The Forever Song

Jackal crossed his arms, smirking at me. “So, go ahead, my dear little sister. Stomp on His territory a while longer. Maybe He’s dead after all. But if a lightning bolt strikes you dead in the next thirty seconds, I’ll save us some time and say ‘see you in hell’ right now.”

My stomach twisted. I remembered something Jebbadiah Crosse had asked me, long ago, when I hadn’t been a vampire for long and had first stumbled upon his group.

“Do you believe in God, Allison?”

“No,” I said immediately. “Is this the part where you tell me I’m going to hell now?”

“This is hell,” Jebbadiah said. “This is our punishment, our Tribulation. God has abandoned this world. The faithful have already gone on to their reward, and He has left the rest of us here, at the mercy of the demons and the devils. The sins of our fathers have passed on to their children, and their children’s children, and it will continue to be so until this world is completely destroyed. So it doesn’t matter if you believe in God or not, because He is not here.”

I’d been skeptical before. I didn’t know what I believed now.

“Allison.” Kanin’s soft, cool voice came to me over the silent graveyard. I looked up, expecting him to call me back, to tell me we were wasting time, that we had to keep moving. His eyes were dark and hooded, his expression blank, as he gazed at me from the edge of the lot. “Do you know this place?”

I nodded. “I’ve been here before,” I told him, stepping around a headstone, brushing the cold rock with my fingers. The same tombstone Zeke had braced himself against when Jeb had whipped him for a crime I couldn’t remember now. “We—Zeke’s group—passed through this town on their way to Eden,” I continued, looking at the burned, blackened church. “They stopped here to rest, but they were attacked the next night.” I turned my head and shot a glare at Jackal, angry again. “By Jackal’s thugs.”

“Huh.” Jackal gazed around with interest now, unconcerned with the icy glare I was giving him. “So this is the spot where they nabbed everyone, is it? Small world.”

“They killed a woman, you know,” I spat at him. “Shot her in cold blood, and she couldn’t even defend herself. Oh, forget it.” Shaking my head, I curled my lip into a sneer. “Why am I telling you any of this—you certainly don’t care.”

“At last,” Jackal returned, smiling. “It starts to sink in. I was afraid I’d have to listen to another sermon.”

I wanted to snap at him, but it was useless. Instead, I turned and brushed snow off the cold tombstone as memories rose up to swirl around me. I recalled what had happened in this cemetery—seeing Zeke and Jeb from the cover of darkness. Watching as Jeb used a car antenna to whip his adopted son for an earlier sin. Watching Zeke with his head bowed, saying nothing. And what had happened after—the sudden attack, finding Zeke and traveling with him to Old Chicago to rescue the others—it all came back, reminding me yet again of what I had lost. That frozen piece of time in utter darkness, when Zeke had finally leaned in and kissed me, was forever etched into my memory and would never fade. I could see him now, standing beside me, as clearly as that memory would allow, his bright blue eyes shining with hope and determination. And I knew why I’d wanted to come here, to this spot, one more time.

Reaching back, I unhooked the chain from around my neck, drawing it and the tiny silver cross over my head. Refastening the clasp, I set it and the cross gently down on the gravestone, my fingers lingering on the metal winking against the rock.

Goodbye, Zeke.

Then I turned and crossed the grounds to where the two vampires waited on the sidewalk. Jackal shook his head as I joined them, but Kanin’s dark eyes remained on me, sympathetic and appraising.

“Are you finished?” he asked gently, and I nodded.

“Yeah,” I whispered, with one last glance at the church and the phantom memories that still lingered. The glint of silver, tiny and bright, caught my eye in the darkness, and I turned away. “Let’s go. I’m done here.”

We headed back toward the main road. No one, not even Jackal, said anything, leaving me to my thoughts and the persistent, swirling memories that refused to leave me alone. Several times, I almost turned around and went back; that cross was my last connection to Zeke, the only part of him I still had. But in the end, I left it on the grave in the middle of a lonely cemetery. I couldn’t dwell in the past. Zeke was gone. I had to move forward.

As we stepped between two dead vehicles and the road stretched away once more, the sudden growl of an engine cut through the silence. I jerked up, caught a glimpse of flying snow and red taillights as two motorcycles flashed between cars and vanished. The tracks from the tires shot away through the snow and followed the motorcycles into the dark, down the highway, and out of sight. The whine of their bike engines echoed over the buildings, ebbing away into the night.

