Chapter Five

I’d never been so grateful to wake in my coffin, still undead and stake-free. I went through my usual “morning” routine—rose, sealed my coffin safe behind the fake wall in my walk-in closet, dressed, brushed my teeth and braided my hair. I chose another cute, innocent outfit of stonewashed jeans, clogs and a pink wool sweater with a fluffy white kitten knitted on it. Pink bows at the ends of my braids added another layer of harmlessness to my ensemble, and I wondered if matching lip-gloss would be too much.

Before I emerged, I watched the security footage of the outer rooms to catch up on what I’d missed. The humans seemed wary at first, but exhaustion won out and everyone slept for most of the day, warm and safe in their cots and makeshift beds, a few sprawled across the leather couches. No one made a move on my door, and I appreciated that. They kept an eye on it, though. Were they expecting me to leap out and devour them while they were defenseless?

The dead continued to stumble around the upper floors like the world’s most depressed office workers. Now that I had humans to look after I’d need to secure at least one floor for them, because they needed sunlight and fresh air. Not that there was anything wrong with the ventilation system. There were just too many humans to coop up in my rooms. They’d need to stretch their legs to avoid going stir crazy. It was part of the reason I’d taken to scavenging and hunting for survivors—I needed an activity.

Most of the humans were still asleep when I emerged, and I decided to cook breakfast. I could handle pancakes and coffee with the supplies in the kitchen. Protein was going to be hard to come by, so no more bacon and eggs for the foreseeable future. No fresh cream for the coffee. No milk for the cookies. Just another sucktastic detail about the end of the world.

The kids invaded first. They stood at the arched entryway that connected the kitchen to the living room, with the bravest in front and the others peeking out from behind. For a moment I felt like Fagan with my own little army of Dickensian moppets. The eldest was six, and her name was Kai. She was one of Maggie and Roz’s kids, who apparently had been adopted from China, like her little sister Jinnan, who was four.

“Are you really a vampire?” Kai asked.

“I really am. But I’m the nice kind. Like the Count on Sesame Street,” I assured her. “Would you like some pancakes?”

“Yes, please.” She drew closer, and the rest of the little ones followed like ducklings.

I filled plates and wondered what was the proper procedure for feeding children. I never had any of my own, and my memories of my two half-brothers were distant and hazy. Over time, mundane, day-to-day details faded from my memory, because the brain can only hold so much data, like a hard drive. Should I cut up the kids’ food first? Pour the syrup for them instead of letting them do it themselves?

Luckily a brigade of moms arrived before I had to make a decision. They eyed me warily, like I was going to poison their pancakes, and then made an unsubtle effort to put themselves between me and the kids. Whatever. I can’t feed from children, so I wasn’t about to pounce and chug a few like juice boxes. I focused on filling the tray on the counter next to the stove with more pancakes. Over twenty mouths to feed meant a lot of pancakes.

I glanced at Angela when she arrived with a plate, and she studied me with a bemused expression. I was momentarily distracted by the low neckline of her tank top, and by the gorgeous toned arms revealed by her lack of sleeves. Hot damn. I recovered and smiled sweetly.

“What?” I said. “Vampires love pancakes. Everybody loves pancakes.”

She snorted as I filled her plate, and I checked out her ass as she walked away. My inner demon and I both approved of the view.

The humans chatted in strained voices while they ate, trying and failing to sound cheerful. I didn’t blame them. This wasn’t exactly IHOP. After the last of the batter was used I wistfully inhaled a whiff of the coffee before leaving them to eat. It wouldn’t be fair for me to indulge in food I didn’t need, and I didn’t want to make them feel even more uncomfortable. I’d let them adjust to me over time, like a litter of feral puppies learning how to interact with people. My shelter was no-kill, and I never gave up on a dog, no matter many behavioral problems it had.

With my good overcoat torn to shreds by zombies, I needed a new winter jacket. I thought I had one in my closet, but apparently not. I settled for a scarf, a knit Chicago Bears cap, and several insulating layers of clothing under a heavy-duty hooded sweatshirt. I stuffed a pair of gloves into the pouch of the sweatshirt and stopped outside the kitchen.

“Got lists for me? I’m going shopping,” I said.

Angela looked to Mike, who nodded his approval, and then Angela rose and motioned for me to follow her. Top dogs, as I predicted—only made sense that the others would follow the police officers because they were links to some sense of order. He probably outranked her, considering their difference in age. We headed into the library, and she handed me a pile of lists written on my stationery.

