City of the Fallen (9 page)

When the invasion first began, many had tried to deny the reality of what was happening. The news spent the first few hours reporting the attacks as mass hysteria and just a few isolated incidents of violence. She suspected that the government had tried to keep things hush-hush to avoid panic, but what they created instead was a nation unprepared to fight. By the time the invasion was obvious, civilization had run out of chances to do anything about it.

Her first close encounter with a vampire had been in the hospital. She had been doing her intern rounds in the ER when an ambulance rushed in. The victim was barely moving and she was incredibly white, but it wasn’t until they started working on her that they had realized the problem: she had barely any blood left in her body. Massive blood loss usually meant a considerable injury, but the woman had no visible injuries, except for a small set of puncture marks on her left wrist.

And that was when she’d seen him. In the frantic running around, she had lifted her eyes for a second and seen the vampire standing a few feet away. His eyes had
shone
bright as he watched the doctors work on the woman. There was a subtle buzzing of energy around him, almost as if he was affecting the electricity of the room by just standing there. Now she would never mistake his poised movements for anything else, but back then, she wasn’t yet convinced of the existence of vampires. So she stood in place, distracted for a second by the stranger’s unrelenting look.
 

When the machine finally beeped a
flatline
, he had turned around and left.

That first image had always defined her view of vampires: cool, unmovable. And dangerously alluring.

The idea of a rabid vampire, acting deranged and thrashing around like an animal, seemed unthinkable. So why had Marcus mentioned it? And what exactly were they?

Because if there was something else out there, something she didn’t know about, it meant the people back at the house didn’t know it either. And history had proven that ignorance would get you killed.

So before she signed her own death sentence by trying to kill the king, she needed to figure out what the world was really up against.

~*~

Marcus looked towards the blackened window and a pang of irritation hit him. The sun was up and he was still awake. This was the second day in a row that sleep had evaded him and he wasn’t happy about it. In fact, he was pretty annoyed about the whole thing. Now on top of having to deal with the threat of the rabid vampires and the void spreading, he also had a woman dancing in his mind.

It was an unsettling mix of emotions. For a vampire who had been around for centuries, it was also a startling discovery knowing a human had such power over him. He wouldn’t have minded so much if he had some way of controlling the situation, but Isabelle was way beyond his reach.

He paced, moving away from the window and towards the door that separated his studio from his bedroom. He heard a ripple in the air coming from the adjoining room and knew Isabelle was awake. It was just a small crackle, the sound of skin brushing against fabric—but it was enough to tell him she was up and moving. His stomach contracted and he cursed. He wanted—needed—more time with her. There was something about Isabelle that called him. It was a sort of electric hum that spread down to his bones and awoke his hunger. Something he’d never experienced with a human before.

Something he hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

There hadn’t been any female vampires for over four centuries. When the void had spread, it had had a devastating effect on the female side of his breed. Female vampires became erratic and violent much faster and much sooner—not only against humans but also against other vampires. Many were killed by their own partners in an attempt to crush the spreading plague. In less than a year, every single female vampire had been infected with the void and died—either of hunger or at the hands of other vampires.

Back then, many had turned to keeping human pets as a way to fight the loneliness. He had tried it too, but had quickly realized it wasn’t what he wanted. Humans were fragile and always terrified. The physical pleasure he got from them did little for his mind and his soul. What he wanted was a partner, an equal—and humans had never been able to reach that level.

Against all reason, he was now wondering whether Isabelle could.

The question had been in his mind since the moment he first realized she was immune to charming. But after last night, the question had become a lot stronger. A lot more real.

What if?

His body tensed and he had to shake his head to let go of the thought. Suddenly, he was glad he was alone and didn’t have to explain his emotions to Miles or anybody else who knew him well. It wasn’t hard to imagine what their reactions would be.

The king taking a human companion.

It wasn’t forbidden or impossible, but it was surely unheard of—and it made him uneasy. But thinking about it also sent his heart into a race and that was enough to tell him there was something there.
 

Of course, he knew little about Isabelle besides the fact that he couldn’t charm her. He knew she was passionate and strong. He knew that in bed, she was already his equal. Whether she could be the same outside of the bedroom was a question to ponder.