I whirled on Jackal. “Those were raiders!” I exclaimed, almost an accusation. He raised a patronizing eyebrow, and I narrowed my gaze. “Why are they here? What do they want?”

The raider king gave me a serene smirk. “What makes you think they were mine, sister?”

“Uh, because we’re a couple days from Old Chicago? Because this is the same town where they attacked us last time?” He continued to smirk at me, and I scowled. “Don’t play innocent—those were your bikers. What did they want?”

“Haven’t a clue,” Jackal said breezily. “They didn’t exactly stick around for tea and gossip, did they?”

I bared my fangs at his obnoxiousness. “Aren’t you their king? Wouldn’t they at least try to talk to you if they knew you were here?”

Jackal snorted. “Sister, please. The minions aren’t stupid. If you were a bloodbag and you saw three vampires walking up the road toward your house, what would you do? Stay and have a nice little chat? Or run like hell?” He shook his head. “The minions, if they were mine, did exactly what they always do—saved their own worthless hides. As well they should. I don’t want them getting comfortable with vampires. I worked very hard to make sure they’re all scared shitless of me, and I’ll thank you not to screw that up. My raiders, especially, know better than to hang around, waiting to be eaten. I’m their king, not their pal. So, yes, we saw two bikers, and they peed themselves and ran away. What’s the problem here?”

“Just that... I mean...” I trailed off, frustrated that I knew something was wrong, and I couldn’t put it into words. Kanin, however, spoke up from behind me.

“And is it usual that two of your humans would stake out a town for the sole purpose of watching for vampires?” he asked. “And that they chose this town, which they knew we would have to pass on the way to Old Chicago?”

Jackal shrugged. “Maybe. Who gives a damn, anyway? Don’t glare at me, old man,” he added, facing Kanin down. “I’m not a mind reader. I can’t tell what the minions are thinking every second of every day. It’s just a couple bloodbags. What do you think they’re going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Kanin admitted, his dark gaze moving to the road ahead. “But I think we should proceed with caution.”

* * *

Nothing unusual happened that night. We met no more raiders on the road, heard no motorcycles tearing away from us at top speed, encountered no human life at all. The path to Old Chicago was as it had always been: silent, cold and dark, twisting through woods and deserted towns, past the skeletons of houses and the ancient remains of cars buried in the snow. Near dawn, we split up to bury ourselves in the frozen earth, as Kanin was suddenly wary of being aboveground and exposed. I slept in my dark grave, silent, dreamless and undisturbed, and rose the next night to a still, icy world. It had stopped snowing, but sometime during the day the snow had turned to sleet, and everything was outlined in a thin layer of ice. I shook snow from my hair and clothes and paused a moment to concentrate on Kanin and Jackal, searching for them through our blood tie.

They weren’t far. I backtracked through the trees until I found the road again and saw Jackal leaning against a dead tree at the edge of the pavement. He raised an eyebrow as I came up, but didn’t move.

“Where’s Kanin?” I asked, gazing around for the Master vampire. Our blood tie allowed me to sense my sire’s general direction, and even that he wasn’t very far, but it didn’t let me know what he was doing. Jackal shrugged.

“You know as much as I do, sister. The old bastard is off that way—” he nodded over a rise on the other side of the road “—but of course he hasn’t told me what he’s doing. For all I know, he could be chasing squirrels to make a necklace from their little squirrel balls.” He looked content not to move from his position as I glared at him. “If you’re so curious, why don’t you go ask him?”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

Following our blood tie, I trekked over the rise and through the snow, weaving through trees and around a rotting cabin, until I found him. He stood with his back to me at the edge of the road where it curved around a bend, his tall, imposing form a featureless silhouette against the snow.

“Kanin.” I walked to his side, not expecting him to acknowledge me but knowing he knew I was there. As predicted, he didn’t turn, but continued to gaze down the road, his face unreadable. I peered into the darkness, saw nothing unusual, and glanced back. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know.” Kanin sounded suspicious, and I caught the barest note of frustration beneath his cool tone, a hint I would have never caught a month ago. The Master vampire stared down the winding pavement, and his eyes narrowed. “I feel we are being watched.”

