He’d filled about a third of the waterpacks that had been stored down here. God-all.
“How long have you been at it?” I asked.
Gabriel planted his hands on his hips and surveyed the packs. “Since dusk closed in on the outside viszes.”
After doing the math, I was so stunned that my arm loosened, letting down my revolver to my side. He couldn’t have been working for more than a half hour.
He seemed to understand my bewilderment. “I’ve done my share of manual jobs. Been real good at them, too. Strong as a bull, that’s what my dad used to say back Before . . .”
Gabriel cleared his throat, as if chasing away the pain. He nodded toward the pumps. “I could do well at a job like this.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in. “I hope you’re not expecting me to take you on.”
He grinned, wiping a hand over his mouth. “I guess I’m not.”
A beat passed, laden with more than the air’s dank must. Awkward, this lack of knowing what to say.
Finally, I settled on something simple. “Mr. Gabriel, I really do thank you for your endeavors.” Not that I was fully convinced he wasn’t stealing. “But dinner’s ready for you.”
“If you don’t mind, I thought I’d work on through some more.”
His refusal once again surprised me. “Aren’t you still under the weather?”
“Feeling better,” he said. “Work’s good for recovery.”
His comment should’ve made me trust him a little more. In this world, there were mostly two kinds—those who worked because it made them forget, and those who ran and played because it made them forget. The hubs were supposedly full of the latter now—overstimulated hordes that didn’t have the sense of animals.
Gabriel capped off his comment with one more. “Far be it from me to lay about and be waited on, anyway.”
The tough part of me wanted to say, If you’re feeling so fine, then get out of my home, but before I could even shape the words, he’d turned away, clearly intent on continuing his labor.
And, without any more fuss, he did just that. I wasn’t sure how to handle that, so I just kept standing. And standing.
While I watched, one thing I saw was that his pace had considerably slowed, as if he knew I was gauging his more efficient work system and wondering how it could possibly trump my own.
He obviously sensed me still standing there minutes later, too. But, unfazed, he grinned at me, then carried on.
Well then.
I went back upstairs and set to feeding both me and Chaplin. The dog kept casting me inquisitive glances, but I didn’t even know how to begin explaining what I’d just experienced.
Finally, after cleaning up, I ventured back down, only to find Gabriel still pumping away.
Although his pace had languished, all but four of my waterpacks were full.
Maybe he was a true sort of guy. Or maybe he was real good at playing some kind of confidence game that would explode into my getting double-crossed. Any way I looked at it, he’d done some nice work, and I couldn’t complain about that part. Instead, I came over to don a pack, then carry it to the foot of the stairs. I continued moving each one in preparation to transfer them home.
Soon, he joined me, silent in his labor.
Side by side we worked, connected by these rote motions. For the first time in . . . ever . . . I got a clue about what it meant to be at ease with a person who wasn’t family, what it was like not to feel on guard or threatened in the presence of someone new, and that was certainly a switch from what I’d been feeling round him before—worked up, bothered, strained by the boundaries of control.
Maybe I was getting used to Gabriel. Too used to him.
In the end, he slid his carryall over his chest and we both secured the first of the packs on our backs. But before mounting the stairs, Gabriel sent a glance at the pumps, smiling in his quiet way. My helmet light bathed his facial injuries, which were all but gone.
A question tipped my tongue, but I hesitated, half of me not wanting to interrupt whatever was going on in his mind. I suspected it was something like pride, and I could respect that, even if I had no idea what the rest of him was all about.
But I would be questioning him later. No doubts there. You need to question everything, even if you think you know what’s happening.
Finally, when silence went as far as was comfortable, I spoke. “Hungry now?”
At that, he drew in a long breath. His gaze went blurry.
I stiffened, on high alert. His look was frightening. Exciting. Both.
As he fisted his hands, his veins popped to the surface of his skin. He trained his gaze on the ground.
“The thought of food presently turns my stomach,” he said. “I’d rather sleep that off, Miss Mariah.”
“You need something to eat—”
His voice came out garbled. “Don’t.” Then he composed himself, lifting his head, his mouth tight. “Don’t mention hunger again.”
I itched to put my hand on the revolver I’d tucked back in its holster, but something told me it was a bad idea to make a move. Instead, I stared right back at him, testing him until his mouth relaxed and he shook his head.
“What I’d like,” he said, “is some rest. I believe I overdid it.”
My instincts said to kick him outside again where he belonged. Even though we’d worked in a smooth partnership down here, it didn’t mean I’d be okay with having him hang round.
I must’ve given away my thoughts by allowing them to settle on my face. In fact, his eyes got that intense gleam again before he clenched his jaw, then relaxed it.
But I couldn’t help noticing it was a forced type of relaxed.
“Please, Mariah,” he said quietly. “I’d just like to stay a fraction longer.”
He sounded so in need that I couldn’t turn him out. What kind of thing would I be if I did? Chaplin had been right about one matter—if I’d had someone to help me when my family had required it most, life would be so different. Besides, Gabriel hadn’t caused me trouble yet. One more night wouldn’t be a tragedy.
