Shattered Sky (31 page)

“You can drop the Lieutenant,” she told him. “I think we can assume my military career is over.”

“Then may I call you Maddy?”

“Miss Haas will do fine.”

“Very well, then,” he said. “A minor victory in our little cold war.” Then he paused for a second, contemplating her—not
looking her up and down, but simply considering her as a whole. “Perhaps, Miss Haas, if things ever settle down, you might consider working for me.”

“That depends. Is hell freezing over any time soon?”

“We'll have to ask Dillon,” he said. She laughed in spite of herself. “You know,” said Tessic, “you might have a problem in trusting me, but after what I've seen you do for Dillon, I trust you implicitly.”

She sighed. “So . . . what about Dillon?” In spite of their cushy sanctuary, nothing had really changed. Dillon was still at the center of events raging out of control. They weren't free from the hurricane, they were merely in its eye.

“Yes, what about Dillon?” echoed Tessic, waiting to take her lead, rather than pushing forward with his own ideas. She had no answer for him. She was still grappling with the events of the past few days. A graveyard resurrection—a spirit that devours souls. Before knowing Dillon, she had never been truly convinced of the existence of souls, much less the possibility of them being ripped away. This past week was enough to process; she was light-years away from considering tomorrow.

“No one knows him better than you,” Tessic reminded her. “You know what he needs, perhaps better than he does himself.”

Yes, she did know him, and while Tessic's motives were still in question, she and Tessic shared the common goal of Dillon's well-being. That was reason enough for detente, even alliance. And so, in the end, it was Maddy who suggested that Dillon be allowed to wake in the garden; a tranquil environment where Tessic might be perceived more as a friend than a threat.

She found herself avoiding Dillon for the rest of the day. After the rock-climbing wall, she took a massage at Tessic's
suggestion, then retired early to her room for a long bath in an oversized tub. After spending so much time tending to Dillon's needs, she had forgotten she had needs of her own. She had never been one to pamper herself—that was her sister's style—but perhaps it was time.

Her sister! It had been so long since Maddy had even thought of Erica. No doubt the FBI had found her in Brooklyn and was harassing her no end about her psychotically homicidal sibling. She wondered what Erica made of all this, and whether or not she believed the lies being spread about Maddy. She didn't even want to consider what her parents might be going through. Perhaps Tessic could arrange to get messages to all of them. She would have to ask.

Dillon came to her that night. She had hoped he would, and yet at the same time dreaded being read by him, before she could really read her own feeling about being there.

“I thought I'd see you at dinner,” Dillon said, when she let him in. “Are you all right?”

“Just tired,” she told him. “Too much for one day.”

Dillon threw her an impish, scarred grin. “Ah, you're such a lightweight.”

“I can see you're feeling better.”

He hesitated for a moment. “Maddy . . . what you saw in the graveyard . . .”

But Maddy put a finger to his lips. “We'll sort that out later.”

He kissed her, then she took his hand and led him to her bed. Being with him was different now. That radiant fire she had felt pulsing from him in the graveyard was still there, so strong that she feared being near him would push her threshold of pain. But she quickly found that being with him now was like slipping into that hot bath. Her spirit and flesh had
to grow accustomed to the intensity of his aura, but once they had, it was marvelous. Discomfort gave way to hypersensitivity of touch, and she could feel herself entirely enveloped by him. It was wonderful to be lost in him, but there was a sadness in knowing that it could never truly be mutual. That there would never be a time she could envelop him.

D
ILLON FOUND ONE QUESTION
plaguing him. It was a question he was afraid to ask Maddy, because any answer would be just as troubling.

“Do you trust Tessic?” Dillon finally asked in the silence as he lay beside her. He didn't expect her to answer the question, but after his conversation with Tessic that afternoon, he had to ask. As he suspected, she sidestepped the issue, pulling back slightly from his touch.

“Whatever his agenda, it doesn't seem to be hurting you.”

“You think he has an agenda?”

“Everyone has an agenda,” she said. “Whether they know it or not.”

“So what's yours?”

She answered him with a passionate kiss.

“I hope that's always on the agenda,” he said.

