The party was in full swing when I descended the staircase. I wanted to make an entrance. Langdon was there with his fellow officers, and I wanted them to admire me and be jealous of their friend’s good fortune. Such a silly girl! All I did was catch the admiring eye of a vampire who feared loneliness and had a weakness for tall blondes. As I made my way to Langdon, Nicholas appeared in front me, making me jump. He bowed and lifted my hand, and before I could protest, gave it a slow, cold kiss that sent an unwelcome shiver up my spine. I excused myself with a sweet smile, but all that night his eyes never left me.
That unfailing stare was on me once again as the momentum of my leap knocked Nicholas on his back. I grabbed his arms, but in my fury, my grip slipped on his leather jacket. Damn! It really was a good outfit choice. He managed to kick me off to his side.
He turned over on his elbow and whispered, “I so missed these little tumbles, but is now really the best time?”
The glint in his eyes sent red spikes into my vision, so I rolled to my feet and kicked him in the stomach. He doubled over for just a moment then gracefully stood back up, coughed, and scowled at me.
“You never did play fair.”
No, he was right. I never did. But he was never fair to me, so he deserved as many knees to the groin and kicks in the gut as I could slip in.
The door at the end of the corridor creaked open. Someone was behind it pushing at the lumps of bodies blocking its path.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
“Hello,” I replied, walking over the mess and peering through the gap.
Inside I saw three people: an urban-outfitted teenage boy, a Goth-looking girl in her early twenties, and a fifty-something man sporting wild, white hair with a pinkish tint. I yanked the door back fully and grabbed the man’s arm, pulling him from the others.
“Were you bit?”
I ran my hands over him, searching for the tell-tale bite marks.
I found nothing.
“I got splattered when my friend was…”
He trailed off with a glazed look then shook his head.
Nicholas eyed the other two. “They smell intact.”
I rolled my eyes. “Way to sound weird.”
“Are you here to rescue us?” The young woman walked forward, eyes wide with a mixture of too much stress and not enough sleep.
“Why, yes, my dear, I’m at your service.” Nicholas gently lifted her hand and brought it to his lips for a quick kiss.
“Who are you? Do you work for Men in Black or something?”
Great. The teenager was a government conspiracy nut job. Although, considering Nicholas’ outfit... I mentally banked the Men in Black thing to taunt him with later.
“No, but we’re here to take you some place safe. I’m Britannia.”
“I’m Nicholas.”
He bowed again, and I restrained myself from kicking him up the butt.
They all introduced themselves. The girl was Tabitha, the young man, Tyler, and the older gentleman, John. After the strangest and most awkward introductions I’d ever had, we all started making our way down the stairs.
“I was working late,” said Tabitha. “I guess that saved me.”
“Yeah, your work ethic kept you alive!” Tyler sniffed.
“And you,” she whispered back to him.
He was wearing a delivery boy outfit, and I made a mental note to keep an eye on him. If he saved the young woman, he might be useful in a fight.
The question they all wanted to ask wasn’t aired until we came back to the Dead Hare. We knocked on the door and assured Tracy we really were who we said we were.
As I herded in Nicholas and the humans, I didn’t notice John behind me.
He rammed something sharp against my ribs and whispered, “What are you? Are you one of them?”
“One of whom?” I asked back, raising an eyebrow.
“Them! The people who made the zombies.”
“No, not even close.”
“How’d you know where to find me?”
“You hung a sign outside your window.” I rolled my eyes.
“Oh.” He relaxed the blade.
I grabbed the weapon off him and put it to his throat. “You pull a knife on me again, and the zombies will suddenly look real attractive, you understand?”
He backed away and nodded. “Sure.”
“I don’t care what big-wig you were before the crap hit the fan, but right now, you’re just another warm body, so try harder to keep it that way.” I then toned down the scary and managed to smile sweetly at him.
Tracy almost hugged me when I strolled back in, others in tow. Her kids were less controlled and practically flung themselves at me. I easily caught them in each arm.
