And then, one night after he’d slipped back into the sanctuary from his sleeping and hunting, he found that she was gone.
No good-bye. No nothing. She’d been ruthless, leaving just an empty bed with her scent still permeating the blankets. Just dead ends he’d slammed into after leaving the sanctuary to find her.
After months of getting nowhere, he’d finally come upon a good enough clue from a scuffer who sold black-market goods at the no-name hole in the ground near what used to be Kansas City. Gabriel had purchased the information for the price of his last meaningful possession—one of Abby’s abandoned ruby earrings that he’d wrapped in a piece of cloth from a shirt of hers.
Then, armed with the knowledge from the scuffer that she’d purchased a higher grade of heat gear for her trip west, Gabriel headed toward the New Badlands.
Now, as he tuned back in to the chatter on the other side of the tunnel door, he found Chaplin watching him cautiously, and Gabriel realized that his gaze had gone reddish and his eyes would look bloodshot and brutal.
Reaching for control again, he gritted his teeth, hating his loss of self-containment. Hating the red that was braided throughout his every vampiric instinct.
He had it in him to overcome it. Abby had shown him it was possible. He just needed the chance.
“Didn’t mean to worry you, boy,” he whispered, bending down to pet the dog, whose heart rate had quickened. But when Gabriel grinned at him, Chaplin’s vitals sounded like those of most other domesticated dogs, even if he was an Intel.
Though Chaplin was highly evolved, he was still a pup somewhere under all that fur, and his gaze brightened, his tongue lolling out. Gabriel knew he could look into the dog’s mind without harm out here in the deserted tunnel, so he connected with the canine, sharing placid thoughts.
And Gabriel almost even believed it himself.
The dog smiled, not giving any more than that, and Gabriel smiled back as Chaplin shared other thoughts: the pure joy of being loved, of being petted and appreciated.
So Gabriel obliged his familiar, stroking over Chaplin’s smooth brown coat. At the same time, he tried once more to see if this version of a relaxed, happy dog might have it within him to parcel out anything more about Abby or Mariah.
Gabriel tried to slide right into the canine’s head again, but the dog blocked him out with the usual wall of mental blackness.
“You’re really that protective of her and the rest of the people here,” Gabriel said.
Chaplin nodded, whining, though Gabriel didn’t understand what he was saying.
But then the dog shared his thoughts again: an image of Chaplin standing guard next to a younger version of Mariah, who was huddled under a thermal blanket in what looked to be a stripped-down house in the night.
The picture made Gabriel long for her all the more. He liked the idea of saving her from ever being that helpless again, just as he’d felt with Abby.
After one last pat to Chaplin, Gabriel stood. “I suppose I’d be a guardian, too, if I thought my best friend needed extra care.”
Even so, Gabriel’s limbs felt colder, and he chalked that up to disappointment in the dog’s lack of full complicity. An older vampire who had more control of his abilities might’ve been able to overcome the canine’s resistance, but Gabriel was unguided because of his creator’s absence.
After one last listen to the voices behind the door, Gabriel unbolted the locks, then stepped inside.
Everything seemed to freeze as he stood there, taking the measure of the community area. The same dirt-packed walls as he’d found in Mariah’s place, except for the various doors around the room that no doubt led to other tunnels connected to the Badlanders’ homes. The same dust-bitten type of crate chairs and tables under a line of solar-driven lanterns dangling from the ceiling. And, also, what seemed to be roots and rock stuck out in various patterns from a single wall in particular.
Then there were the people.
At one table sat a fiftyish woman with wide gold-tinged eyes and a little beak of a nose. Gabriel could tell her hair used to be black, but now it was spun with gray, tucked behind her ears into a tiny ponytail. She’d pushed her floppy hat off her head, and it hung from entwined strings around her neck; her clothing was dirt-worked and as utilitarian as she seemed to be.
Across from her was a compact man in his late forties, with a dusky complexion, his skin pocked, his curly hair dark. It looked as if he hailed from Mexico, but since that country’s economy had surpassed that of the United States, Gabriel couldn’t guess why the man would want to be here instead of there. His orange-brown hemp clothing seemed hand-woven, made with care.
The third person was an old man with fuzz for whiskers, wearing ancient earth-toned jeans and a matching vest over a white shirt. He hung out near the roots on the wall, an old canteen halfway to his lips, as if Gabriel’s interruption had put off a good drink. Gabriel dn’t seen any elderly people for a very long time, and he looked at the man for an extra second.
Meanwhile, their vital signs and scents had spiked at the intrusion, and Gabriel absorbed them. Like Mariah’s essences, these seemed more appealing than most other people’s, perhaps because they lived on clean air and unpolluted food out here, just as Abby had; she’d been raised on a farm until it’d been seized.
Chaplin barked at the crowd, and they seemed just as baffled at the dog’s presence as Gabriel’s.
Gabriel shut the door, affably nodding at each person as they gaped at him. Chaplin continued to make his educated sounds until everyone seemed to relax a bit.
The woman was apparently the only one who understood the dog as she translated for the rest. “Chaplin says he’s brought a guest—Gabriel.” She’d recovered quickly, her tone wry, as if she were used to curves in life. “He had a rather intense meeting with one of Stamp’s guys outside, as I suppose we all could infer by those bandages around his head. Mariah took him in to get him back in working order.” She addressed Gabriel. “Which night were you ambushed?”
“The one before last.” He neglected to add that he didn’t actually recall fighting Stamp’s people. He’d been worked over too badly. He just knew that, afterward, there’d been pain and the news of a dead body.
Zel stared at him as all went quiet around her. Then she spoke to Chaplin.
“I have to say that it isn’t enough that you show up out of the blue, boy. But then you bring in a random from the outside?”
