by Joss Ware
During the day, the gangas must stay in the building, but at night they were free to roam within the perimeter of the vehicular barrier. The wolf that had attacked Sage must have somehow escaped from the corral. Fortunately, it hadn’t gone as far as the inhabited part of Envy, or something worse than a few cuts and scratches might have occurred.
Simon mulled these thoughts as he moved out of Sage’s sight, forcing himself to keep his mind away from . . . other things.
If he weren’t such a chavala, he’d have taken her back to the city and been done with it. But he’d seen the enthusiasm and determination in her eyes, and knew it wouldn’t be long before she was back here.
Of course, he could have taken her back and turned her over to Theo Waxnicki, who could probably have kept an eye on her if he knew she’d try and come back. That would have been the smart thing to do.
But no. He’d let a killer body and one soul-shattering smile override that sensible solution, and now he had to find a different way to get into the building so that she could come with him.
Simon paused and listened. Silence.
With a deep breath, he stilled, focused, and drew deep down inside himself, wavered . . . and disappeared.
Now he could move quickly, walking across the empty corral toward the Beretta building. He remembered when it had been built, for Mancusi had been interested in one of the condos in what would be Vegas’s premier residential property.
At least until the next hot development came along.
The gangas might smell him, but they couldn’t see him, and Simon walked boldly through the entrance of the lobby. It had once been decorated with colorful blown glass that put the Bellagio’s famed glass flower ceiling to shame, but of course, there was nothing left of that but a few swaths of dirty, broken waves. Some of the gangas milled about, but most of them were sleeping or lying comatose—or whatever the fuck they did. The ever-present moaning “ruuu-uuth” came out in the form of snores and exhales from the prone monsters.
He counted four that were up and about, and from the way they stiffened and looked in his direction, Simon knew they scented him.
Ignoring the creatures, easily evading their clumsy feet and log-like arms, he hurried through the room, wondering how long Sage would stay put.
I’m not stupid.
Fuck no. And that was a big problem.
Not that a woman like Sage would want anything to do with Simon anyway. Nor could he imagine even touching her with his corrupted hands.
He saw a door in the corner and realized it would be the stairs. And that there might be a building exit in the stairwell.
Moments later, Simon found just what he was looking for. The exit had been locked and barricaded from the inside, which was why he’d not been able to access it when he originally searched for the entrance. But it took him little effort to clear it away and open the door, thanks to the super strength he seemed to have acquired in that Sedona cave.
When he returned to Sage, fully visible again, he found her sitting in nearly the same position in which he’d left her. “Ready?”
She looked up at him, her lovely face dirt- and blood-streaked, her blue eyes accusing. “I thought you might have gone in without me.”
Simon shrugged. Why should she trust him? She didn’t know him, and after all, she probably sensed he was who he was. Simon Japp. Bodyguard, goon, right-hand-man to Leonide Mancusi. He might have had a chance to start over, but his sins, his choices, his corruption, still clung to him like a bad odor.
There was no sense in defending himself. “Come on.”
Sage pulled to her feet, and he heard the faint groan of pain as she did so. The cut above her knee had bled into a large dark stain, and he noticed the way it stuck to her skin. That was going to hurt when she undressed—don’t think about that. And the cuts and scrapes on her hands . . . she was lucky they weren’t any worse. Maybe he should check on them before they went any further.
No. Dragon Boy will make sure she’s all patched up. And then some.
They crossed the corral-like space between the vehicle barrier and the building, running the twenty yards quickly and silently to the door Simon had left open. It was unlikely that the gangas would see them from inside the building, and if they did, they’d never figure out where they went or how to find them. Nor could they venture into the sunlight.
Simon was confident they were safe.
“Lots of flights to go,” he said once they were inside the dim stairwell. There was only a window every three or four floors, so the light was iffy. “Twenty-three floors.”
“No problem,” she told him, flashing a quicker, less potent version of the smile that had fairly dropped him to his knees earlier. “I always take the stairs to my room. On the fourteenth floor.”
Simon nodded. It was obvious she got her exercise despite the hours sitting at a computer table. She had a sweet ass and slender, delicate body with curves exactly where they should be.
And she was going to be climbing twenty-three flights of stairs in front of him.
“I’ll go first,” he said, slipping past her. “One flight at a time, then you follow.”
She nodded, surprising him when he was prepared to have to argue and explain the logic of allowing his heavier weight to confirm that the old steps were stable. “Right behind you.”
Simon turned and jogged up the first few flights. The steps were metal and the railings completely intact, except for peeling paint, even after fifty years. He’d gone up a different stairwell awhile earlier, and was confident that they would hold. But it was a good excuse to not have to torture himself.
Twenty minutes later, they reached the top floor of the tower where Remington Truth had a penthouse. Birds fluttered and took flight as Simon and Sage walked across what would have been the threshold to the condo’s entrance. Something rustled in a pile of leaves caught up in the corner.
The apartment’s expansive French doors sagged in place. On the next wall, a stream of light came through a wedge of broken window, while the rest of the plate glass shone grimy and gray. A lush patch of green grew on the floor in an elongated vee where the pure sun would shine and rain would enter, though a bit of tenacious growth attempted to spread beyond the triangular patch.
