by Laken Cane
There were vials of holy water, cloves of garlic, and silver crosses attached to silver chains. Rune had never used those little items and had no idea if they would even work for her.
Silver was deadly to Others but didn’t really bother her. Her monster, though. It bothered her monster.
Ignoring Raze as he armed himself, she took in the sights. It was a beautiful place. November in Spiritgrove meant dead grass and leafless trees, but Wormwood was green. Deep, dark greens, vivid colors, sweet-smelling scents.
Still, the facade of warmth and peace was just that—a facade. Death lived in the graveyard, and fear. A few humans had told her Wormwood possessed such an overpowering sense of Otherness it was often difficult to slog through the graveyard.
But it was a beautiful place. Eerily so.
Now she was about to take her crew into that beauty and purge it of vampires. She was going to insult it, violate it, desecrate it. Wormwood would never accept her.
Levi and Denim arrived, both in the same vehicle. Usually Denim drove the old red truck and Levi drove a battered black Cavalier. Maybe now that they were making money they’d get themselves some decent rides. She’d noticed Levi eyeing her SUV with envy in his green eyes.
Jack and Z arrived soon after, and lastly, Sherry. She was a big woman with a shaved head and a dozen painful-looking piercings. She had a big mouth and not a spot of loyalty to the crew, but she could shoot and was familiar with staking vamps. She owned a vgun and even had her own kill kit.
“Okay,” Rune said. She headed toward the huge old gates, tightening her stake belt as she went. “It will be dark in two hours. Let’s purge these dudes and get the hell out.”
Sherry strode up beside Rune and cracked her knuckles. “Yeah! Let’s have some fucking fun, motherfuckers.”
Rune glanced around to check the twins. She wasn’t sure they were ready for staking vampires, but they’d said they were and she’d let them prove it. And if they weren’t… Well, it would be a good learning experience.
She pushed open the moss-covered wrought iron gate. “Let’s do this.”
“Be careful, Rune,” Z said, because he was Z.
She winked at him and pulled her vgun. If there was any lingering guilt over the cold killings, she ignored it. There was no room for anything in the field but concentration and skill.
They went through the gates and fanned out slightly. Z was on her left, Sherry on her right, and they were followed by the twins. Jack and Raze came last.
It would take them about ten minutes to reach the stone church if they jogged, and she didn’t want to waste time. She set the pace and they followed, alert for attacking Others.
Wormwood was full of them.
They made it to the old stone church with no attacks, though the air was suddenly full of expectation and danger. By then, every Other inside Wormwood knew they were there.
The vampires were the least liked among Others. Master vampires usually dealt with all Others as though they were his vampire children. That caused a lot of resentment—especially with the wolves, who hated the vampires anyway.
Because of that, chances were none of the Others would attack the humans when they discovered they were there to purge the vampires.
Too bad for the vampires.
“How do we reach them?” Z asked.
Rune shrugged. “He didn’t say. Just that they’re under the church.”
“Tear that bastard down brick by brick,” Sherry shouted. “Let me at the mother—”
“Shut up, Sherry,” Rune said, her voice mild but her eyes narrow. She got tired fast of hearing bullshit from the bald lady.
Sherry shut up.
Satisfied, Rune looked at Jack. “You and the twins go inside and see if there’s a way down. Try to radio me if you find anything.” Cell phones didn’t work inside Wormwood, and the radios were hit and miss. Usually miss. “Z, Sherry, and I will go around back. Raze, check for tracks.” She hesitated. “Do you want one of the twins?”
Raze snorted. “No.”
Truthfully, he wouldn’t need a second man with him. He was Raze, after all.
Jack opened his mouth. “I don’t—”
“Jack, take the twins and go. Raze is going to end up around back with us anyway.”
Men were such prideful creatures.
Z and Sherry followed her to the back of the church. Before they were halfway there, an Other stepped from the shadows of the pines.
