by Angela White
“Know? Now, the same as you. Suspect? During the first fight when we found the bloody handprint, but the kids weren’t injured. It had to mean they were helping the wolves.”
As they got closer to the city that wasn’t there anymore, the more details they could pick out. The ghosts swirling above the city were a blurry mass of white, but those on the ground still retained their human shape and appeared exactly as they had before. Except for the glow coming from them. It was as if each of them were in their own cloud.
“What is this?” Billy asked. “What’s happening?”
“I’ve been able to remove the magic that keeps this trap camouflaged,” Alexa explained. “It won’t last long, but for us, it’ll be more than enough.”
“None of this is possible,” Jacob whispered. “This isn’t how it works.”
Alexa didn’t argue, only let the evidence speak for itself. The crap they’d been fed most of their lives was just that—crap. Adrian had known and he’d left that dangerous information for her. She would honor it by teaching her fighters that death wasn’t something to fear, only to avoid as long as possible, because with death, there could finally be peace. It was something they would long for in time.
The fighters walked straight to the city entrance without slowing or stopping, but their gazes were drawn repeatedly to the sky where the souls darted and dipped dizzyingly. As they neared the charred street, they could see someone waited for them on the other side. It was the Roscoe family, pale and out of place.
“He’s not dead!” Jacob exclaimed in surprise.
“No,” Alexa confirmed. “And maybe we can get a full story this time.”
“Are we… I mean, “Should we be ready to…” David was nervous, in awe, and not sure he could pull the trigger against some of these spirits. They felt angry, vengeful even, but not at them, only toward Roscoe.
“They can’t harm us,” Alexa said, leading them to the cowering males. “I suspect that’s why we were sent to the master of the corn, because she could.” Alexa rubbed her ribs and muttered, “She did.”
“I am so confused,” Billy complained good-naturedly. He was too astounded by the views to be honestly angry at any information that she may have withheld. Never in his lifetime had he expected to be a part of such things.
“Patience, my pets,” Alexa told them.
Roscoe and his son were the same men they’d left, only somehow, they weren’t. In comparison to the souls above, these two were the dead ones, devoid of life.
“Please,” Roscoe begged as she stopped in front of them. “For my son.”
Alexa studied the glassy-eyed boy without compassion. “He can’t be saved.”
“Mercy!” Roscoe cried, hand coming up in defense.
Alexa waved Mark forward and the instant he was in range, young Roscoe lunged, baring fangs and revealing his transformation.
Roscoe screamed in denial and Alexa gently turned him away as her men used their guns again.
Above them, the ghosts grew louder in their humming, their approval of what was happening. They couldn’t stop it or help it, but their justice was sweet.
“Tell me,” Alexa ordered. “Free yourself, Mayor., and I shall give mercy.”
Roscoe collapsed at her feet and her men stood a close sentry so as not to miss a word.
“Please.”
“Not until you admit your sins,” she denied.
Roscoe crawled to his son’s body in defeated misery. “I sold them. To keep control and protect my son.”
He looked up at her with anguish. “I had already lost my Sophie. I couldn’t lose him too.”
Alexa ignored the loud, furious buzzing from the ghosts, busy playing judge and jury, “Quit hiding behind your lies,” Alexa warned. “Be honest for once in your life.”
Roscoe began to weep, shaking at his final moment neared.
“I wasn’t really the Mayor,” he confessed in a gravelly blurt. “I was his golfing caddie.”
Alexa knelt down to hear the rest, needing the break from her throbbing ribs. “Finish it.”
“I found him in his office,” Roscoe went on, staring at Alexa’s Colt. “I look a lot like him, you know?”
Alexa didn’t respond, and he gave her the rest in a choked tone that said he was ready to face his maker.
“He was hiding under his desk when I came in. He didn’t even scream when I started hitting him. I was going to throw him out the window, but some dumb secretary found me and thought I was the Mayor. She snuck me by the mob demanding city protection from the bombs and we stayed with the poor people as the draft trucks came. In the sewers.”
Alexa sensed the final sin coming and felt her mind go a bit gray. Evening was nearing.
“Right after we came back out, the woman, Mariah, figured out what I’d done.” Roscoe glanced toward the sewer drain under Alexa’s feet. “She’s down there.”
The noise from above them had been loud as each betrayal was revealed and the ground under them rumbled in outrage and the need for justice.
Alexa slowly stood up, aware of Mark and Edward subtly coming to each side. “I find you guilty,” she intoned, causing the din to magnify even further. “I sentence you to the fire.”
The ground split open under Roscoe and flame-like hands rose from the abyss to surround Roscoe. Alive, he couldn’t be taken however, and Alexa quickly used the last round in that mag to end his torment and start his suffering.
The ground closed up as if it had never opened and the sky above them became a shooting-star filled sunset as the souls were finally freed. They’d been held to the earth because of their hatred and their many crimes, but Roscoe’s death released those bonds into a stunning show of a true afterlife.
Jacob watched the souls blink out of existence with a slight wave of bitterness. Unlike the other men standing here and contemplating the heavens and hell, he was railing against a silent god who still hadn’t come forward to claim his people. That was the bitterness he carried daily now and it allowed him to commit the most grievous sins upon Alexa’s command. He’d lost his faith and it had made him a killer, was how he thought of it.
