Nightfall (10 page)

“More on the way,” she told Mason, watching Bob close the distance. “We need to get inside fast. No telling how many we pissed off.”

Mason swore. “Locks aren't my thing.”

Angela drew Penny against her, squeezing her eyes shut as if in prayer.

“Lemme try,” Tru said. “Give me the bobby pin from Penny's hair.” His hands were steady as he folded it open, peeled off the plastic tip, and slid it into the lock.

The howling drew closer. Jenna could smell them now, heard them tearing through the trees. She shuddered.
Not like this. We didn't go through all that—and sacrifice Edna—for nothing.

The demon dogs burst out of the woods, rapidly gaining on the coach. She cupped her hands over her mouth like a small megaphone. “Bob!
Run!
”

But he couldn't. He had nothing left to give.

The monsters hit him in seconds. One lunge took out his hamstring. He went down, screaming in agony. They tore at him from all sides, devouring his flesh in bloody gulps. Jenna spun, hammering on the door. She needed to cry or throw up or scream. Any of the above.

Mason gave her a little shake. “Remember who you are, Barclay. Get your weapon.”

Right. This would be like target practice while the dogs feasted. She leveled her weapon on the nearest one and shot. Mason fired in a fan, hitting as many targets as he could. Two dogs blew up in an explosion of chunky bone and gray matter.

Four spun away from Bob's corpse and charged. Mason dropped one. “How we coming, Tru?”

Jenna braced herself. She was too low on ammo to lay down heavy fire, so she needed to make each slug count. Drawing on what Mitch had taught her, she calmed herself by force of will. Pumped. Sighted. And shot. One smacked right between a dog's eyes. Severing the spinal column or inflicting serious brain damage seemed to work best. Anything else might cripple them, but they just kept coming. Her dog went down, shuddered, and tried to get up again. Hideous red foam frothed out of its mouth and down its neck.

“Shit, I'm out. Cover me.” Mason rummaged in his ammo pouch for another magazine.

“Got it!” Tru kicked the heavy door open and hauled Angela and Penny in with him.

“Move, Barclay!”

“I go nowhere without you,” she said.

The third bore down on them, all filth and iridescent rot. It lunged at Mason. He hadn't been able to reload and instead fought the thing with his bare hands, holding snapping jaws away from his throat with pure brute force. His arms strained. With a roar, Mason twisted its head backward. An awful pop sounded. He jumped to his feet and reloaded with smooth movements, practiced and calm.

She didn't like the way the last one hung back, watching the fight. It wasn't charging, but Jenna didn't intend to let it escape. She raised her Remington, sighted, and took the shot. But she hadn't factored the wind. Instead of a clean hit, she got it in the neck. Red sprayed all over the fallen leaves.

The thing fell to one side, tremors running through its body. At first she thought it was just death throes, as the nervous system shut down. But it twisted and writhed, the tattered fur squirming as if worms burrowed beneath the skin. By the time the motion stopped, a man lay there instead of an animal. A very dead man.

She took a step toward the corpse. “What the hell—?”

“Oh no you don't.” Mason snagged her arm, eyes dark and feral. Not so calm anymore. “Stay put.”

“And if I don't?”

For a moment, he stared at her so hard she thought she might catch fire. That look—just that
look
—was more intense than any kiss she'd ever had. Her pulse pounded in her ears, the aftermath of violence. Her adrenaline spiked into something else. She became aware of every inch of her skin, sensitized by a thousand sinful touches.

Then Mason went caveman and tossed her over one shoulder. He ducked past the heavy steel door, taking them to safety. But Jenna didn't feel safe.

“We get inside,” he growled. “And then we'll discuss your failure to follow directions.”

With aching muscles, Mason hauled Jenna into the hallway and slammed the door behind them. Locked.
Good.

Coming down from an adrenaline kick left him light-headed. His chest smoldered with a sick combination of fatigue, fear, and heady success. They'd survived. Shit—most of them. It was too much to contemplate, like trying to stare down the sun.

