by Laken Cane
Chapter Nine
Afterward, Ellis followed her to the Moor to fetch his present. She had no doubt he’d appreciate it. His worry over being bitten was evident as he flinched away from every sudden movement, every imagined threat.
He was terrified.
Combined with the worry over the twins and the loss of Z, the fear of vampires was becoming too much for him.
He’d withdrawn from her as well, as though he might be turned if she touched him—and he didn’t even realize he was doing it.
But she did.
“I’ll make some coffee,” he said, and headed for her kitchen.
She nodded and went into her bedroom to get the carefully wrapped fang. She sure as hell didn’t want to touch the toxic tooth. Two days earlier she’d had a thin but strong silver chain attached so he could wear it around his neck.
She had a feeling that once he put it on, it was never coming off.
When they sat at her table, coffee in hand, she gave him the gift. She’d dropped the paper-wrapped fang into a larger box, covered it with more paper, and tied it with twine. She really didn’t want to get too close to it. “Here you go, Ellie,” she told him. “Your protection for when I’m not there.”
He handled it gingerly. His hands shook the tiniest bit and his eyes held an eager spark. He beamed at her, gave a mystified smile, then went back to his present.
“I guess you thought I needed to work for this.” He struggled with the twine until she fetched him a pair of scissors.
Finally, he poured the fang from its envelope and into his palm. “Oh my. It’s a…it’s a tooth.” He glanced at her. “Thank you. It’s lovely.”
She laughed. “It’s a fang.” She pushed back her chair and stood, then walked casually a few feet away to lean against the sink. The fang made her physically ill. “Put it on, baby. No vampire will get close to you as long as you’re wearing that.”
He dropped the chain over his head and smiled up at her. “I can’t believe it. I’m safe? I’m really safe?”
“I swear it.”
He caressed the fang as it lay against his chest. “But how can you know for sure?”
She said nothing.
He glanced up at her silence, and finally, he understood. “No,” he whispered. “Oh, Rune. No.” He started to pull the chain back over his head.
“Ellis,” she said, gently. “Stop.”
“I won’t wear it if it means I can’t be near you,” he said. “You’re all I have.”
“Put it inside your shirt.”
He covered it immediately, then walked to her. “It’s okay like this?”
She grabbed him to her in a hug. “It’s perfect. See? Nothing to worry about. You’re not losing me or your protection. Now get out of here. I have to check in with Rice.”
He held her hand against his cheek. “I don’t know where you got this, and I don’t want to know. Just…thank you. Thank you. You’re always saving me.”
“I’d do anything for you.”
At last, with shining eyes and a smile that was worth the world, he left.
She groaned and leaned against the sink, her palm to her stake scar. She ran her fingers over the small bulging blisters that had popped up beneath her shirt and closed her eyes against the burning pain.
If the fang hadn’t been covered by his shirt, her top might have burst into flames from the melting heat of her skin. That was an improvement over holding the tooth against her bare skin, but it was still painful.
She had no idea how to solve the problem, but she wasn’t letting him toss away the one item that could guarantee him protection against turning. She was part vampire. A full vampire would have more trouble with it than she did, if Ellie wore it outside his shirt.
She hoped they’d never have to test it.
Because of Z’s funeral, Rice had told the crew to take the day off. None of them had wanted to, and he understood. Work kept them from thinking too much.
So when her phone rang and Rice was on the other end, she wasn’t surprised.
“Rune, can you come in? I need to speak with you.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour.”
Twenty five minutes later she sat in the chair in front of his desk. He avoided her stare by contemplating the obviously fascinating view outside his window.
“I’m not going to like this, am I?” she asked.
He sighed and sat down. Still, he looked everywhere but at her. “No.”
She clenched her fists. “Tell me and get it over with.”
Maybe it was about the birds. Maybe Rice was firing Ellie. Maybe Elizabeth wasn’t coming back to work, or wasn’t going to get Fie and George.
Maybe he’d gotten bad news about the twins.
But it was none of those.
“River County is taking a new vampire master.”
Her mouth fell open. “What?”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “A master named Simon Kelic petitioned for our city. I’m approving him.”
She shook her head, unable to believe what he was telling her. “You’re allowing another master to come into our city. That’s what you’re fucking telling me.”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do that after everything Llodra put us through? Elizabeth is still in the hospital from the RISC massacre and you’re telling me another master is coming.”
“Not all vampires are like Nicolas Llodra. He was mad.”
“Vampires are bloodsucking, murderous bastards.” And Ellie would be distraught.
“I know it’ll be difficult for you to accept another master, but it’s for the best. I’ve considered a few of the vampires who’ve petitioned me, and I feel Kelic—”
“You work fast,” she interrupted. Again, she shook her head, as though she could dislodge something caught in her brain. It didn’t work. “Elizabeth will leave Spiritgrove.”
“No, she won’t. Every city has a master. It keeps our lives balanced. If we can choose the best coven, we’ll stay in control.”
She laughed. “You’ve gone fucking nuts.”
