Night Runner: Falling From The Light Part 8

I jumped. I'd forgotten all about him. A match struck and he lit the tiered sconce in the middle of the small, round table. A magazine lay open in front of him. Had he been reading in the dark?

"No. Yes." I stomped around for a minute. The room felt too tight. "Did Mickey go to bed already?"

He pointed straight up. I raised my eyebrows. "She's learned to fly? She's hanging from the ceiling like a bat?"

"She found that there is a pool on the roof. She went there ninety minutes ago."

I popped into my room, ignoring the fine clothes hanging in the closet and instead pulled on a T-shirt and cargo shorts.

"I'll be back in a while," I said.

Thurston stood. "I will come."

"You don't have to. Did you get something to eat...or drink? Are you good?"

He looked around, as if I was talking to the other vampire in the room, before facing me again. "I will come, but I won't interfere. If I do not, it will be my failure."

"You don't have to hide. That's not what I meant. You can hang with us if you want."

He shook his head. "You will not even notice me."

"You're, like, six foot two with muttonchops, Thurston. I can't help but notice you."

"Thank you," he muttered.

I had no idea which part of that he'd taken as a compliment.

Chapter Seven.

It wasn't hard to find Mickey. The stairs went up and up, and the heat drifted down and down. I paused a few steps from the door, Thurston drifting silently behind me. He was wearing a short-sleeved checkered shirt, blue over black, and it gave him an awkward rockabilly look.

The scent of artificial coconut hit me when I opened the door, followed by the heat. I'd wondered why anyone would be at the pool at night, but it was probably too hot during the day. The pool shimmered, a long, languid kidney shape, lit by blue lights running along the bottom. A few people-all human-were spread out over rows of reclining deck chairs under a big orange and blue awning, surrounded by mostly empty gla.s.ses. The stars were phenomenal.

"Andrea!" Mickey called out, waving. The name almost slid past me before my mind latched on to the alias. The men and women lounging around her were gorgeous, their skin radiant, the planes of their faces striking, their bodies hard and soft in a variety of attractive places.

Thurston evaporated, drifting out of the doorway and into a patch of shadow.

"How's it going, Maria?" I asked quietly, settling down on the foot of her chair. Mickey's perpetual smile bowed into a frown. She sat up and swung her legs over the side.

"I talked to my aunt earlier. She's separating from my uncle. They tried to stay together for the kids, but my cousins are encouraging them to leave."

"Wait, what? I thought they had a leaky pipe."

"They did, but it was the least of their problems. The visit to the lake house was an intervention, to get them to part, but it has become messy. I had to stop speaking to them. They were getting sadness and anger all over me."

She blinked rapidly as tears pooled in her eyes and my heart twisted for her. Mickey was an energetic optimist. I hated seeing her down.

"Sorry, kid." I bounced my shoulder against hers.

"I don't understand how it could be so bad. They love each other but they are like...poison. I don't understand. Love should make it so that you only want to be nice to the other person, right?"

"I don't think it's that simple. You can love someone and still want different things than them. You can love someone and still be a complete a.s.shole because nothing is stronger than your a.s.shole nature. You can love someone and resent them for that feeling." Or you could love someone who existed in a world that could only ever bring you discomfort and disappointment. Pain, on a bad day.

"Ugh." Mickey sighed and swirled a daiquiri that had separated. "Maybe one-night stands are the way to go. Quick flings for fun, and a book club for companionship."

I laughed and took a sip of the drink when she offered it to me. Real strawberries, slightly sour but flavorful, and a smooth light rum.

"I don't think you need to decide right this minute how the rest of your life should go. Things happen. People come and go. Sometimes they surprise you."

"And sometimes you surprise yourself. But I..." She trailed off and I followed her gaze.

A tall man, barely legal age, walked to the edge of the pool. He stripped his shirt off, practically posing, all golden-brown skin contrasted by bright white shorts. He laughed at something someone behind him said, glanced around quickly to make sure he'd caught a few eyes, then dove gracefully into the water. I glanced at Mickey, who scowled.

