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  Copyright© 2015 Nicky Peacock

  ISBN: 978-1-77233-638-2

  Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

  Editor: JS Cook

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  For all the other writers out there that write what they love, and for the readers who love to read it.

  BAD TIMING

  Battle of the Undead, 2

  Nicky Peacock

  Copyright © 2015

  Prologue

  “Don’t be sorry, be better.” Words my father would say to me. Whether I was apologizing for staying out too late or for losing an expensive piece of jewelry, he’d say it with a ghost of a smile and a supportive wink. My younger sister and I heard this saying a lot growing up, and even when I was turned, I still heard the echoes of my father’s advice. And as I walked the dirty alleyways of Victorian London, luring out a mass murderer, I sincerely hoped that tonight I would be better, not sorry.

  My boots needed re-heeling so I made far more noise than was necessary. The clunk, clunk, clunk of my quick steps thrummed through the shallow stoned streets, although it was only my pursuer that heard it. It was a clear and still night so most of London’s occupants were either nestled safely in their beds ready for yet another day of toil, or stumbling around taverns and bordellos spending their small day’s wage. I heard a rolling carriage in the distance and smelt the pungent smell of fresh horse crap hitting the crisp night air. It may have been disgusting but it was my home and believe me, the older you get, the more you appreciate a place that can draw you close and keep you, even if it stank like a toilet.

  As I internally lamented, he closed the distance between us. I turned back and glanced at him. He was wearing a long black velvet cape and satin top hat with a red cravat. He couldn’t have looked more like a villain if he’d have sported a thoroughly waxed handlebar moustache and an artfully placed monocle. He chuckled low beneath his breath then jumped over me to block my path.

  “A lady should not be out unescorted at such an hour,” he said taking off his hat and letting me see the greasy auburn hair lurking beneath.

  “Who says I’m a lady?” I put my hands on my hips so that my fingers could wind about my newly installed release cord. One pull and my annoying hoop skirt and bustle would fall down leaving me in my more durable riding pants.

  He sniffed the air and snorted. “I smell that now. You’re a vampire like me. Well, not quite like me.” He straightened and raised an eyebrow. “Nicholas is such a sentimental maker, isn’t he?”

  “Nicholas is not my concern this night.” No, he was destined to feel my wrath at a later date.

  “I can rectify his mistake though. I’m Ichabod; I guess you’d call me your brother.”

  “I’d rather call you a stain on the cobbles.” I pulled the cord to unburden me of my cumbersome skirts.

  “Most impressive,” he leered at me, “I never did understand the Elders’ rules about lady vampires. But, even without comprehension, I still must abide by them. You must die, my sister.”

  He leapt up and pounced on me, pushing my back against the ground. I tried to flip upright but couldn’t get purchase enough to shake him off. He put his face into mine; I saw his graying tongue slither about yellow teeth. “Don’t struggle sister, I’m doing you a favor.”

  I raised my knee and thrust it into his groin. His face went slack and he pursed his lips as he tumbled off me clutching his junk.

  “Don’t do me any favors,” I said, and flipped myself upright.

  I pivoted to roundhouse him in the face, but he caught my boot mid kick and pulled me over to fall next to him. He shifted positions and suddenly his gloved hands were around my throat. I tried to reach for my scythes that were nestled in a holster behind my back, but I was pinned too securely to even get a finger on them.

  “You don’t play fair,” he seethed, squeezing with all the strength he had.

  If I’d have been human, I would have been dead. My neck pulled, spine splintered like a chicken for the pot.

  A salty delicacy then filled the space around us and he released me. We both sniffed the night air.

  “Jack’s done it again.” Ichabod smiled, then looked down at me. “My child needs me. I’ll bid you good night, sister.” And with that, he was but a blurred movement in my peripheral vision.

  I felt the bruising on my neck; no doubt it would be a royal shade of purple by the time I got home. I gathered my things and limped back up the street.

  ****

  “What were you thinking?”

  There was no comfortable answer I could give without furthering my friend’s rant. I decided to simply look down and shrug.

  “That’s not an answer, Britannia.” He walked across the room, hands on hips and his lace handkerchief fluttering like a white butterfly that couldn’t settle.

  I bit my lip to stop my usual anger from boiling up and out. Philippe was my only friend, the only other vampire I trusted.

  He huffed and sped back to my side; sitting next to me with elegant annoyance he put an arm round me. “Please, promise me that you stop these little temper tantrums.” His eyes were so sorrowful.

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Can you not forgive Nicholas his foolishness? You could come back to Paris with me, you would love it there. My child, Tate can’t wait to meet you, he’s practically…”

  “…look, I understand your concerns.” I shrugged off his arm and got up, “But I cannot leave England and I won’t stop till all of Nicholas’s children are dead and he is utterly alone, just like he made me.” I smoothed down my ruffled dress, my hand catching the hidden clasp. My skirts fell to the floor revealing my riding trousers.

  “Oh my,” Philippe muttered.

