L A Banks - [Vampire Huntres Legend 12]

by The Thirteenth (pdf)

  Imam Asula closed his eyes and dropped his head. "Then there's no other way. We cannot wait this out—this tide will not pass quickly. We must get to the Weinsteins and to Inez's loved ones ... in the final days there will be floods and famine and fire to complement the plagues. We must get off the island and cannot stay on hallowed ground paralyzed by fear. We must act. May Allah the Beneficent be with us. "

  "Then we must also pray that the Weinsteins will hear us and still be where we left them," Monk Lin said in a serene tone. "We will then anoint them and pray the contagion that follows will not touch them. I will try to get word to the Philadelphia team to move baby Ayana and her grandmother. We must at all costs protect the new young seer, the child of Inez."

  "That is the only way. Monk Lin is right, and so are you, Imam. We must pray for their Passover . . . that the contagion that will come will pass them by. Then we must act." Rabbi Zeitloff motioned to the window with his chin. "The air is stifling, the weather uncertain. All the signs are here."

  "Our departed warrior brother spoke of this day, when the pale horse would ride and, according to his faith, the fourth seal would be broken," Imam Asula said, leaving the window to walk deeper into the living room. "One-fourth of the world would perish by the sword, and hunger, and death by the beasts of the earth." Monk Lin nodded. "In Nepal, the monkeys have gone wild . . . have become rabid, and are attacking pedestrians on the street. The banks of the Ganges are overflowing with bodies. There are indeed wars and rumors of wars. The current pope is ill; cyclones are sweeping the Asian plateau." He pushed another worry bead along the leather cord. "Here, it is the stray dogs and the rats that carry the fleas of bubonic plague. Look outside. As hot as it is, only military patrols . . . where are the people? In New York City, if the rats completely flee the subway and sewer systems when the floodwaters come, there will be pure chaos. We must find the remaining family members of our Neteru team or die trying."

  "The Old Testament, Book of Daniel — all of it." Rabbi Zeitloff took off his thick glasses and wiped a handkerchief across his eyes. His brows knit like furry white caterpillars in the center of his forehead as he stared at his Covenant brothers. "I feel things in my gut. Monk Lin gains impressions from meditations. Imam, you have been our tactical strength . . . but we are missing our eyes. We are missing our dear, dear friend, Father Patrick— our seer." He clenched his fist to his chest and swallowed hard. "Without his eyes, it is hard to see in the dark."

  "Nana?" Ayana whimpered, pulling her small body from beneath the rubble. Pitch-blackness surrounded her. Sharp, hard objects made her afraid to move. Dust filled her lungs, making her cough, and she could still hear the howling wind outside. That's what Nana had told her it was — -just the wind. But spooky noises of things creaking and groaning made her shut her eyes tightly and try not to breathe. The grown-ups Nana said were there to help had fallen down, just like Nana, when the big wall fell on everybody.

  She kept telling Nana that they shouldn't leave where Mommy and Uncle Mike had left them. They shouldn't have gone back to Atlanta because the wind was mixing around with trees and cars in it and windows would break. She'd heard the windows crashing in her dream, everything crashing. People got cut and had blood on them. But the grown-ups said things like that never happened in Atlanta, not downtown where they would be safe in the big, pretty hotel on Peachtree Street. The name sounded pretty then, but she still didn't like the idea. The grown-ups were using a word she didn't know . . . tornado. When she asked them more about it, they just said it was a little storm, but their eyes seemed scared. It wasn't a little storm.

  It was a big, big storm.

  They had to hide in the basement. But there were so many people running into the hotel and down the steps that Grandma fell and lost hold of her hand. People who'd come to help Nana fought to get to her . . . but she was so teeny and the people running were so many. She was three and a half, almost four, a big girl, Nana said . . . but right now she felt really teeny and really scared. Then the lights went out and a big explosion happened. That's all she remembered for a long time. She had to remember everything to tell Mommy and Uncle Mike . . . and Aunt Damali.

  Two big tears rolled down Ayana's nose and she sniffed hard, too frightened to cry out loud. There was something scary in the dark that other people couldn't see. She knew it. She could feel it.

  Ayana closed her eyes tighter, remembering what Aunt Damali and her mommy said to do. Pray hard in her mind. Don't move her mouth. Ask the angels for help. See inside her eyelids.

