A Little Undead (13 page)

I
wasn't sure whether to envy or despise them for their carefree
nature. But this is what everyone was fighting for, wasn't it. A
lasting peace. At this point I'd settle for a one-night reprieve.
“Holly, I need to talk with you for a moment.”

Her
lips parted slightly but she recovered quickly and said her goodbyes
to her friends. “So, what's up?” We walked along the
college square, birds flitting through the falling blossoms. I
forced myself to take another bite of the exceedingly bland muffin
before answering.

“
I
sort of need a place to stay tonight.” It was a bit
embarrassing to ask my little sister for a favor like this, but I had
no desire to spend another night in my apartment's bathroom. Another
night alone there and I'd probably have a nervous breakdown. Any
illusion of safety the deadbolt on the apartment door had given me
was long since shattered.

“
Is
that all? Come on, I wanted to show you my room anyways.” And
so, after being dragged through the halls to the dorms, I was met
with perhaps the most entertaining surprise of the week, if not the
most shocking. “So, do you like it?”

Well,
it was neat, I'd give her that. She hadn't done half so well keeping
her side of the room clean at home. The wall-to-wall penguin motif
was giving me a qualm or two though. Posters, plushies, even a
bobble-head. “It's a little... penguin-heavy, don't you
think?”

“
What's
wrong with penguins?” Her hand went to her hip as she glared
down at me.

“
Nothing,
I suppose. Does feel a little like an avian invasion though.”

“
I
got the box of them for five credits, it's not like I'm an addict or
something.” She took off her backpack and sweater before
diving on the penguin comforter neatly folded on her bed.

“
Err,
right.” It was just a single occupant room, otherwise I doubt
she would have gotten away with so many penguins. The room was small
but not suffocating, a little bed tucked in the corner with a desk
and chair by the door were about it for furniture. Since it was on
the third floor the window was relatively large, though still barred.
Height, after all, was not always a sufficient defense against
ferals or some of the more agile red-eyes. Still, I think I would
have preferred leaving an alternative escape route. Unlike on the
frontier, the game-plan in Boston was just to lock everything down to
keep losses at a minimum and then pray either the police or the
military made it in time.

“
You
might as well sit on the bed,” said Holly. “That chair
really isn't worth using, you'd be sore in ten minutes.”

After
lying in a tree for most of the afternoon my heart really wasn't in
it but I offered the obligatory, “I can sleep on the floor or
something if you have an extra blanket.”

“
Don't
worry about it.” Resistance crumbling I lay down at the corner
of the bed, curling myself against the wall. The painted cement was
a bit chill, but after a moment or two it was comfortable enough.

I
fiddled with an old quarter I'd found in the park while Holly studied
from her Organic Chemistry textbook. It didn't take long before I
had it flying over my knuckles. Maybe if things went poorly I could
still become a street magician. Obsidian nails wouldn't even look
out of place.

“
So,
want to talk about why you're not at your apartment?” asked
Holly. The quarter went flying, clicking into the window. “I
guess that's a no.”

I
wiped my eyes, furious at myself for crying again. I'd gone three
years without a tear before coming to Boston. Now I felt like a
leaky faucet. “Holly, I really messed up this time. I don't
know what I'm supposed to do.” My voice trailed off at the
end, just as lost as I was. Even now, when I looked mostly normal,
my body felt alien. I could smell her blood, like the others. The
only comfort was that my fangs weren't growing and I didn't feel
quite the same urge to drink from her as I did towards others. At
least my subconscious was finally doing something right, if it had
labeled her as off-limits for food.

“
Come
here.” Her warm arms wrapped around me, chin resting on my
head. “It's okay, we'll work it out.”

My
shoulders dipped, closing me off from her. “I'm not a child,
stop treating me like one.”

“
You're
my sister.” Somehow, that simple line was enough. Relaxing
for the first time in ages, I collapsed against her, consciousness
drifting away.

Chapter
5:
Scapegoat

Morn came and
went—and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot
their passions in the dread

Of this their
desolation; and all hearts

Were chill'd
into a selfish prayer for light:

And they did
live by watchfires—and the thrones,

The palaces of
crowned kings—the huts,

The habitations
of all things which dwell,

Were burnt for
beacons; cities were consum'd,

And men were
gather'd round their blazing homes

To look once
more into each other's face.

–
Lord Byron,
“Darkness”

I
woke blissfully content. Arms surrounded me, not constricting, but
as a blanket of security and warmth. My head lay on her stomach, and
I was more than happy to be carried along by the slow rise and fall
of her lungs. It was night now, and my senses were stronger. The
half-noticed weight of the sun through the walls of the college was
gone. I felt as light as a feather, and though I could clearly sense
the sound of Holly's beating heart and practically taste her
vanilla-scented blood it appeared that my unnatural hunger was
blessedly subdued. I didn't question it, enjoying my state of
languor as my dreams of the cellist's songs slowly faded into the
recesses of my mind.

A
new aroma reached me, then another and another. My quarter-grown
claws readied as animal instincts warned me of something that my
conscious mind had not yet grasped. Like a horrible case of deja
vu the door crashed open, compressed air sending papers around the
room scattering. Jerking at the sudden sound, Holly's panicked
awakening sent me sprawling to the floor.

“
Stay
down! Don't move!” Like harbingers of doom the SWAT members
pushed into the room, looming like titans above us.

