“But, um. They’re not done eating. And there are a lot of humans here. They won’t want to go into the tunnels.”
“I don’t give a crap about what they want! There is an army of creatures on their way to you. They will kill everyone in their path. Put the phone down right now and lock that front door. Then get everyone into the tunnels and call me back on the landline down there.”
“Y—yes, High Priestess.” Shakily, Skye set the phone down and started toward the big double glass doors at the entrance of the restaurant.
She didn’t make it.
The doors exploded open. On a tide of snow and frigid air, ravenous creatures flooded into the depot. Skye saw their red Marks. She saw their glowing eyes and flashing fangs. She heard the shrieks of the restaurant patrons as they bolted from their tables, only to be tackled as the horde mobbed the dining room and began ripping, tearing, and eating the flesh from the humans.
“Skye!” She heard Xena’s shout, and she tried to retrace her steps. Tried to make it back to the kitchen and the trapdoor that opened to the tunnels below.
Instead a red-eyed demon blocked her way.
“Ooooh, pretty,” he hissed.
Skye screamed until he ripped out her throat, and then, blissfully, she knew no more.
Zoey
“Oh, Goddess, no. No, no, no, no, no!” I could hear everything. “Run!” I screamed impotently into the phone. “Get into the tunnels!”
The line went dead.
“Think, Zoey!” I punched three numbers into the landline, 9-1-1.
A busy signal beeped like a harbinger of doom.
“Seriously?” I shouted into the phone. My hands were trembling so badly that I had a hard time putting in the security code to my phone. Still no service. I got into my contacts and found Kramisha’s landline number. We’d had a landline installed in the tunnels during their renovation. No matter how hard we tried, none of the cell phone providers could come up with a plan that gave us reliable service down there.
The phone rang. “Come on, Kramisha!” And rang. And rang. Then her archaic answering machine kicked on. “Messages is lame. If you under forty, I know you feel the same. I seen your ID. But I ain’t here. Just re-call me.”
“Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god!” I hung up and scrolled to Detective Marx’s desk number and somehow managed to punch it correctly into the landline. Please … please … detectives have to work weird hours. Please be there. He answered on the second ring.
“Marx, it’s Zoey. Just listen. Get a lot of cops to the Depot Restaurant. Now. Something happened in Woodward Park tonight. Red vampyres and fledglings from somewhere else got through to our world. They’re killers. And they’re at the depot.”
“How do we tell the difference between good and bad red vamps?”
“If it smells off, like something dead mixed with your grandma’s moldy old basement, it’s a bad guy. Oh, and you have to sever their spines to kill them.”
“Sounds like old-school vampyre stuff.”
“More like old-school zombie stuff, but you’re not wrong.”
“Is Neferet loose?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did she do this?”
“We didn’t see any sign of her.”
“The mess on Twenty-First—in front of Woodward Park—that wasn’t a simple car accident?”
“Nope. And there’s more. Look by the wall around Neferet’s grotto. It’s bad. Also, keep an eye out for Frances LaFont.”
“LaFont? What does she have to do with this?”
“Well, let’s just say she was her usual charming self and interrupted some spellwork tonight, which let those red vampyre zombie things into Tulsa. She took off, but I have no clue if she made it home, or if one of those creatures got her.”
“Noted,” he said.
“And I’m sending Sons of Erebus Warriors to the depot to help in any way they can. Darius will lead them, and they are all blue vampyres.”
“Roger that.”
“How bad is the weather?”
“Apparently we’re being slammed by a major winter snowstorm. It was just supposed to be a couple of inches, but something changed in the weather pattern an hour or so ago. It’s going to be bad. Stay safe. Touch base with me later.”
“Thank y—” He hung up before I could finish.
I wiped a shaky hand across my sweaty forehead, drew a deep breath in, let it out, and made the decision I thought would keep the most people under my protection safe. Then I pressed the intercom button and spoke with a pretense of calm.
“Students and faculty, this is your High Priestess. I’ve just spoken to the Tulsa Police Department about the weather, and they advise everyone stay off the roads. Due to the unexpected treacherous conditions, I’m calling the school day immediately. Faculty, please see that your students make their way back to the dorms as soon as possible, and please help your human students call their parents—using landlines because the cell towers are out—to let them know that the police have advised we do not run buses on these roads, so their students will be our welcome guests at the House of Night until the weather clears. Thank you, and blessed be.”
I clicked the intercom button off and picked at my fingernails. Had I made the right decision keeping human students on campus? But if I hadn’t and they’d run into those red creatures … I shuddered, not even wanting to think about it.
“Zoeybird, what has happened?”
I looked up to see Grandma standing in the doorway to the administrative offices. “Come with me, Grandma. Maybe you can help us figure it out.”
Zoey
In the basement under the Field House, the Sons of Erebus Warriors kept their massive stash of weapons. Some were simply lethal. Some were lethal and jewel-encrusted. I’d first discovered the priceless room full of swords, knives, bows, and whatnot when we were battling Neferet, and needed to keep the red fledglings safe in our basement. Over the year I’d assumed the role of Leader of the New North American High Council, I’d been sure Darius—current Swordmaster of the Sons of Erebus—had supervised the cataloging and sorting of all the stored weaponry. We’d found out that the House of Night was sitting on a fortune of weapons, and we’d begun loaning some of the more ancient ones to human museums. The Philbrook was currently displaying a gorgeous collection of samurai swords that dated back more than one thousand years.
We’d also cleaned and reorganized the basement, dividing off a section of it and building out half a dozen cozy guest rooms for any visiting red fledglings or red vampyres. Regular vamps find the sun uncomfortable, but bearable. Red fledglings and vamps find it impossible to tolerate. Exposed too long and they incinerate like one of the ever-fabulous Anne Rice’s fictional vampires. Hence the reason they rest most comfortably underground.