The 1000 Souls (Book 2): Generation Apocalypse (23 page)

Elliot let out a slow whistle. “You gotta know what the bishop would say about this. Aiding the devil if you let a ripper feed.” Elliot had slung his M16 and stood behind Radu, his Ruger drawn and aimed in the general direction of Radu’s left temple.

“We don’t tell him.” Tevy turned to Kayla now. “He’s your friend. It’s your call, but wouldn’t it be totally awesome to have a spy right down in Chicago?”

“But he’d have to murder to feed.” She wanted a way out but didn’t see that there was any loophole she could honestly use.

“No he wouldn’t.” Tevy turned to Radu. “Look, if you go down there tonight, just tell the bridge guards you want to join up. Better yet, go to the Merchandise Mart. We could really use a spy in there. I tell you, they’ll take you once they see you’re a ripper, I’ll lay bullets on it. Just keep making stuff up about us and about how you became a ripper. Hey, even tell them that you, like, joined the rippers here voluntarily, that you figured St. Mike’s was going to tank and you wanted to be on the winning side.”

Kayla resisted the urge to jump in between them. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Come again about how he wouldn’t have to murder to feed?”

“They’ve got all those traitor troops up here from California donating blood. I know the rippers don’t like it so much, but it keeps them alive.” Tevy turned from Kayla to Radu. “Have you fed on a live human?”

Radu shook his head. “They murder them.” He nodded up at the inverted corpses. “They murder them and tell me I’m next, but then one says he has better idea, that he can make me sweat bugs. He gets a cup...” Now Radu looked to the ground as if ashamed. “He gets a cup of blood and puts it to my lips and plugs my nose. I promise myself that I will suffocate first, but my body breaths and I swallow blood.”

“I’m so very sorry,” Tevy said in the silence that followed.

Radu looked up. “Why? This is not your fault. You even come to rescue me when it is clearly hopeless. I am very grateful.”

A metallic bang and a scream from the corridor followed by panicked gunfire stole their attention. Kayla ran for the corridor, the others in close pursuit, except Mabruke, who had enough sense to tell his trooper to stay with Radu.

It was all over before Kayla got there.

A dozen fresh corpses lay on the floor, and several people stood over them with guns aimed. Amanda already had her knife out.

“What happened?” asked Kayla.

“Bastards were hiding in the lockers.” Amanda pulled a head back and slit a throat. “Luckily, I got curious and opened one up. It was empty, but I spooked the ripper in the next one and he made a break for it, then a bunch more. It was a crazy turkey shoot for a second. We’re fucking lucky we didn’t shoot each other.”

Kayla cursed herself for not thinking of this. It could have been a disaster.

Mabruke took control before she could put her thoughts into words. “I want these all aired out and I want those bricks blown out of those windows.” He pointed at the fresh concrete block high in the wall above the lockers. He turned to Kayla. “I’m going to put together search parties to raid through the basement. You decide what to do about your friend, the ripper.”

Elliot stood close to Amanda and took her left hand before she could move on to the next body. “Hey, clean the knife and come with us. Someone else can make sure they’re dead.”

Amanda dropped her knife and hugged Elliot tightly, her head buried in his shoulder even though she had to crouch because she was taller. Judging by the shudder, she was quietly weeping.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he said, patting her back with his free hand, the other carefully pointing the Ruger at the ceiling. He caught Kayla’s eye. “I’m gonna be a minute.” To Amanda he said, “Come on. Let’s go get some sunshine.”

Kayla and Tevy headed back to stand in front of Radu, Tevy looking at her expectantly, Radu uncertainly. Mabruke called his trooper away, leaving just the three of them.

Kayla knew the quick solution, the obvious solution to all this, was to put a bullet through Radu’s brain before Tevy could offer up any other arguments. That would be the easy way out.

“How would he get information to you?” she asked instead.

“We’d pick a place to meet just north of the Loop near the Mart. I go down there all the time anyway.”

“Wait.” Radu looked panicked more than anything else. “They make me a ripper as torture, you see? They plan to starve me and say that I will tell everything when I get hungry for blood. It makes men mad.”

“But no one will be starving you,” said Tevy. “You’ll get a ration of dead blood, and that’ll keep you from going crazy. The good thing is that you’ve never had living blood, ’cause that would be a mortal sin.”

