Sunlight beat down from a bright blue midmorning sky. It illuminated the ground below, glinting off the dirty snow and frozen mud of the rail yard. Despite the ugliness of his immediate surroundings, there was a beauty in that moment - that first glimpse of daylight on a crisp new dawn - that defied the squalor around him.
It defied even the urgency of his thirst, making him pause where he stood and simply look at the miraculous world he inhabited. The one he felt slipping through his fingers with every throbbing pulse through his veins.
Chase lifted his arm like a visor to shield his hypersensitive eyes from the impossible glare. He tipped his face up and let the unfamiliar, glorious heat of morning warm his face. It started to sting.
Before long, it started to sear.
How long would it take for the sun to bake him crispy? Probably half an hour, he guessed, savoring the acid burn as his skin across his cheeks and brow grew hotter. Thirty minutes, and there would be no more hunger. No more shame. No more struggle to keep himself out of the abyss that seemed so welcoming, so blessedly dark and endless.
He considered the notion for a long, excruciating while, testing his will. But he failed, even in that.
With the talons of his thirst sinking deeper into him, Chase stepped off the edge of the railcar and dropped to the ground below. He crossed the tracks and pitched his ruined warrior's garb into the smoldering belly of a smoking rubbish barrel.
Then he slunk off quickly to find shelter to wait for nightfall, when he could begin his hunting once more.
* * *
They had arrived in New Orleans in the dark early-morning hours and took a taxi from the airport to a hotel in what Hunter assumed was the heart of the tourist area. Street noise and music had echoed up from below their fourth-story window until long past daybreak, creating a racket that had kept his senses on full alert, anticipating the slightest hint of trouble. Not that he'd had any intention of sleeping. He hardly needed rest; an hour or two at most each day. It was how he'd been trained, a discipline that kept his body ready for any situation, his mind prepared to engage with hair-trigger response.
Corinne, on the other hand, had slept like the dead upon their arrival. He knew she'd been exhausted, physically drained. Her emotions had been taxed as well, although if she'd wanted to collapse in a fit of unproductive self-pity and tears, he had to give her credit there. She'd held up with remarkable strength. She'd seemed resolved since they'd left the Bishop Darkhaven. Defiant, even.
She'd been agreeable enough when he'd told her she was under his guardianship, and there had been no irrational histrionics when he'd informed her that his mission for the Order was going to take him - both of them - right into the potential enemy territory of Henry Vachon, a known ally of her captor and tormentor. Corinne had seemed almost eager at the idea, a fact that sparked a watchful curiosity in him.
Now he listened to the sounds of water moving in the tub of the adjacent bathroom. Corinne had gone in to freshen up shortly after noon, having slept all the way through the morning while he pored over maps of the city and outlying parishes in the lightless gloom of the hotel room's curtain-drawn living area.
He'd noticed she had neglected to close the door tightly, and for the past thirty-seven minutes - the full duration of her time spent reclining na**d in the tub - he'd had to purposely avoid looking at the thin wedge of golden lamplight that poured into the darkness where he sat. He rallied his focus to the spread-out maps he'd picked up from the hotel lobby on their arrival. They were abbreviated street listings, intended mostly for tourists whose main objectives were, apparently, finding the nearest restaurants, bars, and jazz clubs. Hunter would get further intelligence on Henry Vachon from Gideon shortly; until then, he felt it a beneficial use of his time to familiarize himself with the various streets and districts. Perform some virtual reconnaissance until sundown, when he could venture out and see Vachon's city for himself. Anything to keep his gaze from straying toward that partially open door across the room. His resolve was tested when he heard the gurgle of water draining as she pulled the stopper. Her skin squeaked against the porcelain as she moved about in there, liquid splashes indicating she had climbed out of the tub. He saw her slender arm reach out to take a thick white towel from a polished metal bar on the wall. He heard the rustle of terry cloth as she began to dry the water from her body.
He forced his eyes back to the work that covered the coffee table in front of him. With total concentration he studied the portion of the map where they were currently staying, intent on committing the multicolored grid and its corresponding street names to memory: Their hotel was in an area called the Upper French Quarter. This part of the city encompassed numerous blocks between Iberville Street to St. Anne Street and was hemmed in on one side by a street named North Rampart and, on the other, the Mississippi -
Through the wedge of softly lit open doorway, he caught a glimpse of Corinne's bare thigh. The towel traveled down, then her foot came up to rest on the closed lid of the toilet as she dried off the lean, slender length of her calf.
A heat that had been kindling in his belly now drifted lower.
Hunter wanted to look away.
He meant to.
But then she shifted again, and his gaze rooted on the small, rounded curve of her breast. The nipple crowning it was flushed dark rose, a tantalizing contrast to her creamy skin. He stared at that sweet pink bud peaking at the swell of her soft, pale flesh. He'd never seen a female's na**d breast before. On film and television at the compound on occasion, of course, but none of those hard-looking, grossly inflated examples could compare to the delicate perfection he saw in Corinne's na**d form.