The Gates of Byzantium (Purge of Babylon, Book 2) (67 page)

Carly handed her a bottle of cold water. Lara took it gratefully and drained it. She hadn’t realized how much she missed something as simple as a cold bottle of water until she finally tasted it again yesterday.

“Eight guys, give or take,” Lara said.

“Are we sure they weren’t just survivors responding to the message? Like us?”

“They didn’t look very friendly.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter now. How many did Danny kill?”

“He wounded two.”

“Lucky them. He’s a pretty good shot.”

Lara sniffed the air. The smell of fried fish was strong and thankfully horned in on the still-lingering acidic aroma of evaporated dead ghouls still clinging to parts of the island. “Are you frying fish?”

“I’m trying to overwhelm this morning’s disgusting smell in fish, yeah. Al left plenty in the freezer.”

“No wonder I smell something burning.”

Carly made a face. “It’s all part of my master plan to convince Sarah to take over the kitchen.”

“Are you two getting along now?”

“I guess,” Carly said, and shrugged. “I should probably apologize for trying to devour her soul last night.”

“I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still working up the courage to actually do it.”

Lara looked around. “Have you seen Sienna?”

“No. Why?”

“I haven’t seen her since this morning.”

Sienna had helped with the bones that morning. She had worked quietly, almost robotically, and the half-dozen times Lara had stopped to check on her, the other woman had simply smiled back mutely. Once, she had nodded, but that was it.

“She’ll come around,” Carly said. “We all have to adapt. What’s that saying you and Will came up with? Adapt or perish?”

“Yeah.”

“That should be our motto from now on. We should make a big banner and hang it right there—” she made an imaginary banner with her hands “—in big bold letters: ‘Adapt Or Perish.’”

“Capital letters?”

“Of course. Gotta be capital letters. Maybe different colors, too.”

“Now you’re just being silly.”

Carly laughed. “We could get the girls to help.”

They headed back into the hotel lobby. The AC was turned off, and it was hot again, even with the windows and doors open all night and this morning to help cleanse the place of the smell of dead ghouls.

Sarah told them the AC was never something Karen and the others kept on at all times. All the luxuries they were shown yesterday were to impress them. Them, and everyone who had come before them, whose clothes, weapons, and other personal belongings were buried in the unfinished sections of the hotel and in the Tower’s basement. Even Kyle’s games weren’t something he was normally allowed.

No wonder the kid could barely pull himself away from them. He only got to play them when one of us showed up.

“God, I miss air conditioning,” Carly sighed. “When did Will say we can turn it back on?”

“When he’s sure there’s enough juice in the generators to power the island.”

“That doesn’t sound very hopeful.”

“It’s not.”

“Ugh.”

They were halfway across the lobby when Lara’s radio squawked and Will’s voice came through: “Heads up. I just made contact with Blaine.”

“He’s still alive?” Danny asked through the radio. “Talk about beating the odds. That guy just refuses to die.”

Lara keyed her radio. “Will, what about Sandra?”

“That’s a negative on Sandra,” Will said. “They made it into Beaumont while we were there yesterday morning, but they got into trouble with some collaborators. Probably the same ones Gaby shot. Sandra died while they were trying to escape.”

“Tell him I’m sorry,” Lara said.

She had never met the woman, but she had been looking forward to it ever since meeting Blaine. She remembered when they had found him, lying half-dead on the road with three bullets in him. He was still alive
because
of Sandra. Any woman special enough to make a man give death the middle finger had to be pretty special.

Now she would never know, and a part of her felt sad at the missed opportunity.

“I will,” Will said.

“Back to the matter at hand,” Danny said. “Are we making silver bullets tonight or what?”

“We’ll be heading back as soon as we can,” Will answered. “If all goes well, we’ll be back within the hour.”

“See you then,” Lara said into the radio.

“Later, alligator,” Danny added.

*

It was
2:12 
p.m.
and the sun had settled into the sky when Lara went back to the Tower, where Danny and Sarah were putting up a new door to replace the one the ghouls had obliterated the night before. It was essentially two doors from two unused rooms in the hotel, nailed together into one big slab of thick, dull wood. It was overly heavy (which was the point) and took a lot of grunting and grimacing to carry over from the hotel where Danny had put it together.

Lara helped them raise the door into position, then held it in place with Sarah while Danny grabbed an electric drill and fired large screws through makeshift hinges into the concrete wall one by one. By the time he was done, they were out of breath and their clothes were drenched in sweat—again.

The door didn’t look like much. In fact, it was ugly, but it could open and close and was locked in place with an iron bar that fell into a latch drilled into the side. More importantly, it would not fall as easily as the last door. They had gotten by last night thanks to the Tower’s rather oddball design, but Will and Danny wanted to make sure the ghouls never made it
inside
next time.

When they were done, Lara said, “Anyone seen Sienna?”

“She was in the hotel the last time I saw her,” Sarah said. “About thirty minutes ago.”

“What was she doing?”

“I don’t know. She was in her room.”

“She’ll come around,” Danny said.

