And I’m not that man anymore.
Even though he couldn’t court her, he still wanted . . . something. He couldn’t believe that his interest was just a result of Verrot and grief. He knew it wasn’t—he also knew he couldn’t start figuring out what he and Chloe were doing until he tended to whatever Francis needed.
Edgar shoved aside the chair that leaned against the wall outside the door and opened the door to Francis’ room. It was a tinier version of Jack’s, and one he’d slept in from time to time over the years. Not a whole lot ever changed in Gallows. The rooms to let were all pretty familiar by now. Like a lot of the rooms at the Gulch, this one had two narrow beds, a privacy screen, and a small stand with a washbasin. Several folded cloths were stacked next to the washbasin.
He and Jack stepped inside the confining space only to be greeted by his baby sister aiming a pistol at them. Edgar held his hands out in a placating gesture and opened his mouth to apologize.
Before he could speak, Katherine snapped, “Knock or say something when you open the door. Goddamn monks and Ajani and his thugs are all roaming around town. I could’ve shot you.”
“Sorry, Kit,” Edgar rumbled.
Francis laughed. “Somebody’s in her mother-bear mode.”
With a sigh, Katherine lowered the gun and reached over to pat his shoulder. “Well, you’re a good cub.”
“Some of us aren’t lousy patients,” Francis teased her. Then he turned his head in the direction of Edgar’s voice. “Jack, are you here too?”
“Right here.” Jack looked at the blood leaking out of one of Francis’ closed eyes. Upon closer inspection, he could see that it wasn’t just blood. The liquid was too watery, as well as being more pink than red. “Does it burn? Hurt? What can you tell us?”
“Both eyes hurt, but this one feels like it’s on fire.” Francis paused as Katherine wiped his cheek again, and then he added, “I’m not healing at all, Jack. Kitty wants to believe it’s just a little slow, but even without the Verrot, I should’ve stopped bleeding by now. The other one shouldn’t be still blinded either. Something’s wrong.”
“Hush! You’ll be fine,” Katherine murmured. “We just need to figure it out. Garuda’s on it, and God knows you have enough herbs back at camp. We’ll brew something up, get some Verrot into you, and you’ll be as good as new.”
“I hope so,” Francis said in a wavering voice.
Katherine’s expression was more openly worried than it usually was when one of the group was injured, but Jack figured that was because Francis couldn’t see her.
As she wiped Francis’ blood streaks away, she lifted her other hand and held her index finger in front of her lips with a “shhh” gesture.
Jack nodded, letting her know that he understood, and then he gestured to the door.
“Are you all mouthing words at each other or staring at me in silence?” Francis prompted. He turned his head toward them, eyes still closed, and added, “If you’re not going to talk about plans in front of me, go somewhere else and do it. I need help, not pity.”
“Francis . . .” Katherine started, but her words faltered.
After a moment, Francis sighed and said, “It’s okay, Kitty. Go talk to Jack. Edgar?”
“Still here,” Edgar affirmed from where he stood learning against the wall. He glanced at Jack, who nodded in affirmation, before offering, “If Jack’s with Kit, I’ll stay here. I can’t imagine Melody is much comfort with Verrot in her.”
Francis snorted. “Why do you think Hector was in the hall? He needed to keep an eye out for trouble, and we all thought I might start randomly throwing knives if she was in my room much longer.”
“Katherine and I will figure this out,” Jack promised.
“Of course we will,” Katherine murmured in the voice that Jack expected she’d have used with her own children. Carefully, she folded a rag and covered Francis’ eye with it.
Without asking, Edgar ripped a strip of fabric off of another piece of cloth and handed it to her. As she’d done for so many years and to so many people, Katherine nursed Francis, tying the cloth to his eye so that it would keep the seeping blood, tears, and pus from dripping down his cheek. Jack watched her with the sudden awareness that part of her bond with Francis was simply that he shared nursing duties with her. She’d had a lot of years where the nurturing of the Arrivals was all on her shoulders, and Francis alleviated some of that burden—much as Edgar had shared Jack’s own burden of keeping order or stepping into the worst of the fracases.
