The Eternity Cure (40 page)

“We should get going then,” Zeke muttered, and took a staggering step forward. “Because honestly, I don’t know how much longer I can keep walking.” He pressed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. “God, it feels like my eyes are going to burst out of my skull.”

My anger with him vanished. Stepping forward, I reached up and gently pulled the hands from his burning face, keeping his wrists trapped in my fingers. His eyes, glazed and bloodshot, met mine, and I squeezed his hands.

“We’re almost there,” I whispered, willing him to keep going, to not give up. “Stay with us, Zeke. You promised me you wouldn’t stop.”

He gazed at me, not making any move to free himself. “I’ll remember my promise, vampire girl,” he whispered back, forcing the words out through the agony. “If you remember yours.”

Chapter 19

Two hours later, Zeke was no longer with us.

He hadn’t said anything since our short break in the tunnels, marching on with a set jaw and glassy, pain-filled eyes. The heat pouring from his skin intensified, instantly melting the snow that settled on him when we finally went aboveground, as we hurried from shadow to shadow to avoid the bleeders.

And then, as we crossed a snow-covered parking lot, weaving between rusty hulks of cars, there was a thump behind me, the sound of something hitting the pavement. I whirled and saw Zeke lying in the snow beside a van, as if his body had finally given up.

No
. I hurried over to him and knelt, turning him to his back. He groaned, half-opening his eyes, peering at me through glazed blue orbs.

“Zeke,” I said, taking his arm. It was so hot. “Come on, get up. We have to keep going.”

He tried. Gritting his teeth, he leaned against me as I pulled him upright, but as soon as we tried taking a step, he collapsed again. Panting, he sank back into the snow, ignoring my attempts to keep him on his feet.

“Zeke, don’t do this,” I said, watching helplessly as he slumped to the ground again. “Get up. We’re almost there.” I knelt and reached for his arm, but his hand clamped over mine, stopping it.

“Leave me.” The words were so soft I scarcely caught them. But my stomach, heart, mind, everything, recoiled in absolute horror, and I stared at him in anguish. “I can’t go any farther,” Zeke whispered, his voice strained. “Go on without me.”

I snarled, furious and defiant. “Dammit, Ezekiel! Don’t you dare pull this self-sacrificing crap now. If you think I’m leaving you…” My throat unexpectedly closed up, and I swallowed my despair. “Forget it. There’s no way I’m going on without you—”

“Allie.” Zeke squeezed my arm, and the words faltered to a stop. “I can’t,” he murmured, making my throat clench. His hand rose, weakly, to his face. “I can feel the sickness… burning, and it’s making me crazy. You have to go on without me. I can’t even see straight, much less fight.”

“No,” I whispered, frantically shaking my head. “I’m not doing this. We can carry you, if it comes to that.”

He closed his eyes, the snow falling around him, melting on his forehead and cheeks. “You can’t stop Sarren…if you’re constantly worried about me,” he said, breathing hard between phrases. “He’ll use me against you…that’s what he does. When you face him again, you can’t have…any distractions.”

“You are not a distraction,” I choked out. He didn’t answer or open his eyes, and I clenched my fist against the snow. “Dammit, Zeke! Don’t ask me to do this.”

Kanin’s footsteps crunched behind me, coming to a stop at my back. The Master vampire loomed over us, his gaze solemn as he stared down at the human.
Say something,
I begged silently.
Don’t let him do this, Kanin.

“This is your choice,” Kanin said, even as I wanted to scream at him. “Are you certain?”

Zeke nodded painfully, opening his eyes. “I know what I have to do,” he whispered. “Having me along, when we’re so close to Sarren, is dangerous now. I can’t go any farther. Allie,” he said, looking up at me. “Leave me here. Go on without me.”

“Leave you here in the snow?” I demanded. “With the bleeders? You’ll be dead before we get back, Zeke. They’ll tear you apart.”

