Chapter 17: A New Member of the Family

The hallway was empty. It wasn't just empty, it seemed down right desolate. Angel spun down the hall, walking carefully and covering every angle that she could.

This was the third hallway that they had cleared. Another twenty ASP workers were now on their way to Conference room eight. They'd run into Kit and her crew, sending them down to keep an eye on the survivors. With Tinman there, they had one agent that was bite proof.

Mage had shed a little bit of light into the zombie girls, telling them that the orange drug had changed them, taking them from the mentality of humans to the mentality of a hive. One thought had been set to motion in their heads, one command that would stay with them until they found a cure or until the girl's were dead. That thought was chilling and eased Shadow's mind about killing the girls. That thought was kill.

They'd managed to kill off all but the twenty some women that were in the hallway adjacent to where Angel now walked. A noise startled her from behind and she jerked, spinning and raising her weapon. Only her Vampiric swiftness kept her from sending a blast at her husband as he came up behind her.

"Jump much," he asked softly, laughing lightly as her eyes flashed.

"Dammit Butterfly! I could have blown your head off."

"Uh, no, baby, actually you couldn't." He smiled, wrapping his arm around her neck and bending to kiss her quickly. "Remember? Immortal? Part of my godly talents?"

"Do you want to know your best godly talent is?" she purred even as she stroked her hand down his back under his wings.

"Oh definitely, beautiful. What's my best talent?"

"Pissing me off!"

Shadow chuckled as he stepped into the hallway as well. Tambor, Rylan and four other agents followed him. "You two will never change. It's good to know."

Tambor held the map and she walked up to Shadow, showing him the red and black dots that were in the next hall. "They're surrounded, sir."

"Then I guess it's up to us to unsurround them. You two stay on my six and watch where you're shooting. I've got pups on the way and I don't want to die before I at least see them." He led the way to the heavy metal door that separated them from the sound of blasters and the strange growling that came from the women as they attacked.

"Marcus, Angel, follow me through and then you two," he said, nodding at Tambor and Rylan."

"You got it boss," Angel said, snapping her teeth at Rylan as he got in her way. "What the fuck are you?" She stared at him for a moment as if trying to decide if she could trust him or not.

"I'm an..."

"Not now," Angel growled, holding her hand up in front of his face and moving toward her husband. Rylan stared at her back.

"What the fuck is up her ass?" he hissed.

"Stressful situation," Tambor answered, her eyes on the door that they'd come in. "Come on. It's not that big of deal."

Rylan didn't say a word. He gave her one look and then followed Marcus and Angel as they'd been ordered to do.

Across town two more bodies rose, their movements stiff. Arielle snarled as the pulsing buzz triggered the drug she'd been given, her teeth snapping together. Her tongue slipped over her new fangs, but she never even recognized the sting as her tongue was cut or wiped at the drop of blood that slid from her mouth, staining her chin.

Next to her, Nicky stood, his body shivering as something inside of him fought the numbing pulse, knowing in some distant spot in his conscious that this wasn't right. The order to kill slammed through his brain and he did some snarling of his own, shaking his head to try and rid himself of the thought, of the compulsion to kill. "No," he gasped. He grabbed hold of the dresser, his eyes looking wildly around the room. He saw Arielle and the blood that seemed to flow thickly down her chin.

"Kill," she moaned, looking back at him.

"No, Arielle. Come on, you've got to fight this."

"Kill!" she shouted at him.

"No, baby. No. Fight it." His hand reached out for her even as the pain in his head grew even worse. He felt his stomach turn over and he fell to his knees, his hands going to his ears, trying to block out the buzz. It was immediate, painful and every second he fought it the pain grew. He stared around him, unseeing, crying out her name. "Arielle!"

She barely glanced at him again, heading toward the door. He rose, throwing himself at her. She fell, her head hitting the edge of the doorway. For a single instant, she stiffened and then went limp. Nicky turned her over, seeing the bump and bruise that was growing on her temple. His hand went to her throat and he felt her pulse, still beating strongly.

He sighed, his head falling into his hands and he sat next to her, fighting the compulsions that seemed almost irresistible. He sat there and fought the need to kill; praying desperately that someone would help them.

In the ASP medical unit, a door was opened and then closed quietly, footsteps echoed hollowly in the empty room. The woman flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder, not even flinching as the movement pulled at the wounds that marred her pretty neck and shoulders.

Unlike the other girls, this one had a different purpose in mind and she headed toward the door to the stairwell. She skipped lightly down five flights of stairs. Her hand reached into the pocket of the robe she wore, one that was the same dark gray as the ASP Uniforms worn by ASP personnel.

At the opening to the floor she finally stopped at there was a thick metal door and a numbered keypad. The woman reached into her pocket, pulling out an identification card and sliding it through before pushing in a series of numbers. The light above the door flashed from red to green and the locked clicked open, allowing her to pull it open and slip inside. She pocketed the identification card and the walked inside. There were barred windows up and down the hallway and she walked calmly past them, ignoring the catcalls and lewd comments that were thrown at her.

