Screams and shots echoed from the locker room.
"What in the hell is going on in there?" she said, springing to her feet and pulling me up.
"Bad stuff. Why are you out here?"
"I heard the gunshots and left class. I just knew you had to be involved somehow." She glanced at the time. "Good lord, Justin, it's not even lunchtime yet. What did you do?"
"Brad Nichols is a vampire, but he's totally messed up. The hoodie gang? That's him and his buddies." I pointed back at the locker room with a shaking arm. "He's in there killing the sheriff, the police chief, the principal, and Coach Burgundy."
Elyssa's mouth dropped. "What? Oh my god, we have to stop him!"
I gripped her shoulders. "Something's wrong with him. He's got black veins all in his skin and he's gone nuts."
She gasped, her mouth wide. "He's a vampling."
"He's not quite as mindless as a vampling, but he's well on his way to being one. Brad told me Maximus turned him."
"Idiot!" Elyssa slapped the back of a hand into the other palm and grit her teeth. "What's he thinking, turning people and then cutting them loose?" Her eyes tightened as more screams erupted. "We have to end this madness, but I don't have a sword on me."
"If he's a vampling and he bites any of them, they'll turn, right?"
She nodded and headed for the locker room. "We can't let the infection spread."
A gunshot popped and a single wail of terror ended abruptly. I had the feeling we were too late. Brad staggered from the locker room, black blood oozing from several wounds, none of which seemed to be healing. He lunged toward me but fell well short as his legs gave out, and dropped to his knees.
"Screw you, Case," he snarled. Blackened veins pulsed in his skin and he groaned in pain, hands grasping his face as he writhed and shuddered. "Make it stop. Make it stop! Tell them to shut up, shut up. Shut up!" His pleas ended in a frantic scream.
Something popped. Brad shuddered as blood poured from a hole in his throat. Then he fell forward in a heap. Sheriff Skinner stood in the doorway, one hand clutching a bloody wound in his shoulder. Then he saw me and Elyssa and he turned the gun on us.
"What in god's name was he, Case?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Red rage flushed Skinner's face as his lips curled back into a terrible snarl. He had the radio still clutched in his other hand but wires dangled from the cracked plastic casing. "I guess killing your little girlfriend's mother wasn't enough." He aimed at Elyssa and squeezed the trigger.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Elyssa had frozen at his last sentence as her mind probably processed the horror of what he'd said. I dove at her as the gun exploded. Pain ripped into the side of my neck, a white hot burning sensation tearing a long scream from my throat. We hit the ground. I ignored the pain. Rolled to my feet and charged as Skinner aimed his gun at me and pulled the trigger. This time, nothing happened. His bullets had run out. So had his time on this earth.
I rammed him with my shoulder, driving into him with ferocious force. His body smacked against the side of the concrete building and I could have sworn I heard every bone in his body crunch just before he slid to the ground and into a jelly-like heap of flesh.
Elyssa fumbled through her pockets. "A phone. I need a phone!" I raced inside the building and grabbed mine from where the sheriff's men had left it, doing my best to ignore the broken bodies and spattered blood painting the walls. The muscle where my neck joined the shoulder ached with an intensity that nearly overwhelmed my senses, but I pushed it aside. Elyssa's mom could be dead or dying.
I raced back outside, put the battery in the phone, and turned it on. Elyssa took it and dialed a number. After several rings, a woman's voice answered. I eavesdropped with my super hearing.
"Mom?" Elyssa said.
"Elyssa?" Leia's voice was filled with relief. "Where have you been?"
"No time for that now. Someone is trying to kill you."
"You mean that idiot with the gun in the parking lot? I knocked him out and cuffed him. He's a sheriff's deputy, of all things. What's going on? How did you know about this?"
"I—I don't know exactly. They were trying to kill Justin and—"
A long sigh sounded. "Honey, I love you, even after what you did to me. Don't you think it's time to end this childishness and come home?"
A tear trickled down Elyssa's face. She wiped it away angrily. "Mom, I love you. Goodbye." She ended the call and stared at the phone, her eyes red with grief.
A sick gurgling noise rose from Brad as he struggled to rise. The life was gone from his eyes, but not from his body. I shuddered as his zombified remains jerked and went into spasms.
"Help me," came a gasp as Mortimer, his body riddled with bullets and head dangling to the side, emerged from the building. "Please. End it."
