Winter Halo

by Keri Arthur

  Chapter 3

  I woke to ghostly hands anxiously patting my face, but for several seconds I could neither move nor react. The air was thick and still, and there seemed to be some sort of weight on my chest, making breathing difficult. But I was alive, and that was surely yet more evidence that the goddess Rhea really was looking out for me. Given the strength of those explosions, I should have been dead.

  Cat’s energy pressed close. You must get up, she said. It’s too dangerous here.

  I forced my eyes open. Destruction lay all around me. Huge chunks of concrete and twisted bits of metal filled the dark void, and the curved walls that had withstood everything the shifters had thrown at this base during the war were fissured and looked unstable. No wonder Cat wanted me out.

  The section immediately above me had given way, but the twisting nature of the stairs meant I had no idea if the void ran all the way to the museum, or if the explosion had simply reduced the rest of the stairs to rubble. I hoped it was the latter, if only because it would prevent anyone from gaining immediate access.

  Below me there was nothing but more rubble and the occasional step remnant. Whatever the three strangers had used had been very powerful indeed. I wondered how much damage had been done not only to the museum, but also to the old tower that held all the remaining solar panels. They might be an antiquated curiosity to those alive today, but they continued to power not only the systems that had been preserved on the museum floor for demonstration purposes, but most of mine. If they’d been destroyed, I would be left with only the three hydrogen-fueled generators to power the entire base—and those generators were becoming increasingly unreliable.

  The weight on my chest was a concrete boulder large enough to also pin my right arm. I couldn’t feel my fingers, so there was, at the very least, nerve damage. There were smaller bits of concrete covering the rest of my body, and a thin sliver of metal had pierced my left calf. Why I wasn’t a howling mess of pain, I had no idea; maybe it was shock. Or maybe my pain receptors had simply given up.

  “The intruders?” I croaked. “Where are they?”

  This time it was Bear who made the connection. Gone. They left before the two explosions.

  I frowned. Hadn’t there been three?

  Something cracked in the darkness above us, and debris rained down. The little ones spun around me anxiously, echoing Cat’s urgency to move.

  “I need the concrete off my chest first—Bear, could you do it please?”

  His energy surged, and after a moment the boulder floated free. He carried it to the end of my body, then dropped it. It bounced loudly down the remains of the stairs, the sound echoing in the dusty stillness.

  I drew in a deep, shuddery breath and then carefully sat up. Those supposedly dead pain receptors sprang to life and every part of my body felt as if it were on fire. I hissed, blinking away the sweat and blood that began to trickle into my eyes as I battled not to throw up. Or fall back into unconsciousness.

  Cat’s energy touched me again. You need to go to the mediscan beds.

  I did. And fast. But that was the least of my problems right now. “Bear, do you want to go upstairs and check that those people haven’t come back? And can you also check what damage has been done up there?”

  He spun around me excitedly, then zoomed off. I glanced at Cat. “Could you check the rest of the base? See if there’s any damage elsewhere?”

  There had been three explosions—I was certain of it. So if the intruders were responsible for two, where had the third come from? And, more important, what had it been aimed at? I suspected it might have been the south-siding exit, but it didn’t hurt to check the rest of the base, just in case the destruction in the museum had set off a chain reaction elsewhere.

  Cat hesitated. Will you need help?

  I smiled and reached out, lightly catching the energy of her hands in mine. “I’ll be fine. The little ones can help keep me upright if necessary.”

  This statement brought a surge of excitement and a sense of importance from the other little ghosts. They might not ever be as adventurous as either Cat or Bear thanks to their age when they’d died, but they still liked helping when they could. Hell, it was thanks to their assistance that Jonas and I had survived the vampires’ onslaught the night I saved both him and Penny.

  Cat whisked away to check the rest of the base, and the other ghosts pressed closer, the energy of their bodies making my skin tingle. I cradled my arm—an action that had more sweat coursing down my face—then carefully made my way down the stairs. It took an interminably long time, not only because there wasn’t much left of the stairs themselves, but because I simply was running far too close to the edge of endurance. The metal stake spearing my calf wasn’t helping, either, but I didn’t dare remove it until I got to the medical center just in case it had punctured a main artery. I doubted it, but sometimes you couldn’t tell.

  Once we finally got clear of the stairwell and entered the relatively destruction-free zone of tunnel D, our speed increased. Level four had once housed the main medical and training facilities for the bunker’s combatant déchet divisions, and while several of the rooms closest to the main tunnel that led up to level three had been flooded by concrete, the rest of this area had survived intact. The medical equipment—although undoubtedly out-of-date by today’s standards—still worked. Why the shifters hadn’t destroyed the machines along with all the equipment in both the creation labs and the nurseries, I had no idea, but I’d thanked Rhea many a time over the years for that one piece of luck. I might be able to heal myself as well as any shifter, but there were still times when using a machine was infinitely better. Like right now, when my reserves were giving out and I had far too many injuries to heal myself with any sort of speed.

