How to Wake an Undead City Read online

  A third boom rocked the vehicle, and I found Linus’s hand with mine as a fourth and fifth ignited beneath us. With a scream of wrenching metal and shattering glass, I was flung against the window where my head cracked on the trim before blackness engulfed me.

  Except unconsciousness didn’t claim me, Linus did. His midnight cloak wrapped me tight as he cushioned us while the SUV rolled, setting off other mines and igniting a twisted pinball game that blasted us from one side of the road to the other.

  When the creaking frame rocked to a stop on its side, I couldn’t tell where we ended up until Linus dissipated enough to let me see through the gaping maws of former windows to the pockmarked road behind us.

  “Roll call,” Boaz growled from the front seat, the driver side of the vehicle resting flat against the pavement.

  “I’m alive,” Becky wheezed, head limp on her shoulder from where she hung in her seat belt. “I think.”

  “Ricco.”

  “Brown.”

  “Martinez.”

  “Jung.”

  Boaz twisted in his seat for visual confirmation that Linus and I were both still breathing. “The gang’s all here.”

  “We have to move.” Linus unfastened my seat belt, and I dropped into his arms. “Whoever set those might be watching to see who tripped them.”

  Smiling my thanks, I shifted my focus out the windshield. “What are the odds the vampires’ humans knew to reseed this area in particular?”

  “This was random.” Becky hissed out a curse as she freed herself. “This trip wasn’t cleared through official channels, if you catch my drift. No one except for the six of us knew it was happening, and the four guys in the back didn’t know until fifteen minutes before we tagged them.”

  The four guys in question grunted as they cut themselves free of their seat belts, but their mouths were set in grim lines, and their eyes glinted with barely restrained violence and the need to give back as good as we had gotten. Flowing like water, they climbed out of the wreckage and moved into position to flank the vehicle while scouting the area.

  The SUV groaned and rocked as Becky accepted a hand out from Jung then fell into position.

  “The vampires tend to hit the main drags and the most logical alternate routes. All this means is they’re doubling down, a nightshift and a dayshift. Twice the fun for us.” Boaz hauled himself out the window and sat perched on the SUV’s side. “Wait by the vehicle until we come for you.”

  His boots hit the ground, and he ordered his men to fan out, sweep the area.

  Linus boosted me through my smashed window, careful of the teethlike glass shards, and I swung my leg over the side. I dropped to the asphalt, and he hit a second later. Following Boaz’s orders, we crouched together with our backs to the undercarriage. Laughter hitched in my chest when the quick examination I conducted on him left us with our gazes clashing after he finished his own visual sweep over me.

  “You’re all right,” he said softly, a reassurance for himself.

  “You saved me.” I rested my hand against his cheek, his cool skin contrasting the hot sun overhead. “Again.”

  “Even damsels such as myself manage a rescue once in a long while.” A tiny smile played on his mouth. “You’ll balance the scales soon enough. You always do.” He tapped the side of his throat where his spent sigil was smudged beyond recognition. “I could argue you already have.”

  Much to his amusement, I located my pen and drew a fresh impervious sigil on him in a less-distracting spot before we took turns rooting through our supplies to see what had survived the impact.

  “Clear.”

  The word echoed six more times, from six different directions, before they converged on us.

  “Looks like we’re walking the last half mile,” Boaz informed us as he gazed across the pitted asphalt. “Step where I step.” A thin sheen of sweat coated his skin, but I didn’t think the heat was to blame. “Unless I’m blown to bits.” His smile was full of bravado, but I saw through the strain to the memories churning behind his eyes. “Then you go around me.”

  Unable to let it go when the past had sunk its teeth in him, I grasped his arm. “Are you okay?”

  “This is the job.” He pushed out an exhale. “I can do this.” He reached down, rubbed the top of his left thigh, right where his prosthetic used to fit. “You can always grow me another one, right?”

  “Um, don’t count on it.” I let him go. “The first time was a fluke.”