"He's off-limits. I asked. Has a steady...arrangement with one of the concierges. Said he probably wouldn't even be able to get it up for a human after that." She eyed me over the rim of her gla.s.s. "Does that happen? Do vampires ruin the living for other humans?"

Would I be able to move on from Malcolm? Yes, if I had to. Would I be satisfied with someone else? The idea made my stomach turn. I wouldn't be able to feel humans, wouldn't be able to trust them the way I trusted Mal. I felt him. Even when we disagreed, he felt right for me.

I shrugged. "Vampires have been ruining humans for centuries."

"I was talking about the s.e.x."

"I'm not answering that question." I laughed. "Come on. I need to put my feet in the pool so there's something left for people to find after the rest of me burns alive."

"Can you drive me out tomorrow to find another hotel?" Mickey asked as we settled on the rough stone around the pool. Facing each other, we each dropped a foot into the water. "There were some near the mall in Scottsdale, right?" She sighed, but it was dramatic rather than genuine sadness. "I suppose I can occupy myself there for a few hours."

"Or weeks. But you don't have to go." I didn't like the idea of her alone. At least here, on the upper floors of Tenth World, she was safe and close. "You can hang for a while if you want. With all those cousins, I'm sure someone will calm down in a few days."

"I don't want to be in your way."

"You're too little to get in my way," I said, turning away when she splashed me even though the water felt fantastic. "A few more days and we'll hit the road. Go see something more interesting than desert and fangs."

"I don't mind the fangs. They're all so pretty." She leaned close, big eyes crinkling as she smiled. "Thank you."

"Glad that's settled, because I can't stand another minute out here." I tipped to my side and rolled into the water. Thurston's energy surged as he pulled out of the shadow, concerned. Ignoring him, I let myself sink. The water wasn't just refreshing, it was perfect. The mind can't focus when the body's busy not drowning.

Goya's warehouse sat on the other side of the parking lot from the office campus. Instead of gra.s.s, it was surrounded by scrubby dirt. Instead of fountains, it had banged-up box trucks. And, instead of a soaring lobby, there was a yellow metal cage outside the side door where, presumably, the warehouse folks could trap people and watch them cook to death for their own amus.e.m.e.nt. Luckily, it was early so it was only really hot rather than fatally hot.

I tossed my fake hair away from my neck and aimed my face at the camera, hoping my murderous glare was softened by a pink smile and midnight-blue eyeliner.

"You the new person?" a voice asked through a tinny speaker. I couldn't tell if it was male or female.

"That's me. Andrea Franklin."

The door clicked open.

"You're late." It was a woman, her voice low and rough from years of smoking.

I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the darkness and, when I could see again, found myself inside another metal enclosure. Maybe the entire world was just a series of cages laid end to end.

"Nothing to say for yourself?" The woman who stalked up was about my height. She wore a dark blue shirt with the white Goya logo, a smudged oval with a couple of wispy legs, over one small breast.

"I was told to start at nine."

"Pshhhh. Corporate jacka.s.ses start at nine. We start at six, which means you're late." Her hair sprayed from the top of her head to her shoulders like a fistful of wheat stalks. Her face was a series of lines. Jagged lines around the eyes. Deep lines around the nose and mouth. A soft, curved line where her first chin met her second, even though she was thin. The uniform shirt billowed around k.n.o.bby elbows.

"Well, I'm sorry for that." I showed her my nicest smile. "It won't happen again. Unless you're planning to keep me in this cage." That earned me a humph. She jabbed her thumb against a b.u.t.ton to open the door and gestured for me to follow.

"I'm Andrea," I said.

"I know." She sounded like she was regretting me already. "I'm Lil. No 'miz,' no 'ma'am,' just Lil."

There were four tall stacks of shelving covered in scabby orange paint that stretched to the overhead doors at the far end of the building. Hazard chevrons had been painted in what seemed like random squares every once in a while on the floor, places to park equipment and places where equipment shouldn't drive. The building was noisy, with big fans fighting the hot air at the top of the building, and bigger AC units roaring away on the wall.