I frowned. The road and the forest surrounding it were empty. Nothing moved or made a sound in the shadows; no tracks lay in the snow except our own. “Rabids?” I asked.

“No.” Kanin shook his head. “Rabids would not simply watch from the woods. They would have attacked us by now.”

“Raiders, then?”

“Perhaps. Though I am uncertain as to why they would be stalking us. And I cannot sense, or smell, any humans nearby.”

I gave him a faint smile. “Is it possible you’re just being paranoid after last night?”

He finally looked at me, a hint of amusement crossing his face. “One does not live to be several centuries old without a little paranoia,” he said, the corner of his mouth curving just slightly. “But perhaps you are right. In any case, there is little we can do about it now. Let’s keep moving. Once we reach Old Chicago, I am sure we will find answers.”

Several hours later, the road widened and became a highway, and the buildings around us grew larger and more numerous as we approached the outskirts of the city. According to Jackal, we were still a day out from Old Chicago, though we’d left the wilderness behind and had entered the surrounding suburban districts. The tangle of trees and undergrowth now wrapped themselves around houses, stores and road signs, and the once-empty highway slowly grew choked with cars. One side of it, anyway. The other side, the side leading toward Old Chicago, was completely barren. I’d seen this before: the endless stream of dead, crumpled vehicles, thousands of people trying to flee the cities all at once. I stared at the cars we passed, repressing a shiver. It must’ve been chaos, back then. Vehicles lay smashed against each other, sometimes flipped to the side or all the way onto the roof. A skeleton lay half in, half out of a broken windshield, splayed across the hood in the snow. The blackened hulk of a van lay overturned in a ditch, one small bony arm reaching through the shattered window, as if trying to claw itself free.

Kanin and Jackal continued on, barely glancing at the silent vehicles and their grisly contents. I guessed that Kanin had been alive for so long, nothing surprised or disturbed him anymore. And Jackal certainly wouldn’t care about a bunch of dead meatsacks, as he would so elegantly put it. I wondered if that would ever happen to me, if I would eventually live so long, the sight of mass death and destruction wouldn’t faze me at all.

Ahead of us, the mouth of a tunnel loomed over the river of cars, a yawning black hole set into a rise. The tunnel was pitch-black, and though my vampire sight allowed me to see in utter darkness, I couldn’t glimpse the end of it.

However, something was coming out of that dark hole that made me stop in my tracks. Silent and unseen, but unmistakable. It roused my demon and caused the Hunger to stir restlessly, spreading a low ache across my insides.

The scent of blood. A lot of it. Freshly spilled, coming from somewhere within that looming blackness.

I hurried forward, joining Kanin and Jackal at the entrance. Both vampires were gazing into the mouth of the tunnel warily, though the smell was probably making them just as Hungry as I was.

“Huh,” Jackal remarked, arms crossed as he stared into the darkness. “That’s interesting. Last I checked, there wasn’t anyone living on this stretch of road. The minions killed off anyone in a twenty-mile radius of Chicago.”

I gazed into the tunnel, trying to ignore the familiar ache spreading through my insides. “Do you think someone is in there?”

“If they are, their guts are all over the pavement, judging from the smell.” Jackal sniffed, curling a lip in distaste. “Nothing is going to be alive in there, sister. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

A scream rang out, somewhere in the darkness, and I snarled in return. “Someone’s in trouble,” I hissed at the other vampires, and drew my katana. “Screw it! I’m going in.”

Without waiting for a reply, I sprinted into the passageway.

The road through the tunnel was even more clogged with vehicles than the outside. Cars lay on both sides of the road, some knocked sideways or smashed into walls in their desire to escape. I wove through a maze of vehicles, sometimes having to scramble over hoods or roofs in order to navigate. Once, I had to duck beneath an enormous rectangular truck—a semi, I remembered they were called—sitting at an angle and blocking both lanes. I heard Jackal and Kanin behind me, and Jackal’s comment that I was a pain in the ass reached me over the labyrinth of cars, but I concentrated on moving forward. In this dark, confined space, the scent of blood was overpowering, clinging to everything and making it impossible to sense anything else. The Hunger was raging inside, but I kept a tight hold on it, determined to stay in control. When I found the owner of that scream, I was not going to pounce and ravage them like a wild animal.

