Revenant's Kiss (Chronicles of the Afterlife) (28 page)

She put her phone back in her pocket and glanced at the room numbers around her, so it had
been to the right after all. Jennifer shook her head at herself and moved to head in the opposite
direction, she passed the body she’d put down just as Tom hit the entrance to the door. "Shit," she took
one look at his more pissed then usual expression and she took off to the right at a run. He yelled at her
but short of tackling her to the ground and catching her his only other option was shooting her and she
didn’t think he was pissed enough for that just yet. She took the corner too fast and nearly fell over a
corpse that was squirming on the floor trying to grab her ankles. It wasn’t going anywhere, at least not
fast with it’s middle eaten down to the spine, but she made quick work of shooting it in the head because
she couldn’t let anyone behind her potentially stumble into it either. But the time it took for her to pause
for it had Tom nearly on her in a flash.

"Jennifer stop," he made a grab for her that she dodged, she was too close to her people to let
him stop her now.

She made it to the door and grabbed the handle, normally she would have looked to see what
she would be running into but Tom was on her again so she turned the handle and shoved her way in.
She knew something was wrong because she encountered resistance but she shoved harder until the
door was open far enough to give her entry. Clive’s hospital bed was a gory mess, blood and chunks
littered the sheets. "No," she made to make her way to the bed but was yanked to a halt by Tom, she
made to struggle out of his grip but it was half hearted at best. The time it wasted gave her time to better
take in the rest of the room, it contained one bed, a wheel chair that was vacant, and when she was
coherent enough to notice the prominent sloppy noise of chewing and bared feet, twitching, sticking out
around the hospital bed. "CLIVE!" she renewed her struggle but stopped when almost ominously a
another familiar figure raised itself off hands and knees from the floor. "Please no," but she knew
Manson, had learned everything she knew from him, how to live, how to survive, how to live in this life
and still be able to laugh.

Tom tried to spin her away and for a moment she wanted to let it happen, she let herself be
turned and froze halfway, legs were sticking out from behind the door, familiar shoes, "Trish." Manson’s
whole world was Trish, his whole world lay lifeless on the floor serving as a doorstop. What had started
as tears of mourning quickly turned to rage, she saw Tom leveling his aim on Manson and her arm shot
out and knocked it off course. "No," she gave him an ineffective shove that didn’t move him but a step
back.

"Jennifer," he made a grab for her again when she turned back into the room, "it has to be
done."

"I know," she gave her attention back to the hulking figure of her mentor, flesh and blood
running from his mouth, he was gone and there wasn’t any chance for her to say a thing to him now. All
that he was had been reduced to this thing in front of her, the thing that had killed his own wife and eaten
his best friend. She didn’t give Tom another chance, she aimed the Beretta and pulled the trigger, she
flinched when red exploded behind Manson on the wall and he tumbled to the floor. For a moment it
was all she could do not to throw up, so she held herself statue still, there was still Clive. She owed it to
them to do this, they were her team, they shouldn’t be left to anyone else. She made to shuffle forward
but she only got so far before realizing that Tom still had a death grip on her arm. "I’m doing this," she
told him and though it couldn’t have been very impressive with tears streaming down her cheeks she
glared at him over her shoulder. After a moment he nodded, gave a signal for his people to wait outside
then stepped into the room and let her arm go. She tried not to hesitate to make her way around the
bed, but faltered anyway. She reached the edge of the bed, didn’t have to look down to know that the
body on the floor had been eaten down to bone in some places. Bits and entrails littered the floor half
eaten, the only thing that Manson had seemed to have no interest in was the head. From neck down the
flesh was stripped and gnawed but Clive’s face was untouched. Jennifer jumped nearly back around the
bed when the eyes rolled open, and whatever drove these things had it’s mouth snapping open and
closed. Her vision blurred over completely with tears but she pulled the trigger anyway, she knew she
made the hit when the sound of teeth chinking together stopped.

She turned back around to find Tom standing over Trish’s body, she hadn’t taken a chance to
look at her, she looked untouched. "Is she," but Tom stopped her inquiry dead by shaking his head,
"but she looks," her words choked off when Tom plugged the body in the head.

"She broke her neck in the fall," he clarified, "just to be safe," he informed her questioning look
about the bullet. She wanted to believe him she really did, but she already felt like she was coming
undone at the seams, shooting an untouched corpse wasn’t helping her disposition.

"Why are you here Tom," she asked again, she shouldn’t have bothered and she knew it
because his answer if he bothered to give one wasn’t going to improve her current frame of mind.

He just looked at her a moment before pushing the door open again, "Harrison, Wheatly escort
Miss Ryan out of the building for decontamination."

"Bastard," she accused him but didn’t put up a fight when Triple-F and another guy she didn’t
recognize took up position to lead her out.

Chapter 19

Jennifer didn’t say a thing as they led her out, largely in part because she’d just witnessed the
death of two of her greatest friends, and then been forced to shoot them in the head. She knew she
might not have reacted in quite as docile a fashion if Tom’s people had tried to lay a hand on her, or take
her gun. Tom knew her pretty well though, he knew her really well if he’d known her since she was five,
so he’d known that attempting any of those things would have made throwing her out of a building she
had more right to be in then he did wouldn’t have gone well for him. As it was she wasn’t entirely sure
she had any fight left in her at the moment if they tried.

