“One of yours?” Philippe wiped his mouth with his dirty lace sleeve.
Red started to creep into the sides of my vision. I could feel anger, my old friend, writhing in my heart and flowing strength through my tired, malnourished body. I threw myself at him and knocked him over. Nicholas skidded to a halt at Tracy’s body then pushed Henri into the water. The zombies that had turned spectator now wanted to participate, so were shuffling toward us at the end of the pier. I looked at them for too long and lost sight of Philippe, who’d used his vampire speed to mingle amongst his undead soldiers.
“We should jump too.” Nicholas motioned toward the sea behind us.
“He won’t stop,” I said.
“How do you know that?” Tate asked.
“The look in his eye. I’ve seen it before.”
I wrinkled my nose. Yeah, I’d seen it before, every time I’d looked in a mirror these past centuries. My pursuit of Nicholas’ ruination had given me that same insane stare.
“You should go.” I looked back at the other three vampires.
“No, we can kill him together,” Tate said.
But I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. He’d be more of a liability than a help.
I grabbed Tate’s shoulders. “Get on that ferry and help Lyle and the others. There are children on there who have just lost their mother.” I spared a glance at Tracy’s achingly still corpse.
Tate grabbed me in a tight embrace. “Love you, Brit.”
“Put the kettle on,” I whispered back. I pushed him away. He dove over the edge and was, within moments, on board the ferry.
“You too. Off you go, Jack. I didn’t bring you over to die within the week.”
“Who says I’ll die?”
The zombies were in touching distance, and Nicholas had already started breaking spines and necks. A symphony of cracks and death groans was suddenly reaching a crescendo around us.
“Please, you’ll be safe with Tate and Lyle.”
“Okay, but here”—Jack rummaged in what was now our joint bag. He gave me the last grenade—“take this.”
I took it and popped it down my T-shirt into my cleavage. It was slightly uncomfortable, but sandwiched between my boobs, it wasn’t about to go anywhere.
“Little help!” Nicholas yelled back to me.
Jack stepped forward to embrace me, but I pushed him hard back into the water. I heard a slight splash then saw him grab at the swimming Satan and hoist himself and the wet dog up onto the side of the now stationary ferry.
Lyle looked up and out to me. He was still the same blond, blue-eyed young man I remembered. He gave me a sad salute then turned to embrace Tate.
Isn’t it a kick in the fangs? Just as I romance something meaningful into my life, just as I learn that my existence could be more than just a series of vengeful, lonely kills, I face certain death at the hands of my once-loyal friend while fighting at the side of my once arch-nemesis. I’d have laughed if I’d had the energy.
Philippe’s creepy voice carried well on the salty air. “It doesn’t matter how far across the sea they get. I’ll be behind them. My zombies may not be able to swim, but me…well, let’s just say I’ll catch up with those little boys of yours, and your little dog too!”
The zombies had stopped attacking Nicholas and were now shuffling toward me instead. With a mixture of relief and shock, Nicholas turned to me. One look passed between us.
“I love you, and I forgive you too, Brianna,” he whispered.
What? Loves me? Forgives me? What the hell?
I raised an eyebrow and was just about to give him what-for when he smiled.
“Now you’ll have to catch up with me. We have yet another argument to finish.” He bowed then jumped into the sea.
Alone again, supernaturally! Hundreds of animated corpses and one relentless son of a zombie were all waiting for me to make a move, a move that seemed to come to me like an inspirational explosion.
I held Philippe’s manic stare, then I knelt, as if in prayer, onto the pier. If my newly formed plan was going to work, they needed to move closer to me.
Chapter Seventeen
“Defeated? Don’t worry. I’ll make it quick.” Philippe cocked his head.
“Be strong.” I pulled out one of my scythes and placed it before me. “Be fast.” I crossed it with my second scythe. “Be deadly.”
I looked up at Philippe, my hand on my heart, just over where I had nestled my last grenade into my cleavage. I looped my finger around the pin and pulled it. Philippe raised an eyebrow, and the zombie mob, as if controlled by a single thought, rushed forward onto the pier and descended onto me.
I jumped up high into the air, leaving the grenade on the pier. It exploded beneath me, propelling me further skyward. There was a massive crumbling splash, followed by a rush of burnt, dead flesh. Half of the pier blew up, taking every zombie, either whole or in pieces, into the Irish Sea below.
Philippe screamed. Now, the fight was fairer. No zombie army, no surprises, no using our friendship to gain an advantage. It was just me and him.
I landed right in front of him. I was a little scorched and unarmed, but I was ready.
Whatever was left inside of Philippe had decayed like the rest of him. Before me stood a slavering, demonic creature of pure malevolence, driven by the need to claim vengeance on an innocent foe. My God, had this been how I had looked to all those I had hunted?
“Why are you just staring at me?” Philippe yelled. His arms splayed out in an overemphasized gesture.
The familiar feeling of rage inside me was dissipating, retreating behind my sanity.
“Your stalling tactics won’t save your friends, Britannia.”
Was I stalling? Well, I wasn’t exactly pulling up my sleeves and getting stuck in there, but it takes two to stall effectively. Why wasn’t he attacking me?
“Your friend tasted so good. I think the fear adds to the bouquet of the blood. Or maybe it was just her DNA. Tell me, are there more from where she came from?”
