Night Series Collection: Books 1 and 2 (35 page)

My nostrils flared at the implication. “Alone? That’s what you’re saying, right?”

Did she think I had stupid tattooed on my head? Did she really think for a second that I would just blindly walk into another trap? Clearly Grace wasn’t as smart as I’d originally thought her to be.

“I don’t think so,” I finished, tossing myself back and shaking my head. “I barely got out of the last assignment alive, or have you forgotten?”

She licked her front teeth and the meaning glimmering behind her eyes was completely closed off to me. Grace was shielding herself in a way she never had before. Maybe she wasn’t naïve after all.

I don’t know—obviously at this point I was a feather tossed about in choppy winds. Questioning everything, having no definitive answers for anything. Story of my life these last two weeks.

“I’ve forgotten nothing,” she muttered. “Take someone with you then, anyone you trust. I don’t care, just find that hive.”

And there was a “but” in there, I sensed it, felt the word dancing on her tongue… but it never came out, which left me feeling sort of like I was standing on tiptoe at the top of a sheer drop, a hundred miles up in the air, that sort of breathless anticipation of possibility. I shook my head.

“That it?”

She nodded. “For now.” Rubbing her skull, she winced and huddled so far into the recliner that she was in danger of disappearing within its overstuffed folds. Grace was a hundred pounds soaking wet, if that. And today she was looking more lethargic and just plain old and human than she normally did.

She sighed. “Once you find them, come back to me, let me know where, and you’ll get the next set of orders.”

“And the bodies littering the town? You telling me that has something to do with
our
zombies? ’Cause last I checked, those rotten corpses weren’t exactly known for their speed. If they really are in the ranges, how are they making it all the way out here without anyone detecting them?”

Damn, wasn’t that the crap Grace should have been thinking of already? It wasn’t passing the common-sense test. Zombies were almost indestructible, mainly because it didn’t matter what you did to their bodies, they still moved on. They didn’t need to breathe or even take a dump to survive. They were a lot like roaches that way. A nuclear holocaust would probably not be enough to snuff the bastards out.

She cocked her head. “Dora?”

My name was an obvious question and there was a wealth of meaning hidden in that one word. A million different questions, none of which I had answers for. Her eyes held an edge of freneticism to them. Gray, bushy brows lowered over a set of blue eyes that gleamed just as intelligently today as they had thirty years ago. Bird chest puffing in and out, Grace appeared to be struggling with something.

Lifting a brow, I waited for her to finish her thought.

Her smile was grim as she said, “I’m glad you’re okay. You know that, right?”

I snorted. “Yup. Sure, I know that, Grace.” And with that lie echoing between us, I stood and slid the manila envelope behind my back so that it poked out of the top of my jeans. Patting my shirt back into place, I nodded.

“Guess I’ll call you?”

“Aye. Godspeed.”

It took everything I possessed not to spit in her face, and invoking God’s name while addressing me… She was more blasphemous than I could, or would, ever be. I didn’t look back, I didn’t hug her good-bye, and if she suspected why, I really didn’t give a damn either.

Grace’s days were numbered.

She would die and I was the hand of judgment. Grace loved quoting her Bible verses, and as I walked out the door, I muttered one under my breath. Not just words, but a promise to myself, to her, to Kemen.

“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.”

L
ast Friday we’d set up the carnival. We weren’t that far outside Mexico City, fifty miles or so, which meant we had a nice, steady stream of prey not only from the local village but from the big city as well, but this crowd of about five hundred was nothing compared to the crowd we’d get on the first and second.

In two days it’d be November. Halloween wasn’t a big deal in this part of the world, but
Día de Los Muertos
was. Already I’d seen about twenty banners nailed to the sides of businesses proclaiming the holiday and activities and events planned around it.

One of them was the parade we’d been hosting every year for the past seven. This year Vyxen was in charge of ceremonies. I couldn’t wait to see what she had planned. And yes, I am being sarcastic.

Shoving my hands into my pockets, I felt oddly hungry.

