Bite Me (London Undead) (2 page)

Since then, clinics had been shut down all over London for fear of a repeat tragedy. For the most part the larger hospitals remained open—and many of those were guarded by newly armed human police, watching for any sign of the zombie infection.

Quarantine wasn’t the answer. It only prolonged the torture for the person infected and the people trying to save them, watching them die a little more each day.

Better to end it clean and quick—for them and for the living.

And that’s where Seth and his werewolves had stepped in.

The city officials had welcomed them—monsters to fight monsters. At least until would-be zombie hunters started filtering into the city, bringing firearms with them. A suddenly armed populace had brought on its own kind of apocalypse. Accidental shootings, stray fire hitting innocent bystanders, even self-inflicted injuries from misfires had the general populace scurrying into their homes, barring their doors against humans and monsters alike.

Seth growled, the sound rumbling up from deep in his chest. What few normals there were on the city streets were too far away to hear it, their heads wrapped in mufflers and shoulders hitched high to ward the cold from their necks. They scuffed along on the sidewalks, careful not to skid. No snow yet, but frost formed in the night.

He slipped on the slick surface, cursed the lack of traction in his sneakers. A few steps farther, he skidded again and his temper burned hotter. He’d wear boots, but they were more expensive to replace if he ripped them apart during a fast shape-shift. He hated watching his footing like a normal, not that there were many out and about to see him fall on his arse.

It was still fairly early in the night—London used to be alive with people heading from pub to pub or other entertainment. Not a few blocks away, Piccadilly would’ve been packed shoulder to shoulder with people. Not anymore. Now, only a few scattered souls hurried along on their way to a specific destination, no dallying.

A scream rang out through the night, the sound rising up through the cold air and echoing off the buildings. The normals on the street—all four of them—hurried on their way, oblivious to the sound too faint for their human range of hearing. If they could hear it, they would most likely head in the opposite direction.

After all, what could a normal do against a zombie attack?

Dignity be damned. He headed in the direction of the scream, heedless of his slipping and sliding as he kept an eye on the darker alleys and side streets. As he drew closer, shots rang out. Curious. Someone was actually putting up a fight.

He crossed Bayswater Road and hit the grounds of Kensington Gardens at a run, pausing only to toss his coat into the shadows under a tree. Ignoring the official paths, he cut across the once carefully manicured, now despoiled grounds and began hunting. He caught the scent trail not too far into the park. A large group of zombies was on the move, maybe as many as half a dozen. Even without his enhanced senses, the smell of rotting flesh was easy to follow.

Another set of shots went off in rapid succession.

Another scream, the same woman he’d heard initially.

A child was crying...

“Shite.” What the hell was a child doing out in the middle of Kensington Gardens at night?

With zombies creeping across the night scene in London, the few tourists still visiting the city went sightseeing by day. More often, visitors were wannabe zombie hunters looking to claim bravery in the face of horror. Those idiots took their shots from a distance, behind the safety of a solid barricade or from boats on the river. Some never came past the blockades the military set up surrounding the outskirts of London.

Bloody cowards. Worse than useless, they were.

The wide expanses of lawn might give the people a small chance to run for it, but the area he tracked them to was surrounded by trees and edged on one side by the Long Water. Too many places for zombies to come shuffling out of the dark and not enough clear room to outrun them.

He circled the glade, taking in the details. No sense in drawing friendly fire before the shooter could identify him as help.

A family crouched at the foot of the Peter Pan statue, clutching the base in a terrified parody of the fairies gathered at the bronze statue’s feet. The shooter leaned with her back to the base of the statue, taking down zombies two at a time—a pistol in each hand. She had a good eye and steady aim. Must’ve been using 9 mms as every shot went into a zombie and didn’t come back out on the other side.

There’s a good girl.

Smart choice for a little bit like her. A larger caliber handgun would fire with too much force for her to be shooting one from each hand. Plus, larger caliber bullets would pass through zombies and potentially hit unlucky bystanders. The first idjits to come into London after the initial outbreak had made that mistake.

They’d come to kill zombies and instead hurt even more innocent people.

“Why don’t you sod off?” The shooter let out a string of curses as she put bullets into another two zombies.

Seth raised his eyebrows. Impressive language.

