Strange Trouble (22 page)

They found Llodra’s resting place—his hiding place—with no
trouble.

She knelt beside the black obsidian blade and closed her
eyes. She could feel them there, the vampires. She felt them much the same way
she felt the zombies.
With empathy, and familiarity and
fucking
tenderness.

No.

Opening her eyes, she stared up at her men. They’d gathered
around her in a semicircle of concern.

She grasped the blade and pulled, and it came out of the
earth with a sucking sound, as though the ground were hesitant to let it go.

Because it knew what she would do with it,
perhaps.
Maybe the ground did not want Nicolas Llodra,
either.

She swallowed past the tight thickness in her throat,
willing herself not to cry. It was just…

She’d killed too many parents.

“Rune,” Raze urged, gently. “Do it.”

The blade lay in her palm, innocuous and plain, patient and
deadly. Once she shoved that blade into his heart, it was over.

Maybe he would have told her the story of her past. But she
couldn’t have trusted his words. Nicolas Llodra was created from lies and
madness.

As was she.

But maybe he had loved her, as much as a vampire could love.
He might have taken her into his coven and make her his favorite. She could
have ruled by his side, once the zombies—

“Fuck,” she said, then groaned. “Fuck.”

She put her palm on the ground and traced it slowly toward
where his chest would be.
His heart.

How deep in the ground was he? It didn’t matter. The blade
would find him.

She would find him.

The end of Llodra.

God, how fucking sad that was.

The end.

She felt him there. A line connected them, like a bloody,
black umbilical cord. She followed that cord, raised the blade high, and
plunged it into the ground.

Into his heart.

He screamed, screamed as the power of Damascus made him
more, made him stronger.

She lifted her face to the sun and screamed with him.

He thrashed and the ground churned in response, opening
enough to show her his face, his eyes.

The pain they held was almost too much for her.

He caught her stare with his and she couldn’t look away.
Didn’t really want to.
She was killing her father, and it
didn’t matter that he was an almost unmatched evil.

He was hers.

The least she could do was watch him as he died. She’d give
him that small comforting touch.

He would not die alone.

She pressed harder on the blade, willing him to die, to just
die.

To die before she gave in to the useless
need to ask him who she was.
What she was.
How
she was.

The sun burned away his skin, searing and blackening his
flesh as she shoved the blade more deeply into his heart, begging him silently
to stop struggling and find peace.

And finally, after an eternity, he stopped screaming.

Blood leaked from the corners of his ruined mouth. It
covered her hands as she held the knife in his heart.

“Not yet,” he begged.
“Not yet, my sweet
child.”

“Find your peace.” Then, she whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m
sorry.”

She was always sorry.

She was never sure.

“God,” she cried. “I’m sorry.”

But she did not remove the blade.

At last, Strad pulled her from the ground, pried her frozen,
bloody fingers one by one from the handle, and forced her to let the blade go.

She might have held it forever.

“
Why,
Rune?” Owen asked, peering into her face. “Why
was it so hard?”

Did she not owe them that much?

Did she not, maybe, owe herself that much?

“He was my father,” she murmured.

And then, it was real.

She sobbed, staring at them beseechingly, as though somehow,
they could make it okay.

They didn’t move for a long moment, disbelief in their eyes.

Then, finally, Strad groaned, and lifted her into his arms.
“Fuck,” he said. “
Fuck,
sweetheart.”

But there was more work to be done. She would leave none of
the vampires alive.

Ellie couldn’t be protected from all vampires for all time,
but she could protect him from these.

And after killing Llodra, the others would not be so hard.

She squeezed the berserker’s neck,
then
nodded for him to let her down. “Don’t tell Ellie,” she said.

“Never,” someone promised. She wasn’t sure who.

She wiped her eyes, smearing blood across her face,
then
took a deep breath. Whatever the fuck she was, wherever
the fuck she’d come from, that information had died with Llodra.

And she would go on.

“Let’s put the rest of them down,” she said, her spine
stiff. “So we can do the same to COS.”

