As I moved to the side of the bed, Nick rolled his head toward me. “Annngelllllll.”
I leaned down, cupped the back of his head with one hand, and tugged the hospital gown off his shoulder. Before he could snap at me, I pulled him close and bit down hard on his trapezius, tore until I tasted blood.
Nick howled. I made sure plenty of spit got into the wound then released him and stepped back, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. He thrashed in the restraints, screaming and slavering.
“I don’t think it worked, Doc,” I said, voice shaking.
“Patience, Angel. It may take a few minutes.”
Bear took my hand.
The minutes ticked by. I stole a glance at Dr. Nikas. He watched Nick, no sign of uncertainty on his face.
The screaming and thrashing stopped as if a switch had been thrown. Nick’s eyes closed, and his head lolled to the side. Yet his chest still rose and fell, so whatever was going on, it hadn’t killed him.
Bear’s grip tightened on my hand. “Come on, Nick,” he murmured. “Come on, son.”
Nick’s eyes fluttered open. I held my breath. Though his eyes were bloodshot, the cloudiness was gone. He blinked and focused on me.
“Angel?”
I threw myself at him, seizing him—carefully—in a hug while Jacques swiftly released the restraints. “You’re okay? You’re okay!”
“Yeah.” He weakly hugged me back. “I’m okay. What happened? Where am I?”
“Long story. You went shambler, but . . . you sure you’re okay?”
“Achy. Head hurts. Starrrrrving.”
I fought down a burst of panic. “Hungry? For what?”
“Burger and fries maybe. But I’d probably eat anything you put in front of me and then some.”
That sparked more hugging and crying, and Bear came in for hugs and tears as well. After a moment, Dr. Nikas tapped my arm. “Angel, we must go now.”
“Go where?”
“To the gym.”
“Oh. Right. Oh wow, am I going to have to bite all of those people?”
“I’m afraid so.”
I clacked my teeth together and grinned. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter 37
Arriving in the helicopter caused the expected stir at the high school gym. Even better, Agent Gallagher and another member of the special task force were there to make sure we had full, private access to the gym. The medical personnel still got testy when we kicked them out, but at least we had authority on our side—for once.
I went up and down the rows, biting one patient after another—with a break between each one to rinse my mouth. Sponge baths simply didn’t cut it for sweating, slavering shamblers. By the time I bit the last patient, the first ones were coming around. But I didn’t relax until Bear’s people from the bowling alley were awake and coherent again.
After confirming the recoveries were proceeding as expected, Dr. Nikas gave the okay for the FBI agents to allow Dr. Bauer and her team back in. She was understandably pissed off at being removed, but forgot her annoyance as soon as she realized the outcome of our secret visit.
Dr. Nikas gave her his contact info and said to let him know if anyone didn’t fully recover, and then we headed to the hospital. We took a car rather than the chopper this time, with Brian driving and the FBI agents escorting.
“Aren’t people going to wonder about all of the bite marks?” I asked Dr. Nikas. “And won’t they be able to trace them back to me?”
“You were far too busy to notice, but by the time the patients regain their senses, the bites have healed. My formulation was designed to stimulate a healing burst from your parasite to repair bodily damage caused by LZ-1 and, fortuitously, the bite as well.”
I silently thanked my precious parasite once again. You rock! “I just realized something. Kristi was going to destroy all zombies with her anti-zombie serum.” I looked at him. “That’s why she thought you should leave the Tribe. Because she respects you. She didn’t want to destroy you as well.”
“And had I survived the destruction of all zombies, I would have focused my entire being on destroying her.” He gave me a smile. “Fortunately for us all, you have done so already.”
“Aw, shucks. I’m just a destroy-your-enemies kind of gal.”
That made him laugh, which warmed me to the toes.
At the hospital, I repeated my bite and spit routine with all twenty-two patients, ending with Bear’s survivalist buddy, Dreadlocks. Mr. August Lejeune.
His eyes fluttered open as soon as I pulled back from the bite.
“It’s . . . you,” he murmured. “You . . . were in my dreams.”
“Er, I was?”
“Singing. Strange song.” His eyes drifted shut again. “Ga . . . tors.”
“What the—”
Dr. Nikas pulled me aside. “I suspect the telepathic connection carried over somewhat with the LZ-1, though likely as little more than subconscious or dream fragments. Fascinating.”
I grinned. “You say fascinating. I say weird.”
Yet weird or not, August was the last on my to-bite list. With all infected patients treated, we collapsed into the car.
“Now we must return to NuQuesCor. We have more work to do there,” Dr. Nikas said.
“You mean the infected gators, right? Please tell me you don’t expect me to bite them.”
He laughed, happier and lighter than I’d seen him in . . . well, as long as I’d known him. “No, not only would that be awkward, your teeth couldn’t penetrate their hide. We will have to do it the hard way.”
• • •
The “hard way” involved me spitting and spitting and spitting into a flask. When I could spit no more, Dr. Nikas swirled the container and held it up to the light.
“Under normal circumstances, saliva without a bite would be inadequate to spread the parasite—or in this case, the parasite and its synthesized by-products, i.e. the cure.” He doctored the saliva with various substances. “But you have been biting today. A lot.”
