Strange Trouble (19 page)

Strad called her before she’d covered half the third floor.
“You found her?”

“She’s in the wooded area across from the emergency
department.”

“I’m coming.”

She was careful until she left the floor,
then
she streaked down the stairs like lava from a volcano. Urgency made her heart
beat hard and fast, and familiar dread curled inside her stomach.

Little Stefanie was Amy all over again, and she wasn’t
letting anything happen. Not this time. Not to this kid.

Raze met her as she ran across the floor toward the exit
doors. “I called the others.”

“Good.” She hadn’t wanted to take the time.

Once outside, she left Raze behind as she ran almost full
out to where Strad waited. It was only then, when she stood beside him and he
ran searching fingers over the bandage on her chest that she realized her stake
wound was practically healed. It no longer hurt.

“Where is she?” She pulled away from the berserker’s touch,
impatient. She looked around. “And where is Lex?”

“Come with me.” He guided her with a hand to her back,
deeper into the small wooded area.

She spotted Lex. The
Other
vibrated
gently, her eyes dancing and her head slightly tilted.
Watching,
in her own mysterious way, the little girl.

Stefanie crouched upon the cold ground, her back to them.

She was dressed only in a tiny pair of pink pajamas. Her
feet were bare. She appeared not to notice as the crew gathered a short
distance behind her.

All her attention was on the small crowd of zombies standing
before her.

“Shit,” Rune murmured. “What is she doing?”

“Sometimes she whispers,” Lex said. “She’s talking to them.
She’s talking to the zombies.”

“Holy fuck,” Denim
said,
his voice
low. “What do you want us to do, Rune?”

“We can’t kill them while she watches.” She chewed on a
fingernail for a few seconds. “I’m going to talk to her. As soon as I get her
away, destroy them.”

She ignored the streams of empathy running through her. She
wanted to join Fie on the ground and stare at the zombies, who stood swaying
and quiet.

She could only imagine how the child felt. She wouldn’t be
able to force her emotions away.
Wouldn’t even want to.
In her little heart, she loved the zombies.

“They’re my friends,” she said softly, as Rune knelt beside
her. “Don’t take them.”

Rune ran a hand over Fie’s long hair, gently.
“Oh, sweetheart.
You have George. A lot of people care about
you.”

Fie looked at her then, taking her solemn gaze from the
zombies. The zombies stayed put. Not long ago she had trouble controlling one
zombie. Now she talked with Rune while controlling
eleven
of them.

“George won’t wake up.”

“I’m sorry, baby.”

Fie pointed at the zombies. “I want to go with them. I want
to live with my zombies.”

“You can’t do that, Fie.”

“They saved me. They saved me when the lady threw me away.”

Rune closed her eyes for a long, painful second. She had no
idea what to say. Not
an inkling
. She wanted to snatch
the child off the ground and run with her, run until the girl forgot her pain.

Kids were resilient, sure, but there had to be a limit to
what they could witness and experience and remain sane. There had to be.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat and said nothing.
She just didn’t know what to say.

Strad knelt on the other side of the child, his eyes holding
the same torment Rune felt. “Fie, I have a present for you.”

She looked at him quickly, interested. “What is it?”

Rune waited, as curious as the child.

“When I was chasing bad guys through the woods, I found a
little lost puppy. It was all alone, with no one to take care of it.”

“Just like me,” Fie said.

“The puppy needs you, sweetheart.” He held out a big hand.
“And you need the puppy. Can I bring him to you?”

She studied his hand for a long moment. Finally, she put her
hand in his. “Can we take the zombies, too?”

“No, little one.”

He stood, and she allowed him to lift her into his arms.

“Where is the puppy?” she asked.

Rune stood with them and took off her jacket, then wrapped
it around Fie’s cold body. As she and the berserker walked past the others, she
gave them a nod.

They’d get rid of the monsters.

“She’s so much stronger.” She looked at Strad as he carried
the child back into the hospital.
“Incredibly strong.”

