Afterlife (22 page)

Omega:

A sea of broken-down cars glistened in the noonday sun; overhead, a competition of hazy blue and gold, underneath, a metallic accordion of rusted fenders, broken taillights and shattered windshields. Patches of dry grass bristled between flat tires; hoods and trunks hung open like lizards yawning in a sun-dappled swamp.

Omega and his pack lounged in the shade of three ancient Cadillacs, the cars piled on top of one another like the tiers of a chrome wedding cake. The dogs lay panting, mouths open, ears back. People didn't wander through the junkyard very often. They didn't seem interested in the old cars. Occasionally a rabbit or a squirrel had the misfortune to come scurrying past. But they never made it back it out again.

A gentle breeze sifted through the canyon of automobile carcasses. Omega lifted his nose, sniffed.

Something was coming. He'd felt it all day, like a tremor in the earth's skin. He could feel it in his paws, could almost taste it, sharp, on the back of his tongue.

A taste like blood.

It made him hungry and cautious.

He trotted over to a puddle and drank, water falling from his muzzle when he finally lifted his head. The air blew cold and brisk. He glanced at the Others. Two of the males and one female were sleeping. His mate met his gaze. She watched him almost all the time now, ever since she'd died and he brought her back.

Since he stole her from Death.

She rested her head on her front paws, but her eyes continued to follow his movements. He lifted his snout and took another deep breath. The river of air was changing, currents shifting, he could almost see a dark pattern taking shape overhead. Swirling, sinuous. Dangerous. His muscles tensed and his hackles rose. He raised his head to the sky and howled, long, mournful.

The Others were awake now, standing up, watching him. They all began to howl.

It was coming, whatever it was, and it would be here soon.

Omega padded off, following the currents. The Others tried to follow him, but he turned and barked, teeth bared. They all backed up, sat down at the edge of the junkyard. Only his mate refused. She stayed far enough away that he couldn't see her.

He continued to follow the river of air, knew where it would lead him.

And as long as his mate stayed far enough behind him, where no one else would see her, then she would be safe. The taste of blood was strong in his mouth now.

And on top of it, he could smell her. The woman who had given him eternal life.

She was coming back to the City of the Dead.

Chaz:

Light fell like sparks from heaven; it grazed sun-bleached tombs, cast staccato shadows through rusted gates. It fell in radiant beams between the vaults built to look like tiny houses replete with iron fences. It exposed narrow paths that stretched through this village of the dead, twists and turns hidden from view, where murderers and muggers often lurked. But the faithful and the curious still came. Even in the daylight, votive candles burned a quiet testimonial. They glimmered between cloth bags filled with dried herbs, chicken bones and hoodoo money.

The fragrance of death hung in the air, a scent old and fragile, like papery flesh.

“Over here.”

Angelique walked ahead of me through the maze of stone monuments. Her long silvery-blonde hair caught in the breeze, seemed to float around her like she was a mermaid swimming through a coral reef. An ache centered in my chest when I watched her pause at a turn in the path. Despite all the confidence I had allowed myself up to this
point, I knew now that this still might not work. Neville might refuse to make the trade. Maybe he never really cared about immortality. Maybe he was just doing what his boss told him to do, and now that we had his boss in custody, the parameters of this game were going to change.

Angelique glanced back at me, her face flushed, her cheeks a deep pink. The fever never really left. She should be back in the hospital.

I scanned the surrounding rooftops and wondered where Skellar was hiding. Was he watching us? Had he seen her stumble and almost fall a minute ago?

She was kneeling now, before a tomb littered with tokens.

“Here, this one,” she said, pulling on a necklace that hung around the neck of a stone angel.

I looked at it, nodded. It didn't look special. A simple glass vial strung on a leather cord. It didn't look like something that would turn the world upside down.

“This is where we were the other night,” I said, noting the landmarks. “Where you collapsed.”

