Allegiance (The Penton Vampire Legacy) (19 page)

To Nik’s dismay, she began to cry. He thought vampires couldn’t cry. Maybe the rule book got thrown out on a technicality if the vampire was a kid.

“Hey, it’s okay.” He patted her shoulder awkwardly, and when he got no hint of images, leaned over and hugged her. To his surprise, she moved the grunting, protesting Barnabas out of her lap and threw her arms around Nik’s neck.

He picked her up, took her to the bed, and just held her for a while. Maybe he
could
help her. Since joining forces with the shape-shifters and now the vamps, he’d done nothing but wonder what contribution he could make as a human. He didn’t have supernatural powers. He couldn’t pick up tall buildings with a single thrust. He didn’t own a cape.

“We can work together if we make it,” she whispered. “Cage can help us if he makes it.”

A chill stole across Nik’s shoulder blades at her whispered words. “What’s going to happen, Hannah?”

Her arms tightened around his neck so fiercely that he worried she might cut off circulation to his carotid and he’d end up unconscious on the floor.

“I don’t know,” she said in a voice both childish and much, much too old. “But I keep seeing horrible things. Monsters. Animals.”

Nik’s chill deepened. “What kind of animals have you seen? Did you see them in visions, or did you see them in Penton?”

She pulled away from him and studied his face. “Both. I saw a black lion in my head and a coyote in the house before the fire. I remember seeing coyotes from my human life, but I have never seen a black lion. Barnabas was afraid, and he hid under the bed in the empty room. I went to get him, and that’s when the fire started. It got big so fast, and I was afraid.”

“Have you seen the coyote anywhere else, or the lion?” No point in going into the whole black-jaguar spiel.

“Only in my head.” She looked down. “Both of them are so angry and so hungry, but they can’t eat.”

He’d felt some of that rage and hunger in his own head when he’d held the glass. “Why can’t they eat, sweetie? Why are they angry?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head, and then threw her arms around him again. “I don’t know.”

  
CHAPTER 19
  

M
atthias thought he knew starvation. He’d dropped at least fifty pounds off his frame since the pandemic vaccine had put vampires at the bottom of the food chain, and only twenty pounds of the loss looked good on him.

When he’d been arrested in Aidan Murphy’s old clinic office in Penton and jailed in his own dungeon, his tormenters had intentionally kept him on the edge of starvation.

It had been nothing like this. He wanted blood. He also wanted food. Solid food.

For the first time in more than seventy years, he daydreamed of the things he ate during his human life. He had loved a fatty slab of prime rib swimming in its juices; a baked potato with butter, chives, and an extra dollop of sour cream on the side; bread warm from the oven, its outer shell crusty and flaky, its insides soft and tender.

He thought of ice cream in summer, hot chocolate in winter. Of clambakes and sweet, smoky Virginia hams.

He must be in hell. Forget pitchforks and His Satanic Majesty’s Secret Service, or whatever else attracted people’s beliefs. Hunger was the worst.

Wolfgang, dutiful toady of Frank Greisser, still brought a plastic bag of unvaccinated blood every night, handing it to him while another toady stood behind him with a gun at the ready. Wolfie even managed to look sincere when he left, apologizing just before the lock clicked shut and Matthias again was a prisoner.

It was almost feeding time now, and Matthias paced his room in restless angles and circles. Surely his feed would take the edge off this insane hunger.

He breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of movement in the hallway. A part of him always feared that the day would come when Frank felt he’d outlived his usefulness. The man wouldn’t hesitate to have him killed; of that, Matthias had no doubt. The Slayer had nothing on Frank Greisser when it came to death with dispassion.

The lock clicked, and Matthias turned to greet Wolfie, anxious to feed. Confusion set in quickly, however, when the armed toady came in first, followed by Wolfgang not holding a bag of red nourishment, but pushing a stainless-steel service cart.

On top was spread a fine white linen tablecloth and service for one, the plate covered with a stainless-steel domed lid polished to a sheen that reflected a fun-house version of the room around it, including Matthias himself.

“What kind of joke is this?” Only was it? He had been craving food, more so every day. The hunger was devouring him.

“I thought you might be hungry,” Wolfgang said, bowing his head in a no-doubt-sarcastic show of respect. “There is also a bag of unvaccinated blood on the shelf beneath the main tray.”

Matthias reached out and lifted the dome, thinking about that old movie where Bette Davis the sadist fed Joan Crawford a similarly displayed rat.

