Strange Trouble (20 page)

She couldn’t breathe. She grabbed on to the back of a chair,
swaying, as Ellis and Rice stared at her in alarm.

“I have our little princess,” he continued, “just as our
leader has requested. Do you understand now, Ms. Alexander?”

“Rune,” Ellis cried. “What has happened?”

She shoved her phone into her pocket. “COS has Lex.” She ran
from the room, leaving both Rice and Ellis behind.

She stopped at the restroom first and charged into it.
“Lex!”

But the large room was empty.

She ran back to the break room.

The crew jumped up at her entrance, hands reaching for
silver blades. “What?” Strad
said,
his voice hard.

Raze came toward her, a blade in each hand, looking for a threat
that wasn’t there.

“God,” she cried. Lex wasn’t there. COS hadn’t lied. “COS
has Lex. COS has
Lex.
”

It seemed as though she could form no other words. COS. Lex.

She’d just spoken to Lex. Just left her in the bathroom
where COS had stolen her boldly and with no hesitation.

Her cell rang. She ripped it from her pocket. “Where is
Lex?” she screamed.

“I wanted to give you time to search for her, to see we’re
not lying. Lex is with us now.”

“I will find you,” she said, “and I will get her back.”

He didn’t sound afraid. “Be quiet and listen, Ms.
Alexander.”

He paused,
then
continued when she
did as he demanded. “Good.
Now.
Turn on your TV. I’ll
call you back.”

She pointed at the small television high on the break room
wall. “Turn it on,” she said to Jack.

He clicked through the channels, and then they saw exactly
what COS wanted them to see.

A reporter stared out at them. The penitentiary in which
Karin Love was confined loomed in the background. The reporter’s eyes were wide
and bright as she spoke with excited glee into her microphone. “…of Judge
Randolph Parker. Parker resided over her first trial, and due to new evidence
and prosecutorial misconduct, believes the woman might not belong on death row.
Might, in fact, belong back in the arms of her church…”

The reporter kept talking. Her lips moved, but Rune had no
idea what she was saying. White noise filled her head.

Lex.

She watched, frozen with disbelief, until Levi and Denim
broke from the small, stunned group and ran for the door.

“Wait,” she called. “Levi!”

The twins stopped and turned back to face her, their eyes
holding identical expressions of shock.
Of horror.
Of guilt.
“What?” Levi asked. “What can you do?”

She didn’t know. She opened her mouth to speak but Ellis and
Rice hurried into the room. Ellis went immediately to Levi and wrapped his arms
around him. “We’ll get her back,” he said. “The crew will get her back.”

“Ellie,” Levi whispered. “They’re turning Karin loose. Karin
is coming, and she’s taking us back.”

Rune closed her eyes.
God, the horror in
his voice, the conviction in his words.
The twins believed it was
inevitable. Karin would once again get them all.

Her cell rang. She held it to her ear, her heart beating so
hard it hurt her chest. “I’m listening, you bastard.”

“We want the twins,” he said. “Tell them to go home. They’ll
be contacted. Keep your crew out of this. If we see you, if you interfere, Lex
will be tortured. You believe me, don’t you, Alexander?”

Oh yes, she believed. She nodded, numb, and turned to look
at the twins. “He said for you to go home and wait to be contacted.”

They were gone before she’d even finished speaking.

“How did you do it? How did you take her?”

“We have people everywhere. You passed three of them when
you left Lex alone and hurried on to your meeting with Bill Rice.” His voice
was full of something close to pride.
And contempt.

“She didn’t fight,” Rune said.

“She is too afraid to fight us, Alexander. We know how to
handle Alexis Love. We’ve been doing it since she ripped her way from her mother’s
body.” He hung up.

She stared at Rice. “What can we do?”

“They’ve done nothing illegal. Law enforcement won’t touch
them.”

She laughed,
then
cut it off when
she heard a note of hysteria.
“Nothing illegal?
Since when is abduction not illegal?”

