by Phil Tucker
"Yeah," said Dominique, "Yes, he is."
"No," said McKnight. "Vampire. In the hit squad. Grabbed Chico."
Selah eased off the gas. Their intersection was coming up. She shook her head, trying to think. It was all happening too fast. "That means this is one of those new elite squads. The government ones."
McKnight snorted. "Elite my ass."
"Here, turn here," said Dominique.
Selah did so, slowing down to a measly twenty-five miles an hour and sawing the car around to take the right. They were close now. She recognized the street.
Accelerating once more, she drove down the broad street. The office buildings were set far back from the road, surrounded by large parking lots and swathes of grass, trees bordering each lot and separating it from its neighbor. It had seemed bland and cheerful during the day. Now, pushing nine o'clock, its silence and stillness made for an ominous backdrop.
"There, on the left. That's it."
Selah slowed again and drove into the parking lot. God, she wished Lee or Gordon were with them. She kept checking in the side mirror, but there was still no sign of the car. Maybe they had lost them. She drove right up to the front door, parked, and jumped out.
McKnight was hit pretty bad. Blood had soaked through her shirt over her stomach, and she had tremendous difficulty getting out of the car. Dominique rushed to the door, punched in a security code, and yanked the door open. Selah slipped under McKnight's arm and took as much of her weight as she could. Together, they staggered through the door just as the second car pulled into the parking lot behind them.
Dominique stepped in right after them and pulled the door closed. She entered a second code and the doors locked. "Magnetic locks," she said. "We're safe for now."
McKnight slid out of Selah's grasp to the floor. Dominique was immediately by her side. "We need to get her to a hospital," she said. "She's going to die if we don't."
The front door exploded inward. The entire section of wall around it burst in with a mind-rending roar as the front of a car rammed through it, sending shattered brick, dust, and chunks of cement flying through the air. Selah screamed and fell down, landing hard on her ass and then rolling over onto her side, arms over her face. She was stunned, couldn't think, but she forced herself to rise to all fours then her feet, not knowing which way was what, knowing that she had to move, had to keep going. Dominique was hauling McKnight away from the wreckage, and inside the crumpled shell of the car Selah could see a vague form stirring behind the wheel, its shape and outline indistinct in the thick pall of dust.
She stumbled toward Dominique and helped her lift McKnight once more. The Sergeant was out, face pale, eyes closed. They both got under her arms and began to hurry down the hall, Dominique's breath almost a sob as they fought to gain speed. Selah tried to look behind them, but McKnight's arm prevented her from doing so. More bricks cascaded down from the ceiling above the door, crashing onto the rubble.
"Where we going?" she yelled.
"Here, down here! To the lab!"
They ran down the corridor, took a left. Selah thought she could hear footsteps behind them. Doors lined the walls and Dominique stopped at what seemed a random one. She typed in a code, hauled the heavy door open, and they stepped inside. She immediately turned around and pulled the door closed, then sagged against it and flicked on the lights.
They were in a small lab. Equipment lined the surface of the countertops that followed the walls around, and the center of the room was divided by an equally busy island. Cupboards were placed in a continuous line above the counters and the air was filled with a charged, whirring sound.
"Here," said Dominique. "Help. We have to get her up." She cleared a table top with a sweep of her arm, sending metallic objects and books crashing the floor, and then, together, they lifted McKnight onto the surface. Dominique seemed to know what to do--she immediately checked McKnight's breathing, tilted her head back to open her mouth, and then pulled up her shirt to reveal a blood-drowned bullet hole just above her hip. She ran to a cupboard, pulled out a first aid kit, and came back. Opened it, fingers shaking, and ripped open a large pad of gauze. "Here," she said, handing it to Selah. "Press down hard on the bullet hole."
Selah did so, and the white weave of the gauze quickly sopped up the blood and turned a crimson. Somebody knocked on the door and then pounded onto it with their fist.
"Don't worry," said Dominique, voice quavering, "That's a fire door. Metal. Nobody's getting through." She continued to rifle through the kit and pulled out a packet. Read it with feverish speed, and then tore it open. "All right, pull off the gauze. I'm going to pour this in. Should help with clotting. Then put the gauze back on and don't take it off again no matter what. Lift it!"
Selah did so and jumped as a second pound shook the door. She looked over her shoulder. The last attack had distended the vertical surface of the door, caused a dent the size of a football to bulge inward with horrid Cubist angles.
"Selah! Press down!"
She looked back. White crystals lay thick over the bullet hole, and she immediately pressed the gauze back down. Dominique rushed to another closet and pulled out a tartan blanket, which she draped over McKnight. Again, she checked the Sergeant's breathing, then her pulse. She shook her head and tears began to brim in her eyes. "She needs help. She can't stay here."
Another pound shook the door. Then a third. Selah looked over her shoulder again. The door was beginning to buckle inward. "Dominique. That door isn't going to hold."
Dominique pushed the base of her palms against her temples. Blood smeared her brow. "Wait. Wait. She might have an exit wound. We need to cover that too. Oh God."
More blows. The door was groaning and wrenching under each one. "Dominique! Focus! What can we use in here against him? It's Theo! He's coming in!"
