City of Light

  “It’s nothing more than an acknowledgment that even with Central’s somewhat lax employment laws, overt sexual harassment is not allowed.”

  Meaning it was allowed—or at least ignored—if it was done covertly?

  “Anyway,” he continued, “all of those chosen as guards are curvaceous in build, with large breasts and orange hair. It would appear the owner of Winter Halo has something of a fetish for the color.”

  As fetishes go, that was definitely one of the minor ones—and while my natural hair color was white and black tiger stripes and I couldn’t exactly be described as curvaceous, as a body shifter it wasn’t a hard form to attain. “Which isn’t actually a problem, as you know.”

  “No.”

  I frowned, sensing an odd . . . not reluctance, not really. But there was definitely some sort of background resistance to the idea of my applying for the job at Winter Halo, and I couldn’t figure out why. “Do you think you have enough swing with the recruiter to get me an interview?”

  “Possibly. I should warn you, though, that the night watch has a very high turnover. Women do not seem to last very long in the position.”

  And did the reason have something to do with harassment of some kind? Or was something else going on?

  My frown deepened. “Any idea why?”

  He shook his head. “But there are few here in Central who are comfortable at night. The fear of vampires is fierce, even with the UV lights and the wall keeping them at bay.”

  “Then why would they apply for the job in the first place?”

  “You really haven’t been in Central very long.” There was amusement in his tone, but the shadows were deeper in his eyes. “It’s not all sunshine and roses, believe me.”

  “For you, it must be.” I waved a hand around his apartment. “You have all this, after all.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t always live and work on First Street. I started on Twelfth—and believe me, it’s a very long, very steep road to get from there to here.”

  I guess it would have been. Certainly Deseo was a far cry from Hedone—and if I ever had to work in a brothel, it would be at one like Hedone. I hadn’t seen much of the place, but the foyer alone suggested the rooms where the transactions took place would contain far more than merely a bed and a box of toys.

  “Anyway,” he continued, gathering the plates, then rising and walking them over to the dishwasher, “I’ll see what I can do. Of course, you do know it means you’ll have to see me again.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You say that like you expect me not to.”

  “Oh,” he said, his grin cheeky, but the shadows even stronger in his eyes. “I can smell exactly how much you want to. I was merely giving you the option to walk away if you so desired.”

  I smiled. “I haven’t seen another déchet for a hundred years. That, I believe, is answer enough.”

  “Well, then how about dinner? Somewhere fancy to celebrate our reunion?”

  “I don’t think I have the clothes to do fancy—”

  He held up his hand, stopping me again. “Then it will be my pleasure to supply you a dress. Shall we say six tomorrow evening, in the lobby?”

  “Sure.” It would give me time to gather courage and head back into Chaos. Hopefully, Nuri would be as good as her word when it came to getting me an ID.

  “In the meantime,” he said, spinning my chair around so that I faced him. “I have forty-five minutes before I must leave for my appointment. Shall I fill you in on some of my missing years, or shall I simply fill you?”

  “My, my,” I murmured. “Haven’t we lost some finesse over the years.”

  He smiled. “Finesse, I have learned, doesn’t always get what I want. And you didn’t answer the question on the table.”

  I placed my finger on his chest and gently followed the faint line of hair down his stomach. His cock leapt, as if eager for my touch. I obliged.

  “You could do both,” I murmured, then leaned forward and ran my tongue across the tip of him, tasting sex and eagerness.

  “No,” he said, shuddering, “I don’t believe I can.”

  From there on in, there was no talking, and I had absolutely no complaints. I might have spent many an hour longing for adult conversation, but sex and silence with a man I was so familiar with—and one of the few I’d trusted during the war—was far, far better.

  And it was certainly far better than I remembered.

  • • •

  I left Sal’s place at six, well satiated, well fed, freshly showered, and wearing my own clothes—which had been laundered and repaired. If I’d had tabby rather than tiger in my DNA, I probably would have been purring right now.

  Dusk was just beginning to settle across the skies, though the streets of Central were still as bright as day, thanks to the UVs kicking into full action as the night approached. I hurried down Victory Street, heading for the drawbridge and hoping like hell it hadn’t already been raised for the night. My little ghosts would worry if I wasn’t back by nightfall, and if I didn’t get out of this place before the drawbridge went up, I would be stuck here for the night.

  The huge gatehouse came into view, and relief ran through me when I saw it was still down. But the guards were out of their houses, prowling about like beasts contained, their anxiety stinging the air. Obviously, the last pod of the day was late, and they weren’t happy. And they would stop me from exiting if they saw me.

  I ducked into the nearest walkway, waited impatiently for several people to pass, then, when the coast was clear, drew the light around me. It would dissipate as quickly as the remaining sunlight once I moved beyond Central’s UVs, but that didn’t matter. I doubted anyone would chase me even if they saw me at that point, as they generally feared the dark far more than they feared losing one citizen to night and the vampires.