A scraping of metal, as Kanin turned and wrenched open the side door of the van, revealing a darkened interior and an empty space. “In here,” he told me, unconcerned with the glare I turned on him. “Get him out of the open. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”

“Kanin, you can’t expect…”

His hard stare made me trail off. “What happens if we take him with us and Sarren sees him?” he demanded. “What do you think he will do? Or if we are ambushed by the infected again and have to run?” His gaze softened, his forehead wrinkling with sudden pain. “I…am not at my best, Allison. I’m not sure that I will be much help against Sarren when we find him. If we must fight, and Sarren will almost certainly push it that way, then it will be up to you to stop him.”

Fear spread through my insides, turning them cold. I didn’t want to face Sarren alone. I had thought Kanin would be the one to deal with crazy Psycho Vamp, but it was obvious now that he was barely functioning. It would be me. I would have to fight Sarren. I remembered his tongue on my skin, his face close to mine, taunting Zeke over my shoulder. If Sarren turned on me, if he saw Zeke, sick and unable to defend himself…

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I put Zeke’s arm around my neck, lifted him upright, and half pulled, half dragged him into the van. He clenched his jaw, his breath hissing painfully through his teeth as I settled him against the wall opposite the door, kneeling beside him. He panted, squeezing his eyes shut, sweat beading on his forehead and running down his skin. That blazing, sickly heat filled the small interior of the van, driving away the cold.

“Allie,” Zeke whispered, dropping his arm, “can you… reach my gun?”

Silently, I reached around his side holster and pulled out the pistol. Zeke eyed it wearily.

“How many bullets?”

With shaking fingers, I checked the clip. “One,” I said quietly. “Just one left.” Zeke nodded.

“Good. If it comes to that, one shot…is all I’ll need.”

Dread gripped me. I watched, numb, as Zeke took the gun from my limp grasp and set it down, close to his leg. I had the sudden image of myself walking away from the van, and a shot ringing out behind me. Or returning with Sarren’s cure, sliding the door back, and finding a frozen corpse sitting here, the van cold and lifeless. It made me want to scream.

Zeke finally looked at me, warmth breaking through the glassy pain in his eyes. “I’ll be all right,” he assured me, his voice faint. “I’m not going to do anything stupid, Allison, I just…need to rest. If you find Sarren and get a cure in time, I’ll be here. If not…then it won’t matter, anyway.”

Leaning forward, I touched my forehead to his, closing my eyes. “I’ll find him,” I promised softly. “Try to hang on. I’m coming back, Zeke, I swear.”

Zeke cupped the side of my face, his palm searing hot, as he raised his head and kissed me. Just a slight brush of his lips over mine. “I’ll wait, vampire girl,” he whispered, tracing my skin with his thumb. “For as long as I can. But, if I don’t make it…” He hesitated, as if he wanted to say something, but thought better of it. His heart, already pounding, sped up, thumping in his chest. “Allie, I…”

“Allison.” Kanin’s voice echoed from outside, gentle but firm. “We need to go. Now.”

Zeke slumped. “Go on,” he whispered, pulling back. “Go stop Sarren. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be here.”

Hot tears stung the corners of my eyes. I wanted to stay, to argue more, but words caught in my throat, and there was nothing left to say. Furiously blinking back tears, I drew away from Zeke and stepped out into the snow.

For maybe the last time, I glanced through the frame, at the human watching me from the interior of the van. He offered a faint smile and nodded before I wrenched the door shut, sliding it along the track until it clicked into place. Hiding him from view.

Kanin didn’t give me time to second-guess my decision. “Let’s go,” he said, and spun, continuing through the aisles of cars. I gave the van one last look and followed, feeling Zeke’s presence become smaller and smaller behind me.

We walked in silence for a bit, me trailing behind the other vampire, my thoughts on Zeke and how I had likely killed him by leaving him there. Alone, sick and dying in that van. If I’d only insisted he come…but then, that would likely get him killed, too.

“There are no good choices, Allison,” Kanin offered in a quiet voice. “There are only those you can live with, and those you can work to change.”

My throat felt tight. “I killed him,” I whispered, voicing the dread I couldn’t allow myself to face a few minutes ago. “He’s going to die in there.”

