She didn’t have to tell him twice. I’d never seen him move that fast. Becks and I exchanged a semi-surprised look as the van door slammed shut behind Alaric’s retreat, and I actually laughed before waving her to follow him.

“Go on,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Sure thing, boss,” she said, and turned to go.

I waited until she closed the door and I heard the van’s engine turn over before starting the Jeep again. We were cutting it pretty close; I could hear the approaching moan of the hunting mob before the rumble from our vehicles drowned it out.

Good for ratings, George offered.

“Like that means anything?”

She didn’t have an answer to that. Dave pulled the van back onto the road, such as it was, and I followed.

It was after midnight in London according to the clock on the dashboard. Bad, but not too bad, especially not when you’re talking about professional blogging hours. “Time delay broadcast for editinge.d. My headpiece beeped to signal that my personal cameras were now being fed into a buffer, rather than recording live. Not as good for ratings as a live feed, but the only way to get even the pretense of privacy. I could delete anything I didn’t want hitting the Internet. “Phone, dial Mahir.”

“Local time in London is approximately twelve thirty-seven A.M.,” said the automated operator, with mechanized politeness. “Ms. Gowda has requested that calls be held until eight A.M. local time.”

“Ms. Gowda doesn’t have the authority to block my calls, as I am, in fact, her husband’s boss,” I said amiably. “Please dial Mahir.”

“Acknowledged,” said the operator, and went quiet, replaced by the faint beeping of an international connection in process. I hummed under my breath, watching the abandoned California countryside rolling out on either side of me. It would have been pretty if not for, y’know, all the dead stuff.

“Shaun?” Mahir’s normally smooth voice was blurry with exhaustion, making his British accent stand out more than usual.

“Mahir, my main man! You sound a little harried. Did I wake you?”

“No, but I really do wish you’d stop calling so late at night. You know Nandini gets upset when you do.”

“There you go again, assuming that I’m not actually trying to piss off your wife. I’m really a much nicer person inside your head, aren’t I? Do I give money to charity and help old-lady zombies across streets so that they can bite babies?”

Mahir sighed. “My, you are in a mood today, aren’t you?”

“Been monitoring the boards?”

“You know that I have been. Or was, until I went to sleep.” I also knew he’d called up the numbers the second I got him out of bed, because that was how Mahir’s mind worked. Some men check their wallets; he checked our ratings.