The Kat Dubois Chronicles: The Complete Series (Echo World Book 2)

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  From the opposite side of the counter, she shrugged. “I’ve been working for you since you first opened. If I can’t run this place by now, I’ve got no business getting my MBA.”

  “Fair enough,” I said with a nod. I bent my knees to pick up an oversized duffel bag off the floor. I’d stuffed nearly every piece of clothing I actually wore into the bag, along with my backup boots and a few other odds and ends from upstairs. “I’ll check in at least once a week, but don’t hesitate to call if you have any questions.”

  “You got it, boss,” she said. “Any idea how long you’ll be gone?”

  I shook my head. “But I’ll let you know as soon as I know.” I was returning to Bainbridge indefinitely. It was past time for me to get over my shit and rejoin my clan.

  The bell over the door jingled, and we both turned our heads to watch six people stream into the shop—Heru and Nik, closely followed by two unfamiliar Nejerets, one male, one female, and him. The bartender from the Goose smirked when his eyes locked with mine. The five newcomers lined up, Nik and Aset on either end, Heru a few steps ahead.

  “Kimi,” I said without taking my eyes off the Nejerets. “Why don’t you take off. I’ll finish closing up tonight.”

  “But—”

  “Kimi.” I looked at her, and whatever she saw in my eyes caused the blood to drain from her face. “Go, now. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  She nodded, licked her lips, and backed away, rushing through the beaded curtain. A few seconds later, I heard the back door open, then shut. Kimi was gone.

  I refocused on Heru. “To what do I owe this honor, oh chieftain, my chieftain?”

  “Katarina Dubois,” Heru said, his voice bland, “the Senate has issued a detainment order for you. You’re charged with being in league with the rogue Nejerets, Mari and Mei. Your rebellious and irresponsible actions have put Nejeretkind at risk, and such behavior cannot go unpunished.” His lips twitched.

  I, myself, was having a hard time keeping a straight face. I’d known something like this would be coming, eventually. I was the only one who identified herself at the warehouse the previous night, making myself the easiest target for retribution. We’d lit the match with our siege on the Ouroboros warehouse; it was time to start the fire.

  “I advise that you submit to the Senate’s authority and offer yourself into their just and capable hands,” Heru continued. As leader of this territory, it was his right to come after me himself, though I wasn’t surprised the Senate sent others with him to make sure he followed through. “If you do not submit, you will be detained using force.”

  Nik shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

  I stared at him for a moment, then returned my focus to Heru. “You know,” I said, “I’m just not feeling it today. Can you come back tomorrow?”

  This time, when Heru’s lips twitched, he allowed a hint of a smile to break free, just for a moment. His expression went blank, and he turned on his heel to face the other Nejerets. “She chose to resist. There was a struggle.”

  “Was?” the bartender said, alarm flashing in his eyes.

  Not a second later, crystalline At vines slithered across the floor, originating at Nik and wrapping around the ankles of the bartender and the two unfamiliar Nejerets. The vines climbed up their legs, winding around and around, until they were restrained up to their shoulders and their struggles were limited to the twisting of their heads from side to side.

  “Fugitive’s choice,” Heru said. “Which to release as a messenger, which to keep for questioning . . .” He grinned viciously. “And which to be the message.” There was no doubt in my mind what form that message would take. I was well versed in this form of communication.

  I stared at Heru, unblinking, totally caught off guard. It was like a twisted version of marry-fuck-kill. “You’re going to start a war,” I told him.

  “Not a war,” he said, his grin fading. “A revolution.”

  “I—I don’t—”

  “Choose, Kat, or I’ll choose for you.”

  I didn’t even have to think about it, and I didn’t bother voicing my choice. I simply drew the combat knife tucked into my boot sheath, strode up to the Nejeret who’d been posing as a bartender to spy on me, and held the blade flush under his jaw.

  He swallowed reflexively.