And there were more than the group of six or seven he’d scented earlier. Other zombies were closing in on the small glade. Probably attracted by the woman’s screams and the scent of live meat.

No need to call in the pack. This, he could handle. More wolves and those humans could panic and go blinkered, run off screaming about werewolves attacking them alongside zombies. Damned delicate in the head, humans.

The last thing his pack needed was bad press threatening the tenuous partnership they’d built with the human authorities. Their energies needed to be focused on the real danger.

Better to clean this up alone.

If the shooter had full magazines loaded at the beginning, she was halfway to reloading. When she had to pause to do it—no matter how fast a human could handle a gun—those zombies would be on them all.

He’d seen enough. It was time to act.

Chapter Two

Maisie admitted it’d been a bad night to go out for a walk. Hell, any night would have, but she’d been in such a snit over the landlord’s greed she couldn’t stay put.

Then, of course, she’d managed to find a batch of people even more stupid than she. And incapable of defending themselves. For the love of idjits, dumb and dumber, they’d only had one shotgun with them. One!

Any self-preserving person would stay far, far away.

And what did that say about her, then? Nothing she’d admit out loud.

The woman at her side needed to stop screaming. The noise would only attract more of the zombies...

She had a half dozen shots left in each of her 9 mms before she’d have to reload. With no one to cover her, it’d be an exercise in futility. Taking careful aim, she took a grim pleasure in making sure every shot was a perfect headshot. There was always a chance...

And if not, she’d make herself one.

As the zombies had driven them farther into Kensington Gardens, she’d chosen to make a stand at Peter Pan’s statue rather than stumbling around in the dark with a man, woman and child. The man had gotten off two shots, never reloaded. Instead he clutched it like it’d magically save them all. She wasn’t sure he even had any more ammunition. But she’d been counting and knew exactly how much she had left.

“Oy. Idjit. Boom stick only fires if you point it and shoot.”

“D-dead p-people. Walking! K-kill us. Rotting c-corpses...t-trapped in hell...” He trailed off in an incoherent babble.

Useless.

Six...five...four... She took out the closest wave of undead and then had to split her focus between left and right as the next approached from opposing sides.

Three...two... She pulled her arms back in at her sides and then extended them straight forward.

Maybe this time, she wouldn’t be able to fight her way free after all.

A growl rolled across the glade as something new broke the cover of the trees, slamming into the group of zombies directly in front of her. The others broke stride, momentarily confused by the new predator in their midst.

“No, oh no!” The woman screeched right in Maisie’s ear, reaching out and grabbing her left arm. “Help us!”

Great, fantastic, handicap your savior by dragging down one of her shooting arms. Maisie opened her mouth to shout some sense into the woman when a zombie came around the side of the statue.

Maisie yanked down hard on her hindered arm and forced the woman to her knees. At the same time she brought her right arm around and fired off one shot, point-blank. The hole she put in the front of the zombie’s head wasn’t bigger than a quarter but it blew out the back in a messy way.

Ripping her arm free of the hysterical woman, Maisie turned back to the main fight as she ejected the empty magazine and reloaded the one handgun.

No further sounds from the newcomer after that first growl. The only noise from the fight was the inarticulate hisses and groans from the attacking zombies. Her father’d once told her the growling and snarling was all posturing but the silent wolf was the beastie that’d kill you.

Apparently, Poppy had been right.

The werewolf stood on two feet, his form caught between human and wolf with all the strengths of each. No zombie managed to get a grip on him, or fasten their hungry mouths in his flesh. He lashed out with deadly accuracy, muscled arms rippling under dark fur as he snapped necks and crushed skulls. The way he scattered the zombies, littered the glade with dismembered corpses, left her with few remaining targets.

Mostly, she made sure the ones that were down, stayed there.

Problem with zombies was the buggers had a knack for getting back to their feet again. Or dragging themselves after people.

Better to have loaded weapons ready than need them and curse Murphy’s Law. She took careful aim and tagged a zombie entering the clearing before ejecting her other empty magazine and reloading.

Of course, more would keep arriving so long as they were attracted by the sound of easy prey—like the woman screeching in hysteria next to Maisie’s ear.

“You need to stop screaming now.” Maisie kept her voice low, calm.

Of course the woman didn’t listen.