  She ducked her head down lower, laying her cheek against broken concrete, and curled up into a little ball. Something cold crawled over her and she kept her hand clamped tightly on her mouth, shivering . . . saying the prayer to be invisible to monsters. Then she saw it.

  Huge red eyes looked through the dark. Big, dripping, yellow teeth. Big, sharp claws. Stinky, stinky body that was skinny like a big spider's. It was looking for her, she knew it. She could tell. But if it found Nana first, it would eat her!

  Ayana's eyes rolled back and forth behind her tightly shut lids. Then she saw a shoe. Her nana's shoe! Ayana's head jerked in the direction of it at the same time the demon's gleaming eyes spotted it. The creature pounced on the fallen column that had De-lores wedged beneath it and began to savage her limp body, becoming frustrated as it tried to extricate her from the debris.

  Seconds put Ayana on her feet. She knew the monster would tear off one of her grandma's arms or legs, and would make her bleed. If it did that, Nana would stop breathing and die. A high-pitched scream exited Ayana's body and rent the air.

  "No, no! Leave my nana alone!"

  The creature whirled and held its head for a moment with several of its hookedclaw appendages, and then lunged at the three-year-old child. Ayana's scream brought heavy footfalls. Men and women were frantically calling out her name. Something huge was hurtling toward her. The pitch of her scream intensified. Gun barrels lowered. An explosion wet her face with green slime.

  "Over here!" a Guardian yelled.

  Coughing, sputtering, Ayana went to the first adult that opened her arms to her.

  "Nana, Nana—it was gonna get Nana!" Someone wiped her face. She heard somebody hock and spit. "Yo, Quick . . . the kid went up against an arachnid demon . . . Level Four—you see that?"

  A tall lady that she couldn't see too well held her. The gunk on her face stung her eyes, and all she wanted to do was keep her face pressed against the soldier lady's neck, in case some more monsters came out.

  "I'm Shaun, baby. We got you. It's gone. We're gonna get your grandmom out, okay?"

  Ayana just nodded. Her stomach felt jumpy. "I want my mommy," she whimpered.

  "I want my nana. I didn't wanna come here. I don't wanna stay here. We have to go where it's high, high up in the mountains."

  "I know, I know," Shaun soothed. "But we had to bring you all here . . . because there's some bad germs where you were. The sickness hasn't spread here yet, you understand, pumpkin? Your mommy and Uncle Mike don't want you and Nana to get sick."

  "Dragon Rider, you see that?" Craig's voice made everyone look as he stood over demon remains. "She's a reverse audio . . . whoa. Kid uses her voice like a weapon, you see that?"

  "Yeah," Quick said, stepping over rubble, her gun barrel at the ready to blow away anything demonic that might slither out. "That's why we listen to the kid and head toward the Appalachian Mountains as planned to rendezvous with the Philly team. They took all the Guardian kids from the safe house school and headed west out of the madness toward Pittsburgh, to higher ground in the mountains." Ayana peeked up from Shaun's neck. A big man picked up a hairy monster leg and threw it away from the pile of rocks, trying to get stuff off her grandmom.

  "If she's got that kinda skill to see demons coming and to explode 'em from a scream at three or four years old," Dragon Rider said, checking her weapon magazine, "imagine what she'll do at twenty-three."

  "Yeah, well, we've gotta make sure we get
her to twenty-three," Michelle said, glancing at her teammate and stashing a 9 mm in the back of her fatigue pants waistband. She tossed a couple of grenades to Dragon Rider to hang on to as she bent and grasped the edge of the cement slab that trapped the unconscious woman. "C'mon, Rayne . . . this is your detail. Healing. Remy, you and I lift with Craig, then Rayne, you pull the grandmother out with Leone while Quick and Dragon Rider cover us. Might be more of these suckers down here crawling around in the dark looking for a Neteru team hostage—so look alive, folks." Craig spat and pounded Quick's fist, hoisting his Uzi up out of the way as he tightened his grip on the edge of the concrete slab. "Atlanta ever had a tornado before?"

  Quick gave him a look. "Hell, no. New York City ain't had one, either, till this past year."

  He nodded. "Just what I thought."