  “This is for Garth,” I hissed, slicing the blade across his neck. I took a step backward to avoid the waterfall of blood that cascaded down his front and waited until his body went limp to turn away from him. I locked eyes with Heru. “I don’t give two shits what you do with the others.”

  “Very well.” His focus shifted beyond me, and he addressed the two remaining Senate Nejerets. “I’m declaring martial law.” He looked at the woman. “Gaia, be so kind as to inform the Senate that my first act as Governor General is to pardon Katarina Dubois.” As he spoke, the At vines restraining her uncoiled from around her body.

  “You might want to go now,” Nik said to the unfamiliar woman. The bell over the door jingled a moment later as she made a quick exit.

  I watched the slowly expanding pool of crimson on the floor—it was going to be a pain in the ass to clean up—then sighed. In hindsight, maybe I should’ve just broken his neck, even if slicing it open had been more satisfying in the moment.

  “How’d you know he was the one who attacked us?” Nik asked.

  I met his eyes, but I could only handle looking at him for a second. I lowered my gaze to the puddle of blood on the floor. “I just did.”

  “Come on,” Heru said, patting my shoulder. “Let’s get this cleaned up. There’s much to do, but little time. The sooner you’re gone, the better.”

  “Gone?” I twisted around to look at him, brow furrowed. “Gone where?” Because the way he’d said gone sure as hell didn’t sound like he was talking about our clan home on Bainbridge Island.

  His golden stare was hard, commanding. “Underground.”

  Thanks for reading! You’ve reached the end of Ink Witch (Kat Dubois Chronicles, #1). Keep reading for more Kat adventures in Outcast (Kat Dubois Chronicles, #2).

  Outcast

  Book Two

  For LP – thank you. I’ll never be able to express how much your endless friendship and support means to me. I appreciate the *beep* out of you, Duds!

  Chapter One

  “Pew . . .” Eyes watering, I wrinkled my nose and waved a hand in front of my face. “You’re lucky your nose is safe from this,” I told Dom. I was standing just inside the north entrance to Seattle’s “Tent District,” taking in the midday sights, sounds . . . and odorific smells. The unofficial district was very much a kingdom within a city, where those who shunned modern ways—or were shunned by them—carried out their lives off the books. And apparently out of the shower.

  “For once, little sister, I think I prefer being incorporeal.” Dom’s words, classed up as usual by his faint French accent, rolled through my mind, audible only to me.

  “You’re welcome,” I muttered.

  My dead-ish older brother was currently watching the world around me from a tiny mirror about the size of a silver dollar hanging as a pendant on a short chain around my neck. It allowed him a view of everything ahead of me and enabled me to hear him, thanks to the skin-to-skin contact between Dom’s mirror and me. In the week since I first stuffed his soul into a looking glass, I’d done what I could to make his existence more varied and mobile—at least, on my side of the glass. I still wasn’t sure what exactly was on his side, and he wasn’t offering up much in the way of details. Or information at all. Not that his tight-lipped response to this matter was unexpected. Or annoying. Didn’t bother me one bit. Not one bit.

  The point being, he now had several mirrors he could bounce between at will: the standing mirror at Heru’s mansion on Bainbridge, the silver compact in my pocket, and the pendant dangling from a chain around my neck. The trifecta created a network of sorts, which was pretty damn convenient; he could play the messenger between the rest of Clan Her
u on Bainbridge and me, the off-the-radar fugitive on a mission. A rebel with a cause.

  “I’m surprised any Nejerets can stand living here,” I said as quietly as I could, skirting eye contact with a greasy-haired woman peddling backpacks and other kinds of bags boasting custom modifications.

  My kind, immortal beings—immortal-ish—originally heralding from the Sahara Desert before ancient Egypt had become a thing, is gifted with more than just the amazing regenerative abilities that make our lives potentially endless. Our senses—sight, smell, and hearing, mostly—are heightened beyond those of humans, something that can be both a benefit and a curse. Right now, surrounded by thousands of bodies in various stages of unwashedness, my hypersensitive nose was definitely a curse.

  “Breathe through your mouth,” Dom suggested.