Gabriel had known an introduction wouldn’t be easy goings. “Chaplin’s the one who persuaded Mariah to play hostess to me. She wasn’t thrilled about the prospect . . . to say the least.”
The old man squinted at Gabriel from across the room. “Mariah opened her place to you?
Mariah?
”
The Mexican had his hand out to Chaplin, as if to welcome the dog, and the canine trotted right on over, looking real happy when the man began petting him.
“Chaplin was the one who persuaded her,” the man repeated. “Chap, you gave your approval of him?”
The dog yipped.
Gabriel stuck his hands in his pockets, looking as nice as possible, though he was constructed to be anything but. “Before you ask, just know that all I’m looking to do is keep quiet and at peace.”
The Mexican man rose from his chair, almost reluctantly at first, then moved to Gabriel, extending his hand in stoic greeting.
“Sammy Ramos,” he said, carrying no accent except for the Old American one. They shook hands. “You’ll have to excuse this rude bunch. We’re not used to newcomers, but Chaplin’s endorsement speaks enough for you.”
Then he retreated, and Gabriel wondered just how welcoming Sammy really felt.
“That dog and Mariah really saved my hide.” Gabriel hoped she was monitoring the visz right now, so buttering up to her seemed the thing.
Sammy gestured toward the woman, who was still sitting down. “This is Zel Hopkins. You’ve probably ascertained that she’s standoffish. She won’t trust you as far as she can shoot you.”
She kept staring at Gabriel, even as he donned his most charming smile. At least, he’d once thoght it was charming back when he’d been a human craftsman with a wild streak, who’d learned the hard way to shut off his propensity for making more trouble than was needed.
Sammy started to introduce the old man, but then stopped himself. “I’m not sure what to call you.” He glanced at Gabriel. “The oldster changes his mind about everything, even his name, once every few days.”
The old man looked sullen. “None of us has a name anymore. Not out there.”
Zel rolled her eyes. “But we’re in here, kiddo. Get over it.”
“He won’t tell anyone his real name,” Sammy added. Then, almost as if he were still cautious, he reluctantly motioned toward a crate, inviting Gabriel to take a sit. “Never has and I doubt he ever will.”
“You wouldn’t if you were me, either,” the oldster said, drinking from his canteen and leaning against a root that had seemingly clawed its way out of the wall.
“Thinks he’s a real badass, too,” Zel added.
Then she turned her attention to Gabriel while reclining in her chair and checking him over even more conspicuously. He got the feeling she was good at taking the piss out of people, and he wondered what she’d been before she came out here. He didn’t dare look into her mind right now, lest he raise an alarm as he’d done with Mariah.
“You know,” Zel said, turning her focus toward a corner where a visz lens was barely visible, “it’d be great if Mariah would show one of these times, just like Chaplin finally decided to do. We keep telling her over the visz that the community shouldn’t split. Her dad wouldn’t have wanted that.”
The visz lens seemed to stare right back at Zel, silent, unmoved. Gabriel guessed that Mariah was probably the same. According to what he knew about her, he surmised that she had only come outside the other night to save his skin, and she didn’t often venture forth for a less pressing reason.
He decided to investigate. “She does like her solitude, doesn’t she?”
Taking his hand away from Chaplin, Sammy cleared his throat, and both Zel and the oldster looked down. The dog rested on the floor, his head on his paws, his gaze shuttered, too.
They seemed to be dodging something, and Gabriel cocked his head slightly.
Sammy said, “Mariah’s just her own kind of hermit, all right. But maybe she’ll change her mind soon. Bit by bit, more of us come here to commune. Maybe Hana and Pucci will be by later tonight when they aren’t able to withstand the thought of hanging back while trouble draws near.”
Zel’s tone hardened. “Stamp’s presence really brings a crowd together.”
The oldster stepped away from the rooted wall, and from his loose walk, Gabriel could fully see now that he was nothing more than scrawny elbows and knees contained in denim.
“Good neighbors don’t force introductions,” he said. “Stamp’s boys don’t seem to understand that. They’re tone-deaf as to what was happening in the hubs, with the bad-guy raids and the attacks coming from every which way.”
Zel took up where he left off. “Too true—Stamp’s gotta get a grasp on his men. Those fools seem to have no restraint, and it’s going to amount to a terrible something.”
Gabriel could read it in them—these were people who’d retreated more than any of the sanctuary-bound ones in the hubs. A lot of good citizens had done the same. It was much easier to keep to yourself than to put yourself outside your walls.
He knew that more than anyone.
The old guy came to stand a few unsteady feet away from the table, and Gabriel wondered if there was some turtlegrape alcohol in that canteen. He couldn’t smell it on him, though.
“We could take Stamp on,” the oldster said. “Him and his guys.”
“Smart,” Zel said, engaging the old man, who seemed to have been waiting for just such an interaction. “While we’re at it, let’s just kill him. Let’s ignore that he might even have connections in the world and his death could spark off a thousand shit scenarios that’d bury us under more than dirt.”
“Aw, we’ve suffered worse before with terrorists and the like. Zel—
you
could bust them up all by yourself. You and Mariah, with all those weapons her dad collected before he—”
The oldster stopped when he saw Sammy glaring at him. Even Chaplin kept quiet.
This would be a good time to look into someone’s eyes and scan his or her thoughts, if Gabriel had more confidence in doing it.
The oldster grinned as if nothing had just happened, and he ran his hand over his wire-gray hair, casual as could be, while he changed the subject. “Zel used to be a cop, you know.”
Gabriel focused on her, realizing now that she could communicate with Chaplin because police forces used to employ Intel Dogs until the government had retired them, leaving the cops with more primitive devices that were hardly a match for lower-level bad guys.
Zel sighed and lifted an eyebrow at the oldster. “Didn’t you already point out that nothing we had out there matters anymore?”