Night Beyond The Night (36 page)

Her fingers curled into the back of the leather chair in front of her as she worked to keep her face emotionless. Devoid of fear, of anything that might give him more power over her.

Elliott
. He was on his way. She knew it. Just . . . hold on.

“So silent, my darling,” he said, setting his goblet down and moving closer to her with great nonchalance. “What must I do to elicit some response from you?”

“You could leave. Then you’ll hear me celebrating.”

He smiled at that. A tender, pained smile that did not reach his eyes. “My dear Diana, you wound me. How can you say such a thing . . . after the promise you made me. In order to spare your life, and that of your friends. Remember?”

“My promise didn’t include standing by and letting you beat the bunk out of me whenever you liked. Or . . . the other things.”

“But . . . you did offer your services, didn’t you?” He was very close to her now, and it took every bit of courage to keep from moving away from him. Her skin crawled, her hair stood on end . . . but if she moved, if she made any sign of resistance, it would only fuel him.

“You know I did. But had I known. . . .”

“Oh, you still would have done it, Diana, darling. You couldn’t bear to see those children fed to the
gangas
. Or their mothers either,” he said, pulling the tie from her ponytail. He fluffed out her hair so that it fell over her shoulders, free of its confines. His fingers were gentle, tenderly stroking one thick lock. “I’m delighted you’ve grown your hair back. That’s the only good thing about having lost you for three years. And you can be certain that if anyone comes near you with scissors or a razor, they’ll die.”

His hand felt so heavy on her head, over her shoulders. She felt as though he were pushing her into the earth, shoving her down, weighting her into a puddle. Jade realized her knees were trembling and her stomach pitched wildly . . . and still, she could do nothing as he lifted the hair from one shoulder and bent to kiss the side of her neck. His lips were cool and dry.

She focused on the window in front of her, staring through it toward the shore, the lowering sun casting long shadows over the ground. She struggled to ignore Preston’s hands on her, fighting to stay still, to keep from spinning away and fighting with nails and teeth and feet . . . knowing that he was much too strong for her, that he wanted her to fight. And trying . . . trying to figure out a way to escape.

But his hands . . . on her. So ugly, such a horrific parody after what had transpired between her and Elliott. Grief and despair threatened to shatter her concentration, but she couldn’t allow it. She was not the same weak woman she’d been three years ago. Reaching automatically for the trio of bands on her wrist, she focused on them, on the comfort they gave her. On what she’d endured before, and how much stronger she was now.

If she could slip past him, out of the room. . . .

“Don’t even think about it, my dear,” he said. “I locked the door. I wanted us to have privacy for our little reunion.”

She braced herself as his dry mouth and slender, cool hands moved over her, concentrating on keeping her mind clear and steady. Staring out the window, at the grassy, wooded terrain, she focused on the slender, dark shadows. Soon it would be dark and she wouldn’t even be able to see them.

Preston moved closer behind her, drawing her back against him as a lover would . . . still tender, gentle. Her body rebelled as he nibbled gently on her ear and Jade stared hard into the dusk, willing herself to ignore the warm lips and damp tongue on her skin.

“Tell me about Fielding,” she said. She had no idea why those words popped out, but when Preston’s fingers froze, tightening on her shoulders, she knew it had been the right gamble.

“What?” he said. But there was an odd note in his voice.

“He’s very powerful, isn’t he?” Trusting her instincts, she stepped away from Preston. To her surprise, he allowed his fingers to slip from her.

“Why do you say that?”

She looked at him for the first time, feeling bold and superior . . . even though deep inside, she quaked with fear. He could haul off and slam his hand into the side of her face, and she’d be on the floor in a heartbeat. But . . . he seemed unsettled. “He was here before the Change. Fielding was a very powerful man even before that, wasn’t he?”

Those slender lips tightened. “That means nothing now. This is what matters.” He yanked aside the collar of his shirt and showed her the glowing blue crystal. She knew that it would be warm to the touch. “This makes us equal.”

“I got the impression since he was here . . . well, he must have been one of the originals. He must know about . . . everything.”