“I get it. When I bite, it activates the parasite to come out and play?”
He chuckled. “Precisely.” He made a few more tests and adjustments then poured the mixture into a hypodermic gun.
In the gator room, Dr. Nikas opened a small bottle and waved it around. My nose tickled even though I couldn’t detect an odor.
Biggie and Tupac bellowed and splashed out of the pool toward the fence, the smaller ones racing after. But their attention was on Dr. Nikas, not me.
“What the hell is that?”
“A pheromone I hoped would attract infected gators.”
I cocked my head as I worked through his statement. “Oh! To use in the swamp so we can make sure we find any that are left out there?”
“Precisely.” He screwed the cap back onto the bottle. “We’ll send an inoculation team out every day until we are confident all have been found.”
Relieved, I entered the pen and got the gators lined up—and made sure they behaved themselves. With the help of Reg and Rachel, we got each and every one inoculated. As soon as we finished, we retreated beyond the safety of the fence to watch and wait and hope my spit cure worked.
For nearly a minute, nothing happened. Then, one by one, their hide shifted back to healthy dark green, and their eyes lost the milky film. Normal alligators, once again.
“Y’all were great,” I told them. “The coolest pets ever.” They probably didn’t understand me anymore since our connection had been due to the disease. And I didn’t feel them at the edge of my mind anymore. I heaved a sigh. “I’m going to miss having y’all around.”
We headed for the door. “When will they be released?” I asked Dr. Nikas.
“This evening,” he replied. “I’m assuming you wish to accompany them to the swamp?”
“Yeah!
That would be—” I jumped at a bellow from Tupac. The gators were lined up along the fence, snouts pressed against the chain-link. I let out a squeal of delight and ran back to give scritches. “You still like me!”
Biggie let out a low growl-warble as I rubbed his snout. They didn’t croon anymore, and the weird mental link we’d shared had faded, but it seemed they still considered me a mama of sorts.
“Well, you won’t be in here much longer,” I said and gave them one last round of nose rubs.
My phone buzzed as we finally left the room. Allen Prejean. Shit. I’d forgotten to update him. I paused to take the call while the others headed for the lab. “Hey, Allen. Dr. Nikas found the cure. Nick is better and so is everyone else. Sorry I didn’t call sooner, but I’ve had kind of a hectic morning.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I figured as much. The CDC guys are losing their shit because they want to know how it was treated and why they weren’t kept in the loop. But most people are so relieved the epidemic is over that they’re not paying the CDC much attention. Death toll seventeen, but it could have been so much worse.”
Seventeen more souls to help throw your ass into hell, Kristi Fucking Charish. “Remember Special Agent Aberdeen? I suspect she and her boss will make a few calls and quiet the CDC down.”
“That’s good to hear. So will you be back at the Coroner’s Office tomorrow?”
“Absolutely!” Weird that I was eager to get to work.
“Excellent. See you then.”
I returned to the main lab where Rachel, Reg, and Pierce had finished gathering up everything that belonged to the Tribe, along with a plastic bin of partially destroyed computer parts.
“What’s all that for?” I asked as I helped carry stuff to the helicopter.
“The drives are damaged but aren’t destroyed,” Pierce said. “There is still a chance we can retrieve data from them. I know a lady who did recovery work for the NSA. She’s expensive as all hell, but if she could get back any more of Kristi’s work, it would be worth it.”
“But we already have a cure.” I pointed to myself.
“It’s not the cure we’re interested in,” he said. “Kristi was working on how to become a mature zombie—without having to be a zombie. That’s how she expected to become, essentially, immortal. But Dr. Nikas has other ideas from the direction the research was going.”
He climbed into the helicopter and buckled in. Silent, I followed and sat across from him, fastened the seat harness like an old pro and got my headset in place. I waited until we were in the air then tapped Pierce’s leg and held up three fingers.
“Kang knows how to force maturity,” I said once he was on channel three with me. “But he had a good reason not to tell you how he did it.”
“I know,” he said. “He was right to keep it from me for so long. But I don’t want to use his technique. Trust me, I know how . . . uncontrolled I can get.” He shook his head. “But now I’m hoping that Dr. Nikas can modify his technique. Adapt it to prevent the hyperaggression or any other unfortunate side effects.”
“And you’re hoping that Kristi’s research might have answers.”
“Dr. Nikas is, and therefore I am.” He fell silent but didn’t switch the headset channel.
“I don’t always agree with your methods or, er, attitude,” I said after a moment, “but there’s no denying you want the best for the Tribe and all zombies.”
He met my eyes. “I want us to be as safe and secure as possible.”
“Exactly. Which is why you need to take back Tribe leadership.” He started to protest, but I shushed him. “Look, after today’s fun and games, pretty much everyone who matters knows you’re Pietro—even the FBI. So it’s not a security risk anymore. Plus, Marcus hates being a figurehead. For his sake, you should either let him really be the Tribe head or take over yourself. But you and Marcus both will be happier if you just take over.”
He regarded me with a slight smile. “You think so?”
“I know so. Marcus wants to go to law school. He’d be more benefit to the Tribe as a kickass lawyer.”
