Unspoken

One Note: This novel takes place slightly after the events in Awoken, two years since the Dying changed the human world forever. Amber McCoy sat back on her heels and inspected the results from the day’s foraging expedition. A couple of cans of baked beans, a box filled with unopened packets of chicken broth, an oversized can of cooked chicken, some granola bars that were probably so hard by now that she’d have to soak them in water to make them edible. It wasn’t much, but better than nothing. Enough to keep her alive. Which, she thought sourly, seemed to be an increasingly unwelcome prospect these days. Honestly, she didn’t even know why she kept going anymore, except that something inside her wouldn’t quite allow her to give up, no matter how bad things got. Early on, not long after the world ended, she’d found a calendar while searching for food and brought it back with her to her hidey-hole, and had carefully marked off each day that passed. Doing so had helped her to keep track of the weeks and months that went by, although half the time, she didn’t really pay attention to the date, only that another endless day was over. Today hadn’t been anything particularly memorable, only another thick black stripe from her Sharpie, crossing off another date, although she realized it was now ten days into October. Two weeks ago — that had been the really important day. That was the two-year anniversary of the world ending. Of course, at the time, Amber hadn’t realized the world was ending. It had been a Friday — September twenty-sixth. She’d been over at her friend Kelly’s house, listening to Kelly wail on and on about how she’d found a bunch of titty pics on her boyfriend Cade’s phone…and how she knew those t**s were definitely weren’t hers. “You sent Cade photos of your boobs?” Amber had asked her, trying not to roll her eyes. Seriously, when would people learn? Kelly admitted that she had sent Cade photos, but Amber had done her best not to give her friend too much crap, just because they’d all been there, one way or another. All right, she’d never been dumb enough to send nude photos to any of the guys she’d dated, but that didn’t mean that some of them still hadn’t managed to mess with her head in a variety of new and creative ways. In fact, male misdeeds were the whole reason she was back in San Marino at all. Her boyfriend had turned out to be just as much of a cheat as Cade, except that Tyler had been smarter about his sneaking around. Anyway, Amber had gone home to the big chateau-style house she’d grown up in while she tried to put her life back together. Luckily, her mother, who had never liked Tyler to begin with, took her in without question. Maybe she’d gotten tired of rattling around the place by herself, although Amber wasn’t entirely sure about that particular reason for the welcome home; Judith McCoy had always been eerily self-sufficient. Or rather, she kept herself busy with charity luncheons and volunteering at various local nonprofits and museums, all while making sure that Amber’s father, a thousand-dollar-an-hour attorney, paid the spousal and child support on time, even though she had plenty of money of her own and didn’t need the support to survive. Judith had never dated after her marriage fell apart, never showed any interest in having any kind of a romantic relationship with anyone. And while Amber couldn’t entirely understand writing men off completely, she had to admit that her mother had one of the best bullshit detectors she’d ever encountered. Too bad she hadn’t paid enough attention to Judith’s antipathy toward Tyler Brooks, a sports agent who made great money for a twenty-six-year-old and talked a good game, but apparently was just as much of a dog as Amber’s father had ever been. The TV had been on in the background at Kelly’s house, and a newscaster broke into the show to talk about a strange fever that had begun to sweep through Los Angeles and other major cities around the world. Amber hadn’t paid the story much attention, because it seemed like there was always some disaster or another taking up airtime, and she had better things to expend her energy on. Anyway, here in San Marino, one of the country’s richest suburbs, she felt insulated from that sort of thing. Possibly it was the walls and gates that hid so many of the houses, or simply the impression that her family’s money was more than enough to protect her from the world’s nastiness. Eventually, she’d gotten Kelly calmed down — with a little help from Xanax — then drove home in her Mercedes SLK convertible. It had been a warm, windy day, so Amber had the top down, letting the sun shine on her bare shoulders and the breeze play with her long blonde hair. While she’d been concerned for her friend, otherwise, she’d felt calm. Sure, her own relationship had fallen apart and she’d had to move back home, but it was just a temporary situation. One of her mother’s friends would offer her a job, probably as an assistant in an art gallery or a consultant in a high-end boutique, and she’d find a house or maybe a condo in Pasadena, and start over again. She was only twenty-three, after all. Plenty of time to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life. Only there wasn’t plenty of time. That warm, sunny Friday, the clock had already started ticking down on humanity, and she’d just been too stupid and preoccupied with all the meaningless minutiae of her life to realize the glory days were almost gone. Her mother had never come home — she’d been at a charity lunch in downtown Los Angeles…at the Biltmore, Amber remembered clearly. Night had fallen, and the reports on the TV got worse. She tried to call her mother and couldn’t get through, only got a fast busy signal that told her there was something wrong with her cell service. The land line in the house hadn’t worked, either. And when she’d gone to check on Kelly the next morning, since no one was answering the phone over there, Amber had found her friend’s house unlocked and empty, nothing there at all except a weird gray dust on the couch where the two of them had been sitting the day before. At the time, she hadn’t known what to make of that. Later on, she came to the realization that the little pile of gray dust was all that remained of Kelly Mattis. And almost as soon as Amber began to realize that everyone around her was dead, that she seemed to be the only person left