Suddenly hatred burned in his eyes. She’d definitely struck a nerve . . . but what? What exactly was she uncovering?

“The only one who knows about everything is Remington Truth. And until we find him, Fielding has no power over me . . . or anyone else.”

Yet he was afraid of Fielding. She could see it. “Remington Truth? He sounds—”

But she’d gone too far. Preston’s hand flew through the air and connected with the side of her face. The blow staggered her, and she reeled, stumbling into the leather-bound chair as he grabbed the hair he’d stroked so lovingly moments before.

For the second time that day, pain screamed through her skull and her head cracked against something hard . . . and she sank, gratefully, into oblivion.

“Who is she?” Elliott asked, looking down at the woman. Fever flushed her face and kept her eyes closed even as he touched her forehead. She breathed roughly, shallowly.

“It doesn’t matter.”

But Elliott hadn’t waited for Ian’s reply; he’d already begun to examine the young woman, careful not to let his hands linger. She appeared to be in her late twenties, with lovely, delicate features pinched by pain and illness. Pale hair, the color of wheat, lay coiled on the pillow beneath her and was plastered stickily to her temples and neck. She lay on her back, her hands stacked one on top of the other on top of the blankets, her fingers slender and frail, her nails chalky.

He could see immediately that she was very ill, and he didn’t need to scan her to know how close to death she was.

“How long has she been like this?” Elliott asked now, pulling the sheets down to his patient’s waist so he could more easily examine her. She wore a pastel pink nightgown with a wide, high neckline that showed only the tops of her shoulders. Just as he prepared to start the scan, he noticed the faint glow beneath her gown.

Tugging the ties to open the neckline, he pulled it away from her shoulder, careful, careful not to touch her skin directly.
Good God
. “What’s this?” he asked.

Her ivory skin was fairly translucent, so thin the blue veins shone through. But in the soft part of her flesh, in the hollow below her clavicle and shoulder, the tissue had turned gray, then black and puffy. And in the center of the dark, swollen skin was the crystal he’d seen shining faintly through her gown.

The circular stone was perhaps the size of his thumbnail, and a sickly yellowish color. Embedded in the skin, this stone didn’t seem to be well settled. The skin puffed horribly around it, black and shiny with a myriad of little cracks.

“What is this?” he demanded again, now raising his eyes to meet the other man’s gaze. “How long has it been like this? What happened? You have to give me some information or I won’t be able to do anything.” He might not be able to do anything anyway.

Was she even human?

“A week ago, the stone was introduced to her body. It was a replacement for a different one that her body also rejected, but without such a violent reaction. On the other side.”

Elliott pulled away the neckline from her other shoulder and saw the red puckered wound there. Anger swept over him, but he tamped it back. “How was the stone introduced?” he asked, wanting to palpate the damaged tissue around the crystal, but not daring to with his bare hands. It appeared firm and brittle. “And why?”

The woman tensed and groaned behind closed lips, shifting restlessly. He could sense the layer of infection beneath it and knew the stone would have to come out, the skin would have to be cut away. If the infection had spread. . . .

“It was a replacement, like I said,” Ian replied. “There is a process by which the crystal is embedded into the skin, and for some reason, she did not accept it. The first one was not so bad—it didn’t become rooted, and it fell out. And this one stayed in, but you see what’s happened. They die if it becomes this bad.”

Elliott resisted the urge to demand to know why they did such a thing. He didn’t figure Ian would tell him anyway. “I’ll need soap, towels, some small pails or bowls . . . clean cloths, forceps—something small to grab it with,” he explained when Ian frowned in question, “and hot water, a very sharp knife—the smallest one you can find—and gloves, or plastic for my hands. And something for her pain. If you have anything like that. Alcohol too.”

He looked at Ian. “I may not be able to save her, but I’ll do what I can. It may be too late.” He held the other man’s gaze. “It would be much easier for me to concentrate if I knew that Jade was safe.”

“You’ll concentrate just fine because you know I’ve kept my part of our bargain,” Ian said, then, with a quick glance at the woman, turned and left the room.

