Chapter 3
“Let me ask you something,” Gwen said to Hugh. “Are you beholden to the fae in any way, other than as your constituents and coworkers on the Council?”
She didn’t know of any personal ties or bargains, but a low-level oracle wasn’t exactly privy to private information about someone as exalted as Hugh Blacke.
At her mention of the fae, his brows rose in surprise. “I haven’t made any bargains, if that’s what you’re asking. I do work closely with at least one half-fae and consider her a trusted and friendly colleague, but I wouldn’t say I’m beholden to her.”
That would have to be good enough. She could only hope he wasn’t lying.
“Okay, then. Here’s what you need to know.” Bracing herself against the sofa’s rolled arm, she began her tale. “Two days after Christmas, there was another breach in Wall One, and the zombies escaped.”
Shock whitened the demon’s face. “What? I had no…How did that news not—” Swiftly, he produced his phone from the pocket of his pajama pants and began tapping out a message. “I need to alert the Council.”
“No.” Lurching to her feet, she snatched the cell out of his hand. “The breach is resolved. The zombies are all dead. I swear it on my life. Please let me finish before speaking to anyone.”
Hiding the device behind her back, aghast at her own uncharacteristic audacity, she met his challenging stare and waited for what he’d do next. After several seconds, he reluctantly nodded his permission to continue, his mouth pressed into a tight, bloodless line.
Hurriedly, before he could change his mind, she continued.
“Almost immediately after the breach, all power, internet, and phone service throughout the Containment Zone stopped functioning. The outermost wall”—Wall Four—“sealed shut while the doors through Walls Two and Three opened and the drawbridges over the moats came down and remained that way. Thus giving the zombies easy access to the entire CZ, without any safe means of communicating the threat to anyone either inside or outside the Zone.”
His baseline neutral expression had collapsed into horror. He was clutching the arms of his chair with white-knuckled force, practically vibrating with the need to act. To help, if she read him correctly.
“As you may or may not know”—she sat on the sofa again, because her knees remained wobblier than she would’ve preferred, and placed his phone on the marble table—“former SERC official Max Boucher lives in Zone A. He and his human neighbor Edie Brandstrup investigated the breach site and discovered a ragged hole in the containment wall with clear toolmarks, a makeshift bridge spanning the moat outside the wall, and two decapitated human guards who’d obviously been attacked by zombies. ”
The demon almost—but not quite—controlled his wince. Maybe because of the guards’ deaths. More likely because he understood the implications of what Max and Edie had seen.
The marks and the bridge meant that the zombies hadn’t broken out on their own, since the government-created supersoldiers hadn’t been able to use tools, climb, or swim since their last, disastrous dose of serum approximately twenty-five years before.
The inescapable conclusion: For the second time since the zombies had inadvertently been created, sabotage had set them free.
“Max and Edie might have suspected another group of human activists, like in the First Breach”—over twenty years ago now—“if they hadn’t spotted tiny burn marks on the guards and smelled brimstone.”
At that, Hugh sucked in a sharp breath, but he still didn’t interrupt.
“Even though the burns and sulfur smell pointed to demonic involvement, Edie noticed bruised circles around the guards’ wrists and ankles.
” Another sip of tea moistened Gwen’s far-too-dry throat.
“Near their bodies, the soil surrounding tree roots had been disturbed, and several branches overhead were sagging. And when Max smelled the bruises, he detected the rapidly fading scent of rotting roses.”
Hugh’s nostrils flared.
Yeah. They both knew what Max’s discovery indicated.
Fae involvement.
Starting around puberty, Enhanced humans and Supernaturals could generally identify one another through various species-specific mechanisms—and for vampires, that recognition relied on scent.
The more powerful the vampire, the more acute their sense of smell.
A vampire of Max’s age and dominance would be able to distinguish fading scent evidence long after another species, or even lesser vampires, would cease noticing anything unusual.
That evidence could reveal a great deal, since each Supernatural species had a certain olfactory profile that intensified unpleasantly if they engaged in violence.
Demons’ mellow campfire scent transformed into brimstone if they turned their victims inside out or burned them alive.
Vampires’ sharp, piney smell would turn to iron if they ripped out their prey’s throat.
