Blood Sacrifice (Faith of the Fallen Book 2) Read online

  She could be brave. She snatched her dagger from the lifeless hand. Lifting her foot she kicked the thing as hard as she could. The zombie stumbled into the one next to it tangling itself hopelessly. With a deep breath she slid the blade across her palm. As she approached Sing she let the power of her own blood fill her. Her chanting reverberated in the back of her skull as she gathered the energy around her. The room dimmed as she placed her bleeding hand on Sing’s mutilated shoulder.

  “What are you doing,” he groaned.

  “Being brave,” she whispered.

  NINE

  A half hour had passed since the vampire left him. A half hour with no zombies. It had to be safe. Connor slid down the wall to the concrete floor. He press-checked his pistol to ensure he had a round loaded.He held it out in front of him as he moved down the sewer with as much stealth as he cold muster. He found no trace of Alexi’s passage or anything else that didn’t belong there. The hallway split into four as it rounded a corner. Suddenly, screams echoed down the hall. He spun in place in an attempt to find the source, but with the concrete walls and water it was impossible to pinpoint it. Alexi’s going to have to handle it. We need to find a way to keep these things in here.

  A service hatch off to his left caught his attention. He pried it open. Four pipes ran through it. Water mains, city power, a sewage line, and a natural gas main. These tunnels were fifty years old at least. No one even knew they were down here if he had to guess.

  The pipe containing the electrical wires hung loose on rusted brackets, the pipe itself had corroded holes in it exposing the wire it was supposed to protect.

  He followed the gas pipe down with his hand. Under neath the wall, where he could barely reach, was a release valve, he turned it until pipe hissed and the smell of gas permeated the room. Before it filled to much, he pointed his pistol at the electrical main and fired. The bullet shattered what was left of the pipe blasting through the wires to explode against the concrete wall. The bare wires snapped sparks.

  He did the mental math, it would take at least ten minutes for the room to fill with the volume of gas needed to explode. He had that long to get everyone out. He left the door open to buy them a little more time. If they didn’t make it, so be it. His duty as an Agent of the Arcanum was to stop these sorts of things. Even if it killed him.

  ***

  A meaty hand slapped Alexi across the face, her vision exploded in red as her head landed hard against the wall. He was fast, for a cadaver. The ground shook where he slammed its boot down. Alexi rolled and scrambled to her feet. The room was huge with wide open spaces along with pillars and pipes that ran through it. She could stay ahead of him, but she didn’t know the territory like did.

  For the moment she had the element of surprise, but she couldn’t capitalize on her only advantage because the thing knew the area. She leaped at him with a quick snap kick. It didn’t try to dodge. The massive bulk of his flesh absorbed the blow as if nothing happened. Alexi bounced back to the sound of its sickening laughter.

  “You can’t hurt me. I’m proof against your evil ways.”

  “I’m evil? I’m not the sick bastard turning people into zombies,” she said as she circled him. He shambled to match her. Other than the bit of flesh she knocked off of him, her blow hadn’t damaged him.

  The main tunnel was behind her, and he had its back to Savanna and Sing. If she couldn’t kill him, maybe she could lead him away and buy Savanna time to get Sing clear.

  “You want the evil, you oversized pile of shit, come and get me!”

  He charged with his head down, feet pounding the concrete sending little tremors through the floor. She leaped up with her arms outstretched. He roared as he swept past her and unable to stop his enormous mass he stumbled. Alexi wrapped her hands around sizzling hot pipes which burned her fingers as she lifted her legs out of the way of the King.

