I bit into the sandwich, and it was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted. Either that, or I was starving. I had already polished off one sandwich by the time Delilah and Shade appeared and was starting on another.
Iris poked her head into the kitchen from the back porch and—on seeing me—slipped through the door and took a seat next to me.
“Are Smoky and Trillian back from Otherworld yet?”
She shook her head. “No, but it’s been less than twenty-four hours.”
She gave me a sideways glance. “You feeling okay?”
“I threw up when I woke up, but slept like the dead. What the hell did you give me? Whatever it was, it did the trick, but it left me really disconcerted.”
Iris nodded. “Yes, that’s why I don’t usually prepare it. It not only leaves a person disoriented, but can have serious long-term effects on the body, if you take it more than once or twice a year. But given what happened…I figured you’d need to be up and strong as soon as you could.”
That didn’t sound good. In fact, when I looked around at the expressions of the others, I realized that whatever it was, it wasn’t good at all.
“So, you all look pretty grim. What’s going down? Tell me.”
“We have a problem.” Rozurial pushed the evening newspaper over to me. I opened it up to find a picture of two zombies splashed across the front, along with a lurid headline: ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE BEGINS?
“Oh, fuck.” I took the paper and skimmed the article. It reminded me of a bland version of Andy Gambit’s sleaze rag.
“It was bound to happen sometime,” Morio said.
“I guess there was no way to keep the existence of zombies and ghouls secret forever. After all, vampires are out of the closet now.”
While most of the FBHs knew of the existence of Fae by now, and the vampires had come out of the closet, and Weres were talking about their two-faced nature openly, we’d somehow managed to keep the lid on zombie attacks and other nasty night creatures. Ghost stories had always abounded, but now, with this picture, it looked like the corpse was out of the coffin. Somebody in one of the graveyards had managed to snap the photo early this morning.
“Was another graveyard ransacked?”
“Yeah. Just like the others. And by the way, I took a look out there, at the one that was hit yesterday, and all the spirits are gone.” Vanzir shrugged. “Epidemic.”
Roz nodded. “Chase is fielding calls right and left. The 911 operators are swamped by people convinced there are zombies lurking outside their doors. And for once, the Fae aren’t being blamed.”
“No, but the vampires are.” Delilah looked grim.
“Vampires? What the hell do they have to do with it?” I frowned. “Vampires don’t raise zombies.”
“Of course they don’t, but since they’re undead, like the zombies, once again the Church of the Earthborn Brethren is making waves. They quieted down after the mess with Andy Gambit, but they’re back in the news today. They’ve been picketing outside the Shrouded Grove Suites all morning.”
“Not again. That’s where Wade lives.” The founder of Vampires Anonymous and a former psychologist, Wade Stevens was a vampire dedicated to help new vamps adjust to the “life.” Even though VA was now under control of the Seattle Vampire Nexus, run by Roman, Wade had been granted relative autonomy over the group.
“Yeah. Management has been dealing with this sort of crap since day one.”
When building started on the protected, vampire-friendly apartments, the picketers had come out of the woodwork. And they’d shown up almost every day since then until Andy Gambit’s death. The resulting scandal over the sleazy yellow-tabloid reporter/rapist had quieted them down for a while.
After the story had broken about what he’d done—a final count of ten confirmed rapes on Fae women, eleven on human women—the hate groups fell silent, not wanting to be associated with the vitriol aimed in his direction.
The resulting glee over his death had left them even more silent. But a few months had passed, and people quickly forgot the flavor of the month, be it bad or good.
“So how do we enact damage control? I’ll bet Chase is freaking out right now.” Chase’s department would be the first to face the fire.
“That’s putting it mildly.” Delilah rested her elbows on the table and stared at her food. “He asked us to come down to headquarters when you woke up. Menolly doesn’t know what’s going on—she had to go to bed before this all broke loose, but you can bet, tonight when the vamps wake up, a lot of bloodsuckers are going to be mightily pissed at being lumped together with zombies, let alone being accused of causing the problem. Roman’s going to have something to say about this, too.”
