Unturned- The Complete Series

by Rob Cornell

  Odi showed no signs of pain, or even mild discomfort. Way the opposite. He looked exuberant, smiling, totally jazzed.

  He laughed. “Dude, that thing’s blood is even better than yours!” Then he threw his arms up in a victory V, pumped his fists, and shouted, “I’m king of the world.”

  “Okay, Leo.” I held a hand out to him. “Help me up.”

  He clutched my hand and pulled way too hard. I got to my feet, but with a new pain in my shoulder socket. I cried out and nearly feel down again.

  Odi caught me. “Sorry, dude. I’m a little psyched. I’ve never…never felt so good!”

  Movement off to my right caught my attention. I glanced over in time to see Mrs. Snoopis’s storm door swing shut and rattle in its frame.

  In all the commotion, I had forgotten where we were.

  I looked back at the wreck of my home and had the terrible realization I could never come back here. Even if the Ministry rebuilt like they were supposed to, Mom and I had brought too much attention to this place in the last couple weeks. I doubted the Ministry could feed Mrs. Snoopis any false explanation that she would buy. And who knew who else had been watching?

  I choked up for a second, then got a grip. Time for self-pity later. “We have to get out of here.”

  “You need me to carry you to the car?”

  I snorted at the very idea. I’d suffered worse. I could walk myself to the damn car. “No, but I do need you to do something for me first.”

  “Whatever you need.” The compassion in his voice sounded so strange with his vamp face still on. I didn’t know a vampire could say anything nice through a set of fangs.

  I pointed toward the ruins, in the general direction of the hole Markus had cleared to get us to the bubble. “My mom’s wedding ring is in there. I need it back.”

  “Sure thing.”

  He shot off so quickly it looked like he had disappeared. He came back just as quickly with Mom’s ring pinched between his fingers. He offered it to me, and I took it, shoved it in my pants pocket.

  “Thank you,” I said, then turned and headed to the car. One step, and I took a knee. I wanted to flop onto my side, curl up, and take a nap in the mud and rain. I had started to shiver, either from shock, the icy rain, or both. The will to move seeped out of me entirely.

  “Odi?”

  “I’ve got ya.”

  He scooped me up like a groom carries a bride across the threshold on their wedding night. I was too tired and hurting for my pride to bitch too much. He put me in the passenger seat, and I dozed while he drove.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  I woke up on Sly’s couch. Daylight streamed through his living room blinds, which were open enough that I could see the golf green and a sand trap on the course behind his house. This window had taken a number of hits from stray balls teed off by less than amateur golfers. But every time it happened, the course’s owners paid to have the broken window replaced. Sly was easygoing enough to roll with it. Would have driven me nuts, though.

  My eyes felt gummy, my mouth dry and pasty. The taste of a hangover stuck to my tongue, and I had the headache to go with it without the fond but fuzzy memories of a hell of a party. I did smirk at the image of Beastvamp with a big wooden stake jammed through the crotch.

  “What’s so funny, brother?”

  My head rested on a fluffy pillow that would have coaxed me back to sleep if not for the pounding racket in my skull and the growing burn up my leg. I didn’t want to, but I lifted my head and found Sly standing by the couch, arms folded, eyeing me like a terminally ill patient. Some claw marks in my leg and a twisted ankle couldn’t keep me down for long, though. Neither could the sharp barbs in the shoulder socket Beastvamp had nearly yanked my arm out of. So I didn’t know what he was so worked up about.

  “It’s not that bad,” I said. My voice would have given the largest frog in the pond croak envy.

  “I tried to count your injuries,” he said. “I gave up after twenty-five.”

  I shrugged and paid for it with a rip of pain from my injured shoulder straight into my chest. I yelped, the sound rattling in the corners of the room.

  “Easy, brother. We’re fixing you up some potions and poultices.”

  My stomach growled. “And food.”

  “I hope pizza is okay again. They deliver the quickest.”

