by Jax Garren
* * *
The hospital room was empty. Javier checked the rooms to either side, then the manifest one more time, but he had the right place. Dez was in the wind.
He sent a quick text to Emma, asking her where she’d gone—maybe she was chasing the woman down. Fear and fury pushed through him, threatening to take over, and he wondered if that was him or the disease. He pressed his palms against his forehead, trying to shove it back down. He was better than this.
Wasn’t he?
“Where is she?” Rhiannon asked, scooting into the room.
“I don’t know.” Was there a note? He didn’t see any. Dammit, where did they go?
Rhiannon’s eyes turned cold. “They left.”
He spun on her. “They? You mean Dezi. Emma may be following her.”
Rhiannon rolled her eyes. “Come on, your sire thinks this is what justice looks like. It wouldn’t have taken much for Dezi to convince her to cut and run. That’s what Emma always does—she runs. Just like Mom.”
“But she said—” He cut that stupidity off before it exited his mouth. Of course she’d said she was staying. Danielle always said she was staying. And then she ran. His breathing ran shallow and he started to feel light-headed. He was going to die—no, he was going to turn into a zombie, a mindless, raving thing of rage. And Emma wasn’t going to save him this time.
He ripped off another text to her, trying to sound nice—cajoling. Then another.
“Stop!” Rhi said, coming up next to him and putting her arm around him. “Come on. We’ll deal with them later. Now we gotta get Mom.”
Gotta save his mother. Okay. Were there black lines already crawling across his back? His abdomen hurt from the shots he’d injected with more speed than care. He had no idea if they’d do any good. But he’d brought more, stuffed the whole damn stash into his bag—not that they’d had much—and now he was a thief robbing a hospital of the one medicine that might work. “I can’t…”
“What are you talking about?”
He opened his bag, showing her the vials. “What are those?”
“Rabies vaccine.”
“Is that going to help?”
“It’s based on rabies… I think.”
She nodded. “Okay. Okay then. You have the vaccine. I have the magical know-how. We can do this. It may take a while, but I’ll call Cash. He’ll bring us some tools.” She whipped her phone out and hit speed dial as she tugged him out of the room where his salvation was supposed to be. “What do you need?”
“The bullet. It’s in my refrigerator. A spectrometer. He doesn’t know what that is. He’s not even supposed to help.”
“Cash’ll help if he wants to. And he wants to. Hey, Cash?” she suddenly said, as if he’d answered the phone.
Emma had left him, but Cash had answered his phone. He fed Rhiannon a list as they hurried out of the building toward his car. But the chances of this working—especially in time for him… they were so small. He was a dead man.
Chapter Seventeen
“Mom!” Javier yelled into the decrepit living room, listening for any noise as Rhi came in the door behind him. Construction barricades, police, and checkpoints held a makeshift but powerful blockade around a too-large segment of east Austin. Fortunately it hadn’t taken long to find an unguarded alley to sneak through and make their way to Rhi and Danielle’s place.
Sofia Velasquez popped out of the hallway, yelling in Spanish, “Psycho dumbasses! I told you we were already here and would get her!” Behind her, Alex, her boyfriend, hauled a protesting Danielle into the living room. On the way here, Sofia had called to check on Rhi’s position. She and Alex had gone in to try to find her ex, Miguel, and get him out, and she’d wanted to make sure Rhi was safe.
“Javier!” Danielle shouted, running to him like something from a ridiculous movie and then stopping two feet away.
Rhi grabbed her hand, and Danielle took it, hauling Rhiannon against her side protectively.
Alex nodded at Javier. “Think you might could successfully escort her across the barricades?”
Despite… everything… Javier felt his lips quirking. “Your Spanish, man…” Was two hundred years old and European.
A trace of amusement in his eyes, Alex, one of Cash’s military advisers, unshouldered his rifle and glanced out the door. “Well, might—can you?”
“Yeah. But we have to find Dez’rae.”
“Who?” Sofia asked.
Rhi detangled herself from Danielle. “Y’all found Miguel yet?”
