Bad Blood (Battle of the Undead Book 1) (13 page)

I slapped him, harder than playful. I saw in his face that, unfortunately, he viewed it as progress.

We dropped down the side of the bus and knocked on the door.

“What’s the plan?” Josh asked.
His eyes sparkled when he saw me. Langdon was always at his most attractive when he was talking military maneuvers.

“We find a temporary safe house. Then Nicholas and I are going to raid the shopping cent
er back there.”

“I do love a good looting,” Nicholas said behind me.
He was too close to me, and I felt his voice tickle the hairs on the back of my neck. I suppressed a shudder.

We climbed aboard the bus, and I surveyed the new wards. Young, old, male, female
… Some looked useful, some looked scared. All of them had an aching suspicion that something wasn’t quite right about Nicholas and me. Even though they were right on the money, it would seem zombie fever had rattled their common sense. They were happy to be looked after and told what to do. Henri and Dr. Watts checked out the new additions as we drove. Everyone was okay, apart from a few cases of borderline malnutrition that had started well before the zombie arrival—mainly the younger girls quite literally dying to be as thin as Posh Spice or Cheryl Cole. I guess that’s one good thing that the zombies did—I’d never have to endure pop music again!

We drove away from the shopping cent
er and found some factory units. We picked one with metal shutters—similar to the Dead Hare. It was a one-level, steel-strutted average building with an enclosed management office and skylights to let in some natural light. I went in and cleared out a few stray dead workers, and we moved everyone in. I turned to fetch Danny and found that Josh had already scooped him up into his arms as if he were a rag doll, a very yellow, sweaty rag doll.

“Danny?”
I put my hand to his forehead. He smelled like rancid chemicals were rushing from his every pore. To be honest, everyone smelled a little ripe, but Danny was more than just a bit smelly. His eyelids fluttered at my touch, but he didn’t answer me.

“You need to do something,” Tracy said as she helped Paul and Kylie with their bags.

Rose suddenly started paying attention to the people rather than brushing Satan’s tail. “Do what?” she asked.

“I can’t.”
I looked to the floor. Tracy knew what she was asking.

“Yes, you can!” Rose yelled at me. She had started turning a deep pink shade again, and tears threatened to escape her big blue eyes.

“Tracy wants you to kill him?” Josh whispered.

She didn’t want me to kill him. She wanted something much more. Something I’d promised time and again I would never do, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how lonely I was. I would never do to someone else what Nicholas had done to me.

I couldn’t answer Josh without having to wrap it up in a lie. I settled for just taking Danny and walking off to find a nice, quiet spot for him. Satan followed us.

I tried to wake him. I whispered his name. I shook him as gently as I could. I wondered if it was for the best that he should just slip quietly
away, to never wake up again in this broken, red-stained world.

I wished I’d remembered a lullaby. All I could sing to him was
“Johnny Rotten” or Rolling Stones songs, so I settled for humming Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” It was fitting, if not a little morbid. Satan, after thoroughly sniffing the office I’d found, curled about my feet. I sat on an old leather couch with Danny, holding him as gently as I could, watching his shallow breaths, and waiting.

“Don’t let him die.” Rose was in the doorway.

“I have to, Rose. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Yes there is! I’ve seen the movies. You can make him like you. It’ll cure him, and he’ll live forever. He can protect us, like you and Nicholas.”

Rose had it all worked out. I envied her youth, her un-cynical view of the world and the choices it laid out for us.

“He wouldn’t want to be like me,” I said.

“Yes, I would.” Danny looked up at me, his voice barely a whisper.

“I can’t even give you the world that I was brought into. Everything has changed now.”

“Then let me change with it.” He pulled my hair into his hand and started curling a blue tendril around his finger.

“This life is not what it appears, Danny,” I said.

“I’ve always been ill. I’ve never lived. I don’t know the difference.”

“Please, Brit, don’t let anyone else die.” Rose stifled a tear then turned and left us.

“I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that becoming a vampire isn’t one.”

There. I said the word
. Vampire.

“Let me try. It wasn’t your answer, but it could be mine.” Danny coughed, and I smel
led blood in the air.

Nicholas had made hundreds of vampires in his time. Most of them were dead by my hand. Would I be just changing his death sentence if I
made him one of us? There really was only one way to find that out.

Chapter Twelve

The one thing that they seemed to always get wrong in vampire books and movies is what we really are. Essentially, we were all human at one time. After our dark birth, we are then immortal—save for a sharp blade across the throat. It’s not through a disease, or a DNA change, religious retribution, or even some twisted curse—it’s magic. Vampires are one of the last magical creatures left in the world. When you think about it, it’s the only thing that would allow us to stay young forever—to be strong and fast and have heightened senses. Science cannot give you these things. Making another vampire isn’t a simple process of blood sharing. It involves evoking magic long since died from this world. It’s hard to do, and even harder not to. I should know. Loneliness has been second nature to me, and there was a time when I would have gladly swapped it to have another with me, a partner to share my magic. I just couldn’t do it. We’re not the self-loathing, soulless creatures that popular culture would have you believe. In fact, through the years, our souls grow too. They adapt to our new forms, they are our power centers. Nicholas had done this to me against my will. Even though—thanks to certain popular TV shows and authors—there are millions of people who would line up to take my gift, none of them would know what it really meant, and all of them would be bitterly disappointed. I can’t deny that I’ve killed thousands of people in my time. Some to feed, others to protect the innocent, and some because I just felt like it. I had no real steadfast plan of action when it came to blood consumption. I tried to keep it to bad people, or at least not to take it all. But sometimes, life didn’t work out that way, and when it did, I certainly didn’t cry over it

We must be one hundred years old before our souls are strong enough to make another vampire. On our centenary, we see a symbol in a dream. Each vampire’s symbol is different. The symbol must be drawn on the forehead of your protégé, and the incantation must be spoken to evoke the old magic that powers our kind. The symbol disappears only if the transformation is successful.

