Wormwood Echoes (9 page)

She fed.

And she fed the berserker.

When she slept in the warm hardness of his arms, she slept like the dead. Nothing bothered her. Her sleep was dreamless. There were no haunting voices, no accusing eyes, no rotting friends.

But Eugene didn’t allow her peace for long. Before the night was half over, he called her and the crew in. Kelic’s vampires, the ones she had been unable to purge the first time out, were in Spiritgrove.

They weren’t even trying to hide. Simon himself had broken into the hospital and carried out a woman who, even as he spirited her from the building, was in the middle of giving birth.

Simon was not yet sick.

Why some of them remained healthy while some of them rotted within days was a mystery—but the witnesses at the hospital assured her that Simon was not sick.

And those who were sick decided that by feeding on the pure, they’d lose their rot—or at least stay alive until a cure was found for them.

Even if the pure was an infant.

She understood Kelic. Understood his desperation. She didn’t want to kill him…

But she would.

She just had to find the son of a bitch. The first purge had been unsuccessful. The second one couldn’t be.

“Levi,” she said, before they left the house. It would just take a few minutes to feed the twins, and though they wouldn’t ask, she could see the need in their eyes.

He and Denim offered her their wrists obediently. She bit Levi, then Denim, under the somewhat narrow gaze of the berserker.

And once at the Annex, she took ten minutes to stand at Lex’s bedside so the little Other could feed from her energy before she met her crew in the lobby.

“We’ll split up,” she told them. “Berserker, you take Denim. Levi, go with Raze. Jack, Owen. I’ll go alone.” She left the Annex with them, determined that before any of them went home again, the vampires of River County would be finished.

They had two hours before dawn—but it didn’t matter to the crew if the vampires were awake and ready to fight or asleep and helpless. It couldn’t.

“You take Denim,” Strad said, as they walked across the parking lot. “I don’t need backup.”

The twins were as full of energy from the feeding as she was, and Denim waited impatiently to see whose car he’d be getting into.

“And I do?” Rune asked. “Don’t fight me on this. Denim’s with you. I’m not taking a car.”

“Let’s do this,” Levi said, his lean body humming with eagerness.

Rune grinned. “Go kick ass, my bloodthirsty crew.” Then she lost her smile and stared at them somberly. “If you see the bloodsuckers, call us in. Don’t take them on until we get there. And don’t any of you die on me.”

As though her order would make them live.

Owen stuck his hands in his pockets. “Don’t worry so much.” He looked at Strad. “No one is dying.”

Strad caught Owen’s stare and they glared at each other for thirty seconds before Rune snapped them out of it. “Fuck both of you. Stop your shit and be my fucking team.”

But she worried about them the entire time she roamed River County, trying to sniff out the vampires.

The first place she searched was Wormwood. She didn’t really expect the vampires to hide in the cemetery—there were too many Others there who’d be willing to turn them in.

But she had to check.

Gunnar was waiting for her. “There are no vampires here.”

“I didn’t really think there would be.” She looked around. “It’s empty here. Quiet.”

“The Others are dying quickly.” He stared at her.

“I’ll go when I can go, Gunnar. I haven’t heard any echoes.”

“Then you’re not listening hard enough,” Dawn said, stepping from the shadows. “If you really want to go, you’ll go.”

“I wish it were that easy,” Rune said. “But from where I stand it’s almost fucking impossible.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “You’re scared.”

Rune lifted her eyebrow at Dawn’s disdain. “Yeah? Are you going to tell me Damascus doesn’t scare you?” She frowned. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“That,” Gunnar said hurriedly, “is a long story. Go to the clinic in Willowburg, Your Horror. They will direct you to some of the vampires.”

“The clinic? Are they—”

“Go,” he said. “Time is running out. For all of us.”

She stared at him a moment longer. “You’re not sick, are you?”

Dawn answered for him. “He is rotting, Your Dumbness. If you don’t go to Skyll, he will die with the others.”

