“How do you know about that stuff?” he asked, startled by her knowledge. “I’m pretty sure I never mentioned them to you...”

“I’ll tell you all about it, once we leave this place,” she said. “And... thanks for the jacket... not many gentlemen left, even before all this...”

Reece didn’t know how much good his chivalry did her. The girl was practically swimming in his flight top. Her fingers just cleared the cuffs and the jacket hung down to her knees. Although she had put on the flight suit’s top, the girl had left it hanging open in the front. The flight jacket teased the slight curve of her breasts, her smooth stomach, tight belly button, and shapely legs.

“It’s a little big,” she giggled as she cocked her head to the side and seemed to study his face for a moment. Her eyes flitted down for a moment and she smiled, a knowing gleam in her eye.

“I know,” Reece replied, ignoring the look. “We’ll find you something that fits as soon as we can.”

Reece did his best to concentrate on her face and the conversation. It was too important to get distracted now.

...and, you know...the zipper does work on that thing,” mentioned Reece indicating the top.

The girl did nothing to cover herself. Instead, she grabbed her spear and walked up the slope to where the rest of her gear was lying.

Reece followed her up and noticed a dark grey rucksack with familiar Persian writing scrawled across it.

“Recognize this?” asked the blonde girl as she picked up the bag and let it dangle in her hand. “By the way, I love the proverb. Whose bag was this anyhow?”

“Just somebody who is probably dead now,” Reece sighed. “I know where you got it, but when? And you speak Persian?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” explained the odd girl. “I checked out the shuttle after you nourished me that first time. Oh, and where are my manners? Thanks for that. I really needed it...and you taste oh, so good. And yes, I speak many languages. Kinda goes with the territory.”

She tossed the bag to him. He managed to catch it in midair despite being caught off-guard by her casual comment.

“Was this girl a vampire, like Naeva had mentioned?” he thought. “It made more sense than anything else. Her speed and strength, his blood, and some of the things she said and the way she said them. What else could explain it? Someone had once said that once you eliminate the impossible, what remains must be the truth, no matter how improbable...or some such thing...That must...”

“Open it,” she said.

The words broke Reece out of his musings. He undid the straps and unzipped the bag. Inside were the journal and the hard drive along with a fresh change of his own clothes and a few other items they had brought down from the station with them. At the bottom rested the nightcore. Relief flooded his body.

“Oh, thank the stars. But... how did you know about them?” asked Reece, feeling truly perplexed.

The girl grabbed her spear and started walking down a narrow path that Reece hadn’t noticed before.

“Come,” she commanded over her shoulder. “We really need to go. Don’t worry. I’ll explain on the way.”

“On the way to where?” asked Reece as he caught up to her.

“First, away from here and any other hunting parties still on our trail. And second, we’re stopping by the mall. I still need new clothes.”

“Okay miss, how did you know about the journal, drive, and stone?

“Karina.”

“What?”

“If we’re to be traveling together, we should know each other’s names. Wouldn’t you agree? My name is Karina Ragnarsdottir. What is yours, dear sir?” she asked politely.

“Reece Danielson. It’s not as beautiful and exotic as yours, but I like it just fine.”

“Thanks... Reece. I like it too. It’s actually much like mine. I wonder at its etymology. Now, to answer your question, two things... First, you went on and on about fetching them after I fed on you. You were delirious with blood loss, so it’s understandable that you wouldn’t remember. And second, I get flashes of thoughts from the people I feed on. They are images really, but I can usually piece them together into some semblance of a story.”

“Well...that explains everything...if it didn’t sound so crazy,” thought Reece as he considered the girl.

She was an enigma. Clearly, after everything that he had already witnessed...she wasn’t a normal human. He noticed more subtle things as well. She looked so young but talked and had the wit and wisdom of a much older person. In fact, she reminded Reece of Naeva in many respects. They were both brash, witty, intelligent, and exuded confidence under all circumstances.

“So, are you some kind of a... vampire?” Reece nervously asked the small girl.

“As much as you are some kind of a zombie. My kind was known as liliti, though there haven’t been many of us left for hundreds of years. As a female, I’m a lilitu. Males are lilitun. We are strong, fast, long-lived, and subsist on blood. Liliti are made when a human with a certain lineage is turned. This happens much like the stories dictate, with a mingling of blood.

As for your vampires, they are created when a lilitu or lilitun turns someone who is already dead. It’s a practice that has long been forbidden by our kind. Occasionally, a particularly despicable member of our race finds a reason to perform the taboo act. The result is an abomination, an undead immortal, pale and ghastly, but with the strength and speed of our kind,” answered Karina, shuddering at her own description before continuing.

“In addition to fresh blood, they feast on the blood of the dead. The rest of vampire lore is either attributed to other supernatural beings or is complete drivel. Vampires are revolting monsters, to be honest...” she stated before trailing off.

“If you’re not comfortable talking about it, that’s okay. How did you end up a prisoner of this Order? I assume that’s who you are calling the Purifiers?”

She considered his question before nodding.

