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  “Come on,” Fallon said, stepping between them. “I don’t have time to referee or give a lecture on hostile work environments. Besides,” she added, looking at Warga, “don’t you have enough gunshot wounds for the time being? Lock the door and let’s get into the lobby and find those medical supplies.”

  “And real food,” Lilith said.

  “Yes, Lily. And food.”

  She’d been walking into the lobby as she spoke, the others following close behind. Pybus had just entered the lobby when there was a sound of several chambers being racked. A group of men appeared from behind the wall that hid the elevator banks, and others popped up from behind the check-­in counter. They all had guns pointed straight at the psychos.

  “Welcome to the Hyatt,” said a man whose uniform—­ a dark, formal suit, just this side of a tuxedo—­instantly identified him as the hotel restaurant’s maitre d’. He had his tie knotted tightly at his throat and a Beretta nine-­millimeter pistol aimed at Fallon’s head. “You can either turn around and leave the way you came, or we will make sure that you do not enjoy your stay. At all.”

  CHAPTER 25

  38 hours

  The psychos all pointed their own guns at the hotel staff before Fallon could stop them.

  “Whoa, easy there! Let’s everyone just calm down a bit,” she said, employing her most authoritative yet conciliatory tone. Which sort of made her sound like she did when she was trying to reason with her toddler. “We’re not sick. We just need to get our man patched up, maybe get some food and rest awhile, then we’ll be on our way. No need for more violence, especially among fellow humans.”

  The maitre d’ looked suspicious, but another of the men—­who Fallon thought she recognized as the guy who’d bandaged her hand up after the last time she’d stayed here, when she’d gotten mad about something she could no longer remember and smashed her fist through a glass table—­lowered his weapon.

  “She’s right, Quinn. What are we going to do, anyway? Have a shoot-­out in the lobby? Like that’s not going to bring those . . . things running?”

  “Shut up, Parker,” the maitre d’ snapped. “How’d they even get in? How do we know they didn’t just leave the front doors wide open for . . . them?”

  “Because no one can get through the front doors?”

  The maitre d’—­Quinn—­just glared.

  “Look,” Fallon said hurriedly, sensing the need to bolster a potential ally before he turned on them, too, “we came through the valet window. And we locked the outside door behind us. The Infecteds aren’t smart enough to climb in through a broken window.” Though after what Book had told her about their going building to building looking for survivors, she wasn’t entirely sure about that. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to share those doubts with Quinn and crew.

  “They’re hurt and hungry, Quinn,” Parker pressed. “I’m sure they’re not here to rob us at gunpoint. Are you . . . ?”

  “Fallon. And, no, we’re not.” She put her own gun away and motioned for the others to do the same. It was grudging, grumbling, and slow—­pretty much par for the course with this group—­but they all eventually did as she’d asked. “There. See? We’re not dangerous. We’re just tired of running.” Well, half of that was true, anyway.

  “Come on, Mr. Quinn.” It wasn’t Parker this time, but another of the hotel staff, a short-­haired woman Fallon had initially mistaken for a man. Her name tag read KARENA. She lowered her weapon, and the other staffers followed suit until only Quinn was left, his pistol still pointed at Fallon’s head.

  She saw him swallow, saw sweat beading at his temple. He was this group’s de facto leader and didn’t want to—­probably couldn’t afford to—­appear weak in front of them. He needed to feel like this was his idea, not like he’d been bullied into it.

  “It’s up to you, of course. We can go back out the way we came in, try to find somewhere else nearby that has medical supplies and food to spare, maybe a place to rest up for a few hours.” Fallon kept her voice as even and calm as possible though she could feel the other psychos tensing around her. They were used to taking what they wanted, usually by force. Fallon planned on getting what she wanted, too, just with a more subtle weapon than a gun. “We didn’t mean to step on anyone’s toes. You’re in charge here. Whatever decision you make, we’ll abide by it.”

