Bring On the Night (36 page)

“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.”

He put his hand on top of mine. His heart thumped into my palm. I shut my eyes and felt each chamber contract and expand, squeezing the blood through his body. He had no idea what a miracle that was, and how easily it could stop.

“Regina has a new donor,” he said. “That stripper guy.”

I opened my eyes. “He means nothing to her.”

“That’s not why I brought it up. I’m available now. For you, if you want.”

“What about Jim?”

He tensed, his fingers spasming against mine. “Jim’s scaring me.”

“Me, too.”

“Last time I donated, he—he played a game I didn’t like. Didn’t clear the rules with me ahead of time. I think he’s developing a taste for fear.”

I shivered at the turn of phrase. “We have to do something about him. As soon as the zombies are gone.”

Jeremy tapped his fingers against the back of my hand. “Think about my offer.”

“I can’t be like Regina. I won’t… you know.”

“Jerk me off? That’s okay. I’m not into you like that.”

“Oh.” I was relieved but perplexed. I thought he was into every vampire like that. “Good.”

“There’s this girl at the coffee shop I’ve been wanting to ask out. But I felt weird about it while Regina and I were
hooking up. So I’m looking for a totally platonic donation situation.”

“Then, yes. Thank you.” I wanted to fall to the floor weeping in gratitude. I also wanted to start our “situation” right that moment, but I had no idea how to safely bite a human. Maybe I could go get Spencer and—

Footsteps descended the stairs on the other side of the door. I pulled my hand into my lap so it wouldn’t look like I was about to rip out Jeremy’s heart.

Franklin appeared, carrying a pair of plastic shopping bags.

“Jer, which of these microwave soup thingies you want?” He saw me and dropped the bags. “Ciara.”

I kept my focus over his right shoulder, in case the effect of being in a room with two humans overwhelmed my infant self-control.

“How are you?” I asked him. Had it not even been a week since Aaron collapsed in front of class? It seemed like years, but to Franklin the wounds must be fresh and oozing.

“Hanging in there.” His voice was guarded, as usual. “You?”

I shrugged. “Can’t complain.”

“That doesn’t mean you won’t.”

I looked straight at him and grinned. If anyone could be trusted not to treat me differently, it was Franklin. He never much treated me as a human being to start with. Best of all, I didn’t want to drink him.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, with only a slight catch in his voice. Then he picked up the plastic bag. “And now that you’re a vampire, I don’t have to share my food with you anymore.”

The door to the exit slammed open, and Regina and Noah
came through, dripping wet.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Regina squeezed the rain from the ends of her black hair. “This thunderstorm in April is bogus.”

“Lights are out all over Sherwood,” Noah told us.

Franklin jutted his thumb at the door. “Don’t forget: the town is cordoned off. So the phone and electric will have to be fixed by whatever skeleton crew of technicians already happens to be in Sherwood. Could take days.”

“It’s like
Night of the Living Dead.
” Jeremy looked at Regina. “Now you gotta make me a vampire to keep me safe from zombies.”

I shook my head as I dialed the hospital. “I long for the days when that sentence would’ve sounded strange.”

The nurses’ station patched me through to Tina’s room. Mrs. Petrea answered.

“Oh, Ciara,” she sniffled. “It’s nice of you to call. I never got a chance to thank you for finding her. Who knows how long that man would have kept her in his hovel?”

Hovel?
Elijah’s apartment wasn’t exactly the Trump Plaza, but I’m pretty sure it had running water.

“How is Tina?”

“Already better now that she’s had some fluids. Her fever’s gone, though she’s itching like crazy. Did you want to speak with her?”

A flash of rage shot up my arm, as if it could snap through the phone connection. No, I did not want to talk to the girl who got me killed.

“Can I speak with Lieutenant Colonel Lanham, please?”

There was a muffled sound from the receiver, like someone’s hand was over it. Mrs. Petrea came back on the phone. “Dear, he’d like to call you back from a phone in the waiting area.”

Good thinking. Colonel Petrea’s vampire ears would hear every word I said, even from across the room.

“Have him call me at the station’s main number.” I paused, dying to ask her a million questions about her human life with a never-aging vampire. But those answers were irrelevant to me now. “Thanks.”

“Noah, if you could supervise the child—” Regina motioned to me “—around the humans, while I get a hot shower, that’d be great.” She swept through the hallway door without waiting for an answer.

Noah sighed and crossed to the sofa, where Jeremy quickly moved his feet so the vampire could sit down.

The phone trilled. Lanham.

“What do you have for me?” he asked without preliminaries, which was the way I liked him.

I explained my theory about Petrea and the Legion of the Archangel Michael, and how they could’ve secretly been vampire hunters. As I spoke, Franklin, Noah, and Jeremy stared at me in disbelief. I felt like a conspiracy theorist.

Franklin leaned over and whispered to Jeremy, “Next she’ll be blaming zombies for the JFK assassination.”

“I heard that!” I snapped, which just made them laugh louder. “Assholes. Not you,” I hurried to add to Colonel Lanham. “So can you find out Petrea’s original name?”

“I’ll ask my counterpart in the Anonymity Division. She owes me a favor.”

I had a feeling a lot of people owed Colonel Lanham favors.

“If Tina had help in raising the zombies,” I said, “then they might keep coming, even though she’s in the hospital.”

“Yes, until all the CAs she spelled are destroyed or—” He cut himself off, probably checking that no one could hear
him. “Or until she is.”

My skin turned cold, and not just because I was due for a meal. “You can break the spell by killing Tina?” No wonder her parents had been so devastated.

“We are not in the business of killing humans.”

“Except when absolutely necessary.”

