Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
ORION
Four speedies charged down the street. Fast-moving zombies, each of them hissing like angry cats.
I froze to the spot, insides tightening.
Important zombie apocalypse rule: Never freeze around speedies.
Ever!
I got over my shock within the snap of a finger. Moved onto the ladder, scrambling down the rungs so Miko could follow.
Halfway down, I realized he wasn’t right above me like he should be. I heard him growl, the crunch of a punch, then a body landed on the opening above my head.
I yelped, almost losing my grip.
The speedie’s leg slipped into the hole. It hissed and kicked, trying to crawl. But its other leg fell in, its body starting to slide.
“Get off the ladder!” James barked.
My eyes were on the rotten body. “Miko!”
“Stay down there!” the alpha ordered. “All of you!”
Hands locked around my ankles.
The speedie slipped further.
“Miko!” I cried.
A hard yank relinquished my grip from the rung. I slammed into Trev’s big body, maneuvered so my feet landed safely on the ground.
“No!” I cried, struggling against my friend. “Let me go!”
“Easy, mate!” the troll boomed, dragging me away from the ladder.
“Miko!”
The speedie fell, smacking the walls of the shaft before hitting the space I’d occupied moments ago with a sickening smack.
Facedown.
The undead woman lay like a contortionist, broken bones sticking out of her body. She twitched, blood pooling under her head. Rather than hiss, she released a gargling sound muffled by the concrete ground.
Cate finished her off with a quick blade to the head, leaving her truly dead.
I broke free of Trev, darting past Cate, leaping onto the ladder. My heart cartwheeled as I climbed back to the surface.
“Orion!” James called from below.
Metal clanged—the beta was coming up right behind me.
Reaching the top, I drew a screwdriver and sprang into action. Miko brought down a speedie with a kick to the head. The trauma to its brain left the zombie permanently down.
Another speedie came at him from his left side. I went for the assbug, leaping into its path. I braced myself, focused on bringing it down, ignoring its snapping teeth.
Speedies weren’t just fast movers. They also ate quickly, tearing victims apart as if channeling the spirit of a piranha.
Bring it down. Bury the screwdriver into its head.
Be quick. Be quick. Be quick.
Miko roared, jumping in front of me at the last moment, delivering an uppercut into the zombie’s chin. Up the speedie went in a perfect arch, landing a decent number of feet away with a crunch. Its neck snapped, the back of its head bursting open.
Yuck.
Miko spun, grabbing me by shoulders. “What are you doing? Get back in the hole.”
I shoved at him. “I don’t think so.”
There were more speedies throwing themselves into the fray. Slamming into stationary cars, tripping over themselves in their frenetic hurry to get to our flesh.
And slowies woke up out of their creepy zombie stasis, ready to shuffle with the possibility of chewing on us.
Too many zombies. Why did Miko think he could take them all on alone?
“Get back in the hole,” he said with cool warning. “Now.”
“No.”
Two speedies darted toward us.
James lunged at one of them, wrestling it to the ground. Miko moved next, spinning with liquid grace out of the zombie’s trajectory and grabbing it by the back of the head, crushing it with his bare hands and flinging nasty goo onto the asphalt.
Cate appeared, taking down a speedie that almost got its gnarled fingers on her husband.
She destroyed the woman’s head with her boot.
“Thanks, darling heart,” James purred at her.
“We have to get out of here.” Miko obliterated another speedie with a punch, the side of its head caving it. “Go. All of you.”
“No,” I bit back. “I’m not leaving you up here to sacrifice yourself.”
That’s supposed to come later…
“I’m not!” he barked.
James and Cate worked with their alpha to clear the speedies and take down some of the slowies.
I hopped from foot to foot, a firm grip on my screwdriver. I wanted to help, to skewer the skull of at least one zombie. But the werewolves dealt with the issue swiftly, directing me back to the hole.
Slowies shuffled slowly toward us, arms outstretched.
Rather than whine that I wanted to help, kind of relieved to have avoided blood splattering my face, I went down the ladder first.
“You good, mate?” Trev asked, his arm around Paige.
“I am. Thanks.”
“No damage?” Paige asked in her soft Irish lilt, holding a flashlight. She was the pack medic. “Do you need checking over?”
“No one was hurt,” Cate cut in, jumping off the ladder.
James followed. “All good.” He tapped his wife on the shoulder. “There’s some gunk in your hair.” He attended to her messy, black cropped style.
“Thank you.” Cate removed her glasses, wiping at the blood splatter on her pale cheeks with her sleeve. Her hazel eyes shone as she gazed upon her husband.
Cute.
Miko slid the manhole cover back into place, finally joining us.
James handed him a flashlight.
“Your orders were to stay down here.”
He was not a happy alpha.
“Sorry, sir,” James said. “We couldn’t let Orion run into danger alone.”
Miko’s face hid in the shadows, the flashlight’s beam only revealing his strong chin. “When I tell you to stay put, you stay put.”
Teeth grinding, I went to snap back, furious at his words. Who was he to tell me to sit back and let him do all the fighting? That’s not how this worked.
“I think we should get moving,” Daria said, stopping any forthcoming rants.
Miko’s flashlight found her face.
She waved. “Come. Follow me.”
I put my fury to bed for the time being.
Although I’d lost my axe and trusty backpack, I still had my penlight and my virtual pet. I patted my left pocket to reassure myself Wendy remained there in her undying, no-battery-changes-required glory.
I removed my penlight from the other pocket, clicking its beam to medium—the spicy setting a little too bright with the other lights present in this tunnel.
Sweeping the light over my surroundings revealed sewer pipes, a dank and gloomy atmosphere, and a long stretch of tunnel ahead of us. Everything was quiet aside from our footsteps and dripping water.
