Reborn

by Kate Danley

  His cover blown, Jake ran to warn Matt and the others. He raced around the building, towards the front entrance, but the damn decoys were there to intercept him. He slashed at them with his knife and got the woman pretty good across the cheek. Then more people closed in behind him. Hands grabbed his arms and covered his mouth. He struggled, but it was no use.

  The woman in the suit approached him. In an almost affectionate gesture, she placed a hand on his cheek. Jake stopped struggling.

  “How many are in the lab and what kind of weapons do they have?” she asked.

  # # #

  “We can test it in the field,” Matt insisted. “Find someone who’s decomposing and inject him with the virus.”

  “You mean, after exposure?” asked Amelia. “As a cure?”

  He nodded. “It worked that way in North Dakota.”

  “So we might be able to save people even after they start to rot,” said Tanis. This had been an ongoing source of contention between her and Matt. He was adamant that once the Dark Man’s evil had taken hold in someone, that person was irretrievably lost. Tanis refused to abandon the hope that he was wrong.

  The window behind her shattered. She ducked instinctively as the crowbar struck again, widening the hole in the glass. Two men climbed through, one carrying a switchblade and the other with a heavy wrench.

  Matt grabbed his ax, never far out of reach, and aimed a blow at the bigger man, who dodged it. He thrust the switchblade at Matt, but it was a clumsy move, easy to avoid. This man clearly wasn’t a slick professional from the university. He wasn’t decomposing and his eyes didn’t even glow. Same with the other guy. Tanis wondered who the hell was trying to kill them now.

  Matt planted his ax in the man’s chest and shouted to the Mendelsohns, “Gather your work! We’re leaving!” The virologist and his wife began cramming slides and petri dishes into a metal sample case.

  More people were streaming in through the window, ordinary-looking people wielding odd, improvised weapons like golf clubs and kitchen knives. Tanis wanted her claw hammer but, of course, she’d left it in her knapsack. Which she’d put down somewhere when she came into the lab. She hadn’t yet mastered the state of constant readiness that Matt obviously had.

  As the second man came at her with the wrench, she grabbed the closest thing at hand, a satisfyingly heavy microscope, and swung it into his chin. Tanis heard something break inside the scope and in the guy’s face. He didn’t react, didn’t cry out in pain. He just looked at her vacantly, blood oozing from his mouth. There was no malice in his eyes, no emotion at all. So what was driving him to attack? He struck at her again, and she brained him with the heavy scope.

  Tanis spotted her knapsack near the door just as Mildred cried out, “Help!” A man with a scraggly ponytail ran towards her with a switchblade, but she was still zip-tied to the chair. It was tempting, of course, to let the former nurse find out what it was like to be sliced up by a maniac. But Tanis wasn’t like her. She couldn’t just stand by and watch. Fortunately for Mildred.

  She charged at the ponytailed man and rammed his head with the microscope. He collapsed. The scope was certainly effective, but it was too damn heavy. Her arms were already tiring out. Tanis dropped it, picked up the knife, and cut the plastic ties around Mildred’s wrists.

  “Thank you. Oh, thank you,” the woman gushed.

  A paunchy guy came at Tanis, wielding a corkscrew, which he tried to stick into her neck. Tanis plunged the switchblade into his chest. The blade was too short to do much damage, and the stab wound barely slowed him down as he attacked again.

  Suddenly, a chair swung past Tanis and hit the guy in the face. He stumbled back and fell. Mildred whacked him with the chair again. Wow, thought Tanis. Instant karma. Their eyes met for a moment. She still thought Mildred was morally bankrupt, but at the moment, they had a common enemy, so she silently wished the woman luck.

  Tanis hurried to her knapsack. She tossed in the switchblade and pulled out her hammer. She immediately felt better. This weapon from her father’s toolbox suited her. It allowed her to move fast and strike with precision.