Alexa felt Jacob’s unrest, and placed an arm around his waist, as much to comfort as to lean on unnoticed.
Jacob did notice it, feeling her heat and the ragged rise and fall of her chest. He supported her weight as much he could and felt her gratitude when she relaxed against him.
“I’m sorry your belief was destroyed.”
Jacob sighed. “I am too, sometimes.” He smiled softly at her. “But most days, I’m not. It gave me to you and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Alexa was overwhelmed with emotion and with exhaustion, and she stepped back. She scanned the sky and the dead city, picking out a few shadows remaining among the rubble. She wanted to go to them, to ask what awful thing had been done to them that Roscoe’s death hadn’t paid for, but Edward took her arm. “No, lady.”
Alexa could have refused. She had a last reserve of strength, of energy, and she wanted to cleanse this city in a way that could never be undone.
“Alexa.”
She shut her lids, exhausted, depressed, hurting. “Tell me why.”
Edward didn’t want to, but understood it was the only thing that would get her to leave here. “You can’t save them all. Only Adrian can.”
A single tear slipped down her red cheek and Edward felt the heat baking from her then. She’d gotten worse.
“Get us settled,” she told him, standing on her own. “Quickly.”
Edward waved the men into their basic formation and immediately got them moving, only this time, he had an arm around Alexa’s waist to help her. As they trotted, she gradually became slower and less responsive until Edward swung her up into his arms and put Daniel in the lead.
The biker got them back to the farmhouse where Paul was stashed in a hurry, each of them silently noting they didn’t encounter a single obstacle. Other than the few remaining souls in the city, Alexa had cleared
this area of problems. It was impossible to guess how long it would stay that way, though. Without Alexa here to defend it, the land would once again go wild, though the master of the corn would no longer haunt weary travelers. The leftover zombies would do that.
4
Edward jogged up the stairs and into the house, glad David had gotten there first to hold the door. He took Alexa to the upstairs bedroom he had already chosen for this very reason. It had a bathroom and a mini kitchen, and a wide living space that all of them could share without being cramped.
Edward put her on the bed once David stripped the dusty top cover and then leaned against the webby wall to catch his breath. He’d never been so tired.
“First watch volunteers?” he asked.
“I’ve got that,” Jacob offered. There was no way he could sleep yet, not after all they’d just seen.
“Great. Someone get Paul up here in case she wakes up.”
“I’ll get him,” Mark stated from the doorway.
“Okay,” Edward delivered the good news. “Off duty time, boys, and damn did we earn this one.”
There were small nods and chuckles of agreement. They all felt good about the role they’d played, but waiting for Alexa to explain it all would be hard. Edward planned to sleep through the wait.
The horseman settled down against the bed Alexa was on and leaned his head back. When his lids closed, he didn’t try to stay alert. Even if he only got five minutes, he wanted it.
“He’s gone.”
Edward’s eyes flew open as he realized who Mark was shouting about. “Damn it!”
Alexa’s hand on his shoulder was a comfort, though her grip was nearly nonexistent and her voice a whisper. “Let him go.”
Relieved, Edward said,” You heard the woman. Let the rabbit run.”
Alexa’s hand went slack as she grayed out again, and Edward left it on his shoulder. When she stirred, he would be the first to know.
5
“Hello in the house.”
Company was the last thing any of the fighters wanted and they rose from an hour’s sleep to fight with their remaining bullets. They would be out quickly and die in a hand-to-hand gory mess of glory. It was what Alexa would want.
“Coming in.”
The voice was female, familiar, and Edward motioned for Mark to open the door.
“Hi!”
Tabitha and Paul stood on the porch, her arm wrapped tightly around his.
Paul shrugged at the looks from the men. “I told you. Most women like me.”
Tabitha smiled at Paul with a deep affection that made every man there want to know what the scientist had done to deserve it. Noticing his bruise were already mostly healed came second.
“Tabby knows a few things about vampires,” Paul explained. “She mentioned it while we were traveling, but I didn’t make the connection until she’d already run off. After that, we didn’t get a lot time alone and well,” Paul blushed. “We didn’t talk then.”
Tabitha flushed prettily, giggling, and Paul swatted her on the ass, making her laugh. “Upstairs, Tabby, and go slow. They don’t know you.”
The woman didn’t seem to mind the big men who scowled at her in warning. She climbed the steps eagerly and flounced into Alexa’s room without saying anything else. She sat on the edge of the bed, studying their mistress, and the helpless males watched in concerned frustration.
After a moment, Tabby hesitantly reached out and placed her wrist over Alexa’s mouth.
Alexa lunged so fast that none of her men could have interfered. She rolled Tabitha off the bed and landed straddling her, teeth (fangs!) inches from the woman’s throat.
Tabitha whimpered, but didn’t struggle. “Please.”
Alexa’s men didn’t know what to do, but Paul did. He gently put a hand on Alexa’s ridged shoulder. “She is innocent.”
Alexa wanted to gorge herself on the blood and it told her that Paul was right. This woman had committed no crime here.
