Bring On the Night

by Jeri Smith-Ready

A roll of thunder rumbled outside. I shot a worried look at Shane. “Dexter,” we said in unison.

  I turned to Lanham. “Our dog’s thunderphobic. Can we go back to the station?”

  “Please do. Stay there until we call you.”

  “You do have jobs.” David stepped forward. “The station is in charge of disseminating information about the curfew.”

  I looked between him and Lanham. They needed to do some serious negotiating for our time.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Lanham said icily. “Now please wait for Agents Griffin and McAllister in the living room, and send in Captain Fox.”

  David’s nostrils twitched, but he took Lori’s hand and left without a word. Elijah passed them on his way back into the bedroom.

  “I didn’t do nothing wrong, I swear,” he said. “I covered my ass from here to eternity when it came to our relationship.”

  Lanham shut the bedroom door and turned to us. “If Agent McAllister’s theory is correct, it means that every corpse in that cemetery that had chicken pox during its life is a potential cadaveri accurrens.”

  I looked at Shane. “Did it say in any of those articles how many people get chicken pox at some point in their lives?”

  He grimaced. “Something like ninety-five percent of Americans have had it.”

  Elijah whipped out his radio. “I better tell my commander. There’s over twelve hundred people buried there.” He put a finger to his other ear and turned away to speak.

  “So more than eleven hundred zombies,” Shane said. “And there are how many agents in the ZC?”

  “Forty-eight,” Lanham answered. “But agents from other divisions can be called in for backup.”

  “Still.” Shane sighed and put his hands in his pockets. “It’s a bug hunt, man,” he said in a strange redneck accent.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “It’s a line from Aliens. Never mind.”

  I turned to Colonel Lanham. “Are you going to the cemetery?”

  “I’ll send Captain Fox in my stead. I’ll be following the Petreas to the hospital.” He lowered his voice. “I want to make sure they arrive safe and sound.”

  Or arrive, period. “Let us know if Tina takes a turn for the worse.” I glanced at the rumpled, sweaty covers she’d left behind. “But I’ll bet anything she’s out of the woods.”

  I took Shane’s hand and headed for the door, biting back tears of bitter envy. I’d be wandering in those woods forever.

  31

  The Red

  The rain fell in sheets during our drive to the station, so I couldn’t open the car window to dispel the scents of Lori and David. I tightened my safety belt, as if that would keep me from diving into the backseat for a quick, hot snack.

  Noticing my discomfort, Shane switched on the radio. An old blues tune was playing on WVMP.

  I gasped and cranked up the volume. “Monroe’s back!” My heart pounded with relief, and more than a little fear. Had he returned only because of the curfew? What if he came back but ignored me? The thought hurt even worse than his complete absence.

  The song faded, and Spencer’s voice came on. “That was ‘Just Walkin’ in the Rain’ by the Prisonaires.”

  I sank into the seat, folding my arms to keep my heart from dropping into my stomach.

  “Once again, this is Spencer Wallace closing out Monroe Jefferson’s Midnight Blues show. Thanks for your calls of concern. I guarantee Monroe’ll be back just as soon as he gets over that laryngitis. Then we won’t be able to hush him up.” Spencer gave a soft chuckle. “He’s probably listening right now, so I’ll just say, Monroe, we all miss you. Come back real soon.”

  I took a deep breath, then wished I hadn’t. Lori’s and David’s scents hit me harder than ever.

  The moment we pulled into the parking lot, I dashed for the building as lightning snapped overhead.

  Inside, every phone line was ringing, as frightened citizens called WVMP for emergency information. Jeremy waved at me from the lounge sofa, where he was patiently explaining to a caller that yes, even the liquor stores were now closed.

  I stopped at the booth and mouthed my maker’s name to Spencer through the glass. He shook his head sadly, then returned to his own phone call.

  “I’m so sorry,” Shane whispered, kissing me on the temple. “Let’s check on Dexter.”

  The giant black dog greeted us in the common room with wild panting and circling.

