The Eternity Cure

Fear shot through me. I gave a frantic leap for the edge of the tunnel, just as the catwalk snapped and plummeted into the hordes below. I hit the wall a few inches from the edge and clawed desperately for a handhold, my fingers scrabbling against the smooth wall as I slid toward the wailing sea of death below.

Something clamped around my wrist, jerking me to a stop. Wide-eyed, I looked up to see Jackal on his stomach, one hand around my arm, his jaw clenched. His face was tight with concentration as he started to pull me up.

A reeking, skeletal body landed on my back, sinking claws into my shoulders, screaming in my ear. I snarled in pain, ducking my head as the rabid tore at my collar, trying to bite my neck. I couldn’t do anything, but Jackal reached down with his other hand, drew the katana from its sheath on my back, and plunged it into the rabid. The weight clinging to me dropped away as the rabid screeched and fell back into the mob below, and Jackal yanked me into the tunnel.

I collapsed against the wall, staring at him as he glared down at the rabids. He … had just saved my life. Stunned, I watched him approach and hold the katana hilt out to me.

“So.” His gold eyes shone as he gazed into mine. “I think I’m entitled to a smart comment or two now, don’t you think?”

I took the sword numbly. “Yeah,” I muttered as his smug look faded into something that wasn’t completely obnoxious. “Thanks.”

“No problem, little sister.” The leer returned, making him look normal again. “Comment number one—how much do you weigh to snap the bridge like that? I thought you Asians were supposed to be petite and dainty.”

Okay, moment over. I sheathed my blade and glared at him. “And here I almost thought you weren’t a complete bastard.”

“Well, that’s your mistake, not mine.” Jackal dusted his hands and gave the edge of the tunnel a rueful look. “Shall we continue? Before our friends start climbing each other to get to us? If that’s the nest, the lab should be around here somewhere.”

A clang from the pit below drew my attention. Walking to the edge, I peered out, just as a rabid landed on the tunnel rim with a snarl. As I snarled back and kicked the thing in the chest, sending it toppling back into the hole, I saw that the catwalk had fallen against the wall of the pit, and that rabids were scrambling up to leap into the tunnel. I drew my katana, slashing another out of the air as it flew at me, howling, but Jackal grabbed the back of my coat, yanking me away.

“No time for that! The whole nest will be up here in a second. Come on!”

The wails and shrieks intensified as more rabids entered the tunnel, snarling and baring their fangs. I spun, shrugging free of Jackal’s grip, and we bolted down the passage, the screams of the monsters close behind.

A few miles from the nest, we didn’t seem to be any closer to the hidden lab.

“You’re just guessing now, aren’t you?” I snapped at Jackal, who shot me an annoyed look over his shoulder as we ran.

“Sorry, I didn’t see the big X with the words Top Secret Government Laboratory on the map, did you?”

A rabid dropped down from a breach overhead, hissing as it landing in front of us. Jackal whirled his ax, striking it under the jaw and smashing it aside, and we continued without slowing down. I could still hear the horde in pursuit, their screams echoing all around us, reverberating from everywhere. We had definitely poked a stick into a wasp nest, stirring them into a frenzy. We were in their world now, and they were closing in.

I snarled at the vampire’s retreating back. “Yeah, well maybe you’d like to get that map out so we know where the hell we’re going!”

We ducked through a door frame into yet another narrow cement corridor, rusted beams and pipes lining the walls and ceiling, dripping water on us from above. Jackal yanked the map from his coat and shook it open with a rustle of paper, scowling as the shrieks of the rabids echoed behind us.

“All right, where the hell are we?” he muttered, squinting at the map in the darkness, eyes narrowed in concentration. I glanced nervously at the hall we’d just come through, hearing the rabids draw closer, their claws skittering over the cement. Jackal began walking down the corridor, weaving around fallen beams and pipes, and I followed.

“You know they’re right on our tail.”

“First you want me to look at the map, now you’re rushing me along. Make up your mind, sister.” He walked by a tall square pillar that jutted out of the wall; two sliding doors stood half-open in the front, and a cold breeze wafted out of the crack. “Okay, there’s the subway tunnels,” Jackal muttered, walking a little faster now, holding the map close to see it in the dark. “And there’s the entrance we came in … wait a second.”