“We made a list of addresses of our families and friends. Can you check them, when you’re…?”

“Flying the friendly skies? Depends on how far they are, and whether or not I can make it there and back before dawn. Close suburbs I can handle, like Berwyn or Stickney, but shit like Gurnee is out of the question for now. Food is the highest priority. I need to make sure I can feed you before adding more hungry mouths. The canned stuff should be okay. Not sure how well it’s surviving December in Chicago without heat, but the mobs will have left it alone. They’re programmed to go for live prey, so they won’t bother with it.”

“I want to go with you,” she said.

“No.”

“You’ll need help. You can’t carry all that at once.”

“Yes. We should spend some time alone with her,” Elizabeth agreed.

My jaw clenched, and I forced a long, slow breath. “I’m going to load up the park district van and make a few trips. You’ll just slow me down.”

“You shouldn’t go anywhere without backup.”

“You’re sweet,” I said. “I take care of myself. And, as you may have noticed, bites don’t infect me. I won’t put you at risk if it’s not necessary.”

“I’d still feel better if—”

“Honey, when I came to America, it was still the colonies. I got this,” I assured her.

“Seriously?” Angela’s brow rose as she blinked at me.

“Seriously. I’ll probably be gone a few hours. Put your feet up, watch a movie. Stay out of my room.”

“What happens if you don’t come back? We’re trapped in here. We can’t get out without you.”

“I always come back.”

“And we’re supposed to trust you? I thought trust is earned,” she said.

“It is. I’ll earn it by coming back.”

“Earn it by taking me with you,” she countered.

Stubborn. Well, I probably wouldn’t have trusted me either, under the circumstances. I could babysit one human easy enough. All I needed to do was keep her close and yank her into flight with me if we aggroed any mobs.

“All right, fine. But before we go you’re going to explain to the others that this is one hundred percent your idea, and it’s your own fault if you don’t come back.”

We started with a local warehouse store. I knew where a few of the closest ones were because I’d shopped there for enormant bags of dog food and treats in boxes the size of cinder blocks. Judging by the flock of mobs inside the store I wasn’t the first person to visit the place in search of supplies, but I dealt with them easy enough. Fighting them was straightforward thanks to my recharged magic and the store’s high ceilings. I set the van down outside, levitated inside, taunted the mobs to a central spot by making a bunch of noise and then popped their heads off one by one, like meaty daisies.

She loves me, she loves me not…

When the store was clear I flew the van through the entrance and yanked the outer doors closed. “You can come out now,” I informed Officer Kinney.

“That’s…awful.” Her eyes widened at the gory pile of headless corpses illuminated by her lantern. The mess stank to high heaven, like a Dumpster filled with sewage and rotted meat.

“It’s gross, but effective. The horror movies got one thing right—you have to get them in the head, or they keep coming.”

“Why is that?”

I shrugged. “Magic has rules. It’s not usually wild like this.”

“You really don’t think there might be a way to cure them?” She edged closer and nudged a body with the toe of her boot. “If magic killed them, why can’t it bring them back?”

“They did come back, that’s the problem.” With a sigh I knelt next to the pile, wondering if there was anything the bodies could have on them that would justify looting their stinky corpses. Unlike a video game, these mobs didn’t produce coins and magic items. Even if they did, we’d never get rid of the smell. No one wanted an enchanted sword of eternal stench.

“You can’t undo death,” I explained. “It’s a permanent condition. You can alter it, like me. I died just enough that my soul fled, and my Master shoved a demon into its place. The demon keeps my body running, just like the spell keeps these guys running. If you remove my demon, or this spell, you just get a corpse.”

“The blood doesn’t keep you running?”

“More like my demon is my engine, and blood is her fuel. And sex.”

Angela crossed her arms and quirked a brow. “Won’t you need sex then in addition to the blood?”

“Not as long as the batteries hold out. We should probably pick up some double-As while we’re here.”

She barked a quick laugh. “It’s not the same.”

“I know.”

Before the apocalypse Elizabeth operated a small but successful Internet porn business. With the aid of an epic collection of toys, wigs and Mardi Gras masks she became Mistress Elizabeth, and she had a faithful online following. The invention of the webcam did a lot to supplement our income (just as the invention of the VHS tape had paid for our building). When she hungered I let her take the reins for an hour or two of cybersex, and she charged clients by the minute. We compromised over online role-playing games. I slayed the virtual dragons, and she cybered with our guild mates in celebration.