On the wall across from the AC units was a white cage-Goya must have owned stock in a cage company-lit by harsh fluorescent lights. The shelving in there was lower, stocked with small boxes and bottles on trays. It looked like a stage set of a regular pharmacy. All it was missing was signs boasting generic prescriptions for four bucks and a bored cashier staring past you while daydreaming about a better life.

On the main floor two men worked a forklift, one spotting as the other pulled a pallet three rows up. They paused and watched as we approached. When Lil looked at them, they glared back for a moment before resuming work. Before the hair and the designer clothes, the only time I got a second look was when I was in full runner gear and makeup, and then I didn't have to worry because even when people were looking at me, they didn't see me.

"I'm not only your shift supervisor, I'm your direct superior." Lil said superior like the t.i.tle was a fact separating our worth. "You sick, dying, or thinking of working somewhere else, you come to me first. The cages are for visitors and drivers or anyone pretending to be a driver. We got schedule-four and -five substances in here. You know who came up with the schedules?"

Since I wasn't sure what she was talking about, I didn't have a clever answer. "No."

"The DEA. That's the Drug Enforcement Administration. Street junkies kill each other and a lot of good people to get their hands on that s.h.i.t." She jabbed her thumb toward the white cage. "You a junkie?"

"Uh...no."

Lil peered at me, hands on hips. I tried to look as unjunkie as possible.

"Do a lot of people try to get jobs in places like this so they can steal narcotics?"

"They try." She sounded smug.

"But you catch them and bury them where even the buzzards can't find them?"

She grinned. Her teeth were crooked and her mouth smelled of tobacco. "We do worse. Come on, newbie. I'll show you your office." A couple of guys wandered out from the stacks, one carrying a clipboard, the other moping along behind him. We veered toward a darker area partially enclosed by a stack of empty pallets on one side and a yellow metal cabinet on the other.

"Corner office for the day. I hope it's to your liking, Miss Andrea Franklin." Lil dropped her hand onto the back of a fabric chair, sending up a cloud of dust. A tiny combo TV/VCR sat on the school desk in front of it, next to a stack of videotapes.

"Safety and procedure training. Finish those tapes and bring any questions to me. Don't ask these people, 'cause they don't know anything. You got any questions now?"

I wanted to ask if the chair had been tested for hantavirus, but that would probably irritate Lil. "Where's the bathroom?"

"s.h.i.tter's back there." She pointed vaguely toward a shadow far away.

"Great. I-"

"Don't care." She scooted away and I blew out a long breath. I knew that spying might be perilous. I hadn't expected to have to deal with a s.h.i.tter.

I perched on the edge of the desk, which tilted precariously before stabilizing, and shoved a videotape into the machine. The screen fuzzed on, reminding me for a single, piercing moment, of actual snow. The clarity of it. The soft almost-sound of it falling. The way that houses looked cozied up and wrapped tight in new blankets of it. Unlike the parched, bland houses hunched against the heat here. And now I was homesick. Outstanding.

"Hey." A large man walked up with his arm extended. Biceps and triceps and all sorts of muscles I'd never seen individually defined bulged out of it. A blue piece of fabric hung from his ham-hock fist. "Uniform."

It was a rough blue shirt about five sizes too big with crisp fold lines. Next he handed me a length of two-inch-wide black plastic with a clear plastic cover.

"That's a badge holder. Wear it on your arm, high up. Everybody here's gotta wear them at all times. You see anyone in here without one, and without an escort, you let me or Lil know."

"And what's your name?"

"D."

"That's quite a mouthful."

He grinned, teeth bright white in a square, swarthy face. "What's your name?"

"Andrea." I tried to match his grin.

"You don't look like an Andrea."

I hid my faltering smile with a shrug. "Well, you know, you don't pick your name."

"I did."

I bit my tongue before I commented on that. "So, do I get something to go inside the badge holder?"

"HR don't know s.h.i.t."

"Noted." My eyebrows rose. "But what about the badge?"

"They shoulda given it to you before sending you down here."

"Ah. That was my fault. I blackmailed them into hiring me on short notice." I pulled off my thin sweater, folded it, and stuck it in my bag, then pulled on the uniform over my tank top. It fell to midthigh. D's eyes were wide and faces-males faces-peered at me through the racks.