City of the Fallen (Dark Tides, Book One)

by Bocco, Diana

  Chapter 10

  Marcus walked away from the bed and towards the window. The night was quiet, even to his ears. The wind whistled up and down the corridors and a few familiar voices drifted toward him. The harsh white lights above the walls gave the whole compound a ghostly luster. Right now, the place looked more like a prison than a castle. He couldn’t see what was beyond the compound. Not from his window, anyway, as the walls were taller than any building inside. He could guess what was waiting beyond the barricade, though. Pitch black, deep darkness.

  When the world had been alive, before the invasion, the darkness had always been a pulsing thing, alive with the breathing and the buzzing of people, animals and machines. Now, it was just a blanket of silence.

  He didn’t know why he’d told her about the rabids. Miles was right that he needed to be more careful, but there was something about her that stirred long-asleep emotions in him. Or maybe the answer was that he wasn’t worried. After all, he was a hundred times stronger—and older—than she was. It was very unlikely that a frail human could do any real damage to any vampire, especially in vampire territory.

  Even more telling, though, was the fact that her safety had suddenly become more important than keeping secrets. He did have a good reason for that, because the truth was that he could do damage control on a few humans knowing about their ability to walk in daylight if he had to—but if she got attacked by a rabid because she wasn’t expecting to see one under the sun… well, he could never forgive himself for that.

  His intention had been to find out more about her. The human who couldn’t be charmed. He had even sent a convoy out to see if they could trace her way to the compound and figure out where she came from—and what secrets she had brought along with her. But the guards had run into a rabid just hours outside of the compound, and the mission objective had changed in seconds.

  His main concern right now was to keep the rabids away. And to make sure his scientists managed to come up with a blood substitute as soon as possible. The void was curable, at least in theory. He wasn’t sure where the dividing line was, however, as the last time the void had spread, everybody—including him—not infected had wasted no time and just ran away. His theory (and the scientists agreed) was that if you caught the void early enough, you could feed a rabid enough blood to revert the effects until he returned to normal. “Early enough” was tricky, though, because nobody knew exactly what that meant.

  He did know that the blood supply was getting lower and lower. Nobody in the compound was going hungry because humans were still making it there. But the more rabids were out there, the fewer the chances that humans could get cross-country and into the compound before being attacked. And he was worried that at some point, his major problem wouldn’t be how to keep things out—because the void would slip right into the compound.

  He turned around to look at Belle, who seemed lost in thought. She looked so vulnerable sitting on his massive bed, so fragile—but he knew better. She had survived on the roads for at least a night. Hell, she had survived the invasion and the years after it, when food became scarce and illness was rampant.

  Whatever fragile creature she appeared to be, he doubted it was the real her.

  ~*~

  The first scream didn’t sound like a human scream at all. In fact, it sounded like metal screeching, and Belle’s first thought was that somebody was opening the entrance gate. People coming in? Darkness was still blanketing the surroundings, so it would have been risky trying to reach the compound.

  Then she heard the sound again and realized it was a human voice. The terrified shriek of somebody who was staring death in the face.

  Her eyes flew to Marcus, who was already dressed and heading for the door.

  “Do not leave this room,” he ordered and then disappeared in a blur of speed before she had a chance to say anything.

  Another scream, but this time coming from somebody else. She grabbed her clothes and put them on in a rush, then ran to the window. Figures ran inhumanly fast towards the gate that separated her courtyard from the next one. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t around her building. Flashes of grey eyes glimmered in the night, and she realized there were more vampires in the compound than she had first thought. Now that something was happening—whatever it was—they were all rushing out to take care of it.

  A crack behind her made her jump. She turned around and found Miles standing near the bed. She hadn’t heard the door open but there he was, almost as if he’d materialized inside the room.

  She blinked. “What’s going on?”

  Miles didn’t move, didn’t flex a muscle. He was watching her intently, carefully, standing tall in his post. He was there as a guard. Either to protect her or to shield her from knowing what was going on outside. Either way, she didn’t like it.

  Another scream pierced the night, this time a shriek of agony that she knew wasn’t human. It was a maddening sound that seemed to go on forever into the night. Behind it, a deep roar exploded. The hunter and the prey. Except that this time she wasn’t sure who was hunting whom. The hairs on her arms stood up in response and panic engulfed her. She shivered and backed away from the window and towards the bed.

  Miles must have sensed her fear because he moved closer. “It’s OK. They can’t get in here.”

  They. She was suddenly very aware of her fragility as a human. Her thoughts flew back to the house and to her brother. Please be careful, she thought. She knew very well none of them looked over their shoulders when out during the day. They were loud, they were careless, they moved about without paying attention to the shadows around them.