  “Figures.” He hesitated, then offered me a thinner smile, but a genuine one. “Thanks. For…everything.” He dropped a brotherly kiss on top of my head. “I’m the same man with or without the leg, but you saved my life, Squirt.”

  Tension strung my spine tight as a bowstring at the unexpected endearment, once so familiar, but I shrugged off my discomfort. This—a return to normal—would be a blessing. For all of us.

  When Boaz turned to rally his troops, I caught Linus staring at him, but it wasn’t a territorial thing. Curiosity had rekindled in those dark blue eyes, and I elbowed him in the side before Boaz noticed and took offense to the bug-under-the-microscope routine.

  Heat blossomed in Linus’s cheeks at being caught, and I couldn’t resist the urge to kiss the pinkest spot.

  A throat cleared behind us, and I turned to find Becky wearing a goofy expression. “Ready?”

  “Linus?” I held out my hand for his, and he laced our fingers. “Let’s do this.”

  Eyes going tight, Boaz took point, and I fell in line behind him. Linus followed me, and a guy flanked each of us, on both sides, with Becky bringing up the rear.

  We had almost reached the barricade when rapid gunfire peppered the air.

  “Take cover,” Boaz yelled as the Elite shuffled Linus and me to relative safety behind an overturned semi that had met the same fate as our SUV.

  Eyes on Linus, I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood, but I didn’t ask him not to go.

  Midnight swirled around him, engulfed him, and his cowl covered the bright auburn of his hair. But instead of nudging me into the darkest shadows or the deepest recesses, he held out his hand, inviting me to join him.

  If I hadn’t already been hopelessly in love with him, I would have fallen then.

  “One second.” I palmed the pocketknife I had no intentions of returning to him and opened a wound across my hand. Dipping my fingers in the stinging cut, I painted protective sigils down my arms, waiting until a solid wall of air formed Kevlar-dense around me. “Okay. I’m ready.”

  The Elite exchanged concerned looks that slid toward Boaz, telegraphing their worry he would skin them alive if I got hurt. While I appreciated the sentiment, I was learning to take care of myself, and I never felt more bulletproof than when Linus stood beside me.

  Together, we stepped out into the open. Within seconds, bullets pinged off my wards and his body.

  Heart pounding in my ears, I blocked out the fear slicking my palms and broke into a sprint, aiming straight for the source of the attack.

  Light glinted to my right, sun dancing along the edge of Linus’s sickle-shaped blade.

  The enemy wore black fatigues and dark face paint.

  Two snipers.

  Both human.

  Neither stood a chance.

  Linus took their heads with a clean arc of his scythe, and they rolled to a stop in a crater made by their own bombs.

  With silence restored, Linus remained standing over the corpses, his shoulders bowed under his burden.

  “They would have killed us, all of us, if they had gotten the chance.” I rested a hand on his shoulder, and black mist licked up my wrist. “They almost did, thanks to that minefield.”

  “I hate when you see me like this.”

  “I’m glad you let me.” I bent my forehead until it rested against his spine. “It means you’re sharing all of yourself with me.” I rubbed my cheek against the wispy fabric of his cloak. “No masks. Not between us.”

  When he turned, th
e mantle of potentate evaporated, and he searched my face for a long moment before nodding. Though it was habit for him to withdraw until he resettled into his skin, he didn’t make it far. I shackled his wrist with my fingers and led him back to where the Elite huddled in wait for us to signal the all clear.

  “We got out of bed for this?” Becky shot Boaz a scathing glance. “They can take care of themselves.”

  Sharing a look with Linus, whose fingers twined with mine, it felt good to finally say, “Yes. We can.”

  Two

  Thanks to Linus’s advanced planning, a gleaming van so green it veered on black sat off the shoulder of the road where I-16 intersected I-95, the key fob resting in a cupholder. A ward protected the vehicle from theft, and it took him seconds to disarm it. He opened the front passenger door for me, handed me up, then lingered to see if I would prefer the backseat.

