Strange Trouble (10 page)

She pulled the fence apart as though it were melted taffy,
and without looking back, stepped inside the Camp.

When she turned around, Llodra, ravaged and ill, watched
her.

He quivered—not small shivers but strong
tremors that jerked his entire body.
Despite his cool voice, terror lit
his face. He had one hand glued to the dead fence and one hand wrapped around
Marta’s arm.

He was fighting with everything he had not to go to the
witch.

Even Rune could feel her call. And if she could feel it,
what must that pull be like for Nick Llodra?

Marta stood quietly, her raw gaze eating up the master’s
face.

She loves him.

That made her think
of Amy, which
was good. She needed pain, she needed guilt. She needed black.

It would make her strong enough to handle what was to come.

She and Llodra stared at each other.

He was a ghost of the Llodra she’d known before his madness,
before his capture. His face was all sharp angles and hollows filled with
shadows. Pale, dry skin stretched tightly over the prominent bones beneath it.

His black eyes were so bright with pain she found it
difficult to look at them. He was thin and scarred, bruised and broken.

But she could not care. He’d killed Amy. He’d tortured the
little bite junkie who had loved him. He’d taken her Ellis.

He’d fucked with her.

Llodra was mad, and he was evil.

And now he stood before her, shattered and damaged.

But he would heal. He was a vampire.

He was covered with blood. “You fed.”

“Oh, yes. I fed.”

“You’re a messy eater, Llodra.” She could only imagine how
horrific had been his damage before he’d fed. He looked like death.

He
is
death.

“Why are you here? If you’re so terrified of Damascus,
aren’t you afraid she’s going to come out and get you?”

He shivered harder. “If I did not give in to the call, just
for an instant, my heart would have exploded.” He glanced down at his bloody
shirt. “Some of this is from me.”

“Tell me what to do.”

He smiled, a little. “I do not know. I know only that you
are as strong as she is. There is magic inside you. Send her away, Rune. Save
me.”

“I am not doing this for you.” She was suddenly furious.
Furious that he could believe she cared about him after everything he’d done.
“You are not worth saving.”

“Then do it to stop the monsters.”

“I’m not sure…”

“You do not have to be sure. You just have to fight, because
fighting is what you do.” His silky voice slid over her skin like melting ice.
“It is not the time to talk. Now, you must do what you were born to do. Destroy
the evil.

“For
that,
” he whispered, “is why you exist.”

She shivered and without warning, her fangs dropped. Tremors
of electric power still shook her body.

That moment was all that mattered.

Nothing came before, and nothing would come after.

There was only that moment.

And the witch was calling her.

Fie
was calling her.

Llodra shuddered harder. He clenched his fists and closed his
eyes, a high-pitched wheeze wafting past his lips.

She turned to go.

“Wait,” Marta said.

She stopped. “What?”

“Nicolas,” Marta said. “
Do
it.”

“Do what?” Rune asked.

Nicolas didn’t move.

“Protect
yourself
,” Marta cried,
and shoved him toward Rune. “You must.”

Before she could react, Nicolas was upon her, his fangs
buried deep in the side of her throat.

She stood frozen with disbelief beneath his bite.

As he drank from her, he pushed the jagged edge of his torn
wrist to her mouth. She had no idea how or when he’d opened his own vein, but
the blood exchange was happening and there was not one fucking thing she could
do to stop it.

Flashing images bombarded her damaged mind.
The berserker, his lips at her breast.
Denim,
lost and alone.
Levi and Z.

Z…

The only parents she’d known.
Drinking
down their blood, the joy almost too much to contain.
The first time she
could remember realizing she was different.

Different.
Special.

She was strong, and fucking Llodra would not control her.

Her monster wouldn’t let him.

She screamed and shoved him away, shoved him so hard he flew
into the air, hit the fence, and then bounced off it to land face down upon the
ground.

But it was too late. His blood was inside her, and her blood
was inside him.

“Why?” she cried, digging her nails into the small wounds
left by his teeth.
“Why?”

Marta stared at Rune with careful, terrified eyes, and
grasping Llodra’s ankles, began to pull him through the break in the fence.

“Why?” Rune screamed. She was suddenly full of rage and
desire—the desire to kill. One second she was standing fifteen feet from the
downed vampire, and the next she had Llodra by the throat, tearing him from
Marta’s grip.

She ripped out his throat almost before she realized she was
going to.

“No,” Marta screamed. “Your blood is his protection. He had
to!”

Rune didn’t care. She slung bloody bits of him away and shot
the claws of her free hand out. She was going to take his heart, eat the
fucking thing, and then tear his head off.
God, the rage.

The
madness.

That thought saved Llodra’s life.

She paused, and as she did, Marta slashed her eyes, blinding
her.

She dropped Llodra.

The last thing she heard as she stumbled away, her fists to
her eyes, was Marta’s voice, echoing inside her mind.

“The blood he gave you will help you defeat Damascus. It is
the blood of your
father!
”

Your father.

Your father.

And then Nicolas Llodra and Marta were gone, and there was
only Rune.

She fell to the ground, scrubbing at her sightless, agonized
eyes, and began to giggle.

Her
father
was there?

And Llodra knew. Of course he did. Her gut had told her all
along that Llodra knew more about her than he’d pretended.

Her father was
there.

Where was her mother?

Why did they hide from her? Why did they reject her?

Because she was a monster?

They
were monsters.

She had parents. And they’d left her to strangers—strangers
she’d killed.

Her eyes burned, burned as though fire ants bored into them
as they carried bits of food into her brain.

