Dominion of the Damned (23 page)

“You’re welcome. But there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

A nervous feeling flooded her chest. “What is it?”

“It’s Noah,” he said, setting the mugs down on the bookcase. “Now that we’ve got our samples, he needs to get started on his vaccinations. He should have gotten started months ago.”

“Oh. Right.” Hannah rubbed the back of her neck and shook her head. “He’s been so healthy, I haven’t even thought about that.”

“Well, we want to keep him that way. If you bring him in tomorrow, Zach can give him his shots. Or if you’d like to get it over with I can come over tonight…”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” she said, “but thanks. We can get it done tomorrow. I doubt twelve more hours or so will make that much difference.”

Was that disappointment she saw in his face?
Don’t be stupid
, she told herself.
He’s just being a good doctor
. Alek smiled, and nodded. “You’re right. I need to finish waking up. I’ll be down in a bit.” He walked her to the door and opened it for her. She felt his gaze on her back as she crossed to the elevator and waited for it to arrive. When the doors slid open, she stepped in and turned around, and saw him standing in the doorway, watching her with a look that paralyzed her with… with what? Six months ago, she would have called it fear, but now she knew what real fear tasted like. There was a hunger in his gaze that had nothing to do with food, and warmth spread through her stomach as her body responded to it.

Inexplicably, she pictured herself going back to him and pushing him inside and... and what? Part of her was afraid to look beyond the and. But part of her wanted everything that came after it. She met his gaze and felt herself take a step forward.

Then the doors closed, cutting her off. She leaned against the back of the elevator and closed her eyes. Where the hell had
that
come from? And what the hell was that look he’d given her?

He was probably just hungry for his breakfast, she told herself. That’s all it was. And she was hungry, too, she realized. Low blood-sugar must be making her crazy with poor judgment. She would go back to the lab and eat the leftover quiche and cobbler that Chris’s mother had packed for her, and then get back to work, and when Alek came down, everything would be strictly professional, and Zach would be there, and it would be safe, and there would be no
And
.

She took a deep breath and blew it out, and went over the day’s events in an attempt to get Alek out of her head. A new job helping to discover the cure to the apocalypse, zombie rats,
Bob
... which brought her back to Alek, the humanitarian vampire. All of her days were full of strangeness here at the end of the world, but this day was standing out as one of the stranger ones.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Hannah woke up the next morning with a powerful urge to shoot something. Her night had been filled with fitful sleep and vivid dreams barely remembered. Bits and pieces came to her in flashes as she sat on the edge of her bed. She saw Bob, rising from his gurney, his skin sloughing off and landing in puddles on the floor, except it wasn’t Bob anymore. It was her Mom. She saw herself running down a long hall, lined with bars, chased by her parents, and the prison guard. She saw Esme behind them, holding Noah and smiling her cold smile. And she saw Alek ahead of her, leaning out of a helicopter and holding out his hand, calling to her, but she couldn’t reach him.

She’d had other dreams about Alek, too, but she didn’t want to think about those. They made her feel like she should apologize to Chris.

She wanted to see Chris, she decided during her morning run. He had a way of steadying her, making her feel like everything was normal. She stopped by the store, panting and sweaty from her run. Leaving the stroller at the bottom of the front steps, she carried Noah inside. “Hey,” Chris greeted her, coming around from behind the counter. He smiled. “What’s up?”

“
Do you want to have lunch with us?”

His smile widened into a grin. “Yeah.”

“
Good. Do you have ear plugs?”

His grin held, but his brow creased with uncertainty. “I’m pretty sure we do, somewhere.”

Hannah nodded. “Bring them.” She kissed him, a quick peck on the cheek, and headed out to finish her run.

She was showered and dressed by the time he knocked on her door. When she answered it, he held up a little plastic box filled with orange earplugs and shook it. “Good. Here.” She handed him the mini cooler that held the sandwiches she’d packed for them, along with her father’s duffel bag.

“
This is heavy,” he said as he shouldered the bag. “What’s in here?”

“
You’ll see. Now, where’s a good place to shoot some shamblers?”

He took them to a section of the base set aside for tourists, where they kept decommissioned and antique tanks and large-scale weapons. They were still at least a quarter of a mile away from it when they could hear the wordless droning of the infected. A twelve-foot tall chain-link fence stretched along the boundary of the base, with barbed wire lining the last two feet. At least a hundred of them lurched and stumbled into each other on the other side of the fence. As Hannah, Chris and Noah drew closer, the shamblers seemed to sense them, and moved as one toward the fence, pressing against it and each other, clawing at the chain link as they tried to reach through.

Hannah shuddered. “Talk about shooting fish in a barrel,” she muttered.

“
Okay,” said Chris, setting the bag and the cooler on the ground. “
Now
will you tell me why we’re here?”

Hannah crouched and unzipped the bag. She pulled out the rifle and handed it up to him. “Target practice.”

Chris’s eyebrows shot up, but he took the rifle and nodded appreciatively as he cracked it open to check the chamber. “Cool.” He grinned down at her. “Want to tell me again how you’re not really a tough girl?”

She slapped a cartridge into the Sig, stood up and held out her hand. “Ear plugs?” He handed her the box, and she took out three of the plugs before handing the box back to Chris. She tore one of the plugs in two and tucked each half into Noah’s ears, then dug out a pair of earmuffs that she’d packed in the stroller and put those on his head. He immediately tried to tear them off, but she dug out a baby book and gave him that to keep his hands occupied.

Once Noah was settled, she plugged her own ears and turned back to Chris. “How well do you know guns?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard through the ear plugs.

“
Pretty well. I spent a year in military school before I got up the nerve to tell my dad I didn’t want to join the Army.” He chambered a round and sighted the rifle. “How do
you
know guns so well?”