  I could only imagine the look of horror that warped my features. “And eat this stench?” I snorted derisively. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Perhaps you should be on your way, then,” Dom said. “Make this visit as quick as possible. There are many other Nejerets on Heru’s list . . .”

  I nodded, though he couldn’t see the movement, and scanned the area around me. The Tent District occupied what used to be the King County International Airport—Boeing Field, to the locals—back before gravloops, a high-speed transportation system utilizing air pressure and gravity, stole the market in long-distance travel. The now-defunct airport was surrounded by a chain-link fence on three sides and the narrow Duwamish Waterway on the east side, creating a long, autonomous pseudo-nation. The Tent District occupied a three-square-mile space in southern Seattle, just south of the once industrial-hip, now run-down and abandoned Georgetown neighborhood.

  Within the chain-link walls, this kingdom of paupers was broken into four quadrants by two permanent pedestrian thoroughfares that crossed in the relative middle, one connecting the north and south gates, the other leading from the eastern gate to the “docks” spanning the entire western edge of the district. These avenues were for foot and bicycle traffic only, as automobiles weren’t allowed within the district’s fences. Guns, either. The lack of cars made it so walking through the gates was like taking a step back in time.

  The acre or two nearest the northern gate functioned as something of a street fair, where it seemed that the residents of the Tent District could barter for food and goods. A myriad of jerry-rigged and dilapidated tents covered the peddler’s stalls, brightly colored paper lanterns dangled from crisscrossing strings overhead, jazzing up the place, and people crowded three or four deep at each stall, speaking loudly and gesticulating with gusto. According to the satellite maps I’d viewed online, there was a larger marketplace at the center of the district, where a cluster of old airplane hangars looked to have been converted into something of a town square. At least, that’s what it had looked like on the computer screen at the public library this morning. I’d never actually stepped foot within these fences before. And no, not just because of the smell.

  The Tent District isn’t just a gathering place for Seattle’s ever-increasing homeless population; it’s a safe haven for wayward Nejerets, both the clanless and the dissatisfied dissenters. Not all of my kind approved of the Senate and its Nejeret-supremacist view of the world, and the bravest—or dumbest, depending on how you looked at it—went so far as to refuse paying their mandatory taxes to the Nejeret governing body. For the past decade or so, Heru has allowed such Nejerets to remain in his territory unharmed and unharassed, so long as they stay within this district’s fences. The second they leave the Tent District, they break the pact with Heru and become lawbreakers, punishable however he sees fit. It may sound harsh, but it’s a whole lot kinder than the reception these rage-against Nejerets—fist pump—would receive in any other Senator’s territory, let alone the punishment they would face for skirting their tax obligations.

  Technically, Nejeret society is a republic, ruled by the Senate, a body of one hundred and one representatives elected by the rest of us. But each Senate seat comes with a geographical territory, and each Senator rules as a relative monarch over their land. Heru’s territory spans the Pacific Coast, stretching from Alaska all the way down to San Francisco. His is one of the largest and richest territories, but then he’s one of the most ancient and powerful Nejerets alive. He’s also technically the ruler of all of us right now, having declared martial law less than a week ago and stepped into the role of Governor General.

  Thanks to him, we were at war. With the Senate. With ourselves. Ominous as it sounded, I was convinced it was a good thing. The Senate has a darker, shadowy side that’s all kinds of evil. Even if I hadn’t sworn an oath to Heru years ago, I’d have thrown my lot in with him in this fight. This war wasn’t about politics or power; it was about right and wrong. Plain and simple.

  Heru’s war was the reason I was in the stinking Tent District in the first place. As the striker of the match that sparked this whole revolution, I’d essentially volunteered to be the Senate’s public enemy number one. They wanted to get their hands on me, to make an example of me, desperately. It would go a long way toward proving their strength. Knowing this, Heru tasked me with a dual-purpose mission—he wanted me to go underground, so to speak, traveling around and recruiting support for his side, while at the same time distracting the opposition by rousing dissention within their ranks. It was a pretty damn important job. It also left me feeling an awful lot like bait. Uncomfortably so. In fact, it sort of chafed, how bait-like I felt.