  Quinn’s lips twisted in a fleeting smile, there and gone again in swift seconds, but still long enough to give Fallon a glimpse of gloating. His chest puffed out like some sort of gaudy bird in the middle of a mating dance. He lowered his gun. Fallon hid a smile of her own. She had him.

  “I suppose we can afford to let you stay for a few hours,” Quinn said, reveling in his role of magnanimous monarch demonstrating his noblesse oblige.

  “Thank you,” Fallon said simply, knowing a longer response would only give him time to think and maybe figure out he’d just been manipulated.

  Quinn nodded. “We keep the first-­aid supplies in the manager’s office.” He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and tossed it to Parker. “He’ll take you back.”

  Fallon motioned for Light and Warga to follow Parker. Being an EMT, Light would be better able to use what was in the kit to get Randy patched up. Though Fallon was pretty sure the hotel wouldn’t have any lidocaine on hand, so whatever he did to Warga, it was going to hurt.

  She was also pretty sure Warga would be the only one who’d be upset by that fact.

  “The rest of you can head to the ballroom,” Quinn was saying. “We have it set up as a cafeteria—­Networks is too exposed to have ­people eating in there even though it’s a pain to shuttle food back and forth from there to the ballroom. ­People can come and go as they like, eating whenever they want.” His tone made Fallon think he took a lot of pride in his own restaurant—­which must be the revolving Stratosphere-­like Compass upstairs since he was dressed far too formally for Networks, a run-­of-­the-­mill bar and grill—­and he considered the idea of ­people’s ­people being allowed to sit wherever they wanted whenever they were hungry a personal affront. “But you have to check out with one of the staff members there so we can keep track of what you’re eating and how much. No one is allowed to take too much. We can’t exactly call and have more food delivered.”

  Rationing by any other name, Fallon thought. Still, it made sense. Even a hotel with multiple restaurants could only feed its guests for so long before the food started to run out. Fallon didn’t want to be around when that happened.

  She turned to the others. “Go ahead and get something to eat. I’m going to talk to Quinn, see if I can’t get us some new transportation.”

  Pybus nodded and led the others toward the ballroom, following yet another hotel employee. Fallon was beginning to wonder if the place even had any guests—­it was almost summer in Phoenix, after all; hardly a vacationer’s paradise. She dismissed the trivial thought as she watched the other staffers dispersing, going back to whatever jobs they still had to do here when they weren’t pretending to be armed guards.

  Fallon blinked the Morse code for “off”—­she didn’t want anyone to see what came next—­and looked at Quinn. “Is there someplace we can talk privately?”

  A bushy eyebrow rose, and he gestured over to the check-­in counter.

  Once there, Fallon lowered her voice, which made it easier for her to sound helpless.

  “Please. The others I’m traveling with don’t know this is why I convinced them to come to this hotel instead of trying another one, but my husband checked in here a few days before ­people started going crazy. We’ve been having a rough time lately, and he wanted a trial separation. But with all that’s happening, those troubles seem small and petty, and I just want to be back in his arms, safe, like I used to be.” She wondered briefly whether, if she had been talking about her actual husband, this would still be true? She didn’t dwell on it, though; the answer migh
t not be pretty. “Can you tell me if he’s still here? His name is Elliott Jameson, and I really need to find him. Please.”

  Quinn frowned.

  “Look, Mrs. Jameson, I’d love to help you. Truly, I would. But I can’t give out that kind of information.”

  Fallon let her eyes fill with crocodile tears. The only kind most psychopaths could shed, she thought, then quickly rerouted that errant train.

  “Please, Mr. Quinn. Those—­those things ate our son, right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do to save him. Elliott’s all I have left now.” That last sentence rang with more truth than Fallon would like to admit.

  “All right. I’m not supposed to do this, but I suppose unique times call for unique decisions.” He turned to Karena, standing behind the counter. “Karena, please check for Mr. Jameson.”

  She typed for a minute or so, then looked up from the screen. “I’m sorry,” she said. “There’s no record of anyone with that name checking in within the last month.”