Kayla didn’t like it, but she could see the value. “This will only postpone the inevitable. He’s a ripper! Sorry, Rad, it’s not your fault and it’s killing me, but if we win the day in Chicago, there won’t be anymore blood donations, and then what?”

Tevy looked uncertain but Radu was not.

“Then you put a bullet through my brain and save me. The 1000 Live On.”

Kayla looked up sharply at Tevy, but he was nodding as if not surprised.

“You guys already are with the Ericsians, aren’t you?” he said. “That’s why you wanted to come along to meet them.”

Kayla ignored him and turned her attention to Radu. “Promise me you won’t give away any secrets, especially about St. John’s.”

Radu looked at Tevy and nodded. “He knows them all anyway. But the rippers, I only tell them lies.”

Kayla took a deep breath and cursed the circumstances. Joyce would probably kill someone when she found out. Kayla knew that because even she would be furious if someone came to her and said they’d let go a ripper. And she and Joyce were the same soul.

“Fine. Cut him loose and get him some clothes and find somewhere to hide him until sunset. But you,” she said, pointing at Radu, “don’t let me down. And you,” she said, pointing to Tevy, “you better be right. We’re taking a huge risk here.”

Tevy nodded and didn’t look that certain himself. “He stayed with us in the woods. He didn’t bail. He won’t now.”

“You better be fucking right.”

Mabruke accepted Kayla’s decision without argument, and this produced her first doubt in the 1000 Souls. She was young and untested. Was it wise to have such faith in her just because she completed a multiple-choice test with the same combination answers as Joyce? What if Radu told Vlad about any weaknesses at St. John’s? Did he know the secret of Bertrand Allan, that he was alive and a ripper? One thing she was now sure of was that Tevy knew, and Radu had said that Tevy knew all the secrets. What did he mean? It was time to ask.

They walked together back toward St. Mike’s, because it was too far to go back to Wright Sanctuary and retrieve their bikes. Amanda and Elliot followed at a distance, holding hands and debriefing each other about the battle. Kayla put them in different groups, intentionally, before the attack, not wanting either to be distracted by the other’s safety. Amanda was with her in the frontal assault through the blown doors. Kayla chose to be in a different group from Tevy for the same reason, because even before she found out he was the Bertrand soul, the Dormant Hero, she was aware of an attraction, one that began that first night when she had to rescue him from the woods. It flamed when he stripped and stepped out to meet the Ericsian patrol, not because she was aroused by his nudity, but his selflessness, his bravery, both of which he seemed totally unaware of.

The sun warmed them as it climbed through the morning. When they walked into the shade of the underpass at the Kennedy expressway, no one shouted to hear the echo as they had less than twenty-four hours before, when outbound on adventure. How long had it been since any of them had slept? Weariness overcame her, a desire to bust into the nearest house and find a couch or clean carpet where she could sleep. The thought of Tevy curled up next to her crossed her mind, but she forced the image away so that she could concentrate on the real issues. They would be at St. Mike’s soon, and she would be out of time to interrogate Tevy. She took the plunge.

“Tevy, Rad said you knew all the secrets of St. John’s. What did he mean?”

It was hard to tell what he was thinking, because he never stopped looking around, checking each side of the street, over his shoulder, and up at the higher buildings. Kayla made a note that she should learn to do the same. This was how one survived in the urban jungle with traitors as well as rippers as enemies. If only they’d seen the traitors with the nets on that building last evening, Radu might still be human. If only they’d traveled quietly as they did now, maybe the traitors wouldn’t have heard them coming and been prepared with nets.

“Don’t know much,” he finally said. “Anything I should know?”

Kayla forced down a surge of anger, but some of it slipped out just the same. “Don’t bullshit me.”

Tevy nodded. “Fair enough. You don’t bullshit me, and I won’t bullshit you.” He met her eye in challenge.

“Okay.” Kayla feared what he might ask, but it was a reasonable request. “We fought the same battle last night. Let’s just promise to always be on the same side.”

“As long as you’re fighting rippers, I’m on the same side.”

But he hadn’t answered her question. “So what was Radu talking about?”

“I know that Bertrand Allan is a ripper and fights for St. John’s.”

Kayla kept all her curses to herself. No need to let him know what power he had with this knowledge. “What else?”

