The Ashes of Pompeii (Purge of Babylon, Book 5) Read online

“Too bad. We were hoping you might stay awhile.”

  “‘We’?”

  “Everyone on the island.”

  He sighed. He should have run instead of walked to his boat.

  “Can’t,” he said.

  “She must be some woman.”

  “What makes you think there’s a woman?”

  “Oh, come on. There’s always a woman. Plus, Carly told me.”

  “Ah.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Must be. I just hope she’s actually there.”

  Great. Who doesn’t know I’m the world’s biggest sucker?

  “Gotta take the chance,” he said.

  “So this is all on faith?” Bonnie chuckled. “Somehow, I never took you for the kind of guy who went on faith, Keo.”

  “People change.”

  “I guess so.”

  Keo stopped next to Bonnie’s shack and glanced in the direction of the luxury yacht moored nearby. Maddie had expertly sidled the boat toward the back, as if she had done it a million times.

  “What’s going on over there?” he asked. “Still searching for the eighth guy?”

  “If he even exists,” Bonnie said.

  “The captain thinks so.”

  “But he’s not a real captain.”

  “He had a captain’s hat.”

  “Well, since he had a captain’s hat…,” Bonnie said, rolling her eyes.

  “So what’s happening on the yacht?”

  “Lara wanted to check something out.”

  “She didn’t say?”

  “Not to me. I guess she has a lot on her mind.”

  “Guess so.” Keo started up the pier toward his boat. “See you around, Bonnie.”

  “Later, alligator,” Bonnie said after him. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  He turned around, but continued backpedaling down the pier. “Remember: Shoot first, shoot often, and reload fast.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t have one of those grenade launchers,” she shouted after him.

  He grinned. “Somehow, I think you’ll do just fine without one.”

  He spun around and tossed the gym bag into the boat, then untied the line before climbing in. He put the M4 down next to the supplies and dug out the key Maddie had given him and powered on the boat. The outboard motor coughed for a bit, then caught a second later and filled the air with a loud ear-splitting roar. It sounded like a winner. Or close enough to get him to Texas.

  Bonnie, still watching him from the shack, waved. Keo waved back.

  He maneuvered the boat away from the pier and turned it around, then pushed the throttle forward. North took him further inland—with the soldiers waiting up there—but south took him to the Gulf of Mexico. From there it was right toward the Texas coast and Santa Marie Island.

  “So this is all on faith? Somehow, I never took you for the kind of guy who went on faith, Keo.”

  No kidding. Neither did I.

  Blaine appeared along the railing on the main deck of the Trident as he neared the big boat. The big man waved and Keo returned it, even though doing so made him feel like a fraud. He didn’t see Lara or Maddie or the other kid, Roy. Which was just as well. If he had to fake another good-bye wave, he might decide to end it all now with a silver bullet to the temple.

  Keep going. Don’t look back.

  Gillian’s waiting. You’ve kept her waiting enough, don’t you think?

  Damn straight.

  Goddamn, you almost convinced yourself that time, pal.

  He pushed the throttle up as far as it would go, and the boat dipped slightly behind him. The loud noise helped to drown out his thoughts, which was something he was very grateful for. Who knew a guilty conscience could be so loud and annoying?

  Keep going, he told himself, and repeated over and over again. Keep going and don’t look back.

  Just keep going…

  CHAPTER 8

  GABY

  “Is something wrong with your shoulder?” Nate asked.

  Gaby had been massaging her shoulder for the last few seconds. The pain had lessened noticeably thanks to the painkillers, but every now and then (usually when she sat in one place for too long doing nothing, like now), it came back. It was a reminder of last night and the fight with the blue-eyed ghouls, as if she would ever forget it for as long as she lived.

  “No, I’m fine,” she said.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  There was an edge to her voice that she hoped he didn’t catch, because she didn’t know where it had come from. She should be happy to see Nate alive and well, but for some reason she wasn’t. Not entirely, anyway.

  “So that’s Danny, huh?” Nate was saying. “The way you talked about him, I thought he’d be prettier.”

  “He was, until a few days ago.”

  “What happened?”

  A farmhouse. Blue-eyed ghouls. Will killing them, then cutting off their heads to keep an army of the black-eyed ones at bay all night.

  You know, same-o, same-o.

  “A lot of things,” she said. “Like how you’re supposed to be dead, but aren’t. Why is that, Nate?”

  “I’m starting to think you’re not happy I’m alive.” He smiled. It was his attempt at being charming, but he didn’t have his heart in it and she saw through it.

  “You’re supposed to be dead, Nate. Why aren’t you dead?”

  He sighed. “I guess I wanted to live more.”

  He shook his head and she could see him struggling with it, too. Gaby felt suddenly very guilty about not responding to his resurrection with the fanfare he had expected, and that she dearly wanted to give him but just didn’t know how.

  “It’s a long story,” he said.

  “We’re not going anywhere.”

  “Maybe later…”

  Gaby sneaked a look at him. She thought it was the absence of the absurd Mohawk that made him look somehow older, but she realized now that she had been wrong. It wasn’t the hair at all. Nate just seemed to have physically aged since the last time she saw him.