My kind really doesn’t need to eat, at least not food, to survive. We’re each inhabited by one of the seven deadly sins. Some of us, like myself, carry around extra demons, but in order to survive, we have to frequently feed whatever major demon possesses us. In my case, Lust. Which means my form of “food” is usually sex. Without it, I grow weaker than a mortal and easy prey for any of my hundreds of enemies out there.

So it was strange that my stomach was grumbling. I’ve gone days at a stretch without actual food before and usually only eat because I’m craving something, as opposed to feeling I might die of starvation. I’m not quite there yet, but I felt strangely compelled to get something.

Stomach rumbling, I followed the heady scent trail of roasted meat to the nearest outdoor food vendor. A large group of guys and one girl were laughing and hanging out by the bar area, shoveling homemade tacos into their mouths. The griddle snapped with steak grease. The cook was an elderly woman flipping tortillas with one hand while stirring her meat-and-veggie concoction with the other. Her movements were brisk and efficient and she was clearly ambidextrous.

My mouth was literally watering, which felt good.

I smiled because I hadn’t felt this sort of anticipation for anything in the past but sex. The novelty intrigued me.

Holding up two fingers to the young girl standing in front of a tray of fresh lettuce, radishes, crema, and cheese, I placed my order. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen, fifteen tops. Her cheeks were flushed a bright red from the heat emanating off the griddle and her liquid black hair was pulled back into a tight bun. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand and nodded at me, and her eyes instantly caught my attention.

One was brown and the other green. It’s both rare and beautiful. And for a second I was so tempted to pretend I really am normal and can just enjoy tacos for dinner and not worry about freaking zombies, or prophecies, or Hell, or even that damn Billy.

I was entranced by her speedy movements, how she shoveled a perfect scoop of meat, then slapped on my garnishes, and in probably less than a minute was sliding my plate to me. It was a Monday night—in the States she’d be at home, finishing up homework, getting ready for school the next day, or more than likely talking to her BFF on the phone and gossiping about boys.

But things move differently here—it’s a juxtaposition I’ve always enjoyed.

I wasn’t looking to find a “date” tonight, so I made sure to go to the farthest end of the makeshift countertop before I took a seat. The first bite was an explosion of crunchy brown steak, caramelized onions, and pungent garlic. Somewhere in there I even tasted a faint hint of chili pepper, a staple in this part of the world.

The cook’s brow was total concentration as she flipped and stirred; her lined brown skin and arthritis-crippled fingers didn’t seem to slow her down one bit. She had the reflexes of a woman half her age, and somewhere in the middle of my maudlin thoughts I got shoved into from behind, causing the delicious meat cocooned in my tortilla wrapper to spill down the front of my white shirt.

Snarling, an explosion of fury consumed me. I didn’t think or reason; I was a creature of “feel.” I grabbed the wrist of the culprit and felt Pestilence slink excitedly through me, felt the frosty shock of the demon exiting me and entering the man. And if I hadn’t been lost to the anger, I would have realized just what I was doing.

The second my conscience caught up to my reflexes, I jerked my hand back, horrified at my actions, waiting to see the boils and pus appear, to smell the stench of rotting flesh. To witness the horrors of pestilence gone mad.

But the man standing in front of me only blinked with a dazed expression on his strangely familiar face. His bronze skin was coated in sweat, and his pupils were very dilated. The black nearly overwhelmed the brown irises, but he wasn’t reacting like he’d just been envenomed by my poison, more like he was already in the grips of some other hell.

Then two things happened simultaneously. The part of my brain that kept thinking I’d seen his bloated face before realized I hadn’t been experiencing a weird case of déjà vu; no, this was Tubby from the bar and Skinny was nowhere to be seen. And as I registered this, he stumbled so hard that he backed into the group of guys at the other end of the counter.

Beers and food were spilled, and Tubby got shoved back violently that he tripped over his booted foot, falling into a brackish puddle of water in an ungraceful heap.

My heart was hammering in my throat because I felt like I was outside myself, stunned as I watched this scene unfold. I’d touched that man, poured Pestilence into him. Apart from looking dazed, he wasn’t really responsive. So was he infected or wasn’t he? And if he was, was the man who pushed him?

