Winter Halo

by Keri Arthur

  But these kids were a product of two people, not of a lab, so how could he be so . . . blasé and uncaring? It was almost as if the part of his brain that controlled such emotions had been castrated, but by self-control and scientific desire rather than by chemicals or design.

  Both children were wearing what looked like hospital gowns, and the bits of their bodies not covered by these garments revealed emaciated frames and scarred limbs. The latter didn’t surprise me, given Sal’s partners obviously used the false rifts to move the kids from one point to another where possible, but the former shocked me. Penny had been thin, but not like this. And it wasn’t starvation, because I’d seen this look before, on the bodies of almost every vampire I’d come across.

  Did that mean these kids were further along the path of becoming vampires than the five we’d already rescued? Was that why their mouths had been sewn shut? To null the risk of the scientists being bitten?

  And, like Penny, neither of them showed any sign of fear. In fact, there was no emotion at all on their faces, and their eyes . . . I might as well have been staring into a vacuum. There was simply nothing there.

  My gaze met Jonas’s through the windshield and caught a brief glimpse of rage before he mastered it. He helped Williams and the two children get into the ATV, then slammed the door shut and climbed into the front passenger seat.

  “Right,” he said, voice tight. “Get back to the old highway and head toward the Broken Mountains.”

  “What the fuck is up there?” Williams said.

  Jonas’s hands clenched so tightly his knuckles went white, but his voice remained even. “Nothing, because we’re not actually going up there. We’re meeting a truck halfway; you and the children will be transferred to separate vehicles, and you’ll be taken to your family.”

  “Ah, good.”

  Williams leaned back, obviously mollified by the answer. Which made me wonder just how much he’d actually learned about trusting people during his time in Winter Halo, because the slight but oh-so-cold smile that touched Jonas’s lips suggested that what was going to happen next to the scientist was anything but good.

  We made it back to the old highway without incident and I increased our speed, pushing the ATV to its limits. Williams might be certain we had until three before he was missed, but I still couldn’t escape the feeling that time was running out.

  The countryside grew wilder and the road rougher. The ATV’s treads skimmed across most of the potholes, but one or two of the deeper ones caught an edge and pitched the vehicle sideways.

  “You’d better slow . . .” Jonas hesitated, and frowned.

  “What?” I asked immediately.

  He held up a finger and continued listening. After a second or two, I heard it—a low but continuous buzzing, and one that was approaching at speed.

  Jonas swore and twisted around. “Kids, hunker down in the foot wells. Williams, grab the blanket and throw it over the three of you.”

  The two children didn’t obey; they just stared at Jonas blankly. Then Williams repeated the order, his tone harsh, and the two of them scrambled to obey. That sick feeling inside me intensified. If Jonas didn’t kill this bastard, I would.

  I slowed the ATV’s speed, despite the desire to do the exact opposite, then moved my side mirror so that I could see the skies. A small black dot jumped into the middle of the screen, but it was still too far away to see what it was.

  “What are we going to do?” I glanced at Jonas. “This thing might outrun vampires, but it hasn’t much hope against airborne vehicles.”

  “No.” Jonas checked the passenger’s-side mirror. “But I think that thing might be a drone. If it is, we still have time to get to the meeting point.”

  I hoped he was right. I kept one eye on the road and the other on that black dot in the mirror as it drew ever closer. It soon became apparent that it was, indeed, a drone. The multispoke circular object zipped past us, then did a wide turn and came back, its body rotating so that the camera faced us. They might not be able to see either Williams or the kids, but they’d certainly see two people who weren’t supposed to be at the helm of an ATV.

  I glanced at Jonas. “How long do you think we have?”

  He shrugged. “It depends who they send after us. If it’s the ranger airborne division, then maybe fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “And will that be long enough?”

  “It’ll be tight.” He wound down the window and fired several quick shots at the drone. Three missed; the fourth didn’t. As the drone went down in a blaze of smoke and sparks, I swerved the vehicle and ran over its remains. We had no time for finesse now; the only thing that mattered was getting the kids to the meeting point.

  Everything became a blur, even time. I kept my attention on the road, on keeping the ATV going no matter what got in the way. We crashed through potholes and over rubble, and the distance between Central and us quickly grew. It didn’t ease the tension; if anything, it only increased it, because we were so damn close to safety now, and yet still so very far.

  “Swing right at the next turn.” The sudden command made me jump. Jonas leaned across and squeezed my arm. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay.”

  “Says the man who has no seeking skills to tell him otherwise.”

  I swung right but didn’t slow, and the ATV pitched to one side and threatened to topple. Several lights on the driving panel flashed red as the electronic stability control kicked into gear. The ATV quickly righted itself and I continued on without losing much speed.

  “In one kilometer take the gravel road to your left—but this time, slow down or you’ll have us in the forest.”

  I flashed him a somewhat tense grin. “You say that like it would be a bad thing.”

  “If we want to remain alive, then yeah, it possibly is.”

