by PJ Schnyder
Oy, now he’d gone and done it.
“You have your precious government backing.” Seth bit out the words. “I’ve no say in that, then. Bring whatever your bloody papers say are approved. But remember, the British soldiers here don’t come past the quarantine lines. Their primary orders are to ensure no zombies or potentially infected get out. You can enter London and bring your blasted equipment with you, but you’ll not have the protection of my pack. We will not protect you from your own stupidity. Think hard on that.”
“Please, be reasonable.” The lead scientist lifted shaking hands.
The other man made a rude noise.
Seth lifted his lip in a snarl. “We have been more than reasonable. We’ve made our conditions clear. It’s a different world in there, ladies and gentlemen. You don’t go in following our rules, you go in at your own risk.”
Seth turned on his heel and walked away. Danny watched the group of scientists gather together in a babbling huddle, caught the slight shakes of heads from the soldiers at the quarantine border.
This wasn’t going to be the end. He’d have to keep an eye out for those damned cages.
* * *
Seth barely waited until they got out of human hearing range. “And what was that all about?”
Danny raised his eyebrows, kept his mouth shut and continued walking toward the center of London. Even at the ground-eating pace they could manage, they’d barely make it back to pack headquarters in time for evening patrol.
Seth growled, his temper still riding him hard. “Don’t you pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m in the middle of being the bad guy and there you go flirting about with the lass. You knew I had to tell her what she didn’t want to hear. Why draw it out longer?”
Danny dropped his head in apology. “I’m sorry about that. No sense in it, I know. Dunno what came over me. Something about her.”
He’d wanted to be around her longer, maybe convince her and her group to take the safer route and stay under pack protection. “She’s one of those bright spots, you know? I thought I’d gone numb to all the trophy hunters, these groups of scientists. Seeing them go in every few weeks. But her. I don’t fancy having to face her as a zombie someday and give her mercy.”
And it’d been happening lately. They’d been fighting the zombies long enough. The walking dead weren’t just the nameless tourists and citizens of London who’d been there during the original outbreak. Now, more and more of the faces he saw were familiar, recent acquaintances...could-have-been friends.
Seth let out a huff. “I’d stop it all if I could. But the tourists coming in are the only economy London has right now. The people living here need the income and supplies the tourists and trophy hunters bring. Otherwise, we’re not self-sustaining and those living here haven’t what they need to make their own way.”
“I’ve sent the government my test results, the data I gathered on the incubation period.” A werewolf with a degree in biology? Even the soldiers at the border hadn’t bothered to hide their surprise when he’d first approached them with his reports. Danny snarled in frustration. “But they won’t set up a holding area for observation. Won’t relocate the people what do want to leave. Not unless they can prove they can make a living someplace else. Only, how do they know where they’ll be allowed to go?”
The people who’d had the means to leave London had gone at the first outbreak. Those with family, friends or business connections elsewhere to give them a place to rebuild their lives. Those who were left were the poor souls with no place to go and no way of fending for themselves even if they did leave. It was heartbreaking.
There was a moment of silence. Then Seth bumped Danny shoulder to shoulder. “Not all of the people living here are lost, Danny.”
“I s’pose not.” He looked around at the buildings lining the street. Most were empty. But a few had occupants, businesses still open, modified to cater to the trophy hunters and thrill seekers. Bed and breakfasts, supply stores, even pubs and souvenir shops. As long as the werewolves worked with the human police to keep the more populated areas safe, life moved on. And miracle of all miracles, the humans appreciated the werewolves. In his two centuries of living, Danny had never thought he’d experience that. A child peeked out from a curtained upper window and waved at him before disappearing with a giggle.
“Lost, boys?” The tart question floated to them on a breeze as Maisie came around the street corner. “Does this mean we’re off to go hunting pirates? I could use a little adventure.”
She gave Danny a warm smile, but her gaze heated in a completely different way as she turned her attention to Seth. The pack leader folded her into his arms, giving his mate a hug tight enough to lift her off her feet, careful to set her down with enough time for her to get her crutches properly beneath her. Once she’d settled on the ground, they began walking again at a slower pace to make it easy for her.
Though they’d not admit it to her. She’d have their hides.
“Thought you were working at the clinic today.” Seth’s voice had taken a gentler tone, one he only used with Maisie. A few of the wolves had mistaken it for weakness in the beginning, though they soon learned different. When Seth hadn’t bothered to hide the tenderness he showed his mate, several had challenged him. Danny’d had to patch most of them up because Seth had torn them apart so badly they couldn’t heal fast enough to keep from bleeding out.
“I helped with a few of the hunting dogs.” There was a flippant breeziness to Maisie’s statement and her pause had both males waiting for the qualifier. “But then a hunter’s wife came in with her bird.”
Ah, well then. Couldn’t be helped.
Seth reached out to caress her cheek and she leaned her face into his palm. Danny looked away quickly, before he saw the tears he knew must be coming.
