The Strangers, theorized the Waxnickis, had caused the devastation of the Change. And now they wanted to make certain the surviving people lived simple, disconnected, repressed lives. And so vehicles, computers, and other communication devices were confiscated and destroyed.
Why the Strangers had done what they did, and why they wanted to keep the rest of the human race in a state of primitive living was anyone’s guess—though the Waxnicki brothers, who immodestly described themselves as “fucking computer geniuses” had plenty of opinions on that as well. One of which had to do with them somehow finding the lost city of Atlantis—for the Strangers wore special crystals embedded in their skin in order to make themselves immortal.
Luke might not have believed any of their crazy theories if he hadn’t seen firsthand the actions of the Strangers after escaping River Vale. And the destruction of their bounty hunters, who acted in the name of the Strangers.
And then there were the zombies, who roamed free…and who somehow were controlled or influenced by the Strangers. Luke would never forget the stench…and the sight of the sagging, green-gray flesh, the glowing orange eyes, the rotting teeth as the zombie reached for him.
It was two years ago…and he still dreamed about it. Still heard the sounds of their eerie cries echoing in his mind: Rrrrruuuuuthhhhhhh…rrruuuuttthhhhh…
He resolutely pushed away the memories, the guilt, the realization of how damned lucky he was that a crabby, foul-mouthed female archer had saved his life from a pack of zombies, and returned his attention to the matter at hand.
Theo Waxnicki had sent him here on a mission.
And Luke was damned if he was going to feck it up.
* * *
Marisa slipped out the side door of the library and gasped aloud when she nearly ran smack into a man standing there.
He turned to look at her, and the cold, steady expression in his emerald-green eyes pinned her in place even more effectively than the sight of the gun in his hand. But the gun was what made her belly drop like a heavy stone.
He was not a resident of River Vale.
“Is this your place?” He gestured to the building.
She swallowed hard and pushed up her glasses. Show no fear. “Yes, I live here.”
“I need to see inside.” He reached out and took her arm as if to forestall her escape, then turned and gave a short, sharp whistle.
Her ears still ringing from the ear-piercing sound, Marisa replied, “You don’t need to grab me like that. I’m not going anywhere.”
He turned back, training those unsettling green eyes on her. “That’s an excellent decision.” He released her arm, but kept the gun trained casually in her direction.
The man appeared to be in his thirties, and he needed a shave. He might have been considered handsome if he hadn’t worn such a cold, forbidding expression. His hair was thick and dark blond, lighter at the ends than at the roots, and she was close enough to see how his stubble glittered in a mixture of red, blond, and brown. He was rangy and muscular, with high, sharp cheekbones and a square jaw that moved as if he was clenching his teeth.
“Are you looking for a book?” she asked, trying to remember whether she’d seen any blood on the floor from Luke’s injury.
“A book?” His lips flattened in an unpleasant smile.
“This building—it’s a library. My family have been the keepers of the books since…”
For some reason, she didn’t want to mention the Change. There was something about this man—something brittle and desperate, and dangerous—that warned her he wouldn’t appreciate the topic. “For years.”
Before he could respond—if indeed he meant to—two other men came into view. They, like the green-eyed man, were dressed in cargo pants, scuffed boots, and black t-shirts. They all carried guns, and one wore a bandanna tied around his forehead.
“What’d you find, Ian?” asked the one with the bandanna.
“This lovely young woman is going to show us her library,” he replied. Then, without warning, he speared her with his eyes again. “We’re looking for something. If you can help us, I suggest you do so.” The warning was abundantly clear.
Something…not someone? Marisa felt a waver of relief trickle through her. She reached back and tightened her ponytail, trying to maintain a semblance of innocence. “Of course. What are you looking for?”
Ian and his companions exchanged glances and what she could only describe as humorless laughs. “It’s something that’s been missing for longer than you’ve been born.”
Now her tension came back a little. There were a lot of things in the hidden room that had been there since before she was born. Things Marisa couldn’t identify, and probably things she didn’t even know were there.
What if they found them?
“And,” said the bandannaed man, “we’re looking for a man. Have you seen any strange men about? Anyone new to River Vale?”
“No,” Marisa replied honestly, even though her heart was slamming in her chest and her palms were slippery wet. “Not since the scavenger wagon came through about two weeks ago. The man driving it had never been here before. What does the guy look—”
“Let’s go,” Ian interrupted impatiently. “We’ll find him if he’s around.” He gestured with his gun and Marisa jumped a little when its barrel swiped toward her.
Stop being so skittish, or they’re going to know something’s up.
“This way,” she said in a calm voice. “If you told me what you were looking for, it’d be easier for me to help you.”
“If you don’t stop talking,” said the man called Ian in just as pleasant a voice, “I’m going to ensure that you do.”
Okay then. Marisa led the way through the door from which she’d just emerged, and the first thing she saw when she stepped into the hallway down which she’d led a blindfolded Luke was a trail of blood stains on the tile floor.
Oh shit. Oh shit.