Sometimes I hated that I had a conscience. “A fraction longer,” I said, beginning to walk toward the stairs. “And that’s all, Mr. Gabriel.”
From behind me, he said, “Thank you.” It sounded as if he were smiling, as if I’d done good.
Right. Good wasn’t a word best applied to me. My neighbors might even testify to that if they were less guarded.
We ascended the steps, with me in the lead, his lantern and my helmet lights bobbing over the rock walls as we got closer to the door. The stairs made way to the closed door and the crucifix billboard poster with the holy image coming into focus like a piece of impossible heaven; it always seemed so close as I came back home day after day, but when I got to it, the image always turned out to be a painted lie.
“Chaplin’s going to be foaming at the mouth for company,” I said, moving aside and turning to Gabriel as I reached the landing. “So expect—”
I heard, more than saw, Gabriel crashing to his knees on the stairs. Unthinkingly, I extended a hand to grab him, only to grip air.
But when my light’s dim beam showed him on hands and knees, safe, I exhaled.
Yet . . . he didn’t seem right. Not with him on all fours, his head bowed and his fingers clutching the step in front of him. His waterpack was like a hump as he heaved in tortured breaths.
“Open that door.” His voice was as mangled as it’d been in the mining area, when he’d told me not to mention hunger again. “Please, open it.”
Without question, I darted to the door, pulling it toward me until the billboard faced the wall, just as it had been doing when I’d found it open earlier.
“Okay,” I said. Would I have to drag him the rest of the way up if he’d thrown out a knee? Had he overdone our labor to such an extent that he couldn’t function now?
Slowly, he crawled up to the rickety stair landing, keeping his head lowered. It w
as only when he reached level ground, past the door, that he raised his gaze. His eyes were filled with a wary terror that seized my veins and tried to shake them free of my body.
He stayed li that for a minute, regulating his breathing. Chaplin bounded over to him but hung back at the sight of his new friend’s state.
“What—?” I began to ask.
“Sick.” Gabriel lowered his gaze again so I couldn’t read it. “Back to . . . bed . . .”
I removed my waterpack, then bent down to ease his own off. Then, carefully—careful for so many reasons—I maneuvered his arm over my shoulders and led him to his blankets.
In doing so, I couldn’t help breathing him in, my lungs tight with the struggle of trying to keep my senses fortified at the same time. But I lost the battle, becoming saturated with the scent of him—a vague tinge of earth where there should’ve been musk and the tang of skin.
Without hurting him, I made quick work in setting him down, then backed away, my limbs weak and quivery.
It was only when he reached for his flask that I succeeded. I concentrated on how he gulped down its contents, how he closed his eyes and reveled in the shuddering pleasure of the liquid—a mixture that left his lips flushed red.
Then, obviously satisfied, he capped the flask and slumped to the blankets, keeping the container close to his chest.
Damn. Damn. What had I let in?
I went to pull the door shut, thinking of the billboard crucifix on the other side and how it’d affected Gabriel.
5
Gabriel
Gabriel lay on his blankets, feeling Mariah’s gaze press down on him.
Unlike last night, when he’d been too beaten to think straight, he’d remembered to breathe this time, showing her that he was capable of it, though his body was undead, his soul and life as he’d known it long gone. Under better circumstances, he was good at rolling back his full powers so as to blend with regular society as best as he could. And he’d done such a decent job of survival out in the world that he’d even fooled himself into thinking he wasn’t a preter sometimes.
But his recent errors—especially after encountering the crucifix he hadn’t seen on the rear of the door until he’d come back up the stairs—could’ve all added up for Mariah by now.
Could she tell he was . . . different?
Shit. It was times like this when Gabriel wished he were a demon or were-creature, which were supposed to be tough to recognize when they were in human form. The latter were even rumored not to have access to their extraordinary powers or animal habits when in their “people bodies.” Vampires had to be way more vigilant than either variety.
Now, here on the blankets, he held back from opening his eyes and catching Mariah’s gaze to peer into her mind, as he’d attempted to do upon meeting her last night. He’d only meant to do a scan, to see what she was all about, maybe even to sway her into offering unquestioned shelter. And until she’d blocked him with a wall of mental caution, he’d been hopeful, too, mostly because it’d been easy enough to read Chaplin’s thoughts—energy, lines of translated communication that a vampire could understand no matter what language the other party used. As a vampire, Gabriel had an affinity for canines, plus Chaplin was so eager to know who Gabriel was that the dog had opened most of himself righ on up.
In fact, when Gabriel had taken the risk of using his gaze to sway whoever might be watching that visz monitor on the other end from where he’d been on the outside, the dog had sensed Gabriel’s good intentions, welcoming him, even in the face of the recent activity with Stamp, and immediately acquiescing to become Gabriel’s familiar. He had agreed to shield his new master’s identity, plus silently vowed protection.
Mariah hadn’t been quite as cooperative.
However, even the canine had proven to possess his own protective limits. Heck, the dog was even now beginning to shake off Gabriel’s sway pretty well. Too bad Gabriel, a young vampire as far as power went, had gotten only basic information out of Chaplin so far.
