Page 56 of Lost

14

Other Kevin

Kevin woke abruptly, and for the first few seconds of consciousness he thought he was back in the tunnels below the depot—before he’d been pulled over to Zoey’s world—before his humanity had been returned, and the bitter taste of despair flooded his mouth with nausea at the thought of trying to control his hunger and maintain his sanity.

Then he sat up, bumped his head on one of the two wooden crates he’d curled up between, and his memory woke with him. Kevin froze and peered silently around him. Nothing stirred. No one had entered the basement. He checked in with his internal clock—red vampyres always knew the exact time of sunrise and sunset.

“Five twenty-two p.m. Sunset.” He spoke to himself out of habit. He’d done a lot of that over the past year since he’d been Marked as a red fledgling and then Changed. It was one way he’d tried to hold onto his sanity during that horrible time, and now it comforted him. He stretched, grimacing only slightly at the stiffness his wound still caused, though he felt pretty good. “Hungry, but good.” And then he remembered, and his face broke into a grateful grin. “G-ma’s cookies!”

Kevin grabbed the satchel and pulled out several cookies, as he did so his hand bumped something hard. Wondering what else his g-ma had put in there, he looked inside and breathed a long, happy sigh.

He lifted the metal thermos from the bottom of the satchel, opened it, took a sniff, and easily recognized the scent of blood. “She thinks of everything!” He chugged blood from the cold thermos as he ate the cookies. Kevin didn’thave tohave a constant supply of blood. He wouldn’t lose his mind and attack someone on the street like a normal red vampyre would after a couple of days without it, but his back still needed to heal and the blood would definitely make him stronger. “Thank you, G-ma,” he said between bites of cookies, and felt a rush of homesickness. For the amount of time it took him to finish his breakfast, he let himself wish he could leave this basement and this House of Night, go to his g-ma’s house, and stay there with her eating cookies and working the lavender farm while they ignored the messed-up world. When he was done eating, he brushed the crumbs off his shirt and with them he brushed away that selfish, impossible wish.

He checked with his infallible internal clock, noting he had about two hours until the briefing Neferet had called.

“Okay, I have to stay down here at least long enough for the first bus to bring red fledglings and vamps over from the tunnels to train with the Sons of Erebus Warriors. So, how ’bout I look around since I didn’t do much more than pass out when I got here?”

He found the light switch to the wall sconces, turning the dark basement into a strange place that almost looked like an underwater graveyard with the flickering gaslight shadows playing over row after row of long, wooden boxes stacked two and three high.

“Well, it’s different than Zo’s House of Night basement, that’s for sure.” Zo had told him that there could be a fortune of weapons stashed in the basement, but there were definitely no jeweled swords or ancient, priceless crossbows in sight. There were only wooden boxes. Lots of them.

He tried to open one, but it was nailed shut. He searched around the big, open room, and it didn’t take long for him to find a crowbar in a pile of discarded hammers, nails, and other small tools. Working carefully, so he could close the box up again after he inventoried what was inside, Kevin pried the lid off the first box.

At first when he looked inside his mind didn’t register what he was seeing. He reached out and touched one of the things, and the truth of what he was looking at had him feeling so hot and dizzy that he staggered back several steps.

“Get your shit together, Kev,” he told himself. He cracked his knuckles. Shook out his hands. Ran a hand through his dark hair. And then he went back to the box.

The guns were huge and weird looking. And then he saw that there was a paper packed in the box. On it he read, EX-41 MULTISHOT GRENADE LAUNCHER.

“This is bad. This is really bad.”

He didn’t want to look in the other boxes, but he had to—so he opened each of the fifty coffin-like crates. Half of them held more grenade launchers and the ammunition for them. The rest of them held M16 machine guns, a lot more ammo, and a bunch of grenades.

Kevin’s mind buzzed at the edge of panic as he memorized everything he saw. He had to warn Dragon. Neferet’s armies had taken control of Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Kansas in a massively coordinated series of surprise attacks in the middle of the night. That control had spread like a forest fire to Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa. They’d destroyed National Guard armories in each of those states and confiscated military vehicles. Holding with vampyre tradition, they hadn’t used modern weapons. The teeth and claws of the Red Army, as well as their ability to control the minds of humans, had been enough to defeat the meager human Resistance.

But Kevin knew that as Neferet kept pushing—kept waging war against humans—she was running into more and more opposition. Humans were erecting barricades along state borders. As Kevin was just a lieutenant in the Red Army, he wasn’t privy to the hows and whys of military tactics, but he had heard General Dominick complaining that Neferet was spending too much time negotiating with the governors of each state. He, of course, was for attacking, attacking, attacking.

“Apparently, so is Neferet,” Kevin said somberly. “Only she means to attack with modern weapons.” And then another thought smacked him. “Holy crap! This can’t be the only weapons stash she has! All those armories—crap! Crap! Crap! Sure, the armies burned them, but I’ll bet my humanity that theydidn’tburn the weapons they found in them.”

He paced back and forth, back and forth. “This changes everything. The Resistance has to act right away! We have to take out Neferet and stop this war before she starts using these weapons. And I need to get a message to Dragon. Now.”

Kevin checked his internal clock again. He had about forty-five minutes before Neferet’s briefing, which should be enough time for him to walk aimlessly around the school grounds, hoping Anastasia’s raven would find him.

He made sure the crates looked undisturbed before he reapplied the disgusting blood perfume. Then he slung G-ma’s satchel over his shoulder and went up the stairs two at a time and paused at the door. Deciding the best thing to do would not be to try to sneak around, he held his breath and opened the door, stepping quickly out into the hallway. He’d taken one step when the voice behind him seemed to fill the hall—and freeze his heart.

“Hey! What the hell were you doing down there?”

Kevin turned to see General Stark and one of his lieutenants closing the distance between them. And Stark looked pissed.

“Sorry, sir. I musta taken a wrong turn.” Kevin made a big show of snapping to attention and avoiding eye contact.

“That door is supposed to stay locked—Neferet’s orders,” said Stark.

“Sorry, sir,” Kevin repeated, still at attention. “It wasn’t locked.”

“Dallas, Artus has the keys. Find him and lock that damn door.”

“Yeah, will do, General.” Stark’s lieutenant started to leave, and then he smacked himself on the forehead and turned back. “I just realized I know who this kid is. He’s one of General Dominick’s lieutenants.”