Strange Trouble

by Laken Cane

  She knew suddenly and without question that Karin was going to be freed, and she was going to hurt Lex.

  Something Lex had known all along.

  “Let’s go,” Raze said.

  “Where, Raze? Go where?” Rune caressed the hilts of her shivs, tempted to plunge one of them into the healing stake wound on her chest.

  “Surround the house. Follow COS when they take the twins. Get Lex the fuck back.”

  “COS will hurt her if we do.”

  He curled his lip. “They’ll hurt her anyway, Rune.”

  But she’d made so many wrong decisions. “I’m afraid I’ll fuck up again,” she said, looking from one to the other. “I’m afraid I’ll get her killed.”

  That was an understatement.

  She was fucking terrified.

  “I can’t do this, guys. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “You’re the only one who can do this,” Jack said, his voice harsh. “You want to sit back and let COS have them? Or do you want to take them the fuck down?”

  “I want Lex and the twins to be okay. That’s what I want.”

  “Well, they’re not okay. We have to make them okay. You know that, Rune.”

  She did. She took a deep breath and clutched at Owen’s hand when he offered it to her. In the back of her mind she noted the berserker’s immediate reaction to the contact, but it was a niggling thought she barely comprehended. Not then.

  Rice’s phone rang. She stared at him, willing him to hang up and tell her that Lex and the twins had overpowered COS and were on their way back to the crew.

  But he didn’t tell her that. He clenched his phone, his face pale. “Zombies, Rune. And not just a few. They’re in Spiritgrove, and they’re attacking.”

  He held up his palm as she opened her mouth to speak. “Every available cop is on the scene, and they’re blowing the zombies’ heads off. But it’s not enough. They’re spreading out, and they have to be contained now.” He pointed at her. “Take the crew and do your job. Protect the city.”

  But he knew what she’d say. The knowledge was there in his eyes. And he didn’t blame her, not really. The city hadn’t been kind to her, or him, or to any of the Others.

  She smiled. “Fuck the city, Bill. I’m going after Lex and the twins.”

  With any luck, the zombies would make their way to those who held part of her crew. She’d urge them on as they munched on the malevolent brains of the wicked slayers who held Lex, and eventually, on fucking Karin Love.

  Chapter Forty-One

  But Rice shot out a hand as she started past him. “Rune. You can’t ignore the zombies. Especially not these. They’re the new zombies you were worried about. You have to help protect the city.”

  “No. I have to wipe out COS. I have to get to Lex.”

  He softened his voice. “Think of little Stefanie…of all the innocents of River County. They depend on us to protect them. I want Lex to be okay. But Lex and the twins are Shiv Crew. They will deal with it. Do your job, Rune.”

  Ellis had sat down after Levi left, his face in his hands. But now, he climbed to his feet and joined her. “He’s right.”

  “Ellie!”

  “It’s the right thing to do.” He said nothing more, and though stark terror was in his eyes, in the lines of his face, pale beneath the recent injuries dealt him by the mad master, he was sure. Ellis had always been one to do the right thing.

  “Take the crew and destroy the zombies,” Rice urged. “COS will still be here, playing their games.”

  Finally, she relented. Sort of. “Raze, take one of the guys and stake out the twins’ house. The rest of you, come with me. As soon as we get the zombies under control, we’ll deal with COS.”

  “Owen,” Raze said. “Come with me.”

  “Fuck you,” Owen replied.

  The insult was obvious. Raze wanted to take the person he thought had the least ability to help Rune.

  “I’ll go alone,” Raze told her. “I’m going to watch. You’re going to fight. You need them.” Without waiting for her approval, he strode from the room.

  “Be careful,” she said, but he wouldn’t have heard her.

  Four of them against a sudden horde of new zombies.

  “We’ll be in more danger from the cops and their guns than from the zombies,” Jack said.

  Rune nodded. “Grab some vests.” What he said was true. People facing down monsters tended to get itchy trigger fingers.