  “I’m good.” A seed of disappointment lodged in my gut that I wasn’t past this yet, but I was trying.

  “If that changes”—he leaned in and kissed my stubborn chin—“let me know, and I’ll secure alternate transportation.”

  Onto my tricks, he retreated before I could loop my finger in his collar and tug him closer. He shut my door then trotted around the vehicle, which gave me a moment to inhale the scents of fresh leather and new car. As I settled into my seat, I forced myself to notice its spacious interior, and started to relax bit by bit. By the time Linus slid behind the wheel and his hand covered mine, the tension knotting my shoulders had eased.

  Tisdale’s requirement that we visit Atlanta had doubled the length of our trip. I wasn’t thrilled with that math, not when our friends and family were still at Lacroix’s mercy in Savannah. But, as Linus had pointed out, Atlanta was home to the busiest airport in the world. We could hop a flight from there to Raleigh and make up the lost time, easy as pie. It was also an ideal spot to acquire a new wardrobe, toiletries, and anything else we needed before making the final leg of our journey.

  Fashion was armor, and we had to suit up before visiting Dame Marchand.

  Eventually, the early hour conspired with my full belly, and I stifled a yawn.

  “Rest.” Linus made it an order. “I could navigate this trip in my sleep.”

  Safe in the knowledge he was as likely to drift off behind the wheel as Lethe was to pass on an extra rasher of bacon, I dropped into a dreamless sleep with my head propped against the glass.

  “We’re here.”

  The crick in my neck confirmed I had slept wrong for several hours to be this sore.

  The dash clock read ten p.m. Ten hours until our meeting with Tisdale.

  “I had forgotten Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella had returned to the Fox Theatre,” he mused, sounding content to sit in a traffic snarl near the venue.

  I didn’t have to look to know he was smiling out at his city. The gleaming skyscrapers, the frenzied traffic, the bustle of humans sprinting through crosswalks murmured welcome to him in the same way the sight of old growth oaks strung with Spanish moss said home to me.

  Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I blinked around us. “Where are we staying?”

  Thanks to Meiko, his catty former familiar, the Faraday was no longer secure in his mind. I didn’t have to ask to know he wouldn’t risk using his loft there on this trip, gwyllgi on staff or no.

  “We’re keeping a low profile.” A smile twitched in his cheek. “We’ll be staying with friends.”

  “Oh?” A peek into his life was more than I could resist. “Anyone I know?”

  As he snagged a coveted street parking spot, he peered out the windshield and up at a corner building. “Yes.”

  Twisting in my seat, I got an eyeful of a sprawling shop with flickering neon signs announcing The Mad Tatter and We’re All Inked Here. “We’re staying with Mary Alice?”

  “We need to find out what’s being said about the situation in Savannah.” He touched my shoulder. “She’ll be able to tell us how far our trouble has been broadcast, and if the rumors are perking the wrong ears. We don’t want Savannah’s stumble to turn into a Society-wide fall if other clans or factions get it in their heads this is the time to strike us while we’re down.”

  Already he suspected the lethargic response to our SOS was the result of an impending coup against the Grande Dame. Mary Alice might be able to confirm his suspicions, giving him the scoop to pass along to his mother. Though in present circumstances, I’m not sure how much good a heads-up would do her.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” I let myself out and waited for him on the sidewalk while he locked the vehicle. “She lives above the shop?”

  “She lives in the penthouse, but she converted the fifth floor into a guest suite for her kids and grandkids. We’ll have the entire place to ourselves.”

  “That’s handy.” I was liking his plan better already. “Are we going through the shop or…?”

  “No.” He cast a wistful glance at the stations beyond the glass where artists worked on their human, and inhuman, canvases. “We’ll take the side entrance.” He guided me around the corner. “I need to be seen around town, and soon, but not now. I would prefer it if people assume I’m in Savannah, with you.”

  Unsure how potentates held on to their power, I had to ask, “Doesn’t that put Atlanta at risk?”