  “Are you sure it was the Hyatt, Mrs. Jameson?” Quinn asked with a frown. “There are several other hotels in the vicinity.” And you’d rather we had barged into any of them, Fallon thought.

  “Yes, I’m sure it was this one,” Fallon said, frowning herself. “Maybe he checked in under a different name? He’s tall”—­she indicated a spot above her head—­“wears a little ponytail, and has a scar on his neck and jaw that make his beard grow unevenly there.”

  Quinn’s eyes widened just slightly—­he recognized the description. Now to see if he’d tell her where Jameson was.

  “Yes, that sounds familiar,” Karena said. “I believe he checked in under the name Ed Johnson.”

  Quinn’s eyebrow rose again, as if waiting for Fallon to explain why her husband would need an alias, but she had no desire to enlighten him. When she didn’t, he looked at Karena again. “Give Mrs. Jameson a key, please,” he said. To Fallon, he added, “I’d rather call up there, but the entire telephone system has been out for a ­couple of days. And I’m sorry, but I can’t spare anyone to go up with you. The next visitors might be less friendly than you.”

  “He’s up on sixteen,” Karena said. She swiped a blank keycard, wrote the room number on it, and handed it over to Fallon. “Good luck with your reunion, Mrs. Jameson.”

  “Thank you so much,” Fallon said gratefully, taking the proffered card. “I can’t wait to see him.” And blow the bastard’s hands off for daring to steal from me, she thought.

  For once, she didn’t even care how much like the others she sounded.

  The manager’s office wasn’t large, but it was sumptuously appointed, with lots of leather and gleaming brass and highly polished wood. On the desk were a computer keyboard and monitor, various piles of paperwork, a half-­buried hardcover book on management theory, and a nameplate identifying the manager as Annette Kwon. Light didn’t bother to ask what had happened to her. A built-­in shelving unit across from the desk, behind a rich leather-­and-­brass couch, held more such books, along with family photographs, awards plaques from the Hyatt organization, and a white-­and-­red case that Parker removed and handed to Light.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Parker said. “We have a nurse practitioner on call, but she fell off the radar a ­couple of days ago, and we haven’t been able to get any medical professionals in since then.”

  “I’m an EMT,” Light said. “Don’t worry, I can stitch him up in no time. You mind if he sits on the couch?”

  Parker’s eyes involuntarily narrowed, and he bit his lower lip. He would obviously prefer that Warga’s patching up be done somewhere else. Maybe he hoped to inherit the office . . . and the job title. Light could read ­people as well as Annette Kwon could presumably read books—­or at least purchase them and line them up on shelves. Having noted Parker’s dismay, he was determined to spill some blood on that pricey leather couch.

  “I think—­”

  “I’ve got to do it right now,” Light said, cutting off any potential argument. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “All right,” Parker said, resignation apparent in his tone. “Go ahead.”

  “Thanks,” Light said. “Sit, Randy.”

  Warga sat. Light put one knee on the couch, his other foot on the floor, and made a big show of inspecting Warga’s wounds. In-­and-­out, like Antonetti had claimed, with no major arteries impacted, no bones hit. External tissue damage, obviously, and some muscle impairment was likely—­Warga wouldn’t be lifting that arm above his head for a long time if ever.

  “This might hurt,” Light said. He pulled Warga forward a little and stuck his index finger into the exit wound, rubbing it to get some blood flowing, then pressed the sexual predator back against the leather. He didn’t like Warga, even a little—­rapists were the worst, as far as he was concerned, and if he could chemically castrate the man while patching his wounds, he would.

  They had to work together, for the time being. And he was a healer, or at least one who wanted to end suffering. But maybe once the mission was done, he could save the lives of countless other ­people by taking Warga’s. It was an idea, anyway. Something to look forward to.

  “You got a shot of something strong?” Warga asked Parker. “Pretty sure there’s no local anesthesia in that kit.”