“Yes. I was looking for something, but couldn't remember what. I guess I was on autopilot.” She tried to smile as she looked up at me. I could see the pain in her eyes. “Here, you take it.” She started to untangle the cord from the other necklaces woven around the statue's neck.

“No.” I changed my mind. We were going to do this differently than we planned. “Leave it there. For now.” I helped her to her feet, then we headed back toward the cemetery entrance, shadows drifting as we passed ancient tombs that belonged to pirates, politicians and voodoo queens.

Somehow it seemed fitting that the secret to eternal life would be hidden here.

In the last City of the Dead.

Throughout the centuries, death couldn't be hidden in this city that pulsed with exotic blood. Because of the high water
table, grave plots filled with water before we could bury our dead and coffins often floated away. Our early settlers had tried lining the caskets with stones or drilling them with holes, but it didn't matter.

In this delta land, the earth didn't want our dead.

And neither did we.

 

The wind picked up and turned cold, like it suddenly carried slivers of ice. Clouds were forming overhead and a shower of darkness descended as I called Neville. It was as if the heavens were rebelling against what I was about to do.

But they couldn't stop me.

I was supposed to go to his house, we were going to surround him with a perimeter of glittering VR mugs, like shining sentinels. But I realized that I couldn't trust this to a team of mugs. Angelique was right. Too many of them were on some hidden payroll. I wasn't even convinced that they were going to be able to keep that senator in jail long enough for us to pull this off.

High noon.

Isabelle's auction would end in twenty minutes.

“What does ya wants, Domingue?” Neville answered the call immediately, an unexpected slur in his words. He'd probably just jammed another gen-spike in his arm. “I hasn't heards nothin' bout ya makin' no deals. Do ya thinks ya can just toss some jive-sweet words at me and I's gonna hands over yur little princess?”

“Your boss turned you in, Neville,” I said.

He laughed. “What the hell is ya talkin' bout?”

“Your senator friend Greco, he gave us enough evidence to fry you and stop you from jumping. He even told me where you're at right now. End of the line, bruh.”

“I doesn't really works for him,” he answered. I could
almost hear the gears shifting inside his head, as if he were looking for a way to still come out on top.

“The deal is between you and me now.”

“It always was.”

“Then put me down as the winning bidder in Isabelle's auction,” I said. “I'll give you whatever you want.”

“I wants the serum.”

I grinned.
Good answer
. “Bring Isabelle and meet me at the City of the Dead. Be here in fifteen minutes or the deal is off. And don't bring your gutter-punk friends, unless you want me to kill every last one of them.”

Neville laughed, a brutal and broken rattle, a scar of sound that reminded me of everything he had stolen from me. “Ya thinks yur tough, Domingue, but it's likes I said before, yur just a puppy.”

Yeah, I'm the puppy that's going to end your life, I'm going to see you twisted on the ground just like my father.

I hung up the Verse.

Soon, and very soon. All wicked things were going to come to an end.

Chaz:

I'm supposed to be a big-picture guy, supposed to see all the angles from front to back, inside and out. Details, they're supposed to come later. I'm supposed to keep both eyes focused on how Fresh Start relates to everybody else, watch as the angst of the world pours into a silver bowl, drips over the edges. Fire, brimstone, ash. Watch it all catch fire, people turn to pillars of salt. Dead. Unmoving.

Nine-Timers, frozen in their footsteps, right in the middle of their last life.

Watch, complacent while the Hindus use resurrection in their unending search for Nirvana, for better placement in the caste-system directory. Watch as the Muslims seek a greater piece of Paradise, more virgins, a greater reward; turn my head when terrorism goes up and One-Timer razzle-dazzle redemption goes down.

Turn the other cheek whenever somebody asks the million-dollar question.

Why don't born-agains want to be born again?

Like a stone dropped in a pond of water, concentric circles
were going to widen and grow, until we were faced with a tidal wave of cause and effect that would erode the economic and spiritual shoreline of our country, of the entire world, if we didn't do something soon.