But beneath the dome, the tasteful white dinner plate held not rat but roasted chicken, its skin crisped to a golden brown, juices seeping from beneath it onto the plate next to the baked potato of his dreams. Butter pooled in its center, and a tiny glass dish of sour cream sat beside it. A separate basket held rolls, and another glass bowl, pats of pale yellow butter.

His mouth watered. Actually salivated as he looked at the food. He paid no attention to Wolfie or his armed friend. He barely felt the prick of the needle into the side of his neck, at least not until the horrible burning sensation began again, so sudden and overwhelming he dropped to his hands and knees.

He burned as if his blood had turned to acid and was eating away at every blood vessel, every muscle, every bone, until it seemed inevitable that he’d eventually melt into one big pool of liquefied skin and smoking ash.

The room went gray, and his arms gave way. Rolling onto his side, he was dimly aware of feet moving away from him, the door opening and then closing.

He didn’t know how much time had passed before awareness began to seep back in. The burning sensation dwindled down to a raw memory, and the hunger returned.

Sitting up, he looked around the room, frantic until he saw it. They’d left the tray.

Matthias climbed to his feet, staggering like a drunken man toward the steel dome, fearful even now that he’d lift it and find a rat, or worse. But the chicken was there, and the smell of roasted meat and thyme and basil hit him like a slap. Could whatever they were giving him, the shots, possibly enable him to eat food again? What the hell was it?

His hand trembled, and he flexed his fingers to calm it before reaching out to pull a delicate web of roasted skin off one chicken leg. He held it to his nose, basked in the aroma; it didn’t make him sick or even disinterested. His mouth watered, his taste buds roared to life, and he stuck it in his mouth.

It was glorious. He chewed it, his teeth out of practice and feeling awkwardly big. He swallowed, and the sensation of something solid passing through his digestive system was alien to him.

He waited to see what would happen. He’d tried to eat after turning vampire—all vampires did, whether they admitted it or not. And they could eat for a few days after being turned. But when the thirst set in, the thirst for blood, all other taste failed to appeal.

Until now.

He’d been planning to rip off Frank Greisser’s balls and force him to eat them when he got out of here—but instead, he might buy the man a cigar and a steak cooked medium well.

Matthias pulled the tray to the nearest chair and polished off the rest of the chicken, and then the potato. He finished with bread and butter, best of all. He felt full. He was satisfied.

Humans, of course, had systems equipped to eliminate waste; how would that work for a vampire?

He settled back in the room’s armchair, watching German-language television and not understanding a word. Until he got the answer to his digestive question.

The pain propelled him from the chair and he again hit the floor on hands and knees, crawling toward the bathroom, which he had treated as a closet. He’d been allowed to retrieve some things from his New York estate, and he was horrified when the next agonizing spasm revisited his glorious baked potato inside his favorite Italian leather loafers.

  
CHAPTER 20
  

I
n the old Southern Mills’s biggest workroom, Mirren heaved the last remaining table into the wall, then picked it up and smashed it against the concrete floor until it lay in kindling sticks.

“Feel better?”

“Fuck no.” He glared at Aidan, who glared back at him. “Should I?”

“Save your energy. We’re gonna need it.”

If only he knew how to use it. Mirren parked his ass on the concrete and leaned against the wall, trying to make sense of the latest Penton disaster—a stupid, cheap flyer posted all over town during daylight hours. Only Glory had kept the fallout from being worse.

That pile of flyers on the floor provided proof—like they needed any at this point—that Penton was under attack.

Except the attackers were ghosts, smoke, invisible, and Mirren didn’t know how the fuck to fight them. Or how to go after them when he didn’t know who or what they were.

“The others will be here soon, so we need a strategy.” Aidan hopped on one of the big wooden thread spools they’d left in the room, his boot-clad feet dangling off the sides. He’d abandoned his business clothing for jeans and a sweater, and his hair was growing out again—he looked like Aidan, in other words.

Before Glory had arrived at 8:00 p.m. with flyers in hand, Mirren had almost finished equipping the room with punching bags, weights, cycles—basic gym equipment that Will had bought in Columbus and had shipped to their storage space yesterday. Nik had helped Mark pick it up.

There was also a lot of not-so-basic equipment: silver-laced rope, blades, kukri knives, bullets. For a week, Mirren had pulled his best human workers off debris cleanup and had them shoring up the walls and ceiling of the mill, the only space big enough to convert into training space until they got the training center finished.
If
they got it finished. The mill wasn’t luxurious or high-tech, but it would work.

If they only knew who they were fighting.

“What strategy can we have if we don’t know what the fuck we’re up against?” Mirren scrubbed his hands over his face, hating the helpless feeling.