alive in San Marino — or maybe all of Southern California, for all she knew — she saw the first of them. She still didn’t know what to call them. Angels? Devils? They looked like people, although she’d never seen a person who could take to the air like these strange beings were apparently able to. But she’d been walking back to her house after raiding the stale baked goods at the Starbucks down on Huntington Drive, and one of them had swooped down on her like some brilliant oversized tropical bird, green silk robes fluttering in the sun. More startled than terrified, she’d stared up at the man — or whatever he was — wondering if she’d somehow lost her mind, that the solitude of the past couple of days and the lack of any news were already preying on her. But then she saw the murderous glint in the strange flying man’s dark eyes, and she realized that he meant to kill her. Of course, she’d run, even as she knew there was no way she could get away from an airborne creature while she was only on foot. Terror had given her feet their own wings, and she ran as fast as she could, the bags of stale food she’d gathered falling from her arms as she fled. Out of nowhere, another shadow appeared, blotting out the sun. Amber had risked a glance over her shoulder, saw that a second of these beings was bearing down on the one pursuing her. His robes were night-black, and his dark hair fluttered in the wind. To her astonishment, he came to a stop in midair, blocking the progress of the other flying man, the one in the parrot-green robes. For just a second, the dark, sooty-lashed eyes of the newcomer met hers. Then he spoke a single word. “Run.” And she had fled, not looking back, not trying to figure out how in the world those men could be flying through the air without wings or any other visible mean of holding them up. She’d pounded her way back to her mother’s house, losing her flip-flops in the process, and had run inside and shut the door, then locked it. After that, she’d closed every blind, double-checked the locks on the back door, gone back to the front door and checked that lock as well. The whole time, though, she’d wondered if any of it would be enough. After all, if those men, or whatever they were, could fly, then maybe they had other powers she’d never heard of. At this point, it seemed as though all bets were off. That was why, after another day of cowering in the empty house, Amber knew she couldn’t stay there. Maybe it would all be fine, and they wouldn’t come back. But maybe they would. Maybe now that they knew she was in the area, they’d start searching from house to house. It would only be a matter of time before they discovered her. If they were so hell-bent on killing her, though, then why had the one flying man told her to run? Her brain couldn’t quite wrap itself around that conundrum, just as it couldn’t quite absorb her terrible new reality, that everyone she knew — everyone, period — seemed to be gone. She needed to go to ground…and she knew exactly where. Her mother had been a massive donor to the Huntington Library and Gardens, which was located basically just beyond the backyard of Amber’s own house. Yes, high walls separated the two, but since the security guards at the Huntington were probably dead along with everyone else, that wasn’t much of a deterrent. And because her mother had been such a high-level donor, Amber had gotten to see parts of the facility that weren’t open to the public, including the levels below the visitor’s center near the entrance. Down there were stored rare art not currently on display, more books, and other valuable artifacts that were part of the library’s collection. Not a lot of people knew there were multiple floors below those offices. She’d have to hope those flying men didn’t include X-ray vision along with their other strange powers, or else they’d be able to figure out almost immediately where she’d gone. Apparently, they didn’t, because she’d now spent two years down there, in what used to be the photography department head’s office and was now her makeshift home. The first few weeks, she’d been so scared that she hardly ventured out of the cramped space, had lived off items from the vending machine in the break room down the hall. After that, she’d gone a bit farther afield, to the pantries of what had once been the museum’s restaurants and tea room. Eventually, driven by desperation more than anything else, she’d ventured past the grounds of the Huntington to forage from the abandoned homes of San Marino. In all that time, she saw no one else, not a single human being, not even the men who could somehow take to the air. At last, made bolder by her fears of what it might be like to be alone in the basement of the Huntington with winter approaching, she’d made the long hike to the REI store in neighboring Arcadia, had filled backpacks with freeze-dried food and sturdy clothing, had lugged a camp stove back to her lair so she might have some warm food for once. Since no one tried to attack her, she assumed it was safe, and made the same journey multiple times, bringing back anything to make her solitary existence a little more comfortable. Now, though…now she had to wonder why she’d even bothered. In all those forays, all those expeditions, she’d never seen anyone else. At REI, she’d found a solar-powered shortwave radio, had used it to search the bands over and over, listening for some signal that there was someone else out there, even if they were on the other side of the world. In two years, she’d heard absolutely nothing. Which meant she had to be the last person left on earth. By this point, so many months past the last time she’d seen even the flying men, she was starting to wonder whether she’d hallucinated the entire incident. Maybe she’d been so distraught at the realization she was all alone, her brain had manufactured a vision of men flying through the air. Why that particular hallucination, and not, say, Chris Hemsworth walking toward her, telling her that he was here to take care of all her needs, Amber had no idea, but it made more sense than anything else that had happened. You should go, she thought for the hundredth time, ripping open a packet of chicken broth so she could dump its contents into the pan of water that sat on her camp stove. Pack what you can and get the hell out of here. You’ve walked ten miles round-trip to go to REI, so it’s not like you