“No,” Alex said dryly, sounding less than thrilled about their mission to rescue Sofia’s ex-boyfriend.
Sofia huffed and put a hand on Alex’s chest. “Look, why don’t you get Danielle and Rhiannon out, and Javier and I can find his friend and Miguel.”
Alex turned to her with an expression of incredulity on his Gallic face as his voice stretched a one-syllable word into a universe of meaning. “No.”
She pursed her lips. “You don’t want to be here, and I don’t blame you.”
“You think I’m going to let you wander a monster-infested quarantine without me?”
Sofia’s spine stiffened. “Let? You think you let me do things? I was about ready to give up on Miguel’s ass, but now I think—” She kept going, but Javier tuned the couple out as Rhiannon turned to him.
“Do you even think she’s here? Their base of operations was farther east.”
“That’s where Charming was keeping her. The vet she works for is in this area, which means she probably lives close by.”
“What kind of name is Charming?” Sofia stopped arguing to ask.
Rhiannon rolled her eyes. “That’s her pimp. He’s dead. Good riddance.”
Alex held a hand up. “Wait, we’re risking all of our lives for a prostitute, a gang member, and an addict?” His face scrunched as he realized what he’d just said, and he turned to take in Rhi and Javier as he continued, “I’m sorry. I understand she’s your mother, but—”
Rhiannon glared at him. “Yeah, we’re rescuing the scum of the earth, rich boy. ’Cause prostitutes and gang members and addicts are people too.”
“Yes! They’re people!” Alex declared. “People making decisions that are going to send them to an early grave anyway. To be blunt, I’m not risking your lives for theirs. I’m not even supposed to be here. I could lose my job—we could lose our CoVIn status, which is a death sentence for Sofia—if the queen finds out we’re even in here. We have Rhiannon’s mother. Now we’re leaving.”
At which point the whole room exploded in shouting.
Javier backed up, pressing his hands to his face as the first headache of his immortal life came crashing on. Anger bubbled inside of him like a living darkness, threatening to send him spiraling into an epic rage. He grabbed Sofia’s gun and fired it at the ceiling. “Enough!”
Everyone stared at him like he’d lost his mind, and maybe he had, but he was ceasing to care what he looked like or what anyone around him was thinking. “Dez made the spell that started this whole damn thing. We’re finding her so we can figure out how to end it.” More staring and blinking at him. He stuck the gun back in Sofia’s hand before he did something with it. “Finding Miguel is up to you. But we need Dez. I’m infected. We’re wasting time I don’t have.” He started marching to the door.
“Wait, what?” Rhiannon screeched. “When?”
“You know who started this?” Alex asked, his tone softer, as if in deference. “And she can stop it?”
“I don’t know. But if we can talk to her, Rhi and I might be able to. It’s a combination of science and magic.”
“How sure are you it’s her?” Rhiannon asked, her face deathly pale.
He pulled out his phone. “I checked veterinary records on the way here. A potentially rabid dog identified by her vet clinic went missing last week before it was transported to the CDC. We’re not dealing with voodoo; it’s magical rabies.” He pressed Rosalie’s phone number, hoping she might have s
ome clue where to look. “Because regular rabies isn’t bad enough.”
He remembered Rosalie’s unwillingness to show him her wound. She wouldn’t pick up if she’d already succumbed.
But she picked up almost immediately. “Dr. Reyes!” She sounded terrified. “What you calling me for? You in the barricades? We need a doctor!”
“Is Dez with you?”
“No, not yet. Familia’s rounding up people off the streets and protecting us as best they can, but there are more of those monsters! More and more, doc!”
“You mean the ones you, Dez, and Charming’s other girls made?” A quick gasp on the other side of the line was the only response. He sighed. “Where are you? We’re coming.”
“Now, doctor, we don’t want no accusations—” Her canned denial was cut off with a shriek. “Oak Spring Elementary! They here, oh god, they here!” Gunfire cracked repeatedly in the background—the echo only slightly louder on the phone than in real life. They were close.
