City of Whispers (City of Whispers #1) (16 page)

Scott nodded at me and I swung my left leg over. I
began to ease my way over the ledge, when, bam!
Goddamnit
.
My mouth collided with the metal railing and then I was face down on the fire
escape. I hoped I hadn’t lost any teeth. Had I slipped? No, something had
definitely grabbed my leg. I felt a sharp pain in my left ankle.

Then the fire escape shook as Scott jumped down,
narrowly missing my right arm.

“
Sonofabitch
!” he said under
his breath. At least he still had his wits about him enough to know better than
to yell and cause any more of a racket than we had already caused. I tasted
blood in my mouth. I thought of poor Stella coming to her end on my fire
escape. It would be poetic justice if I was now killed for invading a vampire’s
fire escape.

What the hell was I doing reminiscing about long-ago
vampires? I pushed myself up, thinking about how only a few months ago I could
barely do a push-up. I turned around in time to see Scott stake two vampires
inside the apartment at the same time, and I felt my heart skip a beat. Another
vampire, gangly and freckled, was coming through the apartment door.

I had dropped my stake when I fell so I grabbed
another one from my pack. I leaped through the window and stabbed the freckled
vampire hard. He let out a scream as I forced him back against the wall and the
stake went clean through him. I felt a nice pop as it went through his heart.
Perfect.

Scott grabbed my wrist. I knew there were more coming.
The last one had made a good bit of noise. Panting, Scott pushed me out the
window onto the fire escape. “Are you okay? Can I please go down first now?” he
said.

“Yes, just go!”

It was tempting to run down the stairs, but we both
knew it wasn’t smart to dash into the unknown, even in the best conditions. The
rain only made matters worse. One slip and we could be done. Scott already had
two more stakes in his hands and I took out mine and inspected the tips to make
sure they were still sharp and had not been broken in my fall.

Scott began steadily moving down the stairs, peering
into windows as soon as he was low enough to see in. I followed sideways behind
him so that I could watch our backs. We made it to the third floor before a
vampire stuck her head out of the upstairs window where we had just killed the
three vampires.
Shit
.

“One saw us....upstairs,” I whispered to Scott. We had
to move faster. We made it down to the next floor, the second story, and
suddenly a huge, muscular vampire popped out right above us. From the looks of
him, he could have been a linebacker in his previous life.

“Go! Now!” I hissed, and vaulted over the rail onto
the pavement below. Scott followed. The linebacker shrieked and began racing
down the stairs after us but slipped and fell onto the second floor of the fire
escape. When he stood up, Scott already had his crossbow out. Scott was good
with the crossbow anyway, but at this range it was just too easy. The
linebacker took the close range bolt, keeled over, and sprawled across the fire
escape. Then the vampire I had seen on the top floor came rushing around the
corner with another female in tow.

“I’ve got them both!” I was still trying not to shout,
but I didn’t want Scott to drop his crossbow trying to help me.

I gave the first one a solid kick in the gut, knocking
her onto the pavement, then staked her friend. By the time I’d turned back to
the first one, Scott had a stake in hand. He grabbed the remaining vampire by
the hair and staked her through the back.

By now it was pouring and I didn’t know whether we had
made enough commotion to attract more vampires. We figured our best option was
to go right down the middle of the street so that we’d have a moment’s warning
if something tried to come after us. The lightning lit our way home as we ran
down the middles of the streets and avenues.

We were panting by the time we reached the building.
Paulo let us in the front door.  “Where in the name of God have you been?”

“Out,” Scott said.

I didn’t say a word. Paulo knew exactly where we had been.

“We should go straight to your place,” Scott said.
“You took a nasty fall back there.”

I had forgotten the fall and hadn’t felt any pain
until that moment, but I realized then that my ankle was throbbing, my lower
lip felt twice its normal size, and I was all kinds of sore in all kinds of
places. It reminded me of the first time I went snowboarding, and spent the
entire day trying out muscles I didn’t even know I had and falling in unnatural
positions.

Scott must have noticed my puzzled look. “Your lip is
still bleeding a little and you could have sprained your wrist when you fell.”
Now that he mentioned it, my wrist hurt too.