Maisie shoved one gun back in a holster at her shoulder, then with the freed hand grabbed a handful of the woman’s shirt. Hauling her up, Maisie forced the other woman to face her. “Woman, he just saved us. If you’re still carrying on all mad and the like by the time he finishes off the rest of those zombies, he may rip your throat out just to keep you from attracting more. Do you get me?”

Hell, she wanted do some damage to the other woman’s vocal chords.

Shocked out of her hysterics midscreech, the woman gulped. Eyes wide, she swallowed hard several times. Maisie could almost see her processing the words. ’Twas like watching a hamster run in its bitty wheel to make the gears turn inside the woman’s head.

“Gather up your family. Be ready to move. We don’t know if he’s going to stick around or not but we don’t want to be here once he leaves.” Maisie released her and glanced back toward the werewolf.

One final batch of zombies had come out of the trees. These seemed faster than the usual, and particularly bloodthirsty. They attacked with coordinated behavior—odd for the walking dead.

The werewolf was holding his own, but Maisie raised her guns anyway.

She picked off one, then another on the outside of the group as they threw themselves at the werewolf. He threw a third down to the ground just as three more jumped on him simultaneously. His hands—or claws or whatever—were full and the zombie on his back bit deep into his shoulder, at the base of his neck. The zombie could get to the werewolf’s spine—a serious danger—and she didn’t have a sure headshot. She’d have to go a different route. Grabbing her last line of defense from its holster at her waist, she stowed her remaining 9mm.

Both hands on her 38 super, Maisie took careful aim and fired.

A roar of mixed rage and pain. The bullet went through the werewolf’s shoulder and carried the zombie off his back. Leaning hard to one side, cursing the pain in her leg, she fired a kill shot to the head before it got back to its feet.

As she did, the other two zombies fell in pieces on the ground. The werewolf reached down and crushed their skulls, finishing the kill so they couldn’t drag themselves along the ground after their prey.

He straightened then, and stared at her with fierce golden eyes. Blackened zombie blood was liberally splattered across his fur and muzzle.

Maisie reminded herself screaming would be a bad idea.

“You shot me.”

They could talk in that form?

“I’m sorry.” Maisie forced words out, shoving terror to the back of her mind. Fear would only make him more dangerous. “Actually, I shot through you. I didn’t know how close the zombie on your back was getting to your spine. Figured that’d be hard for even the likes of you to heal.”

His growl stopped her heart, but the fur seemed to settle across his shoulders and what she could see of his back.

“More are coming. You all need to get out of the park.” He pointed north along the path. “Go. I’ll cover your retreat.”

The woman gathered her man and child and scurried up the indicated walkway. Maisie leaned hard against the statue and wished for pixie dust.

Instead she tucked her 38 super in its holster, hoisted up the waistband of her britches and started to feel along the base of the statue.

“Are you daft, woman? Do as I say.” The werewolf loomed closer.

“I plan to,” she assured him as she groped with her free hand in the dark. Where had it fallen? They hadn’t taken it with them. She would have seen.

“Now.” He sounded even angrier, the words becoming more harsh and guttural.

There it was.

She nabbed her crutch by the end, pulled it upright and slid her right arm through the forearm cuff to grip the handle.

He stared at her, suddenly so still he could have been another statue.

Even if she had the pixie dust, happy thoughts might be a touch hard to pull together past the severe onslaught of intimidation and fear she was attempting to quell.

“I’m going.” Snapping at him might not be a good idea either, but at least her voice didn’t shake.

“You can’t run.”

Temper spiked past her fear. “I wouldn’t run from you even if I could.”

She stabbed the tip of her crutch into the ground and got started.

He moved with her, his otherworldly energy washing across her side, raising the fine hairs on her arms. “I could carry you.”

“You need your arms free to fight.”

“There aren’t any more infected in the near vicinity.”

He would know.

“You told us more were coming.” Wanker could’ve spared them some serious anxiety by being a bit more honest.

“At the rate you’re moving, more will be in the area before you can get clear.”

Ah well then, wasn’t that a hard truth?

Before she could get past grinding her teeth, he bent down and swept her up in his arms, his grip gentle despite his obvious strength. “Hey!”

“This makes more sense.” His words came more clear, less growly, quieter.

It did. She didn’t have to admit it though.