He set Jenna on her feet, then shouldered his weapon. She stumbled back a pace and caught her balance against the wall, branding him with cool green eyes. This woman knew too much, read too many ugly truths inside him. And she made him
want.

No, that word wasn't nearly strong enough.

“You listen to me, or you die. Is that understood?”

She brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek. “Sounds like a threat, not a warning.”

“You're driving me insane.”

The thought smacked into his brain with force enough to hammer through solid concrete.

“No,” he said aloud.

One dark eyebrow lifted, taunting him.
Why not? You want to.

His jaw worked as he tried to find words to protest. They would be lies. He'd wanted her for days, warily circling her in that small cabin. So why hesitate?

Because she scared the shit out of him.

Smiling, she said, “I'm a scary chick.”

“How are you doing that? What
is
this?”

At first she mocked him. “Didn't Mitch tell you about it?” But she softened at his obvious fury. “I don't know. But I'm getting it too.” Jenna touched his forearm then, her hands pale and smooth where his skin was dark. That simple caress undid him.

Mason grabbed the back of her neck and dragged her mouth to his. Their bodies slammed together. Momentum drove her back against the wall, and he knew he'd regret being so brutal.
Later.

In that moment, he felt mean. Every instinct said to protect his woman—all other promises and motivations flying free—but he wanted to control her too. No chance of that. He stroked his tongue past her lips and tasted her as he'd needed to for days. The light-headedness intensified until only Jenna remained. Solid. Real. Flushed and pulsing with life.

Yielding to the urge to claim her, he refused to let her run even if she wanted to. But she only responded with a fierce, gathering heat. She strained to get closer, took everything, dove deeper still. He nipped at her tongue. Her coppery taste swirled with the salty tang of the sweat around her mouth.

Her body felt good, welcoming and demanding at the same time. She made a little sound in her throat. Arching, she hitched a leg around his hip. Her knee slid across the vicious claw wound on his other thigh.

He let her go, staggering back. “Shit!”

“Christ. Sorry.”

“That hurt.”

Gingerly, she tested her lip. “Well, you bit me.”

He limped the half step to her, looming above but feeling humbled by whatever the hell had sparked between them. After a brief hesitation, he put his palm to her cheek, marveling at the smooth skin. Vital and alive. “You bit me first.”

Gazing up, Jenna sucked in a shaky breath. She looked tired and small, but she managed a halfhearted laugh.

“What?” he asked.

“You remember when you were a kid, wanting to be blood sisters, uh,
brothers
, with your best friend? I always chickened out. Seemed too ... dangerous.”

He swallowed hard. Mason had no recollection of any best friends. Ever. Too many moves. Too many new moms and dads and halfassed siblings. But he recognized the danger she was talking about.

“Still does,” he whispered.

“Hey, Pops! We found the basement door.” Tru barreled around the corner and skidded to a stop, his combat boots as subtle as a locomotive. “Oh, awkward.”

“We're coming.” Eyes still fixed on Jenna, he said, “This isn't over.”

She stepped away and glanced down at her spattered shirt and jeans. “Shit, I look like I moonlight as a butcher.”

Mason grinned. “Just the way I like you. Tru, where's Ange?”

“Downstairs.”

That turned out to be the entrance to the basement, a solid steel door just shy of a bank safe. Angela was calling, her voice echoing back down the hallway. Mason pushed in front of her with more force than he intended, but the aftereffects of that firefight and his kiss with Jenna made him blunt. She stopped shouting and stepped back.

He tried Morse code on the steel, then just pounding his fists. Nothing worked. “Don't suppose you can pick this one, eh, Tru?”

“Not a chance.”

“This is pointless.” Mason started to usher them back out. “Maybe there's another—”

A shotgun blast leveled the top third of the door. Mason dove, covering Jenna and Tru, with Ange and Penny sprawled out farther down the hall. His eardrums splintered, all sound ringing and cloudy. Rubble and shards of steel peppered his back. The world tipped. Blackness seeped across his vision like a slow-moving fog.