He leaned forward, his lips thinning. “You need to understand this—you are not in control of RISC. I am.”
“For now.”
“You want to replace me, Rune? Someday, maybe. Someday when you have no need to fight or shoot or lead your crew in battle. My job is paper. My job is politics and desks and speeches and overseeing employees. Keeping the humans happy and trying to make sure they keep their noses out of Other business. That’s my job. You want it?”
God, no. “You know I don’t.”
He leaned over his desk, his eyes dark. “Then shut the fuck up about the vampires. I know what I’m doing. You do your job, and I’ll do mine.”
She studied her folded hands. “I’m worried for Ellis.”
He settled back into his chair, blowing out a breath of relief. “I was told you’d found some sort of amulet as protection against the bite.”
“You really do work fast.”
“He’ll be okay, Rune. The world is full of vampires. We can’t keep them out of River County. We need a master who’ll work with us. I believe I’ve found one.”
“And I believe it’s going to come back to bite you in the ass.” She lifted her palms before he could speak. “I can’t stop you. Bring him in if you must. But I don’t think Elizabeth or Ellis are going to forgive you anytime soon.”
“Simon spoke with Elizabeth before he petitioned. He wanted her permission.”
“I don’t believe you. She’d never consent to another master.”
“But she did. Elizabeth knows what’s best for the city. She’s not going to let her personal…fears get in the way.” He gestured. “Call her. Let her explain.”
But she knew he was telling the truth. Elizabeth had thought creating a center for newly turned humans was a good idea. Rune had believed in that idea herself, once upon a time.
She stood. “Unless you have a run for me, I’m going to call
Owen. He might have a lead on the twins.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “You should take some time off. You’ve been through a lot lately.”
“I’m fine. I need to work.”
“Come back at sundown, please. I’d like you to meet the new master. Give me your opinion.” His voice softened. “I don’t want to argue with you. RISC needs you.”
Finally, she nodded. “I’ll be here.”
She meant to leave the room, to find and console Ellie, who was surely devastated by the same news Rice had given her.
Before she could leave, Rice’s office phone buzzed. He held up a finger indicating she should wait, and answered his phone.
He hung up a few seconds later. “Zombies in the street by Toad’s and Butter’s. Six people in the bar started shooting them—one was bitten. I’ll call your crew and—”
She was gone before he finished speaking.
Chapter Ten
She was five minutes away from Toad’s and Butter’s when Rice called.
“There’s a hostage situation in Spiritgrove,” he said. “A recently turned shifter holding his estranged wife and two children in their home. You want that or the zombies?”
She wasn’t in the mood to talk a shifter down. She needed blood and guts and blades. Z would have been the one to send to the hostages, but Z was gone. “Send Owen and Jack. Have Raze, Strad, and…” But Raze and Strad were it. Everyone else was out of commission.
Or dead.
“I’ll have Ellis send Raze and Strad to you.” He clicked off.
Raze was already there. As she drove down the street he flashed his lights at her, and she parked behind him. “I was in the area,” he told her, jumping from his truck. “And I’m ready to fight.”
“I hope there are enough of them to go around,” she replied, as the berserker pulled up. She wasn’t good at sharing.
“The zombie problem is not going away,” Strad said as they ran toward the fray.
“Take the guns from the humans first,” Rune told them.
The humans, with their carelessness and bloodlust, would likely shoot the crew as casually as they shot the zombies. Rune doubted it would be a mistake. A lot of the people of River County were ready to put down the Others—all Others—and those who were close to them.
And that was thanks in part to COS.
The street in front of Toad’s and Butter’s was filled with an angry mob and the sporadic sounds of gunfire.
Strad and Raze probably wouldn’t have heard the low moans of the zombies, covered by the angry, fearful shouts of the humans.
But she heard them. Heard them, acknowledged the slight empathy that blossomed inside her, then easily shoved it away. She was becoming hardened to the cries of the hungry dead.
The humans didn’t want the crew interrupting their shooting frenzy. As they spotted the three RISC fighters, two of them turned their guns on the new arrivals.
Rune snarled and shot out her silver claws, the red haze of rage clouding her mind.
“Rune,” Strad said. Maybe he’d meant to calm her, maybe he’d simply meant to caution her to be careful.
But that was all she heard. Her monster took over, and she went for the crowd. A bullet whizzed by her ear and she rammed the man holding the gun just as the other man pulled his trigger.
She was on him before he realized she’d moved, absorbing his screams as she knocked the gun from his hand and then kicked him in the face, sending him flying.
Maybe he lived, maybe he didn’t. She didn’t care one way or the other. Her mind was now on the battle and on the zombies. The other humans, perhaps realizing the crew was more dangerous to their wellbeing than the zombies were, scattered.
Most of them ran back inside to watch the ensuing battle from the relative safety of the bar, and that was fine with her.
Strad had been right. The zombies weren’t going away.
They kept coming. More people got infected every day and the infection was traveling to all parts of the world.
Zombie apocalypse on the horizon?
It was a distinct possibility.