But it was really too late to save the world.

That's what my big-picture vision told me right now. At best, I might be able to salvage a tiny piece.

A little dark-haired girl. Five, almost six years old.

One child, if I could save one—this one—then that was all that mattered.

The rest of it could burn. In fact, it was probably already on fire.

I could taste revenge in the back of my throat as I waited for Neville. Like water in the desert, it both satisfied and made me thirst for more.

 

“What're you doin', Domingue?”

Part of me was wondering that myself.

Skellar's voice sizzled through my brain, he was waiting for my answer.

“I already have guys lined up, ready to surround Neville's hideout. Why'd ya go and change the plan?”

Because I don't trust your boys. Because I think somebody on your side isn't really on your side.

“Can you hear me, or do I need to come down there and—”

“Stay right where you are, Skellar,” I answered. Angelique was leaning against a tomb, arms wrapped around herself from the chill that had come on us suddenly. Overhead the clouds moved and darkened, swirled tempestuously. The wind swept leaves from nearby trees, cast them at us like funeral prayer cards, like there was a message somebody was trying to tell us.

But I refused to listen to anything but the thundering rage in my heart.

Angelique:

The sun disappeared and a chill wind blew, and an eerie sense of desperation fell over everything. I was shivering in the midst of a skeleton silence. No longer guardians left to protect those sleeping, the myriad stone angels stood frozen in place, as if they too had been condemned and cast down. The heavens hung heavy, like stone, pressing against my chest. Each breath came as a struggle, like somebody had shoved tiny knives inside my lungs.

I coughed, almost expecting to see drops of blood when I wiped my mouth.

I leaned against a stone temple, wondered vaguely who was inside and if they had ever craved immortality, if they now tossed and turned in some dark torment and wanted to be set free. Even if it meant walking the earth. Forever.

I wanted to sleep. I wished I could lie down on one of those stone slabs and forget about all of this. Only one thing kept me alert. Isabelle.

Beautiful face, sparkling eyes.

Eyes like my Joshua. Gone now. I finally remembered
what had happened. He had decided to become a One-Timer. He left me and this spinning ball of green and blue. I wondered where he was, what was on the other side of all of this. Were his feet on streets of gold? Did he know my William? Were they friends?

Would I ever see either of them again?

I closed my eyes. Neville would be here soon. A wave of fever rolled over me, then another chill. Leaves cascaded through the cemetery, crackling and rustling, like dry scratchy paws. It almost sounded like claws, digging—

My eyes flashed open and I saw him, a short distance away. Padding between the tombs, still hidden in the shadows.

Omega
.

I almost cried out when I saw him, but I held it in, glanced back. Chaz was facing the street, waiting for Neville. He didn't see the dog. I pushed myself away from the tomb, into the shadows, crouched and held my arms outstretched.

Omega bounded toward me then, almost knocked me over, covered my face with dog kisses, sniffed my hair, finally laid his head in my lap. I wrapped my arms around his thick neck, kissed the top of his head. In another life he would have been my dog, we would have walked through green fields together, he would have helped me herd the sheep. He would have slept on the floor at night, before the fire. In the morning he would have greeted me with a wide grin and a wagging tail.

Instead we met each other for a few fleeting moments in a cemetery of stone, him standing on one side of eternity and me on the other.

“Omega,” I whispered his name as I delicately ran my fingers over his face, remembering the news video. There were no scars, nothing that testified to his recent death and resurrection. He looked up into my eyes. Almost as if he wanted to say something, like he had been hoping to find me here.

Then he pulled back. Suddenly cautious, he lifted his nose
and sniffed the air. A low growl sounded in his throat as he stared over my shoulder.

I looked behind me and saw Neville walking through the cemetery gates. I could smell his stench even from this distance. The sweet decay of gen-spike flesh.

“Stay,” I said softly, in a voice only Omega could hear.

Then I turned and headed toward the demon that had set all this in motion.