by Laken Cane
“Maybe she’s back,” Lex said.
“I don’t think so,” Rune said. She didn’t feel the witch. But how the hell else were the Others being infected?
“What should we do?” Levi asked.
Rune slid two silver shivs from their sheaths. “Gather around me, guys.”
They shielded her body immediately.
She knelt. Without hesitation, she plunged her blades into the bear’s eyes and with little effort, into the brain.
“There,” she said, and left the knives where they were. She didn’t want the diseased pieces of metal back. She dusted her hands as she arose. It amused her that in the heat of battle, she got zombie bits all over her—yet there she was, wiping her hands like a fussy old lady.
“Uh,” said Denim. “Rune?”
“Yeah?” She looked at her palms. “What?”
“Oops,” Lex murmured. “Zombie movement at floor o’clock.”
“The fuck?” Rune whipped around to stare at the zombie, and sure enough, the bastard was still twitching. It didn’t seem to notice that it had two blades protruding from its eye sockets.
“It doesn’t want to stay dead,” Lex said.
“Customer alert.” Levi pointed. “They’re heading this way.”
“Shit,” Rune said. “One of you head them off.” She pulled another blade, a long one. “I’ll—”
“Never mind,” Raze said, and yanked a mini scythe from a holster at his hip. “I’ll get it.” Before anyone could move, he lifted the curved blade and cut through the bear zombie’s thick neck. The head and the body parted company without much trouble. “Twitch now, motherfucker.”
There was surprisingly little mess. Rune glared at the RISC workers as they hurried into the bar with a stretcher. “Take him to RISC. And this time, hurry the fuck up.”
The zombie was deprived of its head and had two silver blades in its brain, but the bastard hadn’t wanted to stay down. “Wait,” Rune said, as the transporters approached.
She took off her jacket and spread it out on the floor, then rolled the bear’s head into it. Strad helped her tie it into a neat bundle for the puzzled RISC workers. “Take it to the lab,” she said. “And don’t touch it with your bare skin.”
“What’s it contaminated with?” one of them asked.
She hesitated. “Something you don’t want touching you.” Or biting you.
He shrugged, and then they loaded the bear onto the stretcher. And necessary or not, they covered the body with a silver-lined sheet.
Rune put a hand to her stomach, massaging away the dread that had gathered there to keep the anxiety company.
Fucking zombies were in River County, and if Shiv Crew didn’t contain the threat quickly and quietly, the military would come to make life even more of a hell than it usually was.
But worse than that, the new zombies were back. And if she didn’t figure out how to make them disappear for good, the world wasn’t going to have a chance.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“We have to find them,” she told the crew as they left the bar.
“They could be anywhere,” Jack replied, “so that might be a little difficult.”
She glanced at Owen. “How is Elizabeth?”
“Doing better. She’s strong.”
Her phone buzzed. “Ellie?”
“Are you okay, Rune?”
“I’m fine. You?”
“I’m staying for a few more hours then I’m getting out of here.” He hesitated, and when he continued, it was with a deep tone of pride. “Bill Rice has asked me to cover for Elizabeth until she’s better.”
“No, Ellie. I don’t think—”
“It’s what I’m doing.” His voice was soft, but firm. “I’m going to do my part.”
“Your mother will not be happy.”
“My mother has never been happy, and nothing I do or don’t do will change that. I’m coming to help. You just be careful.” Again, he hesitated. “I wouldn’t want to live in a world without you, Rune.”
She blinked away quick tears. “Okay,” she managed, and put her cell back into her pocket.
“What did he say?” Levi asked. “Is he all right?”
“He’s breaking out of the hospital in a few hours. Rice has asked him to take over for Elizabeth until she’s back.”
Levi sighed but didn’t argue.
They stood in the dirty snow around Rune’s car. Every single one of them looked slightly shell-shocked and tired in the cold light of the morning.
“Before we go zombie hunting,” she said, “let’s find a restaurant. Have a hot breakfast and some—”
“Coffee.” They all said the word at the exact same time, smiling slightly.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Fucking coffee.”
Ten minutes later she pulled into the parking lot of a small diner, the others right behind her. The scents of hot coffee and cooking meat made her stomach groan as she started toward a table against the far wall.
The place was crowded with other patrons grabbing a hot meal, and Rune didn’t at first pay attention to the sudden silence.
But as she pulled out a chair and started to sit down, it hit her, that silence.
She and the crew stared at the roomful of humans, and the humans stared back with sullen faces and angry eyes.
“Can’t we even eat our breakfast without being exposed to the fucking monsters?”
Rune looked at the speaker, a small man in a suit. He sat at a table with two other suited guys, and as with pretty much the entire room, not one of them had friendly faces. “If you see a monster here, sir, be sure to let us know. We’ll protect you from them as we always do.”
“Who will protect us from your fucking ugly face?” This was from a man in the back. He wore a motorcycle jacket and a ponytail.
“You’d think they’d be a little too scared to fuck with us,” Rune said. “Something’s up.”
