I opened the door slowly, trying not to let the hinges creak, and took a step toward the queen-size bed.
Beneath a sweaty layer of sheets, Tina’s form breathed deep and even. I could feel the heat of fever coming off her, and my predator’s sixth sense (or seventh or eighth sense) told me she was weak and sick.
But Elijah was right—she was nowhere near death. I looked at Shane, and he shook his head to confirm my diagnosis.
This part I hadn’t guessed. All I’d guessed was that if Tina had raised the zombies—or thought she had—she might turn to Elijah for protection. Believing their affair to be secret, she’d figure no one would look for her at his apartment.
Bingo for me on that deduction, which we’d verified with a phone call to Elijah an hour ago. But I’d never suspected she’d be looking for something much bigger than a hiding place.
A loud knock came from the apartment’s front entrance. I stepped quietly out into the hall and shut the bedroom door.
By the time we got back to the living room, Lori and David had entered, escorted by Colonel Lanham, who’d had to drive them due to the curfew.
“Ciara…”
My best friend stared at me. I met Lori’s gaze for only an instant, but it was long enough. I held back a whimper of pain as my fangs jabbed my gums from within.
Lori took a step closer, and Shane did the same on the other side, ready to tackle me in the event of a need to feed.
“You look…” Her breath blew out, then sucked in. “You look so beautiful.”
“Thanks.” I stared at her feet, at the clumps of mud on Elijah’s beige carpet, tracked in by our shoes. I tried not to breathe. Every muscle trembled with the urge to pounce.
Once a donor, always a donor.
Lori stepped closer, heart pounding, blood rising to the surface of her skin, her face and arms no doubt flushed pink.
I backed away into Elijah’s kitchen. “Tina’s sick but very alive. David, you should probably check her vitals before we question her.”
They moved down the hall, everyone but Shane.
“You look like you could use one of these.” He withdrew a meal from my thermos bag, popping the straw to a vertical position.
I took it and sank onto one of Elijah’s dining room chairs. “No more double dates with Lori and David.”
“Things’ll go back to normal. You had nice control there, which is encouraging.” He rubbed my shoulders as I stared at the carpet. Suddenly his hands froze. “No way.”
I looked up to see him gaping at a framed print of a football team on the opposite wall, above the black leather reclining couch. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s Elijah Washington? Inside linebacker for the ’76 Browns?”
“It used to be.” I took a long slurp, clearing my head of Lori-chomping thoughts. “Now his last name is Fox.”
“I have to get his autograph. My nephews are huge Cleveland fans.”
“Just don’t tell them how you got it.”
“They don’t even know I’m a vampire, so they won’t suspect. This would mean a lot coming from me, since I hate the Browns.”
“I’m glad your love for your family exceeds your love for the Steelers.”
Except for the poster, the decor in Elijah’s apartment was solidly modern. The Contemporary Awareness Division was doing a thorough job with Captain Fox.
Shane tore his gaze from the poster to focus on me again. “Feeling better?”
“Physically.” I set the empty cup on the table and ran my tongue over my now-fangless gums. “I’m dreading every moment with my two other best friends.”
“Lori and David will adjust to the new you.”
“In time for the wedding? I’m pretty sure chowing down on the bride and groom is a breach of maid of honor etiquette.”
“One day at a time, okay?”
I nodded. “First, avoid zombie rampage. Second, redo bridal party seating arrangement.”
He offered his hand. “Ready to work on number one?”
When we entered the bedroom, Tina was lying on her back with a thermometer in her mouth, her eyes half open. David held a stethoscope to her chest, so the room was quiet except for her wheezing breath.
Tina’s eyelashes fluttered apart. “Ciara, I thought you’d be dead,” she mumbled around the thermometer.
“I was. Am. Undead.” I fought to keep from screaming at the sound of the word. At least my bitterness distracted me from wanting to eat her.
Tina’s lids lowered halfway. “Wish I had that option.”
“Shh,” David said, still listening to her heart.
