Winter Halo

by Keri Arthur

  “There was definitely a rift here,” Jonas said. “Its energy still lingers.”

  I raised an eyebrow as I glanced at him. “Meaning you didn’t actually believe me?”

  His gaze met mine, his expression flat. “Oh, I believed you. I was just hoping you were wrong—that the wraiths couldn’t produce rifts at will. Wait here while I go down and check.”

  “Be careful. They might have left a surprise or two behind.”

  “I’m well aware of that.”

  He started down the steep slope. The ghosts hesitated, then followed him, their bodies becoming ethereal wisps of fog as they moved into the deeper darkness. That they still accompanied him wasn’t really surprising, as they were—for whatever reason—bound to the loneliness of their graveyard and its surrounds . . . The thought trailed to a halt and I frowned. Why were they suddenly visible? The only time I’d seen them previously was when I was in vampire form.

  “Jonas, stop.”

  He immediately did so. “Why?”

  “I can see the ghosts.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “And what is so new about that?”

  “They’re human ghosts, like those in Carleen. I should only be able to see them in vampire form or with Cat’s help.”

  “Ah.” He drew his gun and slipped the safety off. I wasn’t sure how a weapon would protect him against whatever magic might wait below, but maybe he also felt safer with its weight in his hand. “Interesting that I didn’t sense anything.”

  “It’s possible that whatever magic it is is aimed at me more than you.” After all, he couldn’t see the darkness that covered the false rifts in Carleen, nor was he affected by it, despite the fact that he was sensitive to magic. That darkness certainly seemed to be designed to prevent someone who had a good percentage of vampire blood in their veins—or maybe even the vampires themselves—from easily entering the false rifts. But if it were the same magic, why would it cause the ghosts to suddenly gain substance? As far as I knew, the magic that protected Carleen’s false rifts had no effect on the ghosts there—although given that they tended to avoid them, maybe they’d discovered the hard way that it did.

  Jonas continued on. The ghosts followed him, but their forms had begun to fade again. Whatever had caused them to briefly appear was obviously situated around the midpoint of the crater.

  I started down, carefully picking my way through the debris and loose stones. It was very slow progress, and that was probably the only reason I even felt the magic. It was a subtle caress of foul energy that didn’t feel as if it belonged to this world, and one that barely raised the hairs on my arms, let alone any internal warnings. I stopped and reached out with one hand. A jagged whip of light appeared from nowhere and lashed toward me. I yelped and jumped back, losing my footing in the process and ending up on my rump. Pain slithered through me and blood began to trickle down my spine again. I ignored it, jerking my feet closer to my body as the whip reached full length and snapped angrily back and forth inches from my toes—a black snake that intended Rhea only knows what.

  “What happened?” Jonas’s gaze was on our surrounds rather than me. Maybe he expected the magical attack to be followed by a real one.

  Which was certainly possible, though it was more likely that the wraith hadn’t risked hanging around any longer than it took to set up this barrier.

  “The magic you can’t see attacked me.” I inched up the hill a little more, even though the whip of energy was beginning to fade.

  “They obviously know you survived the wraiths; why else would they protect this crater with magic?”

  “Either they’re just being cautious or there is something down there worth protecting.”

  “Given the run of luck we’ve had of late, I wouldn’t be pinning many hopes on the latter.”

  I wasn’t, even though he was wrong about our run of luck. We’d saved five children despite the trap designed to kill, and that was a miracle in itself. But I’d also rescued him from the old military bunker that lay deep in the Broken Mountains, one that had been filled to the brim with vampires. If Rhea wasn’t looking out for us, we’d both be as dead as the ghosts who currently surrounded him.

  But how much longer would that luck hold? That was a question I really didn’t want to think about—especially not after the closeness of death tonight.

  I shifted position slightly but didn’t climb to my feet. The warmth flowing down my back suggested I’d opened the wounds again; the less I moved right now, the better.

  Jonas reached the base of the crater and carefully picked his way through the larger bits of debris that lined this side of it.

  “The rift was located on the western edge,” I commented.

  He walked over and squatted down. “There’s been some attempt to hide the footprints.”

  “Obviously not a good attempt.”

  “No.” His gaze moved to the crater’s rim. “Only one of them walked out of here. He left by the western edge.”

  “That would have to be the person I was tracking.”

  “Yes. It’s certainly not the tracks belonging to a wraith.” He rose. “We should follow him.”

  “You can.” I couldn’t keep the edge of weariness from my voice. “The only thing I’ll be doing for the rest of the night is heading back to the bunker.”

  His gaze met mine again, his expression unreadable. “Do you need help?”

  “No. Not now, not later. But I’m guessing the latter is not an option.”

  “No, but you could get lucky. The footprints could lead to another trap—this time a successful one.”

  Annoyance surged and I thrust upright. Something tore across my back and that trickle got stronger. Fair payment for reacting to this man’s barbs, I guess. “Do you really think that if I wished you dead, you wouldn’t be so by now?”