  “Poor little dude.” Shane knelt in front of him and ruffled the dog’s furry black cheeks. “It’s okay.”

  “Don’t comfort him, remember.” I pulled off my soaking windbreaker and shook out the rain. “It makes him think there’s something to be afraid of.”

  “Right.” He stood up and patted his thigh. “Come on, Dexter, let’s dig up some of your blood-basted bone treats. Make this a party.”

  “While you’re in there,” I asked him, “can you bring out my research stuff on Romania? It’s two books and a stack of articles.”

  He headed into our room, where the door swung shut. I turned to the sink, ready to face the least glamorous part of being a vampire—washing out blood cups.

  When I was alive I hated doing dishes, and not just because I was lazy. The moment a meal was over, food might as well have been toxic waste for all I wanted to touch it.

  Congealed blood was even worse.

  “Yuck.” I shoved the open cup under the hot running water.

  As I reached for the dish soap, a hand snatched the bottle.

  “Allow me,” Jim purred in my ear.

  I stiffened, neck prickling, but forced my voice casual to avoid escalation. “You’re more than welcome to do my chores.”

  He squeezed the bottle, which emitted a slow, suggestive squirt of liquid soap onto the sponge. “Nothing’s a chore where you’re involved.” He pressed his face against my hair. “I didn’t think it was possible, but you smell better than ever.”

  I tried to move away, but he grasped the counter on my left side, trapping me. A clap of thunder pummeled the air outside, echoing in my guts.

  “So Regina’s had her turn with you,” Jim murmured. “Who’s next, or should I take a number?”

  I held my breath, fighting to steady my pulse. I had to stand up to Jim myself, and quickly. If Shane found us this way, they’d fight, and Shane would die.

  “How’s this?” I turned and pressed my fingers to the hollow of Jim’s throat. “I’m thinking of a number between zero and never.”

  “We all saved your life.” He took my hand from his neck and rubbed it between his own. “You owe us.” He breathed against my fingers, which were turning cold from fear.

  “I don’t owe you this.” My brain scrambled for the self-defense techniques I’d learned in Control orientation. I vowed to practice them until they were second nature.

  “You’re still chilly,” he said. “Let me bring you along to visit a donor. We could drink our fill,” he ran his warm tongue along the center line of my palm, “then fuck all night.”

  “Get away from her.”

  Jim jerked, then went suddenly pale. He put his hands up and slowly turned to face Spencer, who was standing at the edge of the kitchen area, not five feet away.

  “All right, man,” Jim said. “Everything’s groovy. You don’t have to tell me twice.”

  Spencer bore down on him with a gaze of molten steel. “I won’t.”

  Shane’s door creaked open. He walked out with my books and papers.

  “Dexter’s happily chewing, and I think I found your… stuff.” His pace slowed as he saw us. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” I moved toward him, breaking the triangle of tension. “Thanks.”

  “It’s your shift,” Spencer said to Jim.

  “Yeah. Right. Good. See you guys.” Jim hurried out without looking at us.

  Shane watched him go, his body as still as a lion’s before it leaps. Then he slowly turned his head back to me. “What did you want these for?”
<
br />   “Petrea said something that sparked a memory.” I took the books and papers to the table. “I don’t know where it goes, and my brain is still foggy, so I’m just going to flip through this stuff until something jumps out.” I hoped my babbling distracted him from thoughts of pursuing Jim. “How’s that sound?”

  “Sounds like you need coffee,” Spencer said.

  “Thanks!” I sat at the table. “Colonel Petrea called Tina draga mea, a Romanian term of endearment. It made me think of dragons.”

  Shane sat beside me. “He called her a dragon?”

  “No, the Romanian word for dragon is dracul. Or at least it was in the old days.”

  “Like Dracula?” Spencer said, filling the coffeepot with water.

  “Exactly. Shane, remember when we were in Saint Michael’s church?”

  “When you fell in the holy water.”

  I glared at him. “Remember the stained glass window of Saint Michael defeating Satan?”

  “Depicted as a dragon. What are you getting at?”