can’t handle it. That was probably true. After two years of roughing it here in this basement office and walking everywhere on the Huntington’s grounds and beyond, Amber knew she was a lot tougher than she used to be. But still…to walk out into the unknown, to venture forth into that empty landscape with absolutely no hope of finding anyone else…she wasn’t sure if she was strong enough to do that. Not with absolutely no destination in mind. True, she realized her only hope of finding anyone else was to leave this place, since she already knew there was no one left in San Marino and the southern parts of Arcadia, but still…. Well, the world wasn’t going anywhere. She’d crack open that can of chicken to add to her broth — and hope it was still okay — and have some crackers from her stash, and possibly a teeny piece of the dark chocolate she’d been hoarding. And maybe, just maybe, she’d somehow figure out a way not to feel so tired, so empty. So alone. Istar tilted her head at Idris and asked, “You’re sure of this?” “Yes,” he replied. Although he was an elder, on an equal footing with her, Idris could never quite shake the notion that both she and her partner, Ibram, somehow looked on him as their junior. Perhaps he was; his origins, and theirs, were lost so far back in the mists of time that none of them could exactly remember when they had come into being. They had always existed…and yet, he thought that possibly the two others had existed for a few seconds or moments before he had. “It is wise, actually,” Ibram put in. He was tall and dark-haired, like Idris himself, and yet, unlike most of the djinn, his raven locks showed a bit of white at the temples. Otherwise, as with all the other djinn, he bore no outward evidence of the many centuries he had lived. “With you and I settled here, Istar, it makes sense for Idris to make his home on the other side of the world. That way, the three of us can keep a better eye on things.” “What ‘things’ are there to keep an eye on?” Istar inquired, looking amused. She rose from the heavy carved chair where she had been sitting and went to the window. The curtains had been pulled back, showing a fine early October day, with only the poplar trees that bordered the garden beginning to turn, making them into pillars of molten gold. Fifty yards or so past the fine, smooth green lawn that surrounded the chateau, the glinting waters of the Loire River could just barely be seen through the trees that bordered the river. The warm sunlight seemed to turn her long copper hair almost molten and lit amber gleams in her green eyes. Idris had to admit to himself that Istar had a point. Now, two years after the Heat had swept through the human population of this world, all seemed to be in order. The communities of djinn who had selected human partners thrived without incident, and those who had been immune to the deadly fever but not Chosen had been surgically removed by the djinn who enjoyed such sport. This world, which had been so close to utter devastation, had now returned to its natural rhythms, the weather calming, its original balance restored. And the only thing such order had required was the removal of nearly all its human population. “Things are calm, true,” Idris said. “But Ibram is also wise in thinking we should not let our guard down. With you here in France, and me in North America, we can make sure we keep watch over the globe.” “Perhaps,” Istar replied, her tone almost dismissive. “I see no reason to think there will be much else that requires our attention. The work continues, of course, but otherwise, this world is now far more peaceful than it has been for millennia.” “The work” referred to the monumental task which faced the djinn now that humanity was no longer a problem. While most of that warlike, troublesome species was now eradicated, there remained the issue of removing most of their works from the face of the earth. Certain noteworthy structures — such as this chateau, which Ibram and Istar had taken as their new home — would be allowed to remain, but all the factories and warehouses, the skyscrapers and the strip malls and the miles and miles of tract homes…all those needed to be removed so this world could grow green and lush again, restored to its former beauty. “True enough,” Idris allowed. “I suppose I will be more occupied in tending my garden than worrying about the nearby communities of djinn and Chosen, all of whom seem to be doing well enough. There have been no complications of late, nothing that requires my attention. And while I have enjoyed the hospitality you have offered me here in your home, it is time for me to strike out on my own.” “And you’re sure of this place you have selected?” Ibram asked then. He had remained seated, but his gaze tracked to the window where Istar still stood, the afternoon sunlight glinting on the sapphire-blue silk jacket she wore, cut close to follow the curves of her slender form. Not for the first time, Idris experienced a small stab of jealousy. No, he had never truly desired Istar, for he knew that she and Ibram were promised to one another with a bond so deep, most djinn could not truly comprehend its strength. What he envied was their connection, the way they seemed to know one another’s thoughts, to instinctively understand when their partner was troubled or in need of comfort. He had had his affairs with women of his kind from time to time, but they had never lasted for very long. Those relationships had always been doomed from the beginning, mainly because his partners had looked on him with awe, or perhaps a certain calculation, trying to determine the maximum benefit they could wring from an association with someone who occupied such an exalted position. None of them had seemed to see him for who he was, rather than what he was. He cast those thoughts away, and replied to Ibram’s question, “Yes, I think it an excellent choice. The climate in Southern California is quite accommodating, and the gardens are magnificent, even in their current neglected state. I will have plenty to occupy myself, even though the house itself will require some work to restore it to its original function. No one has lived there for many years.” Istar stepped away from the window, lovely features alight with curiosity. “And what was this place called again?” Offering her a smile, Idris said, “The Huntington Library, in San Marino, California.”