  But I understood Heru’s reasoning. I was a diversion. So long as it was known that I was out and about, wandering free and sowing discord, those who remained loyal to the Senate—or what was left of the Senate now that some had defected to Heru’s side—would be distracted. They’d be fighting a war on two fronts, splitting their energy and resources between battling Heru and his supporters and hunting me, not to mention dealing with whatever chaos I stirred up. And trust me, I give good chaos.

  My visit to the Tent District fit into facet numero uno of my mission: to rally support for Heru. Thousands of people lived here in the Tent District, hundreds of which were Nejerets thanks to Heru’s standing offer of a conditional carte blanche. In a species that counted its population at just over eleven thousand, several hundred swinging this way or that could make a noticeable difference.

  The district’s leader, a Nejeret by the name of Dorman, was an old friend of Heru’s. Or, at least, an old former friend of Heru’s. According to Dom, the two had a falling out around the last turn of the century, nearly a hundred and forty years ago, which, I supposed, was why I was approaching Dorman instead of Heru doing it himself.

  I pulled up my sweatshirt’s hood and stuffed my hands into the pockets of my leather coat, then started down the walkway. I headed south toward the center of the district, where my sources told me Dorman had set up office. It was a little over a mile from the northern gate.

  “Should’ve taken the eastern gate,” I commented, moving my lips as little as possible so as not to draw attention to myself. At least this was a place where being a wacky chick who talks to herself might not draw too much insta-judgment.

  “But this way you have plenty of time to make yourself seen,” Dom said. We’d gone back and forth between using the northern and eastern gates—the eastern gate being a good bit closer to the district’s core. “I think you are discounting how beneficial it could prove to our cause for word of your arrival to spread among the Nejerets here. You may even draw a crowd . . .”

  I agreed with him, but being the only one of us with a physical body to worry about, I was a little concerned about being jumped by covert Senate supporters or hired lackeys. It didn’t seem likely that they’d been lurking around in here, and if they were, they’d be unarmed, thanks to the pretty hefty anti-weapons security check at the gate, but there was no way to know for sure. Unless they jumped me. Then I’d be pretty sure.

  I peered first to one side, then the other as I made my way farther into t
he district, weaving around and between people. Most wore several layers despite the current lack of rain. The chill in the air justified it, and the overcast sky teased us all about raining down its droplets of love at any moment. It was February and this was Seattle, after all.

  My fingers itched for my absent sword, Mercy, but I was trying to lay low. At least, when I wasn’t trying to draw a crowd. And laying low with a katana strapped to your back is harder than it sounds. Or maybe it’s exactly as hard as it sounds. In any case, I missed Mercy. Desperately.

  At present, my possessions were minimal. I’d been living out of a backpack for the past four days—a good old vintage forest-green JanSport—ducking out in bars until they closed and kicked me out, then breaking into basements to crash for the night. This is my city, and I know how to live on the lam here. Once my mission takes me out to other cities—to other territories—it’ll be a whole new ball game.

  Honestly, right now I probably looked and smelled like I fit right in here. Sponge baths in bars just aren’t the same as a good, long, hot shower.

  As I made my way deeper into the Tent District, a hand-painted sign caught my eye. “Hey, they have rent-a-showers here!” I said, my voice hushed but excited.

  “I hardly think a space so densely packed with Nejerets with questionable intentions is the wisest place to make yourself vulnerable by disrobing.”

  I frowned, excitement deflating. “Yeah . . . you’re probably right.”

  “You could always rent a motel room.”

  “Maybe,” I said. We’d had this chat a dozen times before, but the idea of a skeezy motel clerk knowing I was there made me uneasy. I wasn’t willing to let my guard down anywhere I might be vulnerable. “Or we could head to a gym after this. They have shower stalls.”

  “Truly, little sister, is personal hygiene really our biggest concern at present?”