by Tanith Frost
But first things first.
When I reach the end of the ventilation shaft, I’m met with an aluminum grate that allows me to look straight down into the circular room. It’s screwed on from the other side, a far greater challenge than the wooden cover hung loosely over the hole I entered by. There doesn’t appear to be anyone guarding the inside of the room, though.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained… What a dangerous piece of advice.
I have to wad myself up like a used tissue to make my body small enough to turn in the tight space, forcing it through sheer willpower to contort to fit the demands of the metal that surrounds me. Once it’s done, I brace my hands against the walls and kick downward with both feet, sending the grate clattering to the floor below.
I wait a full minute to see whether anyone is going to come investigate the noise, then drop into the room.
The humans watch me. Most of them haven’t bothered to get up from the floor where they’ve been sleeping. I guess they don’t care whether someone’s breaking in to murder them. According to Bethany, they’d welcome the end no matter how it came.
But she also said they’re aggressive toward vampires. On the wall near the gas cylinders, a panel of levers is numbered to match the cell doors. If I flip them all and open the doors—if I give them a chance to come after me—that should shake them out of their stupor so I can lead them away from here, deep into the halls of this underground fortress. They might not last long when faced with vampires, but the elders, security, and whoever else is in that room with Daniel will have no choice but to leave to deal with them.
I hope.
The human who ratted us out earlier still looks more alert than the others. Maybe he’s been living with this condition for long enough to have adapted.
“I hope you’re happy,” I mutter. “You fucked me over real good.”
The human shows no sign of interest or understanding.
I start flipping levers quickly so I’ll have time to escape before they can attack en masse and overpower me.
The doors hiss open behind me. The humans mutter and groan. I can’t make out proper words, but they’re definitely rousing themselves. When I turn, they’re all on their feet. Still dull and practically lifeless, but one by one they shuffle out of their cells, all eyes on me.
I back toward the door. They’re so goddamn slow.
“Come get me, you lazy sacks of useless guts.” I unlock the door. The humans seem to be brightening, sharpening a little, like the one who bashed his own head in just a few nights ago. I hope that means that they see an opportunity, and that it looks a whole lot like chasing me down. I slide a file cabinet over to prop the door open, then lunge at them, landing just out of reach, taunting them before I head out into the corridor.
There’s still no one around. We might make it past the interrogation rooms and into the main body of this place if the humans hurry the fuck up.
My steps slow, then stop. I have to let them keep me in sight, but there’s no sign of them following. I wait a full minute, then another. Not even a footstep.
Dammit. I don’t blame them for what they are, but right now, I can’t help hating them for it.
I creep back, ready to turn and run again if they’re waiting to ambush me. What I find when I return to their chamber is far worse.
They all seem to have lost interest in me. Even when I step back into the room, they barely glance toward the door. They’re all watching the brightest one, who’s twisting open the valves on the gas canisters.
Oxygen. Propane. God knows what else. I inhale. I expect the place to smell like a barbecue, but far stronger is the smell of gasoline. A trio of red plastic jugs lie on the floor, spilling whatever of their contents aren’t already soaked into the clothes of the assembled humans. The ether bottles lie shattered, and the humans look unsteady on their feet.
Did I think they were slow? It seems they can be pretty damn quick when they want to.
“Stop,” I order. Their leader doesn’t even look at me. I take a few steps closer, but then I see the flint lighter in his hand.
How long has he been watching the vampires who work in here, formulating this plan when no one believed he was thinking about anything at all?
The others move closer. They understand that he has something they want more than revenge on the species that did this to them.
He raises the lighter. I bolt.
It’s not like in the movies with the hero slowly walking away, maybe flicking a cigarette as the fireball blossoms in the background. It’s just me, darting out the door like a frightened rabbit, ducking my head low and clamping my hands over my ears as I run.
I feel the explosion as fire consumes the gases in the air, then heat that burns on as I retrace my steps to check on the damage.
There are no screams. No groans. Bethany did say they’re ridiculously fragile in this state. I steel myself and look into the room.
I’m glad I don’t have to smell them. It’s bad enough seeing the blistered, red skin of the two dozen bodies on the floor, lying limp like hideous dolls. Their clothes are still on fire in places, as are a few of the cardboard boxes of papers under the table. The sprinklers will be coming on soon, and surely an alarm.
Someone will come, but I doubt this little accident will be enough to get everyone out of the interrogation room.
God. Fucking. Damn.
I step around the corpses, searching desperately in the hopes that at least a few of them are still alive and able to come after me. There’s nothing. They were far gone enough that all they needed was a push before they could leap into death’s waiting arms. There’s not even a hint of life discernible in any of them. They’re just meat, the rubble of lives made useless by creatures they had no hope of defending themselves against.
That’s it, then. The vampires here already know I haven’t shown up where I’m supposed to be, and they’ll know I’m behind this little stunt. If I don’t get out now—
The body at my feet twitches. I crouch to look closer as purple veins bloom over the skin of her face and arms. She twitches again. I scan the rest of them and find the same effect—dark lines spreading over every bit of exposed skin, spastic movements.
Bethany said it happens after brain death.