He moved in to kiss her again, but she held him off for a moment. “Dillon . . . if Tessic's offering you a safe haven, there's nothing wrong with taking it.”

Dillon pulled away, frustrated by her words. “You don't believe that—even in the dark I can see it in your face.”

“I have a suspicious nature—you'd be stupid to hang your decisions on me.”

“Well it doesn't matter, anyway. I've already told him I'm leaving in the morning.” He turned to her and gently touched her face, and when that didn't seem like quite enough, he
kissed her, but now the kiss felt forced. “I'll understand if you don't want to come with me.”

“Of course I'll come.” But it was resignation he read in her voice. As if to stem off any further discussion, she shifted closer to him, and held him. “I love you, Dillon.” He knew it was a simple truth that transcended their tensions.

Sometime later, he told her he loved her, too, but only after she was asleep. Why? he wondered. Why couldn't he say it to her face? Did he love her? He loved who she was; he loved the feel of her body; he loved that
she
loved him.

But she's not a shard.

Damn it! He didn't know why that should matter. He had seen how Michael and Lourdes had been so close in the dark days—just like he and Deanna had been—but once their parasites were gone, they no longer clung to one another with the same desperation. In the end, Michael had spurned Lourdes. Who's to say that Dillon and Deanna might not have suffered the same fate had she survived?

He had a dozen logical rationalizations, but none that made him feel any better.

Let yourself love her,
he told himself.
Maddy is good for you. Learn to be still, and let yourself love her.

Dillon didn't leave her room until dawn, but he didn't go back to his own room. Instead, he crept quietly up to the garden to watch the sun rise, turning the glass towers of Houston into spires of fire.

Stillness. It was an amazing thing to Dillon. He had forgotten what it was like to have a barrier between his mind and a tumultuous world. Even a barrier of lead-lined crystal was better than no barrier at all. Perhaps this
was
a retreat worth lingering in for a few more hours. A few more days. Perhaps Tessic's containment was the only containment he'd ever know.

From the garden, Dillon went down to Tessic's workshop, passing the sketches of towers and trains, until coming to Tessic's desk. In the center of Tessic's desk, Dillon left an olive branch he had taken from the garden. Then he returned to Maddy's bed, pressed against her until he could feel her heartbeat, and finally released his resistance, letting stillness infuse him.

D
REW BRUSHED AN UNCOMFORTABLY LONG LOCK OF HAIR
back from his face, then took a second Suprax and a third Vicodin in the hotel lobby before taking the elevator back to the room he shared with Winston. The antibiotic was a one-a-day deal, but he figured he could use all the protection he could get. As for the painkiller, he suspected he was developing an addiction, but it was worth it to numb the pain that now shot up his entire arm. He imagined his long, straggly blond hair and uneven facial growth already made him look like an addict.

The Dallas Galleria Westin was supposed to be an upscale establishment, but the hotel's infrastructure was in an accelerated decline. Only three of six elevators worked, the bell counter was permanently unmanned, the granite floors were unpolished and every corner bred forms of trash that no one bothered to remove. As service was the first thing to go these days, Drew found himself grateful for whatever services remained. Housekeeping, room service. Hotels were closing their doors at alarming rates, and once housekeeping decayed it was impossible to stay open for business. All else considered, the Westin was holding its own.

As he rode up in the crowded elevator, he thought about the last few hours. Four hours of waiting at an understaffed clinic, on Halloween morning. Under other circumstances, it would have been hell, but instead it was a welcome respite from Winston.

“That's some infection you got there,” the doctor had said with the weariness of a man who had little desire left to practice medicine. He studied the curved line of dark stitches across Drew's forearm. “How'd this happen?”

Since Drew was already losing track of the lies he had to tell, he simply said, “Graverobbing accident.”

The doctor chuckled, assuming it was just Halloween humor. Turned out the truth solicited fewer questions than any lie he could have told.

The wound looked awful. Rings of purple swelled around the gash, and streaks of red shot all the way down his wrist into his palm, which was also swollen. “How bad's the infection?” Drew asked.