I let out a long sigh. This did not bode well. “Heaven help the reporter who started the rumor. With Roman and Blood Wyne so prominent now, I don’t know what the hell they’ll do. The Crimson Veil works behind the scenes. The idiot journalist may just end up vanishing off the face of the planet. And no one will ever know what happened.”
Roman scared me. He scared Delilah, too—I knew because we’d talked it over out of Menolly’s earshot. Granted, she had no choice, and now he was considered her reborn sire, another twist in the whole mess, but that made the son of the Vampire Queen far too close for comfort to our lives.
“We don’t have any control over Blood Wyne. And neither does the FH-CSI, regardless of what we’d like to think. If she wanted to, she could reach out and take control of this country. I kind of wish she’d stayed in seclusion.” Delilah absently bit into a cookie. “So we head to headquarters in a few minutes?”
“I suppose—” The phone interrupted me. I was sitting nearest, so I grabbed it. And sure enough, it was Chase on the line.
“Camille? You’re awake? Good.”
“We’re getting ready to come down to headquarters now,” I started to say, but he interrupted.
“No. I need you elsewhere. We have an emergency.”
The four little words I dreaded hearing but lately heard all too often. Life seemed to be made up of one emergency after another these days.
“What’s up?”
“You saw the paper, right?” He sounded harried.
I groaned. “Yeah.”
“That’s the tip of the iceberg. I need you guys out here, in full fighting armor. You know the house Fritz and Abby had? That burned to the ground?”
The demonic bloody-wall ghost-filled house had been terrifying. We hadn’t really won the battle, but at least we’d survived.
“Yeah?” I asked warily.
“There’s something on the lot. Something weird that I don’t want my men near until we figure out what it is. And it’s attracting a horde of zombies. I’ve got the entire block cordoned off. The few other houses there that are actually inhabited, I’ve evacuated.”
I cleared my throat. “Something weird as in what? A creature? Structure? Portal? Big-ass pony with wings?”
He snorted. “I wish. If I knew what it was, I’d tell you instead of coming out with a vague description. I’d say, ‘We have a large wheel of cheese cavorting around town’ or ‘There’s a giant snail on the property squirting everybody with slime.’ But I don’t have a clue. I think it’s organic. In other words: alive. But truthfully? I don’t know. And the way I’ve been losing officers lately, I don’t want to take any chances.”
I sobered. Chase was right. He’d lost several good cops, and he was feeling the heat from all sides. “Right. We’ll be there in fifteen to twenty minutes. Don’t let anybody near…whatever the thing is. And Chase?”
“Yeah?” He sounded tired.
“We’ve got your back, dude. Seriously.”
“I know, Camille. And for that, I am eternally grateful.” As he hung up, I turned to the others.
“Let’s roll. Weapons, arms…bring it all. We’re going in blind.” As we hurried to gather everything we could, Iris made up a couple of sacks of sandwiches so we’d have a chance to eat on the run. I told them what Chase had said. Vanzir warned the elfin guards who watched over our property to keep alert, since Trillian and Smoky were still gone. As we headed to the cars, we were all quiet, as a deep sense of apprehension settled in.
We divided up into two vehicles: Morio, Vanzir, and me in my Lexus, and Delilah, Shade, and Roz in her Jeep. The trip didn’t take long, even though we hit noon traffic on one of the main streets. I glanced at the clock. We were still ten minutes out and the more time we took, the more danger Chase and his men were in. I finally saw a side street that I knew would lead to a back route.
“Call Delilah and tell her we’re going down Bay Street.”
Morio punched in her number and, a moment later, I edged over to the right side of the street, nudging in between bumper-to-bumper traffic, with Delilah on my tail. I managed to get into the turn lane right before we hit Bay. A quick, sharp right and we were on our way again.