  More grumbling and gurgling in my belly. “Pizza sounds amazing.” I’d probably eat it too fast to taste it anyway.

  “You rest easy,” he said. “Odi gave us the broad strokes before he went downstairs to his…bed.”

  I swallowed. Felt like sand going down my throat. “Does Mom know?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, then looked back to me. Nodded.

  I closed my eyes. “Fuck.” I could only imagine, after all her assurances to me, how she took the news of Markus’s betrayal. “She all right?”

  He scratched the back of his neck, didn’t answer.

  Which said enough.

  “I’ve got to talk to her.” I tried to sit up. The room did a pirouette, and I flopped down. All those uncounted wounds barked like a pack of tramps. I ground my teeth and tensed. Tensing only made the pain worse.

  “You’re sticking to the couch. You’re hurt more than you realize, and it doesn’t look like the few hours’ sleep you got helped much.”

  “Incantation drained me,” I said, then hissed through my clenched teeth. It even hurt to speak now. I should have stayed on my back and let the numbness of sleep stick around a little longer. But noooo, I had to try to sit up. I checked for any energy my short nap had brought back. I found little more than a wisp. I spent it on relaxing my body, and the pain eased. Then the tank was back to E.

  “Try to get some more sleep. We’ll get you back to one-hundred percent eventually.”

  “Eventually? No. I need to be up and running as soon as possible. Markus and his minions have the cloak, they have Toft, and as far as I know, they have everything they need to enact their plan.”

  Sly looked down and shook his head. “It’s out of our hands, brother. You did your best.”

  I rose up onto my elbow, ignoring the dizziness and pain it brought me. “They’re going to slaughter thousands, Sly. And not just anyone. We’re talking people who have suffered enough. People whose only crime is being poor and stuck in Detroit’s slums.”

  “Brother, you are preaching to the choir. But it’s like you said. They’ve got what they need. We don’t even know where to find them, let alone how to stop them.”

  “I can’t accept that.”

  “Neither can I.”

  Sly turned around at the sound of Mom’s voice. She stood at the edge of the living room. Her long gray hair hung loose over her shoulders. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot from crying. But they also carried her signature fierceness. I felt a chill just looking at her. The hum of her magical energy pulsed off of her in waves. Typically only practitioners, and sorcerers in particular, could feel another’s magical energy. But in this case, the way Sly stiffened, I thought he might feel it, too.

  “Do you still have my ring?” she asked.

  I tried to dig it out of my pocket, but I was too rigid with pain. I eased down onto my back again, my head sinking into that amazing pillow. The pillowcase smelled like fresh lavender, not that fake scent you got from detergent. I bet Sly mixed his own soaps from real ingredients, maybe threw in some magical properties as well. Which would explain why the pillow felt like the most comfortable pillow in existence.

  “My pocket,” I said.

  “Walter and I weren’t fools. We knew it was possible someone might get at the cloak despite our precautions.” She lifted her chin. Her mouth formed a straight, stern line. “The ring isn’t only a key, it’s a tether. It can lead us to the cloak, which will lead us straight to Markus and his thugs.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  While Mom triggered the magic that would make the ring lead us to the cloak, I had to get myself back into fighting s
hape ASAP. Sly gave me the potions and poultices he’d mentioned, but they all focused on my physical ailments—cleaning and healing wounds, nullifying pain, reversing any internal injuries I might have sustained.

  It only took a couple of hours before I could walk without falling down or throwing up. Sly’s mixtures tasted bad enough going down. Coming back up, they achieved a whole new level of awfulness. I also used the time to put on some new clothes. A plain green t-shirt and a pair of dark cargo pants. Nothing fancy. Just something I had, thankfully, bought during my last impromptu shopping trip.

  Those two hours did nothing to recharge my magical batteries, though.

  Then the pizza came. Two of them, and I ate both. I had heard certain fae were especially fond of pizza. If I didn’t know any better, I might have suspected I had some fae blood in me. But, nope, just sorcerer blood and vamp blood. Ho-hum.