She howled with laughter, thin blood and gore mixing with
the earth to make a bloody soup in which she writhed, full of agony and
madness.

It was the captive
Others
who
roused her.

Specifically, Darius Elliot and his
wolves.

He knelt beside her and pulled her back to reality.
“Rune.
Rune Alexander.”
His voice
was almost chiding.

She opened her watery eyes, surprised when she could see.
They stung, and felt as though a few dozen stray eyelashes were clinging to
them. But she could see.

Darius had been through his own hell. His body was thinner
and his face was cut and bruised. He touched his swollen lip a little
self-consciously. “The witch’s magic keeps us from shifting while we’re this
close to her.” He stood then, and offered her a hand up.

But when she stood, shaky and somewhat numb, he stared over
her head. “I’m sorry.”

“I should kill you,” she said tonelessly.

“We were afraid you wouldn’t come if you knew the truth.”

“You’re idiots.” But she could think again. “Go, before the
witch comes to stop you.”

“She can’t leave the tower,” he told her. “She spawned there
and she can’t leave that spot.”

Rune frowned. “Then how the fuck does she
cause
so much damage?
The zombies, you?”
She rubbed her
eyes. “How did she get the kid?”

He shook his head. “She can’t leave. Someone brought her the
child. The rest she does because she’s just that powerful. Her magic…I’ve never
felt anything like it.”

Llodra and Marta had lied to her. The witch couldn’t destroy
RISC. She couldn’t have gone to get Llodra. True, her call might have ripped
him apart as the RISC bars held him captive, but he and Marta had known Rune
would have him released. They’d seized the chance to give him his freedom.

And Rune had fallen for it.

When she found them…

Then she closed her eyes, thankful her spirit had not been
broken, after all. Was she mad?
Perhaps a little.
Perhaps a lot.

But she was still the person she’d always been, and she had
a reason to live.

Someone had to help save the fucking world.

“Why are you smiling?” Darius asked.

She shook her head, then glanced around the area at the
Others
gathering there. Large eyes stared back at her from
thin faces. “The military is coming. There is an opening in the fence.” She
pointed. “Get out of here.” She met the wolf alpha’s gaze. “Run.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Darius,” she called, as he was about to climb through the
fence. “The
Others
can be infected. I saw some of your
wolves. They’re zombies now.”

He nodded, and then he was gone.

They were all gone.

And she was alone with the witch.

Every light in the yard went out.

“Bring it, bitch,” she muttered. She dropped her fangs and
lifted her hands, ready to shoot out her claws.

But her claws wouldn’t come.

“The hell?” she said. She could feel them in there. She
tried again. “Now
that
can’t be good.”

It was almost like they’d been sealed inside by—

The fence.

The hot melted metal and silver had covered her skin. Had
sunk into her pores, coating her bones, her claws…

She would just have to try a little harder. She’d break the
bastards loose.

Grinding her teeth against the pain, she concentrated on
nothing but the claws and pushed with everything inside her.

They burst free with a sound like a sword being ripped from
its sheath, but still it took her a few seconds to understand what the gleam of
her claws meant.

The moonlight bounced off a metallic glare so bright she had
to squint against it, but even as she watched, the brightness slowly dimmed.

Until she waved them through the air, then once more they
brightened…waking up.

“Son of a bitch,” she murmured.

She had silver claws. And they responded to movement…to
thought.

It was like Christmas.

Magic.
She was full of magic. What
was it Llodra had once told her?

“You do not fully realize your power, do you? There is a
chance you would pull out the secrets inside you and give me what I so
deserve.”

Yes, Llodra knew things.

And
she
was still learning.
Growing.

She had a father.

But she couldn’t let that distract her. Not yet.

She looked up at the tall building. The witch watched and
waited there. She could feel her the same way she felt impending storms—heavy
pressure in her chest and a tickle of unease in her throat.

At a sound behind her she whirled around, and saw a zombie
pushing its way through the gap in the fence.

But she couldn’t be bothered with the zombies. The humans
would take care of them. Or she would, if she…

When
she got rid of the witch.

Ignoring the zombies now piling into the Camp, she jogged to
the tall building—the witch’s tower—retracted her claws, and slipped inside.

There was an elevator in the lobby, but she wasn’t getting
on it. She found the stairwell and began climbing the steps, slowly at first,
then running up them.

It wasn’t that she was in a hurry to meet the monster
waiting for her. She was reluctant. She wasn’t eager to meet the new threat.
Thoughts of the witch scared the hell out of her.

And that was why she ran.

She’d never hidden from a monster—other than her own. She
wasn’t going to start now.

She reached the top floor and stopped to listen. There were
no sounds. No whispers, no cries.

The air was thick and heavy with expectation, making it hard
to breathe.

Funny, considering how innocuous the hallway was.
Carpets and small pictures, the occasional plastic plant.

At the end of the hall she saw a set of double doors, and
realized suddenly where the witch waited. She was on the roof. Witches didn’t
like closed in, airless places. They liked nature. The outdoors, storms, air…

Beneath the sky was where the witch would caw her spells,
would chant her words, would spew her curses.

Where she would use everything she had to destroy Rune.

Rune swallowed hard and sent out her claws, flinching at the
sound of them filling the silence. But the witch would be aware of Rune’s
location.

Maybe they really
were
alike. Kindred spirits, as
Marta had said.

Whatever, Rune felt a certain familiarity she didn’t
question. It just was.

And then the door to the roof was before her and though she
silently lamented her hesitation, she paused. Just for a second, but she
paused.

The door opened on its own, eagerly.

Rune walked out.

It was time to meet the witch.