City of the Fallen (24 page)

Even though it was half-drugged, the rabid still reacted to her presence. Its eyes became delirious and its breathing quickened. Struggling to get up, it kept falling down and against the door, legs too weak to sustain it upright. Rage seemed to be building inside it, the bellowing getting louder and more pained. Its hand reached towards her, over and over, grasping through the air towards the impossibly far-away prey—her.

Marcus was standing quietly next to her, but she refused to look over. Instead, she stepped towards Cyrus. Each movement made the rabid more agitated, more desperate.

“I mixed the blood last night, but I was waiting for you to try it out,” he said.

“What proportion?”

“One part vampire blood to thirty parts fake blood. I figured we should start with something small and see what happens,” he said, producing a small vial of blood.

She looked at the glass tube in Cyrus’ hands. The king’s blood. “Inject him?”

“Yes, I think it would be best.”

She nodded and stayed put as Cyrus and two other vampires headed towards the cell. They moved fast. So fast that it was all basically a blur of hands and flashes of color and quick bangs and snaps as they held the rabid and injected him before he had a chance to react. Just seconds after it all started, Cyrus went still next to the cage.

And a second after, the rabid slipped into a metamorphosis state. Its eyes lit up in an explosion of fire. Instead of reaching up for her in desperation, its whole body recoiled as if electricity went rushing through it. The howling that followed was so deep and so unexpected, it made her jump backwards, crashing against Marcus’ chest. The rabid shook and jolted, almost as if hit by a powerful seizure, the screams rolling out louder and sharper.

Just as suddenly as it all had started, it ended. The room went deadly quiet, the body of the rabid frozen in time on the cement floor of the cell.

Her first thought was that they had killed it. Maybe Cyrus had been right all along and the poison in vampire blood had been too much for the ravaged body of the beast. She held her breath, waiting for a sign, anything, that would tell her they hadn’t just made a huge mistake.

Then, a twitch. So small that she wondered if she’d imagined it. Then another. And then the rabid opened its eyes and found her. Except that instead of going insane with need, it just stayed there, watching her as she breathed heavily.

“I’ll be damned,” Cyrus said.

The rabid was obviously too weak to regain its vampire grandeur, but the transformation was obvious. Nothing in the outside had changed and the creature still looked like the sick beast that had been in the cage for hours. But the wailing desperation of famine was gone. In its place, there was a new calm, a savoring of the surroundings.

She took a deep breath and turned around to look at Marcus. His eyes were shining with something that looked like wonderment.

“Can we give it some more?” she asked, and the question was as much for the king as it was for Cyrus. After all, it was his blood that was feeding and healing the creature right in front of their eyes.

“Yes,” Marcus said without moving his eyes away from hers.

The second shot had a similar effect. She couldn’t tell if it was causing pain or if the healing process was so shocking to the system that the rabid’s body twisted and warped in response to it. Either way, it was working. The convulsions lasted longer the second time around and the rabid’s body hitting the ground produced deeper, heavier thuds. She had no idea how resilient its body was, but she guessed rushing the process could end up causing it serious injury. Could the violent shaking break its spine? Cause a stroke? She realized she truly knew nothing about how their bodies worked.

She was about to ask about it when the rabid went quiet. This time, it took longer to awaken, but when it did, the differences were staggering. Stumbling to its feet, the rabid shifted its weight against the bars on the door. Despite the sluggish breathing and the dazed look on its face, the beast also looked more “human” than ever before. Its movements were more calculated, somewhat fluid instead of jerky and savage as they had been just hours before.

Its eyes hovered over her for a few seconds, but this time, they didn’t linger there. Instead, they zeroed on the king. She was no longer the most appealing being in the room—and that was probably the clearest sign that the blood was working.

Breathing sluggishly, the rabid leaned its head against the bars, lips moving.

Her heart pounded as the rabid whispered something too hushed for her to hear. She was trying to concentrate on the movement of the lips when she saw Cyrus’ face twist in response.

She flicked her head around towards Marcus. His eyes had darkened to a bottomless black. His fangs were out and his body had turned into steel. Whatever the rabid had said, it had been loud enough for vampire ears.

A heavy weight settled on her chest. “What is it?” she whispered. “What did he say?”

Marcus’ eyes remained dark and fierce as he lowered his head to look at her. “Patrick,” he hissed. “He said Patrick.”

Before the letters had finished forming on the rabid’s lips, he’d already guessed what they spelled. Suddenly, it all made sense: the break-ins, the rabids finding the compound, Patrick breaching the walls. Patrick would still have needed the help of somebody on the inside for all of that to happen, but the pieces were all falling into place. Marcus knew his brother well enough to see the picture clearly.

