Bad Blood (Battle of the Undead Book 1) Read online

  I used to watch wildlife programs. Growing up, I had been entranced with nature, and that spell had continued to weave itself around me as a vampire. I felt like a lioness watching a group of hyenas circling my zebra. There was only one of me, but it only took one lioness to make a kill.

  I ran into the cluster of zombies, twirling my scythes so fast it was like I was wielding two mini chainsaws. Limbs jerked this way and that. Some zombies turned their attention away from the phone box just in time to have their faces sawn off. Most still had that one-track thing going in their minds, so they never saw me coming and simply crumpled beneath my thrusts. It took less time than you’d expect to clear a path, but when I did, I found a cowering man in a suit clutching at the door of the phone box. I tapped on the glass, and he looked up. I tried to smile, but smiles need practice and sincerity, neither of which I could muster. He stared at me with as much horror as if I had been a zombie.

  “You need to come out now,” I said.

  “No!”

  “That’s not the TARDIS, sweetheart. You can’t live your life in a phone box.”

  He looked thoughtful. Really, he hadn’t worked that out yet? I could justify this little encounter on the Darwin rule of feeding. Killing off the ignorant and dumb helped mankind in the long run. I was skimming the crap out of the gene pool.

  I could have forced the door open. I didn’t. Instead, I waited for him to creak it ajar.

  “Who are you?” he asked, taking in my less than human appearance.

  His suit was Armani, crumpled, and splattered scarlet with blood.

  “How did you get in there?” I asked.

  He straightened his lilac tie. “There were a few of us in the office over there.” He pointed a nearby building that looked mostly intact. “We ran for it.”

  “Only you made it?”

  “Yes.”

  I could smell his blood pumping through his limbs. I could hear his heart knocking against his ribcage more from habit now than fear. What a difference a day makes. Yesterday, he was probably lounging in his Armani suit ordering his minions around. He was tall, quite a bit taller than me. He looked to be in his late thirties and had skin so beautiful I wondered how many facials it took to make a face so dewy and youthful. His nails were manicured too. I hated men like that. Give me a solider any day of the week, a real man with laughter lines and muscles born of manual labor.

  “Why are you looking at me like that? Who are you?”

  He demanded answers from me—he was used to getting them, used to being in control.

  I had a number of options. If I fed on him, then brought him back, he’d tell the others what I was. Although, I was reasonably sure most of them suspected already, but I still had to be careful, as suspicion and knowledge birthed two very different reactions. Or I could feed and kill him. I doubted the new world would miss him, and I needed a good meal to keep me going, to save the others.

  I pushed him back into the phone box and slipped inside with him.

  “What’s going on?” he yelled at me.

  I felt my shoulders slump then I took in another pointless breath.

  “Can you keep a secret?” I asked.

  He looked worried, but nodded.

  “Things are very bad indeed.” I nodded outside where the moans of the undead still echoed like cankered bird song. “But you’re not exactly safe in here, especially as I’m a vampire.”

  He raised an eyebrow and suppressed a laugh. “You’re pretty and looked useful fighting those things, but I don’t do mentals.” He snorted and gave me a look of disdain.

  What the hell was he thinking? That he was going to do me? That he was some pampered princess locked in a tower and I was the handsome prince who had fought to save him and now we were destined lovers?

  “No offense, love, but I’d prefer to repopulate the world with a slightly more grounded supermodel type.” He snorted again.

  Holy shit! Was this guy for real?

  “You’re knee-deep in zombies, and the idea that I’m a vampire is beyond your capabilities?”

  “Read too many Twilight books, eh?” He chucked me under the chin.

  I saw red. My fangs flared, and I pinned him back against the side of the phone box. I bit into his neck, and the taste of fresh, pumping blood slammed into my mouth. He screamed like a little princess who’d been rescued by a monster. I didn’t kill him. I should have, but I didn’t. We didn’t need to kill to get enough blood. Then again, lions didn’t need to eat a whole zebra, but they had to take it down all the same.

