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“Yeah, sorry to ruin your plans to take over the world.”
“That is not true,” Jackal said, sounding affronted. “I was trying to find a cure for Rabidism.”
I snorted. Any living thing bitten by a rabid would Turn rabid itself, but that wasn’t the only way to create one. Vampires, through the result of the mutated Red Lung virus, were all carriers of Rabidism, as well. Just biting or feeding from a human wouldn’t Turn them, but for most of our kind, attempting to create a new vampire through the exchange of blood would birth not a vampire, but a rabid. Only the few Masters, the Princes of the cities, could spawn new offspring anymore, and even then, they were just as likely to spawn a rabid. Kanin, our sire, was a Master himself, but I was still very lucky to have made the transition to vampire instead of rising again as a monstrous, mindless horror.
“That old human was the key,” Jackal went on, glaring at me now. “He had all the information we needed. The results the scientists had on the plague, the tests they ran, how the rabids were created, everything. I was trying to save our race, sister. I came so close, and you ruined it all.”
“You were trying to cure Rabidism so you could turn your raider pets into a vampire army and take over everything,” I shot back. “Don’t even try to sell me the saint act. You’re nothing but a scheming, bloodthirsty killer who’s out for power. And by the way, where is that raider army of yours? Did they finally turn on you once you couldn’t promise them immortality anymore?”
“Oh, don’t worry, they’re still there.” Jackal’s smile was not friendly. “It’s fairly easy to govern a city that has no rules—the minions do what they please, and I don’t stop them. But, with that old human dead, I had to come up with a new plan. That’s when I thought you and I needed to have a little talk, and I certainly couldn’t do that with a raider gang following me about the country.” He shrugged. “They’ll be there when I get back, with the cure. You haven’t stopped anything, sister. You’ve just delayed things a bit.”
“If there is a cure. We don’t know if this lab created one or not, even a partial one.”
“I would have shared it with you,” Jackal said, sounding angry and hurt at the same time. “You and me, sister, we could’ve had it all. We could’ve had everything.”
“I didn’t want everything.” I glared at him. “I didn’t want your city, your minions, your schemes for power, any of it. I just wanted to get my friends to safety.”
“Uh-huh.” Jackal raised an eyebrow. “And how did that turn out? I don’t see any of your ‘friends’ here now. Where are they? Back in their Eden, I suppose? Why didn’t you hang around, if you’re such great pals?” He snickered and went on before I could answer. “Here’s what I think happened. You got the little bloodbags to Eden, like you said you would, but oh, they couldn’t let a vampire into the city, now could they? That would just cause a panic, having a wolf walking among the sheep. So they either turned you away or drove you off. And your little friends, the humans that you rescued from the big bad raider king, the people you stuck your neck out for, they didn’t do anything. Because they knew the others were right. Because you’re a monster who kills humans to live, and no matter how much you tell yourself otherwise, that’s all you’ll ever be.”
“Tell me again why I’m helping you?”
Jackal laughed. “You know I’m right, sister. You can deny it until the sky falls down, but you’re only fooling yourself.”
“You don’t know me.” He snickered again, and I whirled on him. “And another thing. Stop calling me ‘sister.’ We’re not related just because Kanin sired us both. I have a name—Allison. Start using it.”
“Sure thing, Allison.” Jackal bared his fangs in a sneer. “But we both know the truth. Vampire blood is stronger than human ties—our blood links us together in a way they can’t even imagine. Why do you think you could sense where I was, where Kanin is? Because you’re getting stronger, and the stronger the vamp, the easier it becomes to know where the members of your particular family are at any time. That’s why most covens are all members of the Prince’s family, the ones he sired himself. He can sense where they are, and sometimes even what they’re thinking. Makes it hard for them to turn on him. But the tie goes both ways.”
“That’s why we’ve been able to sense Kanin.”
“Yep.” Jackal looked off to the west as we started walking again. “And each other, to a lesser extent. But the strongest pull is toward our sire, or at least, it was until he went into hibernation. It doesn’t work as well if the vampire is close to death, but it’s still there.”
“Why?”
“Because, in some small, subconscious way, Kanin is calling for us.”
