Abandon The Night (36 page)

“Nothing,” said a voice. “Nothing will happen because no one can access this room except for me. Or so I thought.”

Quent froze, then looked over to see one of the glass panels of the octagon swinging inward. Fielding stepped in, and the door, which was a thick glassed-in slab filled with water—a perfectly camouflaged door—closed behind him. He was holding an object that resembled a gun, but it was unlike any firearm Quent had seen. Where the chamber would have been on an old pistol glowed a large yellow crystal. He suspected bullets weren’t the ammunition that came out of that piece.

“I’m not certain whether to be disappointed in you or complacent with myself for my correct assessment of your character.” He moved into the room, closer to the large crystal on the pedestal, his eyes steady and cold. The weapon was aimed a bit unsteadily at Quent, and he knew without being told that his father would shoot—or whatever—to kill. “Once a disappointment, always a disappointment.”

Quent heard Zoë’s breathed
fuck
behind him, but he was too pissed off to find it amusing. “So sorry to have not measured up to your standards once again, father.”

“You failed the test, but what I cannot understand is how you found your way into this room,” Fielding said. His eyes were bright and he moved slowly. “You were not meant to. Only to set off the alarm at your attempt. How did you do it?”

“Your little experiment,” Quent told him. “Obviously backfired on you.”

“I would have given this to you,” Fielding said, reaching to languidly caress the crystal. He seemed to take in its power, giving a little shudder as he did so. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger, the hand holding the gun steadier. “I meant for you to have it. If you’d but waited. I have—had—plans for you, now that you’d returned.”

“You can’t seriously believe I would have come to join you.” Quent edged back toward Zoë. “After what you and your cult did to the world? And the continued suppression. Kidnappings, enslavement, and zombie attacks. How could you imagine I’d ever want to be part of that?” He couldn’t keep the loathing from his voice any longer.

Fielding looked aggrieved. “A rare misjudgment on my part. I suppose a father can’t help but hope his son will follow in his footsteps.”

“Good thing Hitler never had a son.”

Fielding’s face tightened and the gun lifted. “Hitler had his points. The idea of a master race isn’t so farfetched, particularly considering Darwin’s theories. Hitler simply went about it in the wrong way.”

“Yes. He was overt about it, and thus stoppable. You didn’t give the world a chance. How did you do it? How did you annihilate the whole bloody earth? Did you use that?” He gestured to the crystal even as he stepped another bit backward. Zoë’s warm hand brushed his from behind, then withdrew. He realized what she was doing—sliding the weapon-cane from where he’d stuck it through the belt loop in the back of his pants.

“No, that crystal wasn’t used in the Evolution. I told you—that’s my connection to the Atlanteans. They were the ones who designed and implemented the Evolution, with my help of course.”

“I’m sure you were instrumental to the whole project,” Quent said dryly.

“Of course. They were fortunate that it was I who acquired the crystal. No one else would have managed to learn how to use it to communicate with them.”

“So you were able to reach the Atlanteans. Tell me about them.” Quent’s curiosity warred with his revulsion for the man and his cohorts. And if he kept him talking, Zoë might have the chance to make a move. He knew she wouldn’t stay still for long. Yet, they still didn’t know which side his crystal was on.

Fielding’s breathing rasped in the space as his eyes lit with delight. “You see, the Atlanteans had been banished to the depths of the ocean for millennia. They wanted to return to the earth’s exterior, where they’d lived so long ago. They needed the help of mortals on land in order to raise their city back to the surface.”

“And in return for your help, they offered you and your cult immortalizing crystals.”

“Yes. It was a bargain I couldn’t refuse. And without me, they would never have been able to return. They should have been grateful to me forever.” His jaw tightened, making his voice tense.

“You and Remington Truth.” Zoë spoke, and Fielding seemed to notice her for the first time. He shifted the gun barrel toward her. Quent wished she’d kept her bloody mouth shut, but that was too much to expect from Zoë.

“Truth was a brilliant man, but weak. Guilt-ridden sap. That was Hegelsen’s mistake, wanting Truth to be part of the Inner Circle. I knew he was a bad choice, but Liam claimed we needed him with his connections and knowledge of the American military.”

