BlueK Dynasty: The 1st Seven Days (24 page)

Kurma signaled
O’bellaDonna to come and take her place. O’bellaDonna happily
hurried over and sat down, and Kurma got up. She’d had enough of
McGrady. He was fun, no doubt, but he was too much at the same
time. Where did this old man get that kind of
energy?
  

Kurma sat next to
Rimselda, who was quietly sipping from a flute of Dom Perignon. The
girls laughed with one another. They didn’t need a big scene to
have fun; they enjoyed each other’s company without all of the
hoopla. Kurma made herself a strong drink—a lot of clear liquor
with a little orange juice. She wasn’t a drinker, but tonight
seemed different. She was doing stuff she had never done before.
Girls her age didn’t get to go to clubs like this and party with
men like McGrady. She wanted to enjoy it and unwind for a bit. She
drank her drink, joked with Rimselda, and lay back on the couch.
There was no need to change into a Raptor or hurt anyone. She sort
of wished she had this life minus all the bad things that had
happened to her. But, she figured, she had to take the good with
the bad.
  

Off to the side, Jackie
put a white pill in her champagne, swirled the drink around, and
downed it in one gulp. “Wooooo!” she screamed. She was ready to
tear the night up. “Why are you girls sitting down?” she shouted
over to Kurma and Rimselda. She stood up and started dancing to the
music.
  

“
Let’s
show them how it’s done!” O’bellaDonna said as she stood up to join
Jackie. The two girls went to the bigger VIP dance section and
moved seductively under the lava-red lights. McGrady watched
O’bellaDonna, intrigued by her full hips and long
legs.
  

Kurma smiled; at least
they were having a good time and not outside crying in the car like
Chelsea. She scanned the crowd with her Raptor eyes for fun, since
she couldn’t dance. She hadn’t been born with rhythm like Jackie
and O’bellaDonna. She was more of a two-step kind of girl, and that
was after a drink or two.
  

As she took in the
nightclub scene, she glanced over to an altercation that was
happening by the stairs roping off McGrady’s section. The bouncer
and a taller guy were exchanging words back and forth, and it
seemed pretty heated. As the security guard tried to block the
other guy’s entry, Kurma realized it was her younger brother,
Inis.
  

Oh my
God
. Kurma heard her voice magnified in
her head. She stood up so fast she knocked over her
drink.
  

Rimselda felt liquid
running down her leg at the same time Kurma rushed from the couch.
She saw Kurma hurry over to the bouncers and a random guy who was
trying to get in. Didn’t she know this was McGrady’s table and he
could handle it? She looked at Jackie, who was still dancing with
O’bellaDonna, both of them unaware. Mr. McGrady slid next to her,
and she could smell his spiced cologne.
  

“
You’re
looking so sweet in that red dress, darling,” the old man crooned.
“I could buy you two more just like it.”
  

Rimselda wasn’t paying
attention. She had a bad history with older guys, mainly her
father, and had no interest in getting involved with
another.
  

Mr. McGrady put his arm
around her shoulders and came close to her, rubbing his nose
against her hair. “That red hair of yours reminds me of licorice in
the summertime, how it gets sticky when you hold it for a while.”
He giggled in her ear. He was coming on strong.
 
The stronger the
better
, he thought. That way they could
never forget him.
  

Rimselda cut her eyes at
him and was about to throw her glass of champagne in his face, but
someone had beaten her to the punch. A tall, thin girl dressed in
sheer fabric stood in front of her with an empty glass. Rimselda
felt the liquid splash all over her arm. McGrady, on the other
hand, got the drink full in the face. Jackie pulled Rimselda up and
guided her away from
 
McGrady and his girlfriend.
Rimselda turned to see the old guy dabbing his face with napkins as
the skinny girl looked after her with heated
eyes.
  

“
Where
did Kurma go?” Jackie asked.
  

“
I don’t
know. I saw her walk up to this guy, but then I was distracted by
McGrady.”
  

Jackie laughed it off.
“He’s an old-time player who can’t see the error in his ways and
give up the chase. Let’s go to the bathroom and wash you off.” She
felt how sticky Rimselda was and felt bad that she would smell like
the bottom of a bottle by the end of the night.
  

The girls turned right and
walked off to find the bathroom. They were so distracted they
walked right by a disturbed Chelsea, who had made her way into the
club. She had to tell them that something was going horribly wrong
outside. She’d seen that what was coming for her looked like a riot
and a charge of angry bodies.
  

26.

The South Side of
Alexandria
  

It was too late. Santino
saw the destruction for himself. Phantasm had transferred from
person to victim, from victim to person in a matter of hours in the
city of Alexandria, and there was nothing he could do to reverse
the deaths or stop its movements.
  

Leon had found his brother
when they went back to the house in south Alexandria to look for
him. Stewart was face down, covered in blood, on his porch’s front
step, a knife sticking out of the middle of his back. He’d been
stabbed repeatedly in his sides and back, and Leon didn’t know by
whom. All he knew was that his older brother was dead at the hands
of someone who didn’t understand what a Phantom was. He could
imagine his brother trying to fight the carnivorous urge as he was
stabbed from behind.
  

All around them the
streets were filled with people running in fear. Cars crashed,
cyclists were pulled from their bikes and attacked, mopeds were
trashed, and Phantoms continued to wreak havoc on the city. People
barricaded themselves in their homes. The streets were trashed;
fires were started, and put out by busted fire hydrants. Smut and
ash coated the pavement, and smoke blotted out the sky. People who
weren’t Phantoms took the city’s crisis as a time to gain and
looted whatever they could.
  