“I’m fine,” I said. “We can stop at your place first.”
After what I had just seen I felt paranoid. I insisted on checking Scott’s
entire apartment for vampires while he changed into some dry clothes. I felt
bad for dripping all over the place and offered to come around with a towel
when I had changed.

When we got to my apartment, we searched the closets,
the cabinets, under the bed, and ridiculous places like behind the sofa even
though it was only a few inches from the wall. I had to know there weren’t any
vampires there waiting for me. Then we checked the reinforcements on the
windows and the doors.

I took off my collar—the bite marks had faded to faint
white dots by then. I inspected my face in the mirror. I did indeed have a
puffy lip, but all my teeth were intact. I changed into some comfy pajamas and
caught sight of my left ankle where the vampire had grabbed me. I looked at it.
It wasn’t pretty, but didn’t look awful either. I took an old towel out of the
closet. “I can come help you dry your place now,” I offered.

He shrugged. “That’s okay, there’s no need.” I could
tell Scott didn’t want to leave, but didn’t want to intrude either. So I asked
him to stay. He seemed relieved. “I don’t think it would be good for either of
us to stay alone tonight.”

I went to the bathroom and started to rinse off my
wound under the bathtub faucet. It stung. Scott tapped on the partially open
door. “Are you okay? Did it bite you?”

“No, I’m fine, it’s just a scratch. The vampire’s
fingernails were probably disgusting though. Would you mind grabbing the
Neosporin out of the bottom shelf?” I gestured to my mirror cabinet.

Scott handed me the Neosporin and I directed him to
the gauze and tape. I had two scratches and they weren’t very deep. Although I
had been scratched before, the scratch made me wonder what kind of hygiene
vampires had. Did they wash their hands after eating or being in the subway? I
hoped so, but doubted it as the wound was already red and puffy.

“I would have preferred to get bitten, at least maybe
they keep their teeth cleaner than their fingernails.” It was a lame attempt to
lighten the mood and Scott didn’t laugh. “Sorry that was stupid,” I said,
looking away.

“You aren’t in any danger from a scratch,” Scott
offered.

I sighed. “I know.”

“So that was Desmond?”

“Yes. Can’t you see how I was so charmed by him?” I
asked.

“Well he was good looking, for a vampire,” Scott
teased. “Why do you think he was asking about you?”

“I have no idea. Ego maybe. Before he bit me he told
me I would make a good vampire. Even though I made him sick, he probably
thought I’d either died or transformed by now. Maybe he was just curious.”

“So, he’s a vampire with feelings for you? He wants
you to join him in eternity or something?” Though it seemed he was trying to be
funny, Scott looked irritated. I wondered if he was a little jealous.

“Scott, I don’t think Desmond actually cares about me.
I think he’s a vampire who was hungry and wanted to get a drink of blood. If
tricking his prey with false promises about eternity was the best way to do
that, then that’s what he was going to do.”

Scott frowned. “And you said he has an ego.”

“Yeah. Did you hear the way he talked to the others?
He thinks he’s lead vampire or something. I swear he wasn’t at all like that in
real life. Not that I knew him that well.”

“Well now he knows you’re alive and not a vampire and
he seemed pretty pissed about it. You made him sick and he has a huge ego. I
don’t like this Ailis. I think he’s going to come after you.”

I shuddered. “I’ve been thinking about moving closer
to the water, maybe all the way west. That way if there’s an emergency we could
get in a boat and get out into the water. I wonder if they’d still shoot us on
sight from New Jersey.”

“I wouldn’t want to risk it unless we had to.” Scott
shook his head. “Still, I think you’re right, I feel vulnerable here. I want a
better escape route.”

“Let’s talk about it in the morning.” I was suddenly
exhausted.

“He was so angry, Ailis...”

“Please, I know. Let’s just get some sleep.”

I brought a lantern into the bedroom and checked under
the bed and in the closet one more time for vampires.

“Would you feel more comfortable with the light on?”
Scott asked.

“No, no, I’m fine now. Don’t worry about it.”

“You know there was nothing we could do, there were
too many of them, even with the crossbow.”

I was startled. I hadn’t expected him to talk about
Seth. We had seen so much death, it seemed pointless to evaluate what had just
happened and whether we could have saved someone’s life. Still, it had been a
long time since one of our own had been killed. Maybe I’d become complacent. We
were the Manhattan
27—now 26—we were the survivors.