  I blushed and began to gather the fabric up in my arms, but I couldn’t collect them all. Instead I ripped them off and threw them across the room. When I looked up at Philippe he was smiling at me.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “You are not alone,” he whispered, taking my hand. “I did not make you, but you could be part of my family.”

  “I thank you for the offer, but respectfullydecline.” I got up, curtsied as best I could without a skirt, and lowered my eyes. Philippe was far too handsome for his own good and his offer had settled into the back of my imagination, to be replayed and improved upon at a later date in my daydreams.

  He clutched at his heart as if he were wounded, “As you wish, my lady.” He lifted my hand and kissed it.

  “May I borrow your horse?”

  “You want to continue your fight with Ichabod? You must not. Take tonight as a sign. He is too busy with his new creation to warrant taking vengeance on you. His child’s murders are all over the newspapers. He draws too much attention to us. Ichabod will have to destroy him now.”

  “He belongs to Nicholas. Ichabod must die.”

  “He’s three times your age! You’ll be killed!” Philippe stood and gripped my hand to hold me in place.

  “Then I will die doing what I believe is right.”

  He took a pointless breath and closed his eyes. “I will take care of Ichabod. If I do it before I go back to Paris, no one will suspect my involvement.”

  “You would do that for me?”

  “That
and so much more. Please Britannia, consider a quieter life. Choose a child and start your own family?”

  “No!”

  “Do not take Ichabod and Nicholas’s misguided actions as normal vampire behavior. Please, meet my Tate; you’ll see that it can be a wonderful thing to…”

  “To curse another!” I finished his sentence and stamped my foot.

  “To create another.” Philippe sighed and looked away from me. “One day you will see its worth. To have a family of your own making. To keep the ones you care for close to you.”

  “Never. I will never do to another, what has been done to me.”

  “Never is a strong unrealistic word; in a quick mind its promise is lost.” He then left. I didn’t see him again for fifty years.

  Chapter One

  I set off with the best intentions: to protect, to serve, to tell a man I loved him. The problem was that sailing a ship is a lot harder than it looks. I hadn’t fed and wasn’t strong enough to fight against the Irish Sea, which pitched like a bitch. So I ended up washed back ashore onto the English coastline with splinters of my small stolen ship scattered around me like dark damp confetti. I yelled a word that I won’t repeat, then started the long trudge up the beach.

  If my zombie clothes smelt bad before, now damp they were positively ripe. Still I couldn’t bring myself to strip and walk around naked. My super sense of smell wasn’t as strong as my old fashioned notions – so I grimaced and bore it.

  It was dark now; my time. A roll of thunder rippled the clouds above me and I waited for lightning that didn’t come. Even Mother Nature had taken her eye off the ball. I’m not surprised, seeing the dead stagger about like drunks at closing time was enough to put any responsible entity off, no matter what their position. I’m guessing God had taken a break too, a realization that grabbed me by both hands as I scaled the beach and came face to face with the ruins of Blackpool.

  The smell of burnt plastic and flesh clung to the air; there was no breeze for it to ride, it was just there – like my eau de zombie. I could hear groans in the distance like a gigantic belly was rumbling with hunger, and I had the very real sense that Blackpool was now less of a tourist trap and more like a flesh trap. I ran as fast as I could up toward the pier then down into the main street. I was hoping for a whiff of live person, but all I could smell was zombie. I stopped and scanned the scenery around me. As I turned I came eye to eye with a grabby undead tourist, a zoo visitor’s pass still swinging round its neck and flowery shorts far too short for anyone who knew the British weather. It reached out to me and gently touched my arm. My hand flung to my side to reach for my scythes, which of course were long lost to the sea, but it didn’t bite or grab me, it simply patted my arm and groaned a little as if to speak. I raised an eyebrow then realized, I smelled of zombie, it thought I was one of them – no heartbeat, no breath, horrible stench. I recoiled enough to let it start to stumble away. I could have broken its neck but that would have drawn more attention to me than I needed.

  I could see groups of shadows in alleys and shuffling around ransacked shops. Blackpool was lousy with the undead, just like everywhere else. I spied a department store and jogged up to it. It was mainly in good shape, and it had drawn its shutters over its larger windows; I forced them open and slipped inside, pulling them down behind me. First things first I found some decent clothes and new underwear then stripped and washed in the toilets. I pulled on some tight jeans and a red shirt with a cross on the front (ironic vampire fashion) then grabbed a pair of biker boots. My hand hovered for a moment over a long leather trench coat but, to be honest, it was more of a statement piece than practical. When you move fast billowing clothes can get caught in doors and all sorts of nooks and crannies, not exactly stealthy. I did however take a Swiss army knife embedded with Swarovski crystals and an emergency fire axe which I liberated from its glass case — by far my favorite non-purchase of the day.