When he awoke, he lay beneath lights bright enough to scour his eyeballs. A few blinking seconds later and he realized he was stretched on an elevated examination table. Ange sat with Penny on the floor. Jenna stood next to a man sporting John Lennon glasses. He wore khakis, a white button-down shirt smudged with blood—Mason's blood?—and an expression just short of scared shitless.

“How come there's power?” Heads turned when Mason growled the question.

“Hey,” Tru said from his perch on the lab counter. “You okay?”

The kid looked relieved. Jenna did too.

When she saw him stir, she stepped to his side and ran her hand lightly over his head. “You were starting to worry me.”

Mason elbowed up on the table. His back screamed, but he ignored it. “How long've I been out?”

“An hour,” she said. “Long enough for Dr. Shotgun to help me patch up the damage.”

“Do I need to apologize again?” The light tone didn't fit the man's somber face. He ran shaky hands through his straight, slightly shaggy hair. “I've been down here for ... well, I don't know how long. The noises—I was sleeping, woke up and ... panicked. I'm sorry.”

“You're Welsh?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“I might accept your apology if you tell me how you have electricity.”

Dr. Welsh stood from his stool by the long lab counter and ambled forward, hands in his pleated pockets. “Hydroelectric power pumped by an underground generator. Pretty nice, huh?”

“This isn't just a basement,” Mason said. “It's a bunker.”

“That's what I always thought. Glad of it too.”

“So you have hot water?” Ange asked.

“Yup.”

Jenna cocked an eyebrow. “I should've kissed this guy.”

“You still could,” Welsh said, his smile affable as he looked Jenna up and down. Mason had the sudden urge to try taking the man's head off. “But I recommend you shower first.”

“
He
didn't mind,” she said, hooking a thumb toward Mason.

Welsh shook his head. “If survival means kissing somebody who smells like you, I want no part of it.”

“Wuss,” Tru said.

“Certified. Look, do you have to sit right there? I have research—”

Mason laughed as he pulled upright. His back felt pricked by a thousand hot needles. “You listened to a lot of CDs, didn't you, Welsh?”

“Probably while he was ironing his Dockers,” Tru added. “
Très
cool, Harvard.”

“No,” the doctor said, frowning slightly. “Never had the time. And I went to Cornell.”

Tru smirked. “Whatever, Harvard.”

Jenna sighed and sliced the air in a dismissive gesture. “Enough. Can somebody hazard a guess about that thing at the pit?”

Tru hopped down from the counter. “The one on two feet? He was messed up. Like, Edna levels of messed up.”

“Wait,” Welsh said. “What?”

Jenna shrugged. Apparently they'd come so far that a beast-man cross was merely shrug worthy. Take it in stride or go mad. “This monster we saw in the woods,” she said. “Out by that pit.”

Welsh seemed frustrated as well as perplexed. “What pit? And who's Edna?”

Mason found he enjoyed the doctor's muddle of frustrations.
Only natural
.
The guy shot me.

“Dude,” Tru said with a sigh. “You are seriously behind.”

While Mason sat quietly, the others spent the next twenty minutes telling Dr. Welsh how they'd assembled, heard the ham radio broadcasts, and made the suicide run.

He used the time to assess their unsuspecting host, a guy as tightwound as they came—all hospital corners and spit shines. A man living by himself for more than a week, isolated and losing his grip, could have let the place go to seed. But every surface in the bunkerstyle basement lab gleamed, and rows of neat books, clothes, journals, foodstuffs, and medicines lined shelves stacked four high.

Despite his panicky trigger finger and the fist-worthy way he eyed Jenna's rack, Welsh seemed like a thinker, maybe one who could sort out this new natural order. If any such thing still existed.

Mason took another look at those shelves, gratified by the provisions they'd have available for their defense: first aid, books, blankets, matches, hygiene products.

“And then there's the one outside,” Jenna finished.