The thermometer beeped. Colonel Lanham cleared his throat. David frowned, then took the thermometer out of Tina’s mouth and showed it to Lanham. Even in the low light from several feet away I could see the digital numbers: 99.8.
Practically normal compared to the fever that had boiled my brain. Why did she get to survive this disease when I didn’t?
Lanham nodded to Lori, who sat beside Tina on the bed and patted her knee. “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked her.
Tina drew a melodramatic hand across her forehead, like she was Greta Garbo in Cámille. “It’s all my fault.”
Lanham reached inside his jacket, and I heard the small click and hum of a recording device.
So he’d decided to let Tina think she was dying, the better to get her confession. Cold but efficient.
“What’s your fault, hon?” Lori asked her.
“I wanted to show everyone I could do it.” Tina wiped her nose with the tissue Lori offered. “But I didn’t even know zombies existed.” She clutched Lori’s wrist. “I wanted to raise a ghost. Not just for me—for SPIT, too. If we could prove Sherwood was haunted, think what it would do for us.”
“Sweetie, you didn’t have to. We were doing fine.”
“You can’t fool me. I’m the treasurer.” She grimaced and put her fingertips to her temple. “God, it hurts so bad.”
Elijah picked up a white bottle from the dresser. “Time for your pain meds.” He handed the bottle to Lori. “Three of these seem to knock out her aches.”
I caught the label on the bottle. Ibuprofen. That over-the-counter stuff wouldn’t have touched the railroad spike in my head Saturday night. She definitely didn’t have what I’d had.
Lori opened the bottle. “Tina, you told us you had chicken pox when you were a kid.”
“That’s what the orphanage said. They might’ve made a mistake, or maybe they just said that so I’d be more adoptable. It was so crowded, they were desperate to get rid of us.”
Lori shook out three brown pills. “Can you tell us when you cast the spell for the ghost?”
“Last Sunday night. I was so mad about not making Immanence Corps, I stole one of Mom’s necromancy books and went to the Sherwood cemetery to do the ritual.” Tina took the ibuprofen and a long gulp of water. Then she ran her finger over the jagged scar on her left forearm. “I went back every night, but there weren’t any ghosts. I was hoping if we all went the night of your party, we would see one.”
So Tina had raised the creature that murdered Susan Haldeman, then infected Aaron. Twelve people had died because of her experiment. I was the only one still walking. My hands shook with rage, and only her obvious sorrow kept me from wrapping them around her neck.
Lori brushed the sweaty bangs off Tina’s forehead. “You should’ve come forward sooner so we could make it stop.”
“I tried to fix it.” Tina coughed. “Saturday night I did the spell of undoing. But nothing undid and the zombies came back.” Another cough. “I swear I was going to turn myself in, but then I got sick. I was scared I would die like everyone else, so I came here. Even brought a VBC form.”
Elijah’s eyes filled with sadness as he looked at her.
Tina heaved a hopeless sigh and cast her watery gaze at David. “How long do I have?”
“Best guess?” He looked at his watch. “About fifty or sixty.”
Her eyes widened. “Minutes?”
“Years.”
“But I have chicken pox.” She gave a hacking cough as she lifted her shirt above her belly button. “You saw my spots.”
Sure enough, the telltale fluid-filled red bumps covered her abdomen. My own belly itched at the sight.
“I’m not a doctor,” David said, “but you do seem to have classic chicken pox symptoms. It’s a serious disease for someone your age no matter what. You should go to the hospital to make sure you don’t get dehydrated.” He folded up his stethoscope and placed it in his red EMT bag.
She frowned at him. “Classic chicken pox symptoms? I don’t have the mutant supervirus?”
“If you did, you’d be dead by now. Ciara was in a coma less than an hour after the first symptom.”
Elijah let out a long breath. “Thank God I didn’t turn you, Tina.”
She gave him a cold glare, which even in her weakened state had the impact of a buzz saw. “You didn’t know I wasn’t dying, asshole, so don’t congratulate yourself.”