Lara left the two of them to finish up. She headed up to the second floor, where they kept a couple of crates with emergency supplies, including one with clothes. She grabbed a new undershirt and pulled it on, tossing her drenched one into a waste basket. Laundry had become unnecessary with clothes lying around everywhere, though she thought they might have to revisit that now that they were going to be staying on the island.

The idea made her smile. The island could become a home, something they hadn’t had since Harold Campbell’s facility. This was what she had wanted when they had set off in search of Song Island months ago. Even after the horrors of last night, the very real possibility of having a place to call home made her almost giddy.

She traveled up to the third floor, where Gaby stood watch along the windows. The teenager was moving from window to window, peering through binoculars for about thirty seconds at each spot. She looked the part of a sentry, and Lara understood why Will was so high on her.

“Anything?” Lara asked.

“Nothing,” Gaby said.

“Can you see Will and Josh?”

“If by ‘see’ you mean noticed two tiny specks in the distance that could very well be Will and Josh—or bird poop—then yes.”

Lara walked to the south window, picked up another pair of binoculars hanging from a hook, and looked through them. She could see the shoreline in the distance, along with the house and marina. The gazebo, the tallest structure in the marina, blinked under the glare of sunlight. She made out the garage, with its aluminum rooftop, and the black asphalt parking lot with the dozen or so vehicles inside, including the Ridgeline and Frontier they had parked there yesterday.

“They went into the garage about ten minutes ago,” Gaby said. “I haven’t seen them come out yet.”

“Is Blaine with them?”

“I can’t be sure, but I saw five dots moving around out there at one point.”

“Anything from the house?”

“I saw a couple of them walking around the front yard. Do we know who they are yet?”

“Not yet.”

Lara turned the binoculars back to the house, picking up a lone figure moving around the yard. Or at least, it looked like a figure. It could have been a balloon blowing in the breeze for all she knew.

“They finished with the door down there?” Gaby asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Heavy?”

“Like a stone.”

“I guess that’s good. Hard to break down stone.”

“That’s the idea.” Lara looked back at the marina and focused on the garage, but she couldn’t see anything inside, outside, or around the building. “They’re taking their time,” she said softly.

“Maybe you can contact Will on the radio.”

Lara unclipped the radio from her hip and pressed the transmit lever. “Will, can you hear me?”

She didn’t get a response right away.

Five seconds went by, then ten.

She was about to press the transmit lever again when the radio squawked and she heard Will’s voice, whispering, “Yes.”

Why is he whispering?

“Is everything all right over there?” she asked.

“Everything’s fine,” he said, still whispering. “We’re about to head back now.”

“Be careful.”

“Will do.”

Gaby glanced over. “I guess he’s okay.”

“I guess so.”

She fought the urge to call him back.

No. He said he was fine. Why would he lie?

But why was he whispering?

*

She was halfway
back to the hotel when she heard the gunshot. It came from the hotel lobby, and she knew instantly it was a handgun.

Glock. That’s a Glock.

Lara dashed across the grounds, aiming for the side door. She had become more acquainted with the hotel’s layout since this morning, while coming and going with arms full of ghoul bones.

As she ran, Lara unsnapped the radio from her hip and shouted into it: “Danny!”

“I heard,” Danny said calmly.

“Hurry!”

She was halfway to the side door when she heard another shot.

Lara threw open the door and darted inside. Her sneakers slipped on the freshly bleached tiles, but she regained her footing and raced through the short hallway until she reached Hallway A that led into the lobby.

As she made the turn, she heard two more gunshots, very close together.

“Danny!” she shouted into the radio again.

“I’m coming,” Danny said calmly.

She heard voices as soon as she neared the lobby. Female voices, almost conversational, which seemed impossible. She saw a pair of bullet casings scattered on the floor in front of her and almost slipped on one as she burst into the large sun-drenched room, drawing her sidearm at the same time.

The smell of frying fish from the kitchen overwhelmed her senses, but they were quickly overcome by the sight in front of her.

Lara was prepared for the worst, but she was still shocked to see Carly sitting on the floor with her back against one of the lobby walls, bleeding badly from the left side of her neck. Blood trickled out between the fingers of Carly’s left hand, which she had pressed over the wound to stem the flow. There was a Glock on the floor nearby, just out of Carly’s reach, and her eyes were focused on the woman standing in front of her, about five feet away.

Sienna.

She was holding a Glock aimed at Carly’s head and her back was to Lara, but as soon as she heard Lara’s footsteps, Sienna looked over her shoulder. Lara didn’t recognize the young woman from last night. The same one who had screamed when Jake was swallowed up by the flood of ghouls in the hallway, who had cried into her shoulder all night as they sat on the third floor of the Tower and waited out the horror.

This woman looked different. She looked angry, and Lara heard all that fury come out in a scream that paralyzed her: “Stay back!”

Lara slid to a stop ten yards away, and her gun snapped up and she took aim at Sienna’s head, and in a split-second she wondered if she could do it, if she could pull the trigger.

Jack Sunday. That man in the church. I’ve killed before. I can do it again.

Please, please, let me be able to do it again, for Carly’s sake…

But maybe she didn’t have to. Maybe she could talk her way out of this. Maybe…

“Sienna, what are you doing?”