But she’d made peace with her immortality—made peace with it by taking control of it. Everything she’d been through was about as bad as it got. She could handle the rest.
Even zombies taking over the world.
She’d fight as long as her crew fought.
She put down zombie after zombie, Raze and Strad’s gleeful battle cries lifting her spirits even as she worried they’d be infected.
Spiritgrove police cruisers slid into the street, lights flashing as they waited inside the cars for Shiv Crew to take care of the infectious monsters.
Then the cops would tend to the injured people, the illegal gun possessions, the drunk and disorderly, and whatever else the humans of the Moor occupied them with.
The humans weren’t Rune’s problem—except for the one who’d just been infected, and he was ended along with the other zombies.
Rune hoped no one else had been bitten, but wouldn’t have bet on it.
In minutes the monsters were down, and Rune smiled at her two men across the piles of rotting dead. “That was fun, but not much of a challenge.”
“Get off our street or I’ll blow your brains out,” a man called, his words slurred. He stood in the dark doorway of the bar, his friends behind him. Other voices rose in a wave of agreement.
Strad waved the cops over. “Deal with your humans before we do it for you.”
As though he wasn’t human.
Raze growled and wiped his blade on the shirt of a recently made zombie. “Fucking humans,” he said.
Rune grinned.
But then something happened that gave all three of them pause.
“We still love you, Shiv Crew,” a female yelled, and her shout garnered a few supporters. They cheered the crew on, only stopping when the haters decided to fight them about which group was right.
Rune sobered when she remembered what was waiting for them at sundown. “Rice is bringing in a new master.”
They stared at her.
“I didn’t think it’d happen for a while,” Strad said.
She blew out a breath. “Me either. I’m worried about how it’s going to make Ellie feel. And Elizabeth—”
“Alexander!”
She turned at the shout, watching as a young female cop jogged toward her. “Yeah?”
“You need to come see this.”
Rune didn’t ask questions. She and her crew followed the uniform. She’d find out soon enough what had gotten the cop so excited.
The woman led them around the side of the bar, where two other policemen stood. They had two men on the ground in handcuffs, but they ignored them, their attention on the building.
Rune knew what was waiting there. Somehow, she knew.
“Son of a bitch,” she said, as she joined the cops.
Nailed to the wall was the mutilated, bloody body of an Other.
And mixing with the smell of blood and vomit and alcohol was, once again, the sharp, unmistakable scent of birds.
Chapter Eleven
“There were some differences between this killing and the murder of the bird, Lara Book.”
Rune and the crew sat around the long table in the conference room, listening to Bill Rice. “What differences?” Rune asked. She took a sip of the hot coffee Jack handed her.
“They were both murdered and nailed to the exterior wall of buildings in the Moor,” Rice said. “They were both Others. But Lara was tortured.”
Strad frowned. “The shifter was ripped to pieces. You’re saying he wasn’t tortured?”
“The shifter’s wounds were inflicted postmortem,” Rice said. “We think he died before the killer was finished with him.” He shrugged. “So he went on torturing the body.”
“What was the cause of death?” Rune asked.
“Blow to the back of the head with a blunt object.”
“So the doer got carried away and
hit the victim a little too hard?”
Rice nodded. “I think so.” He took a drink of his own coffee. “There were other differences and a couple of similarities that may or may not be significant. The male victim was rumored to be a rapist. He only raped Others though, so the humans didn’t care and the Others never had any real evidence.”
“Lara Book wasn’t a criminal,” Strad said.
“Exactly.” Rice nodded and set his mug down gently. “Another difference. And one was male, one female.”
Rune sighed. “And the other similarities?”
“Both were nailed to a building in the Moor.”
“And something else,” Rune said.
Rice’s stare sharpened. “Yes?”
“There was the distinct scent of birds at both scenes. I also caught the same scent out on Hook Road when Strad and I were checking out a reported sighting of COS.”
No one said anything for a long moment, then Rice nodded slowly. “The first victim was a bird, so of course you caught her scent. As for the other two places…you think the birds are involved in the murders?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re wrong,” Strad said. “I told you I don’t want you fucking with the birds.”
A quick spark of anger shot through her. She clenched her fists and glared at him. “I lead this crew, Berserker. You need to get that into your brain before Shiv Crew is suddenly short another member.”
He leaned across the table, his stare hard. His voice was harder. “I know the birds. You don’t. They don’t murder their own.”
“Everybody is capable of killing their own,” she replied. “The birds can do it just like the humans. Just like the other groups.”
“Not the birds,” he said. “Murdering one of their own is punishable by banishment. To the birds, exile is worse than death.” His voice was grim. “Much worse. Killing one of their own is the only taboo the birds have, and they can barely bring themselves to speak of it.”
“The birds fight and kill each other when they challenge a scepter,” Owen said.
The berserker glared at him. “That’s not murder. That’s a fair fight to the death for a position of power.”
The scepters were the leaders of the nest. Owen had told her there were seven of them, various ages. Once they won their spot they ruled absolutely. The only way for a scepter to lose his or her spot was if they were challenged by another bird and lost the ensuing fight.