  Her fingers screamed with pain as her flesh went from alabaster to red and started bubbling from the heat. She screamed as she tried to focus past the pain, but she couldn’t. She let go, leaving a chunk of her skin behind. She felt the ground tremble and she knew he was right behind her. She took off running to the nearest pillar. She slowed down enough for him to catch up and at the last second she dropped into a skid, grabbed the pillar, and used it to spin her around the base of it. She scanned the room for a glimpse of Savanna. The witch knelt over Sing. A pool of blood formed around the agent. Alexi’s heart stopped. If Sing died—

  Rough hands latched onto her hair and head. He pulled her back and she spun wildly through the air. The view changing in a blur of color. Her feet hit something hard and her ankle wrenched painfully the wrong way before she crashed headlong into a wall before landing upside down on the floor. She blinked several times, trying to clear the red haze from her vision. A dull ache clouded her brain. Though the room was upside down, she could see Savanna struggling with Sing, pulling him by his feet to the exit.

  The ground shook as the King lumbered toward her. She managed to right herself. Her mind cleared and her wounds healed. As she tried to regain her footing, large hands wrapped around her throat and lifted her off the ground. She kicked out with her feet but without leverage her blows were ineffective.

  “Did you think you could destroy me? I, who was born to kill you,” he bellowed in her face. With each word, he slammed her into the wall. Concrete and brick rained down around them. Her bones shook, she heard something snap followed by a sharp shooting pain that sent spasms up her side.

  The wall shook and little bits of brick rained down with each blow. She closed her eyes and dropped let her arms hang loose. If he thought she was unconscious… She desperately tried not to choke as his fetid breath washed over her. She snapped open her eyes. His face was mere inches from hers. She reached up with lightning speed and jammed her thumb, nail first, into his bloated eye. He roared and flung her aside. Bones crunched as she hit a pylon. She fell, clutching her ribs. Her regeneration worked overtime trying to repair the damage, tissue mended, bones knitted together, but she was getting tired. She needed to end this. A quick glance told her that Savanna was halfway to the hall.

  “When God created me, she told me that a great evil had destroyed her and that I would be the one to exact her revenge,” his voice haunted the air with its wet, wheezing expression.

  Alexi pushed herself up. Her hands still hurt from the steam pipes. She looked up. Steam pipes… He charged her again. Alexi leaped up, grasped the pipe. Ignoring the pain in her fingers she brought her legs up and braced her feet against the ceiling. With a heave, she pulled with all her strength. Fifty-year-old iron was no match.

  The pipe ripped free from its mooring, spitting three hundred degrees steam in a gout, twenty feet long. The King bellowed in anger and swung his fist blindly. He stumbled past Alexi and hit the wall hard enough to rain cement dust down. She wrenched the pipe free. As the steam cleared she could make out what happened. His face was a melted, burned mess. Bits of skull shown through flesh and his eyes were gone.

  He tried to speak but no sound came out of his flapping gums.

  “News flash for you, I’m not evil, you are,” she swung the pipe with both hands. The iron slammed into the crown of his head. His body fell in a lump. For good measure, Alexi hit him again.

  And again.

  TEN

  “Is he going to make it,” Alexi whispered quietly to Connor. They stood in the hall, but Alexi felt awkward speaking in anything above hushed whispers in the overly quiet private hospital.

  After she had killed the self-styled ‘King of the Zombies’ they’d barely made it out of the room when Connor informed them that he’d rigged the place to blow. After that, it was getting Sing to a hospital, and making sure he wasn’t bit. To Alexi, it sure looked like something gnawed on him. Chunks of his shoulder were missing.

  “He’ll live, and he's not showing any signs of infection,” Connor replied. She detected the note of relief. As his partner, he would be the one to
put Sing down if he were infected.

  “Have you thought about…”

  Alexi silenced him with a look.

  The private hospital certainly spared no expense. The rooms were luxury suites, far outstripping any hotel Alexi had ever seen. And while she couldn’t taste it, she knew the smell of good coffee.

  She looked in the room, Savanna sat by his side, talking to him. He was unconscious, of course. Three hours of surgery to repair his shoulder, and another two post-op—he would be out for a while.

  Alexi stepped into the room, both to check on her friend, and keep from having to answer Connor. No, she hadn’t looked for her daughter. As usual, events had spiraled out of control, and she had no time.

  “Hi,” Alexi whispered. Savanna pressed her face into her hands, wiping away tears.