The woman’s eyes snap open. They’re as pale as a new vampire’s, but that’s where the similarity ends. No matter how hard I search as I back away, there’s no void in her.
There’s nothing that I can feel.
She screeches, and it’s as if she’s called the rest of them back with her. Spasms turn to clumsy but purposeful movement. Eyelids flutter—at least, those that haven’t been burned off—then open to reveal similarly pale eyes covered in a milky glaze. Noises gurgle from their throats, sounding almost like speech but not quite making it.
One rolls onto his hands and knees, stands, and topples over. Another screams like a man who’s escaped from a nightmare only to find a worse kind of madness waiting for him when he wakes.
They’re not breathing, save to make their terrible noises. Their hearts aren’t beating. But one by one, they rise.
I don’t think. I don’t plan. I just run.
29
There’s no one in the hallway, thank whatever. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.
I race past the interrogation rooms and skid around the corner. The deceased humans are now ridiculously fast, but they’re clumsy. The ensuing pileup leaves them screeching and groaning at each other and gives me enough time to dart into the servants’ passage and close the door behind me.
“Well,” says a familiar voice. Not quite the last one I want to hear, but it’s a close contender. “What is the favoured one up to now? Something Lachlan would love to hear about, no doubt.”
Adam’s nose is still just a little crooked from whatever Lachlan did to him after our first meeting. His attitude hasn’t improved, either. He seems pleased as a leopard who’s stumbled on a lame gazelle, cut off from her herd.
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I have zero time for his bullshit. I grab him by the front of his shirt and slam him against the door, pressing his face to the small panel of glass. He’s too surprised to fight back.
“Look,” I tell him. My voice is hoarse from the fumes in the lab. “What do you see out there?”
He fights me off, glares at me, and takes another look. “I don’t know. Injured humans? Hard to tell without opening the door.”
“They’re dead. They’re hostile toward vampires. Go ahead. Go take a closer look.”
He stares at me as if I’m nuts, then opens the door a crack and peers out at the crowd that’s now passed by the door, headed toward tonight’s party. “What the hell? Did you—”
“Adam.” I step closer, mustering every bit of authority I can manage. “I get it. You hate me. I don’t give a sweet fuck at the moment. You want to go tattle to Lachlan? Fine. He’s in interrogation room B. But while you’re there, tell him about this. Tell him there are two dozen goddamn zombies wandering the halls and that he’d better get his ass in gear to do something about it. Unless you’d prefer that I tell him myself while you go out there and deal with them.”
We stand frozen, neither of us willing to back down first, until a human servant comes racing down the hallway, screaming.
“We know,” I tell her.
We’re at the end of the corridor. There’s nowhere else for her to go. She curls up in the corner and covers her eyes like a frightened child.
“Fine,” Adam says. He backs away several paces.
“Hurry,” I tell him. “I’ll try to stop them, but they look strong. They’re going to find the garden soon if you don’t haul ass.”
He leaves the corridor. The second he’s out of sight, I scale the wall, using a sconce as a handhold, and slip back into the vents.
After that, it’s a matter of counting branches and following my ears. If memory serves, room B should be the second from the end on this side of the hallway. I pass three offshoots before I turn. My count was good. I can hear the room before I see it—a few hushed voices, the sounds of something hitting flesh, followed by a sharp gasp.
I pull myself along slowly and silently toward the light coming through the wooden grate at the end of the shaft until my face is almost pressed against it and I can see into the room. Six vampires besides Daniel—Willard, a security guard with gun in hand, Bethany, Lachlan, and a couple of clan higher-ups. All still dressed to dance, one of them with a glass of champagne in his hand. Everyone except Willard and Lachlan is standing behind steel bars that keep them separated from the action.
Daniel’s tied loosely to a metal chair with thick ropes, his back to me. Someone has draped a thick silver chain over his shoulders to weaken him, but he’s clearly fighting its effects.
It must take incredible strength to keep fighting when there’s no hope of rescue, when it will only prolong suffering.
I wonder whether he’s doing it for himself or to buy time for me.
“I know you’re lying.” Lachlan wipes blood off his right knuckles with a white handkerchief. Guess he decided not to wait for me, after all.
Daniel spits on the floor, then struggles to pull himself out of his slumped position. “I doubt you’ll go easier on me if I tell the truth.”
Lachlan chuckles. “I could make promises in that regard if it would help.”
“Not in the slightest.”
Where the hell is Adam?
“Very well,” Lachlan says. “I have an old friend of yours coming to ask some additional questions.” He steps behind the bars with the others and knocks on the door.
My stomach flips. He can’t possibly mean me, but who else is there?
The door opens and another security guard enters with… I mean, it’s a vampire, but it takes several moments before my brain can process him as such. I’ve seen the effects of torture before. Lucille’s mind was broken, as was Penelope’s bent and twisted body. I was enraged by both.
I hadn’t seen anything yet.
We vampires can recover from almost any injury, but there are ways to scar and maim us. The vampire drags one leg behind him, placing it carefully to support his weight with each step, then falling forward and dragging it again like it’s dead weight. And that’s the easiest thing to take in. I want to squeeze my eyes closed so I don’t have to understand what a quick glimpse above his waist showed me, but it’s too late. The image will be burned into my memory forever.