Now that the world was over I’d have to leave my solar-powered sanctuary, and that meant no more refrigerators full of blood bags or high-def pornography. Elizabeth was going to need a live playmate, so we’d need to start a flock.

The wet scrape of flesh against concrete drew my attention. A legless mob clawed its way toward us, its fingers scraped to the bone as it hauled itself along. Angela drew her weapon, but I motioned for her to wait. A gunshot might draw mobs from the parking lot.

“Ugh, now that’s awful,” I muttered. The corpse was outside the circle of the lantern’s light, so Angela was spared the worst of the gruesome details. It was male, dressed in the store’s uniform shirt and missing the left side of his face in addition to his legs below the knees. I popped his head off like the rest, and Angela flinched at the meaty snap of skull parting ways from spine.

She swallowed hard. “Why do they…eat? Is that part of the spell? Will the magic wear off if they run out of fuel?”

“No. Technically they’re not eating. Their organs don’t function, so no digestion. I think eating their prey is instinct. Animals are programmed to feed, fight and fuck, not necessarily in that order.”

“Right. Could we reverse the spell in someone who’s been bitten if we get to them before they die?” Angela asked, returning to the original subject. “It takes a while for the person to die if they don’t die of the initial wound. That’s why we thought it was a virus, because it seemed to need an incubation period.”

“It’s kind of the same principle. I suppose it would work. We’d probably need a necromancer to do it, and I don’t know any. Most human magicians were wiped out in witch hunts during the fifteenth century, and their numbers never recovered. At least the European ones were. I don’t think there are any in the area. The werewolves might know.”

“Werewolves are real too?”

“Yeah. I have a truce with the local pack, but I’m not sure if the terms extended past the end of the world.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“If it’s supernatural, it’s dangerous. They’re not evil, but they can be violent and their bite is contagious. In most places vampires and werewolves are at war for territory, but I’ve tried to be of the ‘live and let live’ mindset.”

“We should contact them if they can find a magic user.”

“Maybe. That might be borrowing trouble, though.” I rose and rubbed my hands together for warmth. “It’s freezing in here. Let’s get started on the lists. Stay in my line of sight. There’s always more of them.”

Angela nodded. She ran a hand over a nearby display of neatly folded toddler pajamas. There was something haunted in her expression, and I softened.

“Do you have children?” I asked.

“No. I always thought I’d have more time for that. I’m only thirty. I have a niece and nephew. I’m worried about them.”

Nieces and nephews were a foreign concept to me. I never knew what happened to my human family after I left England. My first hundred years as a vampire were a blur filled with endless nights of blood and debauchery.

“Where are they?” I asked.

“North side. I hope…I know they’re probably gone, but I need to know for sure. My sister lives two blocks away from my parents, and my dad is retired CPD. If they’re together, they could still be alive.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders as she turned to me. “You really don’t have a soul?”

“Not anymore. Just Elizabeth and her never-ending inappropriate commentary.”

“Like a voice in your head?” she guessed. “Your inner sex goddess?”

“Ooh, I like that.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Hell no. It’s part evil twin, part alternate personality, and part voice in my head. She’s…well, she’s a succubus. She’s the id. She’s need, hunger and instinct.” I shrugged, ignoring Elizabeth’s opinion of my assessment. “It took me a long time to learn how to control her. But lots of people don’t have souls and they do just fine. Like Congress.”

Angela laughed, and we got to work. We stuffed the van with food, clothes and bedding until there was barely enough room left for her inside. We did three trips that night, which was time-consuming. Time-consuming was good. Vampires need to fill the hours because eternity can get boring, and the more work I had to do, the less energy my demon had to obsess over scenarios for bedding Angela and/or Gabriel. At the moment Elizabeth was leaning toward Angela because we were spending so much time together, but hauling giant boxes of macaroni and cheese and ramen noodles wasn’t exactly my definition of quality time.

The humans sorted through the loot and I retreated to my room with a new paperback mystery to fill the remaining time before sunrise. I left the door to my room open in case the humans needed something, and after reading through two chapters I glanced up to see Kai and her brave band of moppets sneaking in. I stifled a sigh—I couldn’t very well throw a hissing vampire fit at them for invading my space after I’d told them that I was a “nice” vampire.