An image of the defiant Rose and the ever quiet Rowan flashed into my mind. The thought of Philippe catching them up rammed aside my instincts. I narrowed my eyes.
The dock around us was still smoldering with random fires, and the smell of BBQ zombie laced the air. I realized then that an even fight wasn’t what Philippe wanted. Each previous attack had been either an ambush or accompanied by his grubby little shuffling soldiers. Now he was alone, no cannon fodder, no cunning reveal. He was against me in an even fight, and he had Philippe’s memories of me. He knew what I’d done before. He knew that, even when I hadn’t needed to fight, hadn’t had anything at stake or to lose, I had fought and won. He was scared of me. The only move he had left now was to try to outwit me, to psych me out, to incite a lethal mistake.
I couldn’t help the swift changes in my life, most of which had been out of my control. Before I had no one to love, to protect, or to see a future with. I had existed living on a diet of revenge and anger, and I had thrived on it. Now, I had to channel that vampire again. Fortunately, I didn’t have to scratch the surface too deep to find her. I returned his maniacal grin then ran at him.
I shouldered him out of the way. He was thrown against the row of rust-colored buildings that lined the docks. He braced himself against the bricks then pushed back trying to catch me, like a wrestler in the ring. As he flew at me, I stepped aside and let him fall onto what was left of the pier. The fire-child of my grenade was now gaining momentum, spreading across toward us. Philippe’s flouncy cuffs caught fire, and he patted them out with more panic than was warranted. Had the vampire magic now left him completely? Fire could hurt a vampire but couldn’t kill us. Zombies, on the other hand, were much more flammable. Zombies were a product of science. Vampires were the children of magic. In this day and age, it was hard to believe that magic existed, let alone that it could win against the provable, more visible science. A vambie was the bastard child of both, an inevitable product of incompatib
ility. Magic and science couldn’t exist side by side.
I smiled at him, and he hesitated in his next attack. Philippe had been more of a lover than a fighter. What was making him strong was his new zombie side, and that had limitations. I took a run at him. As I collided with his chest, he tried to grip me, pull me into a solid embrace. I slipped around his back and kicked out at the back of his knees. Philippe buckled before me. The fire had taken hold, and we were moments from the wood beneath us being consumed and spat out as thick, black smoke. The smoke was of no consequence—neither of us breathed. The fire, on the other hand…
I jumped onto his back and held him against the rising flames on the disintegrating pier. He writhed and screamed below me. I could feel the heat devouring my clothes, my flesh. It caught my hair and burnt it into blue ash, and still I held him down. I held him in the flames until he stopped moving. Once he did, the whole pier gave way, and I found myself plunged into the Irish Sea. The salt water was like acid on my burns, and without air in my lungs, I quickly sank to the bottom.
Philippe’s corpse floated to the top. He was now truly dead. I closed my eyes and cried for my friend, my tears accepted freely by the engulfing brine. My naked body was charred and black with shiny white bones showing through the exposed bottom layers of my skin. I waited as the cleansing sting of the salt scratched me all over. I waited to heal, but I found my eyelids heavy. I hadn’t slept for so long that the need suddenly overpowered me. I knew if I were to give in then I would sleep at the bottom of the sea for at least nine hours and would lose the ferry. I tried to keep my mind active, to pull myself through the sea after them, but I couldn’t.
So I curled into a ball and closed my eyes.
They say that light is made up of every color. Following that logic, I think that love is made up of every emotion—hate, worry, fear, passion, acceptance, joy, awe, the list is endless.
I had time to feel them all.
Change is hard for vampires. We need to be broken down and rebuilt, like soldiers. I had not been broken. I had been obliterated and forged into something else, yet I was still the sum of both my old and new parts—killer, mother, friend, lover, protector…patriot.
At the bottom of the Irish Sea, I dreamed in vivid Technicolor. There were long, strong blades of green grass growing all around me, too defiant to be mown. I could hear laughing and singing in the distance. The soft Irish breeze caressed my long blonde hair so it tickled my skin. Strong arms encircled me, holding me steadfast against the breeze that had now turned savage like a hurricane beating against my skin. Even though the world around me was now dangerous and new, those arms were warm and familiar. They were where I was I meant to be.
Upon waking, my first thought was that I could just leave. Turn my back on those who had complicated my life, changed me into something I never wanted or asked to be. They’d never know. They would think I died a hero’s death while protecting them. But it was a knee-jerk thought, an echo from my old life. I’d made promises that were worth keeping.
I braced my legs against the sea bed and propelled myself back onto what was left of the pier. I was naked but healed. My hair had grown back, but to its original length and blonde coloring. As Brianna, I stood on the pier and looked out onto the zombie’s world. I vowed to take it back from them.
I had defied the Elders, and although I hated to admit it, Nicholas was right about their retribution. Well, let them come, let them send their best vampires against me. If I’d fought hard before…wait till they saw what I would do now in the service of those I’d promised to protect.
More zombies had found their way to the pier, so I finished them off. I stripped them of any decent clothes that still clung to their rotten frames. It was gross, but better than being naked. I then found a small fishing boat that had survived the flames and pushed it out in pursuit of the ferry, and the man I loved.
The End
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Bad Blood (Battle of the Undead Book 1) Page 13