  “It wasn’t meant—”

  “I don’t care how it was meant, Jonas. I’m sick of the mistrust. I’ve done nothing to deserve it, nothing other than being a product of a war long gone. Either treat me as you find me or live in the past with your rumors and your hatred and leave me be.”

  And with that, I walked away. He didn’t follow me, but he did watch me. His gaze was a heat that pressed against my spine long after I’d left the crater behind.

  I really wished I’d walked away at the beginning of all this. Neither he nor the vampires nor the damn fools trying to create sunlight immunity for vamps and wraiths would have been a problem if I just hadn’t rescued Penny and Jonas from the vamps. Our bunker—and all the ghosts who lived within it, be they young or old—would be safe.

  And the children you’d rescued would now be dead.

  I thrust a hand through my crusted hair and wished I could ignore that annoying inner voice. But all too often, she was right. I might not be able to love, but Rhea only knew I could do guilt with the best of them. Even after one hundred and three years, my inability to save my little ones was still driving my actions.

  I guess I just had to hope it didn’t get me killed. Not before I’d rescued the rest of the missing children, anyway.

  I slowly walked back through the old graveyard but skirted Carleen itself. The ruined city was an unpleasant place to be at the best of times, and it wasn’t just because of the rifts that endlessly roamed the confines of its walls. These days, there was an almost otherworldly feel to the place, which was due in no small part to both the deadly alien moss that now covered much of its ruins and the unnatural darkness that covered the false rifts.

  The park that separated Carleen from Central City was still. Nothing moved, not even the leaves on the old trees, despite the wind that gently teased the nape of my neck. Once upon a time this place would have been alive with nighttime creatures, but even birds were a rare find these days. Though cities like Central had been rebuilt with all major services running aboveground to
ensure that the vampires had no means of protected access into them, there were still plenty of old service pipes and sewers outside these centers that had never been filled in. This park was near one such outlet, and in the years since the war the vampires had wiped out most of the wildlife in this area. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to be out tonight. Given the state I was in, I would have been easy meat for them.

  Dawn was beginning to caress the night sky with fingers of pink and gold by the time I finally reached the end of the park. I paused in its shadows, sweeping my gaze over the rail yards that still separated me from my bunker’s southern exit. The glowing, caterpillar-like pods that transported Central’s many workers to the various production zones that provided the city with the necessities of life were still and quiet, and the city’s drawbridge remained closed. It wouldn’t open until dawn had well and truly chased the night from the sky.

  I slowly headed down into the yards. The vast curtain wall that ran in a D shape around Central towered above me, its rusting silvery surface glinting softly in the wash of the UV lights that topped both the wall and every roof of every building within Central, providing its inhabitants with endless daylight. It was not a place I could have lived comfortably for any length of time. But then, there was vampire in my DNA. I might not crave blood, but I had no fear of darkness.

  Only the creatures that ran within it.

  I made my way through the platforms and across City Road—the only vehicular access in and out of Central—then headed for the muddy trickle of water that was still known as the Barra River. Like many things in this world of ours, its course and its appearance had been forever altered when the bombs had been unleashed.

  As the curtain wall curved away from the road and the river, a ramshackle collection of buildings appeared. Chaos, as it had long been known, was an interconnected mess of metal storage units, old wood, and plastic that clung to the wall’s side. It was a place where the broken and the outcast lived, and both gangs and money ruled it—and the higher you lived, the more power, wealth, and protection you had. That particular aspect was replicated in Central, except that it was the city’s heart—and the safety that came with being as far away from the walls as was possible—that drew the wealthy and the powerful.

  Nuri and her people lived in the midsection of Chaos, in a place called Run Turk Alley, which was basically mercenary central. I’d been there a couple of times now, but had no desire to return. I might not fear darkness, but I had no love of places that made me feel confined and unable to breathe—which was undoubtedly a result of being tossed into a cesspit and left to die during the war.

  The thick steel grate that covered the bunker’s southern exit came into sight and appeared to be untouched—which was something of a relief given the number of times I’d come back here recently to find it under attack. There was a second entrance, but it was located in the museum that had been created out of the area that had once contained the day-to-day operational center of the Humanoid Development Project, and that made it trickier to use on a daily basis. I might have reprogrammed their computers and security systems to ignore my presence, but that didn’t mean I dared push my luck too often.

  This tunnel, like the tight, circular stairwell that led into the museum, had been designed as an emergency escape route for the humans in charge of the various HDP sections. Neither had been mentioned on any of the base plans that I’d uncovered, which was probably why the shifters, after the mass destruction of all those within the bunker, had only flooded the first three levels with concrete. Doing that had taken out all known exits as well as the lift shafts and loading bays, leaving the remaining levels and the bodies of all those who had died in this place locked in endless darkness.

  Or so they’d thought.

  It had been through sheer luck more than actual intent that I’d found the museum tunnel, and it had been several years after that before I found this one, but the two of them gave me much-needed access points to the outside world. It might be a world I ventured into only once or twice a month—mostly for food or equipment supplies, but occasionally for company that was real rather than ghostly—but that didn’t assuage the desire to know what was going on above me on a regular basis.