He stands hunched over a concave abdomen covered in scars and hastily stitched incisions. They must have left his abdominal muscles intact enough to hold him up, but it looks as if they’ve removed whatever organs they decided he didn’t need. His waist bows in at the sides as though shaped by a corset, and when he stumbles and rights himself, I swear I can see the outline of his spine beneath the wasted muscles of his stomach.
He’s still got lungs, though. He draws a breath and sighs out a long syllable.
It would probably be words if his lower jaw hadn’t been shattered and torn halfway off. His body has attempted to heal even this. New skin has grown over some of the mess, but without the means to set the bones, he’s left with a sagging, slack mouth.
I can’t let myself consider the odds that they might have offered him anesthetic or painkillers at any point during all of this. Slim-to-none seems generous.
“Hugo,” Daniel whispers, and my heart turns to ice.
This wretched creature was a member of his team—one of those he couldn’t save, who he took comfort in believing had been released into oblivion weeks ago.
“Excellent,” Lachlan says. “I was worried you wouldn’t recognize him. We knew you’d be lonesome if we let your entire team go, so we kept Hugo around just for you. We’ve been telling him everything, of course. How you abandoned them to save your own skin, how his pain was paying for your posh existence in your new clan.” He steps up to the bars and wraps his hands around them, leaning in as close as he can to watch Daniel’s reactions. “Showed him photos, video… He knows how well you’ve been doing.”
Hugo’s yellowed eyes roll wildly in his head before settling on Daniel. I don’t have to be able to feel his intentions to recognize the pure hate in them. He may have been driven insane by what he’s endured, but he recognizes Daniel.
“It’s not true,” Daniel says. His voice is hoarse and broken, thick with pain I’m sure isn’t entirely physical. “I thought you were gone. If I’d known, I’d have found a way to save you no matter what it cost me. You have to believe that.”
Hugo lets out a gutteral grunt and steps forward. I’m keeping my energies quiet so Bethany doesn’t notice me, but I can still feel a hint of the strength in him. I don’t know how he could possibly feed with his jaw so badly damaged, but they must have figured something out. If I had to guess, I’d say he killed before they brought him here.
“We told him you’d say that,” Willard says, and shakes his head.
Daniel musters a hard shrug, and the chain slips from his shoulders, landing on the stone floor with a clatter. He barely seems to notice—doesn’t even fight against the loosely-tied rope around his wrists. But he sits up straighter, focusing his entire attention on his ruined ally.
“This is my fault,” he says, and his voice trembles. Someone giggles. If I ever find out who it is, I swear I’ll rip their goddamn throat out. “But not the way they’ve told you. I should have fought harder.” His breath shudders. “I should have faced oblivion with you instead of letting them take me away when I thought you were gone. Should have—”
The door bursts open, and Adam stumbles in. He seems to be about to speak, but falls silent when he spots Hugo. His jaw gapes and closes.
Lachlan turns on him. “Get out!”
“I—sir, I’m sorry. I can’t. There’s… there are monsters attacking the clan. They’re in the library, the ballroom. Humans. Dead, but moving. We’re taking them down, but they’re so goddamn fast, and everything is so chaotic…”
Lachl
an grabs him under the jaw and pulls him close, holding him up as Adam’s legs go limp. “How many?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “A lot. They’re burned, but—”
Lachlan snarls and tosses him out into the hall. “Bethany?”
She’s already got her full skirt gathered in one hand and is pushing her way past the others. “I’m on it. We need them contained.” She’s still talking as she leaves the room.
“Well?” Lachlan roars at the others. “You laze about night after night, content to enjoy the benefits of your position. Now it’s time to prove you deserve it.”
They scurry out the door, Willard included, leaving Lachlan alone with Daniel and Hugo. He hangs back behind the bars, then steps toward the door.
Hugo lets out a sound somewhere between a groan and a frustrated scream.
“You may begin,” Lachlan says, though I suspect it’s only to keep Hugo’s rage focused on something other than himself. “But do go slowly. Give him time to feel what you’ve felt over these past weeks. I want him able to answer questions when I return, but as promised, he’s yours to do with as you please otherwise.”
Hugo nods slowly and turns back to Daniel as Lachlan leaves. The lock clicks into place.
Daniel shakes his arms, untwists the rope, and frees his hands, but he doesn’t attack or run for the door. He just rests his hands, palms up, on his lap.
“You believe I’d make that kind of deal with them?” he asks. “That I’d buy my comfort at the cost of your pain?” He turns slightly to face Hugo more directly and seems to be searching his former friend’s eyes for something he recognizes—something that knows him better, that goes deeper than pain and brainwashing and whatever else they’ve done to him.
Hugo lunges forward and throws a punch that sends Daniel’s chair rocking backward and him crashing to the floor. Daniel rises slowly, rubbing his jaw, then holds his hands up in surrender. “Hugo, I—”
He doesn’t get to say more. It seems impossible that a creature as disfigured as Hugo should be able to move at all, let alone fight, but he throws himself into it. He’s powered by his recent feed, driven by rage and madness.