Maisie’s Change had saved her life. But it’d changed it too. Prey animals couldn’t ignore the predatory aspect of her nature anymore, not as a werewolf. The smallest and most delicate went into shock under her gentle touch. The others simply cowered in abject terror. So when people brought their birds, rabbits, hamsters and guinea pigs to the clinic, Maisie could no longer treat them. She had to focus her efforts on the dogs and cats, the domesticated predators. And even those reacted to her in fear more often than not.
Very few, if any, natural animals could take on a werewolf.
“Fat lot of good I am.” Maisie huffed out a mirthless laugh.
Danny reached for something to turn her mood. “People still keep those little puffs of feathers?”
“Yeah. Apparently, they do.” Maisie drew in air through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth. “This one was one of those sweet trainable ones that talks to its owners. It froze in its mum’s hands when I walked in. Couldn’t get it to respond at all. So I decided it was a good time to take myself out for a breather.”
“It’ll be fine, sure enough.” Seth rumbled his reassurance. “Brian will see things to rights and send the woman on her way so you can get back to your little dogs and kitties. Especially the one who tries to steal my pillow.”
That coaxed a smile out of Maisie. The little kitten Seth had found and given her had retained his general disregard for his own safety and grown into the pack mascot. A werewolf pack, with a pet cat.
“Besides, it’s good you’ve joined me.” Seth slanted a glance in Danny’s direction. It was the only warning Danny had. “I was about to ask Danny about the very pretty human he was sniffing about this afternoon.”
Bastard tossed him right up onto the proverbial altar as a sacrifice to the gods of distraction. Bloody hell.
“A girl?” Maisie definitely perked up. Aw, now that she had the scent, she’d not leave off until she’d got the whole of it from the both of them.
“A science-type.” Seth didn’t bother to hide hi
s amusement. “Not too far from your age, I’d guess.”
Maisie had only been a werewolf a few seasons. Danny was centuries older and Seth...he was old.
“So you liked her, hmm?” Maisie had paused and planted the ends of her crutches wide. She wasn’t planning to budge until she’d gotten what she wanted to know.
Only one answer came immediately to mind. “I don’t want to see her dead.”
“She did get feisty, didn’t she?” Seth was just aiding and abetting.
Danny fought the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, but he lost. “She did, at that.”
Maisie only stared at him harder.
Seth wasn’t done, though. “Aye, well, you could’ve knocked me over with a feather to see Danny with his nose to the ground, one ear cocked to catch every word she said.”
“Get on with you.” Danny scowled. “I did nothing of the sort. You make me sound like a hound on a scent trail.”
And he wasn’t anyone’s hound.
“You took notice of her.” Seth said the words slowly, chewing on them. “I’ve not seen you interested in a woman in at least a year, maybe more.”
Now both the alpha and his mate were studying him. If he’d been in wolf form, their thoughtful regard would’ve had the fur along his ruff standing on end.
“We’ve had a bit of an apocalypse to be dealing with.” Danny tossed up his hands in frustration.
“There’s never been a more important time to take notice.” Seth jerked his chin toward the trees lining Bayswater Road. “Outsiders like to think we keep the zombies in check, keep them concentrated in the parks and gardens. And we do keep the streets safer, no mistake there. But we’ve lost half a dozen wolves to the blighters in the last year. A wolf gets too cocky, lets himself get outnumbered, and we die as surely as anything else. It’s just harder to kill us.”
Danny kept walking, unsettled and not certain where his alpha was going with his line of thought. But he kept his strides short, because Maisie was with them and he’d not cause her the discomfort of trying to keep up, no matter how unhinged he was.
“We’re long-lived but we do die eventually.” Seth might have been talking to either Maisie or him. “The zombies proved they can eat even the immortal. Sorcha’s Seelie lords weren’t happy to learn that particular bit of news when she reported back to them. It’s a good stroke of luck they agreed to allow her to work with us.”
Danny was betting the Seelie lords were more than happy to direct Sorcha’s half-berserker blood madness toward the killing of zombies as opposed to watching her go slowly insane in the fae realms under hill. He’d helped care for her after she’d cleared literally an entire battlefield of zombies deep in the levels of Notting Hill Gate station. Her mixed heritage was hard on her, every bit as hard as being dual-natured could be for shape-shifters.
Maisie tapped one of her crutches against the pavement, drawing his attention. “Speaking of Sorcha, and Kayden, you make sure you make good use of the time to live while you’re busy surviving, Danny. Take notice of the things that interest you, even if you don’t properly know why.”
Chocolate eyes flashed in his memory, framed by wisps of dark brown hair. His gut tightened in anxious worry he hadn’t realized he’d been experiencing until now. “They don’t have a chance without us, not this close to nightfall. Wouldn’t put money on them seeing tomorrow. Best we can hope is not to be running into what used to be them again.”
The sky was already lighting up gold, the magic hour before sunset. One of the few sunny days they’d had through the winter. It would be brief though. Darkness fell fast in the gardens.
“You’re not on the rotation for patrols tonight.” Seth was studying the trees, specifically facing away from Danny as they walked. “I’ll not be looking for you on your free night.