But with Mariah? Gabriel had hardly gotten a flash of sharing from her before she’d blocked him without even knowing it. She was a tough one. Smart. On constant watch. Dangerous if he should push too far.
He could’ve tried, all right, for an experienced vampire was supposed to be able to sway a subject after mind-reading them, persuading them that nothing was amiss. Yet even after just a couple of years, Gabriel was too green to depend on that ability, and he’d preferred to just back off and leave Mariah’s mind alone this time out, especially after Chaplin had invited Gabriel inside his home, where the visz screens had revealed the other New Badlanders gathered in the common area. Others who might just turn out to be much more sympathetic to a man with questions.
Mariah was closed off, as if wanting to hide something from him, and since she’d set herself at such a distance, he couldn’t pursue any sort of interview with her.
At least he had Chaplin.
After the dog had mentally shared a very casual introduction of the neighbors, Gabriel had decided that he would definitely use them, not Mariah, to do what he had come out west to do—ask all that was required to track down the one person he was out here to find.
Abby.
On the back of Gabriel’s eyelids, he detected a needling wisp of memory. A woman who’d left him with a puzzle of a broken existence that he’d been trying to piece back together ever since she’d left him.
Keeping his eyes shut—more because of the pain of remembering Abby than the threat of Mariah’s realizing that he’d recovered—Gabriel heard his hostess shift position from her spot across the room. He guessed that she’d rested her hand on that revolver snuggled against her hip.
The weapon wouldn’t do harm to him unless it contained silver bullets that could poison his system. But her geared-up caution told him that the crucifix image had given her ideas about what he might be.
Okay then, he thought. Time for damage control.
But before he sought it, Mariah began walking out of the room; he could hear the fading of her vital signs. Most people only sounded like a tune to him, their blood humming and calling, but she sounded like patterns of angry, thrashing, spellbinding percussion that kept time with his bloodlust. To a certain degree, he’d heard the same music in Abby, though she’d been more like a symphony in driving minor chords than this stormy mess of primal beats in Mariah.
He was also taken with the scent of her—again, so similar to Abby’s own. Yet both were different from any others. It was something he couldn’t describe in olfactory terms as much as howare aroma provided another layer to the sounds.
Gabriel had to fight the push of his incisors against his gums. There was something about this woman that got to him, even if, physically, she was nothing like Abby, whose face had reminded him of a demure portrait he’d once seen of a near-ancient Victorian lady on a Nets museum site. But Mariah, with hair the color of blood, wasn’t soft.
Not when she thought he was looking, anyway.
Gabriel’s ears tuned in to the shuffle of Chaplin trotting out of the room to follow his mistress, and he opened his eyes, sat up, then helped himself to just one more swig of the blood in his flask. It wasn’t the freshest way to nourish himself, but the liquid was kept cool thanks to the solar battery in the device, which he often buried in the sand with the uncovered battery-side up while he tucked his own self away during the day.
He shoved it into the back pocket of his trousers, spied the plate of food Mariah had meant for him to eat, then took out a swath of oiled material from his bag and wrapped up the vittles. He would find a nocturnal creature outside that would appreciate the sustenance simply enough, and then after he’d lured it, he would, in turn, take the blood it offered during what Gabriel always hoped would be an uncomplicated hunting session.
Though it didn’t normally turn out that way.
He put the food into his carryall. The crucifix had stunned him for a gut-tearing few moments, but now he could move wit
h the best of them as he stood, tracking Mariah’s scent.
It led him to a room that was lined with rickety shelves, all of which bore books. Real books, too—not the e-backs that everyone in the world read on screens. These novels and encyclopedias and almanacs had actual paper and, thanks to the thousands of vampire-heightened olfactory receptors in his nose, he could inhale to smell the battered leather and pulp.
He wondered if this had been her dad’s private room. Chaplin had mind-flashed on Dmitri Lyander last night, but the dog had blocked Gabriel from knowing deeper details, such as where Mariah’s father was now. Dead, probably, since Chaplin hadn’t been able to hide a tinge of profound sorrow that had come with the image of the pipe-smoking, mustached scientist.
Mariah, who had her back to the shelves, still maintained contact with her revolver as she faced Gabriel, a book already laid open in her other hand as she perused a page.
In spite of himself, he looked up and down the length of her: the rough boots; the low-riding cloth pants that seemed practical save for some delicate lacings up the sides; the loose white shirt she’d donned that made him imagine what might be beneath.
His incisors pushed as he listened to the cadence of her blood, and he concentrated on those bookshelves.
“Thought you were resting,” she said in her usual accusatory style.
But she’d taken him in, and because of that alone, he would cope.
“Not to worry,” he said, playing up his aw-shucks nature in the hopes that it would steal the attention away from everything else he preferred to keep under wraps, like the pulse of famished longing he felt whenever he was within range of her. “I’m pretty sure I was only temporarily weakened. But your meal just remedied that.”
“Good to hear.”
Damage control, he reminded himself. He was determined to lea, sway from any suspicions without getting himself into more trouble by using the power of sway to distract her. She just wasn’t easily opened to him. Besides, it was altogether simpler to slip by unnoticed when he wasn’t utilizing his abilities. Simpler to fade into a groove of survival.
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