I sat up halfway and took the drink from him. The bank blood tasted more powerful than usual. “This is fresh from a human, isn’t it?”
“I wasn’t very thirsty last night,” he said, “but I hate to break a donor date, so I brought home a doggie bag. Not that you’re a dog.”
I gulped the rest of my meal, feeling the blood’s warmth pulse through me faster than any since Jeremy’s.
“Been pretty quiet in here.” Jim glanced at the sleeping Shane. “How’s it going?”
Sensing his loaded question, I pulled the covers up farther, even though I was dressed. “Great.”
Jim parted his lips as he nodded with a knowing look. “Let me know if you need anything, okay? If you get thirsty or… curious.”
As a human, I’d been as susceptible as anyone to the lure of a vampire’s eyes, and Jim had used that power to mesmerize me into letting him go too far. Shane had attacked him for it, which could’ve gotten him killed by the older, stronger vampire.
Though Jim’s gaze no longer made me feel helpless as a kitten on muscle relaxants, it pulled me in a different way. Flush with new blood, my body began to simmer, as if his eyes held a blowtorch against my skin.
Bad news. Very bad news. No wonder Shane wanted me to leave the Victoria’s Secret at home.
“No, thanks.” I broke eye contact to look past him. “I’m good.”
His brows popped in surprise. “I bet you are.”
“No! I meant, I’m fine. ‘I’m good,’ it’s new slang. Newish.” I set the cup on the nightstand and turned away. “Thanks for the snack. See you later.”
“Yes.” Just before he closed the door behind him, I heard him say, “You will.”
I pressed my forehead against the wall, vowing never to be alone with Jim. If Shane caught him making a move on me, they’d fight. And this time Shane would die.
He turned onto his back with a sleepy groan. “Who was that?”
I couldn’t say Jim’s name. “Early breakfast.”
“Good.” He rolled over and slipped an arm over my waist. “Mmm, you’re warm.” His hand slid under my sleep shirt.
I squirmed against him, fitting my back tight to his front. He kissed the nape of my neck, then the curve of my ear as his hand moved up to cup my breast.
I let out a gasp. “What brings this on?” I suspected it was Jim, even if Shane had sensed his visit only subconsciously.
“Does it matter?”
It mattered, but my body craved his touch—and my soul his acceptance—much more than my mind craved the truth.
“Do you want me to stop?” he said.
“No.” I ground against him again, making him groan. “I’m dying for you.”
Shane rolled my nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and I almost screamed at the shock of pleasure. I felt all my nerves reconnect at once, reforming a body that responded to him even more intensely than it had in life.
He pulled my shirt over my head. The feel of his smooth bare chest against my back made me writhe. I let my pounding pulse drown out the voices of doubt. If we could be like this again, maybe the rest would work. Maybe we could find a way forward together.
I turned my head for the kind of deep, long, wet kiss I’d almost forgotten existed, though it had only been a few days. His hand slipped between my legs, then stilled.
“Tell me if it hurts,” he said. “You might not be ready.”
“I’m ready.” I didn’t care how much it hurt. Nothing was stopping me from taking him.
With his arm snaked around my waist, he caressed me in soft torture through the silk of my panties. He kissed me again, giving me his tongue in a way that made me imagine how it would feel down there. I moaned again, hoping the sound traveled. Let them all hear we were together, and would stay together. Let them hear him claim me.
Shane tugged off my underwear, then caressed my legs, his fingers drifting closer and closer until I was practically snarling with urgency.
He turned me on my back and opened my thighs to his touch. At the first press of his fingers, I caught my breath so hard I almost choked.
“Sorry,” he said, and started to pull away.
“No.” I grabbed his wrist. “Don’t stop unless I tell you. Don’t try to read my mind.” You don’t want to know what I’m thinking. I laid his hand where I needed it most. “Just read my body.”
He closed his eyes and touched me, his own breath drawing in fast and sharp when he discovered how slick I was in need of him.