He jammed his phone back into his pocket. “We gotta go.” He took off toward the sound, Sofia on his heels. If he weren’t a vampire, he wouldn’t have heard Alex sigh, “Mon Dieu,” as Rhiannon called, “I got Mom!”
About two blocks away, he found a mob of a dozen or so zombies crashing into the front windows of a school. Gunshots blasted from the nearest classroom, shattering windows and drawing the monsters’ attention.
“Hey!” he yelled as two shots pinged near his feet. “Not a zombie! Not a zombie!”
That got some of the monsters’ attention, and they turned on him. Moving faster than a zombie had any right to, five peeled off from the pack and rushed him.
“Your fort has too many windows!” he yelled as he turned and sped back the way he’d come. Sofia, the closest to him, shot at one of the zombies, hitting it but not getting the crucial headshot, before she followed Javier back to the group, yelling, “Incoming!”
Alex was already down on one knee, old-school-military style, with his rifle raised. To Javier’s surprise, his mother stood just behind Alex with her stance wide and pistol up.
In seven shots, the five zombies dropped around them.
“Miguel!” Sofia yelled. A man Javier recognized from their visit to the jaguars’ prison practically jumped through the window and ran to hug her.
As he and Alex started yelling at each other—while the dude was hugging Sofia—Javier went to the windows and looked in, studying faces. “Rosalie?”
The girl came rushing from the building and grabbed on to him, holding tight like he was her father. He patted her head, wondering how much longer he had before he’d rip her throat out—or she, his.
“Dez’rae—you’re sure you have no idea where she is? Where she lives? Anything?”
Rosalie shook her head. “I been by her place. She ain’t been there for a while, but I was looking for her before Miguel found me. She ain’t answering her phone.” She sobbed. “You’re right,” she said softly. “We did this. I did this, Dr. Reyes. This is our fault.” She held her arm out where, sure enough, black lines had begun scrolling their way up her arm. “And now I’m going to die.”
He nodded, clenching his jaw shut so he didn’t say anything. She was just a kid. A mad, abused kid who’d thought it’d be funny to get back at the people who’d hurt her. “It’s okay, Rosie, it’s okay. We’re going to make it okay. I just have to find Dezi.”
“We’re not far from Scarlet,” Alex muttered. “There’s a tunnel there. We should be able to escape.”
Scarlet was the so-called bespoke brothel where vampires went to get all their needs met. How long had Emma been trying to get him to go there? Looked like his demented sire was about to get her wish.
Chapter Eighteen
“What do you mean the tunnels are too dangerous? Have you seen outside?” Alex argued with the lady—madam?—who ran the place.
The good news was the building was a gilded fort, no windows and plenty of rooms with plenty of locks. Juliana, the owner, had let them in immediately to an extravagant reception area of velvet couches and chandeliers that reflected the tastes of a different era.
The bad news was the tunnels were apparently unavailable. All the people and vampires who’d been in residence when the barricades had gone up were still here, along with a few other refugees they’d managed to pull off the streets. Danielle and most of the gang members had immediately headed to the ballroom, where the majority had gathered to deplete the brothel’s liquor supply.
“We tried,” Juliana said quietly, looking more tired than Javier had ever seen a vampire look. “Liberi are on the other side just waiting with their rats. This is quite the party for them.” She pursed her lips. “Not to speak good of traitors, but at least Alaric seems to be keeping them out of the virus’s range—no Liberi zombies have been reported as of yet.”
“Well,” Rhiannon spat with a grimace for the queen’s son who’d tried to steal the souls of every CoVIn vampire and gotten his ass banished to the rival clan, the Liberi, “everyone’s gotta have a positive quality. Teeny Dick isn’t pro-zombie. There we go.”
Juliana offered a flick of a smile. “Teeny Dick? My, my, we have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Dick jokes? At a time like this? Why the fuck not? If anyone deserved them, it was Alaric.
Screaming broke out from the back of the brothel, swinging everyone’s attention that way. A moment later, a zombie was in the foyer, clutching another person by the neck. Untold guns flipped up to ready, pointing from all sorts of directions by the dozen or so gang members who’d come from the school.