  I spotted the road and slowed down as ordered. Dust flew up behind us, a trail that would be easy to follow if it didn’t settle quickly enough. But Jonas didn’t seem to be overly worried, so I tried not to be. After a few more kilometers, an old farm and a couple of barns came into view. The barns were in reasonable condition, but the house was a weird conglomeration of tree, stone, and metal. I very much suspected it hadn’t been built that way—that it had, in fact, been rebuilt. Not by anything human, but rather a rift. It had the same twisted, not-quite-of-this-world feel that I’d seen in other organic materials hit by the rifts. I shivered and prayed to Rhea that the one that had caused this destruction had left the area. The last thing we needed, on top of everything else, was to be chased by one of the things.

  In front of one of the barns were three long-distance solar vehicles. I stopped beside them but didn’t kill the engine.

  Jonas tugged Nuri’s bracelet from his wrist and shoved it into a pocket. The blond-haired, craggy-faced image thankfully disappeared. “Remove the RFID from your palm.”

  I picked the edge of the false skin layer free, carefully peeled it away, and then handed him the chip. He placed the two of them back in their plastic containers and opened the door.

  “Wait here, both of you.”

  “Where are we?” Williams asked.

  “I have no idea.” I watched Jonas disappear into the darkness of the barn and tried to keep a lid on the ever-spiraling tide of tension. “And keep your damn head under that blanket until I tell you otherwise.”

  “Lady, enough with the tone. Remember, I can kill these kids with the simple press of a button.”

  “Kill them,” I snapped back, “and you’ll erase the only reason I’m not filling you with lead right now.”

  The stink of fear jumped into the cabin again. Good. The bastard deserved to be afraid, just as those kids had undoubtedly been afraid, before their emotions had been cur- tailed.

  I reached for the shifting magic and changed to my own form, then tugged my way out of the coverall and dumped it on the pa
ssenger seat. And immediately felt better simply because I wasn’t expending energy on a form that wasn’t mine. I might have had a decent enough meal at the museum, but that hadn’t been enough to fully recover my strength. Only time and rest, or using the healing state, would do that.

  Jonas reappeared, accompanied by two men I didn’t recognize. He opened the rear passenger door and the two strangers each picked up a kid and walked across to the solar vehicle.

  “Hey,” Williams said, throwing off the blanket and sitting upright. “What about me?”

  “You,” Jonas said, “can get you own ass out of the vehicle.”

  Something in the way he said that had the hairs along the back of my neck rising. His gaze met mine and that small, cold smile touched his lips again. The ranger was not only back, but on the warpath.

  Williams hastily climbed out, but I remained where I was. Jonas strolled around the front of the ATV and, as Williams hustled past, threw a punch so hard that I heard the crack of Williams’s jaw from inside the vehicle. He dropped like a ton of concrete to the ground and didn’t move.

  Jonas straddled him, then pulled a cable tie from a coverall pocket and tied Williams’s wrists together. Then he went through the scientist’s pockets, eventually pulling out a small black control disk.

  Relief spun through me and I closed my eyes for a minute. The kids might not be out of danger, and a very long way from ever being healed, but at least the immediate threat of being poisoned had now eased.

  Unless, of course, Sal’s partners had a similar disk and remotely triggered the pellets.

  Two of the solar vehicles hummed to life, and a heartbeat later they’d risen from the ground and disappeared into the shadows of the forest. They wouldn’t be able to stay there long, as it would drain the batteries far too quickly, but it would at least make it more difficult to immediately trace their whereabouts, given that there was little indication on the gravel as to where they’d gone. I crossed mental fingers that they’d arrive safe and in one piece wherever it was that they were headed and climbed out of the ATV.

  “It’s kind of hard to interrogate someone when they’re unconscious.” I stopped on the other side of Williams’s prone form from Jonas. “Or is that not what you intend right now?”

  “Oh, I intend it all right.” He grabbed Williams by the scruff of the neck and dragged him over to the ATV, where he produced a longer cable tie and threaded it through one of the ATV’s treads, then looped it around the tie binding Williams.

  “And what about the hunting party from Central? Or have you forgotten about them?”

  “I forget nothing. There’s a well over there.” He motioned to the house with his chin. “You want to get a bucket of water while I set up our escape?”

  I did as he bade. By the time I’d come back with two buckets of water, the third solar vehicle was off the ground and ready for a quick getaway.

  Jonas grabbed one of the buckets from me and pitched the water over Williams’s head. The second bucket got the result we wanted—Williams woke, making sounds that rather sounded like a cat mewling in fear.

  Jonas squatted in front of him, shoved a hand around his neck, and thrust him back against the ATV’s tracks. “You have one chance, and one chance only, to tell me where they’re making the VX.”

  Williams’s mouth flapped, but for several seconds no sound came out. When it finally did, his words were slurred and barely understandable. Not surprising, given that the man had a broken jaw. “Base, Crow’s Point,” was all I caught.

  Crow’s Point had been the location of the third déchet base—the other two being my bunker and the Broken Mountains. I doubted it was a coincidence that these people were using them—not only had Sal been familiar with all three, but if his two partners had worked for the HDP, then they would also be.

