"What—" Anyelet's roar was cut off in mid-syllable.
A white-haired girl stepped from the shadows.
~ * ~
The taste of fear, so unfamiliar, was like acid in Anyelet's mouth. To her shame, she found herself also retreating from the girl, and she forced her feet to stop heir ridiculous backpedal.
"Who are you?" she demanded. The girl locked gazes with her, gray eyes—like Stephen's! Anyelet thought in surprise—blazing as Anyelet yanked her glare away at the stab of physical pain. Anyelet took another involuntary step backward as the girl moved closer, ignoring the other vampires as they hissed and yelped like whipped dogs, then stopped in front of Stephen where he had begun crooning a wordless hymn to Vic's dissolving corpse. Her hand slipped under his chin and raised his head; Stephen's eyelids fluttered, then his clouded eyes cleared and widened.
"Werner!" Anyelet shrilled. She stabbed a finger toward the young woman. He responded immediately, sidling around to the right to come up behind the girl. Her head turned, the movement like a slow-motion bullet, and Werner froze when her eyes tracked him; suddenly he whirled and clapped his hands over his eyes with a cry.
Turning back, the girl bent and dipped the tips of two white fingers into the blood splashed across Vic's shirt, then touched first her own forehead, then Stephen's. Her fingertips left a mark like blood-soaked holy day ashes. “It’s your burden now, Stephen," she said softly. "Time to go.”
Anyelet's face twisted as Stephen nodded, a semblance of sanity returning to his face. How had this twit known his name? The girl glanced around the hall, the only spot of color on her body the small streak of crimson on her forehead. Then she stared at Anyelet again, and Anyelet could have screamed at the swelling of pain those crystalline eyes brought to her head. The girl smiled sweetly, and when she spoke, her whisper was like the damning moan of funeral bells.
"The angel of death has been born."
9
REVELATION 12:14
And to them were given two wings of a great eagle,
that they might fly.
~ * ~
"This is the end of the line, C.J. C.J.!"
"No!" He sprinted in the opposite direction, then stopped unsteadily at the edge of the small terrace. Below the sidewalk was like a black flood; here and there the light of the moon highlighted the far rooftops. He stretched a blood-flecked hand toward her, then dropped it helplessly. "I'm—oh, God, Louise." His glance skittered over her shoulder to the door, barricaded with only an empty, rusted oil drum. "We should've gone up to the next level—I should have known better—"
"Shush." She pressed her fingers against his mouth. "It wouldn't have made any difference. We knew that when we pulled them away from the Mart, didn't we?" He flinched as something knocked playfully against the other side of the door.
“Hellooooo . . . Anybody home?"
Louise gripped his arm tightly, pulled the pistol from her jacket pocket and offered it to him.
"You know that won't help!"
"I don't mean for them," she said urgently.
C.J. squeezed his eyes shut, then tugged her farther away from the door. The small section of roof wasn't much; once the beasts beyond the door got tired of playing, it would be only seconds to the end. With each half-lazy thump, C.J.'s heart gave a sledgehammer pound of its own. "I can't do that," he said hoarsely. "Can you?"
She opened her mouth, then shut it. "No," she whispered. The pistol clattered to the tarred surface. Her eyes were terrified sparkles as she looked at him pleadingly.
"I don't want to be like them."
"Me neither." C.J. stepped to the terrace edge and Jeered over. A hundred feet below, the sidewalk was like a tempting, dizzying trampoline.
Louise followed his lead, then shot a frightened glance behind her as the metal can gave a scream of protest when the door began to force it aside. A small moan slipped from her throat. "Suicide?"
"No," he said grimly. Behind them the door rebounded against the wall as their pursuers finally beat it open. From up here, the last of the daylight was a lost purple smudge in the west.
"Salvation." He held out his hand, and she took it and squeezed. His fingers slid forward and they locked wrists.
Silent, they stepped off the edge of the world and flew like eagles.