Elijah looked at the ceiling. I realized that with their difference in size, strength, race, and metaphysical status, she could dish out a lot of crap and he’d never be able to fight back without getting in major trouble.
Tina took a long swig of water. As she wiped her mouth, it verged on a smile. “My spell worked. I really do have powers.” She looked at Colonel Lanham. “You were wrong. I belong in the Immanence Corps, just like my dad always said.”
“You belong in jail.” I lunged forward, dragging Shane with me. “That zombie you raised ripped the arms and legs off an innocent woman.”
Tina pulled the covers up to her chin. “It was an accident. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not sorry, you’re proud. You know what else you are? Alive! You know who else isn’t? Aaron, who got infected by your experimental corpse.” I ticked off the victims on my fingers. “Turner Jamison. Me. Nine other people who caught that mutant virus.”
Tina’s eyes were wide and wet. “What are you—”
“You’ll beat this lame chicken pox, and when you do, you’ll go back to walking in the sun and eating food. You’ll hang out with your friends without wanting to rip open their throats and chug their blood like cheap beer.” My voice cracked. “Must. Be. Nice.”
Lori inched away from me to join David, who put a protective arm around her.
“Is that true?” Tina turned her frightened gaze to Colonel Lanham. “The zombie started this chicken pox plague?”
“That’s our current working theory, yes.”
She put her hands to her sweat-sheened face. “God, what have I done?”
Maybe her remorse should have cooled my rage, but it was only Shane’s tight grip that kept me from crushing her stupid head.
“What we don’t yet understand,” the colonel continued, “is how the virus got into the cadaveris accurrens in the first place.”
As we pondered this question, the room fell silent, except for Tina’s snot-clogged sniffles.
Then Shane spoke up. “It came from her.” Not letting go of my arm, he used my hand to point to Tina’s jagged knife wound. “The blood ritual.”
“She didn’t even have chicken pox then,” Lori said.
“Yes, she did.” Shane looked down at me. “Remember all that research I did on the varicella virus before you got sick? I read that the normal incubation period is ten to twenty days.”
“So when Tina did that ritual,” Elijah said, “the virus was already in her blood?”
Lori gasped. “The blood she shed on the grave.”
“Hang on.” David held up his hands. “As the only person here with the slightest medical knowledge, I have to say this makes no sense. A virus can’t infect a dead body, no matter how much magic is involved.” He gestured to Shane and me and Elijah. “If you guys can’t get sick, there’s no way a corpse can.”
“Why not?” Lori shrugged. “If blood magic can reanimate a human being, why couldn’t it do the same for a simple little virus? It’s an organism, right?”
“The only way that could work,” he said, “is if the virus was already in the corpse. It would have to be part of the body that was being reanimated.” He put his hand to his chin, brow furrowed. “Maybe with a virus that can’t be cured, like HIV,” he muttered, “or with a virus that had actually killed the person.”
“Or with a virus that lives inside you forever.” Shane shook his head at David. “Sorry, you don’t know everything. The varicella virus stays dormant in our nervous systems after we get over the chicken pox. Sometimes later in life it comes back as shingles.”
“Shingles?” I pictured a person’s skin looking like the surface of a roof. “Gross.” A glimmer of gratitude shone through my bitterness. At least I’d never have to catch a disease again. Whatever shingles was, I hoped one day Tina got the worst case ever.
Elijah smacked his enormous hands together. “That’s it! Zombies are all about the nervous system. The blood magic puts their spinal cords back together and gets them up and going.”
Colonel Lanham, who had been making notes on his phone, said, “But it still had to mutate into the supervirus inside the CAs for them to spread it.” He thumbed a few more buttons. “Fascinating theory. I’m sending it to our necrobiologists for their opinion.”
“Isn’t ‘necrobiologist’ an oxymoron?” I pointed out.
Before anyone could groan at my pedantic observation, the doorbell rang. Several times.
While Elijah went to answer it, Colonel Lanham beckoned me and Shane into the far corner.
“If Tina Petrea is responsible for the CAs,” he whispered, “she’s not working alone.”
