Winter Halo

by Keri Arthur

  And while it would undoubtedly have been easier to simply find another public convenience in which to shift, I couldn’t risk using them too often. Cameras still monitored the entrances to most of them, thanks to the attacks that used to happen in the early, somewhat turbulent years after the war. Going in as someone who didn’t come out would attract attention; if it happened too often, it might also attract the attention of the very people I was trying to avoid.

  I repacked my bag, then headed for the drawbridge. By the time I reached the bunker, my head was pounding and the shield was beginning to pulse, a sure sign that I was close to losing it.

  Thankfully, the museum’s doors were already open. I all but dove through them, falling to my knees as the shield disintegrated around me.

  “For God’s sake,” Nuri said. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded slowly, and even that was hard.

  “Well, you look like fucking shit,” Nuri said. “Jonas, rustle up that remaining steak and pile it high with eggs and potatoes. This girl needs some starch and protein in her.”

  “Must have been one hell of a night,” was Jonas’s only comment.

  “It’s more the fact that I’ve gone almost thirty-six hours without much sleep; the final straw was holding the light shield in place while I shifted shape.”

  Nuri clucked. “No wonder.” I didn’t hear any footsteps, but suddenly she was beside me. “Up you get, my girl.”

  She grabbed my arm and gently hauled me upright, then helped me over to the table. Once I’d sat, her grip slipped to my hand; electricity immediately bit into my skin and dove deep into my body. Recharging me with her own strength.

  “Don’t.” I uselessly tried to pull my hand from hers. “You’ll need all the strength you can get if we’re to pull this rescue off.”

  “I don’t need my strength, because I’m not the one going in,” Nuri replied evenly. “You and Jonas are.”

  “But Jonas can’t—”

  “Jonas can, with the aid of a little witchery,” Nuri cut in. “You can’t drive the truck and rescue those kids. It’s a two-person job.”

  “So you’ve figured out a way to get us in?”

  She nodded. “Took a bit of a risk and put the relatives to work again. There’s a truck delivering supplies to the fifteenth floor. You two are now the drivers.”

  I frowned. “That won’t help us any. If this place follows general protocols, it will be programmed only to that floor.”

  “Which is why we’ll be replacing its current sensor with the one your ghosts stole.”

  “I’m not sure I can rewire—”

  “You won’t have to.” Jonas returned with a large plate of food and a cup of hot green muck that was actually an herbal drink favored by shifters for its energy-boosting properties. I’d had it on occasion during the war, and was not a fan. “I’ll switch the two sensors while you drive us in.”

  “Which doesn’t answer the question as to how you plan to get to the children when they’re on the twenty-ninth and we’ll be on the thirtieth.”

  “Thanks to the information you sent, we have acquired the cooperation of one Nevel Williams,” Nuri said. “He’s a divisional head and is willing to help on the proviso we immediately relocate him and his family—which we already have done.”

  Making me wonder if they’d snatched his family before or after he’d agreed to help. I snagged some cutlery from the center container and began to tuck in. “So, where and when do we pick up this truck?”

  “It’s coming in from Harston.”

  Which was, as far as I knew, a mining town. I frowned. “Why would a pharmaceutical company be bringing in minerals?”

  Nuri shrugged. “Industrial minerals have long been used in both pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.”

  “Not that what they’re carrying really matters.” Jonas handed Nuri a mug of coffee, then pulled out the chair beside mine and sat down. I might be weary and totally loved out, but his wild, stormy scent still stirred something deep inside me. “It’s just the excuse to get in there.”

  “So, when are we intercepting this truck?” I asked.

  Nuri smiled. “The trucks from Harston regularly stop at the refuel center past the greenbelt farmlands to grab lunch. The exchange will happen then.”

  “And the guards?”

  “Will know very little about it.”

  Meaning they’d be dead? Or simply drugged? And did it really matter if it meant rescuing those children? No, my inner voice whispered, definitely not.

  I picked up the mug of grassy liquid and drank some of it. A shudder went through me. The taste had not improved a century down the track. “So, who is staying here while Jonas and I are out?” My gaze returned to Nuri. “You?”

  She nodded. “I’m well able to deal with anyone who gets too curious.”

  Of that I had no doubt. “If we do manage to grab the children, where are we taking them? The note you sent with the ghosts implied it wasn’t Central.”

  “No.” Nuri paused and glanced at Jonas, her expression concerned. “There have been problems with all of them.”

  “Penny included?”

  She nodded. “It would appear that whatever they have done to her has disrupted both her physiology and psychology. She is not the child she was.”

  “But still my niece, regardless of whatever else is going on.” Jonas’s voice held a note that suggested this was an argument they’d had before.

  “I did tell you there was a darkness in her,” I cut in, before that argument got rolling again.

  “This is more than the taint of a rift,” Nuri said. “The only thing she can keep down is raw meat. She drinks little, not even water, and her canines show signs of lengthening.”

  Becoming a vampire, one that had been neither bitten nor born. “Has she shown any signs of being affected by lights?”