Please don’t notice.Please don’t notice…
Maybe they’d think it was dirt or mud. It was brown now, and maybe if she led them fast enough through the library, they wouldn’t notice—
But Ian stopped abruptly, about two steps inside, and crouched down next to one of the dried droplets. As Marisa tried to keep her heart from exploding from her chest—why oh why had she listened to Luke?—the bounty hunter licked a finger and swiped it over the stain.
“It’s blood. Relatively new.” He looked up at his companions, then trained his attention on her.
Marisa kept her features completely blank, her expression utterly confused. “And…?”
“Where is he?” Ian rose and stared down at her.
“I—what? Who? What are you talking about? What’s the big deal—I had a bloody nose. I dripped blood on the floor. So sue me.” She didn’t really know what it meant to “sue me,” but it was an old catchphrase that meant “so what?” And she thought she was doing an excellent job of playing innocent. Bilbo Baggins or Tom Sawyer couldn’t have bluffed their way out any more neatly.
Ian rose, his eyes still sharp, but he said nothing. “Show me around. I want to see everything.”
Palms slick, heart rate bumping along unsteadily, Marisa kept her expression calm as she led Ian and his two cohorts down the corridor. If he wanted a tour of the place, she’d give him a damned tour. She hoped she bored the hell out of him.
“This is where we keep all the children’s books. There’s Harry Potter and Dr. Seuss and the Boxcar Children and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Nancy Drew, too, but those are really old and hardly any of those survived the Change—er—and over there are the Magic Tree House books, and the Junie B. Jones—and here are the rest of the picture books. Mother Goose and Disney.”
She allowed her voice to show her love of the books she curated and protected, and her tension began to dissolve as she moved to another section of the library. The scent of paper and binding glue and old, beautiful literature filled her nose, and she couldn’t help but run her fingers
delicately over the curving tops of spines—many of which she’d repaired with her own two hands.
“The adult fiction collection is here—we’ve got everything from Tolkien and Dan Brown to Clive Cussler, Robyn Carr, and Jodi Picoult. In alpha order by author, of course. Mysteries are over in that section—all the J. D. Robb, Anne Perry, C. S. Harris, and Barbara Michaels books—and over here are the vampire books. They were such a popular genre back in the early 2000s, starting with—”
“That’s enough,” Ian snapped. “I can see them myself.”
Marisa closed her mouth and stood silently as he and his companions looked at every row of books, moving some of them, peering behind them in the gaps between to back-to-back shelves, even shifting one entire case that was positioned in the corner of the room. She knew they’d discover nothing but dust and maybe a spider or two back there, for she kept the place perfectly clean and neat.
“Is this it?” Ian demanded, hands on his hips.
“What do you mean? There are more books this way,” she replied. “The nonfiction section and my liv—”
“Show me. Stop talking and show me.”
So she did. Books on farming and sewing and cooking and veterinary medicine. Volumes of American history, ancient history, and drama and poetry. Natural sciences like zoology, entomology, and biology. Jewelry making. Games and sports. Basic electrical wiring and plumbing and carpentry. All were subjects Marisa’s grandmother and father had deemed over the years not to be incendiary in the minds of the Strangers.
The books about chemistry and pharmacology, engineering, and computer science were hidden away. Marisa couldn’t completely subdue a shiver when she thought about the consequences should those volumes be discovered.
“What’s over there?” Ian said.
“That’s my living quarters,” Marisa answered. “Kitchen, sleeping area—”
“Just you? Living here all alone?” asked the bounty hunter, looking at her with interest. “In this big place?”
Marisa’s heart sank and she felt a little lightheaded. Why did he care? The only reasons she could think of weren’t pleasant ones… “Um…well, my father died two years ago, and I—”
“Answer the question. Does anyone live here with you? Or do you live alone?”
Chapter Four
* * *
It had taken Luke by surprise when he heard the voices—Marisa’s and the bounty hunters’—as clearly as if he were standing next to them. Then he realized this hidden safe-room was equipped with a sound system that fed in from the outside.
That made complete sense, for if you were hiding in here—or even if you were just in here, doing whatever—you’d want to know if anyone was outside lurking about. You’d want to know when it was safe to leave, or if you were in danger of being discovered.
But his surprise and delight at being able to hear everything that was going on on the other side of the wall immediately evaporated when he recognized Ian Marck’s voice.
Oh, damn.
And it got worse when Marck noticed blood on the floor—but quick-on-her-feet Marisa instantly came up with a plausible story colored with just the right amount of annoyance and innocence. Nice job.
And Luke couldn’t quite contain a grin, listening to her giving the asshole bounty hunters a very thorough tour of all the books in the library in a prim, yet enthusiastic voice. He could imagine the way her ponytail bounced with alacrity as she pointed out book after book, and the way her full lips would purse when Marck became annoyed. Still, she was buying time, trying to distract, and, most of all, doing her best to appear innocent and unruffled.
That is, until Ian Marck asked her the very same question that had been hovering in the back of Luke’s mind…and for quite possibly an even less innocent reason.
“Answer the question. Do you live here alone?”
There was definitely no good reason for Ian Marck to want to know the answer, and a whole load of not-so-good reasons. And yet Luke found himself straining to hear her response for his own edification.