  Ten minutes later they were following Rune deeper into the city. The streets were eerily quiet and empty, the darkness chased back by the tall street lights.

  “I hear guns, but I don’t see—” Rune started, then suddenly she caught sight of pulsating lights from cop cars, lighting up the night. “There they are.” She dug out her cell and tossed it into the glove compartment.

  The police cars sat in the middle of the street, doors open with cops crouched behind them, guns aimed.

  Even as she stopped her own car and jumped out, the sound of gunfire filled the night. But the monsters were not discouraged.

  They came on in their unhurried, hungry way.

  When she ran forward, she released her claws and called out to the police. Some of them acknowledged her with a nod, but mostly they ignored her and watched the zombies.

  “There are so many of them,” a young cop said. She couldn’t remember his name. David, maybe, or Danny. “They keep coming. We blast out their brains and the others just walk over them. They want us.” His face was pale, his eyes a little too wide.

  An older cop joined her, a man named Tom Peyton. “Glad to see you, Alexander.” He scratched his head. “I can’t figure out where they’re coming from. But they keep coming.”

  She glanced around at her crew. “We’re going to take them out, but you guys have to stop shooting. We can’t be in the middle of that with guns blazing.”

  He nodded, and a gleam of relief lit his eyes. “Rice let us know you were coming. If you think you can destroy the motherfuckers, be my guest. We need more men, more guns. But right now I’ll be happy with you and the guys.” He nodded a hello to Strad, who came to stand at her back. “If you need us, get the hell out of that mess and we’ll start shooting again.”

  The zombies were taking over the city—at least that part of it. She nodded in the direction of the hospital. “You have some men stationed at the hospital?”

  “We do. We have men stationed all over. Got rid of a few stragglers over there. But these ones, they seem to be following a path straight into the city. That make any kind of sense to you?”

  She shook her head, but was afraid it did make sense. They were following an invisible trail left by Fie, and maybe, by Rune herself.

  “Flamethrower?” she asked the cop.

  “We had two. Used them up and started shooting. Barely slowed them down.”

  Rune looked around at her crew. “Do not get bitten.” If they’d have listened, she’d gladly have ordered them to stay the fuck away.

  Owen grinned. “We’ll do our best. And after this, Rune, you and I are going to—”

  “After this,” the berserker interrupted, his voice soft and even, “you and I will need to talk.”

  Owen inclined his head. “I guess we will.”

  “Get rid of them, Alexander,” Peyton said. “Because if the military comes in, it’s over for all of us.”

  Without waiting for either one of them to say another word, Rune ran at a car and leaped over it, landing on the other side with the coming zombies.

  Then with a niggling, confusing reluctance, she shoved all her worries away and began to do her best to thin out the monsters.

  There was no scent of tempting, fresh blood this time. These zombies had not fed—a little fact she was extremely grateful for. But it wasn’t for lack of trying. The bastards came at her, disregarding her slashing claws, their teeth snapping eagerly.

  But there was a whiff of magic. She caught the strong, familiar scent of Damascus. Damascus was
gone. Why did her scent linger?

  Rune slashed throats and drove her claws into cavernous eye sockets, and it was like slicing dehydrated meat.

  They were hungry. So hungry. Their moans beat at her brain, begging her for something. Anything.

  Each time one fell, she felt it tug at her heart. Like she was killing innocents. But they were zombies. They couldn’t think, or feel, or reason.

  They couldn’t.

  And she wasn’t their fucking mother.

  She fought harder, angry now, and let herself do what she did best. She couldn’t worry about the three men with her, couldn’t worry about anything other than stopping the zombies.

  Occasionally she heard a gunshot, and figured one of the zombies had wandered close enough for the cops to put it down without risking the crew.

  She stumbled only once, when her concentration was broken by Owen.

  It was the first time she realized he was truly one of them. He was Shiv Crew.