And the delicate floral aroma of the fae became rotting, fetid roses if they killed.
Max wouldn’t have confused that scent with any other smell on the planet. Unfortunately, though, all remaining olfactory evidence of fae violence at the breach site would be gone by now. Literally no one alive could either prove or disprove what he’d sensed there.
There was one more bit of circumstantial evidence she could offer, however.
“Also…” Time to find out whether Hugh had learned the fae’s most closely guarded secret. “The deceased guards looked elderly. Well past retirement age. Does that mean anything to you?”
Even two short days ago, she wouldn’t have understood how the guards’ appearance might implicate the fae in their deaths. Frankly, she’d preferred that state of ignorance.
Hugh’s chest rose and fell on a silent sigh, and his unhappy gaze met hers.
“I didn’t know guards had been stationed near the zombie compound.
If they were called in because of an imminent threat, I was given no information about that threat.
But if Maxime Boucher’s observations about their remains can be believed—”
“And Edie’s,” Gwen pointed out. “She may be a common human, but she still counts.”
“—the rings of bruises he—rather, they—spotted could indicate fae involvement, even apart from the scent evidence at the scene. Fae have been known to manacle victims with branches and roots, using their power over trees and the earth.” He hesitated. “As far as the guards’ elderly appearance…”
When he didn’t continue, she filled in what he wasn’t saying.
“Before the zombies attacked the guards and ate their brains, the fae could have fed on the humans’ remaining lifespans.
Since victims immediately age the same amount of time taken by the fae, the guards would look elderly no matter how old they really were. ”
Learning that the fae, who naturally died at around the same age as humans, could actually consume a human’s lifespan—either a year or two at a time or all at once—had horrified Gwen almost as much as her first glimpse of zombies outside her home.
The zombies couldn’t help what they’d become, after all.
But any fae who chose to extend their own existence at the expense of an innocent human’s life had no such excuse.
Especially since a human year apparently only bought a week or two of fae longevity, so those attempting to cheat death preferred to feed on children for greatest efficiency, rather than continually gorging themselves on hapless human adults.
According to Max? Some fae did both.
Not all. Not even most. But enough.
SERC preferred to portray Supernaturals and the Enhanced as harmless and unthreatening, though, to avoid wholesale war with humans.
Officials who learned the secret were ordered to keep it to themselves, while a clandestine branch of the Council hunted down and dispatched any fae credibly accused of feeding on a human’s lifespan.
Hugh’s forehead knotted. “Max told you.”
“Yes.” To battle a hint of renewed nausea, she ate half a cracker and sipped more of her tea.
“Based on the evidence they gathered at the breach site, Max and Edie concluded that the fae had restrained the guards and consumed their lifespans, caused the breach, and then set the scene to frame demons by creating small burn marks and saturating the area with the smell of brimstone. Which was a problem, obviously, but Max and Edie’s immediate priority was to stop the zombies before the creatures could reach the outside world, to save thousands or even millions of potential victims.”
“Something here’s not adding up.” His brows drew together.
“Obviously, I agree that the zombies needed to be stopped before leaving the Zone. But why didn’t Maxime or his human companion—Edie—break through Wall Four to alert the authorities and demand assistance?
And why did they dismiss the possibility that demons and the fae might have chosen to cooperate as conspirators? ”
“I’ll explain why they exonerated demons in just a minute.
In answer to your first question, though, if the authorities had descended on the breach site, they would have immediately blamed your species for the disaster and bloodshed, no matter what Max tried to tell them.
” Her stomach churned as her mind replayed the traumatic vision she’d experienced.
“And we both know what would have happened then.”
His hand dropped to his lap. Curled into a loose fist. “After the zombies were eliminated, demons would have been the next target of violence. Acts of vengeance by the government, outraged common humans, or both.”
“It wouldn’t have stopped there.”
“No.” Weary resignation filled his voice.
“There are too many common humans, both in the government and in everyday life, who distrust Supernaturals and would welcome any reason to slaughter all of us. Enhanced humans would be considered fair game too, most likely. Because of your cooperation with Supernaturals and because your power makes common humans fear you.”