Vampire's Hunger (9 page)

“No! Maddalene, you’ve gone too far.” Duncan took a step forward. “We’ve talked about this—”

“And the time for talk has passed.” The vampire queen rose to her feet and stared down at Kimber. “I will give you forty-eight hours to think on this, Kimberly. After that, your fate and that of your friends is in my hands. Whatever the outcome, know that it’s because of your decision.” She waved one hand. “You may rejoin your friends while Duncan and I chat further.”

Kimber fought down her panic and left the room without looking at Duncan. She was afraid of what she’d see—either a reassuring glance that wouldn’t convince her, or an expression of frustration and dismay that would only increase her own alarm. As soon as she left Maddalene’s chambers she realized that the two vampires who’d been guarding the door to Duncan’s suite were no longer there. “Shit,” she muttered and sprinted to Duncan’s. With another grumbled imprecation, she threw open the door. Natalie and Bishop both looked up from where they were still seated, alive and well, on the sofa. Relief weakened her knees so that she almost fell. She closed the door behind her.

“What is it?” Natalie cried out, jumping to her feet. She rushed over to Kimber and grabbed her arm. “What’s wrong?”

“The guards are gone,” Kimber whispered. “I was afraid…”

“We’re fine,” Bishop said, coming over to them. “We didn’t even know they were gone.” He glanced at Natalie and then looked at Kimber again. “I wonder why they left.”

Kimber remembered the vampire queen sending the human out of the room. “I think Maddalene’s making a point,” she said softly. She wandered over to the sofa and plopped down. The other two sat beside her. “She wants me to resurrect a Lazarus that’s over a hundred years old.”

“What?” Natalie leaned back against the arm of the couch. “She can’t be serious. No one’s ever raised one that old.”

“And there’s a good reason why,” Kimber said. “I’ve only once had to reanimate someone who’d been dead twenty years, and I slept for a week afterward. Well, when the nightmares would let me sleep.”

“Nightmares?” Bishop asked, bracing an arm against one thigh.

While Bishop had seen her in action as a necromancer, he’d never seen the aftermath. “Whenever I tap into the Unseen,” she told him, “I have nightmares afterward. Most necromancers do. I think it’s the residual magic of that plane lingering inside me, and it has to have an outlet.” She gave a slight shrug. “Apparently terror works well.”

“I had no idea.” Bishop leaned toward her. “And if you tried to reanimate a corpse that’s over a hundred years old?”

Kimber shook her head. “I don’t even want to think about it,” she said with a sigh. “That week, the one where I had nightmares every time I fell asleep… I thought I was going to lose my mind.”

She didn’t want to think about that week. It had been before the Outbreak, before Duncan had come into her life. It had been just her and Natalie, and thank God Natalie had been there with her, soothing her every time she screamed herself awake. She never wanted to go through that again. Ever.

She glanced at her friends. “To do what Maddalene wants me to, I’d have to tap so deep into the Unseen, I don’t know if I’d survive it.” She glanced at her friends. “At least not with my sanity intact.”

Before either of her friends could respond, the door opened. Rather than Duncan, three gaunt, red-eyed-with-hunger vamps walked into the room.

“Oh, shit,” Natalie breathed.

Kimber agreed completely.

*  *  *

“You’ve gone too far, Maddalene.” Duncan paced in front of her chaise. “Threatening Kimber and her friends isn’t the way to get her to cooperate.”

“I think it’s the perfect way.” The vampire queen’s upper lip lifted in a snarl, showing the sharp tips of her fangs. “If I cannot cajole her cooperation, I’ll coerce it.” She stabbed her forefinger at him. “And you will help.”

“No.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I think I misheard you, my sweet. What did you say?”

“You heard me right, Maddalene. I’m not going to coerce Kimber into raising Eduardo for you. I’m not even sure it can be done, especially now. It’s the magic of the Unseen that has given us our current zombie…problem. We ourselves are nothing but reanimated corpses, perhaps even by the same magic.”

