Winter Halo

by Keri Arthur

  Central.

  We were nearly home. Relief flooded me. I’d come so close to never getting back here. To leaving my little ones alone . . .

  Cat, Bear, I’m back. Safe and whole, I wanted to add, but didn’t. There was little point in alarming them with what might have been. It was better if they simply didn’t know.

  Jarren halted the ATV and flicked a switch. As the doors silently opened, he twisted around in his seat and said, “Right, I can’t risk going any farther. The rifles are in the rear storage. Take what you want. And if you need any help, with anything else, you know where to find me.”

  “We do. And thanks.” Jonas gripped his grandson’s arm for a moment, then climbed out and walked around the back of the vehicle. I echoed Jonas’s thanks, then jumped out and stepped back as the doors closed. Jonas reappeared and tossed me a rifle and some ammunition. I slung the former over my shoulder and clipped the ammunition to my pants. And felt safer for the weight of them. I might not be soldier-trained, but I’d certainly grown used to having weapons at hand over the years since the war—at least when I ventured out at night, anyway.

  As the big vehicle began a slow-sweeping turn through the trees, my two little ghosts found me, bombarding me with images of everything that had happened since we left. Apparently, Nuri had been using the earth magic to do a little rock rearranging, and while she hadn’t totally uncovered the hidden escape tunnel, she had exposed the beginnings of it.

  “Why would Nuri . . .” The question faded as I glanced at Jonas. His eyes were narrowed and his expression was a mix of concentration and amusement. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can hear them.”

  I blinked. “The ghosts?”

  Cat and Bear reacted to this bit of news by dancing joyously around his head. He half raised a hand, as if to swat them away, then stopped.

  “And it sure as hell is going to take some getting used to.” He paused. “Are they always this . . . rambunctious?”

  “Only when they’re excited. They’re children, remember?”

  “Something I hadn’t really appreciated until now.” His concentration grew for a minute, and then Cat and Bear laughed.

  “What?” I said, not entirely sure I liked being left out of the conversation like this.

  He said it was nice to meet us, Cat said. But could we tone it down because we’re giving him a headache.

  “You’ll get used to it.” Then I blinked. I’d heard Cat clearly, and her energy hadn’t been touching me. Bear? Say something but stay back.

  You sometimes give the strangest orders. He paused and his happy amusement ran like quicksilver through my thoughts. This is a nice development.

  It was indeed. I switched my attention back to Jonas. “How clearly can you hear them?”

  “It’s not like you and me conversing, or even telepathy. It’s more a muted, muddied stream. If I concentrate, it clears enough for me to understand it.”

  “It might intensify with time.”

  “And it might just remain an incoherent buzz in the back of my mind.” He touched a hand to my spine and briefly directed me to the left. “How on earth do you cope with the noise, given that there’s . . . how many children in the bunker?”

  “One hundred and five. But they don’t all talk at the same time.” I paused, my amusement growing. “Most of the time, anyway.”

  “And what about the déchet soldiers in the bunker?”

  “They don’t talk to me at all.” My amusement died. “It is likely you’ll be able to hear them, though whether they’d feel inclined to converse with someone they consider an enemy is another question.”

  “Something I have no problem with.” His expression bore remnants of the cold distrust he’d cast my way when we first met. “Just because I trust you doesn’t meant I’ve changed my opinion overall on déchet.”

  Meaning you dislike us? Because we’re déchet, too, remember?

  Bear’s question came across like a shout, making me wince slightly even though I knew he was doing it to help Jonas hear him better—and he succeeded, if the apologetic expression that momentarily crossed Jonas’s face was anything to go by.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t hate you. I was simply talking about those who fought in the war. That war killed a lot of my kind.”

  Your people killed all of our kind, Cat countered. All except Tiger. Yet we do not hold that against you.

  “And I,” Jonas murmured, “have been firmly chastised. Are you sure these little ones of yours are actually children?”

  The two ghosts laughed and danced around the both of us. It is so good, Bear said, to be able to talk to another.

  I raised an eyebrow, my amusement growing. Meaning you were getting sick of talking to me?

  No, but he’s male.

  Meaning Jonas had better learn the art of switching off the constant mental chatter sooner rather than later, because Bear was obviously going to make full use of having a man to talk to.

  “I’m gathering,” Jonas said, voice wry, “that you three are having a conversation involving me?”

  I glanced at him. “You can’t hear it?”

  “No. But just heard Cat’s giddy laughter, so I’m figuring either you or Bear said something she found highly amusing.”

  I ducked under a tree branch, veered to the left slightly, and stepped onto the remains of an old path that would lead us to a rear section of the museum. There was no accessible entrance into the museum from that area—Central had made sure there was only one way in and out of the place when they decided to transform the remnants of bunker’s day-to-day operational center into the museum, but we would at least be out of the immediate sight of anyone who might be watching in Central. Whether we’d be out of sight of the vampires was a different question, but given I couldn’t smell any hint of them in the slight breeze sweeping up the hill, it was probable they weren’t in the immediate vicinity.