Katherine didn’t look up from the knot she was tying to hold the makeshift bandage in place as she asked, “Where is Chloe?”
Jack wasn’t about to admit anything to his sister, not because he’d done anything wrong per se, but because what had happened with Chloe wasn’t anyone’s business. “She’s resting in my room.”
“In your room?” Katherine’s lips pressed together.
“You were with Francis, and she doesn’t really know Hector or Melody and—”
“And you’ve been looking at her like she’s a snack you intend to consume since she arrived,” Katherine interrupted. “Seriously, Jackson, we don’t even know if she’s going to stay with us or join Ajani. You’re right that she shouldn’t be left alone, but until we know more about her, keep it in your pants.”
There were a dozen different things Jack could tell his sister, but the sad truth was that she was right. Everyone who arrived in the Wasteland was a killer of some sort or another, and he knew better than to ignore that detail. The smart thing to do was to focus on work. That was how he’d kept his sanity the past twenty-six years: concentrate on the mission first, last, and always.
Katherine glared at him, as if daring him to tell her she was wrong, and Jack had the fleeting urge to do just that. Arguing wouldn’t help either of them just then, though, so he changed the subject. “Let’s talk to Garuda before we do anything else. If anyone knows what could be wrong, it’s him.”
Katherine’s face took on that faraway look that Jack was already associating with conversations that she was silently having inside her mind. How in the hell did I miss that all of these years? She looked at Jack and said, “We could meet him tonight.”
Jack nodded. He didn’t admit it aloud, but he was grateful that they had a way to quickly reach the bloedzuiger. Garuda knew more about the Wasteland than anyone else Jack had met in all of the years he’d lived in it. If it was a poison that was causing Francis’ condition, Garuda could find out what it was. If it was some sort of magic, he could direct them to the answers. Moments like this were why Jack found Garuda’s friendship so invaluable. He dealt fine with killing things, but he wasn’t sure what to do when one of the Arrivals was dealing with an injury that their peculiar biology wasn’t healing. He’d been in the Wasteland longer than he’d been in the world he’d been born to, and he’d become accustomed to their healing abilities. “We can discuss other options too. Maybe send Melody and Hector back to camp to get the rest of the Verrot.”
“Sure.” Katherine glanced back at Francis, but didn’t move.
Edgar walked to the door, opened it, and grabbed the chair that was in the hallway, presumably from Hector having been stationed there. Instead of closing the door, he looked at Katherine. “I’ll take care of him, Kit. Go on.”
Katherine kissed Francis’ forehead, and then, gun in hand, stepped outside. Once she and Jack were in the hall, she asked, “Do you want to talk in one of the other rooms or . . . ?” She motioned toward his room.
“Yours will work. We can move Chloe to your room later if you aren’t rooming with Edgar.” Jack wasn’t sure what he’d do if Katherine was staying with Edgar. He could order her to room with Chloe, but he’d much rather give Edgar and Katherine their space if they’d finally sorted out their drama—and even if Chloe wasn’t feeling very forgiving, Jack would still rather share space with her. The floor of the room wasn’t that hard, and he held hopes that they could get back to where they were bef
ore he’d screwed up. None of that emotional nonsense was anything he felt like discussing with his sister, though, so he asked, “Did you tell Garuda everything?”
“I did.” She opened the door to the tiny room where she’d be sleeping. “He’s been over toward the Divide, but he’ll be here soon.”
Jack followed her into the room and closed the door behind them. “Does he have any other ideas?”
“Poison.” Katherine dropped to the floor with the sort of bone-tired motion that she didn’t usually allow herself. “Monks. Ajani . . . or maybe the ‘natural collapse of unnatural physiology.’ That’s the extent of the ideas Garuda had.” She gave Jack a quiet look of desperation that reminded him far too much of their early years in the Wasteland, when the whole world was alien to them.