“Because of the witch,” he replied.
“Just
as you were.”

Rune nodded. The child was a necromancer, and having been
inside and then spit out of the witch, she’d absorbed some of her power.

“I’ll bring you the puppy,” Strad told the child, when she
was once again ensconced in her room, surrounded by nurses and a woman from
social services.

“Where’s Lane?” Rune asked.

“On her way,” someone answered.

“I want my puppy.”

“I’ll bring it soon,” Strad promised.

One of the nurses was an older, frowning woman with short
gray hair and cold eyes.  She put her hands on her hips and shook her
head, not intimidated by the berserker. “You can’t bring pets in here, sir.”

Strad ignored her. He leaned down, murmuring something into
Fie’s ear that only she heard. Whatever it was, it made her eyes light up.

Rune had no doubt he’d sneak a puppy in to visit with the
girl. She also knew he hadn’t actually found a dog, but he would buy the cutest
puppy River County had to offer.

Following Strad’s lead, Rune leaned down to whisper in the
kid’s ear. “Baby, are you calling the zombies?”

Fie smoothed down the hair of her doll and refused to
answer.

Rune tried again. “We’re not angry with you. I just need to
know if you’ve brought them here.”

Fie sucked in her lower lip, but at last she turned to her
head to stare into Rune’s eyes. Then, slowly, she nodded.

Rune winked at her, then straightened to look at the
berserker. “Let’s go.”

Out in the hall, she told him what Fie had said. “I’m not
sure if she’s still bringing them from their graves or calling the ones that
are already here.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, ignoring
the people who stared at him as they walked by. “And we need to figure out how
to get her to stop.”

Rune rubbed a hand across her face and sighed. “She needs someone
to…train her, I guess.”

“How do
you
keep from calling them?”

Shame slapped her in the face.
Hard.
“Because I
can’t
call them.
Llodra took that
power.”

“There’s something still inside you. I saw you out there.
You felt it.”

The panic was immediate. “It was the fucking witch. I can’t
call the dead.”

“I think the witch’s magic sparked something already inside
you.”

Fuck if he wasn’t right. What did it mean? That she, too,
was a necromancer? She couldn’t control the vampires—that power had gone when
Llodra had sucked it out of her. But whatever the fuck magic made her master
the zombies, that was still there.

Strad was right. She still felt them. She put the back of
her hand to her mouth. “I don’t want it.”

“It’s who you are, sweetheart. It doesn’t make you evil.”

But it did.

And she was no longer able to sort out what had been the
witch, what
was the zombies
, and what was just…Rune
Alexander.

Super fucking monster.

“We have to concentrate on taking the zombies out,” Rune
said.

“More will come.” Raze folded his arms and stared at her,
waiting. Just as they all were.

She had no real answers. “Until the zombie threat is
neutralized, we have to do what we can. When they come in, we destroy them.”
But she knew as well as they did that was not going to solve the problem.

The zombies were spreading.

Everywhere.

Sure, Shiv Crew could put them down as they arrived, but it
was only a matter of time before someone was bitten.

Then he would bite someone else.

At least they no longer had to worry about the military
focusing on River County. The news was full of the new zombie infestation.

What had begun with little Fie and the witch was now
spreading out in a pulsating radius of horror.

No one wanted to state the obvious.

No one wanted to whisper words too terrible to give voice
to.

Zombie apocalypse.

It could happen. It could happen easily.

And if it did, the humans would be wiped out, leaving only
the
Others
.

A world of
Others
.

But now, the
Others
were being
infected again.

Everyone would die, except for those like her.

And what the fuck would the world become then?

Rune shivered with dread and glanced around at her crew. She
could barely function after the death of Z—the black depression and fear lurked
inside her, just waiting for a chance to grab her by the throat and make her
remember how she hated her immortality.

She couldn’t even imagine how much worse life would become
if she lost them all. No. She could not let that happen.