He walked with a steady stride, the rhythm calming her somehow. His fur was soft against her arm and the back of her hand, surprisingly so. Resisting the urge to bury her fingers in the pelt covering his chest took effort. Odd, but the longer he held her, the safer she felt.

Her bad leg throbbed, though, and now that the danger was mostly past she had more trouble ignoring it. She’d put too much strain on it. She’d pay her dues in the morning with all sorts of aches and pains.

Resigned, she had no idea what to do with the awkward silence. “I’m Maisie.”

“Seth.”

Well, at least they knew each other on a first name basis, then.

As they approached the outer edge of the park, he began to change without breaking stride. The arms around her reduced to normal and human. She’d never been close to a werewolf when it shifted, much less cradled in one’s arms.

“Isn’t that supposed to hurt?”

“It does.” His voice had lightened from the rough, guttural sound to a middle tenor. “But no reason to let it slow a body down.”

“Aren’t you cold?” She tried to sound casual about his bare upper body, but it was hard for a girl not to notice, pressed up against his chest as she was.

“Not so much when I’ve got fur. And right now, you’re blocking most of the cold air.” He paused. “I’ve a coat stashed at the edge of the park.”

In human form, he was leaner and less bulky. The only “fur” he had sprinkled the front of his chest. She still wanted to run her hands over it. “A coat. No shirt?”

“Shirts don’t last long when I’m out on patrol. They end up in shreds.”

“You’re wearing trousers just fine, though.” And she needed to quit blurting out the first thing to come to mind.

The corner of his mouth turned up in a ghost of a smile. “I’m lean enough through the bottom that my change from human to phase-form doesn’t rip up denims.”

Maisie supposed it made sense that he’d managed to keep his pants through the change. Wolves and other canines like huskies or German Shepherd Dogs tended to be very trim through the hips. Seth’s build held consistent from werewolf to human, simply taller and more muscular through the upper body in the former shape. Still, she wondered whether others had the same luck or if perhaps they lost their pants.

Best not to think about him losing his pants.

“Phase-form.” She tasted the word. “That’s what you call it then? When you’re half wolf and standing up like a man? All tall and fiercelike?”

“It’s one of the forms we can take, yes.” His gaze roved over the area around them and she found herself searching the shadows too. “Some of us control it better than others.”

She’d wondered about that. Werewolves appeared in top news stories on the telly and people whispered bits and pieces of remembered folk tales.

“Are the stories true, then? About you and the moon driving you mad?”

He missed a step and bobbled her in his arms. She thought she might have upset him, but then she realized he was chuckling. “The moon calls to the younger, less experienced pups, forces them into the change. But even they don’t go mad. They learn to be well fed and find a good way to burn off their aggression. As they get older, more experienced, their control gets better. Go on then, what other stories have you heard?”

“Well, you don’t eat the zombies, do you?” Her stomach churned at the thought. “Some people wonder if you’re carrion eaters since there’s no bodies to clean up.”

“No.” He sounded every bit as disgusted as she felt at the idea. “We don’t eat rotting flesh.”

“But you do eat things...my kind of folk don’t eat.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have asked, but she’d wondered. And well, he wasn’t likely to eat her after saving her, was he?

The corner of his mouth twitched. Maybe that was as close to a smile as he got. “The things my kind eat aren’t so different from what you’d prefer. Chicken, pork, steak when it’s available, and occasionally some game meat. We just like it...fresh.”

“Ah, well, who doesn’t like a good rabbit stew once in a while.” Not so different, then, but she’d bet her idea of fresh and his were two different things.

Awkward silence ruled over the next few minutes as he walked the final distance out of Kensington Gardens and crossed over to the city streets.

Maisie fidgeted. “You can let me down now. There’s not as much likelihood I’ll run into stray corpses in this area. It’s well patrolled.”

“By my pack.”

“And I thank you all for that, really. Ever consider setting up an emergency calling system? Like the Americans have when they call for Batman?” She’d meant it as a joke but his brows drew together in a dark expression. “Kidding. You can tell when someone is kidding, can’t you?”

“Don’t know you. Your heart rate is still up but I don’t smell fear.”

“Well, I’m not lying.” Actually she was more than appreciative of his rangy, well-toned torso now that he’d set her down and she could get a good look at the whole package. Lord help her. She’d been alone for too long.