The Company of Death

by Elisa Hansen

  The Company of Death

  The Immortal Journey - Book One

  Elisa Hansen

  For Cookies

  Contents

  1. Town Duty

  2. Muerte

  3. Artificial Life

  4. Vampires

  5. Scott

  6. The Abyss

  7. Plan B

  8. Leif

  9. Snakes

  10. Suicide

  11. Plan F

  12. Death

  13. Power

  14. Flight

  15. The Border

  16. Jade

  17. Brethren

  18. Union

  19. Manhattan?

  20. Leverage

  21. Reunion

  22. The Ranch

  23. Specter

  24. The Airship

  25. Manhattan!

  26. The Factory

  27. Zombies

  28. Shotgun

  29. Gambit

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Falstaff Books

  1

  Town Duty

  Killing something undead wasn’t the same as killing a real person. That’s what Emily told herself for the thirty-first time since her morning meal, the same as she did dozens of times every day she served town duty. It never got any easier. “This isn’t who you are,” she said to herself, to the hot gun between her hands.

  But that was some bullshit. It’s who she was now.

  “Upstairs is clear!” Emily tested the body at her feet with a steel-toed nudge. Not so much as a flicker of the dappled eyelids. The clean bullet hole above its bushy gray brows revealed more purple than red, and its slack jaw exposed blood-blackened decay in perfect teeth.

  No, not teeth. Dentures.

  A wistful smile touched Emily’s lips. “Hey, look at you. How’d you manage to keep those in? Feisty grandpa.” Her smile faded as the image of her own long-gone Grampy shoved into her mind. And then her long-gone everyone.

  One more down, millions and millions to go.

  With a sigh, she slid the Glock 18 into the holster on her thigh and dragged the body by the armpits into the dim hallway that smelled of overcooked dust. She begrudgingly thanked the last seventeen merciless months of combat training for the muscle to lift him, because he was heavy for an old guy. How many pounds of human flesh weighed down his stomach? Or would it all be digested by now? Did they digest? Questions that just didn’t matter anymore.

  “Clear!” Sherice’s voice shot up from the house’s lower level. “Hurry it up, bitches.”

  Seriously? Not like she had places to go. But Emily was not about to get started, not with Sherice. Not today. Emily’s last chance to ask for reassignment, and today was almost over. With a burst of anxious energy and a grunt, she heaved the body to the staircase.

  “Sorry about this, Gramps,” she whispered even though he probably couldn’t hear her. Probably. A solid kick sent him somersaulting past the landing to join the others in the foyer.

  Thwack went Sherice’s axe. Decap done.

  Emily jogged downstairs as the front door swung in to shroud the sprawled corpses in the unholy light of California afternoon sunshine. Rosa pushed through with the wheelbarrow, and Other Joe loaded it up. Emily joined Sherice, aiming her gun at the oozing faces. Just in case.

  “The fire’s going.” Rosa’s wiry hair stuck to her round cheeks. “Let’s get these over there. Everyone else is done.”

  Emily blinked. Already? How had the day gone by so fast? Her team usually lit the fire a couple hours before sunset, but by Emily’s count, she’d shot fewer than three dozen people since coming down into town that morning.

  Not people.

  Undead. Flesh-eaters. More than two years since the Ecuador Explosion, why couldn’t she get over it? Almost a year and a half since she joined the LPI and spent most days between missions shooting and torching them. She forced her eyes away from the pearly white dentures in the framed family photos on the hall wall. Not people anymore.

  Town duty was the worst.

  Well, second worst.

  Today.

  “Good work, Em,” said Rosa while Other Joe donned the gauntlets and navigated the wheelbarrow out the front door. On the driveway, the three of them fell in around him, Sherice taking point.

  “We’re not doing the next block?” Emily triangulated with Rosa a few paces behind the wheelbarrow to cover Other Joe’s back.

  Rosa shook her head. “Ramon says that’s it for today. We’ve been cleaning here what, like two weeks now?”

  “More like three.” Twenty-two days exactly. Not that Emily was counting compulsively or anything.

  “Not many of them left in this place.” Rosa shrugged. “We might even run out before Mission 12 starts. And then what’ll we do while we wait?”

  “More drills?”

  Rosa rolled her eyes. “That’ll make you-know-who happy.”

  Imagining their trainer’s sadistic pleasure made Emily twitch, but it would beat the way they spent the last three weeks of duty going door to door, clearing out the little desert town. And anything would be better than the imminent Mission 12. Thinking about her assignment made dread grumble deep in her guts.

  Sherice led their group through debris-scattered residential streets. As they passed into the shadow of craggy yellow Suncrest Hill, Emily let a few extra paces fall between her and Other Joe’s wheelbarrow. Rosa slowed, glancing at her with the curious-concerned expression that made Emily pretty much love her from the moment they met. She was only a few years older than Emily, and about six inches shorter, but she made Emily feel safe.

  “Did, um, did Ramon say anything else?” Emily asked.

  “About cleaning?” Rosa shook her head.

  “No.” Emily hesitated. Rosa always had her back, but Emily hadn’t told anyone yet. “Never mind.”