“You don’t know that,” Kanin said. “You’re not giving him enough credit. He’s fighting it, Allison. At this stage, he should be insensible, mad from the sickness. That he still retains his sense of self is little short of amazing. He might be able to stave it off a little longer.”

“Enough to get him the cure?”

“If Sarren has one.” Kanin sounded weary. “Though I find that difficult to believe—he’s never been one to undo what he has started.”

Despair rose up, threatening to crush me. “Why are we doing this, then?”

“Because we must.” Kanin’s voice and expression remained the same. “Because there is nothing else we can do. Because there is no one else.” His voice dropped, becoming nearly inaudible. “I will put my trust in hope once more, and perhaps this time, it will be enough.”

Hope. Hope that Sarren had a cure. That it would be enough to save Kanin, Zeke and New Covington. Allie the Fringer would’ve seen it as foolish—hope was a luxury that could very easily get you killed. But that was what had kept Kanin going all this time, wasn’t it? The hope for an end to Rabidism, that he could undo what he had helped cause. It was what had kept Zeke and the others searching for Eden, too. They’d made it only on the strength of their beliefs. And… it was what
I
held on to with Zeke. The hope that a vampire and a human could defy every instinct and fear, to fight the monster and the bloodlust and the desire to kill, and find a way to be together.

All right, then. I wouldn’t give up. I would see this through to the end. For Zeke and Kanin and the city that had been my home for seventeen years, I would also put my trust in that tiny sliver of hope, and cling to it until I was certain everything was lost.

Kanin suddenly stopped at the edge of the street, then quickly backed behind a corner. Wary, I edged up beside him and peeked past the brick.

I recognized the lot across the street, the surrounding buildings, the weed-choked field with its skeletal trees and cement blocks poking out of the grass. The last I’d seen of this place, I’d been fleeing the Prince’s coven with Kanin, trying to get out of the city before we were both killed. I couldn’t see the ruined, blackened remains of the building across the street, through the grass and twisted old trees, but I knew it was there.

The old hospital. The hidden lab. We’d made it.

“It’s too quiet,” I remarked as we stood at the edge of the lot, peering across frozen grass, weeds and the leftovers of old buildings. “Do you think Sarren is really here?”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Kanin muttered.

His voice was tight. I looked at him and tried not to let my worry get the best of me, but it was hard. The entire length of one arm was cracked and peeling, and a hint of bone glimmered through the wasted flesh of one cheek. I knew he was in pain, that just walking was agony for him, no matter how stoic he tried to appear.

“Can you do this?” I whispered. The thought of facing Sarren was terrifying, even more so that I might have to do it alone. I thought of Zeke, dying in the van, alone in a snowy parking lot. It was killing me that I had to leave him behind, but Kanin had been right: Sarren would use him against us. He would do the same to Kanin if he could.

“You should stay here,” I told Kanin when he didn’t answer. “I can find Sarren alone, Kanin. You don’t have to come.”

My sire looked at me, and I gave him a brave smile. If I had to face Psycho Vamp by myself to save Zeke and Kanin, I’d do it. It scared the crap out of me, but I would do it.

An almost affectionate look entered his eyes. “No,” Kanin murmured, turning to the lot. “Sarren and I… We’ve been at this for a long time. This war ends tonight. I will not let you face him alone.”

“Are you sure?”

His smile turned dangerous, and his dark eyes gleamed. And for a moment, I was reminded that Kanin was a Master vampire, that he was far stronger than I, and that he still had that terrifying demon inside him.

“Let’s go,” Kanin said quietly, and together we started across the lot toward the distant hospital ruins, walking side by side. Just the two of us, me and my sire, against the most frightening vampire I’d ever known. Whatever came of this night would determine the fate of everything.

As we approached the first of the skeletal buildings, my skin prickled a warning. I could hear movement, shuffling footsteps to either side of us in the dark, the low murmur of voices. Something giggled softly, just as I caught a glint of metal in the weeds that hadn’t been there before, and stopped.