A couple hours later, we were no closer to finding the subway entrance than when we first started.
“Hmm.” Jackal stopped at the edge of a roof, the open map in both hands, turning it this way and that. “Well, damn. There’s supposed to be an entrance to the subway somewhere on this street, but how the hell are you supposed to read a map if there are no damn signs?”
I let him fiddle with the map in silence and watched the pale forms of the rabids slipping through the shadows below. “Why would Sarren be looking for this laboratory?” I mused, softly so my voice didn’t alert the monsters under our feet. “What do you think he wants?” Jackal gave a distracted grunt.
“Don’t ask me. I’m not a psychotic maniac.” He paused. “Well, not as much of a psychotic maniac. Okay, there’s the Foggy Bottom metro entrance … Where the hell is the tunnel?” He glanced down at the street and sighed. “Maybe he’s searching for the cure to Rabidism, too,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Oh, but wait, you don’t care about that, do you?”
A large group of rabids slid from between two buildings, directly below Jackal. He ignored both them and me as he studied the map. For a moment, I had the murderous thought of shoving him over the edge, letting him fall into the group of rabids, seeing if he could survive. The monster within approved of this plan, urging me to step forward, to attack when he wasn’t looking. Yes, it whispered. Do it. Jackal would, and he will someday. As soon as he doesn’t need you anymore, he’ll hit you from behind without a second thought.
But that would make me just like him, wouldn’t it?
The opportunity passed before I had a chance to decide. The rabid pack moved away, and the moment was lost. I watched them skulk across the street, hissing and snarling … and then vanish beneath a rubble pile.
I blinked. “Hey,” I said, and Jackal lowered the map, watching as I walked to the edge of the roof and crouched down. “I think I found it.”
We dropped carefully into the street, glancing around for rabids lurking behind cars or around buildings. Warily, we crossed the road and examined the spot where the pack had disappeared. The building next door had partially fallen, and the ground was strewn with broken glass, steel and cement. But beneath a collapsed overhang, a tiny, nearly invisible hole snaked down into the darkness.
Jackal grinned at me, hard and challenging. “Ladies first.”
I bristled. The tunnel entrance sat quietly, like the open gullet of something huge and evil, waiting to swallow me whole. I crouched down and peered inside. Darkness greeted me, thick and eternal, difficult to pierce even with my vampiric night vision. Cold, dry air wafted from the crack, smelling of dust and rot and decay.
“What’s the matter?” Jackal’s smug voice echoed behind me. “Scared? Need your big vampire brother to go down first?”
“Shut up.” Scowling, I reached back and drew my sword, sending a faint metallic rasp into the darkness. If something came leaping at me out of the black, I wanted to be prepared. Holding the hilt backward so that the flat of the blade pressed against my arm, I crouched down, rabid style, and slid into the hole.
My fingers touched rock and cold metal and, when I straightened, I found myself at the top of a long flight of stairs leading down into the unknown. The stairs, partially buried under earth and stone, were metallic, uneven and had a strange rippling effect to them, as if they hadn’t been firmly grounded. If you looked at them a certain way, you could almost imagine they had once moved.
Jackal slid in behind me, feetfirst, dropping to the stairs with a grunt. “All right,” he muttered as he straightened. Unlike me, he had to bend over slightly to avoid scraping his head on the ceiling. Being small did have its advantages sometimes. Shaking out the map, he squinted at it in the dark. “So, according to this, we have to take the red line North to get to the nest, which will be somewhere around this area …” He tapped the paper with a knuckle, looking thoughtful.
“Where, exactly?”
“Doesn’t say.”
“So we’re going in blind. Searching for a lab that may or may not be there. In the middle of a nest of rabids who will trap us underground if we can’t find a way out.”
“Exciting, isn’t it?” Jackal grinned and folded the map again. “It’s moments like this that really make you appreciate immortal life. Don’t you love it, sister? Doesn’t it make you feel alive?”
“I’ll pass, thanks.” Sheathing my sword, I started down the stairs. “Right now, I’ll settle for finding the lab and getting out of here in one piece.”