  “What never mind? No never mind. You got that constipated look on your face like when you don’t want to do something.”

  Any other day, Emily might have laughed. “I just…” She lowered her voice to keep Other Joe—and especially Sherice—from overhearing. “It’s Mission 12. My assignment.”

  “You’re one of the three infiltrators, right? I do not envy you that.”

  “Yeah. Me, Sherice, and Brion. We’re supposed to pose as refugees so the commune will take us in. But it’s almost funny, you know? When I was a kid, I used to play spy all the time. It was like, the awesomest of career paths, right?” Almost two dozen people left in their unit, but Emily landed the only assignment she couldn’t do. It was Michele’s call, but they lost Michele last month. Now Ramon was basically in charge, but Michele’s plan would go on. As far as Ramon was concerned, the plan was perfect. “But I can’t do it.”

  Rosa stopped walking. “Say what?” She gave their surroundings a quick visual sweep then caught up to Emily. “You’re actually serious.”

  So serious, a ball of acid spent the last month eating through Emily’s stomach lining. “I just…yeah.”

  “Damn. You better tell Ramon.”

  “I know, I know.” Emily should have done it weeks ago. Putting it off to so close to the mission’s start made it all the worse.

  “Damn, okay. Just talk to him, I guess? He’ll give you a different role.”

  “You think?”

  “He can’t exactly make you do it if you don’t want to.”

  “Yeah.” Ramon needed someone willing on the assignment, but he would give Emily that look. The look like he thought she could do anything. The look that made her want to prove him right.

  It wasn’t that she doubted the cause. She was devoted to the cause. The communes must be destroyed. She would do anything for the cause. A
nything, except… She pictured it a thousand different ways, what it would be like to infiltrate the commune, to pretend to need their protection from the flesh-eaters and be willing to sell herself in exchange.

  No way in the universe was it going to happen.

  Emily groaned and rubbed the tense spot between her eyes before doing a visual sweep.

  “You don’t want to disappoint him.” Rosa watched her with furrowed brows.

  “Right.”

  “What about me?”

  “You’re—” Emily blinked at her. “Am I disappointing you?” Heat rose behind her nose, making her lips prickle.

  Staring past Other Joe’s back, Rosa frowned at the undead bodies in the wheelbarrow as if they held the answers. But she didn’t say yes.

  “What about the rest of the team?” Rosa asked without looking at her.

  The change of subject cooled the flush in Emily’s face but made her neck itch under the film of sweat. “I’ll be disappointing everyone.”

  “Well, that’s not the word I was thinking.”

  Right. They’d be, what, disgusted with her? Worse. But Emily would rather die than give herself to a commune. Literally. She would kill herself first. Her fingers tightened around the G18’s grip, and she clenched her teeth against the acidic rise accompanying the thought. Her brain had taken a bleak turn since Michele first gave her the assignment, but it didn’t feel dramatic. It felt like the simplest, purest truth she knew. Her teammates’ derision would happen; Emily would find a way to swallow it.

  “You’ll lose your chance at promotion.” Rosa shrugged, but the movement was stiff, and she wouldn’t meet Emily’s gaze. “If you actually care about that.”

  She did, damn it. Graduating out of the field team was always the goal, into a position of safety at LPI headquarters, across the country on the fortress island of Manhattan where she’d never have to think about being near the undead again. Either kind.

  The Life Preservation Initiative’s goals were simple. Preserve life. Keep people alive. Make both kinds of undead dead-dead and keep the living from their gruesome grasp. Wipe out the flesh-eaters and take down the blood-drinker communes. And every part of Emily’s being wanted to make that happen.

  Any other way but this.

  It might be another week before Mission 12 would officially begin, but it might not. It could happen the day after tomorrow, and she wouldn’t get another face-to-face opportunity with Ramon for days. Today was her last chance. She couldn’t care about disgusting everyone, not if she wanted to live. As long as she had Rosa, she’d get through it.

  “Now.” Emily pushed past the last of her hesitation with a rough exhale. “I’ll talk to him now.”

  “Sure.” Rosa gave her a tight smile and turned her attention to their perimeter.

  The smell of the smoke reached Emily before it rose into view over the low houses. As they followed the wheelbarrow around the corner of the last block, her eyes zeroed in on Ramon by the bonfire in the center of the street. He stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest, frowning at the flaming stack of undead body parts as if he could stern-face them into burning faster. He’d shed his reinforced jacket, and the tense lump of muscle above his elbow twitched. The sweat on his warm brown skin reflected the flames as he watched the blackening limbs and torsos writhe and wither.

  Emily let a few more steps fall between her and the wheelbarrow. Of course, he would have to look so intense right when she needed to ask for an entirely selfish favor. She had worked so hard to prove herself a strong recruit, as efficient as the guys twice her size, and the thought of Ramon thinking less of her in any way snarled her guts in knots. She glanced to Rosa, but Rosa focused on the job.

  They parked the wheelbarrow, and Emily worked with the others to heft the bodies and heads onto the fire. When they finished unloading, her team retreated to relax on the shady porches across the street with the dozen others of the day’s town duty squad. Emily lingered in the halo of heat with Ramon. A trail of sweat snaked past his eye from the thick black hair at his temple.