“God…” He dragged his teeth across my collarbone. “You feel so good.”
“Yes.” I arched my back, ignoring the twinges of pain. “More.”
“I won’t hurt you.” He brushed his lips against mine before shifting down to my neck. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” He slowly swept his tongue over my nipple. “Ever again.” Another long, lingering lick.
I fought to decipher his words through my haze of desire. They held the key to an important question.
More warm, wet circles, and my mind blanked at the flood of sensation. I stopped caring why he said or did anything then, as long as he didn’t pull away.
The next time he spoke, his breath was warming my inner thighs. “No one will touch you, ever again.”
Suddenly I understood. “Is that why?” I gasped.
He stopped, his mouth hot and taunting. “Why what?”
“Why you joined Enforcement? To learn how to protect me? To keep other vampires from—” I struggled for the right word. “Having me?”
Shane paused for the longest moment in either of my lives. “Whatever it takes.”
His tongue flicked out, once, and I exploded.
I screamed from the blinding, violent orgasms that built and burst as he didn’t let up, didn’t let go. I screamed from the fear that we would never again touch each other’s souls. I screamed from the sorrow that almost stole my breath.
When my screams faded to gasps and then finally to silence, Shane laid his head on my belly, facing the wall. We held perfectly still, not speaking. I stared at the ceiling, where a spider huddled in the far corner.
Though nothing separated our bodies, we’d never been so far apart. I didn’t know which words, if any, could begin to close that gap.
A knock came at the door. There was a whole world out there that cared nothing for our despair.
“Emergency,” came Regina’s voice, flat as ever despite her word. “We’ve got zombies.”
24
Ants Marching
I yanked on my sweatpants and threw Shane’s shirt over my head before answering the door.
“Zombies?” My hand almost pulled off the doorknob. “As in plural?”
She looked at my face, then past me at Shane, who now lay half under the sheets. “I waited until the screaming stopped.”
“Where are the zombies?” he asked her, his voice tight with tension that had little to do with walking corpses.
“In the cemetery, where else?”
I looked at the clock: 5:25. “But it’s still daylight.”
“Yeah, they had even worse timing than me.”
“I don’t get it.”
She spoke slowly, as if we were dim-witted—which I guess we were. “The Control saw three zombies climb out of their graves just before sunrise this morning. The agents chopped them in half, but even if they hadn’t, they said the zombies wouldn’t have made it to the cemetery gates before they roasted.” She turned back to me. “Lanham says there could be more tonight. He wants you both in the cemetery by 2030, whenever that is.”
“When is 2030?” Shane asked me.
I subtracted twelve from twenty as I shut the door. “Eight thirty.”
He glanced at the bed beside him. “Three hours.”
I took a small step forward, wishing that zombies were the scariest thing in my life.
The door opened again.
“But first—” Regina stuck her head in the room “—briefing in the lounge in five minutes.�
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“What did you say to him?” I asked Lanham when I entered the lounge two minutes later, without Shane. “Why is he joining Enforcement?”
The colonel glanced up from the table where he sat with his open laptop. Rather than feigning innocence, he said, “I pointed out the reality of your new condition.”
“What about my ‘condition’ means Shane has to become the thing he hates most? What’s forcing him to be a vampire hunter?”
“He’s forced to do nothing.” Lanham calmly shifted his mouse, then double clicked. “Unless he wants to keep you.”
“Vampires aren’t animals. They’re not going to suddenly start ripping each other’s throats out over me.”
“Perhaps not all of them. But it only takes one.”
I held back a groan, knowing he was probably right. “Why did Shane get to choose his assignment? I didn’t.” My voice’s petulance made me flinch. “Neither did Tina.”
“He didn’t choose. He only thinks he did.” Lanham picked up the laptop and set it on the projector. “By the way, you and Agent McAllister are temporarily activated until the cadaveris accurrens threat is eliminated.” He turned to me. “Under my command.”