After all, she was known to be a stone-cold killer, and the men at her back were large enough to give any normal person pause.
But then, Lex stepped up beside her, her body vibrating. Fear came off her in waves, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. “COS,” she whispered, and put a hand to her chest.
Rune nodded. “Yeah.” And then she spotted them.
The slayers, six of them, sat at a corner table in the back, right next to motorcycle dude. When they noticed her watching, they smiled.
“Bastards,” she said.
Raze started toward them and as one, they got to their feet.
Each slayer held a handgun.
“Raze,” Rune said. “Not worth it. We’ll find another place.”
“Good idea,” one of the COS members said. He was a tall man in a gray suit and a tie, unremarkable and bland. Except for his eyes.
They shone with hatred so dark she almost took a step back. Almost.
“Walk away,” she told her crew. “I’ll be right behind you.” There were too many humans in the room. If COS started shooting, half of them would probably end up dead. She didn’t want to risk the crew, either.
“The men can stay,” Gray Suit said, “but you need to go somewhere and eat with the other dogs. This place doesn’t allow animals.” He pointed to the door. “There’s a sign outside that says so.” His lips twitched.
“You’re hilarious,” she said. “But you need to shut the fuck up before I change my mind and let my crew tear you to pieces.”
His cold stare raked Lex, who stood her ground beside Rune, despite the fact that her body was racked with shivers stronger than the vibrations.
Then Lex moaned, swaying gently.
The twins and Raze gathered around her, gently easing her back. Strad and Jack slid up to stand beside Rune. Owen stood at her back.
“Those guns,” Rune told the COS members, “won’t stop me. While shooting me is still a thought in your minds I’ll have ripped them from your hands and shoved them down your throats.” She tried to calm herself—the rage wa
s there, and it was overwhelming. She wanted to hurt them. She wanted to fucking hurt them. She shook with the powerfulness of her emotions, of reaction. She wanted to kill. She wanted to taste blood. She wanted someone to suffer.
She heard a phone ringing, and realized only when she heard Jack muttering tersely into it that it was his phone.
Owen squeezed her shoulder and she felt his breath in her hair. “Anyone not wanting to die should leave the room.” His voice was calm, but full of steel. “Now.”
Chairs scraped the floor and the customers tripped over each other running for the exit.
And for a second, Rune saw doubt in the slayers’ eyes.
“What about you,” she murmured. “Do you want to die?”
“No,” Gray Suit answered. “But we want the Other you’re protecting. We want Karin Love’s daughter. Give her to us and no one from the church will ever set foot in your city again.”
Lex began screaming, tormented and terrified. Rune realized all over again that what COS had put her through, what her mother had put her through, was never going to leave the girl.
“Know how I find the silence?”
“Get her the fuck out of here,” she said.
Because she would always protect Lex, and because she was so full of rage and torment and the need to kill, she started toward the men.
She was going to destroy them.
And those killings would be fucking justified.
Chapter Thirty-Six
How Jack stopped her, she’d never know. Just suddenly he was there, his nose against hers, his voice bringing her back from a killing edge.
“Rune. Not yet.”
“One good reason,” she said, realizing she’d shot out her silver claws and that her fangs were cutting into her lip. It’d been an automatic response to the bloodlust, and she hadn’t even been aware.
God, she hated COS.
“I’ll give you two,” Jack replied. “You’ll go to jail, Rune. And…” he hesitated and lowered his voice. “Rice has located the items we were wondering about earlier.”
At last, she focused on his face, his words. “Items? You mean…?”
“Yes. At the hospital.”
Shit. The hospital—where Fie was.
She retracted her claws and fangs and turned with her crew to walk away, but turned back for one last warning. “If I see any of you so much as look at Lex, I will rip your throats out. And I’ll enjoy the fuck out of it.” She waited, but no one replied. They stood still and uncertain with their guns pointed and their faces pale.
“Just give me an excuse,” she said, then strode with her men from the diner.
The twins had put Lex in the backseat of Rune’s SUV and sat on either side of her, their arms around her.
They looked at Rune with identical hopeless gazes when she opened the door and climbed under the wheel.
“You didn’t kill them?” Denim asked, slightly accusing.
“No. How is Lex?”
He met her stare in the mirror. “She’ll be okay.”
“Lex?”
“I’m okay, Rune.” But her voice was flat, devoid of hope. As though she knew that someday she’d be once again in the cruel grasp of COS and there wasn’t one fucking thing she could do about it.
Owen pulled open the passenger side door and climbed inside. He said nothing, but his stare lingered on her torn lip.
She licked the blood from it, a little self-conscious under his regard. He closed his door and she waited for him to buckle up before speeding out of the parking lot.
“What’s going on?” Levi asked. “Where are we headed?”
“Zombies have been sighted,” Owen answered. “By the hospital.”
“Think they’re the new zombies?” asked Denim.
“Don’t know,” Rune said, “but I look forward to kicking some ass. I have to get this fucking energy out and that’s as good a way as any.”
“I know a better way,” Owen said.