  I deactivated the electro-nets protecting the tunnel as I approached each one, then reset them once I’d passed. Up ahead, lights came on, the brightness making my eyes water. Then the ghosts surged around me, their energy tingling across my skin as they all endeavored to fill me in on what they’d been doing since I left. Given that there’d been one hundred and five of them who’d found death in the nurseries of this place, that was a whole lot of mental noise.

  “Guys, calm down. I can’t understand a word you’re saying when you all talk at once.”

  Their amusement filled the air as little Cat’s energy spun around me to create a light connection. Both she and Bear were the oldest of the little ones, and had always considered me something of a big sister, even though we déchet shouldn’t have even understood the concept. Our initial closeness had come from the amount of time I’d spent in the nursery unit in the years leading up to the war. Even during the war, those lures not out on assignment or in a recovery period were put to use in the nurseries, not only to teach the next generation of fighters, but also to protect them. While déchet soldiers had, for the most part, been neutered emotionally in the test tube, there had been a few instances early on when the constant and grueling programming and training had somehow caused a short-out that had resulted in a killing spree. Not against our creators, because they’d made damn sure none of us were capable of harming humans, and not even against other déchet soldiers like themselves. They’d attacked the children. It was after that the lures had been assigned protection detail. While we’d never been designed as soldiers, we had been taught to fight and defend.

  But the connection between the three of us had deepened when the shifters flooded this place with Draccid—a particularly nasty gas that destroyed the body from the inside out. Not only had both Cat and Bear died in my arms, but some of our DNA had mingled on that dreadful day.

  The image of three black-clad figures flashed into my mind—two were men, one a woman—and with it came a wash of trepidation. Neither Cat nor the other little ones liked the feel of those strangers.

  “Where are they?” I hesitated and looked around as I realized one of them was missing. “And where’s Bear?”

  More images flowed into my mind. Bear was upstairs, in the museum, watching the three strangers. They were pointing some sort of handheld device at each portion of the museum’s inner wall before moving on to the next section.

  It was an image that had all sorts of inner alarms going off. “Did you happen to get close to the scanner, Cat?”

  Her energy danced around me excitedly and I couldn’t help smiling—she loved anticipating my questions. But my smile faded rapidly when the next image flashed into my mind.

  The device was a radar scanner. One designed to uncover people or objects hidden behind the thick walls of concrete.

  And that could mean these three strangers were trying to find the entrance into the bunker.

  I swore and ran, my footsteps echoing sharply in the vast emptiness of this place. Most of the ghosts danced along to the sound, thankfully unaware of the danger these people represented to our home and our solitude, but Cat pressed close, her energy caressing my shoulder and filled with concern. Not just because of the strangers, but because she knew—thanks to our deeper connection—just how fine a line I was walking right now when it came to my strength.

  How in Rhea I was going to cope with the three intruders once I got to the museum, I had no idea. But at least I was armed and, from Cat’s images, the three strangers weren’t. That gave me an advantage—as did the presence of the ghosts. While they might be energy rather than flesh, they could both interact with and manipulate the world around them if they so desired. Eve
n though they were little, and therefore restricted in the amount of energy they could expend before it affected them physically, they could certainly toss a human or two about.

  It took me ten minutes to reach the fourth level and tunnel D—the first accessible tunnel free from the concrete.

  The ghosts followed me into the stairwell, their tiny forms gaining wispy substance in the condensation-laden atmosphere. Most scooted ahead, their whisperings filled with excitement. Only Cat remained close.

  I was halfway up the stairwell when there was an odd sort of whoomp. For a heartbeat, nothing happened; then the thick concrete walls around me began to shudder. I paused, my grip on the handrail tightening as the noise grew and grew, until it sounded like a troop tanker was roaring toward me.

  Then an explosion of heat and dust and debris hit, knocking me off my feet and sending me tumbling back down the stairs. I flung out a hand, scrabbling desperately for something—anything—to halt my fall. My fingers wedged into a crack that was spreading like a canker down the inner wall, and my fall was stopped so suddenly that I damn near tore my shoulder out of its socket. The ghosts spun around me, their confusion and fear filling my mind. I took a deep breath and tried to reassure them that I was okay, that everything was fine, even if it wasn’t.

  Another explosion ripped the air apart. Huge chunks of metal and concrete began to rain all around me as dust and debris gave the ghosts form.

  I swung around, felt for the nearest step with my feet, then released my hold on the crack and thrust up. Pain hit, and for an instant, everything spun. The ghosts pressed close, keeping me upright. I took a deep breath that ended in a coughing fit thanks to all the dust, then scrambled up the stairs rather than down. Those people had to be stopped, before they destroyed—The thought died as a third explosion rumbled through the air, this one oddly softer—more distant—than the previous two. Then the ceiling above me shattered and everything went dark.