  After I’d calmed down, I pulled his tie upward and wrapped it around his jagged neck wound. He was shaking and had turned glassy and white.

  “Be more careful who you insult next time,” I whispered.

  “Am I going to be like you now?” he asked, his eyes wide and hopeful.

  “God, no!” I shook my head.

  I’d always known how to create another vampire. I’d been very much awake when Nicholas had done it to me. In all my time, though, I’d promised myself two things: that I’d never make another like me, and that I’d kill Nicholas for what he had done. One promise I had still kept, the other was just beyond my reach—but, hey, the zombie apocalypse was still in its early days yet.

  I left him in the phone box, a compromise to keep him alive. If I took him back, he’d tell everyone. I doubted he’d last long in the city, though. London housed millions of people, and even if only eighty percent were zombies, we were all in a bucket full of flesh-eating crap.

  With a new sense of hope, I started to stroll back toward the pub. I was sated and re-energized, secure in the knowledge it would be a while before I’d have to feed again. In the streets, I saw a lone zombie that had been cut in half. It was reaching toward me, groaning, and its entrails straggling behind it like a frayed bloody blanket. It could barely move, so I left it be. I was in a good mood, until I heard the gunshots.

  Chapter Seven

  Most people run away when they hear a gun. I decided to run toward it. Where there are guns, there are people. I thought I should at least try to rescue someone while I was out. A heavily armed someone would be a bonus.

  I ran down a street that led toward the Natural History Museum. I scaled the nearest building then took in the scene blow. A small group of three men and two children were cornered outside the museum, crammed into the corner of the building. The men were all in army clothes. They had the guns. The two children, no, they were teenagers—one boy, one girl—huddled behind the men’s backs, their eyes closed and their mouths open and screaming. A wave of zombies was crawling up the museum’s steps, over a hundred of them. And it was becoming evident that the men’s ammo was dwindling.

  I jumped off the building and propelled myself into the zombies. As I landed, my scythes sliced off limbs that fell to the steps. I forward rolled, knocking over the nearby undead. I flipped myself upright between the zombies and the people.

  I briefly turned to the men. “Don’t shoot me,” I said.

  I didn’t dwell on whether they understood or what their reaction was to my appearance. I simply started kicking and slicing every dead thing that tried to cross the imaginary line I’d drawn between them and the humans. My deliberate actions got faster and faster until I was astride a massive mountain of twitching body parts. I decapitated the last zombie, turned, and was shot straight through the heart. The force of the bullet sent me reeling back and knocked me on my ass. I tumbled back down the museum’s steps.

  I managed to grumble a string of swear words before I blacked out...

  I awoke to the sounds of an argument. Two men were yelling at one another in the next room. I focused on my surroundings. I was in the museum gift shop, tied to a chair with old fashioned skipping ropes. The teenagers from the museum steps were staring at me. The girl inched forward.

  “How come you’re still alive? Are you a zombie?”

  “Do I look like a zombie, kid?”

  “No. You also talk as well,
” she whispered.

  “Good point.” I nodded.

  The distant argument reached a crescendo, and both teens grimaced.

  “Who’s arguing?” I asked them.

  “The soldiers. They saved us, but can’t seem to make a decision as to where we go from here.” The girl rolled her eyes.

  I guessed that the soldiers were all the same rank. Even in a zombie war, a solider would respect their chain of command. No leader, no clear decision maker.

  “What are your names?” I asked.

  “I’m Kylie, and this is Paul.”

  Paul nodded at me—the strong, silent type.

  “I’m Britannia. I came to rescue you.”

  “How come you’re tied to a chair then?” asked Paul—the strong, sarcastic type.

  “I got shot.”

  “Yeah, you’re still alive though. But the way you killed those zombies.” Kylie looked thoughtful.

  “Exactly, I killed the zombies that were going to eat you. You’d think you’d be slightly more appreciative.”

  The argument suddenly stopped, and two soldiers entered the room. I hung my head, so my blue curls hid my face—and the fact I was awake.

