"Thanks." I take the mask, letting it dangle from my fingers.
A moment later, Atlan walks back to me, bringing with him a tall, sun-blond soldier with a deeply tanned face and crinkles at the corners of his blue eyes.
"This is Ben, a good friend of mine," says Atlan. "He usually serves as a lookout. He's going to take you up to his post, where you can watch the fun and be safe at the same time."
"Do I really want to watch?" I wince.
Surprise flashes through Atlan's eyes, and a hint of disappointment. "I thought you might want to see me in action."
His tentative smile is so unexpectedly boyish that I relent at once. We may not be friends yet, but he's definitely warming up to me. That's a good thing, because the more he likes me, the more secure I feel in my current position. Like it could be a permanent thing. Like maybe I'm safe in this life, safe for good, and I don't have to spend hours planning what I'll do to survive when everything goes wrong and I have to leave this place, and these people.
"Hi, Ben." I shake his hand with a smile.
"Good to meet you, Finley. Come on this way. If you need to use the facilities, there are portable toilets near the stairs. I suggest you go now, 'cause once you've climbed all those steps you won't want to come back down for a while." He grins. "Of course when I have to go, I usually just take a piss off the wall. Bonus points if I can hit some zombie's head."
I wrinkle my nose. "Okay."
"Atlan's got really good aim," Ben continues. "Course he's got an unfair advantage, with the length and all. One time he hit this zombie dude right in the—"
"Okay!" Atlan cuts him off. "Just—don't talk about me."
"Sure, man. Whatever."
I don't care for the visual of the soldiers having pissing contests off the Blue City wall, but my tolerance for toilet humor has always been pretty high—hello, elementary school teacher here. Plus my threshold for gross stuff in general has moved quite a bit since the Gorging. I smile at Atlan before donning my mask, and then I follow Ben to the steps, making a quick stop at the toilets as he suggested.
We climb to the top of the wall, where Ben shows me a small lookout tower—basically four posts with a ramshackle roof to shed rain and provide some shade. There's just enough space for both of us inside, but I choose to stand on the wall, letting the sunshine soak into my body. I feel like I've been in the darkness for so long—slinking through the gloomy streets of Blue City, sequestered in my room back at Deathcastle.
I'm outside now. I'm awake. I'm coming alive again.
So far I've only looked up, toward the sky. But at last, the stench sifting through my face mask and the persistent rumble of the horde below draws my eyes slowly, irresistibly downward.
And there they are—the zombies. Scores of them, surging and staggering across the fields below me. They've worn away the grass with their trampling. Through the layers of stone and concrete, I can feel the vibration of their fists and shoulders impacting the wall. They take turns slamming against it, slow and implacable. They know we're here—they're aware that a mass of human flesh and brain matter fills the buildings behind this wall. They can smell it. They can feel the heat of us, and they're determined to get through eventually.
Thank goodness they can't form cohesive thoughts, or design concerted efforts. If they ever managed to coalesce their collective consciousness, we'd be in a hell of a lot of trouble. Still, it's odd that the crowd of them has formed a kind of funnel, with most of them tightly massed in front of the metal gate in the wall. They must remember what gates and doors look like, and they're aware enough to realize that the gate is a way in.
I shift backward a bit, uncertain that the waist-high stone barrier I'm leaning over is enough separation between me and them.
Ben leans sun-browned arms on the wall beside me. "So you know how this works, right?"
"Sort of, but go ahead and tell me. I've heard a lot of different rumors."
"Okay." He settles sunglasses over his eyes, and I notice that he's not wearing a mask. Maybe he's used to the smell. "To zombies, the vampires are practically invisible. Their flesh doesn't smell the same as human meat, and their brains give off a different chemical signature, different brainwaves. So a vampire can walk through a horde of zombies without fear."
"Like animals can. Zombies don't eat animals, right? They just ignore them."
"Correct. Zombies are also attracted to heat, so sometimes they'll notice an animal or vampire's heat signature, but usually it's in a sort of 'Hey, something's there' kind of way. They might sniff around, but they don't attack or try to feed."
