“Still playing?” Nicholas laughed, and he vaulted off. I looked back and saw him take out a horde of zombies attacking a book shop. He was a blur as he moved inside. Within moments, he was running behind the bus with three more people. Josh must have seen them, as the bus lurched to a halt so they could catch up. They boarded, and off we went again.
Nicholas pulled himself up beside me again. “I do believe three is the winner,” he said through a grin.
“The bus had to stop for you. It doesn’t count.”
“That’s not the rules.”
“When did we set the rules for bus-surfing survivor saving?”
“There are always rules, Britannia.”
“Whatever.” I raised an eyebrow and caught a glimpse of my winning hand.
I threw myself onto a nearby lamppost then swung down in a move that would have made Tarzan jealous. Defending a fast food place was a gang of six youths. They all had blood-stained hoodies and weapons. I made short work of the thirty or so zombies lined up trying to order the gang-topped pizza. When I was done, I looked over my shoulder to see that Josh was about to stop the bus. I waved him to keep going.
“Let’s go!” I yelled at the little gang.
They looked at one another. I stepped back and tore the driver door off the nearest delivery van. I hot-wired it, just like I’d seen Josh do. Unfortunately, the roar of the engine was like a dinner call, and about a hundred zombies seemed to appear from every direction.
“Get in!” I yelled.
The gang flooded into the back. When I heard the doors shut, I floored it and headed after the bus. I caught up and flashed my lights at it. Josh flashed back, and I saw Tracy with the kids in the back window. They waved at me like we were a convoy going on holiday.
Nicholas crawled to the back of the roof so he could face me.
“Six!” I yelled out at him.
“They’re not in the bus,” he said, then shrugged.
I was just about to remind him of the “rules” when the Double-Decker’s brake lights flashed on hard. I hit my brakes and squealed to a stop behind the now stationary bus. Nicholas stood up and beckoned me. I got out and pulled the back doors open.
“Hey,” I said.
Five sets of eyes swung to me. One set was closed. There were three guys in their late teens or early twenties. There were two girls in the same age range and one other twenty-something girl covered in blood. Her arm was ripped up, and the kids were holding any spare clothing they had against it. She had three shades of gang-colored scarves wrapped around her wounds.
“Get on the bus. Now!” I pointed to the now open bus door.
“What about Roberta?” asked one of the girls.
“You need to leave her.”
I saw a sudden flash of anger followed by sadness in her face.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But you need to listen to me. Please. We can help you.”
All of them left the back of the van and ran over to the bus. Roberta opened her eyes, and I saw she was gone and a zombie was in her place. I lurched forward, twisted her neck, and watched as she went limp.
I jumped up to join Nicholas on the roof.
“Why’d you stop?” I asked him.
“Look,” he replied, pointing at the start of the motorway.
I followed the line of his finger to a dark, rippling mass on the road. There were hundreds of zombies and randomly parked cars, and that was just as far as the vampire eye could see. The bus wasn’t getting through, and there was no way we could clear the horde by hand.
“We must find another road. We cannot get a vehicle this size through that mess.” Nicholas took a breath. He was worried.
I grinned. I leaned over the side of the bus and tapped on the window. Paul came over.
“Paul, be a dear and fetch me my bag,” I asked.
He turned, was gone a moment, then was back with my bag. He pushed it out of the window, and I took it.
“Thank you,” I said with a smile.
He nodded.
“Well, that baby sick is giving you an unusual aroma, but are you really doing a wardrobe change now?”
“I’m not changing shirts.”
“Then what are you doing?”
I ferreted around in my bag and brought out one of my grenades.
“Where did you get that?”
“World War Two.”
“Only the one?”
“No, I’ve got two.” I pulled them out, one in each hand, and held them to my chest.
“My, what a lovely pair,” Nicholas said, and winked.
I groaned with disgust.
“May I have one?” Nicholas asked.
Hope really does spring eternal.
I shook my head and jumped off the bus. I sauntered toward the zombie mass then climbed on top of the nearest car. I pulled out one grenade ring with my right incisor and lobbed it into the mass of dead flesh. I then jumped off the car and curled up behind it. There was a massive flash of light and the sound of bone being torn from sinew. The petrol left in the cars then took on the blast, and there was an echo effect as each petrol tank caught light and exploded—it was like a fireworks display. I saw it all in the car’s side mirrors and heard everyone’s “oh” and “ah” from the bus.
After the fire had died to embers, we drove over the smoldering remains. It was bumpy, but do-able. We got onto the motorway and began to make up some time.
As Josh concentrated on the road ahead, I stole a moment to really look at him. Langdon had been daily in my thoughts. He’d even had guest appearances in my random dreams. Josh looked so much like him, even down to the smattering of dark golden stubble over his chin and top lip. His bottom lip looked succulent, and his hands were, although dirty, dripping with possibilities…
“Are we here again then?” Nicholas’ random question interrupted my daydream.
“What?”
“You and the solider. Who, like the other, is beneath you.”
“I think we’re kind of past the whole class barrier thing now, Nicholas. It was overcome by a couple of hundred years and, oh yeah, a couple of million zombies.” I raked a hand through my hair, pulling it from my face.