  “You kids been keeping watch?” asked one in a thick American accent.

  “Of course, Private Green,” Kylie said.

  Private! I’d been shot by a private! I’d been shot before, of course, but my list of shooters included a captain, a marshal, and a lord. I’d also been stabbed through the heart by the King of England, although that was another story.

  “The prisoner hasn’t come…back to life?”

  He thought I was a zombie.

  “Nope.” Why would Kylie lie?

  “Okay, then. We’re going to do a security sweep. There’s a candy machine over there.”

  “She wasn’t a zombie, Green,” said the other. “You didn’t have to shoot her. She saved us.”

  Finally, at least one was the voice of reason. I swung a curl slightly out of the way, so I could identify the one who shot me. He was average, held his gun too tight, and didn’t have a spot of blood on his uniform. The other was…Langdon! Oh, my God, it was him! How could he be here, now? He was just as I remembered him, right down to his half smile and mostly green hazel eyes.

  I forced my eyes back down and listened as their footsteps got fainter.

  “You can look up now,” Kylie said.

  “What are you?” Paul asked.

  “I’m here to protect you,” I robotically muttered in response.

  Langdon! It was him. I’d found him again at last!

  “Should we untie her?” Kylie asked Paul.

  I stood from the chair, the ropes ripping away from me. It was like I’d been tied up with tissue paper—annoying and uncomfortable, but easily broken. The children scurried away from me. I shifted my ribcage slightly. The bullet was lodged in my heart, so I turned from the kids, dug my hand in, and pulled it out. I felt no pain, only instant relief as the organ began to heal itself. Useless as it was, my heart still took up room in my chest. My T-shirt was ruined, though, so I scanned the shop and found a Union Jack kid’s shirt left over from the 2012 Olympics’ “anything British should sell” marketing campaign. I swapped shirts and rolled my shoulders to stretch out my muscles.

  The museum was a stunning place, but it would be hard to defend. Another determined zombie mob and it would be strewn with fresh blood.

  I knelt down in front of Kylie and Paul.

  “Okay, here’s the deal. I’m different. I’m trained to kill zombies and protect people like you. I have a safe place for wards, and we need to get there sooner rather than later. I need you to grab bags and stuff them with as many supplies from this shop as you can. We’re then leaving.”

  They both nodded and picked up some bags. Kids were easy. The soldiers, though, had guns and an unhealthy trigger-happy attitude. Well, at least one of them did. The other had four hundred odd years of kisses coming his way.

  I turned to leave the shop and find Langdon.

  “Britannia,” Paul cried out. “What if they come back?”

  “You yell my name, Paul. I won’t be far, and I’m very fast.” I smiled at him as best I could. I still couldn’t manage to comfortably slip my lip over my canines.

  I saw Green first. If I hadn’t just fed, I’d have taken a few pints from him. After all, he had spilled my blood first. It was easy to get behind him. He had a self-righteous attitude that made him think he was invulnerable. Who knew? Maybe he was. He reminded me too much of Nicholas…who about now would be wondering where I was—crap, maybe I should have said something to someone before taking off. I really was not good at this whole teamwork thing.

  I slipped my hand around Green’s waist and turned him to face me. I yanked his gun off him, the gun that had shot the bullet that ruined my vintage Sex Pistols tee. A look of shock fell over his face like nausea.

  “I know what you are,” he whispered.

  I snorted and raised an eyebrow. This would be good.

  His eyes were wild and wide. “You’re a…werewolf.”

  I stifled a moan and head butted him into unconsciousness. His body slumped against me, and I carried him back to the shop. The children had been busy-bees, scooping up chocolate and crisps. They acknowledged my appearance with the sleeping private then continued with their scavenging.

  I found the third solider curled up by the entrance. He was comatose and very much infected. Bite marks littered his arms. I broke his neck and carried on to find Langdon.