  “Bear was just telling me he was happy to finally have an adult male to talk to.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.” I grinned. “Be prepared for nonstop chatter until the novelty wears off.”

  “Or I learn to filter them. Nuri might be able to help with that.” He glanced at me. “I wonder what you’ve gained out of the DNA exchange.”

  I shrugged. “My connection with them has strengthened, but so far, that appears to be it. And you said yourself some people come through without any physical change.”

  “I said those who went in alone did. There’s always repercussions for those caught with others. Your Sal is a perfect example.”

  True. I rubbed my arms against a sudden chill. Whether it was apprehension of a situation I could neither control nor change, or something else entirely, I couldn’t say.

  But the wind that whispered up from the museum suddenly seemed filled with darkness and threat, even though the night was silent and there was no scent of vampire or wraith riding the breeze.

  “Why would Nuri be moving the pile of rubble in the museum?”

  Jonas raised his eyebrows at the abrupt change of topic. “Is she?”

  “So the ghosts say.” I studied him. “She seems to be looking for something—something I suspect might be the second entrance into the bunker. Why would she be doing that?”

  “I don’t know. We can ask her when we get there—”

  “You can ask her now, can’t you?”

  “Yes. But why is this suddenly so important?”

  “Sal’s partners might currently believe I’m buried, and maybe even dead.” I scrubbed a hand through my hair, loosening some of the dirt matting it. “But if they also suspect I’m linked to you—and it seems they do if they’re keeping an eye on Chaos—then trying to open the old stairs might just tell them I’m alive.”

  “That’s an unlikely event. No one has come near the museum sinc
e the monitoring system was set up.”

  “Which doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t.” Especially now that we’d successfully snatched two more kids from them. “That bunker is not only my home, Jonas, it’s the resting place of everyone who was killed there—déchet and human. It deserves the same sort of respect that humans accord their cemeteries.”

  “Cemeteries are no longer used. It’s now considered a waste of land.”

  “Which is not the point.” I frowned. “What is done with the dead, then?”

  “The bodies are cremated, the ashes treated, and then used for fertilizer and soil improvement. It’s a law that emerged from the war and the vast numbers of dead on both sides.” He paused. “Nuri said she has no intention of fully exposing the tunnel. She is just attempting to make it easier for you to get in and out.”

  “Then tell her to work on the south-side exit. That’s the one I use the most.”

  He hesitated, then smiled. “She said you’re an ungrateful wench.”

  “I’m just protecting my home. She’d do exactly the same thing if Central or Chaos was—”

  I stopped as that sense of darkness—of wrongness—suddenly sharpened. I flared my nostrils, drawing the night air deeper into my lungs to sort through the various scents, trying to find the source of whatever it was I was sensing.

  “What’s wrong?” Jonas stopped beside me, a rifle held at the ready.

  “I don’t know.”

  I swung around. The glow from Central’s lights rose like a dome high above it, stealing the night from the sky. But the growing sense of unease wasn’t coming from the city . . . My gaze went left to the ramshackle, barely lit cluster of metal that clung to Central’s curtain wall. “Ask Nuri if there’s anything going on in Chaos, because I have this really weird feeling—”

  I didn’t finish. Because, right at that moment, the screaming began.

  Chaos was under attack.

  Chapter 12

  Jonas bolted forward, moving through the trees so fast he was almost a blur. I followed, desperately trying to keep up even as the noise and confusion from Chaos grew and sharpened.

  “Jonas,” I yelled, raising an arm to protect my face from the branches that whipped past, “ask Nuri to punch a hole through the earth at the top end of the sunken tunnel area.”

  “Why?” The reply was curt.

  “Because if I can get into the bunker, I can call the ghosts—”

  “No ghosts,” he bit back. “Not in Chaos.”

  “Why in Rhea not?” I leapt over a log but slipped on the leaf matter beyond it and wrenched a leg muscle. I cursed loudly but ran on.

  “Because in a city filled with shifters and outcasts, déchet ghosts might not be able to resist the impulse to extract a little vengeance.”

  He was pulling ahead of me now. I cursed again and reached for more speed. “If they wanted vengeance, they would have taken it against you and the others when we attacked the vampire nest.”

  “By the time we’d arrived, their energy was well and truly depleted. That would not be the case here.”

  “But—”

  “No ghosts!”

  And with that, his form became fluid, moving from human to that of a black panther—one with faint, almost tigerlike white stripes. Another result of our merging, obviously, and one that made me wonder if I might now be able to take tiger form. While the DNA of a white tiger had been used in my creation, I’d never been designed to shift into that form, for whatever reason.

  It was possible that the mixing of our DNA now meant that I could—but it wasn’t something I was about to explore at this very moment. My first body shift had been something of a harrowing experience, and it had left me weak for days. Given that I was already at low tide when it came to strength, risking an attempt into a new—and unfamiliar—form wouldn’t be the brightest of moves.

  But it wasn’t like I didn’t have another option. I sucked in the night as I ran and drew it deep into my lungs. The vampire within me rose at its touch, and in very little time my flesh had become little more than dark matter. I zoomed forward, Cat and Bear at my side. While I normally would have sent them back to the safety of the bunker, I had a bad feeling the vampires in Chaos were only interested in one thing—Penny.