“Remington Truth. He disappeared shortly after the Change and you’ve never been able to find him. What secrets does he hold that you’re so desperate to get him back?” Quent asked, turning Fielding’s attention from Zoë.

“Too many.” Fielding wasn’t taking the bait. He looked at Zoë again, the gun shifting toward Quent. “And you. I could have used you, and you would have lived happily and in luxury forever.”

“Why did you want me to kill Liam Hegelsen?” Zoë asked. Quent had to resist the urge to spin and look at her in surprise. “And how the hell could I do that if he’s crystaled?”

“It’s no matter now,” Fielding replied. “It’ll all be taken care of shortly. If my son wouldn’t have disappointed me, I would have employed your talents to rid him of the man who’d rival him. But since he’s made the decision to come here, well, I’m simply returning to my original plan.”

“Which is what?”

“Well, I’m delighted you’ve asked,” Fielding said. He shifted suddenly, changing the gun’s aim. Quent moved, slamming Zoë to the ground as a ricochet of something like lightning sizzled through the room, zapping at the keypad beside the door through which they’d come. As they tumbled to the ground, a yellow-orange light flashed, lighting the dark space, and the smell of burning plastic and something else sharp and pungent filled the air. Quent looked up to see the panel smoking.

“You won’t be leaving that way.” Fielding smiled, walking toward the solid door to examine his handiwork. “In fact, you won’t be leaving at all.”

Suddenly, something
shushed
through the air and Fielding cried out in surprise and fury as one of Zoë’s arrows pinned him by the arm to the door. She glanced at Quent, smiling with bravado. “Was wondering how I was going to get him over there.” She surged to her feet, pulling another arrow from the quiver.

Fielding still had the weapon, and he was trying to pull his arm free, which had been shot through the upper bicep, without dropping the gun. He grunted in pain and frustration as Zoë sent a second arrow. Another quiet
shush
, and his left thigh was pinned. Fielding screamed in pain and dropped the gun, struggling to pull the arrow from his leg.

Zoë looked at Quent, then gestured with her hand as if to say
help yourself
. He walked over to his father and yanked the two arrows free as Zoë swooped to pick up the gun. Fielding staggered away, blood spattering the white tiled floor.

“I didn’t know immortals bled,” Quent said callously. “Too bad you can’t bleed to death.”

“Bastard,” gasped Fielding, reaching toward the crystal as if he were a junkie grasping for a fix. His hands trembled and as he moved, he staggered.

“What’s wrong with you?” Quent had a sudden prickle of unease. Elite couldn’t be murdered. Any flesh wounds would heal quickly, according to Marley. Even a bullet to the head or chest would simply heal around the slug if it remained in the flesh…so why was Fielding so weakened? “You’re injured.”

His father, having touched the crystal yet again, seemed to regain some strength. He looked at Quent, a strange light in his eyes. “Not because of you, fool. You couldn’t have finished me. Only my own mistake. My own goddamned mistake has brought me to this end.”

Those words, so unexpected from a man who accepted nothing but perfection from himself and those around him, caught Quent’s full attention. Fielding was drawing on the collar of his button shirt, pulling it away from his throat.

Repulsed and fascinated, Quent realized the man was showing him his crystal. At least now he knew which side it was on. But when Fielding opened his shirt, exposing his entire chest, Quent saw the darkened skin. He looked up at his father for confirmation and read it in his eyes.

Instead of a single crystal, like Marley wore, Fielding had not one, but three glowing stones embedded in his skin. One of them, on the right side, appeared to be identical to the one Marley had. The other two were different—one was lavender and one opalescent.

But on the left side, the skin had turned black around the lavender crystal. Even from where he stood, several feet away, Quent saw that the flesh had hardened and turned shiny, and that the black infection had spread over his shoulders and chest, down to his belly and beyond.

“Three crystals. Instead of one,” Quent said. “Why? What more did you seek besides immortality?”

Fielding nodded. His face suddenly looked old and craven. “You are well informed for being an Outsider. One for strength. And one to regain my youth.”

Quent made a soft sound of disgust. Which one had brought the malady into Fielding’s body? Which one had been his downfall? Greedy bastard. “There’s no cure,” he said, knowing that was true.

Even Elliott, who could heal anything, had been unable to cure a young Elite woman with a similar ailment. Quent knew from his friend’s description of the hard and shiny black flesh that his father suffered from the infection that would very quickly take over the body and kill him.