“
My dad was a survivalist. He started teaching me how to hunt and shoot as soon as I was big enough to hold a rifle.” She looked around and pointed at a Sherman tank. “Let’s get up there.” She wheeled Noah over and parked him behind the tank where he’d be shielded from possible ricochets, then climbed onto the tank. Chris handed up the guns and ammo before climbing up behind her.

Hannah braced herself and pointed the gun into the crowd. The shamblers were so thick that she could just start firing at random, but where was the challenge in that? She noticed one of them pressed up against the fence wearing the faded remains of a yellow golf shirt, and aimed at his head. “Yellow shirt,” she announced, and fired. The shambler’s head snapped back, and he slid down against the fence and was trampled as those behind him filled in the gap.

“
Green trucker hat.” Chris aimed the rifle and fired, and a gray-haired zombie with a decayed nose and a John Deere hat dropped from the crowd.

“
Redhead at two o’clock,” said Hannah, and shot a woman whose wiry red hair only covered half of her head. They took turns in that fashion until they ran through most of their ammo. It felt good, shooting at things when their lives weren’t at stake. With every squeeze of the trigger, the impact shook Hannah’s body and eased just a bit more of her pent-up tension. By the time they finished, there were about thirty fewer monsters left in the world, and Hannah was the most relaxed she’d felt in ages.

They slid off the tank and settled on the ground next to Noah. She had packed him a bottle, but he had actually managed to fall asleep despite all the gunfire so she decided not to disturb him. She and Chris leaned against the tank and ate their sandwiches. “How’d your first day at work go?” Chris asked her.

Hannah chewed the bite of food in her mouth and swallowed. “It was okay.” She didn’t want to think about the awkwardness and tension she’d felt, working with Alek. “I killed Bob.”

Chris snorted. “On purpose?”

“
He got loose and attacked Zach. It’s not like I had a choice.”

“
Well, I guess saving his ass’ll keep you from getting in trouble for destroying their prized sample.”

He seemed more amused than horrified. That annoyed Hannah at first, but now that the incident was behind her, she could see the twisted humor in it. “It’s not like they don’t have plenty more where he came from.”

“
True.” He finished his sandwich and looked at her, as if contemplating something. “This was fun,” he said after a while. He reached over and brushed a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “We should make this a regular thing.”

Hannah smiled. “I’d be up for that.”

He leaned in to kiss her, and she let him. This time his kiss was more heated. Hannah tried to push all other thoughts out of her mind and give herself over to it, but just as she was starting to succeed he pulled away. “I should get back to work,” he said, standing up.

Hannah hid her disappointment and nodded. She let him help her to her feet. “I need to take Noah by the lab before my shift there starts. He’s way overdue for his shots.”

Chris winced and looked down at the baby with sympathy. “I sure don’t envy you right now, little guy.”

“
Not a fan of needles?”

He shook his head. “When I was little it took my mom and three nurses to hold me down to give me a shot. I think that probably traumatized me more than the actual needle.”

Hannah couldn’t help but laugh at the image, but he seemed to take her laughter in stride.

They walked back to town together, and stopped in front of her house. “So, what do you say?” Chris asked before she went inside. “Want to make a date for lunch tomorrow?”

Hannah smiled. “Sure.”

He grinned and kissed her, a quick peck on the lips. “See you then.”

She watched him go, then took the guns inside. Noah was waking up when she came back out, so she gave him his bottle on the front porch. After he ate she should have just enough time to take him for his shots and then come back and clean up before Paula arrived. The thought of going to work filled her with a feeling somewhere between anticipation and dread. Her dreams of Alek tried to invade her thoughts, but she fought them, forcing herself to think about Chris instead.

Chris, with his cute, floppy hair and his easy smile and casual kisses. Chris, who should be everything she wanted at this stage of her life.

She liked him. There was no doubt about that. He made her feel comfortable, and he made her laugh, something she didn’t get to do much of these days. His kisses probably weren’t going to set the house on fire, but they were pleasant, and he was still young and lacking experience. They both were. At least he was her own damn age.

So then why did she have to work so hard to think about him when he wasn’t around, always having to push past thoughts of Alek?
He
was always right there at the front of her memory, his face appearing effortlessly every time she closed her eyes. She had to try hard to
not
think about him, and it made her angry. It felt like a violation, like he was somehow forcing himself on her mind.

Ordinarily, she’d dismiss such a notion and wonder about her own sanity for even thinking of it. But Alek wasn’t ordinary, and she had no way of knowing the true extent of his powers. Did they extend to mind control? She remembered the previous evening in the elevator, the way he’d looked at her as she left, and the inexplicable urge she’d felt to return to him. She had wanted him in that moment, more than she’s ever wanted anything, or any
one.
It scared her.

Tonight, she decided, she would make sure she was never alone with him. She would have to make it clear to Zach that she wasn’t comfortable delivering Alek’s breakfast and wakeup call.

But that was later. For now, Noah had finished his bottle, and it was time to go get his shots.

TWENTY-NINE

“
What do you know about vampires?” Hannah looked up from the box of specimen slides Zach had asked her to sort and waited for him to answer. She was starting to wonder if he’d even heard the question when he finally tore his eye away from the microscope and looked over at her.

“
What do you want to know?”

“
What kind of special powers do they have?”

He shrugged. “Enhanced strength, speed, hearing, smell. Nothing you haven’t seen for yourself. Oh, and night vision. Plus there’s the extremely slowed aging process. You know, in a perfect world, they’d have found a way to engineer out the whole blood addiction and sunlight allergy thing and market the virus as a fountain of youth. Without those drawbacks, it seems like being a vampire would kind of rock.”