  The attackers just kept coming. A woman with a braid down her back slashed at Matt with a straight razor. He took off her arm with one swing of the ax and split her skull with the next. A tall, pale man wielding a fireplace poker charged at the Mendelsohns. Vincent used the metal sample case as a shield while Amelia smashed a large flask and stabbed the man with a jagged shard of glass.

  Tanis was about to go and help when she heard a brief tone, followed by a click, from the door. They had gotten the access code somehow. She gripped her hammer as the door swung open. Nobody there.

  Then she saw a hint of movement in the wall next to the door and smiled. It was Jake, in stealth mode, sneaking up on the bad guys. Sure enough, there was his hunting knife, seeming to float in the air as he held it ready to strike.

  She told Jake, “Stay here. I’ll draw them to you.”

  The knife plunged towards her. Tanis instinctively raised her right arm in defense. The blade sliced through muscle, its point emerging from the back of her forearm. The claw hammer fell from her hand, and Tanis screamed in pain and horror. She could see Jake’s face now, as its natural color returned. He looked utterly vacant. Somehow, he was one of them.

  She backed away, the knife still lodged in her arm. She scanned the floor desperately for her hammer. Jake spotted it just as she did, and they both dove for it, but Tanis was faster. She grabbed the hammer with her left hand and slammed it into his head.

  Jake collapsed. Stay down, she mentally pleaded. She didn’t know what had happened to him, but he was still Jake and she didn’t want to hurt him more than necessary. His leg shot out and kicked her in the gut. Tanis fell backward, sending an excruciating jolt through her injured arm. Jake grabbed the hammer, trying to pry it out of her hand. She held on fiercely, searching his eyes for any sign of the decent man she knew must be in there somewhere. She saw none.

  Jake seized the handle of the hunting knife and ripped it out of her arm. She screamed again. He raised the knife over her chest.

  The top of Jake’s head came off as the ax blade sliced through it. He fell forward onto Tanis, his lips almost brushing hers. She pistoned out her good arm, trying to shove Jake’s body off. Matt pulled it away. He held out a hand to help her up, but she stood on her own. Her whole body was shaking and her injured arm was on fire. Blood streamed from the entry and exit wounds. But she couldn’t worry about that now. They had to get out of here.

  Matt led the way out the door and into the hall, where still more vacant-eyed attackers awaited them. Vincent and Amelia followed and Tanis brought up the rear, facing their pursuers from the lab. She remembered Mildred and quickly scanned the room, not really expecting to see her alive. But the pudgy ex-nurse was still fighting, backed against the wall but holding off two assailants with a chair leg in one hand and a shard of glass in the other. Tanis didn’t think she had much of a chance, but the woman obviously had a talent for saving her own neck.

  She lost sight of Mildred as a guy with a crew cut sprang at her and grabbed her shirt. Tanis slammed the hammer into his elbow, breaking it. She planted her foot in his midsection and kicked hard, driving him back into the two women just behind him, who fell against the people behind them.

  Matt kept the group moving forward, swinging his ax in wide arcs to clear a path. Tanis struck at any weapon or body part that came within reach. Someone in the surging crowd thrust a Taser at her, crackling with arcs of current. She knocked it away with the hammer, only to face a barbecue fork rushing towards her face. She deflected it, too. But her left hand was weaker than her right, and quicker to tire. Worse, she was starting to feel light-headed from blood loss. All she could do was keep moving.

  She was very happy to see sunlight as they reached the front door. But, of course, another half dozen people stood between them and the SUV. One was a woman in a suit, her eyes glowing with that sickly yellow ligh
t. She seemed to be looking right at Tanis as she said, “Kill them.”

  The rest of the group attacked. Matt aimed his ax at a short man’s neck. The guy blocked it with a nine iron. Tanis saw someone coming at her, too, but it was so hard to focus. She swung the hammer in the direction of the threat, struggling to stay conscious. It struck soft flesh. Her next blow hit only air. She glanced at the car. They were close. She had to keep fighting a little longer, she told herself. Just a little longer.

