Night Beyond The Night (34 page)

“Give me a hand,” Theo called softly. Somehow, despite his injury, he’d managed to pull a full-sized tanning bed back into the storage room.

“How the hell are we going to get this to work? The generator’s not strong enough—and what about a cord?”

“I can handle that part. I just need help standing it on end,” Theo replied.

The two of them opened the clamlike steel metal bed and upended it so that it stood tall, and open.

The groans were closer now, just outside the—
Holy shit! The backroom door!
“Fuck. How the hell’d they get in the back hall too?” Elliott said. For the first time, real fear threatened to stop him. They were trapped in the tanning salon, between the service hall and the main mall.

He hoped to hell they could get the tanning bed to work, or they were going to be toast.

“I need my pack,” Theo said, pulling it off his shoulder. Clanks and clunks ensued as he dug in, and Elliott was aware of the prickles on his neck growing stronger.

Listening at the backroom door, he could hear the
gangas
pass by the door, bumping it, obviously wandering and looking around for them. More had begun to stream into the tanning salon, having scented them from his quick dash across the way.

“What the hell,” he said tensely. “We’ve got to plug this thing in
now
or we’re going to be
ganga
meat.”

“Bite me,” Theo muttered, and then he shoved the bag back at Elliott. He was holding a metal object about the size of a large brick. “Let’s go.”

“Do you see an outlet or something?” Elliott demanded, then cracked open the service door that led to the narrow corridor. Was there enough energy coming from the generator to power up the tanning bed?

The
gangas
were right the fuck there and he slammed the door shut.
Christ
. They began to pound on the door. The smell of
gangas
wafted clearly to his nose, washing into the shop behind them. They were bearing down, stumbling into the store, trying to make their ungainly way down the main passageway of tanning-bed rooms.

“I’ve got it,” Theo said, picking up the electrical cord. He moved behind the open clamshell of the tanning bed. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Elliott said, maneuvering the tanning bed so it faced the door, which was shaking from the force of the
gangas
’ blows.

Theo was moving next to him, and suddenly there was a soft pop, then a buzz . . . and then the room filled with brilliant blue-white light.

How the hell . . .?

“Fast,” Theo gasped. “Hurry.”

Elliott didn’t know what was going on; the electrical cord seemed to be plugged into the brick Theo was holding. But his hand was inside the brick.

Whatever it was, it was working.

The blast of light had stopped the impending
gangas
, and the two men were protected by the tanning bed. When they opened the door the
gangas
stumbled back, crying out in deep, guttural voices.

“Turn it!” Theo shouted, his voice weak.

Elliott didn’t need to be told; he’d already positioned it so that the ultraviolet beams caught the monsters coming in from the mall direction, and also blared toward the ones in the hall.

The creatures fell into and on top of each other, scrambling to get out of the way, groaning and tearing into each other as if in pain and desperate to get away from the light.

That answered one of the questions he and Jade had discussed: apparently light, at least this bright, was painful to the
gangas
.

Elliott managed to get the tanning bed arranged so that it blocked the doorway into the hall, trapping the
gangas
on one side of the backroom door—and those coming from the mall. That left him and Theo an expanse of service hallway down which to dash and find an exterior door that actually opened.

“Go,” Theo gasped. “I’ll stay here until you have the door open.”

“What— never mind,” Elliott said. He’d figure it out later, but the best he could tell was that Theo’s hand was inside the box into which the tanning bed had been plugged. Was he giving it some sort of energy? A power surge?

He ran down the hall, prepared for any straggling
gangas
, looking for a door illuminated by the glow from the tanning bed.

At last, he found one, two storefronts away from TropiTan. He began to work on the door immediately, kicking and slamming it as he’d done the other service door—but he needed the metal clothes stand that he’d used last time.

There was nothing in the hall that would help. Elliott glanced back down toward the tanning bed and its glow.

Theo was on the ground, pack over his shoulder. He wasn’t moving. Shit.

Elliott had one bottle bomb left. If this didn’t work, they were fucked. Digging it out of his pack, he shoved the wick into the bottle and set the whole thing on top of the door’s push-bar apparatus. He lit the wick, praying, and took off back to Theo.

