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As I headed for the shower, my stomach lurched. I hurried into the bathroom, reaching it just in time to throw up. Luckily, there wasn’t much in my stomach, and as I rinsed out my mouth, I stared into the mirror. My eyes were dilated, and I had a light rash of tiny bumps on the left side of my face. What the fuck? But they didn’t itch, so I decided the hell with it and hopped into the shower. The hot water felt good on my back, and ten minutes later, I stepped out, brushed my hair out from the ponytail that had kept it from getting wet, and hurried back to the bedroom.
Someone had set out an outfit for me, and I quickly dressed in a light green gauze skirt and a plum-colored corset top, deftly fastening the hooks and eyes. I looked through my shoes and found a pair of black ankle boots overlaid with silver netting. Their kitten heels weren’t my usual height, but they were cute and, more important, they were padded with gel inserts. The boots were the most comfortable pair of shoes I owned. Finally, I put on my makeup and headed downstairs.
As I hustled into the kitchen, Hanna was putting out a platter of sandwiches and a bowl of chips for an early lunch.
She gave me a bright smile. Hanna had blossomed during her time with us, and more and more I caught a glimpse of the woman she had probably been before Hyto got to her. “I heard you stirring. You must be starving.”
“Thanks, and now that I think about it, I am.” My stomach rumbled, the queasiness replaced by hunger, as I reached for one of the ham and cheddar sandwiches. I slapped it on a plate and added a handful of potato chips, then settled at the table. Hanna glanced at my plate, then quickly poured me a big glass of milk. She also added a fruit salad and bowls to the table and, in a loud voice, headed into the foyer calling out that lunch was ready.
I bit into the sandwich, and it was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted. Either that, or I was starving. I had already polished off one sandwich by the time Delilah and Shade appeared and was starting on another.
Iris poked her head into the kitchen from the back porch and—on seeing me—slipped through the door and took a seat next to me.
“Are Smoky and Trillian back from Otherworld yet?”
She shook her head. “No, but it’s been less than twenty-four hours.”
She gave me a sideways glance. “You feeling okay?”
“I threw up when I woke up, but slept like the dead. What the hell did you give me? Whatever it was, it did the trick, but it left me really disconcerted.”
Iris nodded. “Yes, that’s why I don’t usually prepare it. It not only leaves a person disoriented, but can have serious long-term effects on the body, if you take it more than once or twice a year. But given what happened…I figured you’d need to be up and strong as soon as you could.”
That didn’t sound good. In fact, when I looked around at the expressions of the others, I realized that whatever it was, it wasn’t good at all.
“So, you all look pretty grim. What’s going down? Tell me.”
“We have a problem.” Rozurial pushed the evening newspaper over to me. I opened it up to find a picture of two zombies splashed across the front, along with a lurid headline: ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE BEGINS?
“Oh, fuck.” I took the paper and skimmed the article. It reminded me of a bland version of Andy Gambit’s sleaze rag.
“It was bound to happen sometime,” Morio said.
“I guess there was no way to keep the existence of zombies and ghouls secret forever. After all, vampires are out of the closet now.”
While most of the FBHs knew of the existence of Fae by now, and the vampires had come out of the closet, and Weres were talking about their two-faced nature openly, we’d somehow managed to keep the lid on zombie attacks and other nasty night creatures. Ghost stories had always abounded, but now, with this picture, it looked like the corpse was out of the coffin. Somebody in one of the graveyards had managed to snap the photo early this morning.
“Was another graveyard ransacked?”
“Yeah. Just like the others. And by the way, I took a look out there, at the one that was hit yesterday, and all the spirits are gone.” Vanzir shrugged. “Epidemic.”
Roz nodded. “Chase is fielding calls right and left. The 911 operators are swamped by people convinced there are zombies lurking outside their doors. And for once, the Fae aren’t being blamed.”
“No, but the vampires are.” Delilah looked grim.
“Vampires? What the hell do they have to do with it?” I frowned. “Vampires don’t raise zombies.”
“Of course they don’t, but since they’re undead, like the zombies, once again the Church of the Earthborn Brethren is making waves. They quieted down after the mess with Andy Gambit, but they’re back in the news today. They’ve been picketing outside the Shrouded Grove Suites all morning.”
“Not again. That’s where Wade lives.” The founder of Vampires Anonymous and a former psychologist, Wade Stevens was a vampire dedicated to help new vamps adjust to the “life.” Even though VA was now under control of the Seattle Vampire Nexus, run by Roman, Wade had been granted relative autonomy over the group.
“Yeah. Management has been dealing with this sort of crap since day one.”
When building started on the protected, vampire-friendly apartments, the picketers had come out of the woodwork. And they’d shown up almost every day since then until Andy Gambit’s death. The resulting scandal over the sleazy yellow-tabloid reporter/rapist had quieted them down for a while.
After the story had broken about what he’d done—a final count of ten confirmed rapes on Fae women, eleven on human women—the hate groups fell silent, not wanting to be associated with the vitriol aimed in his direction.
The resulting glee over his death had left them even more silent. But a few months had passed, and people quickly forgot the flavor of the month, be it bad or good.