The staircase descended deeper underground, opening into an enormous tunnel. The familiar rails lined either side of the platform, once having shuttled metal cars back and forth between stations, now quite empty. The ceiling of the huge domed tunnel was strange—a motif of concrete squares, some fallen in large chunks to the platform, stretching all the way down the corridor.
Jackal walked to the edge of the platform and dropped to the tracks, peering down the tunnel. “No sign of rabids,” he muttered. “At least not yet.” He glanced at me over his shoulder. “You coming or not?”
I leaped onto the tracks behind him. “What’s the matter, Jackal?” I sneered, wanting to repay him for that last quip. “Need me to hold your hand every time we go down a dark hole?”
He laughed, the sound bouncing off the domed roof of the ceiling, surprising me. “See, this is why I like you, sister. You and me, we’re exactly the same.”
I’m nothing like you, I thought, but his words continued to haunt me long after we entered the tunnel.
“Man, these things go on forever, don’t they?”
I winced as his voice echoed loudly in the looming silence, a wave of noise traveling down the endless corridor. “Mind keeping it down?” I growled, listening for the shuffle of feet or the skitter of claws over rock, rabids alerted to our presence. We’d encountered a few of the monsters already, and I had no desire to cut my way through another wave. The dark subway tunnels reeked of them, their foul stench clinging to the walls. Nothing else moved here, not even rats. Sometimes, we encountered bodies of rabids, ravaged corpses torn apart by their own kind. Once, we came across what we thought was another dead body, only to have it leap at us with a shriek, swiping at us with its one remaining arm. Jackal seemed to enjoy these encounters, swinging the steel fire ax hidden beneath his duster with vicious force, crushing skulls and snapping bones with a savage grin on his face. I was far less enthused. I didn’t want to be in this underground labyrinth of death, with this vampire I didn’t like and certainly didn’t trust. Because watching him fling himself at the rabids, grinning demonically as he tore them limb from limb, reminded me too much of myself. That thing that I kept locked away, the beast that goaded me into raw animal rage and bloodlust. The part that made us dangerous to every human we encountered.
The part that kept me from ever being with Zeke.
My blood brother grinned at me, swinging his bloody fire ax to his shoulder. “Aw, sister. Don’t tell me you’re scared of a few rabids.”
“A few rabids is one thing. A massive horde in a narrow tunnel is another. And dawn is just a couple hours away.” I glared down the crumbling cement tube in frustration. Old D.C.’s underground was a never-ending maze of tunnels and pipes and corridors that snaked and twisted and stretched away into the darkness. The night was waning, and the tunnels just went on and on, forever it seemed. We’d even stumbled into what looked like an underground mall, with ancient stores crumbling to rubble, strange items rotting on near-empty shelves. I’d once thought the sewers beneath New Covington were confusing; they were nothing compared to this. “Where is this stupid lab?” I muttered. “It feels like we’ve been walking in circles all night.”
Jackal started to reply but suddenly paused, a slight frown crossing his face. “Do you hear that?” he asked me.
“No. What is it?”
He motioned me to be quiet, then crept forward again. The cement tube that we were walking down narrowed, and then I did hear something—something that raised the hair on my neck. If the low growls and hisses didn’t rouse my suspicions, the dead, rotting stench that slithered down the tunnel confirmed it.
Weapons out, we eased forward, silent as death. Ahead of us, the tunnel abruptly ended in open air, and a rusty, narrow catwalk stretched out over nothing. Gripping my weapon, I followed Jackal to the edge of the catwalk and peered down, into the darkness.
“Shit,” Jackal murmured, sounding faintly awed.
We stood at the edge of a massive round chamber, the walls soaring up a good fifteen feet above us. The narrow metal bridge, stretching to another tunnel on the opposite side, had to be at least two hundred feet across. The railings had rusted away completely, and the mesh floor had disintegrated in spots, but that wasn’t what worried me the most.
Below us, about twenty feet down, the cement floor was a shifting, roiling carpet of pale bodies and jagged fangs. Rabids filled the chamber, growling, hissing, moving about the room like a swarm of ants. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, coming in from various tunnels and pipes near the ground. I hissed as their scent wafted up from the pit—blood and rot and decay and wrongness—and took a step back from the edge.
