Zoey Rogue - By Lizzy Ford Page 0,2

night watchman.”

“That girl gets around.”

“Yeah.” She bent over to make sure the Cambion was dead.

“So the Mayans took precedence over groceries,” he said then waited for her to laugh at the corny joke, like she usually did.

“Hmmm,” she replied, attention elsewhere.

“Anyway, I’m at the store now,” Eric continued. “I can’t read your writing about ice cream. I want to get it right.”

Zoey felt like shit every time she lied to him about what she was doing, especially when he was sweet enough to call before buying the wrong kind of ice cream. She sighed then straightened and trotted down the stairwell to the basement.

“I’m sorry I forgot, Eric. I just got a little…oh, Jesus this is bad.” Even knowing what she was going to find, she still almost gagged at the scent of decomposing bodies. She covered her mouth with her hand.

“What?” he asked, confusion in his voice.

“I gotta go.”

“Just real quick – tell me what flavor.”

“French vanilla.” She hung up.

Eric was not happy. But at the moment Zoey was more concerned about the mess in front of her. It looked like the Cambions were using this safe house for weeks; the bodies of almost two dozen women were decaying in the basement. Some were buried under mounds of dirt, others stacked like old newspapers.

Near vomiting from the scent, Zoey couldn’t help the sorrow that descended over her. Cambions targeted girls her age – around twenty-one. Unlike her, each one of the girls in the basement probably had a family that missed them and a boyfriend they didn’t have to lie to every day about who they were.

“Why do you always say I’m the one sleeping around?” Vikki complained over their radio.

“Because you always do,” Zoey retorted. “We’re gonna need about twenty more body bags than planned and a morgue crew.”

“Mayans, Z, really?” Ginny asked, amused. “I’ll put in the order.”

“That means the bosses will find out,” Vikki grumbled. “We’re in enough trouble as it is going on unauthorized missions.”

“We saved someone from the fucking Cambions,” Zoey said. Unable to stand the smell, she returned to the main floor. “You’d think Heidi would be more concerned about that instead of not scheduling two missions at once.”

“Two girls,” Vikki said. “Though this one needs a doctor fast.”

“Got it,” Ginny said. Stationed in the van to monitor things in case all hell broke loose, Ginny was also in charge of contacting their headquarters, the police or providing back-up support as needed.

“What’s a Cambion?”

Zoey spun. She’d forgotten the girl in the living room. Her gaze swept over her. The girl managed to wrap herself in a blanket, probably the one from the couch. Her right shin was swollen and black.

“You’re gonna need some ice for that.” Zoey went to the fridge and opened it. There was nothing but beer in the fridge. She yanked open the freezer to find frozen bags of vegetables.

“Rally at the van,” Ginny directed.

“Roger,” Zoey said into the microphone. She grabbed two bags of vegetables. “Anyway, Cambions are, um, these beastly half-human males born to human mothers and Incubus fathers,” Zoey explained. “They kill girls our age to collect sex energy to sustain themselves and then give the extra to their evil Incubus overlords. If you ever have a chance to cut open a Cambion, you’ll find these little things that look like batteries, where the extra energy is stored.”

The girl stared at her for a long moment. “Oh.”

“My job is to track and kill them, before they rape girls like you and then shove you in the basement to rot,” Zoey finished.

The girl’s gaze went to the open door of the basement. She grew even paler.

“That sounds good,” she said. She was weaving on her feet, a sign she was about to pass out.

“You should sit down,” Zoey advised. “We’re almost done here, then we’ll call an ambulance for you. We’ll ice your shin in the meantime.” She lifted the bags.

The young woman nodded. Limping bad, she returned to the living room and sat down on the couch, clearly in shock by her dazed expression. Zoey trailed her in and lifted her injured leg to the coffee table. Placing a bag of frozen vegetables on the swollen shin, Zoey set the other within reach.

“Just in case it takes the EMTs more than a few minutes to get here, okay?”

“Okay,” the woman repeated.

“Were you invited here or just decided to drop by?” Zoey asked, interested in discovering where the Cambions might be recruiting their victims.

“I’m not sure,” the woman