by Melissa Marr
“No,” she interrupted. Before she could say more, Daniel lunged at Jack, and the two men were throwing punches.
Kitty sighed. Daniel had been one of their own, one she’d trusted and liked, but he’d left when Kitty had ended their ill-thought-out relationship. As far as she saw it, they’d been friends who sometimes went to bed together. Unfortunately, as it turned out, Daniel thought he felt something more for her, and he’d also been there to spy on the Arrivals.
As a result, Jack had the dual provocations of overprotectiveness toward her and intolerance for deceit. The result was that the two men couldn’t seem to cross paths without fists flying. They’d killed each other repeatedly early on after Daniel had left, but these days Daniel never drew his weapon. Jack, of course, couldn’t see his way clear to shoot him if he knew that Daniel was refusing to use bullets. Her brother was honor-bound to the point of foolishness. She wasn’t.
“You have ten minutes, Jack, and then if he’s still upright, I’m shooting him.”
For his part, Daniel was a good fighter. Once upon a time, she’d enjoyed watching him in action. Since he’d become one of Ajani’s top people, he’d shown himself capable of a type of creative violence that was disquieting to her. Currently, he was fighting fair—and well.
Kitty drew the revolver on her left hip and flicked open the chamber. She tapped out two bullets and replaced them with a pair of Francis’ toxin-filled rounds.
“Thought you said ten minutes, Kitty.” Daniel glanced at her and grinned. “If Edgar is telling you minutes are that brief, maybe I ought to remind—”
“Watch yourself, Danny.” She pulled back the hammer and grinned at her former bedmate.
“At least Edgar is worthy of my sister,” Jack snarled as he hit Daniel with even more force than before.
Daniel staggered back as Jack landed another blow. He locked eyes with Kitty as he wiped the blood from his mouth. “I don’t think you’ll do it.”
Jack shook his head and muttered something, but Kitty didn’t hear it over the crack of her gun.
The bullet hit Daniel in the upper thigh. Kitty wouldn’t shoot a Wastelander so casually, but Daniel was—like all of Ajani’s group—impervious to death. Even if he did die from the wound, he’d wake back up. Unlike the Arrivals who stayed with Jack, Ajani’s people didn’t ever stay dead.
She pulled back the hammer as she debated where to shoot him the second time, but before she fired again, Jack said, “Katherine! Enough.”
She rolled her eyes. “Just because you don’t shoot him anymore doesn’t mean I can’t.”
“And that’s the other reason Ajani wants you. You’re bloodthirsty.” Daniel ripped off his shirt to wrap around his wound. He still looked damn good with less clothes, and he knew it. She barely resisted smiling at the familiar warmth in his voice as he asked, “A little help?”
“Go to hell.”
“Didn’t we already do that?” Daniel asked quietly.
When neither Kitty nor Jack replied, Daniel looked down and wrapped the shirt as best he could around his bleeding leg. He tied the arms of the shirt into a knot, using them like straps to fasten the makeshift bandage. When he looked up, he had a far too friendly expression on his face, but all he said was, “Burns like fire, Kit. Something Francis cooked up?”
Jack shook his head at the two of them, touched his lip gingerly, and looked at the blood now on his fingers. “Come on, Katherine. There’s no need to stand around with a go’damned lickfinger.”
The look Daniel was giving her was the same one he’d used years ago when he wanted to talk privately. Kitty glanced at her brother and said, “I’ll be right in.”
Jack gave her a pointed look. “Don’t kill him . . . or do anything else stupid.”
Daniel laughed and waved Jack away. “Give the others my best.”
But Jack was already heading into the inn. Once he was gone, Kitty squatted down beside Daniel. She sighed. “Jack would let you come home. It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“Are you over Edgar?”
She forced herself not to flinch away from Daniel’s attentive gaze, to keep her expression mild, but it didn’t change anything. “What’s between you and me has nothing to do with Edgar. You were my friend.”