~ * ~
"Shit, man," Ron said in disgust. He picked up the limp wrist of the girl, then let it drop. He and Gabriel had tried to get at least something from the bodies, succeeding only in getting their clothes and hands sticky with blood. Anything worthwhile was splattered across the concrete. "These guys are nothing but dog meat."
"Yeah." Gabriel grabbed his arm. 'And here come the dogs." A small pack of outcasts was slinking along the sidewalk, growling and snapping, their tongues black and ripping at the smell of blood. Soon they would be scratching and fighting amid the remains like hyenas.
Ron and Gabriel fled into the darkness, leaving the bodies to the scavengers.
10
REVELATION 16:6
For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets. . . .
~ * ~
"Kill her!" Anyelet hissed. "Do it now!"
No one moved. Anyelet’s face went purple. "You're all imbeciles! Rita!" she barked. Rita's head snapped up, her puckered, twisted face jarred to attention. "You take care of it! The rest of you come with me before the humans get too far—"
White fire encircled her wrist and rocketed up her arm as the girl's hand shot out to stop her. Shrieking, Anyelet tried to twist away from the hand clamped on her as the other vampires gasped and wailed but made no move to help. She felt like she was being electrocuted, her thoughts crisped in her mind before they could finish. At last she managed a sharp backhand that sent the girl reeling into Rita's waiting arms. Something blue flashed and Rita screeched and flung her away.
"She—she burned me!" Rita yowled. "I can't touch her!"
"Then use something, you fool!" Anyelet bellowed. Her remaining soldiers were no more than frozen statues.
"Yes, Rita . . ." The girl cocked her head, as if trying to hear something. The stench of burning flesh and charred cotton filled the hallway. "Why don't you use your . . . knife?"
"DO IT!" Anyelet roared, and shoved Rita forward. Rita stumbled, then righted herself and drew the carving knife from her belt, its blade still crusted with Howard's blood. She gnashed her teeth and advanced on Jo as Anyelet and the others closed around the two women like wolves.
Jo smiled serenely and closed her eyes. Then she spread her arms wide in a welcoming embrace, soundless as her lifeblood splattered the dead who gathered.
VIII
March 30
Aftermath
1
REVELATION 22:11
And he that is holy, let him be holy still.
~ * ~
"We have to move," McDole told Ira and Calie. "I know we've only been back a couple of hours and its going to be difficult with all these new people, but tell everyone to be ready by ten o'clock." Beneath his anguished eyes, his cheeks were hollow from lack of sleep. Last night had been difficult beyond words; while Alex's choice of a hiding place had proven wise, the darktime hours had been filled with terror as they dragged painfully by in the wait for dawn. "We'll give them one more hour—"
"That won't be necessary."
McDole spun, nearly tripping over the chair behind him. For a moment he couldn't even speak. "How did you get in here?" he choked out. "How did you even know where to come?"
Stephen smiled calmly at the older man and Calie, who was staring at him openmouthed with Beau cradled in her arms. His face darkened. "C.J. and Louise won't be coming back," he said in a low voice.
Calie sobbed, just once, then lifted her chin. "They . . . they didn't—"
"No," Stephen answered simply. "They didn't." McDole sat heavily onto the chair and stared at the floor.
"Calie." Dr. Perlman hobbled into the room. "I'm having a hard time—" He stopped at the sight of Stephen. "
I thought you'd . . ."
"Be dead? No, not yet." He gazed at the doctor, his eyes an odd mirror of Jo's. "I came because I . . . had a feeling you needed help with Renata."
Perlman started to say something, then dismissed it. "Come with me," he said. Yesterday's frantic exercise made him limp heavily as he led Stephen down a long hallway, then up a flight of stairs into a room converted to a makeshift hospital ward. Calie and McDole followed glumly as the doctor showed Stephen to the far end, where the pregnant woman they'd rescued yesterday strained against restraints. "We had to tie her again. I can't even hold a logical conversation with her," Perlman complained. "She won’t listen, she won't talk." Perlman looked haggard. "Listen, I'm a bacteriologist, not a psychiatrist. All I know for sure is I can't keep her sedated; it's bad for both the baby and her."