“I wasn’t referring to his class status, Brianna.”
He moved away from me and sat with Green. Great. What a team they’d make if they became BFFs.
I scanned the faces of our wards. Some I knew, some I’d briefly met while slinging them over my shoulder. I heard them make their introductions. I nodded to appear as though I was taking it all in, or at least listening. In reality, I was back to my parallel existence. I was on a bus smiling and kissing my husband ….we were going on holiday, somewhere without zombies. Me and Josh.
“Britannia,” Tracy said as she slid into the seat next to me.
I left my happy thought and returned to smelly, undead-ridden reality. “Tracy.”
“We need more food and other things. Picking up those extras, and I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have, but they’re going to strain our resources. We need to stock up if we’re to make it all the way to Argyle.”
I realized as I looked at her that Tracy was younger than I’d first thought. I guess facing horrors that belong bound in a Penny Dreadful had aged her. I now estimated that she was no more than late twenties.
“Are you listening to me?” Tracy raised an angry eyebrow.
“Yes. Need supplies and stuff,” I replied.
“Then you’ll come up with a plan with Nicholas?”
“I don’t need to run my every move past him.”
“He’s not as bad as you think. He’s been…kind.”
“He’s doing what he’s been told, Tracy. We were told to find survivors and bring them safely to the haven in Scotland. Nicholas is just a kiss-ass.”
“Still. He likes you. I see it when he looks at you.”
“Nicholas is all about the competition, the chase. He looks at me as if I were prized white stag that forever dances from his aim.”
“If you say so.” She smiled and patted my arm.
I scowled at her and moved my arm away.
“There’s a turn off. We’re gonna need gas soon,” Josh shouted back to us.
“Okay, let’s turn off,” I replied.
“We should keep—” Nicholas stopped when he saw the look in my eyes.
The road off the motorway was quiet and free of shuffling undead. There, of course, was a reason for that…
Chapter Eleven
We stopped just outside a retail park. Lying before us was a massive sprawling discount shopping center that was lousy with zombies. Nicholas and I climbed to the roof again. We could see further, although in truth, all we saw were just more zombies.
We looked at one another and shook our heads. We’d both seen the George A. Romero movie.
“We can’t take them in there, but we can get supplies. They must have a food court of some description,” said Nicholas—like he was some shopping expert.
Suddenly, the image of Nicholas on an epic shopping day, sitting in a plastic molded chair and eating a floppy hamburger, made me smirk.
“Bad idea?” he asked.
“No, let’s go with the stow and scrounge plan. We can park the bus somewhere out of the way or find an industrial unit.”
“Conceding my point?”
“Don’t push me.”
“I would never dream of it. I know you push back.” Nicholas waggled his eyebrows.
I slapped him, harder than playful. I saw in his face that, unfortunately, he viewed it as progress.
We dropped down the side of the bus and knocked on the door.
“What’s the plan?” Josh asked. His eyes sparkled when he saw me. Langdon was always at his most attractive when he was talking military maneuvers.
“We find a temporary safe house. Then Nicholas and I are going to raid the shopping center back there.”
“I do love a good looting,” Nicholas said behind me. He was too close to me, and I felt his voice tickle the hairs on the back of my neck. I suppressed a shudder.
We climbed aboard the bus, and I surveyed the new wards. Young, old, male, female… Some looked useful, some looked scared. All of them had an aching suspicion that something wasn’t quite right about Nicholas and me. Even though they were right on the money, it would seem zombie fever had rattled their common sense. They were happy to be looked after and told what to do. Henri and Dr. Watts checked out the new additions as we drove. Everyone was okay, apart from a few cases of borderline malnutrition that had started well before the zombie arrival—mainly the younger girls quite literally dying to be as thin as Posh Spice or Cheryl Cole. I guess that’s one good thing that the zombies did—I’d never have to endure pop music again!
We drove away from the shopping center and found some factory units. We picked one with metal shutters—similar to the Dead Hare. It was a one-level, steel-strutted average building with an enclosed management office and skylights to let in some natural light. I went in and cleared out a few stray dead workers, and we moved everyone in. I turned to fetch Danny and found that Josh had already scooped him up into his arms as if he were a rag doll, a very yellow, sweaty rag doll.
“Danny?” I put my hand to his forehead. He smelled like rancid chemicals were rushing from his every pore. To be honest, everyone smelled a little ripe, but Danny was more than just a bit smelly. His eyelids fluttered at my touch, but he didn’t answer me.
“You need to do something,” Tracy said as she helped Paul and Kylie with their bags.
Rose suddenly started paying attention to the people rather than brushing Satan’s tail. “Do what?” she asked.
“I can’t.” I looked to the floor. Tracy knew what she was asking.
“Yes, you can!” Rose yelled at me. She had started turning a deep pink shade again, and tears threatened to escape her big blue eyes.
“Tracy wants you to kill him?” Josh whispered.
She didn’t want me to kill him. She wanted something much more. Something I’d promised time and again I would never do, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how lonely I was. I would never do to someone else what Nicholas had done to me.
