Nightrise (5 page)

"Oh no…" Jamie whispered.

"Run, Jamie," Scott said.

"No. I'm not leaving you."

'Just do it! You can't help me if they get you…"

Of course it was true. There was nothing else he could do. If he stood there, they would simply grab both of them. Jamie hesitated just one second more, then turned and was about to run when he felt something like a wasp sting, high up on his right shoulder. Instantly, he knew that he too had been hit. The two men were twenty yards away. It was the bald one who had fired the shot. Jamie saw him lower the gun. He had stopped moving, knowing the chase was over. Jamie heard another man shouting something in the parking lot. The motel alarm was still screaming. There was the thud of rubber shoes against concrete.

Scott fell to his knees. Dully, Jamie looked at him, knowing he would be next. In a way he was glad.

Whatever was going to happen, he'd stay with his brother after all.

And then there was the screech of tires and a second car came out of nowhere, veering across the path of the oncoming traffic. Jamie heard a blast of horns. The neon lights were blurring and the whole night seemed to be folding in on itself. He thought the car was going to run him over and he wondered what would be the point of that. Drug him and then kill him? It didn't make any sense.

The car shuddered to a halt. One of its tires had mounted the sidewalk. The car was between him and the two men —just as the German shepherd had been earlier. A door swung open and a voice called out to him.

"Get in!"

The dark-haired man had produced a second gun. But this one didn't fire darts. There was a sharp crack and one of the car windows shattered, the glass frosting collapsing out of the frame. A second shot and the mirror disintegrated.

"Get in!" the voice urged again.

Jamie took one last look at his brother. Scott was lying facedown on the pavement, one hand outstretched, the other folded beneath him. The dart was still hanging out of his cheek. His eyes were closed. There was nothing Jamie could do for him. He fell forward into the car.

He wanted to know who was driving but he didn't have the strength to look up. He was half in the car, half out, but already they were moving. He felt his feet being dragged along the road and reached out with one hand, searching for something to hold on to, something to help pull him in.

A hand reached down and grabbed his arm.

"Hold on!" the voice commanded.

They were reversing. Jamie heard a third shot, then a howl of an engine and more blaring horns as other cars swerved all around them. But the traffic had lost its shape. To Jamie the other cars were just blurs of color, ricocheting off each other, firing off in every direction. The neon lights spun round and round. He thought he saw four huge playing cards — the ace of hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds — light up, one after the other. The giant lollipop turned in the hand of the clown. A bright red shop sign flashed on and off: ez cash super pawn.

Somehow he was in the car. He could feel soft leather pressing against his face but his feet seemed to be clear of the road.

After that, he remembered nothing more. As he drifted into blackness, all he knew was that, somehow, he had gotten away.

***

"Did you get them?" Don asked.

"We got one of them," Banes replied.

"That's too bad." Don had a half bottle of bourbon. He poured himself a glass. 'You're still going to have to pay me for two." Neither of the two men said anything. Don White assumed that meant they agreed.

He lifted the glass and drank. "What happened?" he asked.

'You never told us about the dog," Banes murmured.

"I didn't know about the dog."

"It doesn't matter." Banes said slowly. "We have one of them. And the police will be looking for the other."

"Oh, yeah? And why is that?"

"He'll be wanted for murder."

Don White looked surprised — or tried to. It was always difficult to read emotion in his face. There was too much flesh. "Whose murder?" he asked.

Banes smiled. 'You shouldn't have asked."

The sound of the bullet was very loud in the confined space of the office. Banes had shot Don White through the heart. For a few seconds, the man that Jamie and Scott had known as Uncle Don inspected his whiskey as if acknowledging the fact that, sadly, he would never now drink it. Then his hand fell.

The liquid spilled. He sat back, unmoving in his chair.

Colton Banes took one last look at the corpse. Then he slipped the gun back into his pocket and the two men left the room.