“Well, I had been asleep for a very long time when they found me. I was too weak to keep them from capturing me. They chained me up like a simple animal, keeping me wounded and hungry all the time. I couldn’t gain my strength and free myself until you streaked across the sky. The Purifiers got very agitated and forgot about me for some time as they sent out their minions to find and kill you and your friends. That provided me with an opening to escape. I freed what others I could to give them a fighting chance and to give the Purifiers more targets to try and track down. I only hope a few managed to escape.”

“So, who are these Purifiers? What have you learned?”

“I don’t know, some of us just call them that. They look like regular humans, but they smell wrong. We think they’ve done something to themselves. Their blood is like sewage to my senses. I tried draining one during my escape and had to spit it out before the first swallow. Until I partook of your blood, I still had that awful taste in my mouth. So, thanks for that too. I was about ready to gargle with industrial bleach.”

“Well, we found out that they inject themselves with a serum,” explained Reece. “It’s made up of a number of compounds with properties that they want to instill in themselves. I think it’s part of this same serum that makes the dead become zombies.”

“That sounds suspiciously like alchemy,” pondered Karina. “Do you know what kinds of elixirs they may have put into this serum?”

“Karina,” admonished Reece, “It isn’t alchemy. It’s chemistry, and I’m not sure what compounds they used to create it. I do know that the zombies will ignore them.”

Karina just looked at Reece unamused.

“What?” asked Reece.

“Well, whatever. Alchemy was just the precursor to your chemistry. And these Purifiers are using it to cull your world.”

“And how do you know that?” asked Reece skeptically.

“When I was younger, alchemy was just getting its beginning in the world. It’s just the part of the science of chemistry that humankind hasn’t rediscovered in the modern era yet. Take your electricity, for example. You’ve known it existed, you even knew how to harness it, but it took you many decades to understand it. Alchemy is like that, except nowadays, you don’t even know how to harness it like you used to. Well, except for the Purifiers, unfortunately. Leave it to the most despicable of your kind to figure it out.”

“I don’t even know how to unpackage all of that,” replied Reece incredulously. “But for argument’s sake, let’s just go with it for now. How old are you anyway? You look like a little girl but speak with the confidence of maturity, so you must have been made a vampire...um, apologies... lilitu, a long time ago.”

“Don’t you know it’s rude to ask a girl her age?” answered Karina rhetorically with slyness in her voice before she took a deep breath as they walked.

“It did happen a long time ago, and to be perfectly honest...it was awful.”

She stopped and looked directly into Reece’s eyes, she seemed to be trying to read his mind and learn his thoughts. He found it strangely disturbing and comforting all at the same time.

“I’m not human,” she said.

“Yeah, I think we’ve established that,” chuckled Reece.

“But I haven’t been human for over three thousand years. I was what you’d call a princess of sorts in a region that is now a part of Norway. My father was forced to marry me off to secure a political alliance. I was to be the bride of an Greek king. He was the first of the ancient Roman emperors, due to my apparent beauty.” She rolled her eyes before continuing. “The king employed a lilitu to turn me so that he could preserve my beauty throughout his reign. The lilitu did as he requested, and I became like her. I surprised her by speaking to her and she found out that I was a distant relative of hers. So, she betrayed the king, turned him into a wretched vampire, and secreted me far away from him where he could never find us.

But his reach was long, and eventually, he did find us, despite his handicaps. She sacrificed herself to protect me and made him believe that I was dead too. And, so...I’ve traveled the world free ever since...thanks to her. That is until the Purifiers got ahold of me. And you know how that turned out. So, enough about me. What’s the deal with this hard-drive and journal...and this rock?”

Reece looked at the girl like she was insane before shaking his head, trying to dislodge the crazy thoughts she had infected him with. He tried to take it all in stride and answer her question. By this time, his emotional state was numb. Three-thousand-year-old vampire-like lilitus and Roman Emperors. Just too much crazy and too little time to absorb it all, though he was starting to get a headache by trying. He gave up mentally and just went with it.

“I guess it won’t hurt to tell you. We found the hard drive aboard the space station when the Order’s agents abandoned it for the surface. Pasha, our pilot, decrypted and recorded a great deal of it into a journal. He had prepared it just in case the hard drive couldn’t be recovered back on the surface. I believe it’s our best shot at defeating these bastards. As for the rock, I don’t know what it is. The Order wanted it badly though, and they had been using it in experiments aboard the station.”

“I see, and this Pasha...was he the man strapped into your crashed shuttle?”

“Yeah, that was him. I hated seeing him like that. I wish there was something I could have done for him, but everything happened so fast.”

“It’s okay, Reece. I took care of him when I searched your shuttle for your stuff,” reassured Karina.

“Thank you for that. He was a good man and didn’t deserve to die like that.”

“He was already dead before he turned. All that was left was flesh. His consciousness had already moved along.”

“Thanks again, that’s strangely comforting.”

