Part 1 (1/2)

Night Betrayed.

by Joss Ware.

Prologue.

When they brought him to Selena, he was already breathing the death rattle.

”Pigment found him covered by a pile of brush,” Sam told her. ”Sniffed him right out like he was a little rabbit. He doesn't look too good, but ... I thought at least you could make him more comfortable. Help him along.”

She looked at Sam, looked at his young, sad eyes and sighed inwardly. She might be used to the constant face of death, to the ”helping along,” but he shouldn't be. The brittleness that seemed to settle over her lately felt sharper. What kind of life am I giving my son? What kind of life am I giving my son?

”Well, thanks to Pigment,” she said, concentrating on a gentle smile. ”I hope Tim gave him a treat.”

”He's going to give him a rib bone right now, but we wanted to bring him to you first.”

”He was alone?” she asked, thinking about the man's family. Surely they'd come along and find him. They'd want to be with him.

Sam nodded. ”No one else around. Looked like someone either buried him, thinking he was dead, or hid him. We looked,” he added with an earnest gaze.

”All right, then. Thanks, guys,” she said, her grat.i.tude encompa.s.sing the two other seventeen-year-old boys. ”I'll do what I can to make it easier for him.”

Selena turned to the man who lay sprawled on one of the beds, having been deposited there gently yet, with the enthusiasm of three teenagers, awkwardly. The familiar gray haze of death s.h.i.+mmered around him, but the afternoon sun pouring through the window sent waves of lavender filtering through it. What should have been dull motes of dust sparkled silver and purple in the light.

She frowned and stared, stepping closer, drawing her fingers gently through the mist, disturbing the glittery dust. Selena hadn't seen it do that before ... and she'd been seeing the death cloud, as she called it, for as long as she could remember.

Yet she never found the gray miasma frightening; rather, it was like a cloud enveloping and then cloaking the body-as if to soften pa.s.sage into the next world. While it often sparkled, she had never ever seen it manifest in hues other than gray to blue.

A quick glance around the room told her that everything else remained the same: Jules lay in the corner section, his breathing shallow and quick-rattling faintly but not as deeply as this new arrival. The haze around this forty-eight-year-old-man had morphed from gray to blue, indicating that he'd be gone soon. Most likely within the next hours. Jules's heavenly guides, visible only to her and him, of course, sat vigil nearby, waiting for him to relinquish his last hold on life. One of them was Jules's daughter, who'd died three years ago in this very s.p.a.ce. His wife, who was still living, had left an hour ago to tend to their cows and was expected back soon.

On the other side of the room, cloistered by a blanket screening off her section, Maryanna's breathing was nearly silent. The gray vapor around the young woman wavered, but rose tall and strong, readying itself to buffer her during the change. Her husband rested next to her, exhausted and ashen-skinned, waiting for the inevitable. She looked more peaceful than he did as he held her small, blue-veined hand in his large one.

Selena's heart squeezed and the edge of emptiness poked her. She pushed it away-for now. She had Sam. And Vonnie. And even Frank.

Later, she would grieve for all of them. But now, she had work to do.

Turning, she checked on little Clara, the sole survivor of a zombie attack in her settlement two years ago. She'd survived that horror only to succ.u.mb to a different one. The tumor that distended her belly made her look as if she had an extra pillow under her blankets. She was bathed in the same gentle mist as Maryanna and Jules. And her death cloud had blued as well, though she was conscious, her eyes open and watching Selena from across the room.

”Are you in pain?” Selena asked. ”Can I get you some water? A little puff?”

Where the h.e.l.l is Jen? She should have been back by now. I've got to see if there's any hope for this guy.

But she already knew there wasn't. Once the gray haze came, that was the beginning of the inevitable. Maybe fifty years ago before the Change, when everything was different, there might have been hope.

”No,” Clara replied. ”I'm just looking at him. His cloud is so pretty. All the sparkles.”

Selena smiled at the simplicity and accuracy of the eight-year-old. She wasn't surprised that the girl could see the death cloud. After decades of experience, nothing about the dying surprised her anymore. They were the only ones who really understood.

And, yes indeed, the new arrival was was pretty-all covered in faint sparkling lavender and silvery gray. But what did it mean? pretty-all covered in faint sparkling lavender and silvery gray. But what did it mean?

She turned her full attention to him. Sam and his friends had tried to be gentle, but they weren't used to carrying and moving the deadweight of a full-grown man, especially one as solid and muscled as this one; and he'd been deposited clumsily, half on his side.

Blood stained his s.h.i.+rt, dried and crusted in places, yet damp and oozing directly over his chest. Already, it colored the blanket beneath him, seeping into an irregularly-shaped spot. One arm, bared by a sleeveless s.h.i.+rt and streaked with blood and grime, had a long red dragon tattooed on it.

Selena glanced at it but didn't have time to look closely because she needed to call Cath, over in Yellow Mountain, to determine if there was anything to be done for him. Usually by the time the sick got to Selena, Cath had already seen them and done what she could.

His breathing s.h.i.+fted, the rattle deepening, sounding like his lungs were filling with fluid. It could be blood or edema, and that meant nothing good. Selena looked at his face, which appeared to be drawn with pain and fatigue. He couldn't be more than thirty.

Young pup.

And a handsome one at that, with s.h.i.+ny black hair cropped short and falling every which way in ragged spikes. Long sideburns framed a face with high cheekbones, and there was more than a bit of Asian in his eyes and skin tone. Full lips, smashed into an almost-pucker as he lay on his side. Nice, rounded muscles on his arms and beneath the hiked-up leg of his jeans.

If I were twenty years younger ... Oh. And if he weren't dying ...

Smiling wryly to herself-because, after all if she didn't have a sense of humor in a life like this, she'd be even more screwed up than she was-Selena washed her hands with the lemon-infused soap and reached for his uppermost hip, ready to s.h.i.+ft him onto his back. At the last minute, she decided to remove his s.h.i.+rt first. At least she could clean him up, see the injury, and put him in a fresh tunic.

Something fresh in which to die.

She frowned. Humor was all good and well, but lately her thoughts had trailed into unpleasantness more often than not. She needed a change. Or at least some way to find relief and ease from the sadness of her work.

As she removed the grimy, sodden clothing, she saw that he had another dragon tattoo curling down his muscular back. This one was blue, and its single visible eye sparkled down near his hip.

Sparkled?

Selena knelt next to him to get a closer look, unable to help noticing the beginning curve of his b.u.t.t just below his sagging jeans. Hmm. It was more like a glint than a sparkle. What in the crazy world What in the crazy world is is that? that?

Gingerly, she reached to touch it with her finger.

A fiery, painful jolt shot through her, and she jerked her hand away. ”What the h.e.l.l!”

Selena stared down at him, listening to the ragged, guttural breathing that portended no good and went inexorably on and on. She could see the s.h.i.+ne of something metal right there, as if it were embedded in his skin.

Or as if his skin was merely a covering over over something metal. something metal.

Was he some kind of Klingon? A robot?

An Elite?

Heart pounding, she sat back on her haunches, still crouched next to the bed. Could that explain the odd-colored sparkles in his death cloud?

She'd never had an Elite brought to her here-which was no surprise, since, duh duh, Elites were immortal because of the crystals embedded in their bodies. They didn't die, so they didn't need the Death Lady.

But . ..this guy had metal under his skin. Maybe he wasn't even a man after all.

But then why did he have the death cloud? The haze?