Lover Enshrined

and hospital johnnies flapping like a load of wash hung out to dry in the wind.

He caught them by grabbing arms and shoulders. “Get in the patient rooms! Lock yourselves in! Lock those damn doors!”

“No locks!” someone hollered. “And they’re taking patients!”

“Damn it.” He looked around and saw a sign. “This medicine closet have a lock?”

A nurse nodded while she unclipped something from her waist. With a shaking hand she held a key out to him. “Only from the outside, though. You’ll have… to lock us in.”

He nodded over to the door that read, STAFF ONLY. “Move it.”

The loose group shuffled over and filed into the ten-by-ten room with its floor-to-ceiling shelves of medications and supplies. As he shut the door, he knew he would never forget the way they looked, huddled under the low ceiling’s fluorescent lights: seven panicked faces, fourteen pleading eyes, seventy fingers finding and linking together until their separate bodies were one solid unit of fear.

These were people he knew: people who had taken care of him with his prosthesis issues. People who were vampires like him. People who wanted this war to stop. And they were being forced to trust him because at the moment he had more power than they did.

So this was what being God was like, he thought, not wanting the job.

“I will not forget you.” He shut the door on them, locked it, and paused for a second. Sounds of fighting were still coming from the registration area, but everything else was quiet.

No more staff. No more patients. Those seven were the only survivors.

Turning from the supply closet, he headed away from where Z and Rehv were in battle, tracking a pervasive sweet scent that led in the opposite direction. He ran down past Havers’s lab, down farther by the hidden quarantine room Butch had been in months ago. All along the way, smudged prints left by black-soled combat boots mingled with the red blood of vampires.

Christ, how many slayers had gotten in here?

Whatever the answer to that was, he had an idea where the lessers were headed: the evac tunnels, likely with abductions. Question was, how did they know to go this way?

Phury busted through another set of double doors and stuck his head into the morgue. The banks of refrigerated units and the stainless-steel tables and the hanging scales were untouched. Logical. They wanted only what lived.

He went farther down the hall and found the exit the slayers had used to get out with the abductees. There was nothing left of the steel panel into the tunnel, the thing blown apart just like the back entrance and the elevator roof had been.

Shit. Totally clean op. In and out. And he was willing to bet this was just the first offensive. Others would be coming to loot, because the Lessening Society was medieval like that.

Phury hotfooted it back toward the fighting out in the registration area in case Z and Rehv hadn’t already taken care of business. On the way, he put his phone up to his ear, but before V answered the call, Havers stuck his head out of his private office.

Phury hung up so he could deal with the doctor, and prayed that V’s security system had been notified when the alarms had been triggered. He thought it likely had been, as the systems were supposed to be linked.

“How many ambulances do you have?” he demanded as he came up to Havers.

The physican blinked behind his glasses and held out his hand. In his rattling grip was a nine-millimeter. “I have a gun.”

“Which you’re going to tuck into your belt and not use.” Last thing they needed was an amateur’s finger on the trigger. “Go on, put it away and focus for me. We have to get the living out of here. How many ambulances do you have?”

Havers fumbled to get the Beretta’s muzzle into his pocket, making Phury worry he was going to shoot himself in the ass. “F-f-four-”

“Give me that.” Phury took the gun, checked that the safety was in place, and shoved it into the doctor’s waistband. “Four ambulances. Good. We’re going to need drivers-”

The electricity cut out, everything going to pitch-black. The abrupt darkness made him wonder if the second shift of slayers hadn’t come down the shaft.

As the backup generator got rolling and dim security lights flared, he grabbed the doctor’s arm and gave the male a shake. “Can we get to the ambulances through the house?”

“Yes… the house, my house… tunnels…” Three nurses made an appearance behind him. They were scared shitless, white as the overhead emergency lights.

“Oh, dearest Virgin,” Havers said, “the doggen at the house. Karolyn-”

“I’ll get them,” Phury said. “I’ll find them and get them out. Where are the keys to the ambulances?”

The doctor reached behind the door. “Here.”

Thank. Fuck. “The lessers have found the southern tunnel, so we’re going to have to get everyone out through the house.”

'O-okay.”

“We’ll start the evac as soon as we have this facility temporarily secured,” Phury said. “You four stay locked in here until you hear from one of us. You’re going to be our drivers.”

“H-how did they find us?”

“No clue.” Phury shoved Havers back into the office, shut the door, and hollered for the guy to lock up.

By the time he got back to the reception area, the fighting was over, the last lesser being stabbed into oblivion by Rehv’s red sword.

Z wiped his forehead with a hand that left a black smudge behind. Looking over, he demanded of Phury, “Status?”

“At least nine staff and patients killed, unknown number of abductions, area is not secured.” Because God only knew how many lessers were still within the clinic’s maze of corridors and rooms. “Suggest stabilize entrance and south tunnel as well as exit to house. Evac will require use of the back stairwell into the house, and then rapid departure with ambulances and private vehicles. Medical staff will drive. Destination is backup clinical location on Cedar Street.”

Zsadist blinked for a minute, as if he were surprised at the clean logic. “Good deal.”

The cavalry arrived a second later, Rhage, Butch, and Vishous landing one, two, three in the elevator. The trio were armed like tanks and pissed off.

Phury glanced down at his watch. “I’m going to get the civilians and the staff out of here. You take care of finding any loose lessers in the facility and playing welcome wagon to the next wave.”

“Phury,” Zsadist called out as he turned around.

When Phury looked over his shoulder, his twin tossed across one of the pair of SIGs he always wore.

“Watch your ass,” Z said.

Phury took the gun with a nod and jogged down the corridor. After doing a quick scope of the distances between the medical supply closet, Havers’s office, and the stairwell, he felt like the three points were seperated by miles, not yards.

He opened the door to the stairwell. Security lights glowed red, and the silence was golden. Moving quickly, he went up the steps, entered the code for the door lock into the house, and stuck his head out into a wood-paneled hallway. The scent of lemon polish was from the glossy floor.The perfume of roses came from a bouquet on a marble stand. The lamb-and-rosemary combo was from the kitchen.

No baby powder.

Karolyn, Havers’s maid, leaned around the corner. “Sire?”

“Gather the servants-”

“We’re all together. Right here. We heard the alarms.” She nodded over her shoulder. “There are twelve of us.”

“Is the house secure?”

“None of our security systems have gone off.”

“Excellent.” He tossed her the keys Havers had given him. “Take the tunnels out to the garages and lock yourselves in them. Start every ambulance and car you have, but do not pull out, and