Ka-boom!

The explosion rocked the small passageway, sending echoes reverberating through his ears and debris flying just as Elliott reached Theo in a base-stealing dive.

He picked him up, saw that Theo’s hand had slipped from inside the bricklike thing, and snatched that up too, yanking the tanning bed’s plug free. The
gangas
he’d been blinding were nowhere in sight, but the sounds of their groans still rumbled through the murky darkness. They would be back as soon as they realized the light had gone.

Praying that the bomb had destroyed or at least loosened the doorknob apparatus, he dashed unsteadily back down the corridor. Theo was a solid sonofabitch, and with that pack, he was even more of a burden.

He got to the door to find it still completely closed.
Shit
. He’d hoped it would be blown wide. He gasped for air, trying to catch his breath, and let Theo slip gently to the ground. He was a deadweight, and lay there unmoving. What the hell had the guy done to himself?

Elliott didn’t have time to worry about it now. The moans were coming closer again, and he had one more chance to get this door open. He examined it in the dim light and found, with relief, that the push bar seemed to be loose.

Saying a prayer, he slammed his foot against it as hard as he could . . . and the door flew open. Sunlight splashed over him and the prone Theo, and, after a quick look to make sure there weren’t any nasty surprises on the other side, Elliott wasted no time in pulling Theo out with him.

“Theo,” he said, bending to his companion.

The man groaned, opened his eyes, then squinted in the bright light. “Good going,” he said. “Let’s go. I’ll be fine in a bit.”

Elliott took him at his word, and moments later he shoved Theo into the passenger seat and helped him buckle in his limp body. Then he slid into the driver’s seat after retrieving the keys he’d hidden.

He started the engine and realized he had absolutely no fucking idea which direction to go.

Elliott had started to drive west, toward the ocean, hoping that he’d either pick up the trail of the other humvee or that some other brilliant idea would strike him.

“Any ideas where we’re heading?” he asked, glancing over at Theo.

Theo had pulled himself up a little and seemed to be regaining some color. “Hemps Point. Maybe.” He nodded in approval, but remained slumped. “It’s got to be west, by the ocean.”

Elliott frowned. Why did that sound familiar?

“It’s my best guess, based on what I was able to find out at Valley Way,” Theo continued. His voice was getting stronger, but Elliott noticed his fingers had tightened over the handle next to him. “This was the first time I was able to hack into the system that the Strangers use to communicate with their bounty hunters like Marck. That’s why I was there so long, I got in and was able to keep a good connection because Valley Way is an access point—you know, one of the anchors of the system.”

“Did you know about the slave cargo?” Elliott asked grimly.

“I got that there was going to be an important shipment, that part of it was coming from Envy, but I didn’t know it was freaking
people
. I thought what Jade did—furniture or some other goods. But Hemps Point kept coming up in the Chatter, and the Friday date too, so I think it’s a good guess—”

“The map!” Elliott exclaimed, cutting him off as he slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “That’s it. It is Hemps Point. That’s why I knew it.” His mind raced as he tried to remember the details of the drawing he’d only glanced at.
Shit
.

“Map?”

He quickly explained about Geoff Pinglett and his friends, and the map that had been found in their van by the mysterious archer. “Hemps Point was on the map—that’s how I know the name.”

“Do you have it with you?”

“Dammit, no. It’s back in Envy. Jade and I didn’t see any reason to bring it with us. What?”

Theo had bent to dig in his pack. “I can take care of that,” he said. “I should be able to connect through the Strangers’ network back to the one in Envy. We’re still close enough to Valley Way to get access, I think—and if I know Sage, she’ll be at the computers anyway. We can get the information about the map from her. But you’re going to have to stop so we don’t go out of range.”

Elliott pulled over under a tree that had sprouted next to a decrepit supermarket, and watched as the computer geek pulled out a small, paperback-sized computer and the little bricklike plug he’d used to power the tanning bed. And then another small object that looked like it had antennas.

