Night Resurrected

by Joss Ware

  “You’re bloody crocked.” Quent was there, panting. His face was black and his hair stuck up in tufts. “Nothing in there’s still alive. If you go in, you aren’t coming back out.”

  “Gotta try,” Wyatt said again. And he started toward the black doorway.

  “It’s a damned dog!” someone shouted. “You’re risking your life for a dog!”

  And that was precisely why he kept going. Because if it were Dantès . . .

  Calm stole over him. Clamping a mass of sodden shirt over his nose and mouth, offering up a prayer, Wyatt charged inside.

  The minute he breached the wall of ugly smoke, he felt the searing heat. It pressed in on him, heavy and suffocating, instantly turning his cold wet clothes steamy.

  Pitch-dark. He took two steps and stumbled over something. As he crashed to the floor, he knew he’d found Patty.

  And as a flaming wall collapsed, tumbling over him in a rage of flames, he figured this was it. He wasn’t coming out.

  Carrying a sloshing pail, Remy pushed her way through the crowd just in time to see Wyatt dash into a flaming building.

  “Wyatt!” she screamed, flinging her supply of water wildly onto a patch of flame as she ran. Someone yanked her back and she found herself face-to-face with Quent. “Did he just go in there?” she panted.

  He didn’t need to reply; his face was set with fear, streaked with ash. He merely shook his head, pursing his lips as if in an effort to stave off some other emotion. “Bloody sodding fool.” It was a whisper, but Remy heard it nevertheless. “Went after a dog trapped inside.”

  She stared. There was no way any living creature was still alive in that building. There was no way anyone could survive stepping even a foot inside.

  Did you really want to end it that badly, Wyatt?

  Then Quent’s words registered. A dog.

  Oh, God, now she understood. If it were Dantès . . .

  And she knew Wyatt. He’d at least have to try, the damned idiot.

  “Keep working!” shouted someone.

  The order spurred her into action—there was nothing else she could do other than stand there and wait. And pray. And try to put the rest of the damned fire out.

  And try not to be terrified that it was because of her that this fire had even started in the first place. They’d found her. The Strangers knew who she was.

  And now the only person she really trusted had run himself into a flaming building. It would be a miracle—beyond a miracle—if he ever came back out.

  Numbly, Remy turned to fill her bucket from the ineffectual hose. Just as she spun back, taking three short steps to hand it off to someone, there was a loud crash followed by a rolling wave of heat.

  “Motherfucker,” someone breathed.

  Her heart in her throat, already knowing what she was going to see, Remy looked over. The building into which Wyatt had dashed was now nothing more than a vee-shaped, collapsed pile of rubble.

  She dropped the bucket, running automatically toward the renewed blaze, into where she’d last seen him. Wyatt. No, please, no! But something—someone—hooked her arm, yanking her away so hard her head snapped and the crystal whipped sharply on its chain, slamming against her back.

  She looked up into Ian’s face. His cold expression sent a bolt of fear through her. She tried to pull away, stomping down hard on him with her bare foot, and wished she was still wearing her silver shoes. The spiky heel would have done some damage. “Let me go, Ian.”

  “Not a chance,” he said, edging her away from the activity. “You heard what they said. Turn you in or Envy’s toast.” In the eerie light of the leaping flames, his smile was frightening.

  She opened her mouth to shout, but it was lost in the roar of the fire battle.

  Wyatt closed his eyes. The unbearable heat from the flames seeped into him . . . through fabric onto skin and then muscle and bone, finally settling deep in his organs. He felt it with every pump of his heart, every pulse of blood in his veins. Eating into his liver and lungs. Searing into his very marrow.

  The weight of the ceiling or whatever it was that crashed onto him pinned Wyatt in place. He couldn’t move even as the fire dug into flesh and bone. He could see the blaze dancing along his arm, felt it nibbling on his hair and searing into his nostrils, eyelids, and ears.

  Finally.

  He closed his eyes and the world behind his lids was just the same: bright, blazing light, heat, shadows. As he slid into a final sleep, pieces of his life filtered through his mind in a gentle lullaby.

