Authors: Julie Kagawa
“The lab,” he said after a moment. “The place where the scientists were working on a cure. That’s where he’ll be. I’m sure of it.”
“Well, then,” Jackal said, with a very slow, evil smile that glinted with fangs, “if the psychopath is expecting us, we shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
Sarren,
I thought, as the anger, the rage I thought I’d forgotten, surged up with a vengeance. Everything that led to this moment—Kanin’s torture, the New Covington plague, Zeke’s death and Turning—all pointed to the madman who waited at the end of the road.
This is it; we finally made it to Eden.
Looking at Zeke, Kanin and Jackal, my small, strange, indisputable family, I clenched my fists.
I won’t let him win
.
One way or another, it ends tonight. We won’t get another shot.
Kanin turned to Zeke again. “This is your island, Ezekiel,” he said. “Your territory. I expect you know where to go.”
Zeke nodded. “This way,” he murmured, leading us up the bank. “There’s a road ahead that will take us to the city. We’ll have to go through Eden proper to get to the lab, but there’s a lot of open space between us and the city. We could be fighting rabids the whole way there.”
Let them come,
I thought, following Zeke up the rise.
We’re in Eden. We finally made it. Do you hear that, Sarren? I’m here. I’m coming for you.
Slipping into the trees, we found a narrow strip of pavement that snaked away into the darkness, and we headed deeper into Eden toward the madman at the end of the road.
It was quiet, far too quiet, on the small paved road that cut through the fields, passing distant houses that sat empty and dark at the edge of the lots. Past the beach where we’d come in, the trees thinned out, becoming large open pastures beneath undisturbed blankets of snow. The few homes I saw, though they were neat and tidy, not falling to ruin under years of neglect and decay, didn’t account for the large number of people at the checkpoint.
“I thought Eden was a city,” I whispered to Zeke, “It is,” Zeke replied in an equally low voice. We hadn’t seen any pale, skeletal forms lurking in the shadows or distant buildings, but we knew they were out there, somewhere. “We’re on the outskirts of Eden proper right now. Most of the surrounding areas they use for farmland, as much as they can spare. The city itself is farther in.”
I gazed out over a snowy field, empty now due to winter, I guessed, and remembered my own days as a Fringer, starving and scavenging to survive. Even the registered citizens of New Covington were barely given enough supplies to live, unless you made it into the Inner City, of course. How did Eden provide enough food for her people? From what I’d seen at the checkpoint, there had to be a few thousand survivors.
“These aren’t the only farms,” Zeke explained when I finally asked him. “Only a small percentage of food comes from Eden itself. There are three smaller islands—we passed them on the way here—that are solely for growing crops and raising livestock. A handful of farmers and ranchers live there year-round and ferry supplies to Eden every couple weeks.” He gazed into the field, watching the wind swirl ice eddies through the pasture. “I was only here a few months,” he admitted, “but from what I learned, the people here take care of each other, so no one really goes hungry for long, even in the lean times.”
“Huh,” I remarked, wondering what that must be like: never going hungry. Never having to worry where your next scrap of food would come from, if you could scrape enough together to stay alive another day. And even more shocking, the people here helped each other, looked out for one another, instead of hoarding their supplies or scheming ways to get more from those who had them. I’d never experienced that. Everyone in my world, before Zeke anyway, looked out only for themselves. “Sounds like they have a pretty good life here.”
“They did,” Zeke muttered. “Until now.”
The road continued farther into Eden, and we soon left the fields and farms behind. Houses and buildings became more prominent, simple but sturdy homes that faintly resembled the rows and rows of urban dwellings in the abandoned cities. Only these were whole and unbroken, with well-tended yards, walls that weren’t crumbling, and roofs that hadn’t fallen in. The houses were packed together, people literally living on top of each other in two- and three-story dwellings. Still, it was a much nicer place than anywhere I’d seen before. It was crowded, sure, but it was better than the shoddy, ramshackle settlements I’d seen outside the vampire cities, buildings thrown together with whatever happened to be lying around. These homes had been carefully built and carefully maintained, like the real towns had been before the plague. Not a hastily constructed settlement that would vanish in a few years.
Though the utter silence and emptiness made it even more eerie. Like this place was
supposed
to be bustling, full of people and noise and life, and it wasn’t. The world outside had been abandoned for decades, and it showed in every collapsed building, every rusted-out car, weed-choked highway, or rooftop split with trees. Everything was dark, broken, empty of life, and had been for a long, long time.
