by P. T. Hylton
“I know we didn’t do this.” Ed pointed to a Feral just inside of the lobby that had its head smashed in. “We didn’t run into any Ferals here, and this guy didn’t die of a cold.”
A loud howl came from the direction of the away ship. All four team members raised their weapons and fell into formation, ready for an attack. They waited in silence for a moment, and then the strange howl came again.
After a moment, Alex grinned. “Stand down boys, it’s just the wind.” The rain outside was falling at an angle now. For a moment, it seemed to go completely sideways, and when it did, the howl followed. “Let’s get this done quick. No offense Chuck, but flying in this might be a little more than you can handle.”
“None taken. I don’t even like flying in clear weather. This will really test my limits.”
“Wonderful,” Ed muttered.
The hospital had enough open points of entry to allow the wind access to every hallway. As the team made their way toward the morgue, small pieces of debris blew through the halls. Each time a leaf or piece of old plastic fluttered past, the team trained their weapons on it, tracing the path of the object. Small whistles came from every direction as the air found its way through door cracks and around corners. The wind pulled the water from their skin, dropping their body temperature and putting goose bumps on the back of their necks.
They made their way downstairs to the hall that led to the morgue. There was almost no breeze in this basement level. Instead of moving air, they were greeted with a vile stench. Alex’s headlamp revealed two bodies in the middle of the hallway. When the team reached them, Alex could see that the exposed flesh of the vampires she and CB had killed was charred. Apparently, the silver hadn’t set them on fire, but it had burned their skin. The team moved by with their weapons at the ready, Alex’s eyes constantly scanning the ceiling. She kept her other eye on Felix, who seemed to be holding it together so far.
The scene in the morgue was as bad as Alex remembered.
“Holy hell,” Chuck said as he stepped into the room. The entire floor was covered in ash. The ash had a red tint to it and resembled the cracked bed of a long-dried lake. Shards of metal stuck out of the walls and ceiling. Two large chunks of the wall on either side of the door were missing.
All of that appeared relatively tame when compared with the condition of the vampire bodies. The clothes holding the piles of meat together were the only sure sign that they were corpses. Chuck recognized Helen’s outfit. There was a pile of tissue and some clumps of hair lying above her jacket, all that remained of her head. The stench in the room was worse than it had been in the hallway; it was a combination of rotting meat, charred flesh, and burnt hair.
Alex observed the corpses. There were only three of them. “Jaden and Owl really are gone.”
“Could someone have taken them?” Ed asked. “I mean, I know it sounds ridiculous, but Jaden’s people could have come for his body. They practically worship him.”
Alex shook her head. “Even if they had another secret ship and knew the location of the hospital, no one from Agartha could have gotten here this quickly. Besides, why would they take Owl and leave the others? He is alive, and Owl is, too.”
Felix looked a bit green. “It’s confirmed, then. Let’s get the hell out of here and go home.”
When the team got back to the lobby, they saw that the storm had increased in intensity. The wind was constant, instead of coming in gusts. The rain blew nearly sideways, and the team could barely see the away ship from the lobby. They stood for a moment, considering whether to go for the ship now or wait and see if the storm settled. Then there was another howl. Ed raised his weapon and focused in the direction of the sound.
“It’s the wind you idiot,” Chuck said. “How many times are you going to—”
“Get in formation,” Alex interrupted. She drew both pistols, her face turned toward the sound. “That’s not the wind.”
The howl came again, and this time it was clear; it wasn’t the wind, but the familiar sound of Ferals.
“Fall back to the inner wall of the lobby,” Alex said, moving backward as she spoke. “We can use the building’s silver to our advantage. Stay sharp and kill anything that tries to enter the building.” She glanced at Felix. “Keep it together. Don’t fire unless I tell you to.”
He nodded, his wide eyes fixed on the storm. The heavy rain prevented the team from seeing anything past the away ship.