Something inside her had hardened with Llodra’s death.
With her killing of him.

She was different, and the world was different.

And she would go on.

A small part of her didn’t really believe it was over. The
new zombies, the mad master…

They couldn’t be over, not just like that.

But COS was still to come, and she knew defeating them would
not be easy. It was a fight that would never end, because COS did not end.

So maybe with Llodra, fate was just giving
her a fucking break.

It hadn’t been easy—but it could have been worse.

They made short work of the other vampires, who never
stirred when they were staked. Nor did they struggle when they were burned by
an unforgiving sun, or when they finally, silently, dissolved into sad little
piles of dust.

Rice called her as she drove back to town.

“You killed Llodra,” he said.

“How’d you know?”

“The new zombies are gone. All over the county, they lay
back down. Some of it was caught on film.”

“Awesome,” she replied, her voice dull.

He paused. “Are you okay?”

“Will you tell Ellie he doesn’t have to go back into the
room?”

“Gladly.”

“And also…”

“Yes?”

“Tell him we’re on our way to get Levi and the others.”

“I’ll tell him.” He made no attempt to caution her to watch
herself—COS had covered their tracks. Rune could be the one to end up in legal
trouble.

She clicked off and tossed her phone into the passenger
seat.
The sadness—the sadness of Amy and Llodra and the COS
abductions and Z, oh God,
Z
—all that was cementing into a hard, black
ball of rage.

Rage she could handle. She needed rage to destroy the
fucking slayers.
To free Lex and the twins.

To make everything okay if just for one
fucking minute.

Her cell rang again. “Did you find the location?” she asked
Strad.

“I did. They’re in the Moor.”

“Because in the Moor, no one cares.”

“Yes.”

He gave her the address and she headed to the Moor, the bad
place at the edge of the city where desperate humans seemed to congregate in
large numbers.

The place in which she would soon be
living.

She’d fit right in.

Even though they parked a couple of streets away from the
address, Rune wasn’t sure COS and their greasy ringleader, Bach Horner, weren’t
already aware of their presence.

They hadn’t even taken much trouble to conceal themselves.
Either they were that arrogant, or they had a plan.

She was betting on the plan.

It was the middle of the morning. Somehow it didn’t seem
right. Battling COS was a nighttime kind of act.

She put her cell in the glove box and left her car as the
men parked behind her.

Across the street a half-lit bar sign flashed. A man lurked
in the bar’s doorway, watching them. Two doors down a thin woman in a black
coat and a knit hat stood poised to go inside a decrepit sex shop. She spit in
their direction and then disappeared into the dark depths of the store.

“Welcome to the Moor,” Rune muttered, and pulled her guns.

When they reached the house inside which COS had planted
themselves, Rune, Owen, and Jack went to the front, while Raze and Strad
covered the back.

It was a white, two-story house, not in bad shape
comparatively speaking. In the Moor, most of the houses were ramshackle and the
buildings were crumbling.

Except for her new house.
It was
like a diamond sparkling amidst the ruins. Probably not for long, but so far it
hadn’t been burned or otherwise destroyed.

“We
knocking?”
Jack asked.

She shook her head. “We’re kicking. Take the fucking door
out, Jack, and let’s go in blazing. I want Lex and the twins.”

She stood at the side with her guns ready as Jack kicked in
the door. In seconds, they were inside.

But no one else was.

“What the fuck?” she said. “Strad was told they were here.”

“Somebody lied,” Owen answered.

They looked up when Strad and Raze walked into the living
room.

“I’ll check the basement,” Strad said.

She hugged her arms against a sudden chill, pacing the
floor. “Something isn’t right.”

Jack nodded. “Even I feel it. And you all know I’m not the
most sensitive of individuals.”

The landline inside the house began ringing. Rune lunged
toward it, nearly ripping it from the wall in her hurry to answer. “This is
Rune.”

“And this is Bach Horner,” he said.