“I can’t believe it’s still intact,” commented Sage.
Simon raised a finger to his lips and gestured for her to hold back. He didn’t think anyone was here, but he wasn’t about to assume anything. On feet silent over the dried leaves and branches, he moved to the doors and carefully peered into the room beyond.
The place was in shambles, as one would expect. Shadowy furnishings melded with strips and patches of sunlight, and vines and bushes sprouted everywhere. Nothing moved. No sign of life.
Easing the door open, he slipped through and crooked his finger for Sage to follow.
She raised her brows as if to ask permission to speak—why did women always have to talk?—and he nodded, shifting away so that he wouldn’t brush against her shoulder.
“If he was one of the Strangers, one of the people that caused the Change, do you think he meant to live here after?” she asked, looking around the room. “I mean, it might not be an accident that his home wasn’t destroyed. Do you think?”
Good point. Simon shrugged. “You might be right. But he’s not here now.”
“And he hasn’t been here for decades. Or they wouldn’t be looking for him. I mean, if you found out about this place so easily. . . .” She’d moved along the perimeter of the room, trailing her hand over leather sofas and along a long sleek table, kicking up dust and disturbing birds, mice, and God knew what else. It didn’t seem to bother her, though.
Not squeamish. Smart and practical. And the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
Pinche.
Simon turned away and cruised along the other side of the room, then down a dark hall. Something slithered over his foot and he kicked it away, then felt something else bump into his heel as it scu
rried for safety. No, Remington Truth hadn’t lived here for a long time.
He wasn’t certain exactly what to look for anyway. Surely anything of interest would have been destroyed or found long before now.
What had been the master bedroom opened before him, complete with a waterbed long since drained and a jetted tub large enough for half a dozen people. The skylight over the tub was broken, and tall slender plants grew in the circle of light, spindly and greedy for sun. They looked like skinny bamboo plants, with their random, delicate leaves near the top.
Maybe Truth had some good luck feng shui bamboo that had sprouted. Simon grimaced as he was reminded that, along with her myriad of crystals, Florita had grown a few stalks of curling green bamboo in a glass vase. She’d lectured Simon on how important their position and placement was for good fortune.
That was early on, when he’d been assigned as her bodyguard, and he’d had no choice but to listen to her prattle on. And on. And on. But then she’d tried to get too friendly with Simon, Mancusi found out . . . and he’d shipped Florita and her fake tits off with her crystals and bamboo and red candles. But not long after, in true fuck-you spirit, she’d made it huge on the big screen.
And back in East Los, Simon had been promoted, so to speak, because of his loyalty and prudence. And cuffed even more tightly to Mancusi.
“Simon!”
He turned from the bamboo growth in the Jacuzzi tub, making his way quickly toward her voice.
“I found something!”
No fucking way.
When he came into the room, which appeared to have been an office, Sage was standing in the center of a pool of sun. She was holding a small black item. “Look!”
“A jump drive?”
She nodded, her aqua blue eyes shining. “It was wedged inside that desk drawer there, and it’s so small, it would have been easy to miss. Besides, I’m sure they took any computers or files he might have had.”
Simon examined the small black flash disk drive and came to the conclusion that it might just have survived fifty years exposed to the elements. The USB plug slid in and out, and the whole thing was cased in soft, protective plastic that appeared intact. “Well I’ll be damned.” He looked up and gave her a little smile. “It might have something interesting on it. Or it might just have a bunch of old Neil Diamond songs.”
“Who?”
He smiled before he caught himself. “Look him up. Isn’t that what you do?” Simon turned away before the bantering could go any further. Bantering led to camaraderie, and camaraderie led to flirtation, and flirtation could only lead to fucking trouble.
He wandered close to a massive opening in the wall, a window broken completely away, and looked out over the ruins of Las Vegas.
The ocean—the damned Pacific Ocean, here in Vegas!—sparkled blue and green to the west and north, and between this structure and the water were a variety of buildings and ruins. Brick, glass, curling steel beams, all fringed with green and other organic trim.
“Do you have to stand so close to the edge?”
He cast a look over his shoulder. “You afraid of heights?”
Sage shook her head. “No. But I don’t see why you have to stand so close to the edge.”
Simon shrugged, fighting a grin, and turned to look back out over—and froze. “What the . . .” he muttered, moving closer to the side of the window where he wouldn’t be seen. Curling his fingers around the edge, he carefully leaned forward for a better look. Space loomed before and below him, and a little breeze skimmed his cheeks.
“What is it?” Then, she must have seen how near the edge he was, because she added, “Simon! Be careful! You’re going to fall.”
He swallowed a chuckle. If she only knew how close he’d come to death so many times. “Looks like a boat of some sort, on the shore. . . .” Some type of watercraft had definitely been pulled up on the rough beach. Out of sight of Envy, here on the northwest side of the deserted area. . . . That didn’t bode well.
He scanned the area between the shoreline and the building, the hair on the back of his arm lifting and prickling like it did when he knew something bad was about to happen. It was like a sixth sense.