I squint at the shifting mass of undead people. "A lot of them look okay-ish. Like, mostly intact."
"Well, as you know, zombies won't eat dead flesh, and since the virus acts so quickly to kill and reanimate their victims, they usually can't get more than a couple of bites from any one victim before they're turned off by the dead smell and they have to move on to another living food source. Most zombies stagger around with just a bite or two taken out of them, and if they can get fresh meat, a lot of them can stave off their own decay for a good long time. But sometimes you see zombies like that one." He points to a slumping figure that looks like a walking pile of crooked bones and saggy meat. "That one was attacked by multiple zombies at once and got all torn up before turning."
My breath catches, and my heart rate speeds up. Flashes of memory burst in my brain—Heath, ripped to shreds, so mutilated he couldn't even stand up once he turned. I had to cut off his head, but my knife was too blunt—it took a while—
I close my eyes against the memories, against the blaze of the sun, and I try to focus on this moment, on the details I can grasp right now. The broad edge of the concrete wall is rough and stippled, catching on pads of my fingers. The sun heats the cotton of my T-shirt, pressing like a hand on my shoulder blades. My hair shifts slightly in the light breeze.
A groan of metal startles my eyes open. The zombies are pressing harder against the gate, and it's creaking under the combined force of their bodies.
"Grenade!" a voice shouts from below. It sounds like Atlan. I lean over the ropes strung along the inner edge of the walkway and see him there, on the safe side of the wall, waiting by the gate.
"Grenade!" echoes Ben, pulling one from his belt. He throws the grenade into the horde, far enough from the gate that the explosion won't damage it. There's a breath of quiet, then a concussive blast. Body parts fly into the air, pelting the other zombies. The ones by the gate move back, drawn to the source of the explosion; and the gate creaks open a crack, letting Atlan's lean form slide through before it crashes shut again.
If I lean a little way over the wall, I can see the vampire below—a shock of dark hair, the black vinyl coat glistening as he strides forward. He pulls out his swords from beneath the coat, whirling the two long blades in his hands.
A few steps from the mass of zombies, he pauses.
Ben leans into his lookout tower and presses a button. Fierce rock music blares across the field, echoing from huge speakers fused at intervals along the wall.
The zombies turn, heads jerking.
I stare at Ben, covering my ears. I can still hear the music through my hands.
"The music disorients them," he yells. "Plus, Atlan likes it. Gives him an edge." He shrugs, grinning. "Watch!"
Atlan whirls into action, slicing his way through the oncoming flood of zombies. His swords sweep through necks, whipping off arms, slitting torsos. The decayed forms crumble in his wake, crippled and harmless. To them, he's as good as invisible. They can't smell his flesh or the chemical signature of his brain—he's a ghost, a reaper, an oncoming tide of death.
"Go, Atlan!" shouts Ben, pumping his fist.
The whirlwind of gleaming black and shining swords that is Atlan cuts a swath straight out from the gate, then across to the left, then back to the wall and along it. As he passes the spot directly beneath me, he looks up, and I'm terrified to see that he's smiling, a wide
rictus grin of purple gums and white fangs. A monster's smile.
He's enjoying this. Reveling in it.
My stomach roils, but I can't take my eyes off him. He is grace and passion incarnate, abandoned to the joy of destruction. Out here, among the undead, he dances like he is truly free.
9
Finley
Shortly after Atlan's music starts, a group of citizens appears by the wall. The soldiers allow them to climb the wall and cluster along it, watching Atlan's progress through the horde.
"So he gets an audience?" I ask Ben.
Ben grins, white teeth flashing in the sun. "Yeah. We let 'em come up here and watch as long as they don't get too rowdy and cause trouble. It's mostly young people, teens and twenties—some others mixed in. His fan club, you know? And damn can he put on a show."
When I look back at Atlan, he's saluting the people on the wall with a sword-hilt to his brow. If he had energy before, he's got twice as much now—spinning through the next cluster of zombies, his blades whisking off arms and legs so fast the zombies barely have time to topple before he's back again to whack off each head. It's disgusting, and mesmerizing, like a horror movie, or a beheading in the old days, or a battle between gladiators in ancient times. Humans have always been strangely charmed by the grotesque and the macabre, and we're no different now.