“Fine.” I glared at him, hands on my hips, until his meaning sunk in. “Oh.” I straightened my posture. “I mean, yes, sir.”
Shane entered then, precisely on time. “Good evening, sir.” His lips twisted as he uttered the words, as if they had a sour taste.
I glared at him. “Sucking up to your commander doesn’t make you an instant badass.”
“That is correct, Agent Griffin.” Lanham nodded at Shane. “But it’s a fine start.” He switched on the LCD projector. “Let’s begin.”
Shane and I sat on opposite sides of the table. A Flash video in sepia tones was frozen on the screen.
“The rest of your squad—all vampires, of course—are being briefed at other locations. We will depart the station in—” he looked at his watch “—one hour twenty-eight minutes. You’ll receive rudimentary training on site, but since you lack experience, you’ll be asked to stay back and document the event. You will receive weapons and protective gear, in case your aid is needed.”
“What kind of weapons?” Shane asked, his testosterone no doubt kicking in at the mention.
“Mostly katana swords.” Lanham reached under the table and pulled out a long carrying case. He set it on the table and unlatched it. “What you would probably call a samurai sword.” He lifted out the long, gleaming weapon. “With vampires it’s usually used for decapitation.”
“I know,” Shane said.
“Of course. You once destroyed one with a weapon like this.”
Shane met his gaze. “It was self-defense.”
But his fingers twitched as he looked at the sword. I wondered whose head he imagined liberating from its body.
Lanham turned to the projector. “We have footage of this continent’s last known CA attack, from the late 1920s, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.” He put the cursor over the Play arrow. “Keep in mind, this event was filmed at normal speed.” He started the video.
“Jesus.” Shane turned to me. “The one you saw moved that fast?”
I couldn’t answer right away, because my jaw was stuck in the holy-crap position. Dozens of zombies—CAs, whatever—streamed past the stationary camera like a swarm of giant, meth-addled cockroaches.
Like the creature I’d seen in the Sherwood cemetery, they didn’t swerve to avoid headstones and shrubbery. On the contrary, every obstacle sent them spinning ass over teakettle. They used the momentum to lurch to their feet and continue running toward… what exactly, I couldn’t tell. But their prey must have been tasty, based on the gnashing and twisting of the holes that had once been their mouths.
I almost envied their unabashed hunger. They wanted blood, but didn’t need it. I needed blood, but couldn’t bring myself to want it.
I’d never seen so many vampires in one place. They arranged themselves like fence posts around the perimeter of the Sherwood cemetery. Most wore solid black with the red patch of the Enforcement Division. In front of them, several squads of vampire agents wore the gray uniforms of the nearly defunct but newly revived Zombie Company. A few scattered agents wore the midnight blue garb of the Immanence Corps.
Since Shane and I were contractors, we could wear civilian garb along with a special leather jacket and cap. Shane grumbled at the latter, saying that hats made him look like Kid Rock. I tried not to look at him at all, so I wouldn’t see the red patch on his shoulder and be reminded of why he wore it.
Captain Fox oversaw our brief weapons training. While he lectured us, he paced before a pair of shiny green torsos. Elijah was clearly in his glory now that zombies were an official crisis.
“These dummies are made of a special gelatinous compound that approximates the consistency of human flesh. I want you to both find out what it feels like to cut a body in half.” He indicated the space above the collarbone. “In the same way that gunmen are trained to aim for the center mass instead of the head, I want you to swing down and across. Simple decapitation isn’t so simple with a moving target. But it’s hard to miss the entire body.”
Elijah pointed to me. “Ladies first, Griffin.”
I gripped my katana sword in both hands, as I’d been trained, and stepped forward, remembering to put my momentum into the swing without committing so far forward I lost my balance.
Zing! Thwap!
The blade sang through the torso as easily as—well, as easily as a sword through Jell-O. I tried to hide my gasp of surprise, but apparently failed, based on the titters I heard from a pair of veteran agents passing by.