The door she wanted was halfway down the hall and she opened it, propping it with a door stop that sat on the floor outside.

Taylor Braxton smiled when he saw the beautiful blonde, the bite marks not marring her sweet looks in the least. "Lady Melody, I'd hoped you'd remember what you were supposed to do."

She didn't speak, only nodded her head. Going to the table, she reached down and tore apart the chains that held him to the table. When he stood, she ripped apart the chains that held his ankles bound. When he held his hand out, she set the passkey into it and then followed him out of the room and back down the hall until he opened the door to the tombs.

He gave a deep sigh of relief as he stepped outside, turning and holding out his hand to Lady Melody. "Mylar did well with you, Lady Melody. If he still lives I shall have to reward him for his choice. Shall we?"

Melody nodded, allowing him to pull her up the flights of stairs and out a side door of the building. He'd slipped a set of car keys off a board near the security desk, which had been deserted. It took only seconds to open one of the SUVs and slide inside. Melody slipped in next to him, calmly fastening her seatbelt as he backed out. There were zombie girls in the parking lot and Braxton didn't even blink as he ran two of them down, feeling the car tires jolt as he ran over their bodies.

Melody glanced back as he drove through the big doors into the parking garage and then they were gone.

The opening of the tombs door made by a low rated tech in the medical department had been reported to the computer. This was the computer that controlled most of the highly sensitive computer equipment and reported to Shadow as soon as something unusual was detected. No complaint for medical treatment had been reported and so the usage of the card was deemed unnecessary.

Shadow felt the phone at his belt buzz but he'd just gone through the door and he could see the women that were still alive, trying to drag Hunter away. "Marcus!" he shouted and then nodded as he sank into the wall, passing the women undetected. He stepped out behind the two who had Hunter's arms. He could see Mira, panic in her eyes as she tried to pass the women to get to her man and just smiled.

His blaster jerked twice and the women were gone. Shadow reached down and grabbed Hunter's hand, dragging him up.

"Thanks boss," Hunter said, relief in his voice. "Their stronger than they look."

Mira slammed her fist into his arm when he reached her then shot another of the women.

"Hey, what the fuck was that for?"

Mirage smiled at the outrage in his voice as he put his back to hers. "Being dumb enough to need rescuing."

Hunter sighed and shook his head. "You know, Mira. It ain't easy being in love with you."

She laughed, amazing her man. "If it were easy, would you keep coming back for more?"

"For some of this," he reached back and took a handful of taut, tight ass encased in white leather. "Yeah, probably."

"Will you two stop with the grab ass?" Dianna growled. Her voice was hoarse from the spells she'd used to save the members of her team more than once in the past hour since the pulsing had started. She glanced up as Shadow stepped next to her. "It's the buzzing, Shadow. There's something in it that's driving these women and telling them what to do. There blood has been chemically tagged somehow and those tags are what are affecting them because of that damn buzzing. We've got to find it and kill it."

"Taylor Braxton," Shadow said quietly as the rest of his Agents cleaned out the rest of the women. Dianna leaned against the wall and he could see how exhausted she was. "I was with him when this started. He'll know how to stop it. But it's going to take Mage to do it."

Rylan and Tambor rested against another wall, listening as the senior agents talked. Tambor still held the map and she glanced down at it, seeing a new layer slowly being drawn. "Shadow!"

She held out the map. "It's the parking garage." Two dots were moving swiftly through the garage, one was bright red; the other was a tarnished looking silver.

"Who the fuck is that?" Shadow growled, watching as Tambor lifted her hand over the dots and spoke a few words. She sighed and then glanced back at Shadow.

"Taylor Braxton."

Shadow glanced at his phone, reading the message that flashed in the screen. "He's escaped."

Four teams sat in the ready room, their blasters replenished, watching as Shadow entered the room. His face was serious enough to stop any talking that had been going on.

"We have an escapee," he said, hitting a button on a small remote he held in his hand. A mug shot of Taylor Braxton played on the wall. "He is responsible for this entire mess and we have to find him."

"How'd he get out?"

"One of the women who attacked us was programmed to get him out. When that buzzing started and the women went crazy, we were all a bit busy to keep an eye on what was happening in the tombs. The woman stole an ident card from one of the med techs and used it to get him out. Now she's with him. I'm splitting you up. Half of you will be hunting Braxton, the other half will be tearing his place apart, searching for the source of the buzzing. Until we manage to kill that, no one is safe out there."

Shadow glanced at Hunter and Mirage. "You two brought him in the first time. Find him Hunter. Use whatever you can to find that bastard and bring him back. I don't care what methods you use, get him so that Mage can scan through his brain." He nodded at the other four on that side of the room. Then he put up a map of the city streets. Tambor had worked her magic on it and it showed groups of red dots as they moved through the city.