But here, there were subtle hints of a life before. A blue bicycle, leaning against a fence post, old and faded but still in working condition. A car parked on the edge of the road, doors open, dried blood spattering the front seat. A doll lay in the middle of the sidewalk, as if it had been dropped and its owner had either left it there or been hurried away. A few buildings were still lit from the inside, spilling soft orange light through the windows.
“The power plant is still running,” Zeke said, glancing at a streetlamp that flickered erratically on the corner. “That’s a good thing, I suppose.”
I peeked through an open door creaking softly on its hinges and found a small, quaint living room, a stone fireplace in one corner and a green sofa in front of it. The sofa was the only thing in the room that wasn’t overturned or destroyed. Shattered plates littered the floor, chairs were knocked over and smashed, and ominous brown streaks covered one part of the wall. I took a quick breath and smelled what I feared: that hint of decay and wrongness, lingering on the air like an oily taint. They were definitely out there, lurking in the darkness. I wondered why we hadn’t run into any of them yet.
We hadn’t gone far into the city when we stumbled across the first rabid corpse.
It lay in the road, the snow falling around it, its white, emaciated body curled up like a huge spider. Its skull had been crushed, either by bullets or something heavy, and the snow beneath it was stained black. I curled a lip, Kanin ignored it, and Jackal gave it a smirk as he stepped over the broken body and continued down the road.
As we went farther into Eden, and the buildings to either side grew taller and more crowded, the number of bodies increased. Rabids lay in the road or on the sidewalk, riddled with holes or blown apart. The military forces had not gone quietly and were probably the reason so many made it out of Eden alive. There were no human corpses in the road, the fallen having been torn apart or eaten by rabids in short order. But the telltale signs of the massacre were still there. Bones lay scattered amid rabid corpses, the tattered, bloody remains of clothes still clinging to them. A body, more skeleton than flesh, lay half in, half out of a broken store window. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman because it was so savaged. The smell of blood, rabids and unrestrained gore was overpowering, and had I been human, it would have made me violently sick.
“Well, someone’s been having fun,” Jackal remarked as we edged around a pile of dead rabids, the street and walls riddled with gunfire. A large camouflaged vehicle lay on its side by the curb, windows smashed, blood streaked across the windshield. “This place is screwed even worse than New Covington. All we need now is a mob of bat-shit-crazy humans tearing their faces off.”
Faint scratching sounds interrupted him. A rabid lay beneath one of the huge tires, its lower half crushed by the vehicle, long arms clawing weakly at the pavement. It spotted us and hissed, baring a mouthful of jagged fangs, right before Jackal drove the heel of his boot into its skull. There was a sickening pop, and the rabid stopped moving. Jackal curled a lip and scraped his foot against the curb.
“You know what? Never mind. I can do without the batshit crazy. This place is screwed enough.”
Kanin ignored him, turning his attention to Zeke. “How much farther to the lab?”
“Not far,” Zeke confirmed. “The docks and the town square are about a mile that way,” he went on, nodding toward the west side of the island. “According to the mayor, that’s where the barge crashed and the rabids came pouring out, so I’m trying to avoid the main strip by taking us around. The lab is on the outskirts of the city, near the power plant and the old airport.”
“Then lead on.”
The road continued deeper into Eden, cutting through canyons of buildings and apartments, beneath bridges and walkways from the levels above. Streetlamps glowed dimly on corners, and lights shone above us from windows and doorways, casting weird shadows over the empty streets.
“Still no rabids?” Jackal mused, gazing into dark alleys and shadowy buildings. “I thought this hellhole was so infested they couldn’t throw a rock without hitting one. Where’s the crazy keeping them all?”
“I’m sure we’ll find out soon,” Zeke muttered. “I’m surprised we haven’t run into anything else. If Sarren knows we’re coming, I would’ve thought he’d set up at least a few—”
And at that moment, of course, my leg brushed against something: a hair-thin wire stretched across the road near the ground, almost invisible in the blackness. As soon as I felt it, I froze, but it was too late.