  And it wasn’t because of his flawless execution as he wielded his silver, wasn’t the way he danced with fearless finesse through the throngs of zombies. Wasn’t even the way his straight-as-sticks hair flew out behind him as he turned to slice a zombie neck at the exact moment he drop kicked another.

  It was the look in his eyes.

  She recognized it, though she couldn’t name it. It was the look all of Shiv Crew had.

  It was the look that told her she could trust him. The one that told her he’d give his life for the innocents, for the crew, for her.

  Just as she’d give hers.

  So she stumbled, because right then, Owen became one of them.

  She didn’t know, with the thick soup of magic and mayhem and mystery, with all the pain and death and torment, why they were.

  But she realized without a single doubt they’d been brought together for a reason.

  They’d been born for Shiv Crew.

  And while she might be damaged and broken and a little fucking crazy, she had a purpose.

  That somehow made it okay, to know it was out of her hands.

  She had no control over any of it—over life, or circumstances, or death.

  She let it go, and she not only accepted Owen, but she got a hell of a lot closer to accepting Rune.

  She might never know exactly who she was, but that was okay.

  She was…

  She was.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Rune and the crew cut through the zombies in a way the bullets couldn’t. They mowed them down, stepped on their decapitated bodies, fought and hacked and sliced and didn’t quit until they stood unchallenged on dark hill of dust and bones.

  But she knew it was a temporary victory.

  The zombies had been awakened, and there were worlds of dead beneath the ground. Death, jealous and hungry, was coming to claim the living, and who could be sure death wouldn’t win?

  In the end, death always won.

  “But this is not the end,” she muttered. Not yet.

  The older cop she’d spoken with earlier picked his way over the carnage until he stood beside her. His eyes gleamed with admiration. “You people sure are something to watch. Especially you, Alexander. I’ve never seen anything move that fast.”

  “Anyone,” Jack correctly, gently.

  Red climbed the man’s face. “Well sure, of course. That’s what I meant.” But he didn’t look at Rune. “Some are saying that little girl is responsible. That’s why River County is the only place with the new zombies.” He looked at her then. “You believe that?”

  “No,” she answered. “I don’t.”

  He shrugged. “I hope not. For her sake.”

  “What are you going to do?” Owen asked, as they walked back to their cars.

  She was silent until they reached the vehicles, then she leaned against her car and stared at all of them. “I have to talk to Llodra.”

  The berserker, his big arms splattered with bits of the zombies, watched her. “Why?”

  “I need to find out what he knows. What if I’m the one making the new zombies because I drank the witch’s blood? Am I calling them? I need to find out how to stop. And I don’t have a clue.”

  “Why would he know?”

  “It’s just a thought. I don’t know who else to ask.” Llodra had told her she could release the dead once she held them. Llodra always knew more than he should have.

  He fucking owed her that much. But the chances of finding him to ask were slim. Llodra held the threat of Ellis over her head, sure, but he wasn’t going to take a chance that she or the crew might change their minds.

  She was his daughter, and they would always be connected. She could call him, but he wouldn’t answer.

  She climbed into her car and pulled her cell from the glove box. As she was punching in Raze’s number, Owen started to walk around the hood to get in the car with her.

  “No,” Strad said. “You’ll ride with me. It’s time for that talk.”

  Rune hesitated. “Berserker—”

  “We’ll meet you at the twins’ house,” Strad said, and turned to stride toward his truck.

  “Strad.”

  He stopped, but didn’t turn back to face her. “What, Rune?”

  “He’s one of us. Just remember that. He’s Shiv Crew.”

  Owen tossed her a smile. “I really can take care of myself.” And he joined the berserker.

  She sighed and lifted her phone to her ear as Jack climbed in beside her. He’d ridden over with Strad, but the berserker wasn’t going to want company when he had his talk with Owen.

  “Raze,” she said, and started her car. “Tell me.”

  “They picked up the twins,” he said. His voice was careful. “They picked them up and drove half a mile out of town before they spotted me.”