Elliott turned back to his patient and began to scan her. He wasn’t certain what to expect, for he still wondered if she was actually human. Were the Strangers human? Fielding had been.

She must be a Stranger. But did that make Ian one as well? He’d never seen any glow through his clothing, so he suspected Ian was not crystaled. So why did he care about this woman, who was obviously a Stranger? Or at least, was trying to become one.

The obvious answer was that she was his lover. Or perhaps a sister.

But Elliott suspected it was the former that put the deep lines in Ian’s face, and caused the desperation in his eyes. He knew the same lingered in his own when he thought of what would befall Jade if he didn’t heal this woman . . . and find a way to save the woman he loved too.

He heard shouts in the distance. An alarm being raised, running, pounding feet. Had Theo succeeded? Had he brought the teens to safety? Or had they been discovered during the escape? He looked out the window, but the view was only an infinite expanse of ocean, black and rolling beneath a darkening sky.

A moment later, the door opened and he looked up to see Ian standing in the entrance. “They didn’t make it,” he said flatly.

“Is anyone hurt?”

“He’s not dead, if that’s what you’re asking. But he’s not going anywhere anytime soon either. None of them are.” Ian stared at him as if to say he’d done his part, too bad it hadn’t worked, but it didn’t matter.

He closed his eyes for a moment. He could not be distracted now. One thing at a time.

A woman and a man walked in after Ian, carrying the items Elliott had requested. Including gloves, thank goodness. They weren’t the thin-skinned latex gloves he’d been used to as a surgeon, but they were made from a slightly thicker plasticlike material that nevertheless was flexible enough to serve his purpose.

Taking a deep breath, Elliott returned to his scan. There was nothing about the woman that was unusual, as far as her internal organs were concerned. She seemed just as human as he was except for the crystal. He identified no other infection inside her, other than that which was concentrated in her shoulder.

But he did discover that she was pregnant. Approximately four months, he estimated.

He glanced at Ian, who was watching him with those cold blue eyes. Did he know about the baby? Was it his?

“She’s carrying a child,” he said, holding the other man’s gaze.

Shock flared there, changing those flat eyes for a moment before it was quickly masked. His face remained impassive. “Then you’d best work even harder to save her.”

“Tell me her name. I need to know something about her.”

“Allie.”

Elliott nodded and looked over at the supplies. He washed his hands and sterilized them with a generous amount of alcohol—from a bottle of vodka, which he didn’t mind wasting—and the small knife as well. Then he donned the gloves and set to work.

As he turned to Allie, who appeared to be deeply unconscious, he wondered why whoever had embedded the stone into her shoulder hadn’t been the one called on to remove it. He or she had to be some kind of surgeon to do such a thing, and it was obviously a common practice among the Strangers.

Then he put the questions out of his mind and bent to his task.

The knife’s delicate point slipped into the flesh pillowing around the crystal, and as it punctured the tissue, Allie gasped and jerked, crying out softly in pain.

Elliott heard a low warning noise from Ian, but he ignored it and resumed his task. Allie eased back into unconsciousness and though she twitched slightly, she didn’t cry out again.

A purplish green puss had begun to ooze from the incision. Its stench filled the room, heavy and appalling, and the woman who’d carried in the implements gasped and turned away. He dimly heard her retching in the corner, but he was too intent on scraping away the mess while breathing through his mouth. Only once before had he smelled anything like this, and that had been in a similar situation in Haiti, when he’d been called upon to treat another advanced infection. But at least there they’d had antibiotics and sterilized instruments.

Having released its dubious hold around the crystal, the skin seemed to deflate and the stone appeared to loosen. Gently using the knife to cut away the black, deadened skin, Elliott tried to slip its point under the crystal and grab it with the simple forceps Ian had provided. Allie jerked again and cried out, but he continued to work gently at it, dark blood now flowing from the hole around the stone.

At last he saw . . . he tasted metal in the back of his mouth as he used the forceps to lift the crystal. Unlike a bullet, the foreign object didn’t simply slip out of the body. Instead, the surrounding skin and muscle seemed to be attached, to come with it as though suctioning the insides up and out.