I couldn’t answer Josh without having to wrap it up in a lie. I settled for just taking Danny and walking off to find a nice, quiet spot for him. Satan followed us.
I tried to wake him. I whispered his name. I shook him as gently as I could. I wondered if it was for the best that he should just slip quietly away, to never wake up again in this broken, red-stained world.
I wished I’d remembered a lullaby. All I could sing to him was “Johnny Rotten” or Rolling Stones songs, so I settled for humming Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” It was fitting, if not a little morbid. Satan, after thoroughly sniffing the office I’d found, curled about my feet. I sat on an old leather couch with Danny, holding him as gently as I could, watching his shallow breaths, and waiting.
“Don’t let him die.” Rose was in the doorway.
“I have to, Rose. There’s nothing I can do.”
“Yes there is! I’ve seen the movies. You can make him like you. It’ll cure him, and he’ll live forever. He can protect us, like you and Nicholas.”
Rose had it all worked out. I envied her youth, her un-cynical view of the world and the choices it laid out for us.
“He wouldn’t want to be like me,” I said.
“Yes, I would.” Danny looked up at me, his voice barely a whisper.
“I can’t even give you the world that I was brought into. Everything has changed now.”
“Then let me change with it.” He pulled my hair into his hand and started curling a blue tendril around his finger.
“This life is not what it appears, Danny,” I said.
“I’ve always been ill. I’ve never lived. I don’t know the difference.”
“Please, Brit, don’t let anyone else die.” Rose stifled a tear then turned and left us.
“I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that becoming a vampire isn’t one.”
There. I said the word. Vampire.
“Let me try. It wasn’t your answer, but it could be mine.” Danny coughed, and I smelled blood in the air.
Nicholas had made hundreds of vampires in his time. Most of them were dead by my hand. Would I be just changing his death sentence if I made him one of us? There really was only one way to find that out.
Chapter Twelve
The one thing that they seemed to always get wrong in vampire books and movies is what we really are. Essentially, we were all human at one time. After our dark birth, we are then immortal—save for a sharp blade across the throat. It’s not through a disease, or a DNA change, religious retribution, or even some twisted curse—it’s magic. Vampires are one of the last magical creatures left in the world. When you think about it, it’s the only thing that would allow us to stay young forever—to be strong and fast and have heightened senses. Science cannot give you these things. Making another vampire isn’t a simple process of blood sharing. It involves evoking magic long since died from this world. It’s hard to do, and even harder not to. I should know. Loneliness has been second nature to me, and there was a time when I would have gladly swapped it to have another with me, a partner to share my magic. I just couldn’t do it. We’re not the self-loathing, soulless creatures that popular culture would have you believe. In fact, through the years, our souls grow too. They adapt to our new forms, they are our power centers. Nicholas had done this to me against my will. Even though—thanks to certain popular TV shows and authors—there are millions of people who would line up to take my gift, none of them would know what it really meant, and all of them would be bitterly disappointed. I can’t deny that I’ve killed thousands of people in my time. Some to feed, others to protect the innocent, and some because I just felt like it. I had no real steadfast plan of action when it came to blood consumption. I tried to keep it to bad people, or at least not to take it all. But sometimes, life didn�
�t work out that way, and when it did, I certainly didn’t cry over it
We must be one hundred years old before our souls are strong enough to make another vampire. On our centenary, we see a symbol in a dream. Each vampire’s symbol is different. The symbol must be drawn on the forehead of your protégé, and the incantation must be spoken to evoke the old magic that powers our kind. The symbol disappears only if the transformation is successful.
I laid Danny on the couch and shoved Satan out the door. He whined and barked, but was soon distracted by dinner time being called by Tracy. I was aware of everyone else in the factory. I could hear all their heartbeats, young and old, thumping like a distant drum roll.
I pierced my finger with my scythe and drew my symbol on Danny’s forehead. He fidgeted at my touch, but smiled. I made a silent prayer that I was doing the right thing, that there was a good enough reason lying in front of me to break a four centuries year old promise.
I could only liken the experience to when Nicholas took me. When he held my weak, struggling frame down and used his teeth to cut a gash across his index finger. He could have chosen to knock me out, to make the whole process secret and easy, but he didn’t. I was wide awake. I felt the blood, wet and warm, across my forehead. Gravity should have taken the droplets and dribbled them down my face, but magic has the power to defy gravity. Instead, the blood seeped into my skull. I felt it touch my brain and use what it found there to grow bigger, to multiply its deep red mass until it flowed throughout my flailing limbs, making me strong enough to push Nicholas off balance. He laughed when he fell over. He still had hold of my arm, so I tumbled with him. He pulled me to him and held me while he recited the ancient words to summon whatever magic it was that swooped down from the ether to envelop my human body and soul and turn both into something else.
Danny was half dead when I turned him. I wasn’t sure it was going to work at all. I left him sleeping in the office convinced that to at least try was something. This way, if he didn’t cross over, if the magic didn’t want him, it was not meant to be.
“What have you been doing in there?” Nicholas cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.
Bad Blood (Battle of the Undead Book 1) Page 9