Rune put a hand to her chest. “Fuck, Gunnar.” Then, “Skyll? That’s what her world is called?”

“Skyll is the rim of horror,” Gunnar said. “Limbus. Limbo. The border between. And I will be fine.”

“Yes,” Dawn agreed. “If Her Creepiness doesn’t hide in a corner sobbing in fear.”

“Listen, ghoul. Gunnar can call me whatever he wants to call me. You can’t. Keep your fucking mouth shut or when I do go, I’m hauling your ass back there with me.”

Dawn paled and took a step back. “You…”

“Yes?”

“Go away.”

Rune went. If Dr. Haas, the Other doctor, could tell her where the vampires were, she had no time to waste.

She called Jack once she was outside Wormwood. “Pick me up at the cemetery. We need to go to the clinic in Willowburg. Gunnar says they’ll have a lead on some of the vampires.”

“You got it,” he said. “Want me to call the others?”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t quite daylight and the vampires were still awake. The entire crew would need to be there. The vampires might be sick but they were able to fight.

And run.

She didn’t know why she’d called Jack to pick her up instead of Strad or Raze. He pulled up and Owen jumped out, giving her a wink before he got into the backseat.

She’d forgotten Owen was with Jack or she might have called someone else. But then she brushed the thought away. She wasn’t walking on eggshells because of Owen
or
the berserker.

Once she was inside the car she punched in the clinic number. She’d let them know she was on her way to see the doctor.

No one answered.

“Shit.”

“What is it?” Jack asked.

“Drive faster, baby. There’s no answer at the clinic.”

She caught glimpses of sick Others, some lying dead at the sides of the highways, others walking aimlessly as decaying bodies and splintering minds overtook them.

As they drew closer to Willowburg they spotted a group of Others gathered in a field off the road—they would never have seen them if the headlights hadn’t, for one brief second, glanced off the lifeless body of a human hanging over a low hanging branch of a tree.

“It’s not a group of Others,” Rune told Jack and Owen. “It’s a mob of vampires. Don’t get careless.”

Jack slammed on the brakes and all three of them were out of the car in seconds. Rune smelled the sickness as soon as she left the vehicle.

Some of the vampires were sick, some of them were not. Two healthy bloodsuckers ran to meet the crew, equal parts determination and madness in their pale faces.

Three more followed, blood leaking from stained lips.

A female vampire stood, then listed to the side and lay without moving.

Rune processed it all in seconds, then there was little time for anything but killing.

“Human,” she heard Owen shout, and caught a glimpse of him pulling an unmoving woman from the ground.

He tossed her over his shoulder, wielding his blade with one hand as he backed away from the group of vampires.

The vampires weren’t overly interested in the woman Owen carried, which told Rune they’d already gotten everything they could from her. She was either already dead or would be dead in a matter of minutes.

She didn’t see Simon or Iker. Likely the master had been trying to keep some sort of peace and the band she was facing were rogues who’d split from him.

And they were angry.

A bloodsucker ran at her, his fangs flashing. Before he could reach her, another vampire appeared, shoved him away, and went for Rune himself. Snarling, raging, hungry.

Sick.

They blamed her for the sickness as much as they blamed the humans. Blamed her for not saving them. And they all wanted a piece of her.

She understood.

That didn’t mean she wouldn’t have to kill them.

And the sun was coming.

The vampires were so fucked up they didn’t seem to see or feel or
hear
dawn breaking—and as Rune readied her claws to dig out her attacker’s heart, the sun did it for her.

Just that suddenly, the bloodsuckers began screaming as they melted and burned in a hideous show of agony, crying out in terror as the reaper came to tote them off after centuries of life.

Rune covered her ears and closed her eyes, unable to bear witness to a kind of suffering that not even she had been forced to endure.

When she was able to look again, the sun was smiling, and the vampires were dead.

“You okay?” Jack asked, adjusting his eye patch.