  I flipped through my stack of papers. “I was going to do my paper on the Legion of the Archangel Michael, aka the Romanian Iron Guard.”

  “The fascist guys.”

  I found the article I was looking for. “They were so extreme, the Nazis had to step in and tell them to ease up.”

  “Good grief.” Spencer hit the switch on the coffeemaker and came to join us. “How’s that possible?”

  “They were killing Jews too fast, too openly.” My nose wrinkled at the page in front of me. “The most infamous incident happened in Bucharest. They were pissed that their leader, Corneliu Codreanu, had been killed, so they rounded up dozens of Jewish men, women, and children and—” My throat tightened around the words. “They processed them through a slaughterhouse. Like livestock.”

  “Holy shit,” Shane said.

  “Unholy shit, actually, and they knew it. They knew they were going to hell for their deeds, but they thought their souls were a worthy sacrifice to purify the fatherland.” I examined the photo of the leader who had ordered the Bucharest pogrom. “I always thought it amazing that people so religious would put anything above their eternal fates.”

  “Maybe they weren’t that religious,” Shane said. “How could you believe in God and do those horrible things?”

  “Believing in God doesn’t make you good, just like not believing doesn’t make you bad.”

  “Whatever. Let’s not have this argument again.”

  I resisted the urge to send him another glare. We were both clearly on edge, and being unable to discuss the Jim thing, our testiness was making us bicker.

  “I remember the pictures.” Spencer paged through my textbook, licking his finger with each turn. “I was thirteen when our boys liberated the concentration camps. All the papers carried the photos of those people.” Lick. Turn. “They were like corpses. Not just from being skinny, either. Their eyes were dead.” He stared off through the wall. “That was the day I figured out there was no such thing as the devil. Didn’t need to be.”

  We sat in silence for a few moments. Then I glanced at the painting on the page where Spencer had stopped.

  I gasped, and my mouth hung open while my mind smoothed out the words. “They knew they’d be damned for murdering humans, but what if they thought they could earn back salvation another way?”

  Spencer looked down at the page. “By slayin’ dragons?”

  “Or the real-world equivalent.”

  “Wait,” Shane said. “You think the Iron Guard hunted vampires on the side?”

  The station phone rang.

  “Jeremy’ll get that.” I turned back to Shane. “It fits. The Archangel Michael was their icon. Dragons, vampires—we’re all devils.”

  “It fits, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. What evidence do you have?”

  The phone rang again.

  “None.” I held up a finger. “Yet. But I bet the Control has a huge archive on unsanctioned vampire hunters of the twentieth century.”

  “What’s it got to do with anything,” Shane said, “other than a paper you can never turn in without being called crazy?”

  The phone rang a third time. Spencer sighed and went to pick it up. “WVMP the Lifeblood of Rock ’n’ Roll, this is Spencer… yeah, hang on. I can give you that information.” He opened the emergency services binder on the end table.

  I focused on Shane. “The Legion of the Archangel Michael would have been around when Petrea was alive and human. Maybe he was part of it.”

  “Ciara, just because you don’t like the guy doesn’t mean he’s a fascist.”

  “He called me Gypsy scum. The fascists hated Gypsies. He also hates communists, and fascists—”

  “Everyone who lived under communism hates communists. And all rich people hate Gypsies. Isn’t Petrea supposedly from nobility?”

  “Oh yeah.” I gave a heavy sigh. “So he couldn’t have been in the Legion. It was made up of peasants.”

  Spencer hung up the phone. “Unless he lied about that.”

  I squinted at him. “You were listening to us while you were talking to the caller?”

  “I hear everything.” Spencer came back over to the table. “How old is this cat Petrea?” he asked me.

  “I think he’d be about ninety, in human years.”

  “Then Petrea’s not his real name. He would’ve changed his identity at least once by now.”

  “And that identity might be on record with the Control. I’m calling Lanham.” I picked up my phone. Zero bars. “Lightning must have hit the cell tower.”

  “Use the phone in the lounge,” Spencer said. “Looks like I’m stuck answering this one.”