“I agree.” I glanced over at her. “She seems way too young and incompetent to pull off something this powerful. I still say she’s as mundane as a block of concrete.”
“It’s not that. It’s the fact that they’ve risen on more than one occasion. Each episode requires its own spell.”
“She could be lying,” Shane said. “Maybe she did the ritual more than once.”
“Tina!” A woman in black blew past me, streaking a mass of red hair and a long pearl necklace. She sank to her knees beside the bed. “Sweetheart, we were so worried. Why didn’t you call?”
“I’m so sorry, Mom.” A tear slipped from the corner of Tina’s eye.
“You didn’t tell them anything, did you? Without a lawyer present?” She glared up at Lanham. “Interrogating a sick woman with no legal adviser? Can you sink any lower?”
The colonel made no move to apologize—or to disengage the listening device. “You know the rules. Miranda warnings are not required for evidence admitted to internal Control proceedings.”
I frowned. That meant Tina wasn’t going to civilian jail.
“Daddy…” she whispered.
I turned to see Colonel Petrea enter, stopping at the threshold to stare at his daughter. His face was as white and rigid as Mount Rushmore, and just as imposing.
“Tina…” he whispered as he glided forward. He repeated her name, sinking onto the bed and grasping her hand.
“I did it, Daddy.” Her tears flowed harder. “I got it wrong, but I did it. I have powers.”
Her mother blanched. “Tina, don’t admit anything.”
My con artist’s intuition awakened. Was Mrs. Petrea just being protective of her daughter, or was she worried the revelations would implicate someone else?
“I always knew you were magic, draga mea.” Colonel Petrea brought Tina’s hand to his cheek, then kissed it. “Now you need to heal, so that we can teach you everything.”
I simmered at the idea of Tina unleashing her questionable abilities on the world. But maybe Petrea was just telling her what she wanted to hear, thinking it would help her recover. Either way, it was weird to see them together like this, looking so close in age.
Then Petrea turned to his wife and murmured in a hypnotic voice. She softened and leaned against his side. He slipped his o
ther hand over her shoulder to comfort her.
From her profile, Mrs. Petrea looked about fifty years old—a beautiful, well-kept fifty, but from the outside, the apparent age difference was startling. His touch held the passion and devotion of a young marriage, with a hint of controlling possession. Their power imbalance was even wider than that between Elijah and Tina, unless Mrs. Petrea wielded a secret weapon equal to her daughter’s bitchiness.
This was the best Shane and I could’ve hoped for, had I remained alive. Every morning he would have been confronted with proof of my mortality. Maybe that had been part of the appeal, that it couldn’t really last forever.
Now we had forever in our hands. And as the Artist Formerly Known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince once perceived, “Forever is a mighty long time” (at least several extra decades, if we lasted as long as the typical vampires).
“Forgive me,” Petrea told Tina. “I never meant to make you feel less than perfect.”
I couldn’t see his face, but his voice told me his jaw was trembling. My own chin quaked at the thought of my father and the fleeting wish—just now unearthed—that he had been at my deathbed.
Would I be at his? What if he died during the day and I couldn’t be there for him? Or for my moms? Would I even know when they died, the way I would Monroe?
Monroe. He would’ve returned to the station by now to avoid being shut out of town until the end of the curfew.
“I’ll get your coat,” Mrs. Petrea said to Tina. “We’re taking you to the hospital.”
Colonel Petrea slipped his arms under Tina’s body. “You’ve imposed on your friend more than enough.” He glared at Elijah as he lifted his daughter as easily as a rag doll.
She pressed her face into her father’s neck. “He was never my friend.”
“Don’t say that, Tina,” Elijah said as she passed him. “You know it’s not true.”
Colonel Petrea turned slowly to face the younger vampire. “There will be an inquiry.” He swept out the door, Tina in his arms.
“Fine.” Elijah followed them. “I broke up with her before she entered the Control.” His voice echoed back to us. “I followed protocol!”
Bring On the Night Page 27