They waited in silence, but finally, two Feral appeared through the wall of water. They moved slowly toward the hospital, their heads tilted at an odd angle, occasionally pitching forward as if they’d stumbled. Alex had never seen them move that way, especially not when they had a target. When they were halfway to the hole in the building Alex saw a dozen more shapes appear in the rain. She knew that the team could take fourteen Ferals from their current silver-protected position, but she was afraid of how many more might be lurking behind the second group.
“It’s daytime,” Felix said, his voice shaking. “How is this possible?”
Chuck answered through gritted teeth. “The storm is obscuring the sunlight. Day or night doesn’t matter. If there’s no sun, it’s vampire feeding time.”
The Feral at the front of the group stumbled again, and this time it fell. The breath caught in Alex’s throat. Ferals might be stupid, but they were agile. She’d never seen one fall except when she blew one of its legs off. Even with the storm and the mud and water filling the streets, this didn’t seem right.
A Feral reached the hole in the lobby and jumped through, but it was dead before it landed. Chuck and Alex had both put rounds through its head.
The Feral that had tripped reached out as the second wave approached, and it grabbed the leg of one of the other Ferals. The standing Feral turned and slashed at the fallen one’s face. The one on the ground clumsily got to its feet and tackled the attacker, knocking it into two other Ferals. All four tumbled to the ground.
The other nine continued toward the GMT.
“All right, enough of this,” Alex said. “Felix, hang tight. Chuck and Ed, let’s take them out.”
The team went to work, killing five of the Ferals before they even reached the lobby. The four that made it inside started to sizzle the moment their feet hit the floor. One jumped, projecting itself towards the team, but Ed dropped it before it reached them.
Another Feral slipped and fell face first onto the silver floor. Smoke rising from its flesh, it tried to get up, but its hands slipped, sending it back on its face. The third Feral stumbled toward them, its feet smoking as it did. Alex put a round into its head.
The last Feral simply stood in place, tilting its head like it was lost. After a few seconds, its feet burst into flames. As if the fire had woken it, it began shuffling toward them. Chuck fired, putting a bullet through its head. It stood still for one moment, then slumped to the floor.
Alex looked back at the street. The four Ferals were still fighting each other. The fight was disorganized, even by Feral standards. They took weak swipes at each other and rolled around like children wrestling. The visibility had improved, and Alex could now see more Ferals in the distance. The storm was slowing, apparently blowing out as quickly as it had reached them.
They waited in the silver room as the next wave of Ferals approached. This time, over half of the Ferals joined the fight on the ground. Only four of them continued toward the lobby. These four came in swiftly, apparently staying focused on the scent of the humans. The GMT made short work of them.
When that wave was done, Alex could see all the way across the street. A ray of sunlight cut through the clouds, but the Ferals fighting in the street didn’t seem to notice the change in weather. As the dark clouds thinned, they began to smoke. They clawed at each other even as they burst into flames. The fighting stopped only when there wasn’t enough tissue connected to their bones to allow them to keep moving.
Ed turned to Alex. “What the hell was that?”
“I
have no idea.”
8
“What am I looking at?” Alex leaned forward and squinted at the monitor.
“Your blood,” Brian answered. “Well, an analysis of your blood anyway.” He tapped at a line of text with his finger. “That’s the interesting part. The Starling virus is present in your blood. Active, too.”
CB frowned at the monitor. “Starling?”
Brian grinned weakly. “That’s what I’m calling it. Figured I’d name it after the head of Project White Horse.”
Alex frowned. “The one Jaden tore to shreds. Seems appropriate.”
“Call it whatever you want,” CB said. “I’m more interested in what it does. And why it’s in Alex’s blood.”
“Oh, it’s not just hers.” Brian tapped rapidly on his keyboard, and four other windows opened on the monitor. “I ran analysis on you, me, Ed, and Chuck as well. We’ve all got it.”
“But this thing only hurts vampires, right?”