“I know that at least some of you are Ericsians.” He spared her a glance before he returned to his ceaseless vigilance of their surroundings. Kayla became more aware of their surroundings because of it. They crossed the river, the scent of algae rising over the bridge. Ahead lay big box stores and the River Point Shopping Center. Cars sat on flat tires, still parked as if the owners might return from Starbucks or the sports store. Kayla remembered when she loved sports: hockey, lacrosse, volleyball, all a part of her life that seemed so childish and futile now. She should have been learning shooting, hunting, and combat. On her right a McDonald’s, the windows dirty but intact, reminded her of her empty stomach. How many times had she been this hungry since the apocalypse, a sensation totally outside her experience before her eighteenth birthday?

He let her silence hang, and she was grateful for that. How to respond? She had promised no bullshit. “Yes, not everyone at St. John’s are Ericsians, believes in the 1000 Souls, but I am.”

“Why?”

Since Kayla struggled with that faith herself, now was not the best time to answer, but she made an effort. “Haven’t you ever met someone, and they were just like someone else you know or knew? And I don’t mean that they look the same, or they’re the same age or race or anything. They’re just the same.”

Tevy shook his head. “Nobody comes to mind. I mean until I met you and Joyce.” He frowned and glanced at her before returning to his scrutiny of their surroundings. “That is weird, cause that’s what the Ericsians said, that you’re the same soul. Totally weird actually, cause I thought that after the battle that night just south of St. John’s, the way you both get angry when going into battle, like everyone around you are effing morons.”

Kayla suppressed an angry retort. “I just like to make myself emphatically clear so that fewer people die.”

“Fair enough. So now it’s your turn. I know that Margaret’s not your daughter, and you’re trying to keep her parents a secret from me. Who are they?”

Kayla was still debating an answer when Tevy suddenly let his breath out in a rush. “My God, it’s Joyce isn’t it? Crap, I’m thick sometimes. That kid spends way more time with her than you, always holding onto her leg and playing at the front of the bus.”

“Please.” Kayla forced the panic down, trying not to let Tevy guess how important this was to her. “Just keep it our secret, okay?”

Tevy shrugged. “Sure. Like it’s not like anyone would care that Joyce has a daughter, anyway.”

Kayla didn’t look in his direction, didn’t give any indication that he’d missed the mark, but it wasn’t enough. He suddenly stopped and grabbed her arm, turning to face her and look into her eyes.

“Sweet Jesus.” His eyes were wide with disbelief. “Sweet effing hell. Who’s the father?”

Amanda and Elliot would catch up to them soon and Kayla didn’t want this spreading farther than necessary. Maybe Tevy would keep the secret.

“If I tell you, will you promise to keep the secret?”

But it was too late for bargains. Kayla could practically see the light bulb over Tevy’s head.

“Holy, holy frig,” he said, his eyes very wide. He at least had the sense to whisper so that Elliot and Amanda wouldn’t hear. “She’s seven. It’s Bertrand Allan, isn’t it? The Savior of Chicago himself.”

Kayla shook free and hurried down the center of the road, Tevy having to trot to keep up. She had to convince him to keep the secret or she had to kill him, kill all three of these Chicagoans, her new friends, her comrades-in-arms, her troops.

“Look, Tevy, Joyce is convinced that Bobs would kill her daughter, okay? You’ve got to keep this secret.”

“Why ever would she do that?”

“Because Bertrand Allan is practically a saint now, and saints don’t have children, especially out of wedlock. It makes them too mortal.”

Tevy digested this for a full minute. “But Margaret’s not a ripper, right, so I mean, when did they do it?”

Kayla double-checked his expression to make sure he wasn’t kidding. He looked genuinely puzzled. “Before the Battle of the Mountain, of course. You can’t have a baby with a ripper. They’re infertile.”

Tevy’s brow still furled with confusion. “So the baby was born after...” He stopped speaking and his cheeks blushed.

“You didn’t get any sex education at that church, did you? Babies are born nine months after the sex.”

“Right, right, they did tell us that.”

They walked in silence for a long time, turning onto a street that, Kayla noted from a dangling sign, had been called Clybourn Ave. She remembered this street from their ride out, but she viewed it differently. The century retail stores that she thought so quaint last night seemed far too close for comfort, rising three stories with the apartments on the second and third floor providing an excellent street vantage. They walked along the dotted yellow line, and she and Tevy agreed to watch the opposite side of the street for traps. Kayla now preferred the ugly modern plazas, single-story aluminum-sided buildings with parking lots in front, meaning the buildings were set far back from the street.