  Fate is a fickle mistress. All this time I’d looked for him, ever since he’d been killed, murdered by Nicholas in an unfair duel. The supernatural odds had been stacked against my love. He’d been killed to ensure he wouldn’t come for me, to free me before Nicholas had had his fill of my captivity. In all those centuries, I had never found him. Not until now, at the worst possible time. No, Fate wasn’t a fickle mistress, she was a bitch.

  The museum was running a special exhibit on The British Civil War. Roundheads and Cavaliers, their various weapons and clothing scattered to gather dust in glass cabinets. Langdon stood staring at the display in his generic, blood-spattered khakis. I smelled the air. Thankfully, none of the blood was his, so I knew he wasn’t infected. I edged a little too close, stepped from the shadows too soon, and found myself on the business end of his gun.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  His gun arm was surprisingly steady.

  I was no fool. I’d been around for centuries. I knew he’d have forgotten me. How many incarnations had he had since our love? To me, it was all still so fresh. I’d kept his memories alive all this time. He’d not had that advantage. His soul had been Swiss-rolled into at least six bodies in the meantime—until he had landed in this one.

  I put my hands up.

  “Shoot me if you wish. It’ll do me no harm to me, but will lose you a precious bullet,” I whispered. I deliberately kept my voice low to appear calm and make him strain to hear what I was saying, to make him concentrate and edge closer. The giddy scent of his sweat-slicked skin tickled my senses, and I felt my expression soften with an easy smile.

  “Are you one of them?”

  “No, of course not. I don’t look like a zombie, and I can talk.”

  “Yeah, well, I saw one of them talk, too.”

  “What?” Now he had my full attention.

  “There was one earlier. He seemed to be…in charge.”

  A low growl from down the corridor made him turn. Langdon’s back was to me now. He aimed his gun into the darkened museum.

  I didn’t move any closer to him. I certainly didn’t want to startle a man with a loaded gun.

  “We need to leave, now,” I whispered.

  The growl got louder and was joined by another chorus of zombie moans. They’d gotten in. Of course they had—British museums were free to get into, even for the undead.

  “The others!” he yelled, and turned to run with me back to the shop.
r />   Green was still unconscious, and the children had done a bang-up job of looting the shop. I briefly stopped to pick up a British history book. I kicked Green awake then turned to see a zombie shuffle in behind us.

  I sprinted to the door, running up the side of the nearest wall. I kicked the zombie’s head off, then forward rolled over its falling back to end up crouching in front of a second intruder. I threw an upper-cut, taking the second zombie’s head off its rotten neck. There were only two, but if they’d gotten in, others would too.

  “We need to move now,” I said.

  “Move to where? The whole of England’s gone to hell.” Langdon put his hand out to me to help me up. His grip was warm and strong and I had to force myself to let go.

  I noticed the name on his uniform was J. Rollins. I mentally chided myself for calling him Langdon. It was rude, even if it was just in my head.

  “I have a safe house,” I said.

  Green looked skeptical. The kids looked happy, and Langdon—I mean Rollins—looked relieved.

  “What about Lewis?” Rollins asked.

  “He was infected. He’s gone. We need to move now!”

  “I’m trusting you,” he whispered to me.

  “I won’t let you down.”

  We carefully made our way through the streets. I kept an eye out on all sides of us. I was fed and fuelled, and not even a zombie army was going to stop me from holding Langdon’s hand again.

  We reached the Dead Hare, and I knocked.

  “Brit?” asked Tracy.

  “It’s me. Open up.”

  The shutters slid back, and the door opened. I pushed everyone in then stepped in behind them. I saw Nicholas’ face go from relief to anger, and I could smell blood.

  “What the fuck—” Nicholas started.

  “You shouldn’t drop the F-bomb,” Rose sang as she jumped at me.

  I caught her in mid-air and gave her the book I’d picked up. She kissed my cheek and ran off to read it with the other kids and Danny, who looked so much worse than before.

  “Tracy, why do I smell blood?” I asked, pulling her to the side.

  “I fed Nicholas,” she replied.