  Then everything went black.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I-90 West, Washington State

  Tanis woke up on someone’s lap. She heard the steady rhythm of tires on asphalt and realized she was lying across the backseat of the SUV, her head resting on Amelia Mendelsohn’s legs. And her right arm hurt like hell.

  She sat up, triggering a dizzying head rush. Amelia put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Easy. You lost a lot of blood.”

  She saw Matt in the driver’s seat and Dr. Mendelsohn beside him. They’d made it. Even after she’d crapped out, and the others had to haul her sorry ass the rest of the way, they were safe. Matt glanced back at her. “You okay?”

  “Let me get back to you on that,” said Tanis. She looked down at herself. Her clothes were stained with blood, mostly her own. Her injured arm was neatly wrapped in a bandanna. When she tried to move her hand, it only twitched. Three of her fingers felt numb. Nerve damage, she figured. That’s what happens when you get a fucking knife through the arm.

  Memories of the horrible battle in the lab flooded her mind. She saw the eerie emptiness in Jake’s eyes, felt the dead weight of him crushing her.

  “You killed him,” she said quietly.

  Nobody had to ask whom she was talking to, or whom she meant. Matt kept his eyes on the road as he answered, “I had to.”

  Grief welled up as anger. “He was brainwashed! It wasn’t his fault!”

  He didn’t look at her, didn’t raise his voice. “He was about to put a knife through your heart.”

  “There could have been some way to snap him out of it,” she insisted. “Like with those people on the highway, dunking them in cold water.”

  “This was different,” said Matt.

  “You still should have tried something…anything, instead of just killing him!” she shouted.

  Tanis saw the muscles of his jaw working as he held back his own anger. “If I had stopped to think about that, you’d be dead. I had to make a choice. You or him.”

  She realized she was crying. “He was your friend.”

  “You or him,” he repeated firmly. “You think I chose wrong?”

  There was no good answer to that question, and he knew it. Tanis stared out the window as they drove in tense silence. They were on a highway, but she couldn’t tell which one. She wondered where Matt was taking them but didn’t want to ask. How could he be so cold? She didn’t need to see him sob over Jake’s death, but did he feel anything at all? She wondered if the ongoing battle against Mr. Dark had changed him, or if Matt Cahill had always been a heartless bastard.

  Who had saved her life on more than one occasion, she had to admit. She couldn’t figure this guy out. He would risk his own life to help a stranger one minute, then murder a friend the next.

  “Try her again,” Matt told Mendelsohn. He nodded and dialed a number on his cell phone.

  Amelia explained, “We’ve been trying to reach Heather Paxton at the university. If we were attacked, she might be in danger, too.”

  “Who were those people, anyway?” asked Tanis. “And that woman with the glowing eyes?”

  Amelia just shook her head. Her husband listened as the call went to voice mail, then shook his head. “Still no answer.”

  Tanis saw a highway sign marked “I-90 West” and realized where they were heading. Back to the university, to rescue Heather if she needed to be rescued. Which, given the events of the past few days, seemed likely. So Matt was taking them into another life-or-death battle. Maybe that explained both his heroics and his cruelty. Maybe he was just looking for a fight. Tanis had been accused of the same thing in her former life. Of course, she’d never gone so far as to chop someone’s head off. However tempted she might have been.

  Amelia pointed to an exit sign with the symbol for a train station. “You can drop us off here.”

  “You’re not coming with us?” asked Tanis.

  “We’re going somewhere safe,” she said. “So Victor can continue his work on the virus.”

  “Where’s that?”

  Matt glanced back at her. “I’ve asked them not to tell anyone, including me. If we are dealing with some kind of mind control, it’s better that nobody else knows where they are.”

  He parked at the train station. As they got out of the car, he turned to Tanis. “You should go with them.”

  “No.” It came out with no hesitation. This was her fight, even more than it was Matt’s. Her family had been destroyed and somebody was damn well going to pay for it.

  “You’re hurt,” he pointed out.

  “I’ll heal,” she insisted. “Look, we can carpool or I can meet you there. I’m going.”