  He could feel himself being followed as he left the safe house and headed toward the Masjid. He didn't care; he had been ready to die all his life in the service of Allah. When the unmarked car skidded to a halt and bounced onto the sidewalk, followed by another screeching to a halt, Imam Asula stood very, very still. Men in dark suits and white shirts drew weapons on him without identifying themselves. Within moments he was forced to the ground by what felt like twenty men. He could have resisted, but that would have given them license to shoot him in broad daylight. People leaned out of windows with camera phones, screaming, yelling, trying to make the police hear that he was a man of faith, a cleric. But they had pictures of him with the most wanted. His obvious religion and garb also didn't work in his favor.

  With hands shackled and his dignity in shreds, he was roughly forced into a black van. A dark hood got yanked over his head. The burlap dug into the fresh cuts and bruises on his cheek. Angry words pelted him, as kicks and jabs from boots and elbows thrashed his body. Then suddenly all motion stopped and he was yanked forward, falling, banging his shins and knees, and then yanked upright. He heard a door open, could smell the cool dankness of a basement.

  He could have fought them, could have used his years of martial arts training. Could have concealed a weapon under his robes. But his mission was to divert them from Rabbi Zeitloff and Monk Lin . . . who had to make it to Dan's parents, had to get word to the Neterus, had to complete what they had all given their lives to the Almighty One for. Allah was with him. Suddenly pushed back, he hit the ground with a thud. Dazed, he could barely catch his breath. Then came the water. Drowning—he was drowning! He fought, shackled, struggling to breathe. The sack over his head sucked up into his nose and mouth as he gagged trying to get air, but he accidentally sucked in water that scorched his lungs. Blood rushed to his head as they inverted him even more, causing him to gag, causing him to vomit and choke on his own refuse.

  "What the fuck did they put in the dirty bomb?" Voices thundered around him in muddy waves. "People are dying! What's making people go insane and begin eating each other, asshole? What is it, an airborne drug?"

  "Or is it some kind of airborne toxin that eats into the brain stem? What is it, motherfucker!"

  "Did you and your terrorist cronies release the bubonic plague with the Ebola virus, too? You poison the water—shoot up a bunch of animals with rabies and let them go in cities all over the world?"

  "Who do you work for?"

  "Where are the Weinsteins? What are their real names? Did all you Middle Eastern bastards brew up some nasty shit in a lab together, or what? They're not Israelis, are they?"

  "Is that why the dogs and cats are turning on their owners? What. Did. You. Do?"

  "Let him up, Frank. See if he's got something to say." Voices had become so distant. His dear friend smiled and held out a hand. He had made it to more than threescore and ten years of age. They laughed together. His face suddenly felt clean and fresh. His chest no longer felt like it was about to explode. The taste of vomit was gone from his throat. He watched dispassionately as frustrated men yanked back his hood to stare into his glassy eyes. He walked away with Patrick, who slung an arm over his shoulder.

  "Goddamn!" the lead interrogator yelled, and flung down the hood. "You held him under for too long. That was our closest Middle Eastern lead!"

  "His body was still moving," another man nervously argued.

  "He was fucking convulsing, you moron. Look at him. He suffocated under the hood in his own vomit!"

  "Quickly, quickly," Rabbi Zeitloff urged, holding Mrs. Weinstein's hand.

  "But my Daniel, he couldn't have done those things they claimed." Stella Weinstein's tear-glazed eyes sought the rabbi's and then her husband's. "He is honorable, has a good job working to help the president—so does his superior officer . . . that General Rivera. His wife is a good girl. They have a baby on the way. Tell me my world is not coming to an end!"

  "Stella, we must go. Now. There is no time," her husband said, shaking her. "We must trust the rabbi and the monk. Do you see they are rounding people up? Have we not seen this in history before? Open your eyes!"

  "Please, I beg you," Rabbi Zeitloff said in a rush. "Follow us out through the safe tunnels that were built under this place when we bought it, then we'll go up to the streets. We'll get you onto a ferry, from there—"

  "Where is my son'?" Stella cried out as they hurried her down the long corridor into the basement.