Danny didn’t say a word, only stared incredulously at the back of Seth’s head. It was Maisie who craned her neck to see past Seth’s shoulder and catch Danny’s eye. She raised an eyebrow at him.
“I’ll not go back on my decision.” Seth continued, “There will be no escort for the group. And mind you, I’d have assigned several wolves to try to keep those sheep safely herded. We’ve seen enough daft acts of heroism gone wrong.”
No. Not for the group. Danny had learned he couldn’t save them all. It’d been a hard lesson, a long time ago. But he could check on the woman, make certain she at least made it through the night.
Maisie shook her head and turned her focus back to the street in front of them. “Don’t wait for her to shoot you, Danny.”
Chapter Two
“They’re dead! They’re all dead!” Flecks of spittle flew from his mouth as he screamed. “Ron, Karen, George, all of them. Why couldn’t they run fast enough? Th-there was no way to save Professor Reyes. The zombies, there were so many. And where did Jason go? Oh my G—”
Deanna finally caught up with Tom, grabbed two handfuls of his shirt and shook him, hard. His head rocked with the force of it and his babbling ceased.
“Shut up.” The warning came out as a low hiss. “The noise. They’ll be attracted by the noise. We’ve got to be quiet.”
“We’re safe down here.” Tom’s gaze darted left and right in the darkness. But he quieted. “They stay in the parks, right? We just have to cross under the main roadway and come up outside the park.”
Deanna hoped he was right. They should have paid closer attention to the briefing they’d been given, but they’d been so sure they were prepared for every contingency. Even the added warnings from the soldiers about what it was like to face a real, hungry zombie hadn’t sunk in for any of them.
She loosened her hold on his shirt. It was almost too dark to see. Only a very few lights remained intact in the pedestrian subway and those flickered, leaving ghosted afterimages in her vision. They’d reached a junction point and she peered at the signage in the murky gloom.
“This way. Follow me. The other hall leads to a parking garage. You know, what the Brits call a car park?” Tom murmured, having calmed. “I was here for a conference once, before the epidemic.”
They took a few steps and Tom reached back to take hold of her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“A bunch of us went out bar hopping, stumbled down through here to get to the hotel. Back then, if you didn’t go under like this, you were dodging multiple lanes of cars with no cross walk.” He chuckled quietly. “If we all found our way back to the hotel drunk off our asses, you and I can get through and come out away from the hell-forsaken park. It’s only a few more yards.”
Deanna stared at Tom. What little of his face she could see gleamed with sweat and his skin was ghostly pale under smears of dirt. His hand was clammy holding hers. He’d gone off the deep end. Had to. How did anyone go from all out panic to telling stories about blitzed business trips?
A scraping noise pierced her with renewed fear. She tightened her grip on his hand.
“It’s fine...” He’d started confident but trailed off in a whisper.
Another scrape, too faint to place the direction. Was it in front of them or behind? The tunnel made it impossible to pinpoint. Deanna drew a ragged breath and almost choked on the stench of decomposition.
Oh please no...
A form detached from the shadows, towering over both her and Tom. She opened her mouth and a scream tried to claw its way out.
“Shh.” The thing was talking. Its voice was low, strangely distorted. But it was talking and they weren’t dead. Yet. “Crouch down here, against the wall.”
Deanna’s knees buckled. The command brooked no argument. She didn’t even think to disobey. The rational part of her mind ran in tight little circles as he moved into the light. Six, seven feet tall? Muscular and covered in fur. His face...mostly wolf but strangely, the eyes, they were human.
; “W-werewolf!” The word left Tom in a rush of breath and he fell back on his behind. He began to babble nonsense, getting louder and more shrill. He scrambled crab-style for a moment and then turned, got his hands and feet under him.
“No! Not that way ya daft...” The werewolf snarled. Then he turned and fixed his baleful glare on her. “Stay.”
Nope. Not going anywhere. Did she say it out loud? Were these things people said when they were about to die?
Tom began screaming. The werewolf darted after him. In the darkness of the corridor, all she could see were shapes, too many to be just Tom and the monster. More snarls, and the sounds of something hitting the walls with bone crunching impact. A head tumbled past her feet and her own scream finally broke free.
The face wasn’t Tom’s. Not Tom.
Skin hung off the skull in shreds and the eyes were clouded over with a sickly milky grey. Black gunk oozed from the base. Whoever it had been had been dead a long time. It was one of the animated corpses.
There were zombies in the dark and Tom had gone right to them.
A strange pressure was building in her chest and a detached part of her mind realized she was holding her breath. She gasped in air.
A thick miasma of rot and bowels had filled the tunnel. The sounds of struggle reached her as she became aware of her surroundings again. She clasped her hands over her ears, trying not to recognize Tom’s pained cries in the midst of the ripping and tearing. Wet, black drops splattered across her lap. Blood.
Funny, of all the horror surrounding her, this was the least disturbing. Blood, she’d seen plenty of. She focused on it. Thought about it. Then she pressed her hands over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut.
The zombie infection was a virus, spread by bodily fluids. She wouldn’t allow any fluid to transfer through her eyes, mouth, anything.