“Well,” Jackal mused softly, watching the rabid swarm with vague amusement. “I think it’s safe to say that we found the nest.” He shook the catwalk experimentally. It creaked, rust and metallic flakes drifting down to the horde below. Thankfully, they didn’t notice. “Doesn’t seem very sturdy, does it? This is going to be interesting.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Do you see any other way across?” Jackal crossed his arms, shooting me a challenging smirk. “I thought you were so anxious to find the lab.”
I smirked back. “Fine. After you, then.”
He shrugged. Stepping onto the narrow bridge, he carefully eased out over the sheer drop, testing for weakness. The catwalk groaned but held, and he grinned at me.
“Afraid of heights, sister? Need me to carry you across?”
“Yeah, why don’t you save the smart comments until you’re on the other side?”
He rolled his eyes, turned, and began walking across the gap, moving with unnatural grace. Despite that, the catwalk creaked and groaned horribly under his weight. It shuddered and swayed, and I bit my lip, certain it would snap at any second and Jackal would plummet to his death.
Beneath us, the rabids had noticed the vampire trying to cross the bridge, and their shrieks and snarls rose from the pit as they surged forward, gazing up hungrily. Some of them began leaping for the catwalk, swiping at it with their claws, and though they couldn’t quite make it, some of those leaps came frighteningly close.
After several long, tense moments, Jackal finally reached the other side. The hisses and screams from the rabids were deafening now, echoing through the chamber, as Jackal turned and beckoned me across with a grin.
Oh, dammit. Swallowing hard, I stepped to the edge and peered down again. The rabids saw me immediately and began flinging themselves at my end of the catwalk, slashing at the air. Trying to ignore them, I stepped onto the rickety metal walkway, feeling it shake and shudder under my feet. The end of the bridge seemed an impossible distance away.
One step at a time, Allie.
Keeping my gaze straight ahead, I started across the catwalk, putting one foot in front of the other as lightly as I could. There were no railings to grab hold of; I had to make my way across on balance alone. The bridge swayed and groaned as I neared the center, carefully stepping over the gaping holes in the mesh floor. Through the gaps, the rabids churned below me, glaring up with dead white eyes and gnashing their fangs.
As I was nearing the end, trying to move faster but still keep my steps light, a rabid leaped up from the floor, lashed out, and struck the bottom of the catwalk with a metallic screech that lanced up my spine. The walkway jerked to the side, nearly spilling me off, then let out a deafening groan as one side of the bridge shuddered and twisted like paper.
Fear shot through me. I gave a frantic leap for the edge of the tunnel, just as the catwalk snapped and plummeted into the hordes below. I hit the wall a few inches from the edge and clawed desperately for a handhold, my fingers scrabbling against the smooth wall as I slid toward the wailing sea of death below.
Something clamped around my wrist, jerking me to a stop. Wide-eyed, I looked up to see Jackal on his stomach, one hand around my arm, his jaw clenched. His face was tight with concentration as he started to pull me up.
A reeking, skeletal body landed on my back, sinking claws into my shoulders, screaming in my ear. I snarled in pain, ducking my head as the rabid tore at my collar, trying to bite my neck. I couldn’t do anything, but Jackal reached down with his other hand, drew the katana from its sheath on my back, and plunged it into the rabid. The weight clinging to me dropped away as the rabid screeched and fell back into the mob below, and Jackal yanked me into the tunnel.
I collapsed against the wall, staring at him as he glared down at the rabids. He … had just saved my life. Stunned, I watched him approach and hold the katana hilt out to me.
“So.” His gold eyes shone as he gazed into mine. “I think I’m entitled to a smart comment or two now, don’t you think?”
I took the sword numbly. “Yeah,” I muttered as his smug look faded into something that wasn’t completely obnoxious. “Thanks.”
“No problem, little sister.” The leer returned, making him look normal again. “Comment number one—how much do you weigh to snap the bridge like that? I thought you Asians were supposed to be petite and dainty.”
Okay, moment over. I sheathed my blade and glared at him. “And here I almost thought you weren’t a complete bastard.”
