Valentine's Rising (29 page)

Valentine's former mentor sat back down on Hamm's lap. She didn't flinch as Hamm rested his hand across her shoulder, fingertips touching her breast. Valentine looked away and back at the stage, nauseated.

“You're in for a messy night,” Duvalier said, looking at RC.

“You never know,” Valentine's escort answered.

“I am feeling a little—” Valentine began.

“I'll get you some air,” RC said, as Valentine rose from his chair.

“No, I'm all right . . . or maybe not.” Valentine hurried for the exit. The furniture and décor were an unearthly primary swirl around him. He staggered past the doorman and up the stairs. . . .

When the paroxysm passed he found he was resting against a Dumpster, sweating like a pig and feeling like a small rubber duck floating in a very big lake. He looked around, and reached into his tunic to retrieve the handwritten note. By the blue light of the neon sign, he read Ali's block-capital scrawl.

Apart from her creative spelling of “meow” it was pure Ali; short, to the point and equivocal in case it ended up in someone else's hands. Much of his education in operating in the Kurian Zone had been from her; though she was just under his age, she had twice his experience as a Hunter. While he wondered if she really was good, he was certain the “AM” referred to A.M. AFB probably meant the old air force base to the north as her destination. Hamm had his headquarters there for the refit; Valentine had been told his battalion was to move north and join him in another week or so. Xray-Tango had promised him more time on the range to practice with the new rifles.

For Valentine, it could not come soon enough. He wanted out of the Kurian Zone; Southern Command needed the Quickwood.

“Feeling better, Knox?” a female voice asked from somewhere across the Missouri line. He dropped the note into the Dumpster, startling a rat sniffing at the vomitus within.

He turned, half expecting to see Ali, but it was RC, holding a hurricane glass full of bubbling water.

“I brought you some more soda. It's good for more than just stains.”

“You always this nice?”

“Inside there? Yes.”

Valentine accepted the glass and took a mouthful. He spat it into the alley, then drank the rest.

“Better,” he said, handing it back to her.

“Is the air helping?”

“Yes. Sorry I'm not converstational. I need sleep.”

He couldn't take his eyes from the shadowy vertical line between her breasts.
Her chest was lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go . . .

She put a hand on his forearm and drew it from the Dumpster. “My room's just around the corner. We could go up the back stairs.”

“Nice of you, but I just need to sleep.” If anything, she was more desirable in the muted light of the alley, every turning curve of skin a promise.

“Fine with me, Colonel. If I'm with you, I don't have to make nice in there.”

Valentine looked at her, wondering if this was yet another Kurian Zone test or trap.
What the hell
.

“Lead on,” he said, holding out his hand.

She took him down the alley and around the corner to the back of the Blue Dome. They went up a wooden stairway, the timbers of which were bolted onto the building like an afterthought. She walked him down a long common balcony.

“Yes, oh man, oh baby, oh my, yes, do it!” A female voice drifted through one of the windows.

“I prefer ‘yes, do it, oh my, oh baby, yes,' myself,” RC said, turning a knob on a windowless door.

“She gets good marks for volume,” Valentine said.

“You wouldn't say that if you lived next to her.”

It wasn't so much a room as it was a long closet. There was a double bed, with a single mounted above in such a way that it formed a half-canopy, a table, two closets . . .

“And a john, for the johns,” she said, opening a narrow door. “There's even a shower. If we want a bath, there's a tub down the hall.”

“You share the room?”

RC removed her shoes, frowning. “A dancer. Her name's Melanie. If the deadbolt's closed, she knows not to come in. There's a mattress in their dressing room, so she can sleep there tonight.”

Valentine collapsed on the double bed, focusing on the ticking pattern on the mattress.

“Bedspins?” RC said, sitting down beside him.

“No. Just really, really, tired.”

“Why's your gun off safety?” she asked, examining the gun he'd dropped beside him.

“Old habit, when I sleep in a strange place.”

“Tricky with a .45. Don't worry, you're safe. The scuzzies might hit the boats, or the warehouses across the river. Never here.”

“I see. You know your guns.”

“Basic training starts at eleven for a girl in Dallas. The boys start at eight.”

“Louisiana starts at fifteen.”

“You don't talk like swamp trash.”

“I grew up in New Orleans.” Valentine thought he'd better get off the subject in a hurry. “Why'd you leave Big D?”

“You really want to talk, after a tab of Horny?”

“You're beautiful, RC, but I'm about to leave New Columbia. Still a little curious about you. You're authentically nice.”

“Authentically nice. I'll take it.”

“What's Dallas like?”

“I was on my back at twelve. You invest the capital you're given. I was pretty slender; the guys with a taste for . . . younger stuff . . . dug me until I was over eighteen. My face and hair didn't hurt. But once I passed twenty and had a kid, well, I wasn't worth much to my boss. Dom and Garrett, the doorman, were hunting up girls on the cheap. Dom bought me out for next to nothing, and taught me to talk better and do my eyes right while he was building the joint.”

“Where's your—”

“Son, they told me. New Universal Church youth center. Never even got a good look at him.”

“Fresh start, huh?”

“Yes. Wasn't a real change, just on the outside. I'm still doing soldiers, still wondering if the penicillin they're giving me is the good stuff or not. I just wear a nicer dress is all. Appearances can be deceiving.” “Yes,” Valentine said, drifting off to sleep.

“You ever wanted to change who you are?”

“Constantly.”

RC might have been saying something else, just above a whisper, but he sank into an exhausted slumber.