He didn’t argue. “That’s not the case here. Captain Fox feels that the CAs can be contained within the cemetery.”

“And his forces can stop them from attacking the town, even if they all rise at once?”

“They are trained to do so.”

I frowned at his non-answer. “So what about Colonel Petrea?”

Lanham got so silent, I couldn’t hear him breathing.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes.” He was almost whispering. “Petrea is very influential in the Control.”

“But if he’s really the zombie master and no one stops him, he could go to another town and do it again.”

“I acknowledge that he or his wife probably have the ability, but what’s their motive? Why would they risk their position by breaking such a taboo?”

“Maybe it’s an Immanence Corps thing.” I shut my mouth as soon as the idea was out, because I knew where it came from—Jonathan Fetter’s Project Blood Leash memo. Which I had officially never read.

Colonel Lanham fell quiet again for several moments, then he simply said, “I’ll be in touch,” before hanging up.

As soon as my line disconnected, the phone rang again. I answered, “WVMP, the Lifeblood of Rock ’n’ Roll. How may I help you?”

“Yeah, the 911 people said to listen to you guys for
emergency information.” A local.

“That’s correct.” I opened the binder that contained all the pertinent details. “Did you have a question?”

“How did you get that gig? I thought it would be the country station out on Route 32.”

“We’re technically inside the Sherwood town limits, which makes us the official local station. Did you need emergency assistance?”

“Sort of. Can you play some Trisha Yearwood?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I told him, then hung up, reminding myself that even compared to the blood-drinking, zombie-wrastling, stripper-stroking life I now inhabited, the human world was very, very odd.

“I’ll do the phones for a while,” I told the guys. “You two sunnysides need to eat.”

“Hoping to fatten us up?” Franklin said.

I started to say, “No need for that,” making my usual dig at his paunch, but caught myself in time.

He halted beside me on his way to the microwave. “Don’t stop insulting me just because I’m in mourning. I need it now more than ever.”

I gave him a grim smile. “Me, too. A little normal would be nice.”

“Good luck.” He patted my shoulder. “You’re not exactly a magnet for normal.”

“You’re proof of that.” The phone rang, and I turned to answer it with a glow of hope. Franklin hadn’t been afraid to touch me. My future work in the WVMP office would be only half insane.

The number on the caller ID made me yank the receiver off the hook. “Sir?”

“Developments.” Lanham’s voice was crisper than ever.
“Tina has changed her story. She’s confessed to willfully raising CAs.”

“So it wasn’t about the ghosts after all?” Tina wasn’t a saint, but I couldn’t imagine her knowingly risking people’s lives.

“Also, she’s pinned Captain Fox as her accomplice.”

“Elijah? That’s even more impossible.”

“She says she was blackmailing him into helping her, threatening to reveal their relationship to his superiors. He’s up for a promotion to major soon. Fraternizing with a human recruit would not have helped.”

“I thought they broke up before she started orientation.”

“Indoc,” he corrected. “The details of the soap opera are irrelevant. What is relevant is that before the
cadaveris accurrens
rose in Sherwood, the CA division was on the verge of downsizing. Captain Fox’s company was slated for disbanding. He’s been detained by Internal Affairs pending an investigation.”

The pieces seemed to fit (a little too well), except one. “Elijah’s not a necromancer.”

“According to Agent Codreanu-Petrea, if Tina’s blood was spelled, someone else would need only to scatter it and say a few words. Captain Fox had access to the cemetery during the crucial times.”

“Wait. Agent who?”

“Codreanu-Petrea. Tina’s mother. It’s a hyphenated mouthful, but I respect a woman’s choice to—”

“
Codreanu
is her maiden name?” I squeezed the phone so hard, the receiver began to crack. “Is she a descendant of the Iron Guard leader Corneliu Codreanu?”

“Even if she were, why would she put her own daughter in danger?”

“To control vampires. Think about it: if you were married to one, wouldn’t you want an equalizer? Honoring her ancestors would be a bonus.”

Lanham fell silent again, which I took as a good sign. “I’ll look into it.”

“What about Elijah? Other than Tina’s accusation, which could be a lie, the evidence against him sounds pretty circumstantial.”

“The evidential elements of Internal Affairs investigations are not your concern. What is your concern is this: according to Tina, the rest of the CAs will rise tomorrow night.”

“The rest?” I blinked hard and fast. “All eleven hundred and some?”

“Correct.”

I couldn’t even picture that many zombies in one place. “What do they have planned this time? Touch football? Ballet? Maybe a Cirque du Soleil routine?”

“Nothing that elaborate. They’ll be reverting to form, she says.”

“What does that mean?”

“They’re going to attack the town.”

Rise

Wednesday morning, in the midst of helping the community cope with the quarantine and the worst spring nor’easter of the century, the radio station received, from the Control, the weirdest delivery ever.

Shane and I lined up the six gelatin torsos in the common room and passed out katana swords to the other vampire DJs—except Jim, who would stay at the station that night, as determined by unanimous vote (minus his own). We trained the others using the techniques Captain Fox had taught us.

According to Lanham, the IA investigators had found more stolen necromancy texts in Elijah’s apartment. Tina signed an affidavit saying she had given them to him to complete her spell, to put the period at the end of her sentence, so to speak. I worried how the Zombie Company would manage without its leader, tonight of all nights—when we were expecting a CA rampage so big we had to call in civilian vamps from across the entire region.

Just after evening twilight, I arrived with Shane and the other DJs at the Sherwood cemetery, finding what looked like a giant vampire reunion party. I recognized a couple of Noah’s and Spencer’s friends, and Colin from D.C.,
Regina’s old chum. By my best count, we were still outnumbered five to one. But we had several advantages: weapons, functioning brains, and help from the living.