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I bit into the sandwich, and it was theI’d ever tasted Either that, or I was starving I had already polished off one sandwich by the ti on another

Iris poked her head into the kitchen froh the door and took a seat next to me

"Are Smoky and Trillian back from Otherworld yet?"

She shook her head "No, but it’s been less than twenty-four hours"

She gaveokay?"

"I threhen I woke up, but slept like the dead What the hell did you give me? Whatever it was, it did the trick, but it left me really disconcerted"

Iris nodded "Yes, that’s why I don’t usually prepare it It not only leaves a person disoriented, but can have serious long-term effects on the body, if you take it ured you’d need to be up and strong as soon as you could"

That didn’t sound good In fact, when I looked around at the expressions of the others, I realized that whatever it was, it wasn’t good at all

"So, you all look pretty gri down? Tellnewspaper over to me I opened it up to find a picture of two zo with a lurid headline: ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE BEGINS?

"Oh, fuck" I took the paper and skimmed the article It re

"It was bound to happen souess there was no way to keep the existence of zohouls secret forever After all, vampires are out of the closet now"

While most of the FBHs knew of the existence of Fae by now, and the va about their two-faced nature openly, we’d soed to keep the lid on zoht creatures Ghost stories had always abounded, but noith this picture, it looked like the corpse was out of the coffin Soed to snap the photo early this raveyard ransacked?"

"Yeah Just like the others And by the way, I took a look out there, at the one that was hit yesterday, and all the spirits are gone" Vanzir shrugged "Epideht and left The 911 operators are swa outside their doors And for once, the Fae aren’t being blarim

"Vampires? What the hell do they have to do with it?" I frowned "Vampires don’t raise zombies"

"Of course they don’t, but since they’re undead, like the zoain the Church of the Earthborn Brethren iswaves They quieted down after the mess with Andy Gambit, but they’re back in the news today They’ve been picketing outside the Shrouded Grove Suites all ain That’s where Wade lives" The founder of Vaist, Wade Stevens was a vampire dedicated to help new vah VA was now under control of the Seattle Varanted relative autono with this sort of crap since day one"

When building started on the protected, vampire-friendly apartments, the picketers had come out of the ork And they’d shown up almost every day since then until Andy Ga scandal over the sleazy yellow-tabloid reporter/rapist had quieted them down for a while

After the story had broken about what he’d done--a final count of ten confirroups fell silent, not wanting to be associated with the vitriol ailee over his death had left them even more silent But a few ot the flavor of the e control? I’ll bet Chase is freaking out right now" Chase’s depart it mildly" Delilah rested her elbows on the table and stared at her food "He asked us to come down to headquarters when you woke up Menolly doesn’t knohat’s going on--she had to go to bed before this all broke loose, but you can bet, tonight when the vahtily pissed at being lu the proble to say about this, too"

I let out a long sigh This did not bode well "Heaven help the reporter who started the rumor With Roman and Blood Wyne so prominent now, I don’t knohat the hell they’ll do The Crimson Veil works behind the scenes The idiot journalistoff the face of the planet And no one will ever knohat happened"

Roman scared me He scared Delilah, too--I knew because we’d talked it over out of Menolly’s earshot Granted, she had no choice, and noas considered her reborn sire, another twist in the whole mess, but that made the son of the Vampire Queen far too close for comfort to our lives

"We don’t have any control over Blood Wyne And neither does the FH-CSI, regardless of e’d like to think If she wanted to, she could reach out and take control of this country I kind of wish she’d stayed in seclusion" Delilah absently bit into a cookie "So we head to headquarters in a few minutes?"

"I suppose--" The phone interrupted h, it was Chase on the line

"Ca ready to come down to headquarters now," I started to say, but he interrupted

"No I need you elsewhere We have an e but lately heard all too often Life seeency after another these days

"What’s up?"

"You saw the paper, right?" He sounded harried

I groaned "Yeah"

"That’s the tip of the iceberg I need you guys out here, in full fighting armor You know the house Fritz and Abby had? That burned to the ground?"

The de We hadn’t really won the battle, but at least we’d survived

"Yeah?" I asked warily

"There’s so weird that I don’t want ure out what it is And it’s attracting a horde of zoot the entire block cordoned off The few other houses there that are actually inhabited, I’ve evacuated"