Shuttered Sky

“Well it doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ve already told him I’m leaving in the morning.” He turned to her and gently touched her face, and when that didn’t seem like quite enough, he kissed her. Still, in spite of the passion they had generated just a few moments ago, the kiss felt forced. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to come with me.”

“Of course I’ll come.” But it was resignation he read in her voice. As if to stem off any further discussion, she shifted closer to him, and held him. “I love you, Dillon.” He knew it was a simple truth that transcended their tensions.

Some time later, he told her he loved her, too, but only after she was asleep. Why, he wondered. Why couldn’t he say it to her face? Did he love her? He loved who she was; he loved the feel of her body; he loved that she loved him.

But she’s not a Shard.

Damn it! He didn’t know why that should matter. He had seen how Michael and Lourdes had been so close in the dark days—just like he and Deanna had been—but once their parasites were gone, they no longer clung to one another with the same desperation. In the end, Michael had spurned Lourdes. Who’s to say that Dillon and Deanna might not have suffered the same fate had she survived?

He had a dozen logical rationalizations, but none that made him feel any better.

Let yourself love her, he told himself. Maddy is good for you. Learn to be still, and let yourself love her.

Dillon didn’t leave her room until dawn, but he didn’t go back to his own room. Instead, he crept quietly up to the garden to watch the sun rise, turning the glass towers of Houston into spires of fire.

Stillness. It was an amazing thing to Dillon. He had forgotten what it was like to have a barrier between his mind and a tumultuous world. Even a barrier of lead-lined crystal was better than no barrier at all. Perhaps this was a retreat worth lingering in for a few more hours. A few more days. Perhaps Tessic’s containment was the only contain­ment he’d ever know.

From the garden, Dillon went down to Tessic’s workshop, passing the sketches of towers and trains, until coming to Tessic’s desk. In the center of Tessic’s desk, Dillon left an olive branch he had taken from the garden. Then he returned to Maddy’s bed, pressed against her until he could feel her heartbeat, and finally released his resistance, letting stillness infuse him.

22. Chamber of horrors

Drew brushed an uncomfortably long lock of hair back from his face, then took a second Suprax and a third Vicodin in the hotel lobby before taking the elevator back to the room he shared with Winston. The antibiotic was a one-a-day deal, but he figured he could use all the protection he could get. As for the painkiller, he suspected he was developing an addiction, but it was worth it to numb the pain that now shot up his entire arm. He imagined his long, straggly blond hair and uneven facial growth already made him look like an addict.

The Dallas Galleria Westin was supposed to be an upscale estab­lishment, but the hotel’s infrastructure was in an accelerated decline. Only three of six elevators worked, the bell counter was permanently unmanned, the granite floors were unpolished and every corner bred forms of trash that no one bothered to remove. As service was the first thing to go these days, Drew found himself grateful for whatever serv­ices remained. Housekeeping, room service. Hotels were closing their doors at alarming rates, and once housekeeping decayed it was im­possible to stay open for business. All else considered, the Westin was holding its own.

As he rode up in the crowded elevator, he thought about the last few hours. Four hours of waiting at an understaffed clinic, on Hallow­een morning. Under other circumstances, it would have been hell, but instead it was a welcome respite from Winston.

“That’s some infection you got there,” the doctor had said with the weariness of a man who had little desire left to practice medicine. He studied the curved line of dark stitches across Drew’s forearm. “How’d this happen?”

Since Drew was already losing track of the lies he had to tell, he simply said, “Graverobbing accident.”

The doctor chuckled uncomfortably, not sure if it was just Hal­loween humor. Turned out the truth solicited fewer questions than any lie he could have told.

The wound looked awful. Rings of purple swelled around the gash, and streaks of red shot all the way down his wrist into his palm, which was also swollen. “How bad’s the infection?” Drew asked.

The doctor poked at his stitches gently, but not gently enough. Drew grimaced from the pain. “Looks like it goes pretty deep. Did the nurse take your temperature?” He looked at the chart to answer his own question. “101. Hmm.” He felt Drew’s glands, looked down his throat, then returned his attention to the wound. “There’s an odd pattern to it.” the doctor commented. “Mottled rings around the trauma, as if. . .”

“As if the flesh keeps dying and regenerating over and over?”

The doctor raised his gaze to catch Drew’s eyes, but only for an instant. “As if it wasn’t getting proper circulation.” And then he added, “Besides, flesh doesn’t regenerate the way you suggest.”

It does around Winston Pell, he wanted to say, but instead was silent, and endured a diatribe about cleanliness and maintenance of the wound. The doctor asked about other symptoms, then palpated his spleen. “Normally this kind of a bacterial intrusion would trigger an alarm in your immune system. The pus around the wound is actually a good sign . . . still . . .” He glanced once more at the chart. “Are you allergic to any prescription medications?”

He redid the stitches, then gave Drew an antibiotic injection and the two oral prescriptions, then sent him on his way, with instructions to return if his fever wasn’t gone in two days.

Now, as the hotel elevator rose, nearing the twenty-fifth floor, he could already feel his arm, which had grown mercifully numb, begin to ache again. He could feel the new flesh regenerating to replace the dying, gangrenous flesh around the wound—but not fast enough to battle the bacteria that had also begun to grow and reproduce at an unnatural rate. Winston’s broadcast of growth was not selective.

Winston’s effect on Drew’s wound had been bearable before, but something had happened that day on the plane. Something had in­explicably changed him. It was a change for the worse as far as Drew was concerned, because the last thing Winston needed was an increase in power.

Winston was exactly as Drew had left him that morning; curled up on his bed, curtains drawn. He slept while the TV flickered a god­awful 70s cop show on an off station. Drew’s bed was made, but only because he had done it himself before he left.

Drew pulled the “do not disturb” sign from the outside doorknob. “Dude, what good is maid service if you never let them in?”

Winston groaned and stirred beneath his covers. Drew reached into the bag he was carrying and threw a 7- 11 po’boy at his head.

“I’ve checked us out, so get your sorry black ass out of bed.”

Winston glared at him. “Eat me.”

“Another place, another time,” Drew said with a wink.

Winston grunted, and rolled over, so Drew grabbed the covers with his good arm and tore them off. “I’m not kidding. We’re outta here.”

“Why the hell would you go and do a dumb-ass thing like check­ing us out?”

“A final act of sanity,” Drew answered. “Maybe you’ve grown used to it, but this room smells like roadkill in a rainforest.” Drew pulled on a peeling piece of wallpaper, revealing the flaky mildew that had taken hold of the drywall beneath. No doubt all the adjacent rooms were suffering from Winston’s effect as well. “Welcome to the petrie dish. A few more days and the mold in these walls is gonna demand the right to vote.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Am I?” He reached up, flicking up the ends of his shoulder-length blond hair, for Winston to see just how long it was. “I don’t think so.

“You look like Jesus,” Winston commented.

“Well, I did come back from the dead once,” Drew commented, “but that’s old news.” He found Winston’s socks on the floor, and tossed them to him. “I don’t even want to know what’s growing in there.”