  I continued on to the exit. The ends of the silver curtain that Central used in place of the more conventional portcullis gleamed brightly thanks to the lights that lined the gatehouse, but the sensors fitted into the thick metal walls didn’t react to my presence, though they would have, had I been full vampire. It had taken ten years to completely rebuild Central, and, by that stage, all HDP bases had been well and truly destroyed, and the déchet population decimated. It never occurred to them that some might have survived—hell, it hadn’t occurred to me, and I was one of the survivors—so they never built that possibility into their security systems. For which I was extremely grateful. Feeding myself would have been far more problematic had I not been able to make regular raids into Central.

  I moved through the gatehouse and out onto the drawbridge. The last pod of the evening finally pulled into the station, and people began streaming toward the city, forcing me to duck and weave to prevent collisions. While the sunlight shield prevented anyone seeing me, I hadn’t physically disappeared; they would feel me if I collided with them. Once I was over the bridge, I jumped down into the rail yards and quickly traversed them. The farther I moved away from the lights, the faster the shield unraveled, until it had completely disappeared and I was visible to anyone looking my way. Pain flitted across my senses at the shield’s loss, but I kept running until I finally reached the Barra’s old watercourse. Though the possibility of being seen by a too-alert guard was now unlikely, I didn’t relax. Night had all but settled in, and the vampires would be rising. And while I was close to the South Siding exit and there were, as far as I knew, no enclaves in this immediate vicinity, that didn’t mean anything. There were who-knew-how-many old sewerage and transport tunnels under Chaos, and Chaos itself was within easy running distance. Just because I’d never seen any vamps near here didn’t mean they couldn’t get here altogether too fast if one or more of them happened to be close enough to smell my scent or catch the sound of my heartbeat.

  Which meant I had better get a move on.

  But I’d barely taken three steps when Cat appeared. Her energy whipped around me, filled with fear and panic and images of darkness on the move.
br />   The vampires weren’t under Chaos.

  They were attacking the South Siding exit, trying to get into our home.

  Chapter 7

  I reacted instinctively and without thought. My knives were in my hands before I knew it, and I was all but flying over the rocky, barren ground as I headed for the South Siding exit.

  “Cat,” I said, “I need flares. And weapons.”

  She raced away, leaving me alone with the night and the shadows. I half thought about dragging a veil around my body and becoming one with it, but I was heading for vampires, the one creature on this planet that could see through such veils—mainly because they were creatures of night and shadows themselves.

  The closer I got to the exit, the more evident the sounds of fighting became. It was mixed with the sensation of fear and panic—my little ghosts were doing as I directed and protecting our home, but they were neither equipped for fighting nor very proficient at it. And if the hisses and snarls filling the air were any indication, then there was at least a score of vamps trying to gain access.

  A score. And me armed with only knives and two small guns until Cat managed to get some more weapons . . . Movement, to my right. I swerved sharply but not fast enough. A body crashed into mine, sweeping me off my feet and down to the ground, where we rolled for several meters before coming to a halt. I raised a knife, but my hand was caught and held firm in a grip that was fierce and strong.

  “Are you insane?”

  The words were hissed, but the voice was nevertheless familiar. Jonas.

  “What in hell do you think you’re doing?” I bucked as hard as I could, trying to get him off me.

  “Rescuing you from stupidity, that’s what. Do you know how many vampires are down there?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But nothing.” His legs tightened around me as I bucked again. “Don’t be a damn fool. It would be nothing short of suicide to go down there right now.”

  I snorted and twisted my arms, trying to break his grip on them. “What do you care? You want me dead anyway, don’t you?”

  “What I want is neither here nor there. Nuri wants you alive, so alive you will remain.”

  “Damn it, you don’t understand! The ghosts are down there!”

  “The ghosts are already dead. The vampires cannot hurt them, but they can and will tear you apart.”

  “You’re the one who doesn’t understand!” The panic emanating from the exit was growing, as was my desperation to move, to get down there and help my little ones. “There are vampires who consume energy or souls, not just blood.”

  “I still don’t see—”

  “What do you think ghosts are?” I cut in. “An ectoplasmic force, that’s what. And it can be consumed by some vampires.”

  He glared down at me, his green eyes bright and fierce despite the night. “I think your two little ghosts are clever enough to avoid—”

  “That’s the whole problem!” I spat back. “It’s not just two ghosts. It’s hundreds.”

  And with that, I lurched forward and smashed my forehead against his. It was a move he wasn’t expecting, and it knocked him sideways. I pushed him the rest of the way off and, despite a spinning head and blooming headache, scrambled to my feet and ran on.

  He cursed and all too soon was running after me. But my fear was fierce, and it gave my feet greater speed even if he had longer legs. Cat and Bear reappeared, carrying several larger guns and a couple of flares between them. Not much, and certainly not enough, not by a long shot, but better than nothing. I sheathed my knives, caught the weapons, tossed a flare back to the shifter, then clipped the other one to my pants. I raced over the slight hill that ran down to our bunker. Below me, vampires milled around the exit, scrambling over one another in their efforts to get through the ghosts who were valiantly attempting to hold back the tide. The scent of burned flesh stung the air, suggesting that at least some flares had been lit before I’d gotten here, and vampires were still being tossed left and right. But some were getting through . . . and it was at that point I realized that the exit was open.