Jack responded the same way that he had all those years ago. He looked at his sister and tried to sound like he knew what he was doing. “We’ll give him the Verrot. We’ll talk to Garuda, and if we don’t get anywhere, I’ll go back to Governor Soanes. Either he knows something or . . . is involved. I’ll figure it out, and everything will be fine.”
And then he hoped to hell and heaven both that he wasn’t lying.
Chapter 27
When Chloe reached the ground floor, she half expected to see one of the Arrivals in the tavern, but none of them were in sight. Maybe they were all together dealing with whatever crisis had necessitated summoning Jack. Maybe some of them were out doing God knows what. All Chloe knew for certain was that if she stayed in the tavern, she’d be sampling whatever local liquor they had, and while that was a tempting idea, she’d already had Verrot—which hadn’t exactly been a consequence-free experience. For that matter, neither had her bender back in D.C.; drinking there or here simply wasn’t a good idea.
Somehow the fact that she had been in bed with Jack only minutes ago seemed more surreal than anything else that had happened since she’d woken up in this strange world. Unfortunately, it also seemed less surprising. She’d long ago stopped trying to pretend she was attracted to good men. Her dating record was a series of bad and worse decisions. She could blame a few of them on drunkenness, but the rest were some sort of quirk of biology: nice guys didn’t attract her—or find her attractive. If substituting her for a dead girlfriend was the worst thing Jack did, he’d be one of the least awful of her mistakes. Bobby had failed to mention that the packages she’d picked up from his friend were kilos; Michael had forgotten to mention that when he said “ex-wife” he meant “wife who was all too happy to stab a girl for screwing him.” Allan had spent more years in prison than he had in school. Isaiah was a great guy—up until he got so strung out that he half dragged, half carried her through a parking lot to an ATM so she’d withdraw money for his fix. They all seemed nice when she’d met them, often a little rough around the edges, but she was more comfortable with guys who filled out a pair of jeans. Men in suits, on the other hand, usually made her nervous. She’d only dated two suits: the first one was Jason, whom she’d killed; the second one screwed her boss and sent Chloe out on the bender that led to ending up in the Wasteland. In jeans or suits, the men she liked were trouble through and through.
“You’d think I’d get a goddamn clue,” she muttered.
She stood motionless at the foot of the stairs. Maybe it was the Verrot wearing off, or maybe it was being in a weird new world, or maybe it was falling into a bed with another in the list of bad choices, but she just wanted to run away and hide. Running would attract even more attention, though, so Chloe smiled at several of the people in the low-lit room. Then she straightened her shoulders and walked purposefully toward the exit, ignoring the watchful gazes of the tavern dwellers. There were those who looked like men and others she wasn’t sure how to identify. She didn’t know exactly what defined a man. The large-eared, short, stocky beings who stood in the darker shadows and the slightly willowy ones who stayed near the few windows all looked mostly human until she let her gaze linger. Small details became more obvious with a closer look, and soon she wasn’t sure which was the more unsettling: the “slightly other” creatures or the vastly different ones like the bloedzuigers. Somehow, she’d come a world away from the home she’d known, yet here she was feeling the same flash of hurt and anger.
And as she had experienced at home, she found herself needing to walk in order to clear her head. This time she wasn’t looking for a tavern at the end of the walk. That was progress. She’d clear her head, and when she got back to the inn, she’d pretend none of the nonsense with Jack had happened. That plan made better sense than the path she’d been on before she and Jack were interrupted.
Chloe stepped outside into the full desert sunlight and blinked against the brightness. The harshness of it reminded her that she didn’t know enough about the desert to set out across it. The Wasteland was filled with monsters, and the few bullets she had in her gun weren’t going to get her very far. Maybe she could stay in town; she’d just need to find someone willing to hire her so she could earn enough to afford food and shelter. She needed to find her feet. That meant finding some independence, and that required a job.
