when the snow began to fall in thick, clinging clumps that immediately began to gather in small piles. Louise stopped. "We should go back," she said, struggling to make herself heard above the wind; when she halted, Beau poked his nose inquisitively from a fold in her jacket, then quickly retreated. "Before we leave tracks. It won’t matter if they lead back to the church." She looked at Jo knowingly. "We'll still be safe."
Jo shook her head and her companions gaped at her in disbelief. "No. Come on." The young girl resumed her steps, leaving small telltale depressions in the growing layer of snow. Louise and C.J. followed, knowing it would be useless to disagree, petrified about the footprints marking their progress like huge blotches of black paint on a white canvas. In the cold—something that apparently didn't affect Jo—their prints were becoming more defined with each quarter block. How much would it snow? It was barely past noon now; what if it snowed all day?
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