Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles)

by Krystle Jones

  Dezyre seemed to have the same concerns that I did. Her petite nose was wrinkled up, and she was eyeing the car with something akin to loathing.

  “Sorry it’s not a Porsche, Princess,” Paris said, giving Dezyre a tight smile. “But it’s all we have, if you want to escape and not face execution for aiding criminals of the empire.”

  Dezyre swallowed hard. “I didn’t say it had to be a Porsche.” She smoothed down the imaginary wrinkles in her lab coat. “I’ve just learned to question things that look… questionable.”

  I snorted.

  “I mean, look at it,” she sneered. “It looks like it will barely run, let alone be fast enough to actually allow us to escape.”

  “Oh, it’ll run,” Rook said, pushing a button on the dash. A mean growl ripped through the air as the engine roared to life. He patted the steering wheel like it was a puppy. “It’s got a V12 engine from a Lamborghini.”

  Shouts drifted up the hallway, muffled through the wall.

  “Get in,” Paris said, her features tightening with anxiety.

  Without arguing, Dezyre slipped into the back while I plopped down in front. The door slammed closed and my eyes snapped up as Paris leaned down toward the window. Brows furrowing, I found the window controls and the glass pane scrolled down with a screech. “What are you doing?”

  Paris’s eyes glittered. “Someone has to make sure those idiots don’t cause anymore unnecessary deaths.”

  “But –”

  She gripped my hand, squeezing hard and dropping her voice. “And by that, I mean someone who actually knows about the virus needs to be around in case Aden needs help.”

  I went cold all over at the mention of his name. “But the Council already said you couldn’t treat him.”

  She smirked. “Since when has the breaking the law ever stopped me?”

  Good point. Throat tight, I nodded once.

  On the far side of the garage, the door burst open and several soldiers poured into the room, guns ready. Paris held up her arms in surrender. “Go!” she shouted.

  “What about you?”

  She smiled, though I could read the fear in her eyes. “I’ll be fine. Now go.”

  “Stop, or we’ll shoot!” the guards yelled behind her.

  Rook didn’t take their warning to heart. Without preamble, he floored it and the car shot off with a squeal of tires that left a trail of smoke and strewn dirt behind. I wasn’t ready for the sudden burst of speed, which nearly threw me into the windshield. I yelped as shots rang out, pelting the back of the car while I frantically groped around for my seat belt.

  Above the chaos came Paris’s voice. “You only have a few days!” she screamed, cupping her hands around her mouth from her spot on the floor, where she’d apparently thrown herself the moment they opened fire.

  Rook pressed another button on the dash, which was a labyrinth of exposed wires and multicolored buttons, and an exit appeared on the opposite end of the garage. We barreled toward it as the door slid open, scraping the side of the car in a shower of sparks as we flew through the narrow rectangle and onto the open dirt road.

  My heart beat wildly in my chest as I pressed myself against the seat, the roar of the engine drowning out my shaky breaths.

  “What’s going to happen to her?” I said, sounding a little breathless. The sound of gunshots still rang in my ears as we zoomed farther away from the base.

  “Probably nothing,” Dezyre said, flipping a ringlet over her shoulder and sounding bored. “They need her too badly, especially now that I’m gone.”

  I found her eyes in the rearview mirror and glared at her. “You think very highly of yourself.”

  “What can I say?” Dezyre shrugged. “I’m indispensable.”

  Though she said it so flippantly, there was a guarded look to her eyes that made me pause.

  Rook turned a knob and the stereo system hissed to life, filling the car with static and sketchy voices. He thumbed in a numbered button and the radio switched frequencies. One of the guards was rattling off instructions. “Captain Rook and Sloane McAllister are missing. Security reported them leaving the facility in a brown and black Chimera. Security footage suggests they are heading toward the city.”

  “‘Chimera?’” I said, looking at Rook. “That’s the best name you could come up with for this thing?”

  Rook shrugged. “It seemed appropriate. It wasn’t like we could call it a Dodge Flamethrower, since it’s made up of different car brands.”