“Anytime,” she replied. “I suppose this is as good a time as any to tell you that I intend for us to be companions indefinitely. You see, I need a steady supply of blood to survive and yours is the best I’ve ever tasted. Though, to be fair, the comparison may be skewed by the fact that I had the taste of human waste in my mouth at the time. In return, you’ll have my protection and... my body if you so desire. After all, I’ve seen the way you look at me.”

“I don’t see any reason to argue with you. I think that sticking together increases our chances of survival... And... wait...what did you say!?! No, that’s not going to happen,” stammered Reece as his delayed comprehension of what the girl had said finally kicked in. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked at your body that way. You just look so young, almost doll-like.”

The lilitu girl stopped in her tracks. Her whole body shook slightly in anger and her eyes flash red when she looked at him.

“I am not a child!” she snapped. “I had just come of age when my father sent me to the Roman emperor and I was made a lilitu. And I was made a woman before I was made a lilitu, as was expected of me. And now I am so much older than you that it’s ridiculous, so get over your idiotic societal dumb-ass misgivings. I have known more lovers than you could possibly imagine!”

“Really?” asked Reece in horror, though he wasn’t sure he even wanted to know.

Karina blanched once she realized what she had said in the heat of anger.

“Great,” she chided him. “Now I suppose you think I have the baggage of a hundred lives, don’t you?”

“How am I supposed to answer that?” Reece threw it back at her. “I’ve never had a conversation with an insanely ancient girl...err... woman before.”

“You are so lucky I need you alive,” she replied through gritted teeth as she narrowed her eyes.

She seemed half-tempted to rip his head from his shoulders and shove it into his body in a most unflattering way. That was the look she gave him. Not wanting to rile her any further nor test her patience and need to keep him alive, Reece continued walking in uncomfortable silence. He railed at himself for calling a woman, any woman, ‘insanely ancient’, especially after she had already commented on the poor manners of asking a woman her age. He just shook his head at his own stupidity.

Karina fumed as she stayed one step ahead of him and refused to look in his direction as they walked ‘together’. Reece was wishing for a zombie attack just to break up the icy atmosphere between his new companion and himself, well...almost. He quickly realized that a wish like that was why people always say, “Be careful what you wish for”.

As they crested a hill and saw the mall to a small city, he got his “almost” wish. Between them and the mall was the parking lot. There were only a few scattered vehicles parked there, some in spots they had sat in for years. Others had come after and had parked haphazardly, while a couple of vehicles were even lying on their sides. The wish-fulfilling part of this parking lot was the dozens of meandering corpses and a few rotting labradors that didn’t seem to understand that they were dead.

Karina didn’t even slow down or pause to consider their plan of attack. She simply let her spear hang loosely at her side. Reece readied Aika’s katana in both hands and continued to anxiously follow her right up and into the parking lot. It wasn’t until they were nearly halfway across the lot did the first zombie notice them. It let out a horrible moan and charged them from about ten yards out, the remnants of its plaid shirt and jeans flapping in the wind as it approached. Karina brought her spear down so fast, that Reece’s eyes didn’t even follow the motion. The zombie was precisely cleaved in two. Karina looked back at Reece and his readied katana.

“Stay here,” she commanded as her eyes flashed red

Then the little girl went to work on the unfortunate creatures. Reece thought it was strangely beautiful. Like a dance of death, choreographed violence. He watched the little blonde girl in the oversized flight-top as she skewered, sliced, beheaded, stabbed, and cleaved her way through zombie after zombie. The mindless creatures all continued to rush straight for her, adding their rotting bodies to the growing carnage. The undead things generally ignored Reece as he just stood still and watched the girl perform her macabre act of poetry in motion.

He tried to get a body count, but she was killing them faster than he could keep score. He had watched Aika practice with her katanas many times and was always amazed by her grace and skill. This was something else entirely... on a completely different level. He was so entranced by her deadly ballet that he almost didn’t notice the two mangy and rotting black labs that padded around the side of an old brown van.

The rusty Econoline van sported four flat tires and rested close to the ground. It had completely hidden the undead beasts until they were within a few meters of him. The moment they noticed Reece standing there, they emitted a low gurgling growl and rushed him. The growls alerted him to their presence. A surge of adrenaline shot through him. If the dogs had been silent, he would probably be dead.

Taking a deep breath, he waited until they got within arm’s length and sidestepped the two of them. He brought his katana across both of their necks in one abrupt motion as they leaped to the spot he had just been standing. The head of the closest dog bounced off the ground and rolled under a nearby white pickup truck. He hadn’t quite severed the second one’s head though. The rotting black lab was flopping around on the asphalt incoherently, spewing gore everywhere. Reece carefully approached it and finished it off with a clean second slice. With the dogs now ‘fully’ dead, he watched Karina finish off the last couple of zombies. These had been drawn in by the sounds of the battle.

The parking lot and surrounding area were now clear of the undead. Except for the several dozen zombie bodies piled in a circle around the lilitu girl, the place looked like a rundown version of a typical city block from before the plague. With experience comes wisdom, and despite the chaotic battle, the girl had managed to leave herself a path through the bodies and towards the mall.

“Come,” she called towards Reece, seemingly unconcerned with his close call with the dogs.