“Wait!” Javier yelled. They were all about to shoot each other.
An ax sailed through the air from whence the monster had come and thumped into the zombie’s back, knocking it over.
Cash strode in.
Javier grunted. “Axes don’t—”
The general proceeded to the downed zombie and shot it in the head from directly above. He yanked his ax out, wiped it off with a handkerchief, and shot the group a disapproving glare. “Can we all agree not to shoot into crowds?” Several people looked away as he reholstered his weapons.
“How’d you get here?” Javier asked.
Cash nodded behind him. “Tunnels. I got your message. I thought those’d be the easiest way in and out, but not so much. Rats are swarming something fierce.” He held up his arm and displayed a surgery-worthy gash across his forearm.
Alex took a slow step toward the group. “General, sir?”
Cash dropped his arm and stood up straighter. “The fuck are you doing here?”
Behind him, Sofia waved. “We’re not here. You don’t see us.”
Cash laughed as he shook his head. “You know, Moreau, for someone who calls me a loose cannon, I sure keep finding you places I shouldn’t.” He turned away, searching the crowd. “But I’m not here either, so I guess no one’s in deep shit with Mama Mo.” He crooked his finger, and Rhiannon charged out, offering him a quick, one-armed hug as Javier looked on disapprovingly. Cash ignored him and motioned his chin toward the back with a, “Hey.”
To Javier’s shock, Galswinth, the queen’s recognized eldest—now that the aforementioned Alaric was out of the picture—entered, followed by her husband, Nikolai, and Elvira, the drunk receptionist from the FEC. “We’re not here either,” Winnie said. She gave her husband’s hand a squeeze, and a knowing, worried look passed between them.
Nikolai was psychic, and a few months ago he’d had an apocalyptic vision, with several events leading up to the end of the world, or something. Javier hadn’t been in the room when he’d made the announcement, but Rhiannon had given him the lowdown.
His sister, in fact, spoke up now. “‘A plague massacred thousands, mortal and immortal alike.’ Shit, your prophecy. It’s coming true again.”
“Doc,” Cash continued, ignoring that, “I got a cart full of your science shit in a room toward the tunnels. I have no idea what anything does, so hopefully I grabbed som
ething useful. Take who you need and go set up. Miguel, I need status on—”
“Dude,” Miguel said, hands on his hips like a big, big man, “you can’t just walk in here and go ordering people around.”
The room hushed once more as everyone looked from the queen’s son to the gangster who’d dared challenge him. Cash casually wiped off his gun. “Who’s in charge around here then, you?”
Miguel scoffed. “No, we don’t have—”
“Because we need someone in charge of this circus. You got a lot of folk to protect and not enough ammunition to last, unless the doc and Witchy Girl can come up with a cure real quick using whatever junk I brought.”
“I know that! But you gringos just show up and take over like you think we’re all just going to bow down.”
“Guys…” Rhi started, probably trying to figure out how to diffuse the situation before more people got killed via testosterone.
Cash clicked the safety. “Fine. You’re in charge.” Then, to Javier’s shock, he pocketed his gun and his grin turned to something that looked a lot like glee. “Now, boss, order me to go to the roof and shoot zombies. That’s my job.”
Miguel looked absolutely nonplussed. “Go to the roof and shoot zombies?”
Cash straightened up and gave him a casual salute. “Sir, yes, sir.” And with that he turned on his blood-soaked loafers and headed for the staircase. “Text me if you’ve got something else you need me to kill.”
“You don’t want to be in charge?” Miguel called after him.
“Fuck no! That’s work. You figure this out. What’s the zombie head count I gotta beat?”
“We weren’t keeping score…” Miguel said, a mix of confusion and disgust in his tone.
“We are now,” Cash said and jogged up the stairs. “Send more snipers; I can’t hit four sides at once. Alex—I rec sending Alex up. He’s an excellent shot. But that’s up to you, boss.”