  He wheeled the car around a sharp turn, slowing our velocity and grinding the brakes against the tires. I glanced out the window. We were all the way on the opposite side of the dome, as far away from the base as we could possibly be. The view dipped sideways as we ran up a ramp and burst into a separate, larger dome.

  “Wow,” I said, leaning forward so I could get a better view.

  We were on another dirt road, but this one actually had lanes spray-painted off. Tall buildings of a variety of architectures from different time periods rose all around us. There were ancient Greek columns next to Chinese temples; log cabins sprouted up in the tiny cracks between bloated structures of glass and metal. It looked, literally, like someone had scooped up a handful of things from different parts of the globe at varying points in Earth’s history, and had slopped them all together. There didn’t appear to be any stoplights; only stop signs.

  Now I knew what Aden had meant by the City of the Dead being a “cluster-thing.”

  “This is incredible,” I said, pressing my face against the glass. I’d always wanted to visit Paris, Rome, and a long list of other places, and now, in a way, I sort of was.

  I glanced at Dezyre in the mirror; even she seemed somewhat awed by the arrangement of multicolored buildings around us. I guess she hadn’t been outside the base much, if at all. Then again, I don’t suppose she would have a reason to. The base had convenience stores, diners, and just about everything else I pictured small town America having.

  Gobs of civilians, all bearing some sort of sign or T-shirt, ran past us as we zipped down the road. There didn’t, however, seem to be many cars or Chimeras or whatever they called them present. For the most part, ours was the only vehicle I saw. “Are there always this many people out?”

  “No,” Rook said, keeping his sharp eyes focused on the road. “The city has strict curfews, which I bet the military will be here to enforce any minute now. Even for holidays like New Year’s, they are required to be in their apartments by 1 a.m.”

  I thought back to the White Sector, the safe house for human survivors. They were enclosed pieces of cities run by military government officials and guarded by mercenaries. The closest White Sector, no. 34 “Pittsburgh,” wasn’t quite that strict, but there had been some changes made regarding where people could go and at what time of day. Apparently freedom was the price for survival, or at least according to the government.

  We blew by a guy with a white T-shirt that said “Long live the emperor.” Tears were running down his face, the long streaks lit up like golden rivers against the backdrop of dingy bubble lights strung over the street.

  “I didn’t know the people cared so much about my brother,” I said, not without irritation.

  “Before Orion and I came down here, there was nothing but a bunch of scared, half-starving vampires living in squander.” A strange sense of pride came through Rook’s voice, a faraway look glossing over his gaze. “Orion was brilliant. He saw what had to be done, and the people listened to him. They were desperate. Orion was the savior they had been waiting for.”

  I thought back to my brother, to the psychotic glee in his eyes as he murdered all those guards without hesitation. The part of me that remembered him as my brother could see him being a leader and showing compassion to those less fortunate than him. The other part of me – the older, wiser Sloane who knew better – couldn’t help thinking of him in any other light than that of a killer.

  And he had a whole city of people who practically worship
ped him.

  I gritted my teeth against the high-pitched squeal of tires as we spun around a curb and barreled toward a blank space of wall that was clearly a dead end. Thinking maybe Rook would turn at the next intersection, I didn’t start panicking until he blew past it and kept going toward the wall.

  I glanced at him. “Rook?”

  “Hold on.”

  I sucked in a tight breath, eyes going wide as they snapped around to stare at the approaching wall.

  We never hit. A pressure sensor must have triggered it because a few feet away a piece of the wall rose up, revealing a dark tunnel that wove straight through the earth. The road steepened, climbing upward at a deep incline. Rook flicked a switch and the car’s headlights came on, though they seemed dimmer than I remembered most cars having.

  I could smell Dezyre’s nervous fear coming off her like some twisted perfume, and I wondered if they could detect the same from me. Then again, my glamour was stronger than most vamps’, so maybe I was the only one who noticed their labyrinth of twisted emotions. Adrenalin electrified my veins, staving off the heavy wave of exhaustion that fought to break through.

  The tunnel wove up and up, and I didn’t dare speak lest I disturbed Rook’s attention. He seemed to need all he could get to keep us from crashing into the walls. His jaw flexed as he carefully maneuvered us through the slim tunnel. At last, the red hazy cloud cover I thought I would never feel excited to see came again into view through an opening in the earth above, and we shot out of the tunnel onto a cracked, paved road.