“Everybody coming tonight needs to know everything. We need any and all ideas. Agreed?” Aidan’s phone buzzed and he sent a quick text. “Cage and Nik are on their way. Robin’s AWOL.”

“Figures. She’ll be here if it suits her, and if it doesn’t, she’ll be gone. We can’t count on that damned shifter.”

“Then it’s your loss.” Robin stood in the open doorway, wearing impossibly tight jeans, an impossibly tight black-and-white-striped shirt (or at least Mirren thought it was black), and a navel ring.

“Seriously?” He climbed to his feet and stalked around her. God, the woman was built like a matchstick. “You thought you could train in that getup? On a dance floor, maybe.”

“Oh, stick a fork in it.” Robin punched Mirren in the stomach on her way to sit next to Aidan on the wooden spool, and he’d be damned before he let on that it hurt. He kept underestimating her strength.

Mark and Melissa came in next, together for a change, and Mirren looked at Aidan, brows raised. They hadn’t been invited; maybe Melissa had misunderstood that her training would be separate.

Aidan shook his head. “You guys aren’t supposed to train with us tonight. Or is something wrong?”

Mirren would place bets on the latter. Mark walked with the stiff gait of a man trying to coddle an injured back, but Melissa looked ready to spit nails.

“We needed to talk to the lieutenants,” Mark said, looking around and finally spotting a folding chair off to one side of the sparring mats. Melissa saw it, too, dragged it over, and massaged his shoulders when he sat down.

“You two back together?” Robin asked. “Looks like it. Good.”

“That’s none of your business,” Melissa snapped.

Mirren closed his eyes and shook his head. They had no time for a Cage Reynolds–induced catfight. “Whoever’s fucking which person and whoever isn’t fucking anybody—put a lid on it, all of you. We’ve got bigger problems.”

“We have at least one you don’t know about,” Melissa said.

Well, wasn’t that just fucking good news?

“Nik and I do as well,” Robin said. “He’s on his way, but he’s been talking to Hannah.”

Better and better. Mirren felt the beginnings of another table-smashing itch.

“Wait until the others get here before we start sharing news.” Aidan said. “No point in having to repeat it.”

But when Nik and Cage arrived, Hannah wasn’t with them.

“She wouldn’t leave the house,” Cage said, going to lean on the wooden spool next to Robin. “But at least she’s talking—well, she’s talking to Nik. We’ll fill her in afterward.”

“I’ll do it when I go back so she can feed,” Nik said. “I promised to stay with her until daysleep.”

Hannah talking was at least one piece of good news. Mirren had been afraid she was spiraling into some dark place they might never get her out of. If Zorba could get her back, he’d more than earned his keep.

“That’s all of us then.” Aidan went to close the door and lock it. “Mirren and I will fill in Glory and Krys afterward. I put Fen, Shawn, and Britta on patrol tonight, along with some of the other scathe members. But we lost five more today—four vampires, one human.”

“The only good news about that is that it puts us at twenty-one vamps and, thanks to the new human that got in yesterday, ten feeders,” Mirren added. “So we can cut all but one of the feeders back to two each. I’ll work out the schedule before daysleep.”

Robin cleared her throat. “I can take the leftover. I’m not poisonous.”

“You are poisonous.” Mirren was getting tired of everything being a production with this shifter. She took too much work. “Stay away from fangs. Period.”

“If we need you we’ll try it, and I appreciate your willingness to be a feeder,” Aidan told her. It softened the fury she’d been directing at Mirren. “Two isn’t bad, and the new guy has offered to take the spare.”

“What is that?” Cage edged around Aidan, walked toward the nearest mat, and leaned over to look at the stack of flyers. “Bloody hell.”

He snatched it up and read it, turned it over, and then handed it to Robin. “Tell me that’s not real.”

“Who is it?” Robin held the flyer up so Nik could see it without touching it.

“It’s Will.” Mirren took another flyer off the mat. On it was a photograph blown up to fill most of the page, showing a man at the end of a torture as brutal as any Mirren had inflicted in his Slayer days—and that was saying something.

The man was clearly Will Ludlam, strapped naked to a chair and beaten black and bloody. His legs were ribbons of torn flesh. One eye appeared to have been gouged out. At least two fingers had been cut off, leaving bloody stumps.

Robin read: “‘One of Penton’s leaders is dead. Who will be next?’” She held the flyer at an angle so the light would hit it differently. “It’s a Photoshop job, I think. The head’s a little too big for the body—they don’t belong to the same person. And I think some kind of filter was applied on his face to make it look so beat up.”

Silence. Robin looked up and seemed surprised to find everyone staring at her—even Nik. “What? Gadget’s been teaching me how to retouch photos.”