I
stayed still but it felt like I was on fire, every muscle in my body
aching to snap into action. One of them grabbed Holly, pulling her
away from me. “Stop, she has nothing to do with this,” I
pleaded. Another policeman pressed down on my shoulder as he pulled
out handcuffs. A throaty, animal snarl shook the room as I reacted
without thinking, hand swinging towards his throat.

'
What
am I doing?'
I stopped my hand
inches away from what would have been a killing strike with my
newfound strength. It was useless fighting so many anyways, and I
didn't want more blood on my hands. A series of blows hit me a
moment later, oblivion following shortly thereafter.

My hands tensed as I drew in a
deep breath, eyes closed against the harsh electric light shining
above me. The wipe-clean pillow beneath my head was stiff, the
mattress even more so. My hands went to my waist, confirming the loss
of my remaining cash. My sandals, for reasons unknown to me, had
been switched with some sort of rough slipper. The drunken snores
coming from someone down the hall were enough to convince me of the
situation without even opening my eyes: I, Julie Fisher, newly
graduated police officer, was currently stuck on the wrong side of
the cell's bars. I might as well have burned my snazzy new police
uniform for all the chance I had of ever wearing it again. With my
luck even my rather childish, insecurity-causing T-shirt and blue
jeans would soon be replaced with a hideously oversized prison
jumpsuit.

I wanted to say it was a grave
injustice, that I hadn't done anything wrong, that this was all just
a mistake. That last bit might have actually been true, on my part
anyways. Still, try as I might, the sensation of sucking the life out
of that man was nearly all I could think of. As fuzzy and primal as
my thoughts had been when I attacked him, the memory of biting into
him like a cheeseburger and the feeling of dominance it inspired was
all too vivid. If nothing else they had me on resisting arrest.
Certainly wouldn't gain me any favors in court, and bail would be out
of the question even if anyone I knew could afford it. Given my
short stature and gender I wouldn't qualify for a pardon either –
though as those pardons were earned by acting as glorified zombie
bait on military salvage missions it was hardly as if it was a golden
option in the first place.

Funny, I was worried about a
resisting arrest charge when I'd left blood and a knife with my
fingerprints on it next to Penny's cooling corpse. My teeth creaked
as I clenched my jaw. '
Even if all I did was try to save her.'
But that wasn't all, was it.
She never would have been in that alley if she hadn't been looking
for me.

My fingers gripped the sides of
the mattress only to relax a moment later. Grudgingly I pried my eyes
open to observe the stark cell.
'It could be worse.'
The
toilet was thankfully hidden behind a chest-high partition. Fred,
master of the many cameras, could probably still see me wherever I
went, but at least I wouldn't have to deal with random passerby
gawking at me. Regardless, I wouldn't be here long. No, unfortunately
soon I'd move to a courtroom and then...
‘They’ll send
to the madhouse for being a psychopath with a vampire fetish the
moment I try and tell my side of the story.'
I curled into a
ball, arms hugging my knees tight to my chest.

I snapped upwards to a sitting
position, eyes raking over my arms and legs as I pulled back each
sleeve.
'Nothing.'
Every cut, every bruise, all healed as if
they were never there at all. My nails were back to normal and
hopefully my eyes and fangs had followed suit. From what I could
remember before they knocked me out the policemen hadn't been shy
about showing their opinion of the suspected cop-killer. Yet here I
was, without even a bit of scuffed skin to show for it. How long
had it been? It was still dark outside my tiny window, but I'd never
slept more than seven hours a night that I could remember. Chances
were it hadn't been more than a few hours since they abducted me from
the college.

'Still, they should have
taken me to a hospital to check me out just in case, right?'
Maybe it had been Bruce. He had seemed to know a bit about dealing
with injuries and if he had given the go-ahead they might have just
decided to pass on the hospital visit.
'Maybe it was a case of
supernatural monsters sticking together and keeping doctor-types from
finding anything strange.'
I let my head fall back onto the
pillow.
'I think I want my refund on the get out of jail free card
from the monster union.'

Still, the more I thought about
it the harder time I had reconciling Bruce's actions with anything
approaching good will. As nice as he seemed to be, there was
something about him from the start that just rubbed me the wrong way.

“
Julie Fisher, please
place your arms through the grate.”

'Wonderful wake-up call, Fred
and a pair of handcuffs.'
Lifting myself out of bed with a sigh I
let him link my wrists. “I imagine your opinion of me just
keeps getting lower and lower, doesn't it?” The fellow standing
beside him grinned for a brief moment thinking it a joke before he
caught sight of Fred's frown. The silence was palpable as they guided
me through the station, various officers stopping to stare at me
briefly. I could practically read their thoughts from their faces.
'This little girl girl tossed a man ten feet through the air after
drinking his blood like some sort of chupacabra?'
Well,
the exact word chupacabra was probably a stretch even with Fred, but
still. “Is that man hurt badly?”

“
Jake or the one in a
coma?” responded Fred.

In truth I had already nearly
forgotten Jake's name. His face though, that I remembered quite
perfectly. That one brief visage of shock before he was gone. He had
tried to help me, in his own way. He was probably the closest thing
to a real friend I'd made since I got here. And now, unless I was
very mistaken, he was dead.
‘Probably tossed somewhere with
bite marks on his neck and a couple pints of blood missing at that.’
I wished the image of that
outcome wasn't so clear in my head.
“Is–” I
stopped. My fingers were twitching from curiosity and dread but
answers about either of them would have to wait. The last thing I
needed was an accidental admission of guilt. If Jake was somehow
alive then wonderful. If not, there was really nothing I could do
from behind bars.