Spent, aroused, and spent again, he slept deep and hard in the sweat and slickness of their lovemaking after she retreated to her bed.
Gunfire and screams woke him. For three terrible seconds he was back on Big Rock Hill the night the Reapers dropped from the sky. Waging from a dream, or waging into another nightmare?
Jules sat up in her bed, the flush of lovemaking replaced by an awful pallor.
"Reapers!" came a shout from the hallway.
Her eyes, searchlights of fear, turned to him.
Valentine felt them. His old comrades in the Wolves called it the "Valentingle" and trusted it more than Valentine did. Sometimes he could detect a Reaper with pinpoint accuracy; other times he could walk right over one without sensing it. Now they seemed to fill his whole mental horizon, could be a dozen or more.
"Might mean nothing", he lied. "Every time there's confusion in the dark, someone shouts 'Reapers.' You have a weapon?"
"Beretta. Bag on the chair".
"Get it". She moved for her pants. "No, get it first, then get dressed".
Valentine retrieved his .45 ACP, the weight a calming comfort in his hand. Two more shots, this time from the front of the building where he'd passed the tin stars. "Drop lifesign and..."
"I don't know how!" she said, her words half-strangled with fear.
Jesus, Duvalier...
Reapers hunted using lifesign, an energy created by the vital aura their masters desired. Humans produced more than livestock; livestock produced more than crops...
He checked the window, saw a family hightailing it across the fields, each holding a child over a shoulder as they ran, a dog keeping worried circles.
Over by the barn, a woman ran in the same direction. A shadow, moving so fast it seemed a trick of the eye, followed her across the field and engulfed her.
Or did it?
"Crouch, both hands on the floor", he told her, shutting and locking the doors to the hallway and shared bathroom. She complied quickly enough. He'd been told contact with the earth acted like the ground on a lightning rod, but he suspected it was bullshit. But it was a relaxing pose, you didn't feel as vulnerable as you would lying down, and there's the tendency to shift nervously when standing.
"Picture your whole life folding up, into a box", he said, hard ears searching the building. Still no destructive noises, but a lot of consternation in the halls, a confused babble.
"They'll locate. They sense pregnant women best!"
A beeping racket from a few crackly loudspeakers made her jump. "Emergency Alert Code Black Multiple. Code Black Multiple".
That doesn't sound good.
"What's that?" Jules said.
"Never mind. Fold up pictures of your family, friends, memories, whatever, and put it in a mental box", Valentine said.
The loudspeakers shrieked one final "Stop!" and went dead.
"I don t see..."
"Keep your eyes shut! What kind of flower do you like?"
"Flower?"
"Picture your favorite flower".
"Daisy", she said.
"Great, a daisy. There's just a daisy, nothing else, blackness and a daisy. It's a big one. You're keeping your eyes on the yellow center".