“Yes?” I peered at them over the top of my book.

“Do you know Santa Claus?” Kai asked.

I blinked—I was nearly three hundred years old, and that was a question I’d never encountered before. My pop culture study had familiarized me with modern Christmas celebrations. Santa was some sort of magical being, but he wasn’t usually associated with vampirism.

“Why?” I finally asked in reply.

Kai inched further into the room. “Can he get down the elevator?”

Ah. My brow furrowed as I tried to remember how many days away Christmas was…nine, that sounded right. It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re not sticking to a schedule. The crowd paused at the end of my bed, and I set my book on the nightstand. My time at Tara had taught me that having simple joys to focus on—even something as small as a new hair ribbon or your favorite tea cakes—could distract from the trauma around you. The future was pretty grim for these kids, so they needed a little Christmas.

“Santa can get down a chimney, and that’s smaller than an elevator shaft. I’m sure he’ll be fine,” I assured her.

The answer placated Kai, and she turned her attention to the plush parade of stuffed dogs lining my headboard. “You like puppies?”

“I do like puppies. How about you each take a puppy and we’ll go back to the other room?” Before their moms noticed that they were missing, freaked out and tried to stake me.

Everyone picked a fluffy Rottweiler, and I herded them back toward the TV where the rest of the kids were watching Lady and the Tramp. I found most of the women in the gym, sorting through the spoils of my looting expedition and piling things among my exercise equipment. I waved Angela over and pulled her aside.

“I’m going to need more lists,” I said.

“Oh?”

“Christmas lists. For the kids. They seem worried that Santa won’t find them here,” I explained. Her brow rose, and I plunged ahead. “We can pick up one of those fake, pre-lit trees and some ornaments. I can stash presents in the penthouse. It’s secure.”

“Seriously?” she said.

“Seriously. I’d rather be vampire Santa than the Grinch.” Plus, though it’d been a while since I had one, I knew that a happy flock was a loyal flock. A loyal flock would shed blood for their protector, and shield me from the wrath of our resident priest.

“It’s not going to burn you like the cross did?”

Valid question. “Well, I’m going to have to say no to crosses and nativity scenes, but Rudolph and Frosty are all good. It’s not just Christianity that causes the burning, in case you’re wondering. It’s complicated. Then again I’ve yet to find a simple religion.”

Angela chuckled and smiled dryly. “Okay then. I’ll let them know about the lists. Officer Walker and I have a request too, while you’re here.”

“You seriously call him Officer Walker? Shouldn’t we all be on a first-name basis after the apocalypse?” I asked.

She cleared her throat and blushed. “Habit. It feels like we’re always on duty now. You can call him Mike, if you like. And I’m Angie.”

“Angie. I like it. It has moanable potential.”

Blushing, I cleared my throat. “Fair enough. What’s up?”

“We’d like you to pick up a police scanner and a CB radio. That way we can contact other survivors.”

I nodded. “Sure. I’ve been chatting with people online, but at this point they’re mostly hackers and doomsday preppers. Not local. Do they still make CB radios? I thought that was a 70s thing?”

“They do. You might need to loot a RadioShack to find one,” she said.

“All right. Will do. Anything else?”

Angie lowered her voice. “I have more questions, about the bite. And you, in general.”

“I enjoy piña coladas and getting caught in the rain.”

Her dark eyes glittered with amusement. “That’s not a real answer.”

“I know.”

I turned and studied the women dividing up the spoils we’d looted. They chatted amongst themselves and politely ignored us, a few of them grooving to the 90s pop playlist emanating from the iPod docked to the gym’s stereo. They were nearly all young mothers, newly widowed, doing their best to create some sense of sanity in a world gone mad. Pretty damn tough.

Vampires couldn’t have children, not in the traditional sense, anyway. In all my years, I’d only made one vampire, and I wouldn’t describe my feelings for Isabel as maternal. Instead I regretted bringing another monster into the world, and the weight of it choked like an invisible chain around my neck. I’d traded Isabel’s freedom for mine. No amount of good deeds would forgive that crime, or exorcise the demon lodged inside me.

Yes, I needed to build a flock, but these humans should be free to build a new life for the new world, not be shackled with my undead drama.

“That’s complicated. Another time, okay?” I said, taking the coward’s way out. “I’m wiped out from all that flying.”

“Okay. I’ll get you those lists.”

“Thanks.”

I retreated from the room, and let the living live.