“We knew you’d be back,” said the girl.
“What are your names?” With shame, I realized I had not asked before.
“I’m Rose,” she said, “and that’s Rowan.” She pointed to her brother, who grinned up at me.
“Show me your teeth again?” Rowan asked.
“Later.” I winked at him, and he shoved a soggy crisp into my hand.
Satan was also glad to see me and jumped up for fuss. He ate the crisp I was holding and sat down so he could still touch my leg.
I looked around to greet another friend, but Philippe was still not there.
Nicholas threw me a concerned look.
“It is unlike Philippe to not even call, let alone miss such a pressing social engagement.”
I never wanted to admit Nicholas was right, but I had to nod my agreement. Philippe was a lot of things, but late or a complete no-show was definitely not one of them. The sudden realization he might never join us came crashing in around me. My buffer was missing. I had to find him.
“Okay, we need to go to his house and check it. He may be in trouble.”
“My dear, those are not our orders. We are not supposed to help ourselves just...them.” Nicholas nodded at the huddling people at the back of the pub.
“Well, we’ll be able to help more of them”—I nodded in the same direction as sarcastically as I could—“if we have more of us.” I raised my eyebrows.
“It’s still not a good enough reason. But we still need more of them. The Elders won’t be happy with such a small group of humans. ” Nicholas smirked then walked to the rolling shutters. “Once again into the breach, dear friend?”
“Up yours.” I turned. “Tracy, can you lock us out?”
“Britannia?” Tracy edged toward me.
“Yes?”
“Umm, if something happens to me, you know, out there, promise me you’ll take care of Rose and Rowan for me.”
The look in her eyes was somewhere between despair and hope, so I smiled at her. “Of course I will. I’m protecting all of you now.”
She looked me up and down and tried again. “That’s not entirely what I mean. I want you to care for them, and when they’re old enough, to make them…what you are.”
“Tracy.”
“I know it’s a lot to ask, but I want them to live, and you’re strong, you’ll live.”
I threw my eyes to the floor then lunged forward, gently taking her hands. “I promised myself a long time ago that I’d never make another…one like me. I can’t, Tracy. I’ll make sure they live long, healthy lives as humans. I promise that.”
Tears laced her eyes, but she nodded. “Sure, be careful out there.”
She rested her hand on my arm and nervously looked at Nicholas.
“I’ll be back,” I said, using my best Schwarzenegger impression.
She actually cracked a smile.
Nicholas rolled his eyes—I secretly hoped that one day he’d roll them so hard they’d smack into his brain—and we both slipped out of the pub. The shutter quickly descended behind us.
“We should head to the hospital. A doctor would be a welcome addition to our menagerie,” he suggested.
“What makes you think any would still be alive? The hospitals are probabl
y zombie smorgasbords.” I then realized the nearest hospital was St. Michael's, which was a stone’s throw from Philippe’s house. He might have had the same practical thought.
“Actually, on second thought, if there is an army of zombies I can push you into, it sounds divine. And while they bite you into oblivion, I can pick up some essential supplies.”
“Thanks. Your loyalty is noted.”
If Nicholas had ever thought my loyalty lay with him, he was sadly mistaken. He’d made me, yes. If you want to get gothic and technical, he was my sire. But he had destroyed the girl he’d fallen in love with. He had murdered my true love Langdon, kidnapped me, made me a vampire against my will, then held me captive for over twenty years. At no point in that sad procession of events had I ever felt anything but revulsion and an overpowering need for vengeance. I said it as a joke, but given the opportunity to watch my nemesis be eaten alive by the flesh-munching undead, I’d probably seize it with both hands, giggling like a gleeful child.