She stepped into the street and started walking. She didn’t have a lot of skills that seemed likely to be useful here—modern technology wasn’t something she’d seen any evidence of so far—but she could carry a tray or push a broom. She was walking down a different street than the one she’d traversed with Jack a few hours earlier, but she’d yet to see a sign advertising work. Much to her relief, she’d also not seen Hector or Melody.
At the next intersection, Chloe found a man strolling toward her with a friendly look on his face. He smiled but didn’t bow his head in that almost old-fashioned way of so many people here.
She smiled politely as he approached.
“You’re Chloe, right? Kitty’s friend? I heard she was in Gallows with someone new.” He held out his hand. “I’m Daniel.”
Chloe hesitated, but then shook his hand. “Hi.”
“Is Kitty still in one of the shops?” Daniel looked at the nearby buildings before lowering his voice conspiratorially and adding, “She does have a habit of getting caught up in her shopping sometimes. I’ve spent a good number of hours standing in the street just like you waiting on her to decide between things, only to find that she’d bought both rather than choosing one.” He laughed quietly.
Chloe smiled. “I’m not sure where she is right now. I was just taking a walk.”
Daniel frowned a little before offering, “May I escort you, then?”
“I’m not going anywhere in particular,” she hedged. Daniel seemed nice enough, but she wanted to be left alone.
“First time in Gallows?” he pressed.
She nodded.
“It’s not always safe for strangers to be out on their own here. I can show you the high points until Kit’s free. Come on.” He turned and started traveling back in the direction he’d just come from. When she didn’t follow him, he queried, “Unless you were meeting someone else . . . ?”
“No.”
After a slight pause, he smiled cheerily at her and added, “Then here we are.” He pointed toward a market of some sort. “That’s Billbee’s. They specialize in local produce, but sometimes they carry luxuries from out past the Divide. Fair prices.” He pointed at a dark-shuttered building that she’d have assumed was closed. “That’s Mill’s place. He handles money lending around here. Privacy guaranteed, but the rates are absurd.”
Chloe was struggling to be friendly. Daniel seemed like a nice enough man, and he certainly wasn’t hard on the eyes. Maybe he’d be a nice distraction from the confusing way she felt about Jack. She flushed guiltily at that thought. Daniel was a friend of Kitty’s, and he was offering to help her, and she was coldly thinking of him as a distraction.
“Chloe?” Daniel prompted. “Are you all right?”
“It’s been a difficult couple of days,” she admitted.
Daniel paused, as if he were considering the situ
ation. Then he suggested, “Join me for a meal? I’m staying at the edge of Gallows, and my host has a comfortable sitting room and a wonderful cook.”
“I don’t know.” She folded her arms over her chest. Partly, she thought that a harmless distraction was exactly what she needed. It had been a lousy few days, and a good meal with a friendly Wastelander sounded nice. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean she could trust this guy that easily. “I’m not very good company today, and I’m sure you have better things to do.”
“Better than time with a beautiful woman?” He laughed softly. “There aren’t too many things better than that, especially in the Wasteland.”
“I’m not . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t know you.”
“We can go ask Kitty or one of the others about me. Better yet, if you want, you go, and I’ll just wait right here,” Daniel offered.
For a moment, Chloe considered it. Going back, though, wasn’t something she was ready to do just yet. “I wanted to look around at jobs. I just got into town, and I should concentrate on getting settled,” she hedged. It wasn’t an excuse, not completely at least.
Daniel smiled at her. “I’ve lived here for years, Chloe. I can help you with that one too.”
“Why?”
“You’re a friend of Kitty’s, and Gallows can be rough, and none of the Arrivals are here with you.” He seemed like a nice enough man as he implored, “Join me, please? You look like you could use a friend, and I know what that feels like.”
“Okay,” she said quietly, deciding to trust her instincts. “An actual meal sounds nice, but I need to let them know where I went.”