A bloodcurdling scream rang overhead, making me jump back with a snarl, unsheathing my blade. Zeke and Jackal drew their weapons, and we pressed back-to-back, gazing around for attackers. There was no body, human or rabid, on the balconies above, no movement in the shadows. But the scream continued, frantic and terrified, echoing through the street and over the rooftops, making me cringe.
“Where is it coming from?” I snapped, wishing I could see whoever was screeching just to shut them up. In the deathly stillness, the screams pierced the night like gunfire and probably echoed for miles. But I still couldn’t see anyone.
Kanin abruptly swooped down, snatched a loose brick from the sidewalk, and hurled it into the darkness. I saw the projectile flash through the air and hit something small on the corner of a roof. There was a crunch and then a garbled buzz. Pieces of wires and machinery fell into the road, fluttering like dead moths, as the scream sputtered into silence. Though the echoes still lingered, bouncing off the walls and ringing in my ears.
And now there was a new sound, rising over the rooftops, getting steadily closer. A skittering, hissing, scrabbling noise, the sound of many things closing in. Jackal bared his fangs in a silent snarl and hefted his ax.
“Well, ask a stupid question…”
“This way!” Kanin barked, turning down a side alley. “Before they’re all over us!”
A white skeletal figure dropped onto the road from an overhead balcony, eyes blazing, and lunged at me with a wail. I tensed, but Zeke’s machete flashed between us, and the rabid’s head hit my boots as it collapsed. “Allie, go!” he snapped as the roofs, walls and streets began to swarm with pale, spindly bodies. “I’m right behind you!”
We ran, following Kanin down the narrow, winding streets, ducking into alleys and through buildings, a screaming, hissing mob at our heels. Claws snatched at me from a side street, snagging the edge of my coat. I spun and lashed out at the same time, cutting both arms from the rabid’s body before sprinting on.
A rabid leaped atop a car hood, hissing. Jackal snarled and brought his weapon down with a vicious crunch, crushing metal and the rabid’s spine equally. “Starting to feel like a rat in a maze, here,” he said, glaring at the mob closing in around us. “If anyone has an idea beyond ‘run in circles and kill everything that fucks with us,’ I’d love to hear it.”
Zeke dodged a rabid that leaped at him, and swung his blade into another’s neck, severing it neatly. His backswing hammered into the first rabid as it lunged at him again, slamming it into a wall. “Where are we?” he growled, casting a quick look at a street sign on the corner. A rabid tried charging at him while he was distracted, but met a katana instead as I ripped my blade through its middle and cut it in half. “Centre Dyke and Sandpoint,” Zeke muttered, and took a step back. “Okay, I know where we can go. Everyone, follow me!”
He took off down another side street, the rest of us close behind, cutting down rabids that got too close or blocked our path. Zeke and Jackal led the way, the machete and fire ax working in tandem, slicing through bodies or bashing them aside. Kanin hung back with me and covered our escape, his thin, bright dagger lethally accurate as it flashed through the air.
The streets opened up, and right ahead of us, a small stone building sat within a wrought-iron fence at the end of a small grassy lot. As we fought our way toward the gate, headstones became visible through the neatly cut grass, crosses and angels rising into the air, and Jackal gave a snarl of disgust.
“Oh, sure! Of course it would be a damn church. What else was I expecting?”
Zeke, slicing his way through two more rabids that came at us, didn’t slow down. “If you’re worried about bursting into flames if you cross the threshold, feel free to stay outside,” he said without looking at Jackal, who snorted and rammed the hilt of his ax into a rabid’s face, flinging it back.
“Hey, not to rain on your little parade, but I think you’ve forgotten something.” He swung his weapon in a vicious arc, striking an attacker down with bone-crunching force before turning on Zeke. “ You’re a demon now, puppy, same as the rest of us. I wouldn’t be so smug—you’re just as likely to get the lightning bolt when you step through those doors.”
“Then I’ll know where I stand,” Zeke muttered, and hit the cemetery gates, pushing them back with a creak. The rabids followed us across the lawn, between headstones and angel statues, scrabbling over the graves to get to us. We fought our way up the steps of the small church, toward the heavy wooden doors at the top. With the church at our back, the monsters were forced into a bottleneck as they pressed up the stairs, making it easier to deal with them. But there were still a lot of the bastards, and they were stupidly persistent. While Kanin, Jackal and I blocked the stairs, Zeke turned to open the doors. They rattled when he tried the handle, but didn’t budge.