“What are you, a walking Radio Shack?” he asked. “And a library?” He saw that a couple of books had fallen from the pack—probably scavenged from the mall. And they weren’t computer manuals. “
Gone with the Wind?
Nora Roberts?”

Theo snatched them back and stuffed them into the pack. “They’re not for me.”

“So you gonna tell me what’s up with that plug thing?” Elliott asked. Although he figured he sort of knew.

While the computer was booting up, Theo turned in his seat so that his back was to Elliott. He yanked the hem of the stained T-shirt from his jeans, exposing his lower left back.

Elliott saw another dragon tattoo curling around his hip and disappearing down behind Theo’s belt . . . and then he saw the eye of the dragon. Right where, just a little while earlier, he had noticed an odd formation when he scanned Theo, in the fleshy part near the spine.

“Is that a crystal?” he said. “Embedded in your skin? Like the Strangers.”

“I didn’t have it embedded, it was an accident. And it’s not really a crystal. It’s an IC—an integrated circuit. When the earthquakes hit during the Change, I was three floors beneath the surface in a safe room working on the backup systems for one of the casinos. Things went ballistic, computers exploded and imploded, and I got knocked out . . . and, apparently, an IC embedded in my skin.”

“Talk about being wired,” Elliott said as Theo replaced his shirt and began to type on the small keyboard.

Theo rolled his eyes. “As if I haven’t heard that one before.”

“Why didn’t you remove the circuit?” Elliott asked.

“Believe it or not, at first, I didn’t realize what it was. I thought it was just a cut—it didn’t hurt, and it’s not in an area that I could easily look at. I wasn’t really hurt anywhere so I never had a thorough look.” He shrugged, tapped a few keys, and looked at Elliott. “There were so many more important things to be taken care of in that time. Three weeks after the world was destroyed, I wasn’t worried about a fucking cut, or even a little piece of metal or glass—especially if it didn’t hurt or wasn’t noticeable.”

“I guess you had a few other things on your mind.” Elliott nodded. “But later. . . .”

“I feel a sizzle of energy in that area when I need the extra . . . I guess . . . adrenaline.”

“But you don’t age. Does this mean you’re immortal?” Elliott asked, wondering about Fence’s stubble . . . and whether he’d ever have to shave himself again.

“It took a long time, but my body has finally started to age. I’ve acquired some gray hairs in the last five years. Am I immortal? How would I know?” He laughed sharply. “I hope the hell not, but I’m not interested in any experimentation.”

“So the plug thing? What does that do?”

Still typing, adjusting the little antennas on what was likely some sort of wireless router, Theo explained, “I can gather and pull up the energy as needed. Although, as you saw, I’m wiping the floor afterward. But this little device helps to channel it more easily into anything that plugs in. I don’t need it, but it’s more efficient and fast.”

As he spoke, he slipped his hand into the little brick and plugged the other end into the router. Lights began to blink and as Elliott watched, Theo’s face began to lengthen and pale. He obviously wasn’t fully recovered from the previous exertion of energy.

“Want me to type?” Elliott asked, watching him try to do so with one hand.

“Thanks, s’all right. I’m hacking, so it’s not . . . straightforward,” he replied, his words a bit slurred.

This left Elliott with little to do but watch and wait and chafe . . . knowing that as the moments passed, Jade was getting farther and farther away. And Theo, his link to Envy and the others, was getting weaker and weaker.

“I’m in,” Theo said after what seemed like forever, but was probably only a few minutes. “Now, come on Sage, baby . . . be there for me.” The keys clicked softly, and Elliott watched over his shoulder.

“Ah, there she is. I knew it,” Theo said a second later. A smile lit his strained face, and Elliott suspected it wasn’t just because he’d succeeded in the connection. So that was the way
that
wind blew. The books must be for Sage.

Hi
, Theo typed, with the speed of light, not even looking at the keys or screen.
I’m fine. Elliott w me. Jade w Marck. Nd map frm Geoff P’s van.
ASAP
.
BRB
fr info
.

He pulled his hand out of the little brick, eyes glazed, sweat trickling down his temple. His breath rasped loudly through the vehicle for a moment, and Elliott wished there was something he could do to help, other than sit. And wait.