Patrick was building an army.

And his soldiers were hungry for blood and willing to kill anything and anybody that crossed their path, human or vampire.

He had always suspected Patrick wanted to build an army to one day try to overthrow him. However, he’d always thought his brother would be recruiting rogue vampires, the ones who refused to recognize Marcus’ place as the king. Recruiting rabids was actually a brilliant move.

All Patrick had to do was point them in the right direction. The human scent coming from the compound would do the rest. If he sent enough rabids their way, they would have no chance. It was a simple matter of numbers. There were just over fifty vampires in the compound and maybe hundreds of rabids out there. Maybe thousands. Marcus remembered Miles’ description of nearby Franklin and the vampire eyes observing them from within the darkness.

Why hadn’t they attacked that night? Either Patrick was helping them find enough blood to keep them under control, or the rabids had little interest in vampires unless they smelled human blood among them.

Which meant the compound’s days were numbered.

“Cyrus, get Miles,” he said and only then noticed his own body in full war mode, his fangs out.

He looked down and into Belle’s eyes. She didn’t recoil or shrink away despite the monster showing in his face. If anything, she moved closer, a questioning look in her features.
   

He needed to do something and do it fast. Images of the rabids sweeping into the compound ran through his mind. He couldn’t risk Belle getting caught in the wave. The minute the thought crossed his mind, he knew war was the only option.
 

He pulled the beast away, pushing it down until it was just a spark in the distance. By the time Miles walked into the room, he had regained enough composure to take control of the situation.

Miles’ eyes zoomed in on the rabid, now in a deep sleep on the floor of the cell. Its breathing was so soft, it was hard to tell it was alive—except that Marcus could hear the beating of its heart, becoming stronger with every passing second. The blood was working, healing the beast slowly and pulling it away from madness.

“Put together the best team,” he told Miles. “Twenty of the best hunters. Twenty-five. We’re going back to Franklin.” Miles nodded, a hint of raw determination in his eyes. Marcus knew he wouldn’t need too many words to get Miles to understand what was happening. “We’re going to burn the town down.”

“What’s Franklin?” Belle asked and her tone was not only cautious but also troubled.

He inched closer to the cage, hearing the rabid stir in his sleep. “A nearby town. I think it’s where my brother is holding his army.”

She gasped. “You mean he has control over the rabids? How?”

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter either. I can’t risk waiting to find out.” He looked back towards Miles. “We’re leaving tonight.”

Marcus could feel Belle’s distress even before she opened her mouth. “Isn’t this incredibly dangerous?” she finally said.

“Just as much as waiting here for them to attack,” he answered. “Besides, Miles said they didn’t attack last time they were there, right?”

“That’s correct,” Miles said. “They just watched us.”

“So let’s surprise them and burn them down. Even if we can’t get all of them, burning the town down will cause them to disperse. Maybe that’ll buy us some time.”

“Time for what, exactly?” she asked.

“I have a feeling that many of the rabids would be on my side, not Patrick’s, if it wasn’t for the void.” Marcus pointed towards the one in the cage. “I think that’s why this one mentioned Patrick’s name. He was warning us.”

Her eyes grew larger. “And you want to go out there and burn them to death?”

“We don’t have the luxury of time, Belle. And I can’t go around catching one rabid at a time so you can inject it with blood and hope it gets cured. We’re at war.” He paused for a second. “You know that better than anybody.”

After all, she had been the one willing to risk her life to walk into the mouth of the beast and try to kill the king.

He could see the conflict in her eyes, but this wasn’t a battle he was willing to fight. Not now, when everybody’s fate was holding on by the thinnest of threads. For all he knew, the attack could happen anytime. That same night, the day after. The fact that Patrick had shown up in the compound was a bad omen. Patrick had probably been testing the defenses of the place. Or maybe testing the loyalty of the traitors living in the compound.

Belle’s labored breathing was pounding in Marcus’ ears when he turned to Miles. “Get started. I want to leave just before it gets dark. And get the rest of the guards set up to circle the compound while we’re gone.”

Miles gave a quick firm nod and left. It wouldn’t take long to get everything ready. Marcus hated the idea of leaving Belle behind, but this was a battle he wasn’t going to miss. Because somewhere out there, probably somewhere in Franklin, his brother was waiting for him.

And he couldn’t wait to once and for all kill the bastard.
  

~*~

A disturbing calm fell over the room once Marcus had announced his plans. As if the revelation of the upcoming attack had given everybody a new purpose. Something to look forward to.

She couldn’t find the strength to get excited about it.

All she could think about was the million things that could go wrong.

He must have understood how she felt, because when he turned around to face her, his eyes were soft.