  Jonas might have said no ghosts, but he’d meant the soldiers, not my little ones. And I certainly had no intention of making a rearguard attack on the vampires—Nuri and Jonas could take care of that. My goal was Penny herself. The bastards weren’t going to reclaim her if I could help it—and protecting her was certainly something Cat and Bear could help with.

  We caught up with Jonas just as he was leaping the muddy trickle of water that was the Barra River, and a low, annoyed snarl chased after us as we continued on. Up ahead, the sounds of fighting and gunshots now mingled with the screams, and the bottom levels of Chaos were ablaze—with fire rather than lights. But fire was a tenuous light—it cast some areas into fierce brightness and others into shadow—and unless they set the whole place on fire, it would not be enough to stop the vampires.

  I raced through the entrance and swept up through the nearest air vent to the next level. People were everywhere, some dead, some not, some armed and fighting, and some simply bleeding. There were women and children among the dead and injured, and rage filled me. Not at the vampires, but at those who had ordered them here. They were responsible for this destruction, and by Rhea, one way or another, they would damn well pay for it.

  We continued on to the next level. The sounds of gunshots and fighting grew sharper. Vampires lay among the dead, but their bodies smoldered rather than burned, even though the light from the nearby fires touched their forms.

  Unease stirred, but I thrust it aside. The hows and whys behind their flesh remaining whole despite the touch of light could be worried about later. Right now I had one objective—beating the bastards to Penny.

  I continued rising through the various air vents. The higher I got, the more prevalent regular lighting became, and the more it began to tear at my shadowed form. I made it to the fifth level before the shadows completely unraveled and I became myself again. As I landed in a half crouch on the spindly metal bridge that spanned the width of the vent, Bear screamed a warning. I grabbed the rifle from behind my back, swung around, and saw three vampires coming at me.

  And the light wasn’t burning them. Wasn’t stopping them.

  Rhea help us, I thought, even as I fired. Two went down in a fountain of blood and gore, but the third hit me and sent me tumbling backward. I shoved the rifle sideways into his mouth to stop him from biting me, but his razor-sharp fingernails raked my side, drawing blood. Then energy surged as my two little ghosts tore him from me. As he hit the side of a container on the far side of the bridge and slithered down, I sighted and fired, spreading his brains across the grimy metal wall. I scrambled upright and ran forward.

  “Bear, find me the nearest ladder onto the sixth level.”

  As he raced away, I ran across the rest of the bridge and entered the more shadowed laneway. Movement, this to my left. I flipped the rifle and swung it hard, then rapidly checked the blow. A woman with a child, not a vampire.

  She grabbed a fistful of shirt, her grip fierce, as if she feared I’d shake her loose and move on. It made me wonder who had done so.

  “Please,” she said, her eyes wide and glimmering with unshed tears. “Help us. Please.”

  Urgency was beating through my brain, telling me that I needed to get to Penny, that if I didn’t, we’d lose her. But I couldn’t leave this woman here, scared, alone, and unprotected. Especially not when she was holding a baby.

  I studied the nearby containers for someplace safe. Cat screamed a warning. I wrenched my arm free from the woman’s grip, then turned and fired. A vampire went down, half his leg gone. I finished him off and reloaded the weapon.

  “This wa
y,” I said to the woman, voice tight.

  She didn’t argue. She just fell in step behind me, keeping so close she tripped over my feet several times. Up ahead, light filtered out from underneath the door of a solid-looking container. It was brighter than the light that flooded much of this level, and might offer a little more safety. I stopped and tested the handle; it was locked. I raised a fist and bashed on the door. The sound echoed faintly, and after a second, footsteps shuffled toward us. “Who is it?”

  “I’m a mercenary,” I said. “I have a woman and child here with me. You need to open up.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation; then the locks were undone, bolts were slid aside, and the door opened a crack. An elderly man peered at us both for a second, then fully opened the door. “Come in, come in, quickly.”

  I stepped to one side and allowed the woman to pass. “Have you got any weapons?” I asked the old man.

  He shook his head. “All we have is the generator and the light.”

  “Then keep the damn light as bright as you can, for as long as you can.” I unclipped the gun we’d retrieved from the remains of the solar vehicle and handed it to him. “And keep this close.”

  He checked that the weapon was fully loaded, then tucked it into the front of his pants. “You’re not coming in?”

  “No. I have vampires to fight.”

  “Then keep safe, and may Rhea bless you.”

  It was a blessing I would undoubtedly need. As the old man shut and locked the door, I spun and ran on.

  Bear returned. There’s a ladder twenty meters away, but vampires and men are fighting all around it.

  “Is that the closest ladder?”

  Yes. There is one farther on, but it’s also blocked by men and vampires.

  I frowned. “How light is it up ahead?”

  It is no different from here.

  Meaning it was regular lighting rather than UV. And normally, that would have been enough to stop vampires, but something had very definitely changed in the last few days.