She and the crew had finally gotten a meal. Ellis, who’d
left the hospital and was even now ensconced with Rice in the boardroom, had
called three different restaurants before he’d found one willing to deliver
food to the RISC building.

Sitting around the break room tables relaxing and eating
with the crew would have been heaven if not for one thing.

The lack of activity, the quiet eating,
the relative and momentary peace—that made it harder for her to keep out the
bad shit.

Especially Z.

Lex stared down at her food as though she could see the
leafy greens and the meat sitting in a quickly congealing puddle of gravy.

She’d ridden back to RISC with Rune, had sat silently in her
darkness until Rune had forcibly yanked her out. “Talk to me Lex,” she’d
insisted.

“Every time COS makes an appearance, my brain shuts down,”
Lex finally said. “I can’t control my reactions. They control me.”

Rune nodded. “I know.”

“You don’t know some things.”

“I’m not sure I could handle knowing more,” Rune admitted.
The thought of what COS had done to Lex, what her own mother had done to her,
was enough to make Rune fly into a rage of bloodlust that was almost more
frustrating than anything she’d ever felt.

Because she couldn’t get to Karin Love.
She couldn’t get revenge for Lex. She couldn’t kill the bitch.

And she wanted to.
God, how she wanted to.

But no, Lex’s mother was in prison, eating and shitting and
fucking
breathing
and it made Rune crazy.

“I wish I could get to her,” Rune said. “I wish I could take
you to her and let you—”

“But I don’t want to,” Lex suddenly screamed, her fists
knotted at her chest. “I don’t
want
to. I want…I want her to care. I
want her to be sorry. I want her to
love
me.” She laughed, but then her
laughter turned to sobs as she stared in Rune’s direction.

Her words were covered with despair. “It’s so stupid. I know
it. But I can’t
stop
it. I want my mother. I want her to want me.” She
hugged herself. “The more she hurt me, the more I wanted to be better. The more
I wanted her to love me, to be proud of me.” Then she turned away and buried
her face in her hands.
“Even though she scares the fuck out
of me.”
Her voice was thick and muffled. “I’m so sorry.”

For the rest of the ride to RISC she refused to speak again,
but she reached a hand out to Rune, blindly, timidly.

Rune held her hand all the way to RISC.

The sun set as they finished eating, and when her phone
sounded she grabbed it with desperate relief.

“Yeah?”

“Rune, Bill Rice wants to see you when you’re finished with
dinner.” Ellis hesitated. “Alone.”

“Be right there.” She stood and stuffed her cell into her
pocket.

“What’s up?” Jack asked.

“I’m going to see Rice. I’ll let you know.”

Lex got up as well. “Bathroom,” she said, when Rune paused.

RISC was not close to being back to normal, but people still
walked the halls. Cleaning teams had come and gone. The area in which Llodra
had gone on his rampage was being repainted, the floors retiled. But nothing
would ever take away the echoes of screams that bounced off the walls.

She and Lex parted ways at the restroom, but before she
slipped inside Lex turned and hugged her.
Hard.

For a second a feeling of desolation rose up to smother
Rune. She shook it off as the door closed behind the
Other
,
and went on alone to meet with Rice.

Ellis stood and squeezed her arm when she entered the room,
but Bill Rice remained seated at the long table. He’d become sterner and more
solemn since Llodra’s attack on RISC.

“Rune,” he said, once Ellis had released her. “Sit.”

She sat, surprised when Ellis pulled out a chair next to her.
Not long ago, he’d have been sent from a meeting such as that one.

Rice didn’t waste time. “I’m almost certain the city is
going to push me out soon. And if they get rid of me, you’ll be next. Maybe not
until they’ve used you against the current zombie threat, but soon.”

It took half a minute for his words to sink in. “You’re
kidding me.”

He shook his head and met her shocked stare. “I’m not.”

“That can’t happen.”

“Every official in River County wants me gone.”

“Why?” She tried to make her voice strong and angry, but it
sounded too soft and puzzled for her liking. She tried again. “Fucking
why?
”

“Because of COS. COS is influencing the humans,” Ellis said.