“Yep. If you got turned into a vampire, I’m guessing you’d die pretty quickly. Aside from that possibility, we’re just carriers. All we can really do is spread it. Which we’ve been doing ever since we contracted it. My guess is everyone on New Haven has been infected at this point.”
Alex thought about that a moment. “What about the people from Agartha who are up here with the exchange program.”
“Oh, they can’t go back,” Brian said. “Not unless they want to spread it to the vampires in their city.” He paused a moment. “I mean, the virus is going to get there eventually, anyway. But that would really speed things along.”
“Damn,” Alex muttered. “Hope they like New Haven.”
“So, if we’re carrying it,” CB said, “and we saw first-hand what it does to vampires, how are Jaden and Owl still alive?”
Alex had given that question some thought on the flight back to New Haven, and she wasn’t entirely sure she bought the premise of the question. “First of all, I’m not convinced Owl is alive.”
CB tilted his head. “Why’s that?”
Alex took a deep breath. As much as she wanted her friend to be alive, she was trying to approach this logically. “Firefly said he talked to Jaden. I don’t know how that guy beat the virus, but he clearly did. He knew the virus existed for over a hundred years, so maybe he figured out a way to inoculate himself.”
“That’s not possible,” Brian said.
“And even if it were, wouldn’t he inoculate his friends, too?” CB added.
Alex waved a hand through the air. “Whatever. I’m just saying, we know he found a way to beat it. But Owl had been a vampire all of two minutes. I think it’s much more likely that he wants us to think she’s alive. Pretty good bargaining chip, right? Or even a way to lure us to him.”
CB nodded slowly. “I guess it’s possible.”
Brian leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “There’s just so much we don’t know about the virus. I wish I had a sample of Jaden’s blood to peek at under the microscope.”
“Cool, next time I see him, I’ll ask him to stand still while I find a vein,” Alex said. “Jaden aside, any idea what’s going on with the Ferals? Why aren’t they dying?”
Brian looked surprised at the question. “Oh, they are.”
CB glared at him. “Keep talking.”
“Look, you said they were acting differently today, right Alex? The virus is working its way through their bodies. I can’t say for sure without studying one, but I’m guessing it could take up to a week to kill them.”
“It sure as hell didn’t take a week to take out the vampires in the morgue,” Alex said. “It was more like seconds.”
“Sure, but you shot them in the face with a concentrated dose. It hit every pore in their bodies at once. No growth or spreading necessary. Once it normalized and dissipated in the air, it would affect their bodies quite differently. Now that I think about it, I’m kinda surprised it didn’t kill us, too.”
Alex slapped him on the arm. “You couldn’t have mentioned that possibility before I opened the canister?”
“I didn’t think of it.” He rubbed his arm.
CB sighed as he got to his feet. “Well, I’d better check in with General Craig. Felix has probably given his report by now.”
Alex left shortly after CB, and it wasn’t until she was halfway back to her quarters that she realized the implications of what Brian had told her. She was a carrier of the virus. She’d spread it to everyone she’d come into contact with since she’d become infected.
Which meant she’d infected Firefly the moment she hugged him.
Firefly looked at the road ahead and let out a soft whistle. “There sure are a lot of them.”
Half a block away, Jaden’s ship sat, its nose rammed into the hospital. Hundreds of Ferals milled about near the ship. Firefly could feel their discontent and unease in his stomach. The rich, lingering smell of humans hung thick in the air, a remnant of the GMT’s visit twelve hours before. It was clear that the smell was drawing the Ferals, but something about this situation seemed different. Ferals were always agitated and excited by the smell of humans—Firefly had felt it dozens of times—but there was something else going on here. Beneath the excitement, the Ferals seemed to be experiencing something else, something Firefly could only identify as dread. It was powerful enough that Firefly could almost smell it coming off them.
“What are you thinking, Captain?” Hector asked.
Firefly considered that a moment. Alex had asked him to protect Jaden’s ship, and he’d brought his entire army here, intending to do just that. He’d hoped they might even find Jaden and Owl here. Maybe he could talk to them. Get Jaden to calm down a little.