Owen stood silently at the car, staring off into the distance. The woman he’d carried away had died before he’d gotten her out of the field.

The vampires had ripped her baby from her before she’d died. When Rune forced herself to search the field she’d found the body of the infant. She’d placed it with its mother in the back of Jack’s car.

Then she stood still, numb, cold, and so very tired.

“Rune,” Jack said, gently. “We need to go to the clinic. That wasn’t all of them.”

She nodded. “No sign of Simon or Iker?”

“No.”

Maybe Iker had died early. Maybe Simon had killed him to spare him the horror of rotting, and Simon was hiding where she’d never find him. He’d threatened to go underground, and no matter how sick he might become, he was smart.

She nodded. “Let’s go.” But she didn’t move.

She heard gunshots in the distance, and saw smoke rising into the sky. River County hadn’t even recovered from COS, and they were being hit again.

The county was going to be destroyed. It was destroying itself.

Jack slid under the wheel, then let down his window. “Rune. Get in.”

She didn’t realize Owen was beside her until he took her arm. “Come on.”

Rune shook off the melancholy and got into the car. There were more vampires to put down. More babies to save.

Always.

She couldn’t afford to wallow in her deep and bloody issues.

The house above the clinic was eerily dark and quiet when they arrived, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Though the clinic had lost its secrecy in the preceding months, it still maintained its mystery.

Rune walked with Jack and Owen to the front door, the cover door. Her loud knock was not answered, and she closed her eyes for a long second.

“There’s some bad shit in there,” she said. “Be ready for anything.”

She shot out her claws as the other two filled their hands with silver, and with one kick she destroyed the door.

They took the elevator down. Rune placed herself in front of the two men before the doors opened. The elevator spat them out into a clinic that bore little resemblance to the clean, neat place run by Dr. Haas.

The floors were littered with garbage, and the once pristine walls were covered with graffiti. There were no capable nurses hurrying down the hallways, no quiet chimes notifying staff of patient requests.

“What the hell happened here?” Jack murmured.

“Traffickers,” Rune replied, keeping her voice low.

“They’re using the clinic for headquarters,” Owen agreed.

“Then let’s find the sons of bitches,” Jack said.

They walked quickly but quietly down the hallway, gently nudging open doors to peer into empty rooms. They found no patients.

She cocked her head, almost relieved when the hint of a scream reached her sensitive ears. “I heard a scream, boys. I’m going on ahead. Stay together.”

She didn’t wait to see if they’d argue, just let her monster free and ran. The clinic was bigger than she’d imagined it would be, with areas she’d never seen.

She half expected the prisoners to be held in the basement, if the clinic had one, but she heard one of them seconds later, locked in an operating room.

The screams came again, louder, more desperate, and Rune hit the doors running. They burst inward, crumbling like crackers.

It took her one horrified minute to process the details—blood, whimpers, the restrained woman, fear…

“My baby,” the woman cried. “God, my baby.”

Rune knelt on the slippery floor beside her. The woman had delivered recently, and the traffickers had left her on the floor where she’d given birth, her hands cuffed to a table.

She lay in the mess of fluids and blood, her gown shoved up to her waist. “Oh, my baby,” she whimpered. Her face was dead pale, her eyes black and feverish. “They took her.”

“I know,” Rune said. She pushed the woman’s sweaty hair out of her face. “I’m going to find your baby.”

She broke the chain of the cuffs easily and helped the woman to her feet. When the mother couldn’t stand on her own, Rune carried her to one of the tables and placed her carefully on it.

She grabbed Rune’s hand. “Don’t leave me here. Please, don’t leave me here.”

“I’ll be back. I swear.” But she couldn’t have pried the desperate grip off her hand without hurting the woman, and she wasn’t willing to cause her more pain.

“Fuck me,” she said, under her breath, then pulled her cell from her pocket with her free hand.

“I have traffickers and an injured human at the clinic in Willowburg,” she said, when an Annex tech answered. “I need transport here now.”