Dominique shook her head, blinking rapidly, looking down at McKnight. "Airway. Breathing. Circulation. Disability or deformity. Exposure."
Selah looked down at the pad. It was saturated with blood. She reached for the first aid kit, plucked out another packet of gauze, ripped it open with her teeth, and pulled free the fresh gauze which she pressed down over the red one.
"Dom! Help me! Do we have any acid? Or what else is there here?"
"Acid?" Dominique blinked. "We might have some hydrochloric acid. But in small quantities. Not enough."
"All right. Okay. What else? What about the centrifuges? The vaccine? Is that here?"
"The vaccine? Yes. This is the lab I was working in. The centrifuges are over there." Dominique pointed to a box on the counter.
Selah wanted to scream. Dominique had to be going into shock because she just stood there doing nothing. "Then put the vaccine into a syringe or something! Hurry!"
"But they're not done spinning yet," said Dominique. "And we should check for an exit wound."
Selah released the gauze padding and ran over to where Dominique had pointed. The door took another blow and metal squealed under it. She hesitated over a small white box the size of a rice cooker, and tried to flip open the lid. It wouldn't open. She stared at the small LCD screen and pressed a red button. The whirring within slowed, came to a sudden stop. The lid came up. She looked down at the blue-capped heads of what looked like a dozen tubes. Pulled one free and held it up to the light. Dense, white, cloudy matter was concentrated at the end, while a half-inch of clear liquid atop it.
Selah turned back and saw that Dominique was pressing with both hands on McKnight's gauze padding. The door was a crooked mess that was barely hanging onto its hinges and she could see hints and flashes of Theo beyond it. She rushed back to the first aid kit, drew out a syringe in plastic wrap and tore it free.
Theo hit the door with both fists, bringing them down like twin sledgehammers, and the door burst free of its hinges, slamming down with a crashing boom onto the linoleum. Dominique screamed and tried to skirt away, but refused to take her hands off McKnight. Selah forced herself to focus. She bit off the top o
f tubes' blue caps and inserted the needle into the clear fluid. Backing away from Theo, she pulled the plunger up with as much care as her shaking hands could manage.
Theo paused only to stare around the room, and then he blurred in that impossible, terrifying manner of his, suddenly appearing before Selah, one hand clamped around her throat. It felt like having a car door slammed on her neck. He lifted her off the ground with ease, raised her high so that her feet were kicking a foot and a half off the ground, the tube falling from her fingers as she scrabbled at his hand, momentarily panicked, the pain and constriction calling forth the most primitive of instincts.
"Now I have you," said Theo, his breath stinking of old blood. "Now we can end this. Now we can both know peace."
He bared his fangs, his black eyes flat and dead like those of a shark, and began to bring her toward him. Selah's eyes were flooding with water, she couldn't breathe, couldn't think, but with one desperate jab, she buried the needle in his shoulder, jamming it in with all her strength, and slammed down the plunger.
Theo didn't react. He hissed with pain as if he had been briefly touched by a white-hot pan, the kind of burn that will leave a fine welt, but that was all. Selah kicked out as hard as she could, but it felt like kicking a wall. It was futile. She knew he was too strong. He reached out and gripped her shirt by the hem, tearing it off in one violent stroke. She felt his nails caress the spot over her heart, and all she could think, all she could manage as her vision grew lurid and filled with incandescent dancing motes of red and blue, was Oh God, please, not now, not yet.
Theo suddenly faltered, lowering her to the ground, but keeping his grip on her neck. Selah managed to squeeze in a whistling breath and her vision momentarily cleared. His black skin was slick with blood sweat. He was clenching and unclenching his jaw, blinking rapidly. A surge of hope rushed through her, and then he let go of her altogether and staggered back, crashing into the central island, his outstretched arm knocking textbooks and equipment to the floor. He supported himself for a moment, and then slipped and fell.
Selah sank to her knees, hands at her throat, gasping, whistling for breath. Her throat was aflame, throbbing and still impossibly tight. She coughed, gasped, almost retched. Watched Theo with terror and hope. He was sitting with his legs kicked out, back against a table leg, staring stupidly at his palms which were smeared with his own blood. Dominique stood behind him, an empty syringe in her hand, staring down at him with revulsion.
"What is happening to me?" Theo's voice was quiet. Not panicked, not terrified. More dazed than anything else.
Selah forced herself to her feet, swaying as if she might fall over again, and tottered around to stand next to Dominique and hold on to her arm. She stared down at Theo. The blood sweat was growing worse, small beads joining to run in miniature rivulets down the side of his face. His clothing was sticking to him now, and blood ran from his ears, nostrils, and the corners of his eyes.
She stood frozen. The moments passed by, measured by the sterile ticking of a wall clock, and Theo sat still, silent, his body being ravaged from within. She gripped Dominique's arm with terrified intensity, not sure she could believe what was happening. Sure on some primitive level that he would simply force himself to rise once more and finish the job.
Instead, he gasped, exhaling a mist of crimson into the air, and let his head sag back against the table leg. Closed his eyes. Blood pooled in the hollow of his neck, the delicate troughs above his collarbones. His mouth was seamed in blood and brilliant flecks of vermillion spotted the floor around him.