Elyssa gasped and backed away. "Brad infected them. We can't leave these bodies like this. We have to burn them."
The school bell clanged and within seconds, students poured outside and into the back parking lot as teachers led an exodus toward the far gates leading off the school property. Sirens sounded in the distance.
"Someone else must've heard the gunshots," I said. "They're evacuating the school. How are we going to burn the bodies here?" I glanced at the nearby buildings and bleachers. Everything was made of brick, concrete, or metal.
"I may have a solution," Underborn said as he appeared from behind the building. He whipped out a long silver blade and sliced Mortimer's head clean off, ending the pleas of the suffering vampire. I gagged and fought back the nausea clawing up my throat.
Underborn patted me on the back. "It would be best if you saved that for later."
I threw up anyway.
He sighed. "I have quicksilver, Elyssa. Would you be so kind as to help me administer it?"
"Real quicksilver? Do you have enough?"
"I raided a Templar armory some time ago and keep a supply in my vehicle at all times. I'll be right back." He raced away at supernatural speed and returned moments later with several six-inch darts. He handed Elyssa several. "Since I don't have a dart gun handy, simply jab the victim with the dart and depress the plunger on top just like a hypodermic needle. That should do the trick." He handed one to me. "Are you up to it?"
I nodded and took one from him. The burning sensation in my neck had subsided by now. I hoped the bullet hadn't lodged inside my healing flesh. Unfortunately, time was too short for me to worry about it. "How is this supposed to work if they're dead?"
"Quicksilver feeds on the infection in the blood. Whatever you do, don't get any on you. It can have rather adverse effects on supernatural blood."
His words failed to reassure me, but I took my dart and went to Brad's struggling form. I pressed his body down with one foot and, choking back another gag, stabbed the dart into his back and pressed down the plunger. Wormy black veins squirmed like parasites beneath his shredded T-shirt. The black suddenly gave way as silver flashed through them, devouring the darkness. Tiny mercurial tendrils raced across the blood on his shirt and arced from his shirt to nearby globs of blackened blood on the ground.
Brad's body convulsed. I jumped back as the black blood oozing from his bullet wounds flashed silver. Within seconds his body lay still. The silvery substance seemed to lose its form as whatever it fed on was consumed and evaporated from his wounds, leaving behind a mess of coagulated but otherwise normal-looking blood.
Elyssa and Underborn treated the other bodies and what was left of the sheriff with the other darts. I remained outside, unwilling to see any more of the aftermath of Brad's rampage. Something rubbed against my leg. I leapt into the air with a shout only to realize it was Nightliss. The black shiny thing I'd seen earlier dangled by a cord from her mouth. She dropped it at my feet. I picked it up and realized it was a small recorder of some sort.
I clicked play and heard the sheriff as he threatened me earlier. "Who gave you this?" I asked her, looking around for Stacey. She meowed and purred as I scratched behind her ears.
"Time to go," Underborn said as he and a very pale-faced Elyssa emerged from the building. "Unfortunately, I don't have any dissolution matrix or I'd get rid of the bodies altogether. The quicksilver has taken care of the vampling infection, but we don't want to be anywhere near this scene when the authorities, such as they may be, arrive."
He'd get no argument from me. I scooped up Nightliss and the three of us dashed across the football field, hurdling the tall chain link fence at the back. We ran the heavily wooded perimeter of the school, using the bare trees and bushes to hide us the best we could until we were able to blend into the tail end of the evacuating student body.
Mortimer's tortured face and broken neck flashed into my mind and my stomach roiled. It was one thing to fight anonymous vamplings but something far more horrible to watch people I knew devolve into mindless zombie creatures even if they were complete jerks. Killing them—well, I didn't want to think about that part. It's not murder, it's self-defense, I thought. But the images were seared into my brain.
What happened when Maximus recruited hundreds more like Brad? Were we looking at the zombie apocalypse thanks to this world-class asshole? His recruiters didn't have a clue what Maximus intended. If Felicia was any indication, they thought he had a cause. But the truth seemed pretty evident to me. Their fearless vampire leader only cared about his own power and glory. Everyone else was just a tool. Someone had to stop him. But why did Underborn want me to do it? I had more important responsibilities.
"There are two more vampire recruiters in the school," I told Underborn. "Lauren and Tammy."
"The freckled girl with dark brown hair and her blonde friend?"
I thought back, recalling their features and nodded. "How do you remember that?"