  “Hey,” she muttered as Alexi knelt down beside her. Sing’s chest rose up and down regularly. The equipment beeped every few seconds in time with his lung inflating.

  “He’s okay, no infection,” Alexi said.

  “I know, I just wanted to make sure he woke up. After all, it’s my fault this happened.”

  “It’s no one’s fault, Savanna. That’s his job. Fight the monsters. If you weren’t there he would be dead, or worse. If it wasn’t for you, we would be sitting in the middle of the zombie apocalypse.”

  Savanna nodded.

  “Are you okay?” Alexi asked.

  “Yeah,” Savanna replied, “tired is all.”

  Alexi glance sideways at her friend. Savanna was slumped over in her chair, her normally vibrant hair was matted and stringy. Alexi closed her eyes for a moment. Heat rolled off of Savanna, but it wasn’t as strong as she had felt in the past.

  She put her hand on Savanna’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’ll go get you some coffee. Be back in a minute.” Alexi excused herself from the room. The hospital corridors had the vanilla look that every hospital had. Off-white walls and tan floors. The only way to find her way around was through the large signs with arrows that pointed at various services.

  Hunger gnawed at her as she walked. Even though she had eaten recently, her fight with the King had left her weak. Being in a hospital didn’t help. Underneath the antiseptic smell the scent of blood lingered. It made her mouth water and her stomach growl. She pushed the thought of walking into a random room aside, it was unworthy of her.

  That all too familiar urge pushed its way into her mind. The desire to find someone, anyone, and satiate her lust on them until they were nothing but a husk.She shook her head from side to side to clear those kinds of thoughts out. She couldn’t be the monster. If she didn’t find someone soon, the choice might be taken from her.

  She needed to get out of the hall. Nurses walked by, the bare flesh of their necks tantalizing her. She ducked into a hall off to the right, then through a door.

  She froze.

  A wave of calmness washed over her. Her heart skipped a beat as she entered the small room. It was a chapel. A beautiful stained glass window reflected light across the walls in a multitude of color.

  A man, hunched over with his elbows on his knees was seated in the pew in the back of the room. She ignored him as she walked in. Her hunger had stopped. She felt at ease, calm, for the first time in a while.

  Her eyes wouldn’t adjust to the light and the room was dim while the light coming from the stained glass window was overly bright. Alexi shook her head in a desperate attempt to clear her vision. The light in the glass shifted. It danced across her skin, drawing her toward it.

  “Alexi,” the image called out to her. The glass crinkled as spider webs ran through it. Alexi held her breath expecting it to explode. Instead, the glass fell, but only a few inches as it reformed into a hand. The stained glass hand reached out to her, whispering her name, “Alexi.” She needed to take it, to go—

  “Alexi?”

  She blinked. The room wasn’t dark at all, light shown through the glass sufficient to illuminate the chapel. The hand was gone and she stood in the middle of the chapel.

  “Alexi? That’s your name, right?”

  She turned around. Detective Yu looked more haggard than the last time she’d seen him. Dark circles framed his eyes and his close were disheveled. On top of that, he had a dark shadow over his jaw where three days of growth had gone unshaved.

  There was something else. Pain radiated off of him in waves. Alexi couldn’t help but feel a stir in her stomach from being in close proximity, along with a surge of sympathy.

  “Hello, Detective. I didn’t think I would see you again so soon,” she said quietly, not wanting to disturb the sanctity of the place. Seattle was big and in other ways quite small.

  “I suppose I should arrest you, but I’m not sure I can, or if we could hold you,” he said with a slight grin.

  “I suppose you couldn’t.” Curiosity gnawed away at her. The pain she felt coming from him wasn’t physical… but emotional.

  She stood awkwardly looking around the small chapel. With nowhere to go, but not feeling like she should leave, she sat down next to him. She filed away her vision as nothing more than a daydream from her tired brain.

  “We never really were introduced, not properly. I’m Alexi Creed,” she held out her hand. He smiled and took it, “Detective John Yu, I would ask why you’re here, but I’m not sure I want to know.”