  “No,” Light said quickly. “Ignore him, Mr. Parker. You’ve got to have your head on straight out there, Randy. You hit the sauce and it could get us all killed.” He found a needle and thread in the kit. It would be a quick sewing job, just enough to close the wounds and protect them from infection.

  And it would hurt like hell.

  “I need something,” Warga whined.

  “I’ll tell you some jokes, take your mind off the pain.”

  “Is that like stepping on my foot to help me forget that my hand hurts?”

  “How many dead hookers does it take to change a light bulb?”

  Warga’s face brightened a little at the thought image, and Light jabbed the needle through his flesh. “I don’t know—­nnnnh! That hurts—­how many?”

  “Must be more than four,” Light replied. “Because it’s still dark as a motherfucker in my basement.”

  Warga burst out laughing, yanking his shoulder from Light’s grip. Light grabbed him and muscled him back against the couch, hard. “Hold still, dammit!”

  “That’s a good one,” Warga said. He winced as the needle broke skin again. “What else you got?”

  “Why did the French hooker retire at sixty?” Light asked.

  Light pulled thread through the opening, and readied the needle for the next insertion. “Because you can’t . . .”

  CHAPTER 26

  38 hours

  The elevator doors chimed open on the sixteenth floor. Elliott’s room was at the end of the hall. As Fallon walked down the strangely silent corridor, she felt like there were eyes pressed against every peephole. The skin on the back of her neck began to crawl, and she couldn’t suppress a shiver.

  As she neared her destination, she saw an old room-­ser­vice tray sitting outside the door. It had obviously been there since the world turned upside down, and whoever was responsible for returning the trays to the restaurant kitchen found more important things to do with their time—­like trying to survive. Though flies buzzed thickly around it—­a sound almost worse than the carpeted quiet of a few moments ago—­Fallon could still see the small empty bottles of Merlot, and the hamburger buns with the middles torn out and eaten, the crusty shell discarded. Elliott’s favorite drink, and his habitual meal. She hadn’t been a hundred percent sure Ed Johnson was in fact Elliott Jameson, but now she was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  Fallon didn’t bother knocking, just used the keycard to open the door, which, fortunately, was not chained on the other side. As it swung open, two things caught Fallon’s attention.

  Fi
rst, a curvy Latina woman in a tight dress and heels, one of which was splattered with blood. Second, a chair in the middle of the floor, its legs cracked and splintered in places. On the floor around it were lengths of rope, duct tape, and a pair of pliers, jaws caked with something black and flaky.

  There was no sign of the prototype or Elliott, but Fallon had a pretty good idea of what had happened to him when he had been here.

  He’d been tortured.

  Dammit, she thought. The bitch beat me to it.

  Parker led Light and the stitched and rebandaged Warga to the “cafeteria.” Light got a BLT and nibbled around its edges, but he was increasingly ill at ease. He didn’t like the way those hotel employees stared at him and the others. They weren’t infected, but they looked hungry just the same. Or fearful. Under these circumstances, there wasn’t much difference between the two.

  Sitting around waiting for Fallon was stupid, he decided. What she had told them was bullshit. She’d been gone way too long. Meanwhile, Infecteds owned the streets, preying on defenseless human beings.

  Those humans needed an angel, and he was it. Angel on the hunt. Prey turning on predator. The idea of it made him grin.

  “What’s funny?” Pybus asked.

  The old man’s eyes were brown and moist and reflected the overhead lights. A poet would have had a field day with them. To Light, they just looked like candles that needed to be snuffed. “I’m going for a walk,” he said. “Check the perimeter.”

  “Dr. O’Meara said to wait here.”

  “Well, she’s not here, is she? Who knows if she’s even coming back? I want to see what’s out there.”

  “Go for it, Hank,” Warga urged. His voice was weak; undergoing Light’s ministrations had been hard on him. “If any Infecteds spot you, make sure they chase you away from us.”

  Light ignored him. That was, he had learned, the best way to deal with Warga. He always wanted to get under your skin—­and in the case of anything female, under their panties.