Sherry pulled her gun and dropped to one knee, her eagerness to get a kill obvious.
“Put the gun away,” Z said. “It’s just Gunnar the Ghoul.”
“Gunnar? The ghoul?” Sherry put her gun away, looking like a kid whose candy had been stolen.
“You haven’t met Gunnar?” Rune asked. “Come then, I’ll introduce you.”
“No thanks,” Sherry replied. She actually shuddered. She wanted to kill Others, not talk to them.
Gunnar was the one Other Rune actually enjoyed. Of course, if he hurt a human, she’d snap his spine, but he amused her. And he was enamored of her.
“Hello, Your Highness,” he said when she stood in front of him. “Which beastly beasts are you after this lovely evening?”
“Vampires, baby.”
He shuddered delicately, putting a long-fingered hand to his mouth.
She imagined that in another time he might have been a good-looking man, but now he was just undead hideous. His hair was black and stringy and fell into his hollow face without hiding a damn thing. His thin body was long and bony.
She never asked him where he got his clothing—most likely off the corpses he had for supper—but he seemed fond of fashion, putting together outfits that complemented his patchy complexion and what he surely thought of as his tragic circumstances.
That day he wore a long green jacket, the ends of which trailed nearly to the backs of his knees in tattered tails. He’d fastened a wide black belt around his middle, and wore dirty yellow breeches that were three inches too short for him. His footwear consisted of faded black boots covered with graveyard mud.
“What do you have for me?” she asked.
“Well, now, Your Invaluableness, that depends on what you have for Gunnar.”
She rummaged around in one of her pockets as he waited with clasped hands and an eager, hopeful smile.
“Here you go, sexy,” she said, and tossed him a king-size Baby Ruth candy bar.
He caught it and held it to the side of his face, rubbing his cheek over it as though it were a puppy. “Thank you, Your Semipreciousness.”
She folded her arms. “Talk to me, Gunnar. The vampires are going to wake up on me. That wouldn’t be good.”
“No, that wouldn’t be good,” he agreed. He glanced behind her at Z and Sherry, causing Rune to throw a look over her shoulder. Z appeared calm and slightly amused, but Sherry stared with her mouth open and her eyes wide.
Rune frowned at her. “I thought you were a badass, Sherry. Are you scared of Gunnar?”
Sherry shook her head. “No. I guess you could say I’m more…stunned. I’ve never seen a ghoul. Not one like him, anyway.”
“What’s that mean?” Z asked.
“I’ve seen pictures of ghouls, and they all were naked and had rotting skin. They didn’t talk and eat candy bars.” She seemed almost offended.
Rune laughed, softening just a little toward the floater. “He’s special, our ghoul.”
“He’s still ugly as fuck, though,” Sherry added.
Rune sighed. So much for that. She turned back to Gunnar, whose lips were pressed in a tight line, his nose in the air. But she hadn’t time to pacify him. “Tell me what you’ve got, baby, or I’m going to take back the chocolate.”
He snapped his gaze to her face and hid the candy behind his back. “I will tell you where the vamps rest, Your Ignoramusness, if that will suit you.”
It would make things a hell of a lot easier. She nodded. “That would be a big help.”
“You kno
w,” he said, “I am similar to a vampire. You would never come after me, would you?”
“Only if you gave me a reason to.”
He frowned, not quite satisfied with her response. But Gunnar was a smart ghoul. He pursed his lips, then gave her the information she wanted. “Back to the front, dearie. There is a row of lovely little gold rings under each window. The last window on the right, middle ring. Pull it and you’ll find your vampires.” He blew her a kiss. “Good luck, Your Scrumptiousness.” He turned and disappeared back into the trees, where she imagined he would enjoy his Baby Ruth.
“Let’s go,” she said, and jogged back around to the front.
Raze rounded the corner just as she pulled the ring and revealed a small opening into the depths of what could be called hell.