He stopped and half turned in the corridor, looking back the way we’d come. I followed his gaze, but saw nothing except empty hallway and rusty pipes, though I could still hear the rabids, getting closer.

“Um, where are you going?” I asked as Jackal began walking again, back toward the approaching horde. “Hey, wrong direction! In case you didn’t know, we usually want to move away from certain death.”

Jackal stopped at the long, square pillar jutting from the wall. “Yeah, I thought so,” I heard him mutter. “This isn’t on the map, and there shouldn’t be anything down there. Get over here and look at this.”

Against my better judgment, I jogged over to where Jackal stood, staring at the doors. Cold, dry air billowed out of a gap that ran down the center, and Jackal gave a snort.

“He’s been here.”

“What? Sarren?”

“No, the boogeyman. Look.” Jackal pointed to the sliding doors. The metal was crumpled along the edges, as if something had slipped ironlike fingers into the seam and pried them open.

I peered through the gap, following the narrow shaft as it plunged into the dark. It was a long, long way down.

A howl rang out behind us, and rabids spilled into the corridor, a pale, hissing flood. They screamed as they spotted us and charged, hurtling themselves over beams and around pipes, their claws sparking against the metal.

“Move, sister!” Jackal’s voice boomed through the shaft, making my ears pound, and something shoved me through the opening. I leaped forward, grabbing thick cables as I dropped into the tube, catching myself with a grimace. Jackal squeezed through the doors and, instead of grabbing for the metal ropes, swung himself onto a rusty ladder on one side of the wall. He glanced over his shoulder and grinned at me.

“I’ll meet you down there.”

“You’re lucky I can’t reach you right now.”

Jackal only laughed, but at that moment a rabid slammed into the door frame, hissing and gnashing its fangs across the gap separating us. With a shriek, it sprang forward, soaring through the air, grabbing the cables next to mine. Claws slashed at me, and I yelled, kicking at it as it we hung there, the metal ropes shaking wildly. Curved talons sparked off the cables, and I swung myself around the ropes, out of its reach.

The rabid shimmied through the cables like a grotesque monkey, lunging at my face with fangs bared. With a snarl, I threw up my arm, letting jagged teeth sink into my coat and skin, and then yanked it to the side, ripping the monster off the cables into empty air. It snatched desperately for another rope, missed and plummeted down the shaft, screaming. It was a long time before I heard the faint thud at the bottom.

More rabids crowded the door frame, their empty, dead eyes locked on me, but these seemed reluctant to take that leap. I looked around and saw Jackal already several yards below me, descending the ladder at shocking speed. Muttering dark promises under my breath, I began climbing down into the darkness.

The shaft went down at least a couple hundred feet, a pitch-black, claustrophobic tube that seemed to descend into the center of the earth. Even with my vampire sight, which turned complete darkness into shades of gray, I couldn’t see the bottom or the top. It made me feel like I was dangling over a bottomless pit. I was relieved when I finally heard Jackal hit the bottom, sending a metallic thump up the shaft.

I slid down the remaining length of rope, landing on a square metal platform that swayed slightly under my weight. Gazing around, I discovered the platform wasn’t attached to the walls of the tube; it appeared to be a large metal box at the bottom of the cables. A pale, broken body lay in the crack between the wall and the box, its skull smashed open on the corner.

Jackal stepped up, smirking, and I fought the urge to kick him in the shin. “Looks like we’re on the right trail,” he stated, pointing to a hatch in the center of the box that had already been pulled open. “After you.”

Pulling my sword, I dropped through the hatch, landing inside the rectangular box, finding these doors shoved open, as well. Beyond the opening, a long hallway ended at two thick metal doors.

Jackal hit the floor beside me, his duster settling around him, and straightened, giving the entrance a shrewd look. “All right, you bastard,” he muttered, walking forward. “What were you looking for down here?”