Stephen stepped to the woman's bed. "Renata," he said gently, "Dr. Perlman wants to discuss the baby with you."
"How do you know everyone's name?" McDole asked in the background.
Calie shot him a puzzled glance. "Wasn't he with you at the Mart yesterday?"
"It's evil!" Renata shouted suddenly. Spittle sprayed from her mouth. "The child is a monster!"
"Not at all," Stephen said soothingly. "Howard is dead, Renata. This isn't his child, it's yours." His fingers stroked the damp hair from her sweat-drenched forehead. "A baby, blameless, at the mercy of someone else." He paused, then leaned close. "Do you remember what it was like to be at someone else's mercy, Renata?" She stiffened. "Think of a child subjected to that kind of hatred." The woman's hands gripped the bedrails until the fingernails showed white; she began to cry.
"Then"—Stephen let his hand drop briefly to the small swell of her stomach—"think of a child raised under opposite circumstances, how a . . . boy might grow into a fine man if he were cherished and taught to love others in a healthy way." His fingers found the sheet strips around Renata's wrists and began untying them; Perlman shuffled nervously. "Your son, Renata. You might name him . . ." Stephen's gaze flicked to McDole and Calie, then back. ". . . Clement Judd, after that brave young man who gave his life to help free you and the others." He stopped and studied her. "That is, of course, if you decide you want to keep the boy after all."
Silence, heavy and fearful, settled on the small group as they all stared at Renata. For the first time since her explosive arrival yesterday, her hands were free. Perlman looked ready to leap if she made the slightest movement.
"It's a boy?" Renata asked in a small voice. Her hands folded tentatively around her stomach.
"Yes." Stephen backed away and motioned for the others to follow.
"You're sure—"
Perlman began, but Stephen waved at him to be quiet. On the bed, Renata sat up and looked around; after a second she poured herself a glass of water from the bedside pitcher, then picked up a small hand mirror from the table and frowned at her reflection.
"She'll be okay," Stephen assured Perlman. "She just needed to remember that the villain was Howard, not the child."
"Clement Judd?" Calie raised her eyebrows.
Stephen gave her a distracted glance. “A nice name, don't you think?"
2
REVELATION 22:3
And there shall be no more curse.
~ * ~
Where will I be twenty years from now?
Alex straightened and stretched the muscles in his back.
Will I remember the smell of soil and the way the sun broke through the clouds to shine on the park?
Will I remember Deb?
He picked up his shovel and leaned on it. Grant Park was, of course, deserted, the Art Institute a gray fortress at his back. A fitting place for Deb's grave; she had loved the Institute, and how many people could've claimed they had worked and lived there? Soon the small mound of upturned earth would fade into the surrounding lawn, covered casually by grasses that would probably grow long and wild for centuries to come.
The sun pushed through in earnest as the cloud cover scattered and the temperature climbed noticeably. Deb's final resting place was in the sun, as she had requested, but he thought it looked sad and plain compared to the greening spread of the surrounding park and the eternal beauty of the woman it held. Alex tossed the shovel aside and thought of the tiny white daisies that Deb had so cherished.
He knew just where to get seeds.
3
REVELATION 22:5
And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle,
neither light of the sun.
~ * ~
"We'll have quite a few babies around here within a year," Perlman told McDole. “At least two of those women are pregnant, maybe more."
"Not enough to repopulate the world, Bill," McDole pointed out with a wry grin.
"No." The doctor shrugged. "But it's a start. Besides, once it's obvious that the vampires are gone, I bet we find a lot more people than even you realized."
McDole sat back. "You really believe in that V-BAC."
"Without a doubt."