“Are you offering the same sort of friendship we used to have?” he asked baldly. “I hear that he’s still banned from your bed. Tell me we can pick up where we were, and we can call it whatever you want.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I’ll stay with Ajani.” Daniel sighed. “Living like you and Jack isn’t something I’m going to do just for the hell of it, Kit. I like comfort, and I like money. The only thing I want that I don’t have in Ajani’s employ is your friendship.” He paused, but she couldn’t say anything he would want to hear. “Ajani wants you because of what you are, but he has no idea who you really are. Honestly, Kit, I think it would kill me to see you with him. Worse than seeing you with Edgar.”
“I’m not with Edgar,” Kitty insisted. “We’re friends, but not . . .”
“You’re with him enough to refuse me.” Daniel gave her a rueful smile. “None of the others Ajani has gathered can work spells. It’s still only you, and he is going crazy over it lately. He rants like a child denied a favorite toy. Be careful.”
Over the years Kitty had gotten very good at hiding her feelings, but she failed in that moment: her surprise was as obvious as her doubt. “So you’re my spy now?”
He shrugged. “If that’s all you’ll let me be . . . I’m not working for the Arrivals, but there’s not much I wouldn’t do to protect you. Lately, I’m not so sure the boss is firing on all cylinders. Something’s up. I just thought you should know.” Then he held a hand out to her. “Help me up?”
“I’m the reason you’re down,” she objected, but she took his hand all the same and stood. Bracing her feet, she tugged, and he pushed off the ground with his uninjured leg and other arm.
When he was on his feet, he used her hand to jerk her toward him.
Before he could kiss her, she’d raised her gun and pressed the barrel against his stomach. “Don’t make me shoot you again.”
His answering laughter was so familiar that she smiled in spite of herself.
“I could stay here tonight, Kitty,” he said. “Edgar wouldn’t have to know. Hell, no one has to know. It doesn’t even have to mean anything.”
For a moment, she considered it. She wasn’t sharing Edgar’s bed, and she didn’t owe anyone any explanations. It wasn’t like she was able to catch a disease or get pregnant, not here in the Wasteland, but no amount of rationalization would change the fact that Daniel worked for Ajani. Weakly, she said, “I just shot you.”
“True,” Daniel murmured. “There would be positions we couldn’t—”
“No,” she interrupted. She stepped away from him and glanced toward the tavern, as much to look for Jack as not to look at Daniel. “Edgar would forgive me for a meaningless fuck, but you’re not meaningless.”
“Thank you for that.” Daniel squeezed her hand. “Be careful, and—as much as I hate saying this—try to stay with Edgar or Jack. I’m not sure the boss would follow the rules anymore if he saw an opportunity to take you.”
After Daniel released her hand and limped away, Kitty stood watching him. They’d once been friends, but that didn’t mean she understood him . . . or truly trusted him. In his life before waking up in the Wasteland, Daniel had been a drug dealer. He lied as easily as he breathed.
In this, though, she believed him. For the first time in a lot of years, he’d sounded like the man she’d once cared for. Whatever flaws he had, he’d just put himself at risk, and taken a bullet to the thigh to warn her. She could only hope that Ajani didn’t find out.
Chapter 4
Jack was trying not to notice that their return trip across the desert was slower than the trip to Covenant had been. Maybe it was simply a result of not wanting to return to camp and wait. They’d know withi
n the next two days if Mary would return to them, and until they knew, it was hard to focus on much else—or hurry back to camp.
Unfortunately, the world didn’t pause for death. The monks were still out there; the job remained unfinished. Jack had an uneasy feeling after their conversation with Governor Soanes—and seeing Daniel hadn’t helped matters.
“How did Daniel know we were in Covenant?” Jack prompted.
“Damned if I know.” Katherine’s expression became closed, and he knew she was hiding something. If she’d been anyone else, he’d be mistrustful, assuming that she was passing information to Daniel, but although his sister was guilty of a lot of things over the years, none of them was treachery.
He waited.
They were over halfway to camp when she said, “I think he was there to talk to me, but I don’t know how he knew we’d be in Covenant.”
Jack nodded.
A few more minutes passed before she added, “He says Ajani is coming off the rails lately. He wanted to warn us.”
“Warn you,” Jack corrected. “Should I ask if he left after you spoke?”