  Dilapidated houses with rotting shutters and gas stations guarding their rusting pumps rushed by us in red-tinged, monochromatic blurs. Big scarlet clouds billowed from the Scarlet Steel factories in the distance, staining the atmosphere – and thus the moonlight – red.

  Not a soul was in sight, giving the neighborhood a lonely, desperate look.

  “We’re in a Red Sector, aren’t we?” I asked.

  Red Sectors had become no-man’s-land. After the Eclipse, they were blocked off by the government, which considered them dangerous because of the vampiric monsters known as Rogues that lurked there. Though the media said the military had the Red Sectors secured, that they were “safe” now, I knew better.

  Rook nodded, his expression grave and the look in his eyes on edge. Dezyre cleared her throat, suddenly looking uncomfortable. The tension in the car thickened to the point of choking on it.

  I pried my eyes off Rook, scanning the area. Buildings with peeling paint and crumbling foundations lined the empty streets. Broken stop signs with big black spray-painted crosses flashed by, the Black Cross Guild’s way of marking their territory. Nothing moved, but I would be stupid to believe we were totally alone. “Where are we going?” I asked, prying my eyes off the broken-down cars and missing person posters.

  “Toward the Pittsburgh White Sector,” Rook said, casting a quick glance at me. “Orion will need food, and that’s the first place he’ll look.”

  My stomach twisted, knowing by “food” he meant “humans”. Though I knew I needed blood to survive now, I still wasn’t comfortable with the thought of drinking from humans like they were Gatorade for Vamps.

  “I found Aden’s files on Orion, dubbed ‘Project Red Death,’ so I know all about the virus,” Rook said.

  My brows lifted. “Really?”

  From the backseat, Dezyre listened intently.

  Rook shrugged. “Well, enough to know he’s dangerous. We need to bring him to justice before he has a chance to cause any more harm, to us or to the humans.”

  “Paris thinks she can manufacture a cure,” I said. “If we can get a sample of his blood.”

  Rook’s frown deepened. “We need to find him first. In addition to food, he’ll have plenty of places to hide in Pittsburgh. If he’s going to be anywhere, it’ll be –”

  Something large jumped in front of the car. Rook swore, swerving to miss it. My gaze snapped forward, trying to lock onto whatever we were trying to miss, but right then the car flipped. The world spun in an awful vortex of grating metal and Dezyre’s screams as the car rolled off the road and slammed, upside down, into an embankment.

  For a few frantic moments, all I could do was siphon air in and out, in and out. With my heart in my throat, I fought the tremble trying to take control of my body as blood rushed to my head. Forcing myself to think rationally despite my panic, I looked around. Where the hell was my seat belt latch?

  There it was, the little silver buckle that had kept my head from becoming a pancake against the windows. It took me three times to release the belt because my hands were shaking so badly, but it gave with a snap and I fell forward as the belt retracted back into the side of the car.

  Beside me, Rook groaned, going for his own seat belt. “Everyone okay?” he asked.

  “Y-yes,” came Dezyre’s shaky reply. She was already free and trying to climb out the now busted window to her left.

  Searching for my own exit, I tried first rolling down the window. When it wouldn’t budge, I took to opening the door, which proved difficult because it was wedged against the incline of the embankment. Shoving my shoulder into the door, I heaved until I felt it give and then forced it open. The space was barely enough for me to crawl out through.

  Easing myself up through the crack, I tumbled over the side of the door and onto the brown grass. It snapped and rustled beneath my touch, the long, brittle stalks protesting my weight as I hauled myself up and dusted off my jeans. My breath was still coming in heavy gasps, barely able to keep up with my now racing heart. A hot stream dribbled down the side of my face, and I reached up to wipe it away. Syrupy blood smeared between my fingertips. Gingerly, I touched the rising lump on my temple. I couldn’t remember hitting my head.

  Dezyre also wore a few scrapes and extra bruises, but she looked alert and ready. Her dark doe eyes scanned the area, the gun already in her hands. “What was that?”