A knock on the opposite side of the room startled him. The compound was built over a long series of underground tunnels that stretched for miles. They connected all the important rooms inside the compound to each other and allowed his kind to move around without being exposed to sunlight. He remembered a time when daylight meant hiding away in cellars and caves—and he had made sure no hiding was necessary when he built the compound.

“Come in, Miles,” he said without approaching the hidden door.

A panel on the wall slid open and Miles walked in. His face was somber, tight.

“What is it?”

Despite the grave eyes, Miles seemed calm and collected. But then, Miles always looked that way. It was the reason Marcus had appointed him to deal with security. Miles was immovable. Not because he didn’t have emotions, but because he never let them affect him. At least not visibly.

“The first patrol group came back,” Miles told him. “They found a few rabids.”

“How far?”

“A couple of hours away,” Miles said. “They’ve never been this close before.”

Marcus slid into the chair facing his bedroom door. Isabelle could’ve run into one of them out there—and so could the other humans trying to reach the compound. While there was enough blood in the compound, the supply was low everywhere else around the country. He couldn’t risk losing humans to the rabids out there. On the other hand, he knew that the less the rabids fed, the faster the void would spread. It was a losing proposition either way.

He turned towards Miles, searching for answers. “How worried are you?”

Miles frowned. “More than I was six months ago.”

Marcus’ heart thumped against his ribs. “What about the guards?”

“They’re on the walls since last night. But if a group of rabids attacks—”

“I know,” he interrupted. “It’ll be a nasty fight.”

“We’ll spread the word throughout the compound tonight. Tell the humans to stay away from the outer walls.”

“How much time do you think we have?”

Miles moved closer. “Can I speak freely, sir?”

Marcus nodded. If there was somebody he could count on telling him the truth, it was Miles. They were as close as brothers. “Of course.”

“If the void keeps spreading, we’ll be outnumbered soon.”

Marcus knew it.

“How’s the research going?”

Miles shook his head slightly. “Nothing new, I’m afraid, but I was thinking… the new woman…”

Marcus’ whole body tensed up.

“There’s something different about her,” Miles continued. “Maybe we can…”

“No.”

He could feel his own eyes darkening as he looked at Miles.

“Nobody is touching her except me,” he said softly, but the words burned their way up his throat.

Miles stood quiet, not a single muscle moving.

“Understood,” he finally said.

“Make sure everybody’s aware of this, Miles,” Marcus said. “If we ever come under attack, her safety comes first. Are we clear?”

Miles’ face was a perfectly-carved piece of stone.

“Yes, sir.”

As he was leaving, Miles turned around to face the king just one last time. “Marcus?”

The king looked up and saw the concern in his friend’s expression.

“I’ll be careful, Miles.”

Miles nodded, then stepped through the secret door and disappeared into the labyrinth of tunnels.

Nothing was going as Marcus had expected. When he had put the team of scientists together—the “great vampire minds,” Miles had called them—he had been hoping for a much faster resolution. He’d even sent a team around the country to collect the best lab equipment they could find—and that hadn’t been an easy task, considering the state of ruin of everything around them.

And still, they had nothing.

Coming up with a blood substitute had proven a lot more difficult than the scientists had expected. They were close—or so they kept saying—but they couldn’t nail the right combination of chemicals and nutrients. Or when they did, they couldn’t figure out how to keep the blood “alive” for more than just a few minutes.

Time was running short—especially now that the rabids were getting closer. When he’d first started the lab, the only thing he had had in mind was making sure everybody could feed even if humans disappeared. At the rate they were being killed during the invasion, it had been a very real possibility that they would become extinct someday. Now he was wondering whether having a blood substitute could stop the void from spreading. And whether the rabids could be turned back if given enough blood. He didn’t know if that had ever been attempted before. After all, it made more sense to just abandon or destroy the vampires who became rabid—or at least it had made sense centuries ago, when science could not have attempted to come up with a cure.

If there was a chance for his plan to work, though, it had to happen soon. He could feel the rabids closing in on him.

She had spent most of the day thinking about him and what happened the night before. Replaying the skin and the kisses and the fire over and over again. Until she felt like she was about to go insane if she didn’t find a way to press pause on the movie playing in her head.

So she’d kept herself busy by exploring the courtyards and trying to make sense of the layout of the place. Figuring out the connections of the different sections and where each door led gave her a headache, so she ended up returning to the memories of the previous night over and over.