He held his phone out to her. “I received a call, informing
me to hang up and let it go to voicemail.”

She hit speaker, and she and the crew listened to yet
another horrific development.

“This is Alexis Love,” Lex said. Her voice came out of the
phone with a tinny desperation, a quiet knowledge, and a hurt so vast it left
Rune breathless and ill. “I am with the Church of Slayers…” She stumbled,
then
continued. “I’m with them of my own free will. I want
to be with…”

She stopped speaking, but after a quickly indrawn breath,
she went on.
“With my mother.”
Then she spoke in a
monotone, and didn’t sound like Lex at all. “My mother will be freed, and my
place is at her side. I am the leader’s child. I am Alexis Love, and I belong
with my mother.”

Lex hesitated, and when she spoke again, her voice was hard.
“Take care of Levi and Denim. No matter what, do not let—” Then there was
nothing.
Nothing but dead air.

The silence was heavy and oppressive. Lex was gone.

Gone.

“She’s
gone,
” Rune said. Her mind was barely working,
paralyzed beneath the fear.

“Not for long,” Raze
said,
his face
pale. “We’ll get her back if I have to tear the world apart to find her.”

“By the time you do, it’ll be too late,” Owen said. “The
queen bitch is going to kill that little girl.”

“Not right away. She’ll want to take her time. She enjoys
punishing her daughter too much to kill her—even if she has to do it through
her slayers.” Rune looked at Rice. “You can’t believe that phone call was
anything but forced.”

He shook his head. “I don’t. But everyone else…” He spread
his hands helplessly. “They’ll believe because they want to. No one will go
after the church. No one will go after Lex and those boys.”

“Oh, someone will,” Rune said. “
We
will.”

She’d thought Lex and the twins were safe with her and the
crew.

They hadn’t even been close.

COS had them, and that meant they had the
entire crew.

And COS might not kill Lex, but they would
kill the twins.

“No,” Raze said, as though he knew exactly what she was
thinking. “They won’t kill them. They want to use them.
To
reconvert them.
The boys are valuable.”

But she wasn’t convinced. The twins were dangerous to COS,
so they were disposable. But COS could control Lex by using the twins. Maybe
that would save them.

She glanced at the TV. Someone had muted the sound, but a
picture of Karin Love filled the screen, and no sound was necessary.

The face of evil stared back at her. Her smooth, black skin
was dotted with endearing freckles. Her lips were full and slightly tilted, as
though she was always on the verge of sharing a secret joke.

Rune could see bits of Lex in her face.
The
forehead, cheekbones, mouth.

But Rune knew Karin Love, and to her, the evil was obvious.
It was there in her bottomless, cold eyes.

She knew suddenly and without question that Karin was going
to be freed, and she was going to hurt Lex.

Something Lex had known all along.

“Let’s go,” Raze said.

“Where, Raze? Go where?” Rune caressed the hilts of her
shivs, tempted to plunge one of them into the healing stake wound on her chest.

“Surround the house. Follow COS when they take the twins.
Get Lex the fuck back.”

“COS will hurt her if we do.”

He curled his lip. “They’ll hurt her anyway, Rune.”

But she’d made so many wrong decisions. “I’m afraid I’ll
fuck up again,” she said, looking from one to the other. “I’m afraid I’ll get
her killed.”

That was an understatement.

She was fucking terrified.

“I can’t do this, guys. I can’t do this anymore.”

“You’re the only one who
can
do this,” Jack said, his
voice harsh. “You want to sit back and let COS have them? Or do you want to
take them the fuck down?”

“I want Lex and the twins to be okay. That’s what I want.”

“Well, they’re
not
okay. We have to make them okay.
You know that, Rune.”

She did. She took a deep breath and clutched at Owen’s hand
when he offered it to her. In the back of her mind she noted the berserker’s
immediate reaction to the contact, but it was a niggling thought she barely
comprehended. Not then.

