“They’ll meet with Atticus tomorrow?”
Natalie nodded. “And probably Duncan as well. They’ll want to assure the newcomers that the human living quarters are off-limits to all but a few vampires and that those vamps pose no danger to them.”
“Do you have any immediate insights on pairings?”
Her friend tipped her head to one side and pursed her lips. “Maybe. There’s a blonde I think would put up with Leon’s formality, maybe even get him to loosen up a little.” She grinned. “She’s feisty.”
“Poor Leon.” Kimber smiled, and the two of them laughed.
“There’s more, and it’s really interesting.” Natalie paused, chewing on her lower lip.
Kimber raised an eyebrow. “Will we get to the interesting part soon? Or are you on fey time?”
Natalie’s lips twitched in a grin. “Two of them say they’re necromancers.”
Kimber’s heart sped up. “Really?” Excited at the thought of having someone else around who was like her, she wanted to go down right away to meet them, talk to them about everything. She paused as another emotion hit her. What if they were better than her? God knew they had to be lighter and fluffier than her, what with her holding evil incarnate inside of her. At least it felt that way most of the time. She looked at Natalie. “What did you think of them?” she asked.
Natalie drew in a breath. “I didn’t pick up any negative vibes, if that’s what you mean. They seemed okay. They want to meet you.”
Just like that, Kimber’s temper flared. She jumped to her feet with a low-throated growl. “Well, of course they want to meet the renowned Kimber Treat, vampire lover and bringer of apocalypses. Damn it!”
Natalie frowned. “I’m pretty sure they don’t think that, Kimber. They weren’t disrespectful or mean or anything.”
“Well, they wouldn’t be to you, would they? You decide if they get to stay or not, more so than me.”
“You’re the girlfriend of the vampire king, sweetie.” Natalie stood, her frown growing deeper. “I think that rank beats mine, which is only friend of the girlfriend of the vampire king.”
Make that the only friend, and it was a pretty accurate statement. At that realization, Kimber’s mad lost its steam. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she looked at Natalie, the other woman still wore an expression of concern, so Kimber hastened to reassure her. “I’m fine, Nat. Just pitching a small hissy, that’s all. I’m tired, I guess. It’s dark outside and my body thinks I should be sleeping, not running around doing…things.”
“Things” being her boinking the leader of the vampires while he was supposed to be working. Other than keeping Duncan satisfied in bed, Kimber had no real function here at the compound. Except to try to figure out how to stop the apocalypse. Since it was supernatural in nature and not viral, the zombies kept on coming. As long as people were stupid enough or unlucky enough to get bitten, the hordes continued to increase. Only by pushing the Unseen back into itself would the “contagion” be neutralized.
She hadn’t had much luck in doing that. Oh, she’d been able to put down a few zombies, but at such physical risk to herself that Duncan had finally ordered her to stop trying. He seemed fine with the idea that connecting Akron and Cleveland with a protected corridor would be the new reality, and the rest of the world could go to hell.
She just wasn’t ready to give up yet.
“Well, there’s nothing that says I can’t go down and say howdy to the newcomers.” She paused and grimaced. “Oh. Do you think they’re still up?” At Natalie’s shrug, Kimber said, “Well, I’ll find out, I guess, when I get down there.” As she headed for the door, she glanced at Natalie, who was right behind her. “You’re coming, too?”
Her friend covered a yawn and shook her head. “Knock yourself out, friend. I’m going to bed.” She walked out the door and said, “Oh, their names are Maggie and Jason.”
In the hallway the two women headed in opposite directions. Kimber went down to the lobby and headed toward the service stairs that would take her to the basement level where the non-paired humans were housed. As usual, there were vampire guards at that door, too.
“Fellas,” she greeted. “I’m going down to meet the newbies, if that’s all right.”
“Of course,” one of them replied. He punched in the code, keeping it hidden with his other hand, and pushed open the door for her.
“Thanks, Al.” She gave both guards a jaunty smile and went down the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she looked out over the large open area that served as a common room. Along one wall were a couple of old pinball machines and a foosball table. A Ping-Pong table was nearby, and next to it was a billiard table. Another wall was covered with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that were crammed with books of every genre, thanks to the Akron-Summit County Public Library system.
At this time of the morning there were only a few people lounging about on several sofas in the room. They looked up at her but didn’t say anything. She caught some wariness in their gazes along with a healthy dose of uncertainness. “Hey, welcome. I’m Kimber Treat.” She looked around the small group. “I’m looking for Maggie and Jason.”
Two people sitting on the couch closest to the corner by the bookshelves stood. “That’d be us,” the man said. He put his arm around the woman, and Kimber saw the roundness of her belly. She was pregnant. In the middle of an apocalypse.
She wouldn’t want to be her.
“You’re the head vamp’s mistress, aren’t you?” A burly man moved to block her as she headed toward the couple.
She stopped and looked up into his face. This guy wasn’t uncertain or afraid. He was pissed off. Well, he’d picked the wrong woman to go all He-Man over. Maybe she’d get some bitch-slapping in today after all.
When she didn’t reply, he took a step closer. “Well, are you?”