  “And?” She didn’t like the way he was speaking, like he was hurting and each word he spoke made it worse.

  “I had to let them go. One of them called me from Denim’s cell. He told me to back the fuck off.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She heard a click as he swallowed. “I heard one of the boys screaming,” he whispered. “And I backed the fuck off.”

  It shouldn’t have been a shock, but it was. She began sobbing, and dimly realized Jack was pulling her from the car. He carried her to the passenger side, tucked her in, and climbed under the wheel. “Fucking motherfuckers,” he muttered. “Fucking motherfuckers.”

  He hadn’t heard Raze’s words, but he knew. Just as they all did.

  “I’m lost,” she said. Then, “Take me to Wormwood.”

  He didn’t question her, just turned them in the direction of the big graveyard.

  She had him make one stop so she could run inside a minimart and pick up half a dozen Baby Ruth candy bars.

  Surprisingly, no zombies were rising from the many, many graves at Wormwood. She was thankful, because she wasn’t sure she could have battled them. She was too…dark.

  Too fucking sad.

  “Wormwood is protected, Your Highness.” Gunnar told her. “Those buried here will stay buried.”

  His eyes lit up when she handed him all six candy bars, and she felt a slight easing to her depression. “I need to find Llodra,” she said.

  He frowned. “Might I ask why?” He held a bar of candy to his nose and inhaled gently.

  “I think I’m creating the new zombies. I think I’ve awakened them somehow, and I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to make them…” she gestured, frustrated. “I don’t know how to make them go back to sleep.”

  He tilted his head, the look in his eyes soft. “It is not you, Rune. It is the mad master. Surely you knew this?”

  “Llodra?” But then suddenly she did know. “Oh, fuck me. Fuck me.”

  Jack leaned toward her. “What? How is Llodra waking them?”

  “He took the power of Damascus from me. He’s calling them on purpose.” She laughed and shoved h
er knuckles against her mouth, cutting her lips as she smashed them against her teeth. “He’s calling them with the witch’s power. With my power. He wants a zombie apocalypse, and why wouldn’t he?”

  Jack nodded. “That makes sense. Now we just have to hunt the fucker down, kill him, and this will be over.” He nodded at Gunnar. “Thanks, dude. Come on, Rune.”

  But she shook her head. “We can’t. We can’t hunt him.”

  He adjusted his eye patch. “Why the fuck not?”

  She blew out a tired breath. “You know why. The same reason we let him go to begin with. Because he’ll turn Ellis if he even suspects a threat.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Jack said, shrugging off her concern.

  “It doesn’t matter if Llodra turns Ellie, Jack? Really?”

  “It doesn’t matter that Llodra has the power to call one of his vampires to deliver the last bite. We’ll put Ellis somewhere safe, somewhere silver, at night. Just until Llodra is dead.”

  He started to stride away, then turned back. “We know what we’re up against now, Rune, and we’ll handle it. We can’t let the evil win just because it holds shit over our heads. You’re just…” He ran his hand through his hair, his entire body stiff. “You’re afraid. But you’ll fight past the fear, and we’ll hunt the fucker down.”

  He walked to her, leaned down, and put his forehead against hers. “We will win, sweetheart. We will win for one simple reason.”

  “Why?” She grabbed with both hands on to his hope. His belief. “What reason?”

  “Because we can’t let them win.”

  But she wasn’t convinced. “No matter what? No matter that Lex, the twins, and Ellie might be casualties of this war?”

  He straightened and stared down at her, his eye glittering. “No matter that we all might be. This is what we do.”

  He was right. People would die. People they loved.

  But they would keep fighting.

  Gunnar backed away with his candy. “You’ll fight the evil no matter the cost to you, because it’s what you were born to do.”

  She got it.

  Everything she’d realized while fighting the zombies, looking at Owen…she got it. It solidified in her mind, and at last, she got it.