He’d known there would be plenty of Ferals, but he hadn’t expected to be so outnumbered. While they might be able to make it to the ship without setting the Ferals off, it wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.
“Let’s set up a perimeter on the rooftops around the ship,” he said. “Each squad, take a building. We’ll have the snipers cover the ship. If any Ferals start getting too handsy with the ship, we take them out. Otherwise, we observe and keep an eye out for Jaden and Owl.”
“Roger that.” Hector touched his radio, preparing to relay the order. “Squad leaders, set up a—”
His words were interrupted by an ear-splitting howl from somewhere near the ship. The high-pitched sound had an uneven warble, like the creature was struggling to give voice to its frustration. The sound of it made Firefly’s skin crawl.
“What the hell?” Hector muttered.
Another howl answered, this one even weaker than the first. The feeling of dread in Firefly’s stomach wriggled and grew as the collective consciousness of the Ferals before them seemed to teeter on the edge of some terrible insanity.
Up ahead, a Feral leaped into the air, landing on the roof of the ship. It let out a pained howl and slammed its head against the vessel’s metal hull. It cried out, drew back its head, and smashed it into the metal again.
Firefly held up a hand. “It’s okay. Its head will break before the ship does. Nobody—”
But to his left, Caleb already had his weapon raised and trained on the Feral. He squeezed off a round before Firefly could finish speaking.
The shot was true, and the Feral fell backward, sliding off the far side of the hull.
At the sound of the gunshot, the Ferals turned toward the vampire soldiers. Dozens of weak howls went up, not only from the street, but from the buildings all around them. Firefly clenched his teeth in frustration. There were even more Ferals here than he’d thought. They were standing in the middle of a powder keg, and that gunshot had been like a dropped match.
“Form up!” he shouted. “Defensive positions!”
Up ahead, a handful of Ferals raced toward them. There was no use being stealthy now. Their escape routes wouldn’t last long, and they’d be lucky to get out of this alive. Firefly raised his gun and fired, dropping one of the creatures. His squad mates
made short work of the other four.
He trained his gun on the hoard up ahead, ready to fire at another charging creature, but then he noticed something. The Ferals were moving toward them, but they were moving slowly. Some staggered forward in an off-balance pathetic attempt to run. Others shuffled, as if even picking up their feet was too much effort. But all of them were a far cry from the vampiric speed Firefly was used to dealing with when fighting Ferals.
Then he noticed their faces. Their cheekbones stood out even more prominently than usual, and some of them had black blood seeping out around their eyes.
Firefly realized with a start that the thing he’d been sensing coming off them in waves wasn’t dread; it was sickness.
“Captain, what the hell’s going on?” Hector’s voice sounded close to panic. He gripped his rifle tightly as he stared at the slowly approaching horde.
“It’s the virus,” Firefly answered. “This was ground zero. Alex opened the canister in the hospital two days ago. The Ferals in this part of the city were the first ones exposed.”
Looking at the pathetic, confused creatures headed slowly toward him, Firefly almost felt pity. They’d suffered for so long in their hunger, and now they were suffering in a new way, one that their animalistic minds couldn’t hope to understand. If what Alex had said about the virus was true, they wouldn’t have to suffer much longer.
“Let’s get out of here,” Firefly said. The Ferals were moving so slowly that they posed no real threat to his team, and he couldn’t imagine they posed much threat to Jaden’s ship, either. Being around these sick creatures made him feel uneasy, and he just wanted to get as far away from them as possible.
Then he noticed Hector staring at him, his mouth half open and his eyes wide.
“Captain,” he said. “Your nose is bleeding.”
9
Firefly led his troops away from the hoard of Ferals, trying not to think about the implications of what he’d just witnessed and what was happening to him. The virus was real, and there was good reason to think he was infected. And if he was infected, so were his troops.