“If the body rejects the crystal and becomes infected with the Dark Syndrome, there is nothing to be done,” Fielding said, nodding in agreement. “So that was why I was doubly grateful that you’d come. You’d have been the one to take over my role, Quent. Live here in luxury and carry on the tradition. Damned Liam Hegelsen would have no choice but to accept it, if you had the crystal.”

“How long do you have?” Quent asked.

Fielding shrugged. “Not long at all now. It’s progressed quite rapidly this day alone.”

“I noticed you seemed shaky at dinner, and a bit weak, but I assumed you were drunk,” Quent said. “You were hiding the infection.

“I’ve told no one of this occurrence, which, as you can imagine, has put a damper on my physical pleasuring of the last weeks. I dare not take off my shirt.”

“What a shame,” Zoë said. “I don’t mean that you haven’t been brave enough to fuck the last few weeks, but that we aren’t going to have to finish the job. That you’ve done it all on your own.”

Fielding smiled, stroking the crystal. Then he turned and suddenly lifted it from its pedestal and without hesitation, threw it hard.

Quent moved without thinking, intent on stopping the stone before it broke the glass wall and allowed the ocean to burst in. As he caught the crystal, he realized his mistake. A shock flooded him, blue and hot, and before he could react, the rush of images—dark, cold, revolting and malignant—claimed him.

Zoë dove toward Quent as he leapt to catch the crystal, but she was too late.

He tumbled to the ground, his hands curled around it, holding it against his chest. Now, as she knelt next to him, she bit back a curse at his quick reaction. “Come on, genius,” she muttered desperately, trying to pry his fingers from the stone. “Wake up.”

A glance up at Fielding indicated his mild interest, but he made no move to assist, or to keep her from her task. Instead, he stood at the now-empty pedestal and seemed to be occupied with something on the platform.

Zoë managed to tug Quent’s fingers free and the crystal plunked to the floor. At last. “Come
on
, Quent,” she said. “Wake the fuck up.”

But this time, when he dropped the object that pulled him into the dark pit, he didn’t open his eyes. Fear spiked through her as she noticed his breathing was shallow and fast. His eyes moved beneath closed lids and she saw a trickle of sweat roll from beneath his hair as he seemed to struggle against some unseen assault. His legs and arms, fingers and face, convulsed as if he were battling a nightmare.

She shook him, hard, and then slapped his face as she’d done before. “What the
hell
,” she moaned in frustration that edged into stark fear. She glanced up at Fielding just as he stepped away from the pedestal.

A smug smile tipped his lips and she braced herself for him to come at her now. She still had his gun, but he was an Elite, and would be much stronger than she.

But he didn’t move in her direction. “I had no idea that would happen,” he said conversationally. She noticed he staggered a bit. “What’s wrong with him?”

“You bastard,” Zoë hissed up at him as she knelt there, an increasing fear swarming her. “Quent, what the fuck? Come
on
!”

“It’s probably better that way,” Fielding said, just as the room gave a great lurch. “Ah. There it is.” His smile grew wider and he turned to look around him. “It won’t be long now.”

“What?” Zoë demanded, her heart sinking. That lurch hadn’t been a good sign, and now she felt an underlying vibration beneath her cold bare feet and knees.

“This is my escape plan,” Fielding said. She saw that his neck had begun to darken above the collar of his shirt, and the Dark Syndrome had spread beyond the cuffs to his hands. It was moving frighteningly fast. “I always needed a way to leave them behind, but I didn’t expect I’d be dying as I did. So I made a bit of an adjustment to my original plan.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Zoë cried, and then she felt Quent shift beneath her. It was a smooth movement, not the agitated ones from the nightmare. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, then eased into some calmer rhythm.

“We’re in a little pod that’s about to be released from its moorings. In perhaps ten minutes, it’ll pull free and sink to the depths of the ocean where you and my son and I will remain in this spacious coffin. I didn’t expect to have company in my tomb,” Fielding said, his voice rasping a bit now. He couldn’t get to the crystal for a new surge of energy, for it was next to Zoë. “But in retrospect, I think it’s only fitting. Like the pharaohs, I’ll have my own companions with me for my travels to the other side.”