Rice’s phone rang. She stared at him, willing him to hang up
and tell her that Lex and the twins had overpowered COS and were on their way
back to the crew.

But he didn’t tell her that. He clenched his phone, his face
pale. “Zombies, Rune.
And not just a few.
They’re in
Spiritgrove, and they’re attacking.”

He held up his palm as she opened her mouth to speak. “Every
available cop is on the scene, and they’re blowing the zombies’ heads off. But
it’s not enough. They’re spreading out, and they have to be contained now.” He
pointed at her. “Take the crew and do your job. Protect the city.”

But he knew what she’d say. The knowledge was there in his
eyes. And he didn’t blame her, not really. The city hadn’t been kind to her, or
him, or to any of the
Others
.

She smiled. “Fuck the city, Bill. I’m going after Lex and
the twins.”

With any luck, the zombies would make their way to those who
held part of her crew. She’d urge them on as they munched on the malevolent
brains of the wicked slayers who held Lex, and eventually, on fucking Karin
Love.

But Rice shot out a hand as she started past him.
“Rune.
You can’t ignore the zombies.
Especially
not these.
They’re the new zombies you were worried about. You have to
help protect the city.”

“No. I have to wipe out COS. I have to get to Lex.”

He softened his voice. “Think of little Stefanie…of all the
innocents of River County. They depend on us to protect them. I want Lex to be
okay. But Lex and the twins are Shiv Crew. They will deal with it. Do your job,
Rune.”

Ellis had sat down after Levi left, his face in his hands.
But now, he climbed to his feet and joined her. “He’s right.”

“Ellie!”

“It’s the right thing to do.” He said nothing more, and
though stark terror was in his eyes, in the lines of his face, pale beneath the
recent injuries dealt him by the mad master, he was sure. Ellis had always been
one to do the right thing.

“Take the crew and destroy the zombies,” Rice urged. “COS
will still be here, playing their games.”

Finally, she relented.
Sort of.
“Raze, take one of the guys and stake out the twins’ house. The rest of you,
come with me. As soon as we get the zombies under control, we’ll deal with
COS.”

“Owen,” Raze said. “Come with me.”

“Fuck you,” Owen replied.

The insult was obvious. Raze wanted to take the person he
thought had the least ability to help Rune.

“I’ll go alone,” Raze told her. “I’m going to watch. You’re
going to fight. You need them.” Without waiting for her approval, he strode
from the room.

“Be careful,” she said, but he wouldn’t have heard her.

Four of them against a sudden horde of new
zombies.

“We’ll be in more danger from the cops and their guns than
from the zombies,” Jack said.

Rune nodded. “Grab some vests.” What he said was true.
People facing down monsters tended to get itchy trigger fingers.

Ten minutes later they were following Rune deeper into the
city. The streets were eerily quiet and empty, the darkness chased back by the
tall street lights.

“I hear guns, but I don’t see—” Rune started,
then
suddenly she caught sight of pulsating lights from cop
cars, lighting up the night. “There they are.” She dug out her cell and tossed
it into the glove compartment.

The police cars sat in the middle of the street, doors open
with cops crouched behind them, guns aimed.

Even as she stopped her own car and jumped out, the sound of
gunfire filled the night. But the monsters were not discouraged.

They came on in their unhurried, hungry way.

When she ran forward, she released her claws and called out
to the police. Some of them acknowledged her with a nod, but mostly they
ignored her and watched the zombies.

“There are so many of them,” a young cop said. She couldn’t
remember his name.
David, maybe, or Danny.
“They keep
coming. We blast out their brains and the others just walk over them. They want
us.” His face was pale, his eyes a little too wide.

An older cop joined her, a man named Tom Peyton. “Glad to
see you, Alexander.” He scratched his head. “I can’t figure out where they’re
coming from. But they keep coming.”