  “Yes.” The corners of his eyes tightened. “But this is bigger than a single city. Lacroix attacked the Society’s American seat of power. He attacked necromancers as a whole, and that’s how we have to respond.” He led me through an ornate glass door to a bank of elevators. “The city isn’t without its protectors. The Atlanta pack will step in if I barter for their aid. Even if Tisdale won’t extend her help to Savannah, she’ll stand for Atlanta.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all planned out.” I huffed out a laugh. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “Because you know me,” he said, and I heard his simple happiness in that.

  The trip up was quick, and we didn’t pass another soul on the way. The doors opened on a short hall I could tell had been remodeled to suit Mary Alice. The red-and-white plaster mushrooms rooted in the black-and-white-tiled carpet would have tipped me off even without the psychedelic background that ignited a migraine at the base of my skull.

  “This is…” I left the sentence trailing while I searched for the right words. “Really…something.”

  “This is Mary Alice.” He smiled a little smile as he scanned the homage to her Wonderland namesake. “Wait until you see the suite.”

  “There are plenty of nice hotels in town.” I dragged my feet when he shackled my wrist and led me toward the door painted with a black-and-white vortex. On the way, he plucked a small white dot off the fattest mushroom, revealing an oversized key dangling from the end. “They have this thing called beige. It’s actually quite soothing. I think we should give it a try.”

  Laughing under his breath, Linus fit the absurd key into a lock shaped vaguely like a puckered mouth, and then it was too late to escape.

  “Doodlebug.” Mary Alice glanced up from the ledger balanced across her knees. “You’re right on time.” She hopped to her feet and set the book aside. “I wasn’t sure if you would eat on your way in, so I ordered dinner for two and put it in the fridge. There’s a new soul food restaurant a few blocks over. I got honey pecan fried chicken, bacon-infused collard greens, home-style mac and cheese, and the best cornbread muffins you’ve ever eaten.”

  Saliva pooled in my mouth, even though I hadn’t brushed the strawberry seeds out of my teeth yet.

  Genuine fondness softened his expression when she came in for a hug. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Ditch the broad,” she grumbled, “and you’d see a lot more of me.”

  “Hi, Mary Alice.” The broad—well, me—gave a wave. “You have a lovely home.”

  Relieved to find that true, of the suite’s interior, if not its hall, I began admiring our accommodations.

  Shades of pale gray on t
he walls and floor calmed, and gleaming windows framed by gauzy curtains opened out onto the city. The furniture had been chosen for comfort over style, probably with her grandkids in mind, but the quality was there. The appliances, what I could see of them, were all top-notch too. She had spared no expense, and that she loved so hard made me even more grateful she had been there for Linus when he had no one else.

  “Don’t think I didn’t see your eyes bugging out when the door opened.” She released Linus and wrapped her wiry arms around me in an unexpected embrace. I wouldn’t consider it a hug. It was more like a snake looking for the softest place to squeeze. “And don’t think I don’t know about your plans to steal Doodlebug away from me for good.” She snapped her fingers at him. “Show me the ring.”

  Pride wreathing his face, he held out his left hand, adorned with a bread tie that had seen better days. The waxy paper was starting to degrade, leaving a thin strand of soft metal wrapping his finger.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She rubbed her thumb over the twist. “I’ve seen better rings in gumball machines.”

  A spike of embarrassment left my nape stinging with reprimand, but it’s not like I had intended to ask Linus for his hand that night. Eventually, yes. But his mother had lit a fire under me when she tried to marry him off to keep us apart.

  “This is the part where it’s polite to say it’s the thought that counts, but you’re both loaded. The first High Society windbag to spot this will laugh until she deflates. You might want to consider upgrading sooner rather than later.” She patted my cheek, almost a slap. “Still, I can’t fault your taste in men. I would have licked off his freckles if I were a few decades younger.”

  Linus made a strangled sound that forced me to twist a laugh into a cough.

  “His freckles are my favorite,” I confessed, the daisy-shaped cluster under his left eye in particular. “I hope you’ll come to the wedding.”