He opened his eyes. "Selah," he said. There was a tone of entreaty in his voice that she had not heard before. "Selah."
She tore herself away from Dominique and walked around him, to stand before him at a distance of three yards. He looked up at her and she saw that the blackness of his eyes was fading, looking like morning mist before the sun. Even as she stared down at him, she saw his sclera lighten to gray, his irises warm to a dense and nut-hued brown.
"Selah," he whispered, voice choked.
"I'm here," she said, and slowly lowered herself down to one knee. He didn't track her with his eyes, but continued to stare blindly up at the ceiling.
"Selah. I don't know what's happening to me."
"You're dying, Theo." She felt tears prick her eyes once more. Gone was that flat hunger, that predatory need. Instead, she sensed that he was back, the Theo that she had known, perhaps even a Theo that predated his vampiric self. For a moment, even as he died, there was a new cast to his features, a rounding and gentling of his expression that made him seem a mortal man.
"I love you, Selah. My Sethe, my light in the darkness. I'm sorry. I'm so ... sorry."
Selah felt a sob rise up within her, and moved forward. She reached out and cupped his cheek, the harsh scarred cheek that had haunted her so since she had first met him back in the dark streets of Miami. He placed his hand over hers and squeezed it gently.
"Theo." She couldn't think of anything to say. Nothing that could encapsulate the heartbreak she was feeling. Her terror was sluicing into pity, into a profound heart-wrenching sorrow for him, for McKnight, for everybody she knew and loved that had been damaged or killed by this vampiric curse.
"You have to be strong," he whispered. He was starting to shiver, the vibration almost imperceptible. "End times are coming. Final hour. You need to be strong. You can do what needs to be done. You are beautiful and good. No more doubts. Reckoning."
She felt the tears overflow and run down her cheek. Flashes of memory came to her. Dancing with him in Miami that very first night. Fighting alongside him against Sawiskera. Their quiet conversation in the Japanese garden in LA. That horrific final dawn when he had given her his heart. The ancient pain he had carried through his entire unlife.
"I will," she said. "I promise, Theo. I will."
"Selah," he said. She saw that his eyes had turned a perfect white mere moments before he closed them. "Sethe."
He grew still. His hand fell away from her own and his head rolled away from her palm. Blood dropped from the edge of his chin. Selah stared at him and pulled her hand back, cradling it with the other. Dominique breathed in rapid, shallow breaths, and Selah forced herself to stand. She blinked, rubbed her forearm across her eyes, and looked to the other woman.
"Rebecca," said Dominique, and turned back to McKnight. "Oh, no," she said as she touched the side of McKnight's neck. "No, no, no."
Selah moved to her side and placed her hands on the gauze, pressing down once more. McKnight's face had become waxen and she was breathing in an irregular manner. Dominique turned to the wall and activated an Omni, punching in an emergency code. The Omni's screen flashed red three times and a young man's face appeared.
Dominique began to explain their situation and Selah turned to McKnight. Tried to find her pulse, found it fluttering and weak. Blood was pooled beneath her and had started to drip off the side of the table. So much blood. Selah stared down helplessly at McKnight's face and a wave of anger rolled through her. The young man was explaining that they would send an armored ambulance as soon as they could, but it might taken up to fifteen minutes to reach them. He was asking Dominique if the victim was breathing. If she had a clear air passage. Dominique was yelling at him, telling him to get a damn ambulance over to the lab immediately.
Selah released the gauze pad. McKnight was leaving them. She felt it deep within her bones, deep within her soul. These were her final moments. The span of her life had reached its end, and this was it.
"Rebecca," she said, leaning down close to whisper it in her ear. "Rebecca. Thank you. Thank you so much. For your help. For everything." Nothing seemed adequate. She took McKnight's hand and squeezed it tightly. Ran her other hand through McKnight's blond curls. All toughness was gone from the Sergeant's face. That implacable attitude that made it seem like she could endure anything, overcome any obstacle.
Not this time.
Selah held her hand tightly and smooth
ed down her hair, watching McKnight as her breaths came slower and slower. They were just little gasps at the end, separated by five, six, seven seconds. Little hitches of the chest. Dominique returned and took McKnight's other hand. Together, the two women watched as McKnight died. And when her final breath came and no other was taken, they hugged each other and wept.
Awareness crept back, and with it, a cold, mind-clearing fury. Selah pulled free from Dominique and ran her forearm across her face, wiping away the tears. They had to move. They had to keep going. She crossed the lab and pulled out each vaccine ampoule. Pocketed them all and then turned back to her friend.
"Dominique, we have to go. We can't be here when the ambulance arrives." Dominique blinked away her tears and looked up at her, overwhelmed. Selah walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Dominique, come on. We've got to end this war."
VAMPIRE REVOLUTION will be published in April 2014.
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Coming in April:
Vampire Revolution
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Other Books by Phil Tucker
The Human Revolt Series
Vampire Miami
Vampire LA
Vampire Redemption
Vampire Revolution (coming soon)
High-Octane Demon Hunting
The Grind Show
Psychological Horror