  Cathy at the altar, sparkling in white, glowing with love . . . the dark black heat of a Middle East night, a heavy weapon resting on his shoulder . . . The weight of his fire gear, hose in hand, boots clumping on his feet . . .

  Loki as a pup, with his mischievous eyes and too-big ears . . . holding Abby in his arms for the first time, her soft, fuzzy head hardly bigger than his palm . . . watching David toddle his first steps before falling into a soft blue sofa . . . snatching Abby out of a fast-rushing stream . . . holding hands with Cath by the fire . . . flipping burgers on the backyard grill . . .

  The grateful, sad smile of a Haitian woman when he opened her repaired door . . . angry tears in his wife’s eyes . . . bright pink flowers on Mom’s grave . . . Dantès’s intelligent, amber eyes and upright ears . . . his first glimpse of Envy . . . Remy and her shotgun, blasting at the rabid coon . . . Dantès and Remy asleep on the floor . . . Brilliant blue-violet eyes and full pink lips and comfort . . .

  And then . . . nothing.

  He was floating. Darkness came and went and then there was a brilliant white light.

  Wyatt.

  Someone was calling his name.

  A heavy weight was lifted from his chest. He could move. He could breathe. He did.

  Someone shouted. Someone touched him.

  He gave a great shudder and felt the exhaustion and ache rushing through his body. It was like waking from a dead sleep after the longest, hardest day of his life. Worse than the first day of basic training. Worse than the end of a week in Haiti after the hurricane. His muscles protested. His lungs hurt. His eyes wanted to stay closed but he forced them open.

  The light was strong and bright, bringing tears to his eyes. He had to look away, reaching up to shield his face. Something tickled his skin like the flutter of fingers or something delicate falling on his cheeks and he opened his eyes again, still blinded by the light.

  “Holy Mother of God, he is alive!”

  Who? Wyatt pulled himself upright, even as something—someone—pushed him back down.

  “Easy now, Earp,” said a familiar voice.

  Wyatt knocked Elliott’s hands away and sat up. What the hell?

  “My God,” someone said in a hushed voice.

  “What the hell is going on?” Wyatt managed to say aloud this time. He squeezed his eyes closed, still seeing the dancing flames bright behind his lids, and then opened them again. It was daylight.

  He happened to be looking down, and the first thing he saw was his hands. Jesus Christ. They were shiny, coal-black. The skin was peeling, curling up in large pieces.

  Beyond his hands . . . below . . . was his torso, his legs. What was left of his clothing was charred beyond recognition and his skin was the same . . . soot black. Ashy. Flaking and peeling away.

  He looked up, still squinting in the sunlight, and found Elliott. Wyatt licked his lips—God, he was dry—and tasted . . . burned skin. Charcoal. Grit. Salt.

  Elliott was looking at him with an expression he’d never seen before. A combination of horror and wonder and question. “Wyatt. Are you . . . how do you feel? Do you feel, um . . . anything?”

  Wyatt shook his head, shifted, and felt the groan of his muscles, an achy sort of heat trundle through his body. And he noticed more black skin flaking away. He drew in an experimental breath, feeling his lungs expand, and drew in deeply, more and more and more. He felt as if he could inhale forever . . . Cool, fresh oxygen surged through his body like a lak
e breeze. Energy and life tingled through him. He felt it rush to the very ends of his capillaries, to every neuron in every nerve ending . . . to the well of every hair follicle through to the tip of its hair . . .

  “Yeah,” he replied carefully. An odd prickly comprehension was sliding over him, like a shade being dragged away and allowing the sun to shine through. This was . . . wrong. He’d seen burned bodies. They didn’t look like this.

  Then he looked back at Elliott, understanding. Yes. His friend had healed him. Saved him from death.

  “You should be . . . dead,” Elliott said. He was crouching next to Wyatt, and they both watched as he reached out and gingerly brushed a fingertip over Wyatt’s forearm. Black skin fluttered away . . . and beneath it was . . .

  “Holy crap.”

  Beneath it was clean, smooth, unmarred skin. Sleek. Muscular. Sprinkled with dark hair. Unblemished.