“Exactly! Zombies have no real impact on our way of life. There are still plenty of humans to go around. Why, we could even offer them a safe haven from the hordes. For a price of blood of course. This may have been the best thing that could have happened to us!”

She was crazy. He’d suspected it before, more than once, but for her to think that the zombie apocalypse was good for vampires was the ultimate insanity.

“We are of the Unseen; you said it yourself. Don’t you see, Duncan, why it would be possible, then?” She stood and glided off the platform to stand in front of him, blocking him from pacing, and stroked her hand down his forearm to clasp his hand. Her slender hand felt frail curled around his, but he knew she had preternatural strength equal to or perhaps even greater than his. She’d never told him her age, but he knew she was old. Much older than he was. He had never underestimated her and he wasn’t about to now.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“If we are animated by the Unseen, then Eduardo can be brought back. Returned to me as if our enemies had never taken him away. And he can celebrate their demise with me.”

“But why, Maddalene?” He kept his voice gentle and let some of his confusion show through. “He’s been gone a year now. I thought you’d come to terms with his true death.”

Her eyes snapped with heat. “Never. I will never accept his true death. He is my mate, Duncan. My partner.” She dropped his hand and returned to her chaise. As she settled on it, she waved one hand in dismissal. “And you will assist in his return.”

He ground his jaw. There was no talking to her when she went into her regal mode. He’d have to find another way. With a bow of his head, he turned and left the room. As he entered the empty hallway, he frowned. Where were the two guards he’d assigned to his quarters? He ran the few yards to his door and flung it open. He roared at what he saw.

Three emaciated vampires surrounded Kimber, Natalie, and Bishop. Kimber held one of the fire pokers, Bishop had taken up a burning log, and Natalie had her short sword. They appeared unharmed and relief mingled with his rage.

At Duncan’s entry the vampires turned and shrunk back from him. “These humans are here under my protection,” he said as he stalked forward. He curled his fingers into his palms. “Get out.”

They hesitated. One of them eyed Kimber and ran his tongue over his cracked lips. “But the queen told us—”

Duncan snarled, showing his fangs, and grabbed the vamp. With a quick wrench he broke the vampire’s neck and let the body fall. The broken neck would heal, but with the vampire as underfed as he was it would take a long time. Duncan looked at the other two. “Would either of you care to tell me what the queen said?” When they shook their heads, he motioned to the body on the floor. “Take your friend and get out. And from now on my quarters are off limits to you.”

“Yes, sir.” They grabbed their fallen comrade beneath his arms and dragged him out of the room.

Duncan looked at Kimber and the others. “Let’s get out of here.”

Bishop tossed the log back into the fireplace, though Kimber held on to the poker. Her hatchet still hung from one of her belt loops. The three humans followed Duncan out of the room and exited the complex without question. Once they were near the front gates, Kimber asked, “What the hell was that all about? I thought you said we’d be safe there.”

His jaw tightened but he didn’t respond.

Kimber grabbed his arm. “Duncan. You
said
we’d be safe.”

When he looked at her, he knew his eyes had gone silver with rage, knew that his irises were rimmed with crimson. Not all of it was fury. Some of it was good old-fashioned lust, the desire to take his woman and claim her, to pierce her with fangs and cock. “I will die before I let something happen to you.” His voice was guttural, nearly inhuman.

Damn Maddalene. Damn her and her ill-advised quest. Damn his own need. He would protect Kimber from the other vampires, but who would protect her from him?

Chapter Five

S
o what did Maddalene say?” Kimber asked Duncan, keeping her voice low as they made their way back to the apartment complex. It was still dark, though the moon was bright enough that they didn’t need to use their flashlights. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Natalie and Bishop were still right behind them.

Duncan shook his head and refused to answer her question.

She frowned up at him. “What, it’s top secret?”

“Something like that,” he muttered.

“Frickin’ vampires,” she responded in a grumble. She glanced at him. “Did she really mean for those vamps to chow down on us, or was she just showing me that they could?”