  After eating so much, I needed a nap. I could finally feel some of my power returning. Nowhere near enough to go up against Markus, Able, and however many Ministry friends they had involved in their fucked-up scheme. I really hoped I didn’t find Prefect St. James as one of them. Bad enough they had an arbiter among them. And as I sketched out a vague plan of attack, I decided I would need the prefect to bring these fuckers down.

  But not until after we sent the cloak to hell.

  This time, instead of the couch, Sly offered me his bed. I thanked him, but didn’t take him up on the offer immediately. Sly needed to do something else for me that I was surprised he hadn’t already put together.

  “What about that stuff you gave me before? You mixed something up to help me recharge faster.”

  He made a constipated face, hummed, and shook his head. “Not a good idea, brother.”

  We stood in his bedroom. Sly had dressed the bed with a fresh set of sheets that had a lavender scent similar to the pillow on the couch. Just a few whiffs of that made me sleepy. The wad of sheets he had stripped from the bed lay in a pile in a corner of the room. It was the only thing that looked at all messy. Vacuumed carpet. All clothes in the drawers, out of sight. Even his dresser was clear of clutter, with only a hairbrush and a package of hair bands on the surface. Guy sure was neat for a bachelor.

  The tidiness annoyed me for some reason.

  “Some pizza and a nap aren’t going to get me to full strength,” I said. “And I don’t have twelve hours to recuperate on my own.”

  “Your body can only take so much of that stuff. It hasn’t been long enough. It’s more likely to kill you than help.”

  Yeah, I remembered him saying something like that before. But I couldn’t afford to wait much longer. For all I knew, Toft was already using the cloak to thrall all the poor people the Mayor and his Ministry masters thought were in the way of progress. Though it sounded to me like Markus and his conspirators planned to use the scheme to gather and wipe out the city’s vamp population in the process.

  That part of the plan I could almost get behind. Only almost, though, because vampires like Odi could get thrown into the mix simply by virtue of having fangs. Some of the undead really did try to get along. I used to not care, used to have the same attitude against all vampires like the Ministry did.

  Funny how a vampire puppy could change all that.

  With so many fewer vampires in the city, it would leave those remaining more vulnerable. Easy to isolate and dust. That included Odi.

  “There has to be something,” I said. The desperation in my voice embarrassed me. I sounded so needy. Hated it. But it didn’t stop me. “Please, Sly. Pull something out of your sleeve.”

  He threw his hands out at his sides. “Sorry, brother. I’ve got nothing I would want to put in your system right now, except something to help you sleep.”

  I would have to go in half-charged. I planned on a daylight mission, hoping they would wait until Toft woke up before they turned half the city into docile food for the vampires to suck dry at will. Daylight meant no backup from Odi. Besides, the kid had suffered enough.

  “I hope you don’t think you’re going after them without me.”

  Mom stepped into the bedroom from the hall. Her outfit looked funny—a pair of tan slacks and a maize and blue University of Michigan sweatshirt Sly had let her borrow. The sweatshirt fit her surprisingly well. Of course, Sly was a waif of a man, which was the only reason he could get away with the tight stonewashed jeans he loved so much without looking totally gross.

  “Hell, no,” I said. I saw she wore her wedding ring again. I nodded toward it. “It working?”

  “I feel the pull. It’s strong. We should have no issue finding the cloak.”

  “Any inclination where we might find it?”

  “Sorry. There’re no visions. Just a firm tug in the right direction. I’ll drive. It will make this easier.”

  Sly grunted. “So you can find it, but you still have no idea what you’re getting into until you get into it.”

  I clapped him on the back. “Story of my life.”

  Mom came over to me, gave my bicep a squeeze. “Get some rest. It sounds like I’m going to handle the big stuff, but I still need you as perky as possible.”

  I chuckled. “I can’t promise perky. But I’ll be ready to give ‘em hell.”