Atlan saunters closer to the wall and makes a swirling motion with his arm.
"Chum time," says Ben, and signals to another pair of soldiers. To my horror, they hoist a bound man over the lip of the wall and lower him slowly, slowly, toward the ground. The remaining zombies in the fields stiffen, heads snapping around as they realize that this human scent is stronger, fresher, and more attainable than those of us atop the barricade. With throaty roars and broken screeches, they charge, streaking and shuffling and limping toward the thrashing man.
"What are they doing?" I shriek.
"Don't worry!" Ben jostles my shoulder. "Atlan won't let him die. This is one way the Blue City leaders like to punish trouble-makers. Non-lethal, and no lengthy prison stays required. Just a good scare, to remind everyone what the real danger is. Now this guy, he's a thief. Not the bread-stealing-to-survive kind, either. He deserves to have the shit scared out of him, trust me. Just chill out and watch."
Atlan still has his back to the oncoming crowd of zombies—he's waving and blowing kisses to the onlookers as if he's a damn rock star. They start to point and scream, begging him to turn around and look behind him. He fakes ignorance, shrugging, ignoring the snapping jaws and twisted limbs closing in on the struggling man. I'm pretty sure the prisoner has soiled himself by now. His screams are hoarse, a death panic that only seems to enrage the zombies further.
The fastest zombies are just steps from the prisoner, their mottled hands reaching for him, when Atlan breaks from his posing and dives back into the fight. With breathtaking speed and grace, he incapacitates every zombie before it reaches the dangling man. Several times I'm sure one of them is going to slip past him, going to sink its fangs into the prisoner—but every time Atlan and his swords are there to intervene.
After a while they haul the prisoner back up to the top of the wall. He's nearly insensible, his pants stained with piss and crap. The soldiers haul him away. Despite what Ben said, I can't help wondering if the prisoner deserved that terror. I know first-hand that thievery, rape, murder, and human trafficking happen all the time in Blue City, and most of the perpetrators never face any kind of justice. Maybe this man just happened to steal from the wrong powerful people.
Things quiet down after "chum time," since most of the zombies in the immediate vicinity have been dispatched. Crews of soldiers emerge from the gate, using crawler dozers to shove the dismembered zombie bodies far across the fields, away from the wall. They carry guns and shoot any zombie stragglers that happen to challenge them.
"Why don't the vampires use guns, or grenades?" I ask Ben.
"Some vampires do use guns, chainsaws, stuff like that. But grenades, bombs, ammo—it's all precious these days. Expensive. Better to use swords, axes, and knives whenever possible."
"But don't they break, eventually? Atlan hacked away at a lot of bones during this shift."
Ben nods, offering me a swig from his water bottle. I accept gratefully, relishing the cool relief of the liquid. I've been standing atop the sun-soaked wall for hours now, often with my mouth open in astonishment, and I'm parched.
"Yeah, his swords break sometimes." Ben flicks a stray leaf off the wall. "With the number of zombies he kills in a session, it's still more cost-efficient than bullets. Plus, you get a really top-quality sword, forged just right, and it's bound to last a good long time."
The rest of Atlan's shift isn't quite as exciting. I eat sandwiches with Ben in the shade of his lookout booth, and we watch Atlan's audience trickle away, returning to the city, to their own work. After a while, I wander down the steps to use the toilet again, and then I pace the wall, watching the other soldiers' activities and waiting, waiting.
It's late afternoon when Atlan trudges back through the gate. The second he enters, a soldier collects his weapons while another takes his gore-spattered coat. His boots are slimed with gore too, and he sits down to wipe them off before looking up, scanning the soldiers and vehicles in the area until his eyes fix on me. His upper lip twitches, showing a glint of fangs, and my stomach twists and thrills—and not in the good way.
He's thirsty.
Well, not hungry or thirsty exactly, since vampires don't actually drink the blood so much as suck it into their own veins. But he needs me, and craves what I can give him.