“You’re right.”
“Damn, dude. That’s the second ‘you’re right’ in one day. You need to pace yourself.” I grinned. “But while I’m on a roll, you also need to tell Jane the truth about who you really are.” I leaned forward as much as my harness would allow. “I saw you stalking her the other day. I was at the pond, and I saw you watching her house. I know you still love her, so you should do something about it.”
“This time you’re not right,” he said with a laugh, then held up a hand when I opened my mouth to tell him he was full of shit. “I wasn’t stalking her that day. She knew I was there.” His smile widened at my perplexed expression. “Jane has known the truth since not long after I became Pierce. But since it would look bad for a respected Congresswoman to be seen in a relationship with a younger man so soon after her fiancé’s death, we’ve been keeping the relationship secret. The day you saw me at the pond, I was waiting for her visitor to leave. When it looked like he was going to be there a while, Jane called to let me know.”
“That’s so awesome,” I said with a happy sigh.
“Glad you approve. We figure we can start dating openly this fall.”
“Well, in the meantime, your secret is safe with me.”
“I know it is, Angel.”
• • •
By the time we made it back to the Tribe lab, Portia was moving around under her own power. She greeted Dr. Nikas with a heart-melting hug and kiss, then the two of them headed toward his private quarters. I silently cheered them on, so happy for both of them, but extra-especially so for Dr. Nikas.
I then checked on Bear and Nick—who was already up and around. I gave Nick an enthusiastic greeting that raised his heart rate nicely, then returned to the media room and helped my dad pack up the play box.
“Bear is heading back to town soon, now that he and Nick are in the clear,” I told him. “He’ll give you a ride, if you want.”
“Sure do, cuz I got me an appointment at four this afternoon.”
“Appointment for what?”
His eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Gettin’ me a physical exam. The whole works. And it turns out Gina works at the Y, and she said she’d be like a personal trainer to me for a bit so I can learn how to exercise right and not hurt my back and maybe make it better.”
“Gina. Your girlfriend?”
My dad doubled over in laughter and slapped his knee. “Me and Gina? Nah. She ain’t much more’n your age. Bartended a coupla years down at Kaster’s where I do clean up, but ended up in a mess last month when her boyfriend left her and her kid. She also works the front desk at the Y and cleans houses. We hammered out a deal where she’d clean our place in trade for me watching little Carter while she cleaned other houses. Trying to make ends meet, y’know? Working three jobs.”
“You’re babysitting?” I grinned. “You rock! And she does a kickass job on the house.” I looked him over. “And if she can get you to exercise and go to the doctor, she has my blessing.”
“That was you, Angelkins, that got me seein’ about my health and all.”
“Then I’m damn glad I came down on you about it.” I gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You keep on listening to me, and we’ll be all right.”
• • •
After Bear and my dad left, I hung out with Nick in the media room and filled him in on everything that happened, then we just kind of cuddled and relaxed and watched movies and did a whole lot of nothing, which was wonderful, zero-stress time.
My dad texted halfway through The Fifth Element.
A picture was attached of a small piece of paper that read “Everything’s cool with BB. Thanks for the help. B.U.”
B.U. was Billy Upton. I smile
d and texted a reply. And apparently he’d smoothed things over with Big Bubba, judging by the note. That was a load off my mind.
Later in the afternoon, Dr. Nikas examined Nick and pronounced him fully recovered, which meant that Nick could accompany me for the release of the gators.
That evening, with the help of Philip and several other Tribe security, I cajoled and encouraged the gators to climb into rolling cage-crates. Once we finally got them loaded in a box truck, we headed for the swamp boat launch we’d used for our gator hunt mission. Weird that it was only a few days ago. It seemed forever.
Philip backed the truck up to the edge of the water. We opened the truck doors and the crates, then I retreated to stand by Nick.
The little gators needed no convincing, and quickly flopped onto the ramp and waddle-slid into the swamp. Biggie and Tupac went last, lumbering down with reptilian majesty to slip into the water. They turned to face me, eyes and snout visible above the surface.
“Oh, all right,” I said. I shucked off my shoes and waded in until I was waist deep. Biggie and Tupac rubbed up against me like cats, rumbling the water until I finally pushed them away and bid them a laughing goodbye.
With that, they swam off, disappearing quickly into the gloom. I waded back to shore and Nick.
“I have the weirdest girlfriend ever,” he said with a smile and kissed me.
“So I’m your girlfriend now?”
“Sure are,” he said. “Let’s go home so you can get out of those wet clothes.”
• • •
Life returned to a semblance of normal-busy fairly quickly. Saturday, Brian reported that Linda Garrison, the Health Department doctor, had filed a police report, stating that a man fitting Harlon Murtaugh’s description used threats against her family to force her to get him access to a patient—Beckett Connor. I passed the info on to Allen, who seemed relieved that she was not, in fact, a Saberton baddie. Sunday evening, I asked Jane if there was a way to get the warning signs replaced at the dangerous curve out on Highway 1268—where Spencer Leigh had died, and where Marcus had kept me from the same fate by turning me into a zombie. Jane made a few calls, and by Monday afternoon the new signs were in place.