  And then, all of a sudden, the compound was silent. So quiet, in fact, that she could hear her own ragged breath in the bleary air flowing into the room. Whatever had just happened was over and the silence following it was just as eerie as the sounds before had been.

  She turned around to face Miles, eager for an explanation.

  “Marcus will explain,” was all he could offer.

  The minutes that followed were overwhelmingly quiet. The shrieking was alive and whistling in her ears, which made the silence around her so much more glaring. She half-expected the sound to resume at any minute, but nothing happened. She was starting to back down towards the window when the door opened and Marcus appeared. His massive size filled the frame perfectly.

  His eyes looked for hers and she sensed the subtle change in the air of the room. Then she noticed the blood on his clothes and her heart skipped a beat. Her body started moving before her thoughts finished forming and she lunged forward, reaching for him.

  Then it clicked what she was doing and she stopped midway. “The blood?”

  Marcus looked at her closely, words hanging in between them.

  “Somebody got injured,” he finally responded, and there was a darkness to his voice she hadn’t heard before.

  Her mind was reeling with questions. Who? Why? What? She looked at both vampires standing right in front of her, trying to figure out what side they were on. What side she was on.

  And then the words were out before she could stop them. “I can help, I’m a doctor.”

  It wasn’t necessarily a dangerous secret to spill, but her original intention had been to remain neutral. Don’t get involved, don’t care about anybody. The more she got involved, the more real the place would become—and she didn’t want to have to worry about anybody when the time came to make a dangerous move.

  Marcus was still, his gaze frozen on her. There were questions in his eyes, but they never made it into words. Instead, he turned around towards Miles.

  “Go check with the guards. Find out where the breach happened.”

  When he returned his attention to her, there was a spark of something different in his eyes. Something that looked like… concern? She shook the idea off before it took hold.

  “Stay close to me at all times,” he ordered her, and she nodded.

  For once she was glad to be surrounded by vam
pires.

  Marcus whispered something to Miles and he disappeared again into the night.

  The compound was quiet but she didn’t have much time to contemplate the quietness, because Marcus was already marching towards the door. A chill ran down her spine and she swallowed hard.

  “Stay close,” Marcus repeated when they stepped out into the courtyard.

  She hadn’t paid much attention to the sounds of the compound the night before because she’d been in Marcus’ arms. It was hard to take notice of the world around when his hands were on her and her skin was on fire. However, she was almost sure the compound had never been this quiet. Even during the day, when most—humans and vampires—slept, you could still hear the buzzing of words and fabric moving around in the corridors. But there was nothing like that going on at the moment. Silver eyes were everywhere, but vampires moved about in whispering sounds. Unless you were expecting them to be there, you would never hear them. Humans, on the other hand, were scarce. In fact, she didn’t see a single person until they stepped into a smaller courtyard she had somewhat missed when surveying the compound.

  There, the scene was very different. There was a small body lying on the ground. An older woman was sobbing while another figure hovered nearby. Neither person seemed to be panicking, and that made the whole scene much more difficult to absorb. Isabelle’s mind flew back to the beginning of the invasion, when she’d lost people she loved. She remembered the panic, the desperation, the pain raging inside. The fact that these people weren’t feeling that was a clear sign of how things had changed. The loss of human life was no longer a major tragedy. It was something people had come to accept as inevitable, as something you witnessed daily.

  She rushed to the group, startling them in the process. The second figure, a frail-looking teen girl, stumbled back in surprise when she noticed the king standing there.

  “It’s OK,” Isabelle whispered without looking up.

  The body on the ground was a teenager. Her blonde hair was covered in blood and her clothes were half torn. She had major battle wounds, as well as lots of cuts and scrapes, probably from trying to fight her attacker. Belle suspected it hadn’t done much good, as there was blood everywhere. In fact, she couldn’t even find the source of the bleeding, because the girl was covered in blood.

  She looked up towards the two people standing there.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Lori,” the older woman whispered.

  Belle looked down, trying to get the girl’s attention.

  “Lori, can you hear me? Lori?”

  But Lori was in shock, her gaze frozen into the night.

  She looked up towards Marcus. “We need to get her somewhere inside, so I can check her wounds.”

  Before she could say anything else, Marcus picked the girl up without effort. He winced, and she wondered how much the smell and sight of blood was affecting him.

  The teen girl, on the other hand, was panicking, her eyes frozen on Marcus. “Don’t take her, don’t take her.”

  Isabelle reached forward and grabbed the girl’s hands. “I’m a doctor, I’ll do what I can.”