Now he was in her personal space and starting to piss her off. “You need to back up, my man.” It didn’t matter that he was at least half a foot taller than her and outweighed her by probably a hundred pounds. If he wanted to go, she’d give him what he was asking for. That bulbous nose of his looked like it needed rearranging.
“Answer the question.”
She put one hand on her hip. “Yes, I’m Duncan MacDonnough’s girlfriend.”
He leaned down and put his face a few inches from hers. “You take him a message for me, missy. Tell him Big Tom demands we be allowed to get out for some fresh air. He can’t keep us caged down here.” He gestured around with one big hand. “There aren’t even any windows.”
“Being down here is for your protection,” she said, repeating words she knew he’d heard before. “And you are allowed to get fresh air. It’s called the courtyard.”
He shook his head. “Not good enough. We want to go to the park. Throw a ball around. Play some football. We’re going crazy down here.” He backed up a few steps and hunched his shoulders. “Look, I’m sorry I got in your space like that. Would you please just talk to him?”
Damn it. No bitch-slapping to be had here, either. She drew a calming breath. “Sure. Look, he’s well aware of how you feel. He’s just trying to keep you safe without endangering others.”
“Right.” He shook his head and walked away, grumbling under his breath.
Kimber watched him for a moment, then continued over to the two necromancers. They shook hands in greeting and sat on the sofa while Kimber took a comfy armchair across from them.
“I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time,” Maggie said. Her voice was soft, her attitude sincere. “Your work before the Outbreak was the stuff of legends.”
Kimber stared at her. Uncomfortable with the hero worship she saw in the other woman’s eyes, she said, “Uh, thanks.”
“Of course, considering many people believe you started the apocalypse, you could probably say your work during the Outbreak was the stuff of legends, too.” Jason’s tone was as dry as autumn leaves.
“Yeah, thanks for that, too.” S
he shot him a glance.
“I didn’t say I believe it,” he added with a slight smile.
“Actually…” Maggie looked hesitant, her gaze darting from Kimber to Jason and back again.
“Actually what?” Kimber asked.
“We think we know how it happened. The Outbreak, I mean.”
Kimber leaned forward. Her heart thudded a staccato beat behind her ribs. “Tell me.”
“I knew a guy, another necromancer from Columbus, who was contacted by the former vampire leader.”
“Maddalene Vanderpool,” Kimber offered.
Maggie nodded. “Yeah. Anyway, she had this guy come up here to raise her dead lover, only something went wrong. He got a spark but needed more power, so Maddalene slit his throat and let him bleed out over her lover’s corpse. I guess she thought the blood would be enough to finish it, but she was wrong.” Her lower lip trembled for a moment before she gathered control of her emotions. “The necromancer died and the reanimation was aborted just before completion.”
“What does that have to do with the Outbreak?” Kimber asked. “And how do you know all this?”
Maggie swallowed. “I was there.” A sad half smile tilted one corner of her mouth. “I was the other necromancer’s apprentice.” Her gaze locked onto Kimber’s. “When did the Lazarus corpse you were dealing with go nuts on you and bite the ME?” she asked.
“The Monday before Thanksgiving, around nine in the evening.” Kimber tried to keep her mind from revisiting that awful night but, as usual, couldn’t. The man she’d revived in order to find out who’d killed him had brought along a little something extra, and before she could send him back to true death, he’d attacked the medical examiner, infecting him. From there the contagion had spread through bites. Flulike symptoms led to death, but then the dead came back. And all they wanted to do was eat other people.
“That’s the exact date and time David was trying to reanimate Eduardo,” Maggie said.
“I read a report where you documented what happened that night, how you believed something else had entered the Lazarus in addition to his soul,” Jason said.
“Yes.” Kimber couldn’t help the shudder that went through her. “It knew me, and it was dark. Evil.”
Maggie rested her elbows on her knees and studied Kimber. “I think it was the soul of Maddalene’s vampire lover.”
Kimber frowned. “How is that even possible?”
“Think about it. David—my necromancer master—didn’t have enough power to finalize the raising. And when his power was cut off, the vampire soul went where the power was.” She spread her hands. “You have always been the strongest, the best, of us. So it went to you and the Lazarus.”
Was it possible? She’d never been able to come up with any explanation for how everything had gone so wrong that night. Could it be because of Maddalene’s obsession with her dead lover? Raising murder victims to question them had become routine police work, so it wasn’t unusual that more than one reanimation at a time would occur.
She was almost afraid to hope. “It wasn’t my fault,” she whispered. She lifted her gaze to the couple sitting across from her. “It really wasn’t my fault.”
Maggie and Jason both grinned and settled against the back of the sofa. “It really wasn’t your fault,” Maggie affirmed.
A sense of well-being flooded Kimber. God, she wasn’t responsible for the zombie apocalypse. Wait until she told Duncan.
For the first time in months, things felt almost normal. She looked at Maggie. It was time to talk about something else. Time to focus on life instead of death. “When are you due?”
The other woman stroked a palm over her distended belly. “I’m finishing up my second trimester.” She looked at Jason with a smile. “Thank goodness the first trimester is over. I had continuous morning sickness.” She gave a wry grimace. “As in sick morning, noon, and night. It wasn’t fun, especially when we had to move on to stay ahead of a horde.”