  “I don’t know,” Rook said, staggering up to us. His face was covered in blood, thanks to the deep gash across his forehead. “I couldn’t get a good look at it.”

  A chorus of stuttering, tongue-clucking noises filled the air, turning my insides to ice. The three of us whirled around, our backs to one another, as a dark shape leapt on top of the upturned car and watched us with glowing red eyes.

  “A Rogue,” Dezyre whispered, her voice sounding tiny in the sudden stillness.

  Something moved to the left. Not wanting to take my eyes off the Rogue for long, I quickly spared a glance at the shadow.

  I thought my heart would stop.

  Things were moving behind the debris scattered around us; a clawed hand gripped a spent light pole, peering around it with a set of red eyes. Another shadow crouched behind us, a low, guttural sound rising from its throat.

  In horror, I watched as the night lit up with at least ten sets of red eyes, accompanied by those odd, animalistic tongue clucks. The sound rose, making it hard to hear anything else.

  “Rook,” I said warily.

  “I know,” he said, voice sounding tight. Slowly, he reached to his side, where a handgun was holstered.

  With a roar, a human-like creature consisting of little more than flesh and bone sprang from the car, its fangs bared as a snarl ripped from its throat.

  It was heading straight for Rook. I knew he wouldn’t be able to turn around in time to do much about it. Screaming his name, I started forward when a gunshot rang out behind me, snatching the Rogue out of the air. It rolled on the ground a few times, clutching and clawing at the hole in its chest, which was beginning to glow. It screamed and writhed as the acid on the Scarlet Steel bullet ate it from the inside out.

  The other Rogues hissed, their clucking more frantic and frenzied at the smell of blood riding the air.

  Rook’s gaze snapped up and I whirled. Dezyre still had the gun raised, smoke rising out of the barrel. Her hands were shaking so badly it was causing the gun to rattle.

  Beside us, the downed Rogue continued
to scream as its flesh rotted off. Almost faster than I could follow, more Rogues descended upon it, tearing into it and ripping it apart as it screamed louder.

  I cupped a hand over my mouth, tasting vomit.

  Rook grabbed my arm. “Time to go!”

  He yanked me forward, and I looked back at Dezyre, who was frozen. She was watching the massacre before her, eyes wide with terror. “Let’s go, Dezyre,” I said, grabbing hold of her wrist. She let me pull her forward, though her eyes remained locked on the horrific bloodbath playing out in front of the car.

  We ran as hard as we could, our footsteps pounding the pavement, echoing the thumping of our furiously beating hearts.

  A howl broke through the snarls at our backs, followed by the sound of several sets of claws scraping against pavement. I glanced over my shoulder and nearly choked on my next breath. “Rook!” I shouted. “They’re coming after us!”

  Rook glanced back and swore. “They’re too fast! We need to head toward the White Sector, where –”

  A Rogue leapt out in front of him, cutting him off. It gripped Rook by the shoulders, taking him to the ground.

  “Rook!” Dezyre screamed.

  Rook wrestled with the creature, holding it at bay with one hand on its throat while it snapped its teeth in his face and clawed his arms, creating long gashes.

  I rushed forward to help him when several hisses behind me made me whirl. Red eyes with a black slit down the middle, like cat’s eyes, glared back at me. Blood dripped from the Rogue’s fangs, reeking of death and life all at once.

  I sniffed, feeling the animalistic part of myself I kept caged up break loose and come to the surface. It took over as my fangs elongated. I rolled my neck and shoulders, curving my fingers like claws. “If you want me,” I said, voice deep and feral, “then come and get me.”

  The Rogue roared and lunged for my throat, at which I sidestepped it and broke its neck with one swift move. As it slumped to the ground, I turned and ducked as a clawed hand swung over my head, trying to take it clean off. “Missed,” I said, springing up with a palm gouge toward its chest. The creature’s purple skin was so thin and sickly that my hand went straight through. The Rogue stared at the place where my arm was buried in its chest, nearly up to my elbow, and I ripped my fist out with a vicious cry. The monster staggered, its still beating heart clasped in my hand. The Rogue shuddered and then fell to the ground, dead.