Though it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway.

As I reached the spot where the blood scent was strongest, the maze of cars suddenly thinned. I stood in a small open space, several cars forming a circle around me, as if they had been deliberately moved or pushed aside. It was definitely the source of the smell. Fresh pools of blood stained the pavement, still wet and glimmering, in the middle of the circle. But there was no one here, no bodies or other signs of a scuffle, though I was sure this was the place I’d heard the scream.

That’s weird, I thought, walking up to observe the pools of blood, keeping my Hunger firmly in check. I would not, I told it, lap up the puddles from the ground like some damn stray dog. Fresh blood with no bodies. Where...

Something warm dripped onto my face from above. Briefly, I closed my eyes, bracing myself, then looked up.

There were three of them. Two men and a woman, hanging from the ceiling of the tunnel with their hands tied behind them, the ropes around their necks creaking as they dangled in lazy circles. They had been split open, gutted from chin to groin, intestines spilling from their stomachs like pink snakes. Blood soaked the entire front of their bodies, wet and black, filling the air with the smell of death.

I backed away, nearly running into Jackal as he and Kanin emerged from the maze of cars, both gazing up at the bodies. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jackal remarked, shaking his head at the corpses. “You’d think stringing bodies up would get old after a while. I think the old nutbag is losing his creative touch.”

“This wasn’t Sarren,” Kanin muttered, as I looked to him for answers. “This was done recently. Tonight. Someone wanted us to see this—they knew we would be here....” He cast a grim look around the enclosed space. “We have to leave now.”

A clang, hollow and metallic, echoed through the tunnel ahead. What immediately followed raised the hair on my neck. Shrieks and wails rose into the air, the sound of claws scraping over metal and pavement, and the stench of carrion, death and wrongness filtered through the overpowering smell of blood.

“Rabids!” I snarled, surging back toward Kanin and Jackal. A lot of them. I could see their pale, skeletal forms leaping over cars, skittering over roofs or under tires, hissing and screaming. They were frenzied, crazy from the scent of blood, and coming right at us.

“Fall back!” Kanin ordered, drawing away from the open circle. “They’ll stop when they reach the bodies, and we can find a way around.”

But a sudden screeching and wailing from the other direction made us freeze. More rabids, foaming and wild-eyed, rushed toward us over the maze of cars. We were trapped in the middle.

With a snarl, Jackal brandished his fire ax, and I swung my katana as the horde came on, their screams reverberating through the tunnel in a deafening cacophony. No going off on my own this time; I stood back-to-back with Kanin and Jackal, facing the monsters as they clambered over cars and swarmed toward us. I lashed out at the first rabid, cutting clean through its body, splitting it in two, then whipped my sword down to behead the next that sprang forward. Then it was just chaos: shrieking rabids, slashing claws and fangs, an endless wave of pale bodies flinging themselves at me. I moved on instinct, spinning from one attack to the next, the blade dancing in my hands.

A roar behind me made me turn. Jackal stood in the center of a writhing heap of rabids, several spindly monsters clinging to his back, biting and clawing. He bashed the head of his ax into the ones leaping at him, knocking them away, but more piled on him, and sheer numbers were beginning to drag him down. His face was streaked with blood, and dark crimson stained his collar and the back of his neck.

Snarling, I rushed in from the side, plunged my blade into one of the rabids clawing at his shoulders, and ripped it away. While Jackal continued to fend off the rabids springing at him, I began cutting away the monsters that clung to his back, freeing him from the pile. I couldn’t see Kanin, didn’t know where he was, but the Master vampire was the strongest and most lethal fighter of us all. He could take care of himself.

As I cut down the last of the rabids clawing at Jackal, something hit me from behind, shrieking in my ear, sinking curved talons into my chest and shoulder. I yelled as the blow drove me to my knees, but a moment later the weight was gone, as Jackal grabbed the rabid by the back of the neck, spun, and smashed its head through a car window. Knocking aside another body that lunged at me, he glanced down with a savage grin and held out a hand.

“Come on, sister. On your feet. We’re not done with these bastards yet.”

I grabbed his wrist, and he yanked me upright. The rabids were still coming at us, insane with bloodlust, but the swarm was smaller now. From the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Kanin, surrounded by pale bodies, smoothly decapitating a rabid that lunged at him, and the monster’s body collapsed like its strings had been cut while the head bounced once and rolled under a tire.