Aidan held up a hand. “Good thing to know—it might have saved us some angst. Yes, it’s a fake. I talked to Will and both he and Randa are fine. They’re in Columbus, getting ready for Rob’s funeral tomorrow. The colonel’s flying in there tonight. I told them not to come back until after the Tribunal vote. I think things are just going to keep getting uglier until that’s behind us.”

In Mirren’s opinion, Aidan was naive if he thought becoming a member of the Tribunal would solve their problems. On the other hand, at least it offered some hope, which had been in short supply around there.

“Where’d the flyer come from?” Robin asked.

“I hoped maybe Nik could tell us.” Mirren handed the flyer to Nik, who took it reluctantly and walked over to a corner of the room where he could get away from everyone. Except the damned shifter, who followed him.

“Glory found the flyer tacked to an electrical pole outside the clinic,” Mirren said. “She tore it down and was on her way to bring it to me when she started seeing them all over town—on every surface that was still standing. Too many people had seen it.”

Aidan nodded. “The damage was done. The ones who left called me not five minutes after I talked to Will. Even after they found out it was fake, they still wanted to leave. I can’t blame them.”

“Whoever did this is a fucking coward.” Mirren kicked at one of the mats, sending it sliding across the floor in a flurry of dust. “How do we fight it?”

He’d engaged in every kind of battle imaginable, or so he thought. He’d met men armed with battle-axes and swords; he’d fought wearing chain mail of his own construction. He’d used fangs and his own brute strength to tear opponents’ limbs from their bodies. He’d beheaded, stabbed, shot, burned, poisoned. But he couldn’t fight what he couldn’t see—and that just pissed him off.

“It’s classic psychological warfare,” Cage said, sitting on one of the mats. “The Germans used it a lot in World War II, and so did the Brits and the Yanks. It’s effective from a victim standpoint because there’s no way to fight it except to let people know what’s happening and hope they have the courage and patience to stick it out. It’s effective from the enemy’s standpoint because there’s little risk. Well, normally.”

Aidan had been nodding while Cage talked. “Suggestions?”

Cage shrugged. “I’d say we call a meeting of everyone in town, tell them exactly what’s going on, and warn them not to believe what they hear or see unless it’s coming from one of us.”

“I agree.” Aidan looked at Mark. “Do you feel up to organizing the meeting for tomorrow just after daysleep? It’ll take us that long to get the word out. We can have it here.”

“Will do.” Mark looked up at Melissa, who nodded. “There’s something else you need to know.”

Mirren walked to the nearest wall and leaned against it, arms crossed. He so didn’t want to hear one more piece of fucking bad news.

In halting speech, Mark laid out the scenario: finding the drugs, being tempted by the drugs, deciding he could do without the drugs. While he talked, Melissa stood behind him with a hand on his shoulder.

“So whoever did this knows your background well enough to know your particular poison.” Mirren didn’t like this one bit. “Whoever did it also has access to controlled drugs. And, most serious of all, whoever did it has access to Aidan’s house.”

“Britta.” Aidan’s voice was flat. “I have a key, as do Mark, Krys, Hannah, and Britta. Cage got one tonight. That’s it.” He jumped off the spool and started pacing. “My instincts about people are usually good, and I would’ve sworn she was with us.”

“She’s history.” Mirren pushed off the wall. “And don’t defend her, A. There’s no one else it could be.”

“Yeah, there is.” Nik had returned from communing with the spirits, but the man looked like the spirits had beaten the hell out of him. His nose was even bleeding.

“I’m gonna call Krys—I don’t like the looks of that.” Aidan dug out his cell phone.

“She’s not the only doctor in town.” Robin looked at Cage. “Don’t psychiatrists have to go to medical school?”

Cage was already getting to his feet. “It’s been a right long while, but we’ve already treated the nosebleed once today. I’d suggest you not use those skills of yours for a bit.”

“Tell me about it.” Nik held the hem of his sweater up to his nose with one hand and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other.

“What could you tell?” Mirren returned to his spot against the wall, hoping like hell Zorba had learned something helpful and not more confusing.

“I couldn’t get anything from the flyer—sorry.” He tossed it back on the mat with the other copies. “Just Glory, pulling it down. A few faces looking at it with enough agony for me to know they didn’t put the damned thing up.”

“So what did you mean about Britta not being the only one who could’ve done it?”

Nik sat on one of the mats and lay on his back, his voice muffled and strained through the pinched nose and sweater. “Just that unless you’ve looked at all the access points—doors, windows, attic—there’s no way to be sure someone came in with a key. Also, we have two unaccounted-for shifters in Penton.”