We went through the doors together, pushing them back, and stepped into a dark, chilling room. At first, it reminded me of the old hospital where Kanin and I had stayed in New Covington. Beds on wheels sat against the wall, sectioned off by rotted curtains, or lay tipped over on the ground. Shelves of strange instruments were scattered about, and bulky machines sprawled in the middle of the floor or in corners, knocked down and broken. Glass clinked under our feet as we maneuvered the maze of rubble and sharp objects,

I looked closer and saw that most of the beds had leather straps dangling from the sides, thick cuffs to restrain wrists and ankles. Pushing aside a moldy curtain, I jumped as a skeleton grinned at me from a bed, rotten leather restraints hanging on bony wrists. My stomach turned as I stared at the naked bones. What had happened here?

Jackal had already moved on, searching the hidden corners of the room, so I continued along a wall until I found another door. Unlike the others, this one didn’t swing open at my touch. Why was it locked when none of the other doors had been? I braced myself and then lashed out with a kick, aiming for just beside the doorknob. There was a sharp, splintering crack, and the door crashed open.

It was an office, at least, it looked like one from the shelves and metal cabinets and large wooden desk in the corner. Unlike the rest of the lab, this one looked fairly clean and intact; nothing looked broken, and the furniture, though old and covered in dust, was still standing.

Except, there was a suspicious-looking dark spatter on the wall behind the desk and, when I walked around, I discovered a skeleton slumped in the corner, the threads of a long, once-white coat still clinging to him. One bony hand clutched a pistol.

Wrinkling my nose, I turned around and noticed a single book lying in the middle of the desk. Curious, I walked over and picked it up, examining the cover. It didn’t have a title, and when I flipped it open, messy, handwritten pages sprang to light, instead of neat rows of typing.

Day 36 of the Human-Vampire experiment, the top line read.

All power is being redirected to keeping the lab up and running, so I am writing down my findings here, in case we lose it all. Then, if something happens to me, perhaps the project can continue from the notes I will leave behind.

We continue to lose patients at an alarming rate. Early tests with the samples from the New Covington lab have been disastrous, with our human subjects dying outright. We have not had a single patient survive the infusion of vampire blood. I hope the team in New Covington can send us samples we can actually work with.

—Dr. Robertson, head scientist of the D.C. Vampire Project

I shuddered. So, it sounded like the scientists here had been working with the New Covington lab, only they’d been experimenting on humans instead of vampires. That couldn’t be good. I flipped a couple more pages and read on.

Day 52 of the Human-Vampire experiment,

The power grid in the city has gone down. We are running on the emergency backup generators, but we might have had our first breakthrough today. One of the patients that we injected with the experimental cure did not immediately die. She became increasingly agitated and restless minutes after receiving the injection, and appeared to gain the heightened strength of the vampire subjects. Interestingly, she became increasingly aggressive, to the point where her mental capacities appeared to shut down and she resembled a mad or rabid animal. Sadly, she died a few hours later, but I am still hopeful that a cure can be found from this. However, some of the younger assistants are beginning to mutter; that last experiment rattled them pretty badly, and I don’t blame them for wanting to quit. But we cannot let fear hinder us now. The virus must be stopped, no matter what the cost, no matter what the sacrifice. Mankind’s survival depends on us.

We’re close, I can feel it.

A chill crawled down my spine. I turned the page and kept reading.

Day 60 of the Human-Vampire experiment,

I received a rather frantic message today from the lead scientist at the New Covington lab. “Abort the project,” he told me. “Do not use any more of the samples on human patients. Shut down the lab and get out.”

It was shocking, to say the least. That the brilliant Malachi Crosse was telling me to abandon the project.

I’m sorry, my friend. But I cannot do that. We are close to something, so very close to a breakthrough. I cannot abandon months of research, even for you. The samples that came in yesterday are the key. They will work, I am sure of it. We will beat this thing, even if I have to inject my own assistants with the new serum. It will work.

It must. We are running out of time.

I swallowed hard, then turned to the very last entry. This one was blotched and messy, as if the author had written it in a great hurry.

The lab is lost. Everyone is dead or will be dead soon. Don’t know what happened, those monsters suddenly everywhere. Malachi was right. Shouldn’t have insisted we go through with the last experiment. This is all on me.