“Black Horror,” she murmured, forced to lean close to the
phone. The phone was an old one, and the curly cord connecting the earpiece to
the base was short.

“Pardon?”

She cleared her throat and wished her heart wasn’t beating
quite so hard. After the staking, that was a little painful.
“Nothing.
Where is my crew?”

“I’ve talked with our leaders,” he said, not answering her
question. “And we’ve come to a decision.”

“Why don’t you tell me this decision,
asshole?”
She didn’t want to antagonize him, she really didn’t. But she
was so angry.
So afraid.

“That’s uncalled for. I’ve been nothing but courteous to
you.”

“You took Lex and the twins. God knows what you’ve been
doing to them. In my book, that’s not being courteous. That’s being a piece of
shit and will get you killed.”

He sighed. “I’m being nice, Ms. Alexander, by bothering to
explain to you that the three we’ve taken are back where they belong. You will
have to stop.”

For a second she couldn’t speak. Strad had come back up from
the basement and stood staring at her.
Waiting.

“I will never stop,” she said, finally.

“Lex and the twins are COS—a fact you should have accepted
by now. Why, Lex doesn’t even
want
to leave.”

It was a trap. A fucking trap in the Moor, and she’d walked
right into it.

She swayed on her feet as spots began to dance before her
eyes.
Get out,
she mouthed to Strad.
Out.
Now.

“She would rather die than be in the church,” she said,
hoping her voice was calm.

The men headed quietly for the front door.

No doubt it was a bomb—COS loved blowing shit up. She darted
her gaze frantically around the room.

What would trigger it?

Hanging up the phone? Walking across a certain spot?

What?

The crew eased out the door, and once they were outside,
Rune breathed a little easier. “So what have you planned for me? You rigged
this house with explosives?”

“I knew you were sharp.” He paused. “Did you warn your men?
I’d rather have taken you all out, but you’ll do, Ms. Alexander. You’ll do.”

“Why?”

“Karin hates you. The church hates you. You’ve insulted her.
You addicted one of our men to your filthy blood and sent him to prison to
suffer. You’re our enemy and you’ll hunt COS until you die. So we’ve decided
you need to die soon.”

“I’m immortal,” she said.

“Likely you are,” he agreed. “But there are some things even
the immortal can’t come back from.”

So a bomb.

She looked up and realized her men hadn’t left the porch.
Strad stuck his head back into the room. “Let’s go, Rune. Come on.
Now.”

“Don’t fight me on this, Berserker. Get the fuck away from
this house.” She glanced down at her feet. “Am I standing on the trigger?” she
asked Bach.

“Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t. But you will not escape
the house.”

She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds coming from
the phone. She heard the call of a Blue Jay, and finally, the lonely, eerie
whistle of a distant train.

She put her fingers over the mouthpiece. “I think they’re in
Hawthorne Forest,” she told Strad. She wasn’t afraid—not for herself. “When I
move, I’m going to trigger a bomb. I need you not to argue with me. Get away
from this house.”

Raze, Owen, and Jack walked up to stand beside Strad. “We’ll
leave when you leave,” Strad said.

“I might die,” she said. “I’m not taking you with me.
Standing there is stupid. If we all die, Lex and the twins are lost.”

She gave them a minute to think about it.

“Boys, you know I’m fast.”

“Not that fast,” Raze said. “Why is it we’re always on the
verge of losing you?”

She shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

Jack adjusted his eye patch nervously. “Fuck, Rune.”

She smiled. “If I’m blown to bits, don’t stop until you have
Lex and the twins. And destroy COS. Every time you see a new branch, destroy
it.”

“You know we will,” Strad said, his voice hoarse. “Be fast,
Rune. Faster than you’ve ever been.”

“I’ll give it my best shot. You guys take off.” She grinned.
“Go on, now.”

Owen was the only one who returned her smile. “See you on
the other side.”

They lingered, lingered just long enough to make her afraid
they’d refuse to see reason and would be killed with her.

But then, finally, they melted away and left her alone.

Alone with the bomb.