Licking my lips as the magnitude of what I’d just done slapped me in the face, I whipped my neck back and forth between Tubby and the guy who’d pushed him, looking like some broken marionette doll as I tried to figure out whether I’d just caused the start of the bubonic plague
two point oh
.

The guy who did the pushing was laughing and tossing his arms around the girl with him. Tubby, however, was still just sitting there, his mouth opening and closing, and then he started moaning gibberish.

“Crap,” I bit out as I knelt beside him. Whether he was infected or not, I couldn’t leave him there. Something was definitely not right.

“Hey,” I snapped at him. From this distance, I could smell his rancid sweat and the stench of decay offended my nostrils. It was a sweet, sour, putrid kind of odor. Kind of like a mix between almonds and ten-day-old beef melt. He smelled like a corpse, but he definitely wasn’t dead and I already knew he wasn’t zombie, at least not yet, anyway. But he’d been around something that left a mark on him.

He didn’t even turn in my direction. The group of people only now seemed to be aware that something was very off about the situation. No longer laughing, they stared in wide-eyed shock at the two of us. I could feel the weighted press of their gazes as they tried to figure it all out.

“You.” I turned to the guy who’d shoved him.

A flare of panic flickered through his green eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt him, I swear. I thought he was drunk,” he stuttered in Spanish.

Tubby was leaning his entire body weight on me now, heaving and panting, his breaths choppy and painful to hear.

I might look small, but I’m plenty strong. Even so, the weight of him pressing into my thighs made them tingle with restricted blood flow.

I shook my head as the pusher started trying to back out of there. “You stay here,” I growled. He couldn’t go anywhere—I had to monitor him and make sure that what I’d poured into Tubby couldn’t transfer to him just with touch.

I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but his skin was definitely starting to look shinier, and it definitely felt clammier. My heart sank. I hoped I was wrong.

He didn’t answer, just grabbed his girlfriend’s hand and tried to beat a path out of there.

“Damn it all to hell,” I muttered under my breath, completely unsure what I should do. Leave Tubby and race after the other guy, or stay here and lose him, potentially allowing a ticking time bomb to move out and infect others?

I’d never had this happen before. I didn’t know if Pestilence spread through contact, was airborne, or if it was self-contained within the object I touch. But the way Billy had demanded I suck it back in, I had a horrible feeling I wouldn’t be so lucky.

“Don’t touch him!” I stood up and pointed at Tubby, who was now curled in the fetal position with half his face in the water.

Several cell phones were out and if I had to guess, a call or two had already been placed to emergency services. This had turned into an effing cluster. At least one thing I knew, no one was even trying to come to his aid. They were all keeping a healthy distance from him. You wouldn’t need a sensitive nose like mine to smell the stench wafting off him.

“You”—I pointed at the young woman who’d made my tacos—“watch him, please. Don’t let anyone touch him. Anyone,” I said, stressing it with a firm shake of my head.

Swallowing hard, she agreed.

This was one of the few times I wished I weren’t a technology hater, because a cell phone could have really come in handy. Then again, it’s not like I had a single number memorized. I cringed, realizing Luc might be right after all about it being time for me to fully embrace the twenty-first century.

Pusher and girlfriend are gone, but I knew I couldn’t let them get far. Following their scent trail of spilled beer and greasy meat, I twisted and turned down crowded streets, making sure to keep a lock on Pestilence.

I worried that it would take me too long to find them, or that I might not be able to find them at all. So I was stunned when less than five minutes later, I literally stumbled across their bodies. They were lying facedown in the red dirt road, huddled together right outside a closed gate that led to a graveyard of discarded metal, moaning and clutching their stomachs as they grunted and groaned with horrible, inhuman noises.

Then the woman suddenly shot up and crawled on her hands and knees a little distance off, where she began heaving green chunks. The man was going into a seizure of sorts.

While I tried to assess who was worse off, a pack of dogs with their ribs poking out and mangy-looking spots on their coats began to circle the two of them like sharks, sticking their black noses up in the air as they sniffed and whined with obvious interest.