She glanced around at her crew. “We’re going to take them
out, but you guys have to stop shooting. We can’t be in the middle of that with
guns blazing.”

He nodded, and a gleam of relief lit his eyes. “Rice let us
know you were coming. If you think you can destroy the motherfuckers, be my
guest. We need more men, more guns. But right now I’ll be happy with you and
the guys.” He nodded a hello to Strad, who came to stand at her back. “If you
need us, get the hell out of that mess and we’ll start shooting again.”

The zombies were taking over the city—at least that part of
it. She nodded in the direction of the hospital. “You have some men stationed
at the hospital?”

“We do. We have men stationed all over.
Got
rid of a few stragglers over there.
But these ones, they seem to be
following a path straight into the city.
That make
any
kind of sense to you?”

She shook her head, but was afraid it
did
make sense.
They were following an invisible trail left by
Fie
,
and maybe, by Rune herself.

“Flamethrower?” she asked the cop.

“We had two. Used them up and started shooting.
Barely slowed them down.”

Rune looked around at her crew. “Do
not
get bitten.”
If they’d have listened, she’d gladly have ordered them to stay the fuck away.

Owen grinned. “We’ll do our best. And after this, Rune, you
and I are going to—”

“After
this,
” the berserker
interrupted,
his voice soft and even, “you and I will need to talk.”

Owen inclined his head. “I guess we will.”

“Get rid of them, Alexander,” Peyton said.
“Because if the military comes in, it’s over for all of us.”

Without waiting for either one of them to say another word,
Rune ran at a car and leaped over it, landing on the other side with the coming
zombies.

Then with a niggling, confusing reluctance, she shoved all
her worries away and began to do her best to thin out the monsters.

There was no scent of tempting, fresh blood this time. These
zombies had not fed—a little fact she was extremely grateful for. But it wasn’t
for lack of trying. The bastards came at her, disregarding her slashing claws,
their teeth snapping eagerly.

But there was a whiff of magic. She caught the strong,
familiar scent of Damascus. Damascus was gone. Why did her scent linger?

Rune slashed throats and drove her claws into cavernous eye
sockets, and it was like slicing dehydrated meat.

They were hungry.
So hungry.
Their
moans beat at her brain, begging her for something.
Anything.

Each time one fell, she felt it tug at her heart.
Like she was killing innocents.
But they were zombies. They
couldn’t think, or feel, or reason.

They couldn’t.

And she wasn’t their fucking mother.

She fought harder, angry now, and let herself do what she
did best. She couldn’t worry about the three men with her, couldn’t worry about
anything other than stopping the zombies.

Occasionally she heard a gunshot, and figured one of the
zombies had wandered close enough for the cops to put it down without risking
the crew.

She stumbled only once, when her concentration was broken by
Owen.

It was the first time she realized he was truly one of them.
He was Shiv Crew.

And it wasn’t because of his flawless execution as he
wielded his silver, wasn’t the way he danced with fearless finesse through the
throngs of zombies. Wasn’t even the way his straight-as-sticks hair flew out
behind him as he turned to slice a zombie neck at the exact moment he drop
kicked another.

It was the look in his eyes.

She recognized it, though she couldn’t name it. It was the
look all of Shiv Crew had.

It was the look that told her she could trust him. The one
that told her he’d give his life for the innocents, for the crew, for her.

Just as she’d give hers.

So she stumbled, because right then, Owen became one of
them.

She didn’t know, with the thick soup of magic and mayhem and
mystery, with all the pain and death and torment, why they were.

But she realized without a single doubt they’d been brought
together for a reason.

They’d been born for Shiv Crew.

And while she might be damaged and broken and a little
fucking crazy, she had a purpose.

That somehow made it okay, to know it was out of her hands.

She had no control over any of it—over life, or
circumstances, or death.

She let it go, and she not only accepted Owen, but she got a
hell of a lot closer to accepting Rune.

She might never know exactly who she was, but that was okay.

She was…

She
was.