Killing was killing, and if the vampires had been awake and able to fight back she would have thought nothing of it—it was a sanctioned killing to protect humans. Dammit. Gunnar had put thoughts back into her head that had no business being there.
The entrance to the nest was a long, rough climb down. There were small, choppy steps the vampires would have no trouble with—some of them could probably have dropped down and ignored the steps. But for a human it was a little tricky. She hoped the crew would give her ample time to reach the bottom before they plowed into her. Raze could crush a person.
“Careful, Raze,” she said. “Your feet are three times bigger than these steps.”
She kept one hand on her gun and the other trailing the wall for balance. The cold stone was moldy and covered with damp slime and God knew what else, but it was better than falling into the vampires below.
It was dark in the nest. When she finally reached the bottom she felt for her goggles, breathing easier when they were firmly on and she could see again.
She wasn’t afraid of the dark, but it did make her claustrophobic.
Z, then Raze, and finally Sherry joined her. Even though the vampires were asleep, her crew had been trained to keep the silence. If the master were down there, it wouldn’t have been impossible for him to smell the humans or hear their voices. Not likely, but not impossible. He might even feel the threat and rise to greet it.
She backed up, reaching for her radio to call Jack and the twins. She tripped over a body and down she went, radio flying from her hand. “Fuck,” she whispered. Are they all just lying willy-nilly across an open floor?
But no, they weren’t. What she’d tripped over was a drained, dead human. A familiar fist of rage beat at her brain.
Now she had her justification.
Z knelt upon the floor, knowing the woman was dead but still trying to find a pulse.
They’d carry her up after they’d destroyed the vampires, and SLE would find her family. Suddenly it was hard for Rune to breathe. She swallowed past the lump in her throat, forced images she was not willing to see from her mind, and went with grim determination to kill some vampires.
Chapter Seven
The ever-eager floater carried out the first staking of the day.
“It’s like an Easter egg hunt,” Sherry whispered.
“Don’t be an idiot.” Rune put her vgun to a sleeping vampire’s chest and pulled the trigger. She tried to ignore the eyes that suddenly flipped open as the vampire awakened and realized, in its last few seconds of what passed for life that its existence was ending. Quickly she pulled her razor-sharp blade, took the head, and tossed in onto the growing pile in the middle of the floor.
It took mere seconds to completely execute a vampire. At least when they were sleeping. When awake, things would have been a little more…tense.
Most of the vampires they killed appeared to be starving—barely any blood was released from the decapitations. Rune remembered conversations in which Llodra was said to be a harsh and cruel master.
Raze bent down to whisper in her ear. “There’s another room full of them through that doorway.”
“They’re all starved,” she said, her voice low. “Why aren’t they feeding?”
He shrugged. “Llodra.”
They’d all heard the stories. “I’m going to pay him a visit soon.”
“Why?”
She pulled back a little, confused. Why indeed? Why had her first thought been sympathy for the vampires and anger toward Llodra? She was there to kill them, not to negotiate a better life with their master. “I…” She shook her head. “Let’s go end them and get this done.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and she could practically feel his curiosity. But she couldn’t explain. Deep inside her, flickers of affinity and a strange reluctance to kill the monsters rose up to slap her in the face.
“Let’s go,” he finally replied, and with his light motioned Z and Sherry to join them. Once they’d finished their work they’d leave the vampires where they lay. The bloodless, headless monsters would be piles of dust in mere hours.
In the next room the sleeping vampires lay in hollows in the ground—but these vampires were sleeping in pairs.
Some of them were spooning, and she spotted a few couples sleeping with their arms around each other, like lovers.
“That’s weird,” Sherry said, prodding one of the vampires with her vgun. “They don’t have feelings, but it looks like—”
“What do you mean they don’t have feelings, Sherry? You know better than that.” Rune’s heartbeat picked up, and she took a deep breath as for an instant, the room swam.
“What’s wrong?” Z peered down at her, adjusting his goggles.
“Fuck,” she whispered. “I don’t know.”