  And although it wasn’t exactly a lie, she wondered just how much she could do. Marcus was standing right by her side, loyal to the idea of not letting her out of his sight. She was wasting time trying to console these people, so she let go of the girl’s hands and turned to the king. There was an aura of power around him. He seemed bigger than usual, towering over all of them. At that very moment, there was nobody else she would rather have standing right beside her. And the realization was both incredibly powerful and scary.

  He nodded and started marching towards her building. His steps were effortless, as if the wounded girl weighed nothing in his arms. Belle wasn’t sure where they were going, but Marcus had an obvious destination in mind. When he got within feet of her bedroom door, he quickly turned left, confusing her for a second.

  And then he pushed the wall and a panel slid open. Belle’s heart skipped a beat. More secrets, she thought. So that was how they were all able to move around and turn up in different places unexpectedly. Suddenly all the extra space in the long, empty corridors made sense.

  She had been looking for answers in all the wrong places.

  The passageway behind the door was narrow and dark. Claustrophobic was an even better word for it. At any other time, she would have had trouble breathing because of the walls closing in on her. Right now, she could barely keep up with Marcus, so she had no chance to think about anything but trying not to trip in the dark and fall flat on her face.

  The corridor went on forever, and while she couldn’t exactly tell, it seemed like the floor was slanted downhill. Underground. She was going underground.

  “Marcus?”

  “We’re almost there,” he answered from a few feet in front of her and she picked up the pace.

  She was about to ask how much longer when she heard a soft click and then bright lights blinded her. She hurried into the new room and waited for a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the brightness. A soft metallic tang hung in the air, mixing with the smell of… antiseptic?

  As the blurriness slip away, the first thing she saw was the gurney in the middle of the room. Her gaze swiveled around, stopping for brief seconds on the metal instruments and the oxygen tanks. Where the hell was she?

  Marcus placed the girl on the metal table and drew back a couple of steps. She reached for the girl’s neck, searching for a sign of life.

  “She’s still alive,” Marcus said.

  “I can’t find her pulse.” She frantically probed with her fingers on the girl’s cold skin.

  “It’s there, I can hear it.”

  She searched for scissors in nearby drawers and started cutting the girl’s clothes as soon as she found a pair. She could hear her own heavy breathing in the quietness of the room. It was such an alien sound, it made her uneasy. To her, emergency rooms had a heavy buzzing to them—doors sliding, the squeaking and beeping of machines coming to life, the rattle of metal instruments hitting the trays. Here, it was just her. Lori was too far gone to make any sounds, and Marcus was breathing softly, no other sounds coming out of him as he observed her work around the table.

  “Can you tell where the blood is coming from?” she asked him.

  “Abdomen,” he responded, and she could hear the heaviness in his voice again.

  The thick smell of blood permeated the room.

  She reached around for rubber gloves and slapped them on, then slid her fingers over the girl’s pulsating stomach. There. A gash at least five inches long. Maybe more. She cleared the blood as best as she could, then examined the opening. It didn’t seem deep enough to have reached any organs, but without the proper equipment, it was impossible to tell.

  Lori’s breath was slowing down. She was slipping through Belle’s fingers and there was nothing she could do about it.

  ~*~

  Marcus couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He had been hoping for a glimpse of the real Isabelle, the one she had been before coming to the compound—and this was a bright flash into her world. Truth was, he was a lot more interested in what she was doing than in the girl on the gurney. Probably because the girl on the gurney wasn’t going to make it.

  The smell of blood held many clues. It could tell you when somebody was sick or full of life. It could give you clues into a person’s past and future.

  In the case of the girl in the room, the smell said death was close.

  Maybe a massive blood transfusion would save her. Maybe. But blood was in short supply and he wasn’t about to share what little they had. He didn’t know the girl well, but that wasn’t the reason why. In the end, his loyalty lay with the ones like him. He had a slightly better opinion of humans than Patrick did, but when it came time to make a choice, there were no questions as to where his loyalties were.

  Death took a step closer.

  Belle was still frantically trying to work a miracle, but the flo
w of blood was constant. It was also slowing down. Not because what she was doing was helping, but because the girl was running out of blood.

  Marcus shook his head. “Let her go, Belle. There’s nothing else you can do.”

  “No.” The certainty in her voice was in part conviction and in part challenge. She was telling him to stay out of it, to let her make her own decisions. But Marcus knew it was all just a waste of time and he just wanted to get her away from there.

  He wasn’t used to women—or to anybody, for that matter—telling him “no.” And right now, with all the chaos of the attack, it was the last thing he wanted to deal with. He had to get back to Miles and figure out exactly what had happened. He also needed to get her into a secure area so he could go out to attend to his business without having to worry about her.