  “Gaby,” he said. “It’s me. I swear it.”

  She looked away, feeling very self-conscious about her own appearance. Nate didn’t look the same, but neither did she. Far from it. They had both changed so much in such a short time, in every way that mattered. She had the broken nose that still hurt if she touched it (which she did often, always forgetting why it was tingling), and the bruises and scars from the last few weeks that would never heal properly.

  What did he see when he looked at her, she wondered.

  “You’ll tell me everything later,” she said.

  “I will. I promise.”

  She nodded before refocusing back on Interstate 10.

  Everything was where they had left it thirty minutes ago, including the white Ford truck and the overturned Nissan Titan further down the road, sitting in a pool of its own gasoline. The only thing missing was the red Chevy Silverado truck, which they had taken to replace their now-unusable vehicle.

  “By the way, you look good,” Nate said.

  Gaby sighed. “This isn’t the time.”

  “I’m just saying. You still look good, and I don’t say that to a lot of women with more scars on their face than me—”

  Her radio vibrated against her hand, cutting off Nate. Danny’s voice came through the speakers at half-volume, just loud enough for them to hear. “Heads up. Here comes the cavalry.”

  The sound of car engines grew in the distance, getting louder as the vehicles got closer.

  “More of your friends,” Gaby said.

  “Not my friends,” Nate said, sounding almost…annoyed?

  Two trucks, with men clinging to the back, sped down the highway toward the Titan. She watched them through her binoculars and easily identified the camo uniforms they had on. They were identical to the one worn by the man crouched next to her right now. The vehicles stopped ten yards from the Nissan, and the men hopped
out and swarmed it. They were moving in something that she could almost believe was an actual tactical formation.

  “Nate,” Danny said through the radio.

  She looked to her left at a patch of overgrown grass about forty meters from her position and halfway to the highway. Danny. He was close enough that he could probably hear everything the soldiers were saying. He had camouflaged himself so well that she couldn’t find a single trace of his existence. And if she couldn’t spot him—and she knew exactly where to look—there was no chance the men on the interstate were going to.

  Gaby handed Nate the radio, and he said into it, “Yeah.”

  Although they weren’t quite whispering, they had adopted a low decibel. She and Nate were firmly established inside their hiding spot more than seventy meters from the highway, far enough that they couldn’t be spotted through the yard or so of trees in front of them. Of course, it would be a different story if the soldiers started walking toward them or looked closely with binoculars, but hopefully the missing Silverado would convince them they had taken it. After all, what reason could they possibly have to stick around thirty minutes later?

  So what does that make us? Smart or stupid?

  I guess we’ll find out.

  “Who’s in charge of this little circus of yours?” Danny was asking Nate through the radio.

  “In charge?” Nate said. He thought about it for a moment. “I guess Mason. This short guy. He was running things when they sent us over to replace the ones they lost back in Dunbar. Why?”

  Danny ignored his question and asked instead, “How many of you are running around out here?”

  Nate winced a bit at the “how many of you” part, as if he didn’t like being reminded of the uniform he was wearing. Which was hard, since he was still wearing the damn thing. It even had his name on it, for God’s sake.

  “They sent ten of us over just in case you made it off Route 13,” Nate said. “They left the three of us behind and the rest went on to Salvani, like I said before.”

  “The not-so-magnificent seven. What were their orders?”

  “I have no idea. They don’t actually tell me everything. Most of us don’t know what’s happening until guys like Mason show up and start giving orders. You gotta understand, these aren’t actually soldiers. They’re playing dress up. I don’t think half of these guys could have survived a real Boot Camp.”

  “What about these mutts we’re looking at now? What’s their story?”

  He was talking about the six men spreading out along the interstate in front of them, probably looking for hints of where she and the others had taken the Silverado. Gaby wondered if any of them actually knew what they were doing.

  “Weekend warriors,” Will had once called them.

  “My guess is that Mason sent them forward to connect with us,” Nate said into the radio. “We’re using two-ways, but they have limited range. There’s probably another group further down the highway, waiting to relay the message back to Route 13.”

  On cue, one of the men took out a radio and spoke into it. She had no chance of hearing him over the distance, which was good because that meant he couldn’t overhear them, either.

  “It’s a slapdash operation,” Nate continued. “I get the feeling they’re just making it up as they go.” He had looked over at her when he added, “Imagine what they could do if they had someone with actual leadership ability at the helm, instead of some eighteen-year-old kid.”

  He’s talking about Josh.

  “That’s nineteen-year-old kid to you,” Josh would say.

  She didn’t bother correcting Nate or responding to his querying glance. If he was going to keep secrets from her until later, then she’d return it in kind. Maybe it was a little childish, but what the hell, he was supposed to be dead.

  “You gonna tell me what we’re still doing here?” Nate said into the radio. “We could be halfway to Salvani by now.”

  “There’s no hurry, kid,” Danny said. “You ever heard the story about the hare and the tortoise?”

  “Slow and steady wins the race?”

  “Sure, there’s that, but I was referring to the part where the tortoise hid in the woods and ate a bag of jerky.”