She was used to losing people, had been losing them violently her entire life, but she managed to
close herself off to it. Manson and Clive were part of how she’d managed to do that, keeping her
grounded, keeping her going. They were both dead, which left her feeling almost alone, her team wasn’t
gone true but Malcolm was still the ex, so that was uncomfortable, Marcia was the new girl, she didn’t
know her well enough to unwind with. There was Zip, but outside of phone calls she’d met him all of
twice, maybe he would miss Clive and Manson, maybe he wouldn’t. The even worse reality of it was,
who did that leave to watch her back? Tom, given how he was acting now, it seemed as unlikely as
ever that she’d fit into his well oiled machine of a unit; the vampire, that notion was so ridiculous, she
might as well shoot herself now if that was where she was going to put her trust.

She needed time alone to think, away from this, away from everyone, she wouldn’t be able to
take long, she knew that. This situation was already out of hand, she was out of time, and out of allies,
taking time to figure it out was what she needed but not what she could afford to give herself. And she
still had to go through whatever decontamination process Tom was talking about, she supposed she’d be
lucky if it didn’t require a bullet in her head. So she just marched her way down the steps, Triple-F in
the lead, not the best idea, and Wheatly at her rear. She had enough day light to burn to take at least an
hour to try and straighten her head out, then it was back to hunting Dimitri. She wouldn’t have thought a
vampire could be a zombie or a revenant, how could they when they were already dead. Ethan insisted
there was more to lose, that vampires still had their souls, she wasn’t going to argue the point, whether it
was that or something else entirely it was clear that the two were worlds apart.

She was still in mid-thought when Triple-F came to a screeching halt in front of her, whether
he’d motioned for the stop or not she wouldn’t have known, she had been too deep in her own head.
She bumped into him, she couldn’t blame the irritated look he shot her, not only had she made him look
like an idiot before she could have knocked him into a flock of zombies by bumping into him. "Did you
hear that," she didn’t answer because she knew he was talking to Wheatly.

"No," Wheatly took a step forward but Triple-F ignored him turning his head like he was trying
to hear further. "Come on man let’ go, if we drop the chick off outside we can probably still make it
back in time to get in on the second floor." But Triple-F stood stock still as if he knew if he waited long
enough whatever he’d heard would repeat itself. One way or another it didn’t involve Jennifer, she was
for all intents and purposes done here. "Man let’s............." but Wheatly’s words died off when a
scream sounded, one that didn’t sound at all like a revenant.

"Did you hear it," Triple-F asked again looking over his shoulder at the two of them. Wheatly
gave a curt nod and just because Triple-F seemed to expect it she nodded too.

"So what," Wheatly commented from behind, "you know what the mission is, there was never
any mention of survivors."

At this Jennifer did look back over her shoulder, she was tempted to pistol whip the guy but
kept the urge in check. "Really," she looked from one to the other of them quickly, "we have a special
word for that kind of attitude with my people, I’m pretty sure we call it cowardice." She gave Wheatly
a sneer before facing forward again.

"Yea well in case you were wondering your people among our people are classified with a
special title too, I’m pretty sure it’s called stupidity." Jennifer kept her urge to shoot one of them under
control, it wasn’t easy, they’d just insulted her friends, insulted people who had died to protect ignorant,
selfish people like them.

"Call us whatever you like, at the end of the day I think it still means your balls have dropped
off." She tried to ignore the screaming, tried to tell herself that it didn’t really matter if she did find
someone alive, Tom wouldn’t let them leave.

After a minute Triple-F finally said, "we can do this, right?"

"Fuck that, I’m not going off to find some random screamer, for all we know Rev’s scream, they
make all kinds of weird noises."

"Yea," Jennifer agreed all sarcasm, "Rev’s scream for help all the time I’m sure."

"Come on man," Triple-F put in, "it sounds like a kid." There was a pause in which Wheatly
seemed to genuinely be thinking about it.

"Lieutenant wouldn’t like it," was all he managed to come up with.

"Just blame it on me," Jennifer offered, "say I ran off after screaming children and you were
forced to follow." She waited to see if this would work for them, in the end the two finally exchanged a
nod. Looked like Triple-F was going to get some practice after all.

"Don’t run off," Wheatly ordered behind her, "can’t chase you and some random screamer at
the same time."

"You don’t have to worry about me, I"ll keep it tight," at least this gave her something to hold
her focus, an excuse not to fall apart.

"What floor," Triple-F asked over his shoulder, "which floor did that sound like to you."

Wheatly said nothing so finally Jennifer volunteered to be wrong, "sounded close, probably this
floor." She pointed to the sign that read the sixth floor, she could be wrong, she suspected it didn’t
matter much, if they couldn’t find the source of the sound soon it would likely stop for other reasons.

"That’s pretty far from the cleared zone," Wheatly commented, probably in hopes of deterring
the next course of action.

"Look on the bright side Private, you’ll have a high Rev-kill if you manage to survive." Jennifer
didn’t think that she liked Wheatly over-much, she was actually sorely missing Brook at this point.

"We’re quiet from this point on," Triple-F gave her an accusatory look before slipping up next to
the sixth floor entrance. She didn’t know why he was looking at her like she’d spent her entire time in
the building shouting at the top of her lungs. Her team had cleared their hall on the first floor with little
fuss, her trip to the tenth floor had been silent outside of Tom screaming at her to get her ass back in line.
Maybe he was just doing it because she was lousy at taking orders but if that was the case she rather
thought he would have realized that was a bad idea. She thought it was more likely that her earlier
display of making him look incompetent had him trying to assert his dominance. That was unlikely to
happen, at least not unless he was going to evidence skill and knowledge beyond her comprehension in
the next couple minutes.