Stinky, totally depressing, yet better than being on that street above.
Miko moved to walk by my side.
“You alright?” he asked, his baritone down to soft rumble.
No! “Yes. You?”
“Better now that’s over.” He didn’t sound happy. I mean, he didn’t sound particularly joyous ninety percent of the time, yet the slight bite in his tone told me he might be piddled off with me.
Good. The feeling was mutual.
Right now, I wouldn’t probe the matter or even offer an apology for going after him. Miko didn’t get to set the rules. He might be an alpha, but he wasn’t the alpha in this bonding.
I also had a duty to keep him safe. Look out for him, support him.
A scorpion’s sting struck my soul. Wasn’t this all for nothing, when we were heading north to his doom?
Why weren’t we all yelling at him, dragging him away to the coast to find a boat and whisk him across the Channel? Find somewhere warm and lovely in the South of France, build a new Haven, forget about this blood of Dawn thing.
Deny something enough and it morphed into a pretty lie. I could live with a pretty lie. No problem at all. As long as Miko wasn’t dying anytime soon.
My master plan to deny everything fell apart within seconds.
Miko wouldn’t shirk his responsibilities. And I wouldn’t want to be the fae who tripped him up. Because he’d hate me as much as I would hate myself. The man was a hero. Grumpiness aside, he wanted to do the right thing. He was determined to end Dawn no matter what.
Dawn wiped out his family.
Dawn had to end.
But why did he have to end?
Answers waited in this Dunstable place. Answers I wanted him to have because he deserved the truth.
Stars, I veered on bursting into tears again. This cut so deeply, a constant spiral of anguish with no way off the ride.
Just think how he’s feeling, I kept telling myself.
I had to talk to him. Properly. Listen, support, figure this out. There may be loopholes in Dunstable along with those answers. Trev might even reveal more helpful details if his oracle memories returned.
“Orion?”
Miko’s voice snapped me out of my spin. “Yes?”
“Your laces are untied.”
I stopped. “Sorry?”
“Your laces.” He shone the flashlight at my boots.
Oh. So they were. I bent to tie them, then carried on walking.
We held back a bit from the others.
Was this the right time to talk?
No. Not until we were resting. Stars only knew what extra drama awaited us down here. Because being underground didn’t get one out of jail with a free pass.
Wait. What was that game? Get out of jail for free, or something like that. Part of the game of… Monopoly. That was it.
“Do you like Monopoly?” I asked, brought on by my odd train of thought.
“Hate it. Why? Do you fancy a game?”
“Do you have it with you?”
“No.”
“Oh. I see. I only played it once. Didn’t really get it.” Why were we talking about this? “Ignore me.”
I stole a glance, catching his smile.
His smiles turned his storm-cloud aura into a dozen rays of sunshine.
“I was just thinking about Monopoly and those getting out of jail for free cards,” I explained.
“You were?”
“What a shame we don’t have one of those cards to help with this situation.”
His smile dropped. “Yeah. Damn right.”
“Or even a magic wand.”
“The times I’ve wanted one of those,” he said softly.
A few minutes of silence passed between us, Daria taking us east into an identical tunnel. Hopefully closer to somewhere we could rest our heads. Sleep would be good now. A few hours to take the edge off life.
Maybe.
Miko broke the silence. “I have to say something.”
A rat appeared, scurrying out of the dark. It paused in the beam of my penlight, going dead still, only its whiskers twitching.
“What—”
A hand whipped out of the shadows, snatching the rat. It squeaked before Daria snapped its neck.
My heart almost fell out of my backside.
The vampire slipped the rat into her jacket pocket. “Apologies for startling you, fae. A vampire has to eat.”
Without human blood to nourish them, vampires fed off rats and pigeons instead.
Don’t worry. It’s just my heart. “It’s fine.”
She nodded and vanished in a blur.
“Sorry, I’d have warned you she was about to do that if I’d been quick enough,” James said as we approached the others.
I clutched my chest. “She’s right. She’s got to eat.”
Miko rubbed my back. “You’ll be okay.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
He chuckled lightly.
I failed to find the humor.
Eventually, with my heartbeat settled to a steadier rhythm, Daria made us wait outside a metal door halfway down another tunnel of pipes and gloom.
She returned moments later with a man wearing a blue boiler suit, skin as pale as hers, blond hair styled into a mohawk.
“Welcome,” he said, voice a little creaky.
Vampire, slightly emaciated, face completely unreadable.
Like Mr. Robot beside me.
“I’m Joseph,” the vampire added. “Daria tells me you’re in need of shelter. I have shelter. But do you have marshmallows?”
Daria turned to Miko. “You know how much we love marshmallows.”
I always tried to carry a pack for any potential vampire encounters.
Miko’s arms folded across his chest so tightly I thought his coat might rip under the strain of those muscles.
“I didn’t think,” he said.
“You didn’t, wolf?” Daria wondered. “You didn’t consider a vampire’s love for the softly sweet joyousness of marshmallows?”
Her words were a bit too, well, sickly.
“I have some,” I said.
“Lovely.”
“You do?” Miko asked.
“Yes. There’s some in here.” I retrieved the pink-and-yellow squidgy goodness, approaching Joseph.
I felt Miko reach out to me, his fingers brushing my back. I took a longer stride, offering the sweets over as if they were the Faery king’s emerald scepter.
Joseph took the packet. “Excellent. You may stay.”
“Where are we staying?” Miko asked.
“An old tube train at Canada Water.”
Ooo, my second underground vampire encounter of the month and back to sleeping on trains. I sensed a theme with these blood drinkers.
“Come,” Joseph beckoned. “Get settled. Rest.”
He didn’t need to tell any of us twice.