The ruined buildings and their rubble-strewn footprints hid much of the ground, but then he saw them. Three men, walking . . . pushing a large, enclosed wagon-like object . . . making their way toward the Beretta building. Much too close; in fact, they were just about to the vehicle barrier.
Pinche.
But how were they going to get that big cage through the barrier? He watched a moment longer, and then saw the ramp. The men had pulled it from a pile of debris and were putting it into place.
Damn. “They’re coming,” he said turning to Sage, adrenaline pumping through him and clearing his thoughts. “We’ve got to go now.” Before they get over the barrier and into the corral.
“Gangas?” she said, following him toward the door without hesitation.
“Strangers. Or bounty hunters. But whoever they are, they’re not coming from Envy. They came from the west. From the ocean.” And they were either bringing something for the gangas . . . or more gangas . . . or planning to take something away.
Then he heard it . . . faint on the air. Howls.
Definitely ganga feeding time.
Abandon the Night
The elevator shaft opened, and Quent stepped into the dark, ruined hallway of what had once been a casino resort in Las Vegas. At this far side of the building, in an area that hadn’t been maintained after the Change, the corridor seemed deserted and abandoned—a state the Waxnickis carefully preserved, despite their daily visits to the lab.
He could make his way along the halls back to the occupied area of the hotel, and up onto the twenty-sixth floor, where he had been given a hotel room for his own residence . . . but when it came time to make the turn that would take him in that direction, he kept straight on.
Outside, the rain poured down. Heavy, steady, but straight so that it looked like a gray and black shower curtain obstructing the night.
If Quent had hoped Wyatt was wrong, or that it might be little more than a soft drizzle, he was bloody disappointed.
Still, not because he expected anything—he wasn’t that cocked up—but because he needed to feel, he stepped out of the building and into the downpour.
Since the Change, the climate in Vegas had shifted from that of a dry desert to an almost tropical one. Rain was plentiful, the temperature mild or hot, and the air humid and too close at times.
Having lived in England until he was eighteen—when he moved an ocean away from Fielding and his riding crop—Quent was used to the damp. And now, as the heavy rain pounded on him, he walked, letting it soak through his stretchy silk shirt, suede jeans, and leather sandals. Good, practical clothing wasn’t always easy to find, but he’d been lucky and had come across an old suitcase filled with duds from a guy about his size. And the guy had had decent taste, which helped.
The downpour weighted Quent’s thick honey-colored hair and dripped from there onto his nose and cheeks. It might have mingled with some other drops—warmer, more emotional ones—but he wasn’t likely to admit it.
The city known as New Vegas, N.V., or, more commonly, Envy, was the largest settlement of people in hundreds of miles—and as far as anyone could tell with the limited communication and transportation, it was the largest in the world. The irony that the formerly hedonistic city, with its superficiality and flashiness, should now be the cradle of humanity was lost on no one who’d ever visited the Strip—including Quent.
Now, with the massive shift in land mass and tectonic plates, what had been the North Strip was under water—covered by the Pacific Ocean, which, unbelievably but irrefutably, now covered California and part of Nevada and Washington. Only a cluster of high-rise casino resorts remained standing, and of those, many of them were in disrepair.
The Strip’s neon lights still glowed red, blue, yellow and green, but much more feebly and in less
abundance than they’d done a half century earlier. And the part of the Strip that remained visible was empty of people—a condition that would have been inconceivable back then.
Quent couldn’t help himself. He looked up, trying to peer at the jagged rooftops and glassless windows above him, searching for a lanky shadow, slender and sure and sleek.
But all he got for his trouble was a face battered with sharp raindrops and another wave of anger.
At himself of course. For his foolishness. For wasting his time.
For not fucking swinging that damned five wood sixty-some years ago.
Hell. Could his one decision have made a difference? Kept the Change from happening? He might have spent the rest of his life in jail back then, but at least he’d have had a life.
Quent drew in a deep breath of clean, damp air, then exhaled. Turned his thoughts from the rage that never seemed to completely leave him.
Zoë wouldn’t be out in this weather, lurking in the shadows as she was wont to do. She wouldn’t be slipping down, all warm and slender and bold, to join him in a dark corner, hot and urgent and bold.
A combination of lust and fury tightened his jaw, hitched his steps.
What the bloody hell was he doing out here in the buggering rain?
He was searching, damn fool that he was.
All he wanted to do was find Fielding and kill him. Quent’s life, his purpose for being, had funneled down to nothing but that.
Everything else was just a fucking way to pass the time until then.
Even walking uselessly in the rain. Even rolling in the sheets with Zoë.
He wasn’t cold, though he was as soaked as if he’d been swimming, and he kept inhaling random droplets of rain. Wet grass and bushes brushed his bare toes as he trudged away from the inhabited area of the city. The clean smell of fresh rain mingled with the underlying must of decay and mold, here in this narrow walkway. Two buildings rose, half-destroyed, jagged, and overgrown, the one on the left taller and more forbidding than on the right. If he straightened his arms to the sides, his fingertips would brush the brick. Soggy leaves and the gentle give of wet dirt softened the cracked and uneven concrete beneath his feet.