 

Molly was moving beneath him in the darkness of the little basement room. He felt her bucking beneath him, clawing at his back, but the pain only made him thrust harder. Her eyes screwed up tight in orgasm, then opened as she screamed in passion.

Her slit pupils widened in their yellow irises as her tongue shot toward his breastbone . . .

 

Valentine woke, the sheets wet against his back, a rancid taste in his mouth as though someone had wiped his mouth with a discarded diaper.

“What's going on?” he whispered. There were thumps and a shout or two from below.

RC turned against him. “Eyuuhh? I don't hear anything.”

Valentine felt a Reaper, somewhere below. Its presence pulsed with cold energy. He heard the crash of a table overturning.

“It's two in the morning,” RC yawned. “They're just closing up downstairs. Sometimes they have to drag people out.”

The Reaper moved into the street as RC spoke. He heard an engine start.

“They took someone out,” Valentine agreed. He could picture the scene downstairs. The Reaper arriving, possibly with a human goon or two, and shaking someone awake. The horrible realization that they probably had less than an hour to live as they looked under the hood at the pale, emotionless face. Handcuffs, a waiting vehicle. “The Meet Wagons,” they used to call them in New Orleans. Then the final struggle against its embrace: the last dance.

“God, your heart is pounding,” RC said, pressing her palm to his chest. “That always happens when you wake up?” She was a shadowy presence beside him, nude, her long hair tied up for sleep. He felt her skin against his leg, softer than the sheets, save for the tickling tangle of hair between her legs.

“I startle easy,” Valentine said. The Reaper was gone. He collapsed back on the bed.

Her hand moved lower. “Do you always get a gun when you're startled?”

Valentine's hand had moved to his gunbelt hung on the corner of the bed when he woke, but her attention was fixed on flesh, not steel.

“A gun?”

RC turned up the corner of her mouth as her hand explored him, tugged at his pubes, tested his shaft, cupped his testicles. “That's what I've always called them. Men take a lot of pride in them. Wave them around. They can be dangerous if mishandled.” Something of a Texas twang came into her voice. “They shoot. Hell, you've got a real rifle, Knox.” She began to stroke him, gently, before turning on the bed. Her nipple left a long, electric trail across his stomach. Her mouth met her hand, and he swelled in excitement. “Big game,” she giggled, a string of saliva linking them.

He lay there, enjoying himself, until it occurred to him that Malia Carrasca's baby—his baby, their baby, was due soon. His orgasm, while apparently thrilling to RC, was just an empty series of physical sensations.

Valentine was on his third glass of water and was reaching for the pitcher again when he heard a knock.

RC rose and slipped a robe on her slight shoulders. “Melanie probably wants the room back. Don't worry, you don't have to leave until you feel like.”

“I should be off anyway,” Valentine said.

“Mel, gimme a break, woul—” she said to the door as she opened it. Duvalier stood there, her hair tucked in some kind of bag and a mask of creamy mud on her face. “Oh, Ty, hi . . . I've got company.”

“I know, RC. Can I talk to him, in private? I need him to do something so I can surprise the Number One on his birthday.”

“Umm, yeah . . . I guess.”

“Just five minutes, sweetie.”

RC looked at Valentine, hurriedly pulling up his trousers. “Knox, you remember Ty?”

“The singer from last night? Check her for forks,” he said. “I'm sorry. I was a little drunk last night, Miss, uhhh, Bright. I didn't even know the general's birthday was coming.”

“Thanks, sweetie,” Ali said. She put a finger to her lips. “Shhhhh, okay? Secret mission.”

“My lips are sealed,” RC said, grabbing a basket of towels and soap and moving into the hall.

“Not hardly,” Duvalier said, closing the door and shooting the lock.

“Tanny Bright?” Valentine said, after sweeping the balcony and the hall with hard ears. It was early morning, still; all he heard were RC's footfalls.

“I told him my real name is Ronny McDonalds, which he thought was even funnier. You missed my second number. Was she worth it?”

“I didn't know you could sing.”

“Since this shit started I've sung in three different clubs. I'll let you in on a trade secret: The less she wears, the worse her voice can be. You look a bit green this morning.”

Valentine poured himself more water, and offered his fellow Cat a glass, but she shook her head. “The ‘hero's brandy' wasn't agreeing with me. I didn't even try to keep it down. My stomach generally knows best. Are we going to talk about anything important?”

She lowered her voice until it made no more noise than the breeze through the shutters. “God yes. I'm still active, under Mantilla. Are you in his contact group too?”

“I understand you're active under Hamm.” He used sign language for this, the motions coming slowly thanks to brain-fog.

She switched over to hands as well. “Don't go there, Valentine. I thought you wanted to talk shop.”

“You're right. Sorry, whatever you're doing is for the Cause. No, I'm not active. I was delayed getting back from Texas. I didn't return until just before Christmas. It's been nothing but disaster ever since.”

Her hands again: “I just found out about you being here when I hit town. Southern Command got the report you sent with Finner. The overrun was already in full swing when I came up from New Orleans. I got the women and kids from your crew out. It's a story I don't have time for. They're safe down at Steiner Station.”

“Steiner? Hal Steiner? Lots of rice paddies and a little fortified town?”

“That's the last place I was before this assignment. Steiner's place . . . it's grown. He's trying to feed and hide thousands of refugees in those swamps, plus a chunk of what's left of Southern Command. Got it all phonied up to took like a little Kurian Province. It won't last forever.”