  “None at all.”

  No wonder Sal’s partners were desperate to get her back—if they’d created a pathogen capable of altering someone’s base biology to make them a vampire, they surely couldn’t be too far off being able to reverse that process, and make a vampire human. Or, at the very least, someone immune to sunlight.

  But if that were the case, why were they still testing on the remaining children? Had Penny escaped before they’d been able to test the success of the latest batch of whatever they’d given her, and they were therefore unaware of how close they were?

  I scooped up some food, then said, “I gather you’ve had her tested?”

  Nuri nodded. “There is now vampire sequencing within her DNA as well as something else we can’t identity.”

  “I’d bet wraith.” I glanced at Jonas. “What are you going to do?”

  “Everything we can.” It was grimly said. “She is family. I will not allow her to be placed in a medical facility to be poked and prodded like some new life-form.”

  “Jonas, she is not safe in Chaos.” And Chaos wasn’t safe from her. Nuri didn’t add that, but it nevertheless hung in the air.

  “Then we send her somewhere else. But not a medical or military center.”

  “We cannot take her to the Broken Mountains. Her presence would jeopardize your kin there just as much as it does Chaos.”

  “I know, but there must be other options.” His expression was glacial. “Options that do not involve locking her away from all that she knows and loves. Our presence is all that’s holding her together. Take that away, and Rhea only knows what might happen.”

  Nuri sighed and leaned back. “I’m still looking for options, Jonas, but there are difficulties—”

  “Guys,” I cut in gently. “This needs to be a conversation for another day, when there’s more time.”

  “That,” Nuri murmured, “is something I doubt any of us have enough of.”

  Unease slithered through me, but be
fore I could say anything, Jonas said, “I’ve placed security on high alert. No one is getting in or out of Chaos without us knowing about it.”

  “Knowing about it may not fucking help,” Nuri bit back, then sighed again and leaned forward. Her gaze was on me rather than him. “If you succeed in getting these children out of Winter Halo, you are to head back to the truck stop. Our people will meet you there and transfer them to a waiting vehicle.”

  “Where are they taking them?”

  “A military research center.” Her voice was flat, but the glance she threw at Jonas simmered with annoyance. “Until we know precisely what has been done to them, it’s our only option.”

  “What about the other five we rescued? Cat and Bear implied there were problems with them, too.”

  She nodded. “There are severe behavioral problems with all of them, which is unsurprising, given what they’ve gone through. I cannot sense darkness in them, but they have been injected with God knows what, and we have no idea yet what the result might be.”

  “Sal said they were rejected because they’d outlived their usefulness—”

  “For what his aims were, yes,” Nuri cut in. “But that does not mean we can simply release them. Both they and their families—if they have kin alive, and some don’t—have also been transferred to a military center.”

  To keep Central safe more than monitor them, I suspected. It was a step that was totally logical, and one I was surprised Jonas was fighting. “How are we going to get to the refuel center?”

  “Via the rail pods, of course.” Nuri handed me an image screen. On it was a somewhat blurred picture of a brown-haired, muscular-looking woman. “That’s who you’re replacing, Tiger. You’d better take her form before you leave here.”

  I frowned. “Won’t that raise alarms, given we’re supposed to be driving a truck into Central rather than catching a train out of it?”

  “Only if someone is paying attention, and really, why would they be?” She handed me a pair of coveralls and made a hurry-up motion with her hand. “And don’t give me that shy crap you gave to Jonas. We’ve both seen far worse than a déchet shifting.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, then shut it again at her steely look. I pulled the coveralls on over my clothes and then studied the image on the screen for a minute to fix it in my mind. Altering my body was a far quicker process this time—I guessed like any skill, it got easier with time and use, and I’d certainly done enough of it of late. But even so, my head swam and weakness stirred. I grabbed the green swill and quickly downed it. It might taste like a swamp, but I needed the boost.

  “Your turn, Jonas.” Nuri handed him what looked like a random selection of strings platted together to form a bracelet and a small silver disk.

  He immediately pocketed the disk, then slipped the bracelet over his wrist. Power surged, its caress sharp, biting; it shimmered up his arm and across his body, transferring his form to that of a blond-haired, craggy-faced, weedy-looking man in his mid-fifties.

  “Now, that’s an attractive image,” I said, voice dry.

  He raised an eyebrow, creating a myriad of wrinkles across his forehead. “So I shoulded wear it more often?”

  “Yes, because it would definitely solve all sorts of dilemmas.” I reached out to test the strength of the transformation. The invisible net of power that surrounded him wavered and then retreated from my touch, and what met my fingertips were steely arm muscles rather than weedy ones. This was more a glamour than an actual transformation: one that could fool from either a distance or close up, but didn’t stand up to physical human contact. I glanced at Nuri. “Will the image hold when he’s in contact with inanimate objects? When we’re seated in the truck, for instance?”

  She nodded. “It’s fed by the power of the earth, so it won’t falter unless contact with the ground is lost for more than half an hour.”

  I frowned. “We’ll be in the truck longer than that.”