“Yes,” Marisa said after a moment. “I live here alone.” Her voice sounded a little nervous, and Luke felt a rush of fury, mixed—ridiculously, embarrassingly—with underlying relief. She lived here alone. No husband, no lover, hopefully no boyfriend to unloosen that thick ponytail and pull those glasses away…
“Excellent,” said Ian Marck—quite possibly thinking along the same damn track as Luke, which caused his anger to ripen into something a lot more like holy-hell shit than mere fury. “Then there will be plenty of room for us to stay here during our little visit. I’m sure you’ll be very hospitable, won’t you?”
Feck.
That was a problem on so many levels that Luke didn’t even know where to start to address it.
No, that wasn’t true. Where to start was how the hell to get Marisa out of there. There was no way she could stay here with those bastards—especially overnight. Definitely not overnight.
By now, Luke was almost ready to walk right out of this safe-room and face Ian Marck head-on. He’d gotten away from the asshole once, he could manage it again. Hopefully.
“Well, you’re welcome to bed down on the floor if that’s what you really want to do,” Marisa was saying. Damn, her voice was still pretty steady. “And as far as hospitality goes, I’ve got to warn you—I have quite the reputation as far as my cooking goes.”
Luke choked back a laugh. She sure as hell did—and unless things had turned around one hundred and eighty degrees since Luke had been here, Ian Marck and his minions weren’t going to be very happy with whatever she served them. Despite the plethora of cookbooks at her fingertips, Marisa was definitely not known for her cooking.
“I’m sure you’ll take care of us just fine.”
This new voice, and its tone, caused Luke to stiffen. It wasn’t Ian Marck but another bounty hunter he recognized named Juniper. The sly edge to his comment made the hair at the back of Luke’s neck lift.
Oh no you don’t, you dickhead.
Ian Marck was one thing—he was as smart and dangerous and soulless as they came. He was driven and angry and cold. He’d snap a man’s neck without a second thought if he felt the need. But one thing Luke had never seen him do was put his hands on a woman with unwarranted violence, or stand back and watch while others did. Or even acknowledge a woman in any sexual manner.
But Juniper was another story altogether. He was the one Marisa had to worry about, even though Marck was the one she ought to be terrified of.
Luke felt marginally better when Ian Marck said, “No distractions, Juniper. So keep a damned lid on it.”
“No distractions, huh? Maybe you’d best remember that when that blue-eyed bitch you’ve been bang—”
Luke winced when the man’s voice was throttled off in a strangle. That didn’t sound good. But he grinned when there was a dull thud that sounded suspiciously like a body slamming against a wall. Ouch.
“Shut it,” was all Marck said. And there was a more solid thud when Juniper thunked to the ground.
Luke might not like or trust Ian Marck, but at least the man had a code.
* * *
Luke realized there had to be another way out of this safe-room besides the one through which Marisa had brought him.
If you were going to make a hideaway, complete with food supplies, toilet, and a place to bunk down—not to mention security features like the sound system—you were going to have more than one way in or out.
Keeping an ear on what was happening in the rest of the library—it sounded as if Marisa was making the bounty hunters something to eat, poor bastards—Luke began to examine every inch of his semi-prison.
He was momentarily distracted by the lines of computers: the boxes of various sizes and shapes, the screens, the smaller, flat devices that looked like little more than thick, dark mirrors, and the ones that opened and closed like a book. His fingers itched to touch and explore the keyboards and the oblong, handheld things called mi
ce.
But he didn’t dare, simply because he knew nothing about how these machines worked and what they did other than what he’d seen in old movies. He didn’t want to chance setting off some sort of alarm, or causing some other snafu.
One thing was certain: when he finished this mission and returned to Envy, he was going to insist the Waxnickis teach him how to use these things. He wanted to know more than just how to set up a network access point…Which he needed to get working on as soon as he could retrieve his pack and get out the equipment.
Luke spewed out a long breath. Unsure of his welcome, he’d hidden his rucksack before venturing into the settlement. He didn’t want to take the chance of being caught and searched, so he’d tucked it inside an old mailbox just outside River Vale. At some point, he was going to have to get out of here, evade Ian Marck, evade Marisa, retrieve the pack, and climb up on one of the taller buildings—this one might even work—and set the damn thing up.
All without anyone noticing.
Good Lord. If I make it out of here alive, it’ll be more than a miracle.
The sound of pots and pans clattering through the speakers mounted in the corners of the secret room accompanied Luke’s examination of the place. The bounty hunters talked among themselves, seeming to ignore their hostess. At least he knew Marisa was safe, and he could focus on the matter at hand. The fact that he was a little hungry was a mere niggle in his belly, and little more.
Once he put his mind to it and was no longer distracted by the computers, it didn’t take long for Luke to discover the hidden exit. It wasn’t even that hidden, for it was behind a mechanized bookshelf that swung open to reveal a small alcove. He shook his head, amused. Whoever designed this place had to have been a fan of either James Bond or Scooby-Doo.
Tempted by the Night Page 3