I wanted to say something hard about how I had never
liked Seth, and how he’d always been a stupid jerk. I wanted to say it was
Darwinism, but I couldn’t, not to Scott, he knew me too well. So I just
whispered, “I know,” and reached over him and turned out the light.

That night, I had trouble sleeping. I dreamed about
Desmond and his anger. He was speaking in low harsh tones to someone, then he
turned, looked me right in the eye and screamed. Blood dripped from his fangs
and streamed from his mouth. I knew it was my blood. I woke up. Scott was
sitting up in bed watching me.

“Go back to sleep, it’s okay,” he said.

I went back to sleep and dreamed again. This time I
dreamed of the hospital ward with the British doctors. They seemed frightened.
Suddenly, one grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around. “You have to
leave,” he said. I tried to speak, but no words came out. “You have to leave!”
He shouted at me. I woke up again, and saw that Scott was still sitting up.

“I’m sorry, am I keeping you awake?” I asked.

“No, I can’t sleep.”

After that I couldn’t sleep either so Scott and I sat
up in the dark together. We never spoke, but I knew we were both thinking about
how to tell the others about Seth and Desmond.

18

The next day Scott and I gathered the group in our building and told them about
the previous night. After debating it that morning, we decided to leave out the
part about Desmond claiming he had killed me. On the one hand, we thought
people deserved to know if this psycho vampire decided to wage a vendetta
against me. On the other hand, I still didn’t want to reveal to anyone else
that I had been bitten and was immune to the virus.

We decided to let everyone know that I recognized the
vampire that killed Seth as Desmond, someone I had known as a human. We even
told them that Seth had mentioned my name and Desmond knew I was alive and in
the city. I thought this information was enough to allow everyone to make an
educated decision as to whether they wanted to continue living near me.

We knew the handful of people in Seth’s building would
soon realize he was missing, so we called them on the radio and repeated the
story. I suspected many of them would move over to our building now.

Beth was upset at Seth’s death, which didn’t surprise
me. I felt guilty that we hadn’t done anything to help him. James, as much as
he had hated Seth, was angry. He wanted to burn down the building where Scott
and I had encountered the vampires and throw Molotov cocktails down into the
subway tunnels. I had half a mind to do the same thing.

I had begun to feel invincible after I survived
Desmond’s attack, but the previous night had reminded me that I was still
human. I might be immune to the vampire virus, but not to being bled to death,
or stabbed, or having my head cut off.

I knew Desmond was angry. I was a weakness for him. He
had tried to kill me and instead I had made him sick and survived with just two
small fading puncture wounds. Deep down it probably scared him, and that would
make him even more furious. I knew I had to watch my back more than ever, and
if I ever saw an opportunity, I had to kill Desmond.

We repeated the story to the man on the radio so that
the government could notify Seth’s family. This time, we completely left out
the part about Desmond and the way he had mocked Seth at the end.

After we told the story to the man on the radio,
Naveen wanted us to repeat the story yet again in more detail, so he could
report to his university partners or whoever it was he reported to. Scott and I
were both sick of telling the story, but we went to Naveen’s apartment anyway.
Naveen kept pressing us to tell him every detail about how the vampires looked,
sounded, and behaved. He was fascinated by their cunning and the differences
between vampires like Desmond and the two women, and the other vampires who
appeared to be less evolved.

“Why do some seem almost human and others are
zombie-like?” he asked.

“How should we know?” Scott replied. “You’re the
scientist, you tell us.”

“I think some people handle the transformation better
than others,” I said. “Like that old woman upstairs, some people simply died
from the virus. It makes sense that some people handled it better than others.
That’s why you don’t see child or elderly vampires running around.”

Naveen nodded and continued to scribble in his
notebook.

“I have heard that they are more human-like after they
have been infected for some time,” Naveen said after a few minutes.

“Heard from where?” Scott asked.

“Oh, you know…Tony told me his wife seemed more human
right before, you know…” Naveen squirmed in his chair.

Scott looked irritated. “Before he killed her?”

I racked my brain, but couldn’t remember Tony telling
me that Sophie had seemed more human before he killed her. I brushed the
thought away. Maybe he had told Naveen some things he hadn’t told the rest of
us.