  I headed for the door, and Shane said, “Be careful out there.”

  “I will!” I said with what I hoped wasn’t annoyance.

  As the door closed slowly behind me, I heard Shane ask Spencer, “Do I need to kill Jim?”

  Just as I passed the studio on the way to the lounge, the overhead lights went out. I peeked through the booth window. Jim’s face was shadowed by the blue emergency light. The smile he gave me chilled my spine.

  A moment later, in a distant corner of the station’s basement, the generator began to chug. The lights came back on.

  I hurried through the door into the lounge, stopping short when I saw Jeremy lying on the couch, eyes closed and shoeless feet propped on the arm.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know you were… here.” He didn’t respond. “Jeremy?”

  His chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm. Below the roar of the wind, I could hear his pulse.

  I stepped closer, inhaling through my nose and mouth, like a cat, the better to take in his scent. Then I knelt beside the couch and whispered his name. No answer, not even a twitch.

  I carved out his silhouette with my palm, floating my hand a few inches above his arm, feeling his heat, his life. Real life, not the facsimile that now moved my blood and bones.

  When I got to his neck, I realized his eyes were wide open, staring at me.

  I jumped back. “Shit! Sorry. I didn’t mean to—did I scare you?”

  He slowly reached up to his head and pulled out a pair of earplugs. “What?”

  “I wasn’t trying to creep you out. Or maybe I didn’t. You seem so calm.”

  “I know not to make sudden moves around vampires.” He rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I thought that was because of my new stealth.” I looked away, feeling foolish.

  He set the earplugs on the coffee table. “I put these in because the wind was keeping me awake. This building sounds like it’s going to rip apart.”

  A gust roared outside, shaking the station’s foundation. “It’s quieter in our apartment. We’ve got the fold-out couch.”

  “I’ve gotta get back to answering phones soon. Besides, no humans allowed, remember? I’m not in the club.” His eyes flicked up to meet mine. “Yet.”

  “Jeremy.” I sat on the edg
e of the cushion, next to his outstretched legs. “You don’t want to be in this club.”

  He scowled at me. “Would you undo it if you could, go back to living as a human?”

  “In a heartbeat.” The word drew my gaze to his chest, then his neck.

  His mouth opened and moved, maybe asking me a question, but his voice was lost in the rush of his pulse. The thirst built on the back of my tongue, almost drowning me.

  Jeremy snapped his fingers softly in front of my face. “Ciara.”

  “Huh?” I shook my head hard. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.” He nudged me with his knee. “Not to me. Not to yourself.”

  I kept my gaze on the nearest leg of the card table. For the first time, that missing paint chip bugged me. “I know it’s not my fault. My only alternative was dying, and I don’t regret it.”

  “So why do you feel guilty?”

  Did I feel guilty? I’d certainly said I’m sorry often enough these last few days to last a second lifetime.

  “I see everyone differently now. I see them the way the con artist Ciara saw people. As pawns, objects, sources of sustenance.”

  “Bullshit.” Jeremy folded his hands behind his head. “If you really saw me as an object, we would’ve stopped talking two minutes ago.”

  I looked at him, his posture mixing a boyish innocence with calculated seduction. His need to bleed was almost irresistible.

  “I can’t drink alone.” My voice verged on a whimper, and my fingers kneaded the edge of the sofa cushion. “I could hurt you, and it would hurt me to hurt you.”

  “Would it kill you to kill me?”

  Irritation overcame my hunger. I was Jeremy’s next target in his endless campaign to become undead. “Don’t ask that.”

  “What if I were dying?” he said. “Like you were.”

  “Please don’t do anything stupid. Don’t try to kill yourself.”

  “What if I were in an accident or got sick like you did? Would you save me the way Monroe saved you?”

  I gazed into his hazel eyes, which looked jade green tonight, the color of a new leaf on a spring morning, something I’d never see again.

  “No.” I placed my hand over his heart. “Live your life, Jeremy. Stop waiting for it to end.”