Side by side, Jackal and I cut our way through the last of the horde, crushing skulls and slicing necks until the final monster leaped at us and was struck down, meeting Jackal’s ax across its face and my sword through its middle. As it dropped, twitching, to the pavement, the echo of its dying shriek faded away, and the tunnel fell silent once more.

“Well. That was entertaining.” Jackal lowered his ax with a grimace, hunching his shoulders. The back of his duster was shredded, long gashes left by curved talons, though the scratches across his face were already healing. His eyes gleamed dangerously as he stared around at the carnage. “Anyone else get the feeling we’ve been set up?”

Kanin strode back to us, his bright, thin blade already vanished from his hand. “Let’s keep moving,” he ordered, his tone brisk. “We don’t want to stay here. Hurry.”

We rushed through the maze of cars until we came to the edge of the tunnel, back into the open. Another semi truck blocked most of the entrance, its doors flung back, showing an empty interior. The unmistakable stench of rabids wafted from the opening, and a pair of motorcycle tracks sped away down the road and vanished into the night.

“Well, well,” Jackal mused, glancing from the truck to the empty road before us. “Isn’t that amusing? Looks like we were set up, after all. Oh, someone is going to die. Very painfully, I think.” He met Kanin’s dark stare and narrowed his eyes. “Old man, if you say anything along the lines of ‘I told you so,’ you both can figure out how to get into Chicago without me.”

Kanin didn’t reply, but I stared at the tracks until they vanished around a bend, and frowned at Jackal. “Why are your people attacking us?” I growled, glaring at him. “I thought you had a handle on them.” He scowled back.

“If I knew the reason, sister, I wouldn’t be here.” His eyes glinted. “But you can be sure I will get to the bottom of this. And when I do, the backstabbing little shits are going to wish they were never born.” Glancing at me and Kanin, he curled a lip. “You two can go around, if you want. Keep chasing the psychopath. I’m going back to my city, and I’m going to bash in some heads until they remember who their king is.”

“No,” I shot back. “There’s no time to go around.” I looked at Kanin, silently watching us both, and hardened my voice. “We have to catch up to Sarren, and we can’t do that if we keep taking detours. Old Chicago is the only place we have a chance of catching up. We’ll grab a couple bikes while Jackal is bashing in heads and keep going to Eden. But we can’t turn back now.”

“I am not disagreeing with you, Allison,” Kanin said. His gaze drifted to the road behind us, at the tracks fading in the snow, and his expression turned dark. “If the straightest way to Eden is through Old Chicago, we will continue in that direction. But I would advise extreme caution now, as it seems there are humans who wish us harm.”

“Oh, don’t worry, old man,” Jackal growled, a dangerous promise in his voice. “There won’t be for much longer.”

Chapter 5

We reached the outskirts of the city later that night.

I’d forgotten how huge Chicago was; even the urban sprawl leading up to the main city seemed to go on forever. Miles and miles of empty, silent streets and decaying houses, vehicles rotting along the shoulder, streetlamps and signs lying in the road. The last time I’d come through here, I’d been riding a stolen motorcycle and hadn’t paid much attention to my surroundings as they flew by. My focus had been on steering the bike and avoiding obstacles...and on the person sitting behind me, his arms around my waist.

I shot a glance at Jackal walking beside me, his expression dangerous. And for a brief, irrational moment, resentment flickered. He probably wasn’t thinking of what had happened the night I’d come through his territory, and if he was, he didn’t care. But I remembered. Darren’s screams when Jackal had thrown him into a cage with a rabid and let it rip him apart, just to set an example. Fighting an army of raiders to rescue the rest of Zeke’s group, and setting a building on fire to escape. And, of course, the fight atop Jackal’s tower, where I’d faced my blood brother for the first time, and he’d nearly killed me.

Jackal caught me looking at him and raised an eyebrow. “What’s that look for?” he challenged.

I faced the road again. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit.” Jackal’s gaze lingered on me. “You’re thinking about Old Chicago and the last time you came through. You’re remembering all those fun little moments when I killed your humans, tortured them, threw them into the ring with rabids—all those good times.” His gaze narrowed. “Don’t try to deny it, sister. It’s written all over your face.”