I’ve locked myself in my office. Can’t go out, not with those things running around. I only hope they don’t find a way back to the surface. If they do, heaven help us all.

If anyone finds this, the remaining samples of the retrovirus have been placed in freezer number two in cryogenic storage. And if you do find them, I pray that you will have better success than I, that you will use them to find a cure for Red Lung and for this new monstrosity we have unleashed.

“Hey.” Jackal appeared in the doorway before I could finish the entry. He jerked his head into the hall, serious for once. “I found something. And I think you’d better see this.”

Taking the journal, I followed him, already suspecting what I would find. We swept through another pair of metal doors, into a small, bare room with tiled floors and walls. It was colder in here; if I were a human, my breath would be billowing out in front of me and bumps would be raised along my skin. Looking across the room, I saw why.

Four large white boxes stood along the back wall. They looked like bigger versions of normal refrigerators, except I’d never seen a working one before. One of the doors was open, and a pale mist writhed out of the gap, creeping along the ground.

Silently, I walked up to the door and pulled it back, releasing a blast of cold. Inside, rows of white shelves greeted me. The shelves were plastic and narrowly spaced, and tiny glass vials winked at me from where they stood in tiered holders.

Jackal stepped behind me. “Notice anything … missing?” he asked softly.

I scanned the shelves, and saw what he meant. Near the top, one of the layers was gone, as if it had been pulled out and never returned.

Jackal followed my gaze, his eyes darkening. “Somebody took something from this freezer,” he growled. “None of the others are touched. And that someone was here recently, too. Now, who do you think that could be?”

I shivered and stepped back, knowing exactly who it had been. As I shut the door, my gaze went to the simple, hand-drawn sign taped to the front, just to confirm what I already knew.

Freezer 2, it read in faded letters.

Sarren, I thought, feeling an icy chill spread through my veins. What the hell are you planning?

“Well,” Jackal muttered, crossing his arms. “I will say I am officially more disturbed than I was when we first started. I don’t know what was in that freezer, but I can hazard a pretty good guess, which just seems all kinds of bad news.” His voice was flippant, but his eyes gleamed dangerously. “There’s no cure here, that’s for certain. So, I guess the million-dollar question is—what would a brilliantly insane psychotic vampire want with a live virus, and where is he taking it now?”

Sarren had the Red Lung virus. The thought was chilling. What did he want with it? Where was he going? And how did Kanin figure into everything? At a loss, I looked down at the forgotten journal, at the unfinished entry on the last page.

I pray that this can be stopped. I pray that the team in New Covington is already working on a way to counter this. The lab there was designed to go into stasis if anything happened. It may be our only salvation now.

May God forgive us.

And I knew.

The journal dropped from my hands, hitting the floor with a thump. I felt Jackal’s eyes on me, but I ignored him, dazed from the realization. If Sarren wanted to use that virus, there was only one other place he could go. The place I’d sworn I would never return to.

“New Covington,” I whispered, as the path loomed unerringly before me, pointing back to where it all began. “I have to go home.”

PART II

CHAPTER 5

There were no spotlights up on the Wall.

In New Covington, the Outer Wall was the city’s shield, lifeline and best defense, and everyone knew it. The thirty-foot monstrosity of steel, iron and concrete was always lit up at night, with spotlights sliding over the razed ground in front of it and guards marching back and forth up top. It circled the entire city, protecting New Covington from the mindless horrors that lurked just outside, the only barrier between the humans and the ever-Hungry rabids. It was the one thing that kept the Prince in power. This was his city; if you wanted to live behind his Wall, under his protection, you had to consent to his rules.

In my seventeen years of living in New Covington, the Wall had never once been abandoned.

“Something is wrong,” I muttered as Jackal and I stood on the outskirts of the kill zone, the flat, barren strip of ground that surrounded the Wall. Pits, mines and coils of barbed wire covered that rocky field, making it deadly to venture into. Spotlights—blinding beams of light that were rumored to have ultraviolet bulbs in them to further discourage rabids from coming close—usually scanned the ground every fifty feet. They were dark now. Nothing moved out in the kill zone, not even leaves blowing across the barren landscape. “The Wall is never unmanned. Not even during lockdowns. They always keep the lights on and the guards patrolling, no matter what.”