“Perfect,” Elijah said, “except for one thing. While you were admiring your handiwork, another zombie came up and ripped your damn head off. So slice and search.” He turned to Shane. “Slice and search. Go.”
Shane didn’t hesitate. He blurred forward, and by the time the torso fell into two pieces at his feet, he had returned to his fighting stance.
I had to admit: it was hot.
They stationed the two of us in the back of an open box truck across the street from the cemetery. We were far enough away to have a good vantage point for filming, yet close enough to be deployed as a last resort.
Unfortunately, they left us alone, which at the moment seemed more dangerous than being at the center of a zombie pileup.
“This’ll probably be the only time we get to work together in the Control,” I said as I finished setting up the video camera on its tripod, “since we’re in different divisions.”
“Uh-huh.” He didn’t look up from the digital camera’s instruction book, which he’d been perusing for almost an hour.
“How many times are you going to read that?”
“Until I understand it. These things are after my time.” He flipped it upside down and backward. “Besides, I need to brush up on my Spanish.”
“In case the jackbooted thugs deploy you to Mexico?”
“Yep.” He kept reading.
I sighed and peered down the street. Outside the cemetery, a perimeter had been established by what looked like the Department of Homeland Security but was no doubt the Control in one of its federal guises. They coordinated at the highest levels with the agencies of the United States and other countries. As long as the Control kept human-vampire peace, governments were happy to spare a few vehicles and uniforms.
The hours crawled by. I ate my lunch early, so Shane wouldn’t have to remind me. To pass the time and keep from thinking about our disintegration, I made a list of four-plus-letter words from the letters in the Sherwood cemetery sign.
I checked my watch at midnight. “You’re missing your show,” I told Shane, who was lying on his back just inside the box truck. “Who’s subbing for you tonight?”
His whole body tensed. “Jim,” he said without opening his mouth.
I knew then for sure that Shane had been awake that morning when the hippie DJ had visite
d. Maybe Lanham was right—Shane needed combat skills to make up for his youth, skills only the Control could give him.
A shout came from the cemetery. I lifted my binoculars to see several ZC agents waving their arms. They pointed to the ground in the high center section, near the chapel and adjoining mausoleum. The rounded, treeless area held several tall, elaborate headstones.
“Something’s happening.” I woke up the video camera and focused on the earth where the agents were pointing. I heard Shane sit up beside me, grabbing his own camera.
Beside a headstone, a hand shot up through the ground. I stifled a yelp.
Another hand shoved into the air in a geyser of soil. Then, wriggling like a grub, the corpse burst from the ground. Clumps of gray-brown grass cascaded from its head and shoulders.
“Whoa.” Shane gave a low whistle. I pointed at my camera, then put a finger to my lips to hush him.
Another zombie, at almost the same point in its “birth,” left its own grave a few rows behind the first. I zoomed out to see a third, then a fourth.
The earth gave up its dead. One after another they pulled themselves from the ground, their bodies straining, arms flailing, legs kicking. Mouths screamed without sound.
According to the Control, zombies had no souls, no awareness, no pain. They felt less than a bug feels. Yet as I watched them struggle like wounded animals, I wanted to strangle the sadistic bastard who’d raised them from the peace of their graves.
The vampires on the perimeter of the cemetery readied their weapons. Orders were to hold off on destroying the zombies until they could be observed. The IC hoped to discern a pattern that could lead them to the necromancer.
But the zombies didn’t run. Instead they stood, heads lolling on too-flexible necks, clothes mud-streaked and torn, flesh in various states of decay. A woman in a pink dress and pale, scraggly hair touched her face to discover she was missing the lower half of her jaw. My heart ached as I imagined her long-ago beauty.
I knew my sympathy would evaporate the moment the zombies attacked. Any moment now, I thought, their instincts will kick in. They’ll catch a distant scent of human blood.
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