  “And the truck tires provide enough of a connection to feed the spell. The freight elevator, however, does not have a direct link to the ground, so you cannot linger in Winter Halo.”

  If everything went according to plan, we wouldn’t. And if everything didn’t? I shoved the thought from my mind and hastily finished the rest of my meal.

  “We’d better get moving.” Jonas rose.

  “If there’s too many people on the platforms,” Nuri said, “head into the park before you release the concealer shield.”

  “I will.” He glanced at me. “You’d better disappear, too.”

  As he spoke, he pressed the disk Nuri had given him. An almost static buzz caressed the air, and a heartbeat later he’d disappeared from sight. It seemed Nuri had more than magical tricks up her sleeve.

  I pulled in the energy of the lights around me and headed for the door. Jonas gave Nuri a hand to close it—something I knew only by the location of his scent—then followed me across to the rail yards and into the fringes of the park opposite.

  Once both shields had been dispensed with, we made our way onto the platform and joined the many others already waiting there. A string of pods soon slid silently into the station. The doors opened and its passengers exited—a mix of farm and factory workers, from the look of them. Jonas pressed his fingers against my spine and lightly guided me toward a pod near the front of the string.

  I stepped inside and glanced around. There were only half a dozen people in this one, and all of them were clustered near the door. I walked past them and claimed the seats at the very front of the pod.

  Jonas sat next to me, keeping just enough distance between us to ensure the shield remained unaffected. Unfortunately, that also meant his scent was entirely too close. I suspected it was a very deliberate ploy on his part. He might be trying to figure me out in order to understand why he was so attracted, but that didn’t negate the fact that he was. By his own admission, he was used to getting what he wanted—a fact borne out by Penny’s continuing presence in Chaos, despite Nuri’s misgivings. And while he did appear willing to wait until I decided whether I wanted to explore the attraction between us, he obviously wasn’t above putting a little sensory pressure on.

  A bell chimed and then the pod door closed. Within seconds we were leaving the station, and the countryside began to blur as the train picked up speed. After a moment, I asked, “Why don’t you want”—I hesitated, suddenly aware of the silence and the fact that the others could possibly hear us—“your niece moving? We both know it’s for the best.”

  “Because I promised her mother I’d look after her.” His voice was flat, growly. It wasn’t his voice, but it wasn’t far from it, either. “I can’t do that if she’s not near me.”

  “So why does she live in Central and you elsewhere?”

  “Practicalities. But one of us is always near enough to help if there’s trouble.”

  Meaning Nuri as much as him. The telepathic connection that had come from the rift they’d all been caught in undoubtedly helped them counter—or at least deal with—said trouble.

  And I couldn’t help wondering whether the “practicalities” he mentioned were simply the fact that she didn’t age thanks to the rift, or something else. Because in reality, Penny was almost as old as me, and having the mind and probably the desires of an older woman while being stuck in the body of a child had to be hell. “And your sister?”

  “Died not long after Penny’s birth.”

  Meaning she’d died in the war. I looked out the window. There were so many reasons why he and I were a bad idea. So damn many.

  Silence fell. There was little point in saying any more; if Nuri couldn’t convince him it was dangerous to leave Penny in Chaos, there was little chance I could. But I had to wonder if he was prepared for the consequences, because the second Sal’s partners realized she was in Chaos, the vampires would attack en masse. And that might very well end in a b
loodbath.

  It took just under an hour to get to the greenbelt rail station. We stepped out of the pod once the string had come to a halt, and followed the crowd to the exit. But instead of heading across to the processing station to register for work like the rest of them, we waited until the train had left, then walked across the track and followed the road down to the refuel station.

  Without a word, Jonas led the way to the café adjoining the refuel center. Once inside, he walked through the many occupied tables until we reached one near the back of the room, where a man with dark hair and green eyes almost identical to Jonas’s waited. In front of him were three steaming mugs of coffee.

  “Didn’t know what you wanted,” he said, briefly glancing my way. “So I ordered black with milk on the side.”

  I smiled. “Perfect. Thanks.”

  He nodded, but his attention had already returned to Jonas. “There’s a backpack under the table. In it is everything you need.”

  “And the drivers?”

  “Will be found with the truck in a few days’ time.” He glanced at me. “Drugged but alive.”

  I raised an eyebrow and wondered if he’d read my thoughts. Telepathy wasn’t a common talent found among shifters, but it did exist.

  “Thanks,” Jonas said. “Say hello to your mom for me.”

  A smile broke the seriousness of the stranger’s face. “Like that won’t cause more problems than it’s worth.”

  “I know.” Jonas’s expression was amused.

  The stranger’s grin grew, but he didn’t reply. He simply picked up his coffee, gave me a nod, and walked out.

  I picked up my cup and took a drink. “Am I allowed to ask who that was?”

  “One of my six grandchildren.” He kept his voice low. Though there was a lot of noise in this place, he obviously wasn’t about to chance anyone overhearing him. “His mother—Demi—does not approve of his decision to follow my steps into the business.”