Rising from the earth with a graceful bound, he stalks toward me, black hair falling over those bright blue eyes—bewitching eyes, predatorial eyes, damn sexy eyes. He's wearing a tight black T-shirt and dark jeans, and his knife belt hangs at an angle across his hips.
I'm conscious of all the soldiers watching us, and I remember that Atlan has never had a blood bag before. He has always used blood-hires and temps in the city. Now it's different. Every one of these soldiers knows I'm his slave, that he can drink from me anytime he wants and I don't have a choice in the matter. They know it, and they want to watch.
Is he going to make me drop my pants right here? We've only ever done this in private. I don't want him to drink from me in full view of the soldiers and anyone peeping from the windows of the city tenements. I cringe inside, but I force myself to stand still, chin lifted, meeting his eyes as he stops in front of me.
I clench my teeth and try not to flinch as he leans in. Is he going to bite my neck this time?
"You look terrified," he whispers.
"I'm not," I squeak.
He takes my jaw in his hand and massages the rigid muscles with his thumb. "Relax, Trouble. You'll crack your teeth. I'm not going to drink from you here."
"You're not?"
"Not in front of them." He jerks his head at the others.
"I thought you liked putting on a show."
He chuckles a little. "Sometimes. On my terms, and at no one else's expense. Well—except the occasional criminal." Suddenly he wobbles a little, his eyes glazing and his breath hitching.
"Whoa there." I steady him with a palm on his chest. His heartbeat is faint, erratic—an arrhythmic jolting under his ribs. My terror washes away, replaced by concern.
"Damn it," he hisses. "I haven't been drinking enough lately. And I spent a lot of energy today."
The soldiers are busy about the equipment, preparing to leave as soon as the night shift arrives, but several of them keep stealing glances at us.
I grip Atlan's hand. "Come on."
His fingers are rough with dried zombie blood, calloused from the hilts of his swords. I pull him around the corner of one of the tenements, into a deeply shadowed nook where it's just us in the half-darkness.
Atlan takes over then, backing me gently up to the wall. My trembling fingers fumble with the zipper of my jeans, but he covers my hands to sti
ll them. "Wait."
I wait, breathless, my skin singing with a kind of delicious dread.
He takes the straps of my tank top and my bra together and slides them both off my right shoulder.
So it's going to be the neck then. A stereotypical vampire bite. Don't flinch, don't resist—
His fingertips trace the curve of my throat, from the corner of my jaw to my shoulder. "You have such perfect skin. I hate to break it."
"You'll fix it later." My voice sounds frail and frightened, and I hate it. "Just do it already."
"You're still scared. That's not what I want."
"I'm new to this," I snap. "Of course I'm going to be nervous."
"What can I do to make you more comfortable?" But even as he says it, his eyes close and his breath turns ragged.
"Just take what you need. Now."
"I'll have to drink a little more this time."
"It's fine."
His lips retract and his fangs lengthen, gleaming in the darkness. He flips me around suddenly, so that my face is to the wall while he presses against my back.
A hiss of breath at my ear. "Hold very still."
A second later, four points of exquisite pain pierce my neck. Atlan grips my shoulders and drinks steadily, while I dig my nails into the crumbly mortar between the bricks of the building. He smells like death, metallic and raw, with a sickening sweetness beneath. I hate the smell, and I hate this dark wretched crevice, and I hate the helplessness I feel right now. Tears squeeze from under my lashes, and one of them drips from my cheekbone onto Atlan's face.
I know he felt it, because he detaches his fangs almost immediately and licks the wounds he left behind.
"My bracelet hasn't even chimed once yet," I quaver. "You should take more."
"No." He leans against the wall, braced on his forearm. "You're crying. You think I'm going to drink from you when you're frightened and crying? You think I'm that kind of monster?"
I want to answer, but the fear and sadness are swelling in my throat, and if I try to talk I might actually sob, which would make him feel even worse.
Enslaved To The Vampire Zombie-Hunter (Pandemic Monsters Book 1) Page 6