“Are the traffickers neutralized?” he asked.

“They’re dead,” she said, her voice flat. “That’s pretty fucking neutralized.”

“Dammit, Alexander,” he said. “The boss wanted traffickers brought in alive. We need information, not more dead bodies.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Apologize to Eugene for me. Now get the fucking transport here.” She clicked off.

She was in a hurry. She had traffickers to execute.

Jack and Owen stomped into the room, guns and blades ready, death in their hard stares.

“Okay?” Jack asked, gun up.

“They took my baby,” the woman cried. “Don’t leave me.”

“One of you stay with her until the Annex arrives,” Rune said. “I called them. I have to find the fucking traffickers and the infant.”

Owen glanced once at the tormented woman and headed for the door. “I’ll help you search.”

Z would have stayed with the woman.

And just that quickly, Rune stopped thinking of Owen as Z.

It hurt. It hurt a lot. It was almost like losing Z all over again. Almost like he died right there in that room. She’d been holding on to him, holding on to him through Owen.

“Rune?” Jack stood beside the woman, gently transferring her grip from Rune’s hand to his. “You good?”

She loped toward the doorway, her heart beating wildly, desperate for air. Grief was like that.

It hit her all of a sudden, out of the blue, and tried to send her to her knees.

You going to let me go, sweet thing?

“No,” she growled. “Never.
Never,
damn you.”

Owen frowned. “Rune?”

“Find me some fucking traffickers,” she said, and dropped her fangs with such force they cut her lip.

She didn’t wait for his nod before she shot down the hall, her claws slicing through the air, her pain needing an outlet. She needed to cut somebody.

Not herself, though. Not herself.

Just the bad guys.

Her monster ran with her, sniffing the air, more animal than human or even Other, tracking the distinct scent of an infant.

Whatever had softened and hesitated in her since her decapitation hardened once again, manipulated like clay by her monster’s strong hands.

She followed the trail through a door that opened into a long, dark hallway. Mingling with the sweet scent of the infant and the sour stench of unwashed humans was the heady perfume of earth and mud and air, and she knew the hallway would lead her to an exit out of the clinic.

She caught them halfway across a back parking lot she hadn’t known existed—three men, one carrying a small black duffle bag.

Her monster cracked its knuckles and smiled.

The man carrying the bag threw a look back over his shoulder and screamed, started to run, then turned around and hefted the bag into the air. “Here, here! This is what you want.”

She slowed but didn’t stop, giving him just enough time to throw the bag at her before she ran her claws through his belly and unzipped him like an ugly dress.

She lowered the bag with its precious contents to the ground, and then she went after the two remaining men.

The one she caught first threw his arms over his head, yelling, “We’re not fighters, we’re not fighters!” until she silenced him forever.

That left one man, and too bad for him she hadn’t gotten the rage out of her system. She stalked him, understanding when he glanced behind her, his eyes showing a flash of hope, that Owen was coming.

Owen.

She wanted to play, but she wanted to kill. Wanted to taste blood. Wanted to be a fucking vicious monster and hurt the asshole who ripped babies from wombs to sell to sick, starving vampires.

She grabbed him, gratified by the terror in his wide eyes. Gratified by his begging.

“Please, please,” he moaned. “I’ll do anything. I can tell you things—”

“Oh yes,” she agreed, “you’re going to tell me many things.”

She rode him to the ground, to the hard, cold ground, growls coming from her mouth as he fought and struggled and screamed.

She leaned forward and ran her tongue over his lips, sucking on them for a second before putting her mouth on his neck. “You are going to taste so fucking good.”

“You’re crazy!” he screamed.

“I’m not crazy, baby,” she assured him. “I’m mad. There’s a difference.”

And she slid her fangs into his flesh, soaking up his blood like a dehydrated sponge.

From somewhere behind her, Owen’s whisper, full of darkness and delight, floated to her ears.

“Mine…”