The doctor poked at his stitches gently, but not gently enough. Drew grimaced from the pain. “Looks like it goes pretty deep. Did the nurse take your temperature?” He looked at the chart to answer his own question. “101. Hmm.” He felt Drew's glands, looked down at his throat, then returned his attention to the wound. “There's an odd pattern to it,” the doctor commented. “Mottled rings around the trauma, as if . . .”

“As if the flesh keeps dying and regenerating over and over?”

The doctor raised his gaze to catch Drew's eye, but only for an instant. “As if it wasn't getting proper circulation.” And then he added, “Besides, flesh doesn't regenerate the way you suggest.”

It does around Winston Pell
, he wanted to say, but instead was silent, and endured a diatribe about cleanliness and maintenance of the wound. The doctor asked about other symptoms, then palpated his spleen. “Normally this kind of a bacterial intrusion would trigger an alarm in your immune system. The pus around the wound is actually a good sign . . .
still . . .” He glanced once more at the chart. “Are you allergic to any prescription medications?”

He redid the stitches, then gave Drew an antibiotic injection and the two oral prescriptions, then sent him on his way, with instructions to return if his fever wasn't gone in two days.

Now, as the hotel elevator rose, nearing the twenty-fifth floor, he could already feel his arm, which had grown mercifully numb, begin to ache again. He could feel the new flesh regenerating to replace the dying, gangrenous flesh around the wound—but not fast enough to battle the bacteria that had also begun to grow and reproduce at an unnatural rate. Winston's broadcast of growth was not selective.

Winston's effect on Drew's wound had been bearable before, but something had happened that day on the plane. Something had inexplicably changed him. It was a change for the worse as far as Drew was concerned, because the last thing Winston needed was an increase in power.

Winston was exactly as Drew had left him that morning; curled up on his bed, curtains drawn. He slept while the TV flickered a god-awful 70s cop show on an off station. Drew's bed was made, but only because he had done it himself before he left.

Drew pulled the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign from the outside doorknob. “Dude, what good is maid service if you never let them in?”

Winston groaned and stirred beneath his covers. Drew reached into the bag he was carrying and threw a 7-11 po' boy at his head.

“I've checked us out, so get your sorry black ass out of bed.”

Winston glared at him. “Eat me.”

“Another place, another time,” Drew said with a wink.

Winston grunted, and rolled over, so Drew grabbed the
covers with his good arm and tore them off. “I'm not kidding. We're outta here.”

“Why the hell would you go and do a dumb-ass thing like checking us out?”

“A final act of sanity,” Drew answered. “Maybe you've grown used to it, but this room smells like roadkill in a rainforest.” Drew pulled on a peeling piece of wallpaper, revealing the flaky mildew that had taken hold of the drywall beneath. No doubt all the adjacent rooms were suffering from Winston's effect as well. “Welcome to the petrie dish. A few more days and the mold in these walls is gonna demand the right to vote.”

“You're exaggerating.”

“Am I?” He reached up, flicking up the ends of his shoulder-length blond hair, for Winston to see just how long it was. “I don't think so.”

“You look like Jesus,” Winston commented.

“Well, I did come back from the dead once,” Drew commented, “but that's old news.” He found Winston's socks on the floor, and tossed them to him. “I don't even want to know what's growing in there.”

When Winston began going about the motions of dressing, Drew went into the bathroom. “Better watch out,” he called to Winston, “this morning there was a bedbug under my pillow the size of a Volkswagen.” Drew studied his face in the mirror. He barely recognized himself anymore. “What the hell are we doing here?” he asked his reflection. He didn't expect an answer, either from himself or from Winston. Four days ago, Drew had spirited a hysterical Winston out of the unfortunately ventilated airplane, and calmed him down enough to get him here. He wouldn't discuss what had triggered that seizure on the plane—offered no explanation for the quantum
leap in his power. It was, of course, just like Winston to keep such things to himself, but with Tory's ashes thrown to the wind, Winston had also lost all direction, all motivation.
That
was unlike him. Winston was always up to something in his own abrasive, antagonistic way. To see him beaten left Drew treading water. He couldn't leave him like this, but being in Winston's presence was poisoning Drew with an aggravated infection. At the very least, Drew wanted to point them both in some hopeful direction, but Winston wanted to do nothing but sleep. Now he cultured futility like bacteria, and it was contagious.