“Well, that’s your mistake, not mine.” Jackal dusted his hands and gave the edge of the tunnel a rueful look. “Shall we continue? Before our friends start climbing each other to get to us? If that’s the nest, the lab should be around here somewhere.”
A clang from the pit below drew my attention. Walking to the edge, I peered out, just as a rabid landed on the tunnel rim with a snarl. As I snarled back and kicked the thing in the chest, sending it toppling back into the hole, I saw that the catwalk had fallen against the wall of the pit, and that rabids were scrambling up to leap into the tunnel. I drew my katana, slashing another out of the air as it flew at me, howling, but Jackal grabbed the back of my coat, yanking me away.
“No time for that! The whole nest will be up here in a second. Come on!”
The wails and shrieks intensified as more rabids entered the tunnel, snarling and baring their fangs. I spun, shrugging free of Jackal’s grip, and we bolted down the passage, the screams of the monsters close behind.
A few miles from the nest, we didn’t seem to be any closer to the hidden lab.
“You’re just guessing now, aren’t you?” I snapped at Jackal, who shot me an annoyed look over his shoulder as we ran.
“Sorry, I didn’t see the big X with the words Top Secret Government Laboratory on the map, did you?”
A rabid dropped down from a breach overhead, hissing as it landing in front of us. Jackal whirled his ax, striking it under the jaw and smashing it aside, and we continued without slowing down. I could still hear the horde in pursuit, their screams echoing all around us, reverberating from everywhere. We had definitely poked a stick into a wasp nest, stirring them into a frenzy. We were in their world now, and they were closing in.
I snarled at the vampire’s retreating back. “Yeah, well maybe you’d like to get that map out so we know where the hell we’re going!”
We ducked through a door frame into yet another narrow cement corridor, rusted beams and pipes lining the walls and ceiling, dripping water on us from above. Jackal yanked the map from his coat and shook it open with a rustle of paper, scowling as the shrieks of the rabids echoed behind us.
“All right, where the hell are we?” he muttered, squinting at the map in the darkness, eyes narrowed in concentration. I glanced nervously at the hall we’d just come through, hearing the rabids draw closer, their claws skittering over the cement. Jackal began walking down the corridor, weaving around fallen beams and pipes, and I followed.
“You know they’re right on our tail.”
“First you want me to look at the map, now you’re rushing me along. Make up your mind, sister.” He walked by a tall square pillar that jutted out of the wall; two sliding doors stood half-open in the front, and a cold breeze wafted out of the crack. “Okay, there’s the subway tunnels,” Jackal muttered, walking a little faster now, holding the map close to see it in the dark. “And there’s the entrance we came in … wait a second.”
He stopped and half turned in the corridor, looking back the way we’d come. I followed his gaze, but saw nothing except empty hallway and rusty pipes, though I could still hear the rabids, getting closer.
“Um, where are you going?” I asked as Jackal began walking again, back toward the approaching horde. “Hey, wrong direction! In case you didn’t know, we usually want to move away from certain death.”
Jackal stopped at the long, square pillar jutting from the wall. “Yeah, I thought so,” I heard him mutter. “This isn’t on the map, and there shouldn’t be anything down there. Get over here and look at this.”
Against my better judgment, I jogged over to where Jackal stood, staring at the doors. Cold, dry air billowed out of a gap that ran down the center, and Jackal gave a snort.
“He’s been here.”
“What? Sarren?”
“No, the boogeyman. Look.” Jackal pointed to the sliding doors. The metal was crumpled along the edges, as if something had slipped ironlike fingers into the seam and pried them open.
I peered through the gap, following the narrow shaft as it plunged into the dark. It was a long, long way down.
A howl rang out behind us, and rabids spilled into the corridor, a pale, hissing flood. They screamed as they spotted us and charged, hurtling themselves over beams and around pipes, their claws sparking against the metal.
“Move, sister!” Jackal’s voice boomed through the shaft, making my ears pound, and something shoved me through the opening. I leaped forward, grabbing thick cables as I dropped into the tube, catching myself with a grimace. Jackal squeezed through the doors and, instead of grabbing for the metal ropes, swung himself onto a rusty ladder on one side of the wall. He glanced over his shoulder and grinned at me.