  “And are they keeping the children there as well?” Jonas said.

  Williams shook his head. “Dangerous,” he ground out.

  “Then where are they keeping them?”

  Williams shrugged. “Moved them. Not sure.”

  Jonas glanced at me. “You believe him?”

  I crossed my arms and studied Williams. His teeth were bloody, his mouth was swelling, and he was sweating heavily—a mix of fear and pain, I suspected. But I didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for the man; he deserved a whole lot more than this. “No.”

  “Truth,” Williams said, his voice little more than a squeak of fright. “They’re west, that’s all I know.”

  “West of Central?” Jonas asked.

  Williams nodded. “Honest, that’s all I know.”

  Jonas grunted and glanced at me. I shrugged. It was doubtful Williams knew anything more than what he’d said. Sal’s partners were obviously playing their cards very close to their chests, and it was unlikely they’d trust anyone with that sort of information, let alone someone like Williams, who was so full of bluster and self-importance.

  Jonas obviously agreed with me, because his next question took a different tack. “How are the children getting into the trucks if no one knows where they’re being kept?”

  “Drivers met.”

  A soft but distant buzzing caught my attention. I glanced skyward, but there was nothing to see; not yet, anyway. “Jonas—”

  “I know,” he said, but didn’t move. “What have you been doing to the children?”

  “Testing drugs. Splicing.”

  “Splicing what? DNA?”

  Williams nodded. “Not part of splicing program. Reynolds is in charge of that.”

  “Joseph Reynolds?” Jonas asked.

  Williams nodded again. The sweat pouring down his face was becoming a river and his skin was ashen.

  “What about the drugs you’ve given the children? Are they reversible?”

  Williams’s gaze flicked away. “Maybe. With time. Can help with that, though.”

  Jonas tightened his grip on Williams’s throat; for an instant I thought he was intending to strangle the man, but as Williams’s face began to turn an interesting shade and his breaths became shuddering gasps, he released him and thrust upright. “We’ll keep your family free and safe, as we promised,” he said. “But you? You won’t be helping anyone. You can reap what you’ve sewn and rot in hell.”

  With that, he spun and strode toward the waiting vehicle. I followed. Williams alternated between screaming in fury and begging us to keep our promise and keep him safe, but neither of us acknowledged him or turned around. Once we were both seated, Jonas closed the doors, spun the vehicle around, and headed in the opposite direction to the vehicles that held the kids.

  “It might have been a better move to keep him with us than hand him back to Central and Winter Halo,” I said, once we’d cleared the vegetation and were scooting along some sort of track.

  Jonas snorted. “If Williams lives any longer than the time it takes to get him back to Central and debrief him, I’ll be very surprised.”

  “Hence my statement. He could have helped us understand—and maybe even reverse—whatever has been done to the children we’ve rescued.”

  “There is no reversal. Williams was lying when he said that.” His gaze met mine. “He was in charge of the program but had no direct input. He wasn’t involved in the actual creation of the drugs being used.”

  “Yes, but he’d know—”

  “Undoubtedly. But sometimes to take an enemy down, you have to make a sacrifice. In this case, it’s whatever help Williams might have given us.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Obviously, there was a lot more to this rescue plan than I’d been told. “What did you do?”

  “I wasn’t actually throttling him, as tempting as it was. I was injecting a microtransmitter under his skin. We’ll have people close enough to listen in when he’s questioned, and hopefully we’ll gain some information about who else might be working with Sal�
�s partners.” His expression was grim as he glanced at me. “Because you can bet they’ll be involved in the debrief.”

  “Great plan, but one that presumes he’ll be taken back to Central. What if he’s not?”

  “Then we’re in trouble. But he will be. The rangers would balk at sending him anywhere else.”

  “But if they’re ordered—”

  “Such orders would risk questions being raised, and I doubt Sal’s partners would chance outing themselves that way.”

  Not until they were ready to take over, anyway, and it didn’t appear they were near that point yet. “Then we’re heading back to the bunker?”

  “Yeah, though it’ll be via a long and rather circular route to avoid any possibility of detection. Nuri needs to get back into Chaos before sunset.”

  And I needed to get back into Central just in case Charles decided to take a break from the paperwork and legalities, and visit the woman he knew as Cat. I shifted in the seat to study Jonas. In the bright afternoon light, his profile was sharp and strong. “Any particular reason?”

  He shrugged. “Just a general uneasiness. You know how it is, being a seeker yourself.”

  “She’s a whole lot more than just a seeker.”

  “That she is.” He glanced at me and raised an eyebrow. “Whatever the question is, just ask it.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “Why were you and Nuri caught in that rift together? The tensions between humans and shifters were very high for months after—”

  “Not just months, but years,” he cut in. “Even now there are pockets of resistance within both societies, despite everyone knowing we can only defeat the Others by offering a united front.”

  “So why were you both together?”

  “Because Nuri is, as I said, an Albright.”