We ran to the hospital. On the way, we encountered hardly anyone, alive or dead. Where were they all? When we arrived at the hospital car park, I understood. Zombies were pack animals. A massive crowd of them were crammed in and around the main building like they were waiting for a concert to start, all barely paying attention to their surroundings and seemingly swaying against the force of gravity. The other thing was the smell. When watching horror films filled with shuffling zombies, the horror came from their ghastly looks—the reminder that death has a tight grip on us all, well, most of us. But what the filmmakers should focus on—if they could—was the acidic rank odor zombies gave off. They had been dead barely twenty-four hours. It took a normal human body at least thirty-six hours to really start to smell, and that was with a vampire’s heightened senses. These guys smelled like they’d been out in the sun for three weeks covered in rubbish and besieged by wily maggots. They were mostly intact, though. Maybe this hospital had been Zombie Ground Zero. Most had turned so quickly their comrades hadn’t had time to feed.
“Maybe we should try a less populated target.” Nicholas twitched his nose and turned away from me to dry retch.
“Maybe you should grow a pair.”
“Maybe you should act like a lady.” He now had his hands on his hips, squaring up for yet another argument.
“Acting like a lady isn’t going to help now, is it? What do you want me to do? Drop my handkerchief in front of the zombies and watch them fight one another to scoop it up for me? Moron!”
“Always to the ‘nth degree with you, isn’t it?”
“Shut up. Look, the doors are holding, and they’re outside, not inside, which means there must be some people left in there alive to have barricaded this place so tight.”
“Or maybe there are just more zombies in there.”
“Well, there’s definitely a blood bank in there, and that’ll help matters no end!”
Nicholas looked thoughtful then nodded. He of course didn’t want to actually say aloud that I’d had a good idea. “So, how do we get past them?”
I assumed it was a rhetorical question, so I started down to the car park entrance, where most of the zombies were mobbing. I opened the outer door as quietly as possible.
“Ladies first,” Nicholas whispered in my ear.
“I thought we’d agreed I wasn’t a lady.” And with that, I shoved him as hard as I could into the throbbing throng of zombies.
Chapter Four
Nicholas fell back into the zombie mass with such force he turned them into an undead domino line. Half-gnawed limbs flailed in the air, and annoyed grunts echoed through the hospital car park. If he’d fallen into their waiting arms, Nicholas would have been killed instantly, but instead, I’d pushed him into their backs. With more speed than I thought he could muster, he was leaping back over the fence and bowling straight into me. I jumped forward out of his way and onto the back of one of the flailing zombies. I then used their fallen bodies as stepping stones to quickly reach the hospital door. Narrowing his eyes at me, Nicholas followed suit.
“You might have let me in on your plan!” He bumped my shoulder as he strode past me into the hospital. I spun round and slugged him. He lost his balance like a drunk on a trampoline then threw his hands in the air. “Will you stop hitting me?”
I raised an eyebrow. “No.” Honesty is always the best policy.
Nicholas caught me by the elbow and turned me round to face him. “Look, I’m not sure if you’ve figured this out yet, but we are eye-deep in the mire right now.”
“I’m no fool, Nicholas.”
“Well, that’s not how you’re acting, Brianna.”
I could feel another ball of violence beginning to roll around in my belly.
He sighed. “Britannia. I am acutely aware that you hate me. I am equally aware that our survival”—he motioned around us—“is dependent on you not being such a bitch.”
I wanted to smack him, but he had a point. My bitterness needed to take a back step…for now. I shifted uncomfortably beneath his touch, and he took his hand off my elbow.
“Okay. But I’m not giving up. I’m just momentarily giving in, on this one point.”
Our eyes met, and a strange pull tugged at my insides. He sighed and smiled, not a patronizing “I’ve won” smile, but a genuine look of relief.
“Thank you, Britannia. So, next time, you’ll tell me your plan before throwing me to the zombies?”
“Of course I will.” I didn’t dare tell him now that I really hadn’t had much of a plan. Well, not until I’d seen them all crumple like biscuits dunked in hot tea.
I let him take the lead. Who knew how many of them would be randomly roaming in the building? Better they attack him first.