  “Hey,” she said. “Can I talk to you?”

  His gaze flicked to her. “Hey. Yeah.” The tension in his square jaw softened at the sight of her. “What’s up?”

  She ignored the dryness in her throat prodding her to reach for her water bottle. Ignored how the sweat in her hair made her scalp itch. “About Mission 12.” She stared at her black boots. Even through the caked dust, she could make out the bloodstains.

  When Ramon didn’t say anything, she made herself meet his eyes again. Brown, but not like hers. So dark, almost black. The kind of eyes you could get lost in, maybe, if things were different. He watched her patiently. She told herself it was her imagination, but he always seemed more accommodating with her than anyone else. Usually, it gave her a secret sense of confidence, but this time, it made what she had to say so much harder.

  “I don’t think…” She swallowed and set her jaw. “I can’t be one of the spies.”

  Ramon’s brow knit, and he cocked his head as if he misheard her.

  “I’m wrong for the assignment.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re perfect for it.”

  “No, Ray.” She took a breath. “I’m not.”

  He relaxed, warmth coming to his gaze, and he laughed softly. “Most vampires are old white guys, right? Old white guys like women who look like you.” Right. Exotic. The unspoken word hovered like a cloud of gnats. “They’ll want you to join them, no questions asked.”

  Emily flinched. Did he think she was fishing for compliments? “That’s—no—” Getting into the commune wasn’t what worried her.

  “And besides that, you’re perfect.”

  The knots in her guts tightened. “No. I’m not.”

  “So fake it,” he said, and to Emily’s dismay, he smiled. “Em, you could sell ice to a penguin, when you turn it on. You’ll have Sherice and Brion in there with you, but come on, Em. You’re the one who always wins at Bullshit.”

  “But that’s a game, an act—”

  “And this is your job.”

  “I know, but that’s why—” Her breath shuddered. “Look. I’ve given this a lot of thought.” In truth, she’d known it in her core the second she got the assignment. But Ramon’s expression was darkening. Emily pushed on. “And I have to be real with you. When it comes down to it, Ray, I’ll blow it. I know I will. I can’t…I can’t let them use me.”

  The short scar in Ramon’s left eyebrow wrinkled, and the corners of his black mustache sank as his expression slid into the one she dreaded. “I trust you, Em. Michele trusted you. It’ll take you only a few days in there to gather the intel for the rest of us to bust in and destroy. You can do this. I know you can.”

  And how many pints of her blood would they take in only a few days in exchange for their “protection” from the flesh-eaters? One drop was more than she could allow. Emily’s face felt hot, too hot, even so close to the fire. The way Ramon frowned made her feel like a chastened child. She didn’t want a pep talk.

  Stop. Just stop.

  How could she explain it? What it was like growing up being told to be ashamed of her own face while at the same time encouraged to use her looks to hook a white husband? Mixed girls like you have an expiration date, Emily. Use it.

  How could she make Ramon understand the undead wanting to bloodrape her was like that but a thousand times worse? How to make him get that her refusal to let it happen was the one thing keeping her sane? From spiraling into the creeping blackness that wouldn’t stop hovering at the brink of her consciousness?

  If Emily could control nothing else in her unraveling life in a dissolving world, this resolve—her self, her body—was the one thing she would cling to until the grave. It kept her worthy of existing.

  She took a shaking breath.

  “I’ll do it.” A voice cut through the noise of the fire.

  Emily’s breath abandoned her, and she whipped around to see who.

&n
bsp; Rosa.

  When did she come out into the street? Sherice stood a couple feet behind, and the rest of the team hovered at the curb, watching Emily and Ramon. How much did they overhear? The odor of the burning bodies turned stifling, clawing its way down Emily’s throat as Sherice glared at her over Rosa’s shoulder.

  Ramon uncrossed his arms, bewildered. “You’ll take Emily’s assignment?”

  “Sure, yeah.” Rosa glanced at Sherice before offering Emily a grim smile.

  “Rosa’s not afraid of vampires,” snapped Sherice.

  “I’m not—” Emily clamped her mouth shut and gave a little nod. Arguing wouldn’t help her case.

  Ramon looked back and forth between them, started to say something, stopped himself, and then turned back to the fire. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll brief you tomorrow.”

  “Sherice already told me everything,” Rosa said. “I got this.”

  “I will brief you. Tomorrow.” Ramon’s back was to Emily, but she could perfectly picture his expression of disgust.

  She turned to Rosa, but what could Emily even say now with Sherice scowling at her like that? Like she was a pathetic waste of existence.

  What was Rosa thinking?

  As her teammates’ eyes all bored into Emily like thumbscrews, a burning sick feeling sloshed in to overwhelm the bonfire’s heat.

  Sherice fist-bumped Rosa, but when they turned back to the porches with everyone else, Rosa caught Emily’s eye. What was in that glance? Pity? Frustration? Goodbye? It almost made Emily wish Rosa would go back to refusing to look at her.

  Emily’s gaze fell to the blood on her boots. She didn’t want this. Not at all. But what did she think would happen?