  Alexi grinned, “I’m not here to hurt anyone. My friend was injured last night and I’m checking on him.”

  He nodded. Pain crept across his face and into his eyes. Alexi could feel it. Not in the abstract sense, but in her heart as if it were her own. She wiped her eyes subtly.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  He looked up at her in awe, “How did you know?”

  “It’s a strange world I live in, and it’s stranger every day, John. If I can help, I will.”

  “My partner. We were looking for missing persons last night. Well, we found her. She attacked us and well… nothing worked!” Alexi could tell he was close to breaking down.

  “Once we realized she was trying to kill us we Tazed her. When that didn’t work we, shot her. But she just kept coming! Finally, we got her down and then the explosion downtown happened. She just fell down. I’m not even sure it was us.”

  Alexi tried to keep her face passive but she couldn’t keep the pain she felt from him hidden.

  “Is that how your ‘friend’ got hurt? Was this your…supernatural bullshit,” he asked, anger slurring his words. He wanted someone to blame, some reason why his friend was dying, and she felt it all as if it were her own.

  “Yes,” she wouldn’t lie to him. She leaned in closer to him. At first as a sign of comfort, but something about him drew her in. Even though he hadn’t showered in sometime his smell was pleasant.

  “Can you… help him?” he pleaded.

  “I’m sorry John, I can’t. I can help you, though,” she said without thinking. Instinct took over for her. The hunger was upon her. There he was, food and emotion. The strength of both urges called at her. She needed to relieve his pain, if only a little, and was desperate to feed.

  “I don’t understand,” he replied, but he didn’t back up, he leaned closer to her until his lips were inches from her own.

  Alexi’s powers were in full swing, she couldn’t tell if she was controlling him, or if he was naturally attracted to her. His pain raced through his veins along with his blood, and she was so very hungry. She was certainly attracted to him, she could tell from the way her skin tingled from the first night they met. He was handsome, polite and she could tell he was a good man. It wasn’t the click she had felt with Victor, but it was there a certain something.

  Their lips met and he radiated heat like a fire on a cold winter’s night. She was so very tired of being cold. Their tongues met in a dance as old as time. The pew was nothing more than a bench, it didn’t stop Alexi from straddling his lap. Her body molded against his as she tried to make as much contact as possible. It wasn’t only the blood she cr
aved, it was the touch, the heat, the feeling of being alive. And his emotions. She couldn’t help but take some of those.

  His hands roamed her hips, sliding slowly up her side. She sighed into his mouth from the feelings he touched off in her. She hadn’t been with a man since… Victor. She avoided this subtle arousal when feeding, by hunting women. With them, there was the intimacy of friendship, but not sex, at least on her end. She didn’t exactly know how her prey felt. With men, there was always a physical link that made her stomach do laps.

  She tried to resist. She pushed the anticipation down, but the thrill that ran through her like electricity was too much. There was no denying her nature.

  Tonight it was her hunger. Monster or no, she needed to eat. She slid her tongue down his neck eliciting a gasp from him. His body tightened and she could feel his enjoyment against her thighs. Her fangs grew and with a quick motion she sunk them into his neck. She didn’t ask permission, how could she? Often she wondered what it was like for other vampires. Could they feel the emotions of their prey? Was there any exchange between them?

  The warmth of his blood and the bittersweet tingle of his pain flowed into her. He groaned, his hands grabbing onto her thighs and pulling her tight to him. She smiled around her fangs as she was usually the one holding tight. The feeling of his touch ignited a fire in her belly. She wanted more than food.

  His heart pounded in his chest and his hands roamed her sending little fires over her skin where he touched. Blood continued to caress her tongue, along with his pain and pleasure. He whimpered as his barriers were brought down, and his emotions were raw for him to feel and share. Alexi lent him her strength and her compassion. Their minds mingled as one for a moment and her strength added to his helped him overcome his grief and guilt.

  The blood ebbed in her mouth. Alexi sensed that he was approaching the most he could give without endangering his life. His heart slowed and his breathing went shallow.