Alexa rose in a painful growl and tossed herself onto the bed. “Get out.”
Paul took the shaking Tabitha downstairs, where Edward got as much information as he could before loaning Paul his sleeping bag. The couple disappeared into the basement bedroom and the fighters stared in surprise a while later at the sounds. It wasn’t the Paul they’d come to know.
6
“Is it possible that we underestimated him?” Mark asked, hearing a moan that clearly wasn’t faked. Tabitha was enjoying whatever he was doing to her.
Edward sighed, mind taking him into images he didn’t want to be a part of. “I think so. He’s still alive. That’s bigger for me.”
As he said it, Edward heard a female groan of climax and shook his head. “I’ll be upstairs. Let me know when he’s… available.”
“You know it,” Mark sent with a chuckle. He still didn’t like Paul and perhaps he never would, but at this moment, Paul had impressed him and that wasn’t an easy feat to accomplish.
Mark and Jacob took up posts at the front and rear of the farmhouse as the sun disappeared and the darkness fell over the land. Time slowed as the shadows filled the yard and obscured the corn. And in the blackness, a pair of red, rage-filled eyes watched the men with hatred.
Jacob saw it and knew who was out there drooling over him. “Come on, boy,” the preacher called. He’d had enough of this place. “Don’t be shy.”
But the child knew better and stayed out of the preacher’s range.
Jacob started to call for Edward and then spotted a second shadow in the corn. Zombies?
No, he realized as he caught a quick flash of a uniform. It was Brian sneaking up behind the corpse boy, jerking his knife across the undead neck and then snapping it.
Jacob thought about telling the others, but when Brian only tipped the bloody blade to him and walked back into the corn, Jacob chose to wait. So they had a protector outside. It was worlds better than the alternative and he saw no reason to wake the others for it. Alexa’s green bunker baby was turning out to more valuable than any of her men had realized.
In the basement, Paul growled as he finished and Jacob rolled his eyes. “Come on, rabbit! Damn!”
In the rear of the house, Mark burst out laughing. He’d been about to do the same thing.
7
Edward heard the laughter and let himself drift down into a deeper sleep where the war hadn’t come and it was his wife’s hand on his shoulder.
Across the room, Billy and David had also fallen out, but Daniel was still awake. He was having a smoke and going over their battle with the hag. The moment where David had fallen still had him confused and he was running it through his filters, trying to figure out what had happened. The conclusion he’d come up with the first time, that David had caused the hag to retreat, was too unbelievable and he planned to ask Alexa about it. There had to be another explanation. How could David have a power like that and Alexa not know?
Daniel was sure that he’d missed something and he settled against a peeling wall and ran through it again.
On the bed, Alexa was awake. This mission was over, with only the explanation left and she felt like a failure. There were still souls to be freed in Lincoln and she mourned them in place of being able to help. It was a wound that wouldn’t be able to heal until she did something about it.
As for her own illness, Alexa now understood more than she wanted to. When she gave her men the final answers they would soon expect, they wouldn’t want to know it either, but there was no going back.
Chapter Eighteen
Travelin’ On
1
The sound of music playing woke the house.
The haunting strains of a world that had passed by flowed softly through the basement of the farmhouse and floated to where Alexa and four of her men were still snoozing.
Alexa stretched carefully, enjoying the feel of the bed under her, but missing the harshness of the ground. It was who she was.
She scanned the room, met the e
yes of those coming to alertness under the haunting notes of Hotel California. For Alexa, it brought instant memories of her father. For her men, it gave flashes of wives and children, and of happier days before it had all gone to hell.
Alexa felt a shoulder under her hand and gave a brief squeeze, recognizing the feel of her thick horseman.
Edward sighed in pleasure as she ran her fingers through his messy hair, caressing.
He turned around to meet her eyes and found glowing red orbs where bright blue should have been.
Alexa’s tinted vision was something of a concern for her fighters, but she only shut her lids and tried to sleep a bit more. She was drained, with nothing left to give. The virus had done its damage and she wasn’t the same as she’d been yesterday. The differences were in the textures of the blood running through their veins. For a minute, it was all she could think about.
“Lexie?”
Her eyes flew open at the nickname her father had called her. “What?!” she snarled defensively. She didn’t want their pity
“We love you.”
Alexa had no defense against that and tears slid from her lashes.
“We have to know if this is the end.”
Alexa sat up on the bed and each of them saw the tear streaks were scarlet.
“That will be up to you,” Alexa told them, holding out her arm. “But see what I am before you make the choice.”
She used a nail to slit her arm downward, catching a vein that gushed blood.
The men rushed her way, but Alexa slowly licked the wound and then held her arm up
“It’s healed,” Jacob exclaimed in a panicked shock. “You’re not human anymore!”
Alexa sighed, staring at the floor. “I haven’t felt that way in so long that I’m not sure if I should miss it.”
“What can we do?” Billy demanded, coming over to wipe away the blood that remained.
Alexa’s glowing orbs went to his throat and the driver didn’t flee. “Whatever you need.”
Billy had complete faith that she wouldn’t hurt her own and he was right.