“Yeah?” Jackal scanned the Wall and kill zone skeptically. “Well, either the Prince is getting lazy, or Sarren is wreaking his personal brand of havoc inside. I’m guessing the latter, unless this Prince is a spineless tool.” He glanced at me from where he was leaning against a tree trunk. “Who rules New Covington anyway? I forgot.”

“Salazar,” I muttered.

“Oh, yeah.” Jackal snorted. “Little gypsy bastard, from what Kanin told me. One of the older bloodlines, prided himself on being ‘royal,’ for all the good it did him here.” He pushed himself off the tree and raised an eyebrow. “Well, this was your city, once upon a time, sister. Should we walk up to the front gate and ring the doorbell, or did you have another way in?”

“We can’t just walk across the kill zone.” I backed away from the edge, heading into the ruins surrounding the Wall, the rows of dilapidated houses and crumbling streets. There were still mines and booby traps and other nasty things, even if the Wall wasn’t being patrolled. But I knew this city. I’d been able to get in and out of it pretty consistently, back when I was human. The sewers below New Covington ran for miles, and weren’t filled with rabids like the Old D.C. tunnels. “The sewers,” I told Jackal. “We can get into the city by going beneath the Wall.”

“The sewers, huh? Why does this not surprise me?” Jackal followed me up the bank, and we wove our way through the tall weeds and rusted hulks of cars at the edge of the kill zone, back into the ruins. “You couldn’t have mentioned this on the way?”

I ignored him, both relieved and apprehensive to be back. It had taken us the better part of a month, walking from Old D.C. across the ravaged countryside, through plains and forest and countless dead towns, to reach the walls of my old home. In fact, it would’ve taken us even longer had we not stumbled upon a working vehicle one night. The “jeep,” as Jackal called it, had cut down our travel time immensely, but I still feared we’d taken too long. I hadn’t had any dreams to assure me that Kanin was still alive, though if I concentrated, I could still feel that faint tug, urging me on.

Back to New Covington. The place where it all began. Where I’d died and become a monster.

“So, you were born here, were you?” Jackal mused, gazing over the blasted field as we skirted the perimeter. “How positively nostalgic. How does it feel, coming back to this place as a vampire instead of a bloodcow?”

“Shut up, Jackal.” I paused, glancing at a broken fountain in front of an apartment complex. The limbless cement lady in its center gazed sightlessly back, and I felt a twinge of familiarity, knowing exactly where I was. The last time I’d seen New Covington, Kanin and I had been trying to get past the ruins into the forest before Salazar’s men blew us to pieces. “I thought I was done with this place,” I muttered, continuing past the statue. “I never thought I’d come back.”

“Aw,” Jackal mocked. “No old friends to see, then? No places you’re just dying to revisit?” His mouth twisted into a smirk as I glared at him. “I would think you’d have lots of people you’d want to contact, since you’re so fond of these walking bloodbags. After all, you’re practically one of them.”

I stifled a growl, clenching my fists. “No,” I rasped as memory surged up despite my attempts to block it out. My old gang: Lucas and Rat and Stick. The crumbling, dilapidated school we’d used as our hideout. That fateful night in the rain … “There’s no one here,” I continued, shoving those memories back into the dark corner they’d come from. “All my friends are dead.”

“Oh, well. That’s humans for you, always so disgustingly mortal.” Jackal shrugged, and I wanted to punch his smirking mouth. All through our journey from Old D.C., he’d been an entertaining, if not pleasant, travel companion. I’d heard more stories, pointed questions and crude jokes than I’d ever wanted to know about, and I’d gotten used to his sharp, often cruel sense of humor. Once I’d realized his remarks were purposefully barbed to get a rise out of me, it was easier to ignore them. We did almost come to blows one night, when he’d wanted to “share” an older couple living in an isolated farmhouse, and I’d refused to let him attack them. We’d gone so far as to draw weapons on each other, when he’d rolled his eyes and stalked away into the night, returning later as if nothing had happened. The next evening, three men in a black jeep had pulled alongside us, pointed guns in our direction and told us to get in the vehicle.