“You shouldn’t have to ask, Jack,” she snapped. Then she sighed. “Do you know how Danny knew where to find us?”
“I don’t.” Jack trusted the rest of the Arrivals. Mostly. Melody had spent some time with Ajani last year, and Jack suspected she still had some contact with his people. She was the most likely source of any information leak; on the other hand, it wasn’t too hard to guess that Jack would be going to see the governor after Mary’s death. Anyone in Gallows could’ve seen them and sent word to Ajani. Hell, Daniel might’ve been in Gallows and heard it himself, for all they knew.
“Was the governor expecting us?” Jack mused.
Beside him, Katherine sighed again. “It sure seemed like it, but I can’t say for certain. If I had any real answers, I’d share them. All I know right now is that the monks were supposed to be looking for peace, but they weren’t; that Soanes wants them dead; that Daniel thinks Ajani is unstable; and that if Mary doesn’t wake up, we’ll have a new Arrival to deal with on top of the rest of the bullshit.”
“What happened to women being the gentler sex?” Jack shot her a pretend grumpy look; he couldn’t stand seeing her look so defeated. “Shouldn’t you be offering some sort of comforting reply?”
Katherine rolled her eyes, but her lips curved in a small smile. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make him relax a little. She was able to hold her own against most of what the Wasteland threw at them, and she was the only one from their world who could do spellwork, but the emotional stuff threw her into maudlin moods, and Jack wasn’t an idiot: he knew his sister still had feelings for Daniel. She shot him often enough to prove to everyone she didn’t, but it wasn’t particularly convincing.
“I’ll figure it all out, Katherine,” Jack promised her quietly. “And whether or not Mary wakes, we’ll get through this too.”
He wished yet again that he’d had the sense to tuck her away in some school back east instead of letting her stay in California with him. If he’d put her where she’d have been safe, she wouldn’t have been brought to the Wasteland; if he’d thought about her safety instead of giving in to his own arrogant belief that he could keep her safe, she’d be in a better world where she could have a proper life. Instead, she was trapped here in the Wasteland, dealing with monsters and death, scuffling in the dirt and blood, and knowing as well as he did that there was no end in sight. He looked over at her and repeated, “I’ll figure it out.”
Unfortunately, the following day, when they were back at camp, Jack had no clearer idea of what to do. They’d know by the next day whether Mary’s death was permanent or not. In some reserve of hope that he still clung to after all these years, he hoped that death in this world would mean waking up back in a better one. He didn’t much care whether that better world was the one they’d once known or some sort of afterlife where the Arrivals would find peace. He told himself Heaven was a child’s hope, but if so many impossible things were real, believing in Heaven, in a forgiving God, seemed a little more possible.
His beliefs had dwindled over the years, but as he sat near Mary he whispered a prayer. Then he decided to do something he’d never done before. While Katherine slept in her tent that night, Jack went to the only other person he’d ever met who was capable of standing up to her.
Edgar looked up as Jack entered the tent. Not surprisingly, Edgar was sitting at his table cleaning his weapons. Before coming to the Wasteland, he had been a hired gun for a thriving crime syndicate, so he was as fastidious about weapons maintenance as Jack was. Edgar wasn’t quite the dapper killer he’d been when he arrived in the Wasteland, but he was still an unusual man. His word was binding; his kills were calculated. The job was business, nothing more, nothing less. His willingness to shoot was only tempered by a sense of loyalty, and Edgar Cordova’s loyalty was very narrowly assigned: Katherine was his beloved; Jack was his boss. As to which of the Reed siblings outranked the other when they were at odds, it varied, depending on what Edgar thought most sensible at the time.
“I need your help,” Jack started.
Edgar resumed cleaning the pistol in front of him and asked, “With what?”
“I hate asking you to stand between Katherine and me,” Jack started.
“But you’re going to.”