Rune laughed and pushed her chair back. She couldn’t sit
with shit like that in the room. She paced. “I will not believe you’ve let COS
take over. Not you, Bill.”

“No,” he said, slowly. “I don’t want COS to have that kind
of authority. And I’d fight it harder if…”

“If I hadn’t caused RISC to become a
slaughterhouse.”

Ellis stood. “That was not your fault, Rune.”

“Of course it was, Ellie. It
was
my fault. I insisted
Llodra be released.
For RISC’s safety.
What a fucking
laugh.” She clenched her fists,
then
forced herself to
relax. “But you can’t let them muscle you out right now, Bill. I’m not going
anywhere, no matter what they say. Let them take my badge. I’ll fight on. But
you can’t let COS take over.”

“COS is arming citizens,” Ellis said, his voice grim.
“Arming them with silver and fear and hate.”
There was a
look in his eyes she’d never seen before. Not even when she’d forced him to
bring her blood after allowing Jeremy to abuse her had she seen such a look of…

Bitterness.

Ellis was losing his hope, his belief.
His
fucking innocence.

How much would he hate her when he found out that Llodra was
her father? That he was one bite away from becoming a monster himself?
Because of
her.

“Arming them with silver,” she echoed. She turned to Rice.
“Bill. You have to force them out of this city.”

“I wish I could.”

“You can. Just fucking
do
it!”

He stood, pushing his chair back so hard it fell over. “I
can’t make them leave, Rune! It’s just me. I’m just me. A fucking
Other
.”

As far as she knew, it was the first time Rice had admitted
what he was. The first time he’d said the words aloud.

He stared down at the table, his shoulders slumping. “COS is
behind this,” he murmured. “And there is nothing I can do about it.” His face
was lined and haggard. His suit hung on his gaunt body, which appeared to have
been reduced by at least fifteen pounds since the RISC massacre. “Honestly, I
expect to be arrested at any time.”

Rune took a deep breath and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“Do they understand that if the zombies take over, they’ll die? The humans will
be wiped out?” She glanced at Ellis. She didn’t want to add to his depression
but it was the truth.

Bill sighed. “They only think about destroying
Others
. That’s all they’ve ever wanted. COS believes they’re
close to getting exactly what they’ve worked so hard for. They think they’ll
eventually rule the world.
An
Otherless
world.”
He caught her stare.
“Utopia.”

For a moment they just looked at each other.
Utopia, maybe.
But it would be utopia for the
Others
, not the idiot humans.

“It’s not just River County,” Ellis said. “They’re in every
city in the US, and the humans are being seduced by their words, by their
protection. It’s the perfect time. They’re so scared. The zombies…”

“The media is making it worse,” Rice said. “Reporting
constantly on
Other
crime. There has been a huge
increase in
Other
violence.
Murders,
tortures, kidnappings.
Others are committing more crimes against humans
than ever before.”

“And this sudden turn of events isn’t making the humans
realize COS is behind it? They’ve done it before, Bill.” Suddenly she was
tired.
So tired.
There was no end to the fighting. No
end to fucking COS. And in the ongoing battle of the world against COS, COS was
winning.

She was tempted to go home and let the zombies wipe them
out. It wasn’t like she could make a big difference anyway. Like Ellis had
said, it wasn’t just River County.

And honestly, if it hadn’t been for her crew, she just might
have.

But then her cell rang again, and even before she answered
she had a bad feeling it wasn’t good news.

Her gut had never failed her.

“Ms. Alexander,” a man said. “My name is Bach Horner. We met
at the diner.”

Gray Suit.
“COS,” she muttered, and
clutched her stomach.

“Yes, ma’am.
COS.”

“What the fuck do you want?”

“This is just a courtesy call.”

“What the fuck,” she said again, “do you
want?
”

“I wanted to let you know that I have Karin Love’s daughter.
I have Alexis.”