  They heard what sounded like chewing on the other end of the radio.

  Nate gave her a confused look. “Is he eating?”

  Gaby shook her head. “It’s Danny.”

  “And that explains it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hunh.”

  They sat in the same spot and watched in silence until the newly arrived trucks fired up again and the men climbed into the back. The vehicles took off up the highway, picking up speed as they went. Soon, the only sounds were the slight echoes of their engines reverberating across the calm midday sky. Gaby and Nate didn’t move or say a word until they couldn’t hear the vehicles anymore. Even then, both of them were hesitant to break the silence—

  “There goes the hare,” a voice said behind them.

  She spun around at the same time as Nate, both of them reaching for their weapons.

  Except it was just Danny, standing behind them chewing on a piece of jerky he had taken out of a bag of Oberto.

  “Jesus,” Gaby said.

  “Nah, it’s just me,” Danny said. “Let’s get back to the Chevy before the girls run off in search of better pastures.”

  He turned around and began moving through the woods.

  She got up, and with Nate at her side, followed him. Nate gave her a How’d he get behind us? look.

  She shook her head.

  “What now?” Nate asked Danny.

  “They’re going west, toward your other friends,” Danny said.

  Nate flinched again, this time at the word “friends.”

  Danny was picking his way back to where they had parked the collaborator truck they had taken off the highway, and she couldn’t help but find his slow and steady pace to be slightly irritating. Shouldn’t they be moving faster? With purpose?

  “Looks like they’ve gathering the buggers into one place,” Danny said. “Despite my legendary skills, that’s way too many to take on, especially with the women and kids to take care of. And, oh, you too, Natester.”

  “So we go around them,” Gaby said. “We don’t actually have to go through Salvani, do we?”

  “No. But it’s likely they’ll have the rest of the interstate covered, too. Leave behind spotters just in case we decide to take a detour or find a shortcut. Right, Nathaniel Hawthorne?”

  “I don’t know,” Nate said. “Maybe. Like I said, they didn’t really tell me the whole plan. Go here, stay there, back up these guys. That’s pretty much it.” Then he added, “And it’s just Nate.”

  “We need to get going, Danny,” Gaby said. “Lara and the others are counting on us showing up tonight.”

  “Get back to the island!” Will had said. “Whatever you go, don’t leave it undefended for another night!”

  “You know anything about that?” Danny asked. The question was obviously directed at Nate, even though Danny hadn’t looked back at them when he said it.

  Nate shook his head. “That’s beyond my AO. I haven’t been anywhere past the interstate since I woke up.”

  Woke up? Gaby thought, but restrained herself from blurting out the question.

  She said instead, “AO?”

  “Area of operations,” Nate said. “Though they didn’t call it that. Like I said, it’s a pretty helter-skelter outfit. I don’t think they know what the hell they’re doing. Mostly, they’re just obeying orders from them.”

  She didn’t have to ask who “them” was. She knew. Danny knew, too.

  “So what’s the plan?” she asked Danny.

  “The fastest path to Song Island is the interstate,” Danny said. He was still moving unfathomably slow. She wished he would move faster already. “We could try going around it, but it’s going to cost us time if we have to pick through the small roads. Of course, we’d have to try not t
o get lost in the process, too. One wrong turn, and it’s another hour or two. Or days. Maps aren’t nearly as reliable as GPS, and unfortunately I don’t think those are up and running anymore. Like you said, kid, we gotta get home before dark.”

  “So what are our options?”

  “They think we already went on ahead, in the truck we took. So the guys at Salvani are expecting us, and the ones that just took off think they’re going to cut off our retreat. I’m guessing they also have guys in Lake Dulcet thirty minutes from here, and Lake Charles after that.”

  “They’re not real soldiers by any stretch, but yeah, they’re not total idiots, either,” Nate said.

  “Good to know. So, my guess is when they can’t find us, they’ll start spreading out, thinking we left the interstate before we reached one of their ambushes. That’s the smart move.”

  “But that’s not what we’re going to do,” Gaby said.

  “Nope.” Danny bit on another big stick of jerky and nodded back at Nate. “Nice uniform.”

  “Thanks?” Nate said.

  Danny grinned at them.

  *

  “You trust this guy?” Nate asked.

  “If it wasn’t for Danny and Will, I wouldn’t be alive more times over than I could count,” Gaby said. “Yeah, I trust him.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  She looked at the girls in the backseat. Annie had Milly in her lap, the two of them staring somberly out the window. Like Gaby, they hadn’t protested when Danny laid out his plan. Although she looked like she might have bolted at any second, Annie hadn’t said a word when given the chance. Milly, too, had kept quiet. But if Annie and Milly looked terrified of where they were heading, Claire was the exact opposite.

  “We’re almost there,” Claire said, smiling at her.

  “Almost,” Gaby said.

  She returned the girl’s smile, though inside she couldn’t help but wonder where she was leading them. Was Song Island really safer than out here? Or in one of those collaborator towns? If you obeyed and went along with the program, those places weren’t so bad. All you had to do was give blood every night…and let some stranger impregnate you…so your child could be born to serve the ghouls.

  Like cattle.