“I wish I could take some blood samples,” Naveen
mumbled.

Scott looked like he had had enough of this interview.
He stood up and headed for the door. “Well I’ll just go and catch a few and
bring them back for you Doc, okay?”

Scott looked at me as he reached for the door handle
but I shook my head. “I’ll stick around a little longer and answer any more
questions Naveen has,” I said.

Scott shrugged his shoulders. “Fine, I’ll stay too.”
He leaned against the door, crossed his arms, and glared at Naveen.

I sighed. “Naveen, you’re giving me nightmares, you
know?”

Naveen looked up from his notes. “Excuse me?”

“I think it’s your creepy obsession with these
vampires, I keep having dreams about a hospital ward and vampires and doctors
with British accents.”

Naveen turned pale. “That’s absolutely horrid.”

“Yeah I know right?
You’re
the one giving me
the spooks though. You volunteered to come to this hell-hole for the sheer
pleasure of satisfying your own curiosity.”

“Yes, yes, well, it’s all very interesting you know,
and I just want to help.” Naveen bent back over his notes and appeared to
concentrate very hard.

“Yeah I know.” I shrugged. “Still it’s pretty brave. I
can’t say I’d volunteer for your job no matter how many people I thought I was
helping.”

Naveen looked back up. “Really? You wouldn’t do it?”

“Nope, no way. But I guess that’s why I went to law
school and you went to med school. My sister is a student in London, you know. She came to visit my
parents right after they started letting people into the States again, but
she’s gone back now. She’s even volunteering at a hospital. She was always a
lot nicer than I was.”

“Yes, well, I think you’re very nice Ailis.” Naveen
smiled at me. “And I think one never knows what one would do until faced with a
desperate situation.”

“Okay, okay,” Scott grumbled. “Have you finished
asking us about last night? I’m tired of talking about it.”

“Yes, yes,” Naveen replied. “I think I have enough
detail. I thank you both very much. My colleagues will be very interested in
these developments. I’ll have to give you both credit in my papers you know.”

“Sure thing,” I said.

“A lot of good that will do us,” Scott said, and we
both left Naveen to his report.

“You’re very grouchy today,” I said to Scott. “You
could use some sleep I think.”

“I don’t like him. He’s not telling us the truth about
something.”

“I agree with you there. I don’t believe for a moment
that he’s telling us the whole story. I’m sure the government sent him to check
us out and see if we’re safe, but I think that’s all the more reason to be nice
to him. Anyway, it’s still pretty ballsy of him to come down here whether or
not the government sent him.”

“There’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity.”
Scott started walking faster. I had to trot to keep up.

“Yes, and we’ve never crossed that line have we?”

Scott stopped. I noticed that we were by the

“Do you think he’s down there?” Scott asked.

“I don’t know. I have a hard time picturing Desmond
sleeping in a subway car or on a bench. Anyway, does it really matter? We’re
not going down there.”

Scott nodded.

“Scott...” I took his arm and made him look at me.
“We’re not going down there.
You
are not going down there.”

“Don’t worry I’m not going to do anything stupid, but
we have to get you out of here Ailis. He was so angry and he seems smart. He’s
going to find a way to kill you.”

I nodded. I didn’t have anything to say. I couldn’t
argue with Scott. We stood there for a minute more and then I took Scott’s arm
and guided him home.

After Seth was killed, everyone became more jumpy. The
building was quieter than usual at night. People became more anxious to speak
to their families. I also felt that there were more vampires outside, watching
us from nearby buildings.

My parents had heard an account of Seth’s murder that
exaggerated my proximity to the event. They thought I had been attacked as
well. They made me swear I would never leave my apartment at night again.

Even the man on the radio seemed less cheerful than
usual. He admonished us for not being more careful and told us to keep our wits
about us. He said to ask for anything we needed and that it would only be a
matter of time before we could leave Manhattan.
I had heard that lie enough to know better and I suspect most of the others
felt the same way.

Instead of focusing on escape, we spent our time
reinforcing the building. Dwayne found some concrete and poured it over the
hole in the basement to seal it once and for all. I was waiting for something
to happen. There was a palpable tension in the air, and it made me uneasy.

Less than a week later, something did happen.

Leila came back.