Leon held his dead brother
through the whole thing. Even when the police and RAID team came
and tear-gassed the street, Leon held on to Stewart. Even when
Stewart’s body grew cold and lifeless, Leon didn’t let go. Santino
and Kosner had to pry his hands from Stewart’s torso and drag him
away. Leon didn’t scream, and he didn’t cry. He only wanted to
avenge his brother and tell him how sorry he was that he’d gotten
him caught up in the crossfire between Phantoms and humans. He was
so sorry.
  

*
  

Santino heard the RAID
director using an enormous bullhorn to command the citizens of
Alexandria to go back inside their homes and stay there until
everything was under control. Santino didn’t think there would ever
be control in the city again. As soon as Phantoms overran south
Alexandria, they would move to the west and east of the city. These
newborn Phantoms had no clue who their creator was or how to go
about living without some kind of guidance. Santino believed they
were driven by hunger, and unless someone had a strategic plan of
giving them food without physical contact then the human population
would cease to exist. A Phantom either touched you or ate you;
either way the Phantom population went up or the human population
went down.
  

“
I say
we get out of the city before they round us all up and kill us on
sight,” said VIN as he walked briskly with the guys. “That or the
government will bomb Alexandria to stop Phantasm from spreading
across sector lines.”
  

Sometimes VIN was smart,
and this time was no exception, except Santino didn’t want to run.
He needed to stay and make people understand that Phantasm could
spread even more with physical, skin-to-skin contact. If no one
knew how Phantoms were created then all humans were likely to be
exposed.
  

Santino didn’t know who to
tell first. This was beyond saving himself; he had to think about
all the people of Alexandria and his family as well. If he had to
turn himself in then that was what he would have to do. He didn’t
want this thing getting out of control and even more innocent
people dying. Yes, he ate people; when he was in his right mind he
felt horrible about it, but he couldn’t change himself. What he
could do was stop all the normal people from coming
in
 
contact
with Phantoms like him, especially the newborns who were running
rampant on the south side of Alexandria. Leon would have to be just
as responsible for the mess he had made as Santino was. He was,
after all, the reason why Phantoms were running amuck now. If only
he had waited around for them to change fully and brought them to
Santino, then maybe all of this wouldn’t be taking place. But
Santino couldn’t think about the past, only the future, and right
now his wasn’t looking to great.
  

The four men barely made
it out of south Alexandria before the police barricaded the
streets.
  

“
I’m
going to turn myself in and try to explain to the police what’s
going on,” Santino said. He had made his mind up. “Someone needs to
tell them how to hold off the Phantoms so they won’t be able to
spread throughout the entire city.”
  

“
No way,
Santino!” yelled Kosner. He stopped walking and turned to face
Santino. “I’m not letting you turn yourself in. They’re going to
blame you for all of these deaths.”
  

“
I am
responsible!” screamed Santino. He felt so
guilty.
  

“
No, you
aren’t! It’s this guy’s fault, not yours,” VIN yelled back. “If
anybody is turning themselves in, it’s going to be Leon.” VIN
shoved his finger in Leon’s face.
  

“
Leon,
man, we have to do this together. We have to make this right,” said
Santino. He heard sirens blaring to his left. He hoped for
everyone’s sake that the cops were holding off the Phantoms and
taking back the city. “We are the reason this is happening. Don’t
you want to make this right for your
brother?”
  

“
Don’t
you dare bring him into this!” Leon
yelled.
  

“
But be
reasonable,” Santino went on. “If you hadn’t touched him, he
wouldn’t have turned into a Phantom, and his friends wouldn’t have
become Phantoms either.”
  

“
This
isn’t my fault!” Leon screamed. His eyes burned like hell. “You
turned me, remember?”
  

“
No,
Kosner did, and he was there when you came to. I helped you adjust.
We all did. We didn’t leave you by yourself,” Santino explained.
“We all need to take responsibility. Just come with me and we can
go in and make a report so no one else has to get
hurt.”
  

Leon backed away from the
group. He knew what they were trying to do: make him take the fall
for everything. He wasn’t stupid. He knew how this worked. He was
the weakest, and they were going to make him take the short end of
the stick. He hadn’t killed all those people back there. The new
Phantoms did, not him. Why should he go and turn himself in? He
only turned his brother, who was now dead, so that let him off the
hook. Santino and the guys couldn’t make him do anything anymore.
If he wanted to skip town, he could. If he wanted to turn someone
into a Phantom and start his own gang, he could do that too. He
didn’t need Kosner, Santino, or any of them really. He had made up
his mind.
  

Leon reached out and
punched VIN in the face. VIN flew into Santino. Leon made a dash
for it and cut in between people running, shoving everyone out of
his way. They would never get him to confess anything or take the
rap for everything. Not him.
  

Kosner was the first to
react. He ran after Leon and hoped Santino and VIN would catch up.
Looney Leon was on the run.
  

27.

Run and
Seek
  

Leon didn’t care who he
touched or how he touched them. All he knew was that he had to get
away from Santino and the guys as quickly as possible. Night was
falling, and the chill sank deep into Leon’s bones. He had to get
out of the city, far away from everything and everyone. He knew he
could make a new life somewhere else, someplace warm, or even out
at sea on a yacht. All he had to do was hop on the first thing
smoking and he was home free.
  

The problem was he was
running north and not south, where the heat, the border, and
freedom were. If he turned around to go back, Santino would be
there with his two goonies. But up north things got colder, space
got even tighter, and the people were not so nice. Then again,
money was up north, and Leon didn’t have any at the
moment.