Overhead, the sky was an uncomfortable navy blue, and most of the stars had faded. We didn’t have a lot of time to reach the Inner City. “This way,” I hissed at Jackal, slipping through the gap in the wooden fence surrounding the apartment. “It’s still a good distance to the Sector Four gate.”
We didn’t quite make it.
I got us there as quickly as I could, of course. This was still my old neighborhood, my district. I had spent seventeen years of my life in this filthy, dilapidated ruin of a town, scavenging for food, dodging patrols, doing whatever it took to survive. This was my territory; I knew its quirks, its shortcuts, and where to go if I wanted to get somewhere quickly.
That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was, back when I was human, everyone else had been human, too. The sane, rational, not-trying-to-kill-you kind of human. Now, the streets, the buildings, the side alleys and parking lots, were filled with infected madmen. Madmen who didn’t fear vampires or pain or anything, and who would come at us, screaming, if they so much as saw our shadows move. Jackal and I cut several of these humans down as they flung themselves at us with a wild abandon almost like the rabids’ single-minded viciousness. Other times, we would escape into the shadows, over walls, or onto the roofs where the infected couldn’t follow. I’d never seen so many humans wandering the streets at night, and wondered where all the sane, noninfected people were. If there were any left at all.
A pink glow was threatening the eastern horizon when we finally reached the wall of the Inner City, fighting our way through another group of shrieking madmen to the big iron gates that led to the Prince’s territory. Normally, the thick metal doors were heavily guarded, with soldiers stationed up top and two well-armed humans standing in front. Now, the gates were sealed tight, and no guards patrolled the Inner Wall. Nor did anyone respond to our shouts and banging on the doors. It seemed the Prince had drawn all his people farther into the city, leaving the Fringe to fend for itself.
Jackal swore and gave the gate a resounding kick. The blow made a hollow, booming sound that echoed down the wall, but the doors were thick, sturdy and designed to hold up to vampire attacks. They didn’t even shake.
“What now?” he snarled, looking at the top of the Inner Wall, a good twenty feet straight up. Like the gates, the wall protecting the Inner City was built with vampires in mind. There were no handholds, no ledges to cling to, no buildings close enough to launch off. We wouldn’t be getting into the city this way.
And dawn was dangerously close.
“Come on,” I told Jackal, who glared at the wall as if he might take an ax to it when he came back. “We can’t stay out here, and we’re not getting in this way. I know a place where we can sleep—it’s secure enough, we won’t have to worry about crazy humans.”
A woman staggered around a corner, her entire face an open, bleeding wound, and lunged at us with a howl. I dodged, letting her smack into the wall, then bolted into the Fringe again, Jackal following and snarling curses at my back.
Several streets and close calls later, with the sun moments away from breaking over the jagged horizon, I squeezed through a familiar chain-link fence at the edge of a cracked, overgrown parking lot. A squat, three-story building sat at the end of the lot, making a lump rise to my throat. Home. This had been home, once.
Then a searing light spilled over the buildings, turning the tops a blinding orange, and we ran.
Miraculously, no crazy humans waited in the parking lot to ambush us. After ducking through the doors into the shade of the hallway, I collapsed against the wall in relief.
“Nice place,” Jackal remarked, slouched against the opposite wall, where a row of lockers rusted against the plaster. He gazed down the dark corridor, where rooms lined each wall, and curled a lip. “Let me guess—hospital? Or asylum.”
“It’s a school,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Or it was, back before the plague.” I pushed myself off the wall, feeling sluggish and tired now that the sun was out. “This way. There’s a basement we used to hole up in when the vamps were out.”
“We?” Jackal raised an eyebrow as we picked our way down the hall. I winced, realizing my slip, and didn’t reply. “So,” Jackal continued, gazing around with more interest, “this was where you lived as a bloodbag.”
“You really like that term, don’t you?”
“What?” Jackal looked confused.
“Bloodbag. That’s all humans are to you.” I turned down another hallway, one even more cluttered with rubble and fallen plaster. “You keep forgetting that you were one, once.”
Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. “Look, sister. I’ve been a vampire for a long time now. Maybe not as long as Kanin, but definitely longer than you. Live a few decades, and yes, they all start to look the same. Like cows. Intelligent, talking pieces of meat.” He ducked under a beam lying across the corridor, barely clearing it. “Granted, I didn’t always see them that way, but time has a way of breaking down your convictions.”
Surprised, I stopped and turned to blink up at him. “Really? You?”
“Does that shock you?” Jackal grinned, enjoying himself. “Yeah, sister. I was like you once. So worried about not hurting the poor defenseless humans, only taking what I needed, so scared about losing control.” He shook his head. “And then, one night Kanin and I met a group of men who wanted to kill us. And we slaughtered them all. As easily as killing spiders.” He grinned then, showing fangs. “Right then, I realized we were always meant to rule over humans. We could do whatever we wanted, and they couldn’t stop us. Why deny your base nature? It’s what we are.
“So, yes,” he finished, still smirking at me. “I call humans ‘bloodbags.’ I don’t need to know their names, or if they have a family, or what their favorite color is. Because I’m either going to outlive them, or I’m going to tear their throats open and suck them dry. And life got a lot simpler once I realized that.”
“You gave up,” I accused. “It just got too hard to fight it anymore.”
“Did you ever think there was a reason for that? Because we’re not supposed to! Why would I want to keep fighting my instincts?”
“You don’t have to be a murdering bastard to be a vampire.”
Jackal snorted. “You don’t believe that,” he mocked. “Not even Kanin believed that, and he was the biggest softhearted prick I ever came across. Before you, anyway.” He sneered at my dark look. “But, go ahead. Keep telling yourself your pretty little lies. I just hope I’m there when it all comes crashing down around you.”
We’d reached the end of the hall, and I pulled open the rusty metal door that led to the basement. Memories continued to haunt me as I made my way down the stairs, into the cement walled rooms of the school’s lowest floor. This was where the gang and I had retreated whenever there was trouble—a rival gang, a vampire in the area, an unexpected patrol. The door could be barred from the inside, and the thick walls and floor made it hard for anything to get at us. Of course, now that I was a vampire, it was chilling to realize how easily I could have blown through that flimsy barrier, locked or not. And with no other way out of the basement, whoever came down here would be trapped.
Shutting the door, I let the bar clang into place. Hopefully, the crazies outside were not as strong as a vampire, because sleep was clawing at the edges of my mind. Jackal, gripping the railing like he, too, was in danger of falling over, looked around the dark, cold room.
“Where exactly do you expect us to sleep?”
“I don’t care,” I slurred, moving carefully down the steps. “Pick a corner. Just