I laid Danny on the couch and shoved Satan out the door. He whined and barked, but was soon distracted by dinner time being called by Tracy. I was aware of everyone else in the factory. I could hear all their heartbeats, young and old, thumping like a distant drum roll.

I pierced my finger with my scythe and drew my symbol on Danny’s forehead. He fidgeted at my touch
, but smiled. I made a silent prayer that I was doing the right thing, that there was a good enough reason lying in front of me to break a four centuries year old promise.

I could only liken the experience to when Nicholas took me. When he held my weak
, struggling frame down and used his teeth to cut a gash across his index finger. He could have chosen to knock me out, to make the whole process secret and easy, but he didn’t. I was wide awake. I felt the blood, wet and warm, across my forehead. Gravity should have taken the droplets and dribbled them down my face, but magic has the power to defy gravity. Instead, the blood seeped into my skull. I felt it touch my brain and use what it found there to grow bigger, to multiply its deep red mass until it flowed throughout my flailing limbs, making me strong enough to push Nicholas off balance. He laughed when he fell over. He still had hold of my arm, so I tumbled with him. He pulled me to him and held me while he recited the ancient words to summon whatever magic it was that swooped down from the ether to envelop my human body and soul and turn both into something else.

Danny was half dead when I turned him. I wasn’t sure it was going to work at all. I left him sleeping in the office convinced that to at least try was something. This way
, if he didn’t cross over, if the magic didn’t want him, it was not meant to be.

“What have you been doing in there?” Nicholas cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.

“We should get going. Get to the shopping center before dusk.”

“I can smell blood.”

Nicholas leaned toward me, and I instinctively backed up, stepping into the door behind me. I could never quite figure out how Nicholas managed to affect my grace when he was so close to me.

“Did you kill him?”
His voice was harsh. Was he condemning me?

“No.”

“Ahh. Then I see.” He nodded. “You do realize that it might not work, and if it does, you’ve created yet another fanged mouth to feed. Why ever would you choose now to break your code of ethics?”

“I had to try.” I felt like a school girl caught stealing sweets.

“How many of mine have you killed through the years?”

I didn’t like where this was going. In all the zombie killing and swirls of human emotion, I hadn’t even considered the possibility Nicholas would seek retribution for my haircutting habits.

“More than I can remember.” I looked him straight in the eyes.

“I know the number. I have a lock of hair for
everyone.”

“Then why ask the question?”

“You never killed any of Philippe’s, did you?”

“He only made Tate and Lyle. Both value human life, and both are good men.”

“Yes, I do not wish to argue that point. Tate and Lyle are great vampires, but they were average men.”

“What are you suggesting?” I put my hands on my hips.

“That Philippe made them because he knew he could better them.”

“And you thought all those creatures you set on the streets of London were better? I dread to think of the men they were before.”
I waved my hands about, my voice higher than I’d intended.

“No. I did not make them to be vampires.”

He quickly grabbed my hand. The instant our skin touched, something primal passed between us.

“I made them for you.”

I snatched my hand back and shook my head.

“What the hell are you saying?”

“I made them to keep you…occupied. You needed an outlet for your continued anger. I did it all for you. Can’t you see, Brianna? Everything I do, everything I have done and will do, it’s always for you.”

I thought he was going to break into a Bryan Adams song! I side-stepped him and started to walk toward the crowds of people.

“Brianna, please,” he whispered. He tried to grab my hand again, but this time, I was too quick.

My mind was on overload
. All these years I’d been seeking vengeance, but all the while I’d just been playing
his
game, doing exactly what he wanted me to do. I’d now even created another pawn in his game. If Danny came through, he’d be just one more thing that Nicholas could manipulate, use against me.

“Tracy,” I called out.

She jogged across the factory toward me. “Where’s Danny?”

I put my hands on her shoulders.
“Danny is in the office back there. He’s…sleeping.”

She sighed. “Will he wake up?”

“I’m not sure. If he does, he’ll be…”

“Like you?”

“One might hope.”

“What do I do?”

“He won’t wake up for at least four hours. We’ll be back from our shopping spree by then. You just need to keep everyone out of there.”

“Okay.” She lurched forward and hugged me. She smelled of BO, hairspray, and fear.

I’d touched more people in the last forty-eight hours than in the last four centuries. I was afraid I’d get used to it. So I patted her back and pulled her off me.

“Are you ready?”
Nicholas had changed into a black, sateen-looking track suit. He looked like a mob hit-man in a low budget foreign film.

“Nice outfit. Going for a run after?” I asked.

“Thought I’d be more prepared this time. You know, just in case you decide to throw me to the zombies.”

“Preparation is the key to success, or so I hear.” I smiled sweetly.

“Indeed.” He bowed and opened the factory’s steel doors just wide enough for me to slip through.

“Hey,” Josh shouted. He ran up to me
—he smelled like a heady mix of gun oil and sweat.