“Well, you’re safe here.” Kimber glanced around the common area and saw that the three of them were the only ones left in the room. “I’ll let you two go on to bed. Let the guards know if you need anything or if you want to see me. I’ll try and stop by again soon.”
After exchanging goodbyes, Kimber headed back to her suite. Duncan’s office door was closed as she went by, so he must have been in that meeting with Vachon. She’d let him tell her how it went; then she’d spring her good news on him.
She took a quick shower and tumbled onto the bed, a wide grin making her cheeks ache. God. She felt good, even if she hadn’t gotten to smack anyone. She hadn’t started the apocalypse, but she still wanted to stop it if she could. Now that there were two more necromancers here, she might finally have a real chance to try.
Chapter Three
I agree,” Duncan said to Xavier Vachon. They had been in conference for over an hour now and had hammered out a reasonable division of duties between their two enclaves. Now they talked about some of the details. “Zombies appear to be linear movers—they don’t try to go up or under. Just straight ahead until something blocks their way. But if there are enough of them pushing against a fence, they could force it down. I want whatever we build to be sturdy enough to withstand a horde.”
The other vampire steepled his fingers and settled more comfortably in the leather armchair in front of Duncan’s desk. “I think going with concrete blocks would be our best bet. There’s a manufacturing facility in Oakwood Village where we should be able to get supplies.”
“Plus we can hit all the home improvement stores between here and Cleveland,” Duncan said. “I doubt many people were carting off concrete blocks when they were looting at the onset of the Outbreak.”
Xavier gave a small laugh. “Too true.” Letting his hands rest on the arms of the chair, he crossed his legs. “We should construct a corridor roughly six feet wide, I think, with secured entrances every three hundred yards or so, on each side of the corridor so we can gain entry at specific points along the line.”
“How tall were you planning on making the wall?”
“Oh, I thought six feet or so,” Xavier said. “Tall enough they can’t step over it, but not so tall that we can’t see what’s going on.”
That was the height Duncan had had in mind. “If we need to get out, we can go up and over, right? I’m not sure openings are advisable.”
“And if we’re carrying injured? It’s not impossible for our kind to heft someone over a six-foot wall, but at what cost to the injured person?”
Hmm. He had a point.
“Plus we may need to get out to scavenge, and hurling supplies over the wall may not be the optimal way to treat them.” A slight smile curled his lips to take away the sting of his sarcasm.
“All right, all right. Your point is taken.” Duncan grinned and gave a shake of his head. Xavier was intelligent and highly motivated to see to the safety of his people, just as Duncan was. And he recognized that both groups stood to gain much from this partnership. “My second, Atticus, is an excellent strategist. I’d like him involved in the actual design and construction of this corridor.”
“I have no problem with that.”
Duncan inclined his head in agreement.
“Now that that’s out of the way,” Xavier said, “I’d like to pick your brain about this donor system you have going on here.”
“Ah. That caught your interest, did it?” He was proud that he’d come up with the idea, even if there were some kinks to be worked out.
Xavier raised one dark brow. “Not just mine. I met with Audra Shane recently. She expressed interest as well for the Toledo enclave.” He leaned his head against the high back of the chair. “I imagine other vampire masters have heard of it, too.”
Duncan gave a shrug. It wasn’t a big deal. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do…well, if you consider ‘always’ being since the Outbreak.” He grinned. “But if we have humans here willing to provide nourishment to us, we don’t ha
ve to endanger ourselves with the hunt. And the humans are safer here than out there.” He gestured toward the outer wall with its tall bank of windows.
“How do you convince them?”
“It helps that a few of the humans have been with us for the last eight or nine months and can attest that we’re not vicious animals fanging everything in sight.”
Xavier snorted. “That does seem to be the prevailing attitude, doesn’t it?” He shook his head, his expression reflecting his dismayed amusement at the vagaries of humans. “Audra seemed to think it might be as simple as that. I’m not sure how much success she would have with it, though.”
“Why do you say that? What’s going on with her enclave?”
“They moved from Toledo to Put-in-Bay. Surrounded by water, they’re quite safe from zombies, but the humans living there weren’t too happy to suddenly be overrun by vampires.” He stretched his legs in front of him. “We’ve set up a routine boat service between their island and our enclave, providing them with materials they need and food for the humans. That helps her cause. She sends me manpower as she can. Of course, being on an island means she’s limited to the number of vampires and humans she can house, but she would still like information on your recruiting methods.”
“I’ll be happy to provide it, such as it is. All we do, really, is talk to them.” He leaned back in his chair. “I have to be honest. Right now we’re having problems with some of the humans. They resent being cooped up, even though it’s for their own safety. They want to be allowed to go outside—to a park of all places. I’m not giving them permission, and that has some of them up in arms.”
Xavier inclined his head. “I’ll pass all that along. Now”—he set both feet on the floor and rested his elbows on his knees—“when do I get to meet the infamous Kimberly Treat?”
Vampire's Thirst (The Awakening Series) Page 3