  “You healed me,” Wyatt said, looking at his friend. He shifted and felt the ache rush through him, knew it would be a day or two before the lingering discomfort finally dissipated. But, hell. He was alive.

  For the first time, that thought wasn’t a disappointment.

  But Elliott was shaking his head, wonderment and understanding in his eyes. “No. I didn’t do anything.”

  Wyatt frowned and felt the tightness of his face. He reached up to massage his brows and more dark flakes fluttered down. His jaw, his cheeks, his mouth . . . they were tight and hard and shiny . . . and they shed.

  “What happened?” he asked, and experimentally got to his feet. Simon was there, and so was Fence. They were both looking at him as if they’d never seen him before.

  “Take it easy Wyatt,” Elliott said again—but he made no move to stop him. Instead, he positioned himself as if to catch his friend should his legs give way while watching in awe.

  Wyatt stood there, on his own two legs, in the middle of smoking rubble. Charred wood and other debris littered the area. Early morning sun blasted down, bright and new. The smell of smoke was everywhere.

  “What happened?” he asked again.

  “I think,” Elliott said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips, “you’ve discovered your special ability.”

  “Yeah?” Wyatt replied, letting that sink in as he looked down at himself. More burned skin had fallen away, and bigger patches of fresh, undamaged skin were showing.

  “You came out of that fire covered in ashes, your skin just peeling away,” Simon said, kicking away a smoldering piece of wood. “And now look at you.”

  “Holy shit,” Fence said. “You’re a motherfucking phoenix.” He looked down. “And, bro . . . you need a new pair of pants.”

  Chapter 16

  Once someone brought him a new set of clothing, Wyatt found he was perfectly capable of participating in the recovery work Simon, Fence, and other residents of Envy had been doing, even as he continued to “shed” the last bit of his old skin. He joined in the work immediately, knowing how important it was to locate any survivors as soon as possible. His body was achy and his eyes gritty, but those were minor discomforts. Other than that and the fact that his mind was a little muddled, the rest of him seemed to function just as well—or even better—than before. He actually felt quite . . . new.

  “Can’t decide whether you’re a phoenix or a freaking snake,” Fence said as his buddy brushed away more burned skin from behind his knees. It seemed to cling more stubbornly there than elsewhere. “Either way, it’s fixin’ to be a helluva mess every time you do . . . whatever you do.”

  “I could use a shower or a swim, that’s for damned sure,” Wyatt replied. “But there’s time for that later. Most of it’s gone.”

  “Yeah. And, you know how the Hulk is when he changes, he busts out of all his clothes, so he always wears his pants way too big? Well, man, you better find some fireproof shorts for yourself, bro. Or you’re gonna be making a stir with the ladies, showing your junk around like that.” Fence rumbled a chuckle, showing his brilliant white teeth.

  They were clearing the remnants of debris from the two tents and the one building that had gone up in smoke. Wyatt wasn’t surprised to learn that he could pick up and move smoldering pieces of wood with his bare hands. He felt the heat but it didn’t burn.

  “Any casualties?” he asked Simon as they tossed the burned-out remains onto a pile that would later be burned to the ground.

  “Other than you?” His smile was wry. “Only the poor dog you tried to save. Some burns and other injuries, but that’s it. As far as we know, anyway. But we’re still looking to make sure.”

  Wyatt heaved a large piece of door onto the pile. “Me?”

  “Yeah, mo-fo. When that roof came down on your head, we knew that was all she wrote. The damn fat lady had sung,” Fence said, swiping an arm over his soot-streaked face. But his eyes danced with humor as only his could during such an unpleasant topic. “No one could get to you either, brother—you were buried in flames. Not till we got the fire out and it cooled off this morning enough for us to dig your ass out.”

  Hell. Wyatt tossed an unidentifiable piece of furniture onto the pile. “Thanks for pulling me out.” He wondered what would have happened if they hadn’t dug him out. Would he have died? Or had it been only the heavy ceiling that kept him from being able to walk out under his own steam? Because it sure as hell wasn’t the fire that did it. Neither the fire, nor the smoke—either of which should have finished him off.