  She smiled. “That’ll do.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  I woke up at three according to the old-fashioned alarm clock with actual bells on the nightstand. But it was too dark. A prick of panic started my heart beating faster. Could I have slept too long? Was it three in the morning? I was too late. Dusk had long since come and the people of Detroit had their commands to literally stick their necks out for the vamps.

  I blinked away the crust of sleep in my eyes and got my head situated right. Sly and Mom wouldn’t have let me oversleep.

  You doofus.

  I must have slept hard. My joints felt achy from laying in the same position for so long, but my injuries from the battle with Beastvamp didn’t hurt at all anymore. I got up, did a few stretches, put my t-shirt and cargo pants back on, and scooped up my phone from the dresser where I’d left it.

  Sly, Mom, and I regrouped in the kitchen. There was coffee and not a lot of talk. I think we were all worried we might talk ourselves out of going forward. I kept thinking about what Markus had said to me at the house, how Mom and I should skip town and let doom descend on Detroit without us. A tempting idea, to say the least. But for some dumb reason, I cared about what happened to those people. They didn’t deserve to be fed to the vampires. Well, maybe the pushers, killers, and other lowlifes who fed on the victims of poverty would have made good vamp snacks. I wasn’t so morally superior to pretend I would care what happened to those types.

  But contrary to what many hear, the criminals did not represent the Motor City. Good people lived in the D, and I had to protect them. After all, I worked for the Ministry now, and one of the prime purposes of this secret political Goliath was to maintain order between the natural and the supernatural.

  Just doing my job, ma’am.

  We finished our coffee. Sly made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. Mom and I both had two. We were as ready as we were going to get.

  We said our goodbyes to Sly, and he gave us his good lucks.

  Mom got behind the wheel of the Caddy. I slipped in shotgun. Before she started the engine, she handed me a small leather pouch with a drawstring.

  “That’s our door to hell in there,” she said.

  I almost fumbled it when she said that. “This little thing?”

  She winked at me. “It’s bigger on the inside.”

  Chapter Fifty

  I had a forty-minute drive into the city to imagine the kind of venue Markus and Company would use for their mass enthrallment. I had little idea of the mechanics behind the whole deal outside of the cloak somehow amplifying Toft’s thrall so he could affect a thousand or more people all at once. Would he need to do it in shifts? Did he need to look at those he enthralled like he would normally, or did the cloak mak
e that unnecessary?

  Despite all the angles I played through my mind, I did not expect Mom to drive us to the Renaissance Center—home of the Ministry’s Detroit branch, including the office of our beloved Prefect Morgan St. James.

  She slowed down as we passed through the shadow of the seven skyscrapers. The sunlight flashed bright enough in the windows of the iconic round central building to make me squint. The People Mover—one of the city’s feeble contributions to public transit—rolled along on its raised tracks between us and the Center.

  There weren’t any cars in front of us, so I had to assume the worst.

  “Please tell me you’re slowing down to admire the RenCen before tooling right on by.”

  She held her left hand with the wedding ring up and sort of waved it in the direction of the gathered buildings. “This is where it’s pulling.”

  I dragged my hands down my face. My stomach curled up into a ball, and my intestines wrapped themselves around it like a sick little package. A nervous belch slipped out and tasted like cheese and fried ham. Our plan was all over before it had begun. We could not infiltrate the Ministry offices. Even if we could, if the conspiracy reached so high that Markus felt comfortable performing their stunt from Ministry headquarters, we might as well have slit our own throats and let UPS deliver us to their door.

  Mom accelerated back to the speed limit and drove out of the RenCen’s shadow.

  “Just because it’s in there,” Mom said, “doesn’t mean they’re in the Ministry offices. Plenty of real estate in there.”

  “That would be a crazy coincidence, wouldn’t it?”

  “Not really. We know Ministry officers are involved. Wouldn’t it make sense that they operate close to HQ? It would make quick, secret meetings a lot easier.”