FOUR

Tenth Street

Jamie opened his eyes and saw that he was no longer in Reno. He wasn't even in America. Somehow, impossibly, he had been transported to a deserted beach that stretched out along the edge of a black, lifeless sea. Was it day or night? He looked up but the sky seemed to be caught somewhere between the two. Jamie gulped for breath. He was still in the grip of his first panic, the knowledge that he was somewhere far away and utterly strange, that he was on his own. There was nobody in sight. Nothing.

Just the beach and the sea and, in the distance, what might be an island, rising up to a needle point high above the waves.

"Scott!"

He called out the name but the single word seemed to die on his lips. That was more frightening than anything. He could shout as loud as he liked but there was no one to hear him. He wasn't just lost. He was completely abandoned. Where was he? Even the deserts of Nevada had offered more life and color than the place he now found himself.

And yet…

He had been here before. He knew where he was. Jamie drew his legs toward him, wrapping his hands around his shoulders, not so much to keep himself warm but to create a sort of protective cocoon. He forced himself to take a deep breath, to relax. Yes. It had been a long time ago, maybe years, but he knew this place. The island…The last time he had come here, there had been two boys making their way toward him in a boat made out of straw. He had wanted to meet them — he didn't know why — but he had woken up before they arrived. And he hadn't been alone. Scott had been here with him.

And — standing next to them — there had been a girl.

"This is a dream," Jamie muttered to himself. His voice still sounded very small but it was reassuring to hear anything at all. The waves were hitting the shore right in front of him but they were sluggish and hardly made any sound, as if someone had turned down the volume.

A shaft of light flashed in the sky, far away. A storm. Jamie got to his feet. He was shivering. It wasn't cold — like everything else here, the temperature seemed to be fixed in some sort of neutral — but there was something about the lightning that set his teeth on edge. There it was again. He watched it flicker twice more, white forks of electricity so brilliant that they seemed to tear into the world as if determined to smash it. Somehow he knew that this was no ordinary storm. It was an announcement. Something was happening. It was still far away but soon it would be closer. There was a very slight breeze now. He could feel it, clammy and dead, batting against his face.

"Scott!" he called out again. At the same time he wished, miserably, that he could wake up right away.

He heard something on the shingle, over to one side.

He glanced around, expecting to see his brother, but instead there was a man kneeling beside the edge of the sea, holding a large, flat bowl which he seemed to be filling with water. Jamie had no idea where he had come from. He certainly hadn't been there the moment before. The man was huge — and he was completely gray. His face, his hands, his clothes, even his eyes were the color of stone, and if he hadn't been moving, Jamie would have assumed he was a statue. He was wearing old-fashioned, shapeless pants tied with a leather belt and an open-neck shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He also had a hat — not a cowboy hat but something similar — and boots that came up to his calves. He was completely focused on what he was doing.

Jamie stood up and went over to him. He was about to speak but his feet, crunching on the shingle, gave him away. The man twisted around and straightened up, and at that moment Jamie saw that he really was huge, at least seven feet tall, with hair curling down to his neck and a face that was hard and craggy and full of anger. He had dropped his bowl. Now there was a large knife in his hand.

"I'm sorry…" Jamie didn't know why he was apologizing.

The man looked down at him but said nothing.

"Can you help me?" Jamie asked.

"He's gonna kill him," the man said. He had a strange accent. It was American yet strangely old-fashioned, like something in a black-and-white film.

"Who are you talking about?"

'You know that. You know who I'm talking about."

'You mean…Scott?"

The man nodded. "He's gonna kill him. And it's your job to stop him."

"But who's going to kill him? You have to help me find him…"

That was all Jamie had to say. The man suddenly lashed out with the knife. Jamie heard it as it came sweeping through the damp air. Something slammed into the side of his head and he thought he'd been stabbed. But the man had struck with the hilt, not the blade. With a single cry of pain, Jamie was thrown off his feet and went crashing down onto his back. He could feel blood oozing out of his hair and wondered if his skull had been broken. The man stepped forward and loomed over him. He was holding the knife in both hands, as if about to make a sacrifice. Lightning shimmered one last time.