She didn’t look at him. Fucking cowboy was trouble. She’d known it all along.
“Dude,” Lex said, a little stronger. “I like you so I’m going to give you some advice. Don’t fuck with Rune. The berserker will tear you apart.”
Owen glanced back at her.
“I’m afraid for you,” she continued. “I read him. I know what’s in there. He will kill you over her, and he will make it hurt.”
“Fuck, Lex,” Rune said.
“I saw into that blackness. You should know, Owen. You too, Rune, if you didn’t already.”
Rune couldn’t help but look at Owen.
He was watching her, a slight smile on his lips. “I’m willing to take the chance.” He shrugged. “And that’s just something else you should know.”
Shit. She put her stare back on the road. She didn’t need that kind of trouble. And the berserker couldn’t think beating the shit out of an interested guy was an option.
But Strad Matheson did whatever the fuck he wanted. And she didn’t see that changing anytime soon. No matter what she said.
Lex leaned up to peer at Rune. “He will not beat the shit out of him, Rune. He will kill him.”
“Dammit, Lex.” The blind Other hadn’t even touched her, had just plucked the thought right out of her head.
Lex snorted. “I didn’t do anything anyone in this car couldn’t have done. You don’t take the berserker seriously enough. I know what you’re thinking.” She leaned back and continued, her voice grim. “But you need to do some rethinking. Strad Matheson used to scare you. He still should.”
Rune grunted. She and the berserker were going to have a long fucking talk.
Just not right then. Right then, there were zombies to destroy.
When they arrived at the hospital, there were people all along the front holding crude and hastily made signs, and it took her a few seconds to realize the signs were not about her or monsters in general.
They were about Fie.
The humans, probably guided by COS, had decided the child was a monster.
Rune snatched a cardboard sign out of a startled woman’s hands and tore it into pieces before glaring at the others. “She’s a little kid, you fucking idiots. She’s just lived through shit you cannot even imagine. And you’re out here holding signs demanding the hospital what, put her down?” She sneered, angry and a little alarmed. “You’re the monsters.”
The sign holders backed away carefully, eyes wide, a little shamefaced. But she knew as soon as she and the crew were out of sight, they’d start again with their chants and their hatred.
“Where are the zombies?” she asked Jack. “Call Rice.”
He was off the cell in moments. “One caller said he saw one around back by the loading dock. Another caller reported two of them headed toward the front. We need to find them before someone is bitten.”
“Spread out,” she said.
But they were too late.
As they jogged across the pavement, the screams began.
She felt the zombies before she saw them.
The bond was still there.
The fucking bond was still there.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
There were only six of them, but she had no doubt that more would follow. And keeping it quiet was no longer a possibility.
The zombies lurched with single-minded determination toward the small knot of sign-holders, who scattered with horrified screams when they caught sight of the rotting monsters.
The zombies weren’t the new zombies, so the crew had that to be thankful for. Still, zombies were dangerous—no matter what flavor they were.
Rune shot out her claws and ran toward the zombies, her crew at her back. It took them less than five minutes to dispatch the monsters.
When the zombies lay at their feet, various body parts scattered across the pavement, she retracted her claws. “So much for keeping the military out.”
“They’ll send in a few people to scout the area,” Strad said.
�
�Yeah,” Jack agreed. He adjusted his eye patch. “With only a couple of zombies here, they won’t do anything drastic.”
“You know these can’t be the only ones,” Levi said.
“Nope.” Rune surveyed the area. Two cars from the police department cruised toward them. “But all we can do is wait for reports and take them out when they pay us a visit.”
Her phone buzzed. “Yeah.”
“Rune, it’s Ellis. Where are you?”
“At the hospital, baby. We’ll be in to see you in a minute.”
“Fie is missing.”
She frowned and clutched at her stomach. “Since when?”
“I don’t know. At least for a couple of hours. I came to her room to visit with her and the nurses were in a panic. She’s just…gone.”
“She’s here somewhere. We’ll start searching right now.”
“What’s wrong?” Lex asked. “The little girl?”
“The hospital seems to have lost her.”
“I’ll take care of the police and the zombies,” Strad said. “Start looking for the kid.”
She gave him a cool look. “I’d planned on it.” She didn’t take well to anyone giving her orders, and after Lex’s talk, she was less inclined than usual to take the berserker’s. He was slowly insinuating himself as a man who thought he had the right to tell her what to do, and that was not a good thing.
Or maybe she was being overly sensitive.
He lifted an eyebrow but said nothing as he watched the cops making their way cautiously toward the downed zombies.
She walked toward the hospital, the rest of the crew beside her. “Lex, do you want to come with me? You guys take a floor and start searching.”
“What about out here? She might have left the building,” Denim said.
“Strad will search after he’s taken care of the zombies and spoken with the cops.” She knew the berserker. He did better with the outdoors than in. He’d search outside.
Lex stopped walking. “Rune…”
Rune stopped, as did the others, and turned toward her. “What’s wrong, Lex?”
“I’m going to stay out here with Strad. I’ll help him search outside the building.”