McDole stared out the window morosely. "Too bad it didn't come last month, or last winter. Then maybe—"
"Don't." Perlman placed a hand on McDole's shoulder. "There're too many 'what ifs' that we could torture ourselves with, and too many of those would've changed anyway."
McDole's forehead creased. "Where did Stephen go? He's disappeared already."
"He's one of those 'what ifs,'" Perlman said. He turned and grinned as Calie reached past him and shoved a squirming bundle into McDole's hands.
"Don't look so glum, boss," she said cheerily as McDole gaped at the tiny red face of Evelyn's son. He couldn't help smiling as the baby squinted and waved a miniature fist. Calie folded her arms. "That's better. You wouldn't want your namesake to actually look like you, would you?"
~ * ~
"It's hard, isn't it?"
Perlman glanced up as Calie sat beside him on the curb just outside the open door to Water Tower Place, little Beau snuggled in her arms. The late afternoon sky had turned cloudy and dull, but the temperature was a prelude to warmer weather. It was a sign of faith that McDole had left the doors to Water Tower Place wide open. Perlman grimaced. "I beg your pardon?"
"Don't pull that polite baloney on me, Doc." She gave him a sidelong look. "You're forgetting the most important thing you've said today."
"What's that?"
"You're forgetting to forget the 'what ifs.'" She scratched Beau's ears. "You're moping and feeling sorry for yourself, thinking about your wife and son, C.J. and Louise, and Deb, too." When he didn't answer, she continued. "She's the worst, isn't she? Because you never expected to think of one of those monsters as a human being."
He sighed, then frowned. "I don't recall telling you I was married," he said, "or that I had a son." He turned to face her.
Calie smiled. "It's time to start looking forward instead of backward, Bill. Time for a new life." She stood, then bent and kissed him briefly on the lips, her brown eyes twinkling. "Remember, there is life after death."
4
REVELATION 19:2
For he hath judged that which did corrupt the earth . . .
and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.
~ * ~
There were sounds of dying in the Mart tonight.
Rita didn't want to hear them. She couldn't find Anyelet and guessed that the Mistress hadn't woken yet; lately it was safer to let Anyelet alone than disturb her anyway. She put her hands to her face and they came away covered with gray-green globs of melting flesh, and Rita frowned at the mess dripping from her fingers and shook it off. Why did she have such a headache? Was it even possible for her to be sick? Everything about her hurt—her face since the gunshot wound, her arms since that weird teenager had burned her last night and been gutted for her punishment, leaving the hand that had wielded the knife blackened and peeling. There was a smell in this place, too, the smell of tainted meat left too long in the warm air. Beneath the baggy sleeves of the stain
ed copper robe, her skin itched ferociously, as though it were alive with a million invisible insects. She stumbled past the currency exchange in the first-floor ball and thought longingly of plumbing and hot water; the was so dirty and—
She tripped over something on the floor and sprawled facefirst. Was Howard's body still here? She tried to stand, but her bones and muscles hurt horribly, and finally Rita just sat next to the body, ignoring the smell and squinting in the darkness, her vision gone the way of her beauty but not so much that she didn't detect traces of life within the smelly, blackened pile next to her. She leered at it curiously, couldn't stop her finger from giving it a tentative poke.
It groaned, then raised a head in which the only recognizable things were the leaking, reddened eyes belonging to Gabriel. A few seconds later he hauled himself up and grabbed the doorframe, his body making sucking, liquid noises when the flesh pulled away from the floor. A hole that might have once been his mouth opened and he gurgled.
Rita screamed and fled, the skin of her own arms sloughing away beneath her clothing. In her haste she toppled against the opposite wall, then backed away in revulsion when she realized the viscous mass slipping down its surface was part of her own skin. She careened out the front doors and fell, the sidewalk's rough surface shaving away most of her palms and fingers, leaving exposed bone to gleam in the wan moonglow. Shrieking, she scrambled up and ran, into the darker streets of downtown and away from the Mart and its infestation of death.
AfterAge Page 32