"Stop him!" the man commanded.

His hands came plummeting down.

Jamie woke up.

His head was throbbing, and for a moment he thought he really had been attacked. He raised a hand and touched it to the side of his skull. There was nothing. No blood. No sign of a wound. He was lying, fully dressed, on a bed. For a moment he lay completely still, allowing his thoughts to swirl around him, separating what was real from what he had dreamed, trying to work out what had happened to him, where he was now and how he had got here. The attack at the theatre. That was real. He remembered the blare of the traffic, the neon lights, the car cutting across the street to pick him up.

Scott. They had taken him. Jamie sat bolt upright, instantly searching for his brother even though there was little chance that he was anywhere near. But it didn't matter. It was instinctive. He sent out his thoughts, first into this room, then into whatever room might be next door, then farther. He was shouting his brother's name but without uttering a word.

There was nothing. Jamie felt a sense of blankness that told him exactly what he feared. He was on his own.

He slumped against the pillow, feeling the stiffness in his shoulder where the dart had hit him and knew that he had been drugged. How long had he been asleep? The sun was shining. A blind had been drawn across the window but he could see the light streaming in along the sides.

His mouth was dry and he felt sick. He looked around him and saw that he was in some sort of hotel room. He could tell from the emptiness of the place, the cheap furniture, the prints on the walls — black-and-white photographs of Reno as it had been fifty years ago. There was a glass of water beside the bed.

He picked it up and drank. It was still cool. A few lumps of half-melted ice floated on the top. He was thirsty. He emptied the glass, then swung his legs over the side of the bed, preparing to stand up.

The door of the room opened and someone came in, morning sunlight streaming over her shoulders. At first he couldn't make out who it was. Then the person closed the door and Jamie saw a black woman in her thirties, dressed in a white T-shirt under a brightly colored cotton shirt hanging loosely over her jeans. She was carrying two supermarket shopping bags.

"When did you wake up?" she asked.

Jamie didn't answer her question. "Who are you?" he demanded. "How long have I been here?"

' "It's ten o'clock in the morning. I was getting worried about you. I thought I was going to have to call a doctor." The woman paused. 'You're going to have to help me out here. Are you Scott or Jamie? The two of you are so alike."

Jamie tried to stand up but he still didn't have the strength. He felt as if he had been lying down for a week. "Where am I?"

'You're in a motel," the woman replied. "We're still in Reno, right next door to the airport. The Bluebird Inn. Do you know it?" She put the shopping bags down on a table. They were full of food. A couple of apples spilled out and she scooped them up. "I thought you might be hungry so I went out shopping. I'm glad I timed it right. I didn't want you to wake up on your own."

'You were in the theatre." Jamie recognized her. She had been the woman with the photograph at the last performance. She had volunteered to come up onto the stage.

'Yeah." The woman nodded. "Actually, I saw you three times. I was there at the seven-thirty show. And the night before."

"Why?"

"I wanted to see how you did it. Your act…"

Jamie forced himself to his feet. He was weak and his head was still throbbing, but he didn't want to stay here, on his own in the room with this strange woman. Scott was gone. Someone had taken him. That was all that mattered.

"Where are you going?" the woman asked. She placed herself between Jamie and the door.

"I have to find Scott."

"I know how you're feeling." She shook her head. "But you can't just walk out of here. It's too late."

"What do you mean?" Without knowing it, Jamie had clenched his fists. His eyes were fierce and bloodshot. 'You were there. Why? Did you know what was going to happen? Were you part of it?"

Now it was the woman's turn to become angry. "I think you're forgetting what happened," she replied.

Her voice was still soft but Jamie could see that she was having to control herself. "I saved you. If it wasn't for me, they'd have taken you too."

Of course. She had been in the car. Jamie hadn't seen her — he'd only heard her voice before he'd passed out. But there could be no doubt. He recognized it again now. "Do you know where he is?" he asked.