In the past, I’d avoided hospitals where possible. Vampires don’t get ill, and feeding on sick people appeals only to the more deranged of our kind. The machinery and technology was mind boggling, and all it did was serve to remind us just how fragile humans really were. The smell of acidic chemicals mixed with living decay was never a pleasant cocktail for someone with enhanced senses. I’d been to only one hospital in my long years, back in the Second World War. I’d been brought in after a rather uneven fight with a land mine. No one had guessed what I was. I had healed so quick I was up and out before they’d filled in the Jane Doe paperwork. I still heard the other soldiers screaming, though. Langdon had been a soldier, so I had always done my duty in times of war—for Queen/King and country, for the memory of a love lost, and a life torn away before it had been made.
We walked the hospital halls pulling down useless barricades and killing lone, wandering zombies. I’d seen neater battlefields. It would appear that only a few hours had elapsed between normalcy and undead havoc.
“Someone must still be alive here. They made these.” Nicholas pulled at another flimsy barrier.
“Want to point out anything else that’s obvious?” I pushed past him to have a look at a floor plan mounted on the wall. The blood bank was two floors down next to the morgue. I guess the hospital’s architect hadn’t envisioned Zombie Palazzo, or that the humans’ reluctant protectors would need as much blood as they could get their grubby little hands on.
“Blood first, then people.” I raised an eyebrow, waiting for Nicholas to object, but he didn’t. Instead, he bowed and swept a hand to indicate I should lead. A pang of nostalgia stabbed at me, followed by a wave of renewed worry. Philippe. Nicholas wasn’t being chivalrous, he was being calculating.
“No, no, I wouldn’t dream of it. Age before beauty.” I made my bow lower and more overtly patronizing.
“Please, what sort of gentleman would I be to push in front of such a”—he looked me up and down—“colorful lady?”
I shook off the urge to knee him in the nuts and sauntered forward.
I fully expected the lower levels of the hospital to be overrun with the undead, but the corridors were eerily quiet. I tried to keep myself a foot or so in front of Nicholas. It wasn’t that I
didn’t want my back to him. I hated to admit it, but I trusted him not to attack me first. It was more that I didn’t want him staring at my ass as I walked. I noticed his sly looks at me. Funny, this disaster was probably the most time we’d spent together since he turned me some 450 years ago. After I’d left him, I’d made a definitive decision to annoy him from a distance. Who’d have guessed the repercussions of a zombie invasion could have such an unsettling effect on a vampire’s social life?
“Here.” He pointed at another stairwell, and we moved further down into the dark bowels of the hospital. We gingerly passed the morgue—if anything nasty went down at this hospital, this would have been the flesh-munching epicenter. But it was still quiet. I poked my head through the door to find bodies on their trays, tags dangling from their blue big toes. Everything was where it should be—although, my knowledge of morgues came solely from the myriad of cop shows I’d watched on TV. I probably shouldn’t have trusted Law and Order to be completely accurate, but it was my only frame of reference.
“So the dead didn’t actually rise?” Nicholas edged past me and threw a nearby white cotton sheet aside to reveal a half-autopsied corpse beneath.
“It would appear not.”
I poked the body’s leg. It was gelid and firm, yet its hairs tickled my skin. Both Nicholas and I had seen plenty of dead bodies in our time. We’d both been to war—although, I doubted we had fought on the same side.
“So the virus can only affect the living?” He bent and pulled the cotton sheet back over the corpse, tucking it in like he was putting it to bed.
“Wow, you’re just king of the obvious today.” I couldn’t help my eyes tracing the outline of the hollowed-out chest below. The smell of chemicals mingled with day-old exposed flesh made me want to gag, but I choked it down.
“Then why are vampires affected? Vampires are children of magic—necromancy of a sort. Clearly, the zombies were born of science and do not retain their former personalities or intelligence.” He turned to me and raised his eyebrow. It was a perfect arch. I hate well-groomed men.
Bad Blood (Battle of the Undead Book 1) Page 4