In another ten minutes, we were on Foster Street, a block and a half out from what had been Fritz and Abby’s house, and we were entering the Greenbelt Park District—the most haunted place in Seattle. Now knowing that Gulakah was fueling the fire made it even more nerve-racking.
The cedars and firs overshadowed the streets, and all the houses around here looked weathered and decrepit. As we neared the intersection, we saw prowl cars blocking the way, along with police tape. Chase had cordoned off the area.
I pulled over to the side and we jumped out, looking for Chase. Delilah and her crew were right behind us. After a moment, I caught sight of him—on crutches and looking frustrated. He motioned for us to join him. Next to him stood Yugi, who seldom went out in the field.
“What’s going on?” I nodded to Delilah and we joined them. “Yugi, what are you doing here?”
“I was hoping, with his empathetic abilities, that he might be able to get a sense for what this is.” Chase sounded tired, and he stifled a yawn.
Yugi shook his head. “All I get is a lot of static—the airwaves are filled with confusion. Either I’m not tuned in enough to hear clearly, or whatever is around here is causing a lot of chaos.”
That’s the first time we’d seen exactly what Chase used Yugi for, other than his typical duties. We knew he was an empath, but until now, I’d had no clue that the FH-CSI actually made use of his abilities.
“Don’t sweat it,” Shade said. “The energy here is thick enough to cut with a knife, and it’s bound to be hard to navigate.”
I closed my eyes, trying to tune in myself. “Shade’s right. It’s like a big hollow brick filled with bees.” Try as I might, I couldn’t pick up anything other than a loud buzz of static. That didn’t mean there weren’t any demons around, though.
“I guess we’d better see what it is.” Morio glanced at Chase. “You stay here—with that leg, you’d be a sitting duck. In fact, we’ll only take one of your men with us, to act as a messenger. I don’t want any easy targets.”
Yugi started to volunteer, but Chase nixed that idea. “I need you—you’re second in command. Keo, please go with them.”
Keo stepped forward.
Delilah squinted, then let out a short laugh. “Werewolf?”
He nodded. “Right.” And then, with a grin, he added, “Pack mentality makes for good teamwork, you know.”
“You’ve got a point.” Delilah glanced at me. “What order?”
“Morio and me first, with Shade and Vanzir right behind us. You, Roz, and Keo take up the rear. Keep an eye out, too. We don’t want anybody slipping behind to ambush us.” I pulled her to one side. “You keep an eye on Keo. If it looks like he’s in danger, get him out.”
She nodded.
As we fell into line, I took a moment to gather the Moon Mother’s energy. The afternoon was fairly sunny. There was no chance for me to call down the lightning, and so I had to focus her power into an energy blast.
I’d also brought the Black Unicorn horn with me, and it was secreted in a hidden pocket in my skirt. I didn’t want to have to use it, if I could avoid doing so. A few good blasts would drain it of energy, although they’d be megacharged blasts. I had to renew it every month under the new moon for it to both retain and recover its power.
Morio was prepping for a spell, too, though I wasn’t sure what it was. I glanced back. Shade needed no weapon. He was a weapon. Vanzir, too, with his powers recovering in a strange fashion that none of us were sure about at this point, including Vanzir, himself. Delilah had her dagger out, and Roz was fiddling in his duster, probably making sure he had easy access to the multitude of weapons he carried.
“Ready?”
They nodded.
“Then let’s go.” We ducked under the police tape and jogged down the street. The trees on either side seemed sickly, and as I reached out, a sickly tendril of energy came creeping my way. Snakelike, it was twisted, reminding me of a withered, grasping hand. I yanked my attention away and quickly told the others.
“I think it might be able to latch onto our energy, so please, be cautious. Pay attention to what’s going on in your thoughts. We’ve all been leeched onto at some point, and this is one time we can’t afford to go down to some astral freakazoid.”
I quickly focused on raising some wards—Morio and I had been practicing our internal shields over the past few months, and I was getting a lot better at them. Protection magic had never been my strong suit, but I worked overtime to learn it now, because our need was so great.