Jack stepped farther into the tent. It was as practically laid out as the man who slept in it, utilitarian but with a few unexpected exceptions. In his room in every one of their personal quarters, Edgar had a device that allowed his trousers to hang so they wouldn’t wrinkle and a clothes rack for his shirts and jackets. Beyond his clothing contraptions, Edgar’s tent was very basic. A plain dark wood partition concealed the toilet; a weapons chest stood to the side; and in the middle of the room was a bed. Jack stopped at the small table where Edgar sat.
“She’s having a hard time with Mary’s death,” Jack said.
“She always does when one of us dies.” Edgar wiped down the barrel of the pistol and set it aside. “So do you.”
“True.” Jack didn’t want to talk about his own reaction. Of all the people in this world or the last, Edgar was one of the few he didn’t keep at a distance.
“I want to wait alone with Mary,” he admitted. “I need you to keep my sister out of my tent.”
Edgar shook his head. “Kit won’t be happy.”
“I’ll tell her I ordered you to do it,” Jack offered.
The look Edgar gave him would make more than a few people piss themselves in fear, but Jack knew him better than that. If Edgar were genuinely angry, he wouldn’t waste Jack’s time or his own with scowling.
Once they returned to Jack’s tent, Edgar took one of Jack’s chairs and positioned it outside. As Jack went back inside to wait, Edgar said, “If Mary stays dead, I’m letting Kit past me eventually. You can have until midday.”
Jack nodded and resumed his vigil by Mary’s body. Now that Edgar stood outside to stop Katherine from coming into the tent, Jack would have privacy. None of the other Arrivals were particularly close to Mary; it wouldn’t require any special measures to keep them out. Edgar cared only for Katherine; Francis likewise had a brotherly fondness for Katherine. Melody was too self-centered to be close to much of anyone, and if Hector had emotions, no one knew about it. Part of Jack’s reason was simply a need for privacy if he needed to mourn. The rest was a desire for space in order to think about what might come next for the group. Over the years, the group had fluctuated slightly in number, but right now they were at their lowest. Aside from the emotional toll it would take on Jack and Katherine, losing Mary could cause problems if the next Arrival chose to work for Ajani instead of staying with them.
He sat beside Mary, thinking about what came next, but not finding any answers—or signs of returning life. It wasn’t unheard of for the Arrivals to wake a few hours shy of midday or even at dawn, but it wasn’t typical. Jack knew that, but he hoped all the s
ame. Hours passed in silence, and more than a few prayers passed his lips. He hadn’t realized he’d even remembered them that well until now.
When morning came, Katherine’s cussing and Edgar’s calm words broke the silence, and Jack felt a moment of guilt for keeping Katherine out. His sister wanted to be there for him, and he knew she’d been close with Mary, but the cold truth was that he didn’t want his sister there watching him. He didn’t love Mary, had never known the sort of love Katherine and Edgar shared, and he wasn’t entirely sure he was capable of it. What he did know was that Mary had loved him, and right now he wanted to be worthy of that love.
“If you come back, I’ll try to love you,” he promised.
Mary didn’t stir.
For several more hours, Jack alternated between praying and making promises to the dead woman in his bed, but by midday, she was still motionless.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, and then he left his tent.
Edgar looked up at him when he walked out. Beside him was Katherine. They both opened their mouths to speak, but Jack shook his head and said, “I’m going on patrol.”
His sister reached out to him, wrapping her arms around him, but all he could say was “I’m sorry,” even though the words weren’t any more use to her than they had been to Mary. Yet another of the Arrivals was dead, and in the next few days, someone else would appear in the Wasteland to replace her, and Jack would once again try his best not to fail that person. And all the while he would try to convince him or her not to join Ajani—even though that was the only surefire way Jack knew of to keep the newest Arrival from permanent death. That was the ugly truth of it: if they worked for Ajani, they’d be truly free of death. Unfortunately, they’d also be indebted to the one person in the Wasteland whom Jack would willingly die or kill to destroy.
Chapter 5
When Chloe opened her eyes, she was stretched flat on her back, staring up at an odd-looking sky. She wasn’t sure where she was, but she was sure that it was not Washington, D.C. Although she hadn’t seen the whole of the city in the few months she’d lived there, she could pretty much guarantee that there were no sand dunes or fields of what looked like cotton in the heart of the nation’s capital.