“It was a demonstration of power.” His green eyes glittered with shards of vampire silver. “She wouldn’t dare harm someone I’ve placed under my protection.”

She stared at him. “Are you sure about that? Because that wasn’t the impression I got.” She started to say more but stopped when he held up a hand. Then she heard them. Zombies. A lot of them.

The sound they made was like the air escaping from rotted bagpipes. Dull and monotonous, a broken sound, an unnatural sound, and it was getting louder. Closer.

Shit.

They were still at least a mile away from her apartment building, and at least that far from the vampire conclave. Caught in the middle, two directions they could go, and from the sound of things they were going to have to fight their way through zombies regardless of which way they headed. She caught Duncan’s glance. “My place,” she whispered even as she knew she had to let the others give their input. But she sure as hell wasn’t ready to head back into vamp city to be subjected to another demonstration of just how easily she and her friends could become vampire Slurpees.

She sidled up next to Duncan, pressed against the side of the old headquarters of a bank. A tattered and faded poster from the CDC stuck to the brick. Some bastard had had a sense of humor, plastering a
Don’t be a zombie, be prepared
poster on the wall. The CDC had put those together for fun, and at the time Kimber had appreciated the sense of humor. She didn’t so much now.

She peered around the corner of a building. At least twenty, maybe as many as thirty zombies shuffled forward, mouths wide open, arms outstretched. Rotting remnants of clothing hung from emaciated, decaying flesh. Their putrid stench was overpowering, filling her nose. Bile rose in her throat.

Swallowing, she battled back the urge to vomit and glanced over her shoulder. God. At least as many of the undead shufflers were coming up from behind them. She glanced at Natalie and jerked her head to direct her friend’s attention behind them.

“Oh, my God,” the other woman whispered. “Where’s that damn fairy and his mighty sword when you need him?” Her gaze darted over the horde. Face paling, she gasped. “
Ohgodohgodwe’regonnadie
.”

Bishop’s jaw flexed. “Leave the hysterics up to me, would you? I’ve got it down to a science.” His voice never wavered from the calm, collected tones he was known for.

Duncan raised an eyebrow but otherwise didn’t comment.

Kimber did her best to ignore the antics of both of them. “We either head forward to the safety of the apartment,” she whispered, “or go back to Maddalene’s.”

“I vote to go forward,” Bishop muttered. His hard gaze suggested he was as unwilling to provide a meal for the hungry vamps as she was.

“Me, too,” Natalie said softly.

Duncan blew out a sigh. “Let’s go, then.” His silvered eyes flicked to each of them. “Stay close. Do not get separated from the group.”

Facing a horde alone was almost certainly a death sentence. The old adage “safety in numbers” had never been truer than it was in the zombie apocalypse.

They moved forward as a cohesive unit. With Duncan in the lead, they cut a swath through the horde in front. At one point Kimber became trapped against the rusted frame of an old Buick, holding a female zombie away with stiffened arms against the emaciated shoulders, unable to bring the fire poker up to defend herself.

Duncan yanked the zombie away from Kimber and drove his crowbar through the undead thing’s forehead. He let the body drop to the ground and grabbed Kimber’s hand. “Stop fucking around,” he muttered.

She shot him a glare. “Give me a break. It’s not like I was playing with her.”

One corner of his sensual mouth kicked up in a grin. God. Even with zombies all around, his good looks made her breath hitch in her throat.
Not now, Kimber.

Grumbling, she rushed the next zombie and the next, until they were down to only about half a dozen between them and the safety of the apartment complex. She glanced behind her to see those zombies were still shuffling forward. “Let’s make tracks, people,” she yelled.

Bishop dispatched a zombie and, as the body fell, he shouted, “Hoo-frickin’-yah!”

Duncan and Natalie took out a zombie each. Kimber shoved the fire poker through the eye of another one, cursing when the hooked end got hung up in the skull. Muttering another flaming cuss word, she let go of the poker and slid her hatchet from her belt.