  By the time I reached the medical center, my breath was coming in short, sharp gasps and my vision was blurring. I gritted my teeth and forced myself on. As the door swished open, I flicked the knife still strapped to my left wrist into my hand and carefully cut away my right sleeve. A red mist seemed to form before my eyes and I hissed, holding on to the end of the nearest bed as I gulped down air and battled to remain conscious. As the mist retreated, I hastily slashed off the rest of my clothes. I was carrying so many wounds that it was simply better to be naked. Once I’d activated the light panel and set it to do a full body scan and repair, I climbed into the bed and—after gritting my teeth—pulled the stake out. A scream ripped up my throat as blood spurted, and it was all I could do to remain conscious and lie down. But as foam enveloped my body and began to admit a soft but rapid beeping sound—my heartbeat, amplified by the light panel above me—my strength finally gave out and unconsciousness claimed me.

  * * *

  It was the whispering of the ghosts that finally pulled me back to consciousness. There was a mix of anxiety and excitement in their voices, and while neither was exactly unusual, it was the name they kept mentioning that caught my attention.

  Jonas.

  Apparently, he was a part of the ten-man crew inspecting the damage done to the museum. Four of the other nine were from Central’s military corps—their uniforms said they were from the engineering division—and the rest were museum staff.

  So what the hell was Jonas doing with them? Not only had he denied any connection with the government, but he was also an outcast. As such, he should not have been included in any official investigation.

  Of course, while both he and Nuri had denied government links, they could still have enough pull to have him included. But why would they want it? Nuri was a powerful earth witch—surely she could use a little magic to uncover whether I was alive or not.

  I pushed upright. The medibed’s monitor told me I’d been unconscious for seven hours and forty-eight minutes, and that it was now nearly three in the afternoon. My leg wound obviously hadn’t been as bad as it had looked or felt; otherwise I’d have been out longer. �
��What’s the damage like up in the museum, Bear?”

  Images pressed into my mind. The old tower—and its vital solar panels—still stood, even though chunks had been taken out of the sides that faced into the museum. A huge pile of rubble and two twisted remnants of metal that reminded me of fingers stretching toward the domed ceiling were all that remained of the inner section that had held the museum’s offices, security people, and the hidden tunnel entrance. Several Acro Props were already in place to hold up the rest of the ceiling, although the dome that arched over the building’s remains, shielding it from the elements and further decay, didn’t seem to have sustained any damage. The glass was fissured over the old tower, but it had been for quite a while.

  “And the stairs? Is there anything left of them?”

  The connection between us briefly deepened. Only a remnant of the third and fourth levels remain. The top two have completely caved in.

  I guess the only surprising thing about that was the fact that the force of the explosions hadn’t taken out all four levels. I glanced at Cat, who was waiting patiently next to Bear.

  “Was there damage anywhere else? Is the south-siding exit intact?”

  It wasn’t. The third explosion had, as I feared, taken it out. I scrubbed a hand across my eyes. This was going to make getting in and out of our bunker more difficult.

  Which was undoubtedly the point.

  And while I had expected Sal’s partners to make a more direct attempt to either stop me or at least stop my use of the bunker, I had to wonder how they’d known about the museum entrance. No one knew about that one—not even Nuri or Jonas.

  “Cat, Bear, can you keep an eye on what’s going on in the museum? Let me know if they do anything unusual or if Jonas leaves.”

  They zoomed around me, then raced away, both of them determined to be the first one up there. Their laughter drifted back to me and made me smile. The other little ones followed no less exuberantly. Apparently, the museum goings-on were far more exciting than anything I might be doing. Silence fell, and it was almost unnerving.

  I jumped off the mediscan bed and headed down to the sixth floor. Not only had it been the main training area for prepubescent déchet, but it also held the bunk rooms, storerooms, and generators, as well as a secondary medical center and a gun cache—which was now the only cache, given the one I’d set up in the museum tunnel was undoubtedly gone.

  The sixth floor was also an area that held one of the unalterable security points. A red light flashed as I approached the main door.

  “Name, rank,” a gruff metallic voice said. I’d long ago named him Hank, simply because his tone reminded me of the cranky custodian who’d once run the Base Exchange. He was one of the few human ghosts who still lingered here, although he tended to avoid both me and the children.

  “Tiger C5, déchet, lure rank.”

  I pressed my thumb against the blood-work slot. A small needle shot out and took the required sample. While the system usually took an interminably long time to react, it was faster today, thanks to the fact that I was running all three generators twenty-four/seven so I could bring the south-siding exit into the security net. I could probably stop that now, because if the images Cat had shown me were any indication, no one but shadowed vampires was going to use that entrance anytime soon. Presuming, of course, the destruction wasn’t so complete that even an energy mass wasn’t getting through.

  After the scanner had checked my irises, the door beeped and swung open. I made my way down to the generator room first. The backup generator was once again making an alarming amount of noise. I’d run a maintenance check on it only a couple of days ago, but it obviously needed a full-system check—not something I could risk, as it would take me close to a day to pull the thing apart, and probably that again to fix whatever was wrong, then put it back together—if, of course, I actually had the parts here to fix it with.