  No one answered her as the rabbi opened a door with shaking hands and then gave Monk Lin the key. "Lock us in and may Yahveh be with you." Running, running, his breath came out in waves of pain as he fled the building and headed uptown. Monk Lin's frantic gaze took in the chaos around him. Dogs snarled in the street, fighting over the dead bodies of the homeless—the first to fall. Those with weak immune systems. Those without shelter and with a limited stash of food or water. They now lay dead in alleyways, food for the rats that battled the dogs, a job too voluminous for a public health system in shambles. Alleys were disease pits. Garbage cans a death sentence. Men and women had rightfully abandoned their jobs hauling refuse. It meant certain death now that the Black Death had settled like a toxic cloud over the eastern seaboard. Knowing wounded his soul. He'd felt his dear friend Imam leave this plane not a half hour ago. He would not weep; he and Father Patrick, even the young Padre Lopez and the others, were fortunate. This was no way to live. The Buddha was weeping.

  Monk Lin jumped back as pigeons began dropping from the sky like small gray bombs of jellied feathered flesh. Dead squirrels littered the streets, even the cockroaches ran about as though disoriented. Sewer openings belched rats. Screams of humanity chilled his bones as he ran through the sweltering streets, dodging the occasional wildly veering car.

  Only those who were sick, or without resources, or hiding from the law were still trapped within the city. Basic services had finally shut down, collapsing under the weight of human panic. There were no more civilian trains. No buses. No trucks renewing supplies. Monk Lin looked around. Just military checkpoints. Just military occupation of all civilian carrier systems— trains, ferries, buses, trucks—everything had been commandeered to transport the sick and dying, or to remove bodies. Stores had been looted for food and water and were now just shells. Money was worthless . . . was outlawed as a cause of passing the contagion. How would Rabbi Zeitloff ever hope to get the Weinsteins off the island and past checkpoints at the harbor?

  Tunnels unused since the fifties shimmered with moisture as the rabbi led Dan's parents to what they all prayed would be salvation. They were healthy—had no signs of the contagion. Phony ID had been drawn up. Hair colors had been changed, size augmented by theatrical prosthetics. Makeup added, enough to get them past harried checkpoint guards. At least they'd be out of hell's kitchen. The safe house network stretched to the harbor. Monk Lin would hold the line and continue to signal for the Neteru team and local Guardians, continue to try to interpret word from the spiritual realm, while he couriered the innocent to a haven beyond the walls of insanity.

  Disease was imploding in the major cities, but where the population densities were lower, there was still some f
ragment of civilization left that had not begun to unravel. Getting to the mountains was the only hope.

  Rabbi Zeitloff kept that goal in front of him as he hustled down the dark corridor with a lantern flashlight, blotting out Stella Weinstein's whimpers. His heart ached with hers, but he couldn't focus on that now. He had to deliver her and her husband to higher ground. That's where he needed to get these good people. They could be safe on hallowed ground of a mission in New England until he could break through to Carlos or Damali to whoosh them into an energy fold and make them vanish without a trace. Worse case, they could trek to Hartford, then head west from there and go toward the Appalachian Mountains. Higher ground. Once in the mountains they could maneuver.

  He would focus on that and couldn't think about how his bones ached, his age and weight made his breathing labored, or how his heart now beat in arrhythmia from the heat, exertion, and fright. If it was the last thing he did, he had to keep pushing the Weinsteins forward to reunite them with the core of safety—the Neteru team. The narrow passage only allowed one body to get through at a time. The air was stifling, the lantern becoming so heavy . . . the gap widening between him and the Weinsteins ahead. Just as well. Tears filled his eyes as the sound that he heard in his head and in his soul slowly filled his ears. The door behind him was a mile away and locked. He leaned his forehead against the wall, his black clerical hat toppling off his head.

  "Rabbi!" Dan's father turned around.

  Rabbi Zeitloff waved him off. "Push forward and live to see your grandchildren." A woman's bloodcurdling scream drowned out the high-pitched squeals that echoed in the narrow tunnel behind him.

  The rabbi braced himself against both walls, using his body as a shield. They would run for him, the closer meal. . . would scramble over his blood and flesh first, and once sated would continue forward. The rats would eat well on his leathery, fat meat. He laughed, insanity and fear colliding with courage. They had killed his friend Patrick. He could feel Imam was no more. "Run!" He would be a human body plug, a flesh and blood dam to keep the disease-carrying rodents from tearing into Dan's heart by tearing into his parents.