  It didn’t really matter: he was alive. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to go through it again to find out how or what happened.

  “Elliott’s up to his balls in work in the infirmary, but he came out to find you first thing,” Simon told him. He didn’t need to add that the doctor would have done whatever he could to save him, and knowing what a double-edged blessing that skill was, Wyatt was relieved Elliott hadn’t had to try. “And once this is cleaned up and the injured are taken care of, Vaughn wants all of us—”

  “You know, us us,” Fence added meaningfully. “We bad-ass dudes. And our bad-ass women, too, of course.” He looked around as if to make sure no one had heard him tacking on that last bit. Heaven forbid if Zoë thought she was an afterthought.

  “He wants all of us to meet and strategize about what to do next,” Simon continued. “We’ve only got forty hours to figure out what to do.”

  Wyatt stopped what he was doing. In the craziness of his reawakening and the blur of urgent work that needed to be done searching for survivors, he’d forgotten about all of that. The memory of all that happened before the explosion and fire came rushing back in a cold, shocking wave.

  David. A surge of hope and optimism fluttered inside. As soon as they were finished here, he’d locate the man and find out if the miraculous had happened. If—

  He froze. The Strangers. The helicopter. How could he have forgotten that?

  Remy.

  “Where’s Remy?” he asked sharply.

  No one immediately answered, and he said it again as an unpleasant feeling curdled in his belly. “Where the hell is Remy?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” Fence said. “But I’m betting she’s with Ana and the others. She and Jade have been helping Elliott in the infirmary, and I think Sage and Zoë were fixing to do some other cleanup inside.”

  Fence’s words were easy, and they should have put Wyatt at ease . . . but, hell, he knew better. And his gut told him it might not be that simple. He glared around at the mess that had changed an area of celebration into a place of fear and pain. Tendrils of smoke still curled up from one pile of rubble, and soot and ash danced in the breeze. People were talking quietly as they worked, and much had already been accomplished. The damaged area was a relatively small space and cleanup was under control.

  “I’m going to look for her,” Wyatt told Simon. Their eyes met and the other man gave him a sober look of understanding.

  “No one knows who she is, man,” Simon told him in a low voice. “That she’s Remington Truth. Just us. And Vaughn.”
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  “And Ian Marck,” Wyatt snapped. And wondered if he could really trust Vaughn Rogan—especially when his city was at stake.

  “Pinche,” Simon muttered. “You go. I’ll take a look around too.”

  Wyatt’s long legs took him off quickly and efficiently. He went to the infirmary first, where he found Elliott well in control of the ill and injured. And just about ready to deliver a brand new baby as well. That might have been a spark of optimism after a night of darkness, but since no one there had seen Remy or Dantès, Wyatt found little reason to smile.

  His next stop was inside the pub, where he’d left Dantès in the care of a couple of teenage boys last night. Neither of them were there, but one of their moms was and she told Wyatt that Dantès was safely with her son.

  But that meant Dantès wasn’t with Remy.

  “Zoë,” Wyatt snapped when he saw her rushing off somewhere. She was still wearing the clothes from last night, and her white slacks were streaked black with soot, and were gray everywhere else. She was wearing hiking boots and her face was haggard.

  “Holy fucking shit.” She nearly dropped the tray of food she was carrying. Her eyes bugged out. “Are you alive or a damned ghost? There’s no damned way—”

  “I’m alive,” he said shortly. “Long story. Have you seen Remy?”

  She stared at him, blinked, and then refocused. “No. Not since last night, right after you went up to the stage.” Her face went grim. “Now that I think of it . . . I haven’t seen her at all.”

  Wyatt tried to quell the icy feeling creeping over him, but he couldn’t. Remy wasn’t the type of person to hide away when there was work to be done, people to be helped. The Remy he knew would have been out in the middle of everything, giving orders and telling everyone what they were doing wrong—even if they were right.

  Which meant something had happened to keep her from being there.

  “What about Ian Marck?” he demanded.

  Zoë shook her head.

  The cold sharp claws of fear gripped him tightly now. Not good. This was not good.