  My hair was longer than before and back to its original blonde coloring. I stared in a nearby mirror at my reflection. My freckles had even started to re-appear on my pale skin. My eyes were brighter though– the fire had certainly forced a make-over on me, one I didn’t appreciate. The hair would have to wait, so I tied it up into a high ponytail, but the rest... I whizzed about the cosmetics counters and applied some dark eyeliner and plum lipstick – it made me paler, less homely, which deep down I knew was narcissistic and completely unnecessary but at times make-up is the closest thing to armor us women have. Britannia version one point one was ready to kick some zombie butt and work her way to the nearest docks. I had a plan and it was a good one, but what is it they always say about best laid plans?

  Zombies had begun to crowd around the department store’s main doors. They could smell me now. I know what you’re thinking: I’d have been better off in the gross zombie clothes, Well, as much as I’d known that, it just wasn’t going to happen – turning up in Ireland dressed like a recently escaped asylum patient and smelling like a maggot heap? Hell no.

  I took the axe in one hand and opened the doors, just a little, with the other. Zombies flowed through the small gap I’d created, single file. I chopped and hacked at them till their number dwindled enough for me to kill the rest without fear of being bitten too many times. When I was finished they were a twitching mess of mismatched limbs on the ground and I had well and truly been converted to using an axe. But just as I’d stopped to admire my handiwork, a pain shot through my chest. I doubled over and looked up to scan around me for the moron with a gun, but I felt another pain jab at my shoulder: the attack was coming from behind me. I rolled forward and swiveled round to see who my attacker was, it was…another zombie. It had a piece of sharp wood in its hand and it was almost like it was trying to stake me through the heart. I hadn’t seen any other zombie brandishing a weapon. What the hell was going on? It lurched forward and stumbled a little, dropping the piece of wood. I could have snapped its head off three times over now, but it was just so weird. When it had been alive, it was a young woman, petite with long golden hair. It kind of looked a bit like me now. Or it kind of looked like Buffy the Vampire Slayer had become a zombie, and her muscle memory was still intact whenever she came across a vampire. Now, I know that Buffy wasn’t real, but that TV series held certain horrors for my kind, Buffy wasn’t our hero, she was the bogeyman that hunted us.

  I should have killed it, but I just couldn’t. The world was just far more interesting with her in it.

  I got up and sprinted down the street, back toward the docks. Halfway there, I had to stop. I hadn’t eaten in quite some time and being wounded compounds hunger. I could feel the tickle in my belly start to spread like a stain in my innards. But who could I drink from here? I had to feed, I’d never be able to get to Ireland like this.

  Then, just like a shard of light pushing through the darkness, I smelt live human. It was faint and moving quickly, but it was there. I bounded off in its direction, my boots grinding pavement, and the odd discarded bone, into the streets. When the scent became so strong that my vision tinged red, I jumped onto the rooftop of the nearest building and scanned the area. I saw him. No more than seven years old, running and crying like the devil was chasing him; then I saw the devil in pursuit.

  Chapter Two

  Chasing after the boy was a man in ragged clothes, blood splattered all over him and wielding a machete. He was also alive. I breathed out the thought that I’d have to kill a child, I had to feed and this psycho child killer was the perfect prey. First things first; I leapt down and landed in front of the kid who ran straight into me, I hugged him close, his sweet red scent teasing my nostrils. I pushed him back and crouched down in front of him.

  “Stay still and watch out for zombies,” I whispered and pointed down the street in the opposite direction to his pursuer, who had now stopped and was walking with menacing determination towards us. The boy put his fingers in his mouth and nodded.

  “Don’t move and look over there,” I said again.
r />   He turned round to stare up the street; he smelled of dirt and piss yet still had that lingering scent of talc and Johnson’s baby wash. I turned to face the crazy man then glanced back to check the boy was still and looking away – he was.

  The man with the machete had his lip curled in a tight, satisfied grin. He was big too, bigger now he was only a few feet away from us. The blood on his clothes wasn’t his; God knows how many he’d killed now there were no consequences to his murderous actions. I narrowed my eyes; there was always one asshole who’d take advantage of a bad situation.

  He stopped a foot away and beckoned me toward him like some jacked up martial artist in a corny D movie.

  I felt that familiar stir in my gut. It uncoiled like a giant jungle millipede, each of its little legs tickling the burning hunger growing inside of me. Blood was everywhere, it was almost overpowering. I leant to one side and put the axe down. He laughed; he thought I was surrendering. What a dumb ass. I casually walked to him and as I got within a breath’s distance I dropped to the floor doing the splits, each of my legs kicking one of his out with it, splitting him down with me. I heard his tendons snap. He yelled in pain and I slipped my hands round his neck and angled him so I could tear out his throat. Blood gushed into my mouth and everything else melted into a scarlet cloud — like salted red cotton candy. He tried to slice me with his machete but I was too fast and caught his hand, crushing the bones in it till he dropped the weapon. I was so hungry he lasted barely two seconds before he was a pale husk of a killer.

  I picked up his body with one hand and threw him into the nearest public trash can, but he was far too big and simply lay splayed over the top.