  Matt looked at her more seriously. “This isn’t going to get any easier. I need to know I can count on you.”

  “To kill people,” she challenged him.

  “Yes,” he said flatly. “To prevent them from killing someone else. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah. I can do that.” If there’s no other way, thought Tanis. Which, in her opinion, there usually was.

  “No matter who it is,” he persisted. “Even if that person was once a friend. Or your brother. Or me.”

  She stared at him. He was serious. “I get it,” she told him. “Let’s go.” Tanis slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The University

  Heather Paxton figured she had about five more minutes until the smoke overwhelmed her. On the plus side, death by smoke inhalation might be better than facing the homicidal students outside.

  Three of them had ambushed her as she came out of the archeology building. At first, it seemed like a mugging. A young man in a baseball cap ran up and grabbed her arm. She tried to yank it free, but two more students came up behind her, grabbing her arms and her hair. They yanked her head back, exposing her neck. Then the guy in the cap drew a knife.

  A couple of months ago, she probably would have been paralyzed with fear and disbelief that this was really happening. But the past few weeks had sharpened her survival instincts considerably. Heather swiftly slid out of her jacket, leaving it and the bag behind as she dashed for the parking lot. Two young women with oddly blank faces stood in her way. One held a butcher knife. She turned and saw three sweaty, muscular guys in football jerseys closing in from the quad. She doubted they were hurrying to help.

  She raced to the nearest building, which housed the Earth Sciences Department. Inside the main entrance was a marble-tiled lobby with a large mural on one wall, showing the layers of the earth’s crust. It was suitably impressive but offered nowhere to hide. She ran down the hall, trying knobs until one turned.

  Heather ducked into a small office with a wall of overstuffed bookshelves and a large, old-fashioned bronze globe on the desk. She slammed the door shut. Unsurprisingly, the lock was broken. Heather got behind the desk and shoved as hard as she could. It slid grudgingly, blocking the door as one of the students tried to push it open. She heard the thud of someone throwing his shoulder against the door. The door rattled in its frame, and the desk scooted half an inch into the room. Heather quickly shoved it back and kept leaning her weight against it as the students continued ramming the door.

  They stopped. Heather looked around the room for other possible ways in. The office had one window, high on the wall and too small for a person to fit through. She was safe in here for the time being. And also trapped.

  There had to be a phone in the office. Heather dug through the papers on the me
ssy desk and found it. She lifted the receiver. It was dead. She punched buttons but got no results. The line had been cut.

  She climbed onto the desk and pressed her ear to the door. It was quiet. She couldn’t imagine they had just given up and gone home. Maybe they were standing there silently, waiting for her to venture out. But Heather was good at waiting, too. She’d become an expert on board the dromon, holding still for hours, afraid to even breathe for fear that the undead sailors would find her and tear her to pieces like they did her crew. Heather shoved the memory away. Probably not the best thing to dwell on in her current situation.

  She sat with her back against the wall, facing the door, the big bronze globe by her side. If any students did get into the office, she would cave in their skulls with it.

  A fist-sized rock broke through the glass of the small window. Heather stood quickly, holding the globe ready to strike, although there was no way anyone could squeeze through that window frame. Then a bottle of Jack Daniel’s sailed past Heather, with a flaming strip of cloth in its neck. It smashed against the overstuffed bookcase, splashing whiskey across several shelves. The burning cloth touched alcohol-soaked paper, and yellow flames sprang to life.

  She looked around desperately for water, or even stale coffee, to throw on the fire. Nothing. More books started to burn. Black smoke billowed from the shelves. Some floated out through the broken window, but not nearly enough. If she stayed in this room, she’d choke to death. If she didn’t burn first. But if she pulled away the desk and opened the door, those students would be waiting with their knives. None of her options were very promising.

  The fire alarm started to wail. Help was on the way. If it got here fast enough. Which seemed unlikely, given how fast the flames were spreading through a room full of paper and wood. Heather started to cough as hot smoke crept into her lungs.