A wave of dizziness hit her again, and she doubled over from a sharp pain in her stomach. She gagged, and before she could slap up the steel walls around her thoughts—those terrifying thoughts—they burst free.
She cried out in horror, more afraid than she could ever remember being. She was losing control. Someone was messing with her—some metaphysical monster—and she couldn’t fight it. Whatever it was.
“Stop it,” she yelled.
Raze picked her up and threw her to Z. “Get her the fuck out of here. Send Jack. We’ll finish the rest.”
Before Raze had finished speaking Z tossed her over his shoulder and began to jog from the room.
But hanging upside down over his back she caught a glimpse of something, something so wrong, so impossible, she could barely process it.
She fought her way out of Z’s arms and fell to the ground, trying to breathe. “Oh my God.”
Z dropped to his knees beside her, and she vaguely heard Raze muttering almost frantically to Jack on his radio. Sherry went calmly about her business, staking vampire couples.
Rune looked once again into the trench holding two vampires.
One was her mother, and the other was her father.
The adoptive parents she’d murdered when she was a child were lying in the dark, musty ground in front of her. Vampires.
She lost it.
Her parents. Her parents.
She’d turned them. She’d made them vampires.
She’d spent her life taking out her secret when she could no longer force it to hide, agonizing over it, crying, hurting herself to ease some of the unimaginable horror and guilt…
She’d taken out their photos as well, studying the worn pictures, tracing her finger over features she could no longer recall.
She couldn’t remember their faces, but she remembered their love.
And she’d not only murdered them—she’d made them.
Raze now knelt on her other side. She looked at him and giggled, then moaned.
“My mama,” she said, imploring. “Raze?”
He thought she’d taken leave of her senses. They all did. He glanced over her head at Z. “Z is going to take you out of here, sweetheart. Okay? Go with Z.” His voice hardened as he spoke to Z. “Get her the fuck out of here.”
Raze and Z knew she’d lost her parents to a monster. They didn’t know she was the monster. That would go to the grave with he
r. Not that she deserved to keep her secret shame to herself.
Sherry appeared suddenly in the dark of her tunnel vision, pushed her vgun to Rune’s mother’s chest and pulled the trigger.
Mama’s eyes popped open, and in that millisecond, she saw Rune.
“Baby,” she said. That one word was full of torment, full of agony.
Rune felt her mind slip away.
In one quick, smooth flash of silver, Sherry lifted her shiv to take the female’s head.
Rune didn’t realize she’d pulled her vgun, but it was suddenly in her hand, and she was frantically pulling the trigger, over and over. She had to stop Sherry. Sherry was killing her mother.
Sherry leaped out of the way. Dropping to her knees with a freakish calm, she pulled her gun on Rune.
Z tackled Rune, and Raze went for Sherry.
All Rune could do was scream. Oh God, how to make them understand? How to make them stop, just stop. She fought Z, fought him with skill and desperation. Some cold part of her seemed to separate from her body and stand with crossed arms and dark eyes, watching.
She didn’t want to hurt Z. She didn’t.
But they were killing her parents.
There was no time to calmly explain to them, to try to regain her authority and forbid them from staking any other vampires. No. All she could do was fight and watch her mind break a little more.
But Z was stronger than she was, and he was terrified.
He forced her to the floor, whispering her name even as he held her down.
Her face was turned toward the hollow in which her parents lay. Even staked, there was still a small chance Llodra could bring her mother back. But most likely she was too young, too weak, and he would not care.
Sherry and Raze fought on. Sherry was raging. “Motherfucker! You fucked-up motherfuckers!”
“Knock her the fuck out and get over here, Raze,” Z yelled.
Rune struggled harder. She couldn’t think. She just needed to get up, to go get her parents, to save them.
She’d been given a second chance.
And deep inside her, her monster stirred. Maybe that was a good thing, because she automatically concentrated on controlling it, and that forced her to still. To think.