  I ordered the computer to do another maintenance run, then coded the south-siding exit out of the system and switched its programming back to running only at night. Thankfully, the other two generators were purring along quite happily, but I included them in the maintenance check anyway. It would take them offline for an hour, but the solar system could cope with running the purifiers and the doors for that short amount of time. And it wasn’t as if I needed the full security system running right now anyway, because no one was getting in or out of this place very easily in the near future. Maybe not even me.

  With that done, I headed for the hydro pods to clean up. Once I’d dressed, I attached my guns, then grabbed some fresh ammunition as well as a flash stick from the store and headed down to the south-siding exit. The destruction became evident long before I got anywhere near the tunnel. The two nearby nursery units were filled with dust and debris, but the lights were at least working in them. The same could not be said of the third nursery that now acted as a forecourt for the south-siding exit. The force of the explosion had caused a huge portion of the ceiling to collapse, and wires and broken lights hung in long and dangerous lengths. Sparks spun where wires touched, vivid but fleeting motes of brightness in the thick darkness.

  I carefully picked my way through the mess and stopped in front of what once had been the tunnel’s entrance. Not only had it collapsed, but given the amount of dirt and stone mixed into the debris, it seemed the hill above us had caved in as well. I pulled the flash stick free and hit the switch. Its bright blue-white light pierced the darkness, but all it revealed was a solid wall of dirt, rock, and shattered concrete. I couldn’t see any way to get through the mess. The small air pockets and spaces that would normally have existed between the debris of concrete and stones—spaces that would have allowed me to slip through in energy form—simply didn’t exist because the soil had filled them.

  Whether the whole tunnel was like that or simply this portion of it was impossible to say, but one thing was obvious—I wasn’t getting out this way anytime soon, and that was going to make things damnably difficult.

  I swore, then turned and headed back. Sparks chased my heels, disappearing only once I’d reached the brightness of the next room. I returned to the generator room and shut down the power to the half-destroyed nursery room, then continued on up to the fourth level. If I couldn’t get out through the south-siding exit, then my only hope was the museum one, destroyed as it was.

  I really didn’t want to think about what I’d do if it were as impassible as the other.

  The little ones spun around me as I neared what remained of the staircase, then ran off laughing again. Apparently, the men had finally left the museum—no surprise, given dusk was coming in and Central’s drawbridge would soon be taken up for the night. Even Jonas had left, though he was walking around the museum, heading toward the south-siding exit rather than to either Central or Chaos. Bear and Cat were trailing after him.

  I called to the darkness within me and, once I’d become energy rather than flesh, surged upward. The destruction became far more evident past the third level. The outer wall had collapsed inward, as had much of the inner wall. But—unlike the south-siding exit—there were plenty of spaces and gaps in between the huge chunks of concrete and steel, which gave me the room to squeeze through. Dusk had seeped into night by the time I reached the thick metal trapdoor that had once separated the staircase from the museum. It had been twisted like tinfoil and was now held in place by a solitary hinge. That it was even here said a lot about the strength of the old cover, given how close to the blast it must have been. I worked my way past both it and the few remaining concrete boulders, and finally entered the museum itself. Once I was absolutely sure no one remained, I regained human form and looked around.

  The destruction was every bit as bad as the images the ghosts had shown me. The air was so thick with dust it felt like I was breathing in grit, and there was a vast mound of concrete, office equipment, and furniture sitting in the center of the museum. Th
e whole area was a sea of wires and cabling that hung from what remained of the walls or snaked across the floor. None of them were sparking, which meant the power was probably off. While most of the bunker’s old systems were powered by the old solar panels, the museum itself and all the newer additions—including lighting and security systems—were connected to Central’s grid. Meaning the laser curtain that usually protected the museum at night would now be inactive.

  I walked across to the museum doors, my footsteps echoing lightly in the thick stillness. The security panel on the right side of the doors was dark, so I wedged my fingertips into the joint between the two heavy metal doors and tried to force them open. They refused to budge, so I called in the little ghosts, and after a moment, we’d opened them enough for me to slip through. I didn’t bother closing it, though—I just headed for the south-siding exit.

  I found Jonas near the remains of the old grate that protected the tunnel’s exit. He rose as I approached, and the relief that crossed his features briefly warmed me, even though it undoubtedly stemmed more from Nuri’s statement that I was the only one who could rescue the missing kids than any true joy at discovering I was still alive.

  I stopped several yards away from the exit’s remains and crossed my arms. Cat’s energy caressed my shoulder, but Bear was off investigating a section of grate that had been blown at least a hundred yards away from its original position. “I thought you didn’t have any government connection.”

  Jonas frowned. “I don’t—”

  “Then why were you in the museum inspecting the damage with the engineers? An ex-ranger now living in Chaos wouldn’t have been my first choice to call to investigate such an event.”

  “And normally, that would be true. But the man in charge just happens to be a friend of mine, and we did have a vested interest in knowing whether you lived or died.” He paused and scanned me. “I can understand why they blew this tunnel, but what were they trying to achieve by blowing up the museum?”