  By Rhea, how had that happened? Why were they even here, when in one hundred years they’d never come within sniffing distance of this tunnel?

  They wouldn’t come here. Not unless they were being forced. I couldn’t feel that dark, oddly mutated energy that I’d felt the last time I’d encountered the vampires, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t near.

  Not that it mattered. Not immediately. First I had to secure and clean out our bunker before I began to worry about the hows and whys of the exit being open.

  I raced down the hill, my weapons gripped tight. As several vampires turned to face me, I began to fire, mowing some down, missing others. Behind me, Jonas unleashed his own weapons, the soft sound of rifle fire almost lost in the hissed snarls of the vampires.

  “Bear, flare,” I said. His energy spun around the flare, and an instant later it was lit. I snagged one gun onto a belt loop, then grabbed the flare and threw it into the middle of the vampire pack. They fled, creating a temporary clearway in the middle of the doorway.

  “Cat, light the other one.”

  Her energy ran past me, and, a second later, light flared across my back. The shifter swung his flare back and forth threateningly, keeping the vampires momentarily at bay. But they ran along the edges of the light, ready to attack—desperate to attack—the minute the flares died.

  I ran into the bunker, the shifter two steps behind. My flare began to sputter and fade. As Jonas threw his on the ground just in front of the entrance, I hit the EMERGENCY CLOSE button. The grate slammed home, but that didn’t mean we were safe; this gate wasn’t protected by either silver or a laser screen, and the vampires merely had to shadow to get through it. We needed to get to light, and that meant getting out of this tunnel and into the bunker itself—the one place I had no desire to take the ranger.

  But it was either that or die, because we simply didn’t have enough weapons and there were still far too many vampires.

  “This way,” I said, voice tight. The ghosts fled before me, happy to see me, but their collective energy was so depleted and fear-filled it made me want to cry.

  We ran down the tunnel, leaping over the bodies of the vamps who’d made it into the tunnel, our steps echoing in the silence—or mine did. The ranger’s were whisper quiet. Darkness fell behind us, and the ghosts screamed a warning—the vampires were in the tunnel and coming after us.

  “Bear, Cat, get those lights on up ahead.”

  They surged past us. A second later, the lights came on, the sudden brightness eye-watering. I blinked away tears and ran on, desperate to reach that room before the flood of darkness behind us hit. I ran into the light but didn’t stop until I was at the far end of what had once been a nursery. Or one of them. This one happened to be empty at the time of the cleansing; the other one hadn’t.

  Jonas stopped beside me, radiating tension and a readiness to fight. I gripped my weapons, waiting, as the flood of darkness drew closer. They were shadowed, so they made little sound, but I could feel them. Feel their evil, hunger, and desperation.

  I shivered, even as I wondered at that last emotion. There were plenty of easier pickings in Chaos, so why come here, after me?

  Or were they, perhaps, still after Penny? They’d certainly prowled around the museum long enough last night, attempting to find a way in. Was this just an extension of that search?

  Maybe. Maybe not. And it wasn’t like I could ask them.

  Shadows flickered across the edges of the light; then vampires re-formed. I raised my gun, as did Jonas, and together we picked them off, one by one, until the doorway was packed with smoldering bodies and we couldn’t see the vampires beyond it.

  Which, again, was odd. Vampires usually consumed their dead. “Waste not, want not” seemed to be their motto when it came to flesh and blood.

  I stopped firing and lowered my weapons. Jonas kept his at the ready, his expression grim a
s he stared at the dead blocking the door.

  “So,” he said, voice holding just a hint of anger. No surprise there, I guess, given anger seemed to be his go-to emotion. “You’re not the kind of shifter we’d presumed.”

  “It’s not my fault you presumed wrong.” I leaned against the wall and briefly closed my eyes. Now that we were relatively safe, reaction set in, and it was all I could do not to collapse on the floor in a trembling, crying mess. Some of that reaction came from the ghosts milling around me, their collective energy so close and thick my skin tingled and jumped in reaction. I reassured them the best I could, praising them for the bravery and their skill in handling the vampires and protecting our home. After a few minutes, their fear began to ease and a few even gathered enough courage to drift closer to the pile of vampires. But they didn’t step beyond the light, and I can’t say I blamed them.

  “What were you doing in Central?” Jonas asked. He’d finally lowered his weapon but hadn’t slipped the safety back on. Can’t say I blamed him for that, either.

  “What were you doing following me?” I countered. “And how did you even know it was me, given the body shift?”

  He half snorted. “I am—or was—a ranger. Following scents is something we do.”

  And it was a generally accepted fact that a person’s scent never changed. Only it wasn’t exactly true—not for those of us created as lures. I could change scents if I so desired, but it took a lot of effort, and it made retaining the altered form all that much harder. Which was why many of us were simply relocated to a completely different area every new mission; it was easier than attempting to hold full body and scent transformations over weeks, or even months.

  Of course, not altering my base scent was something that had almost killed me, after I’d been placed in a shifter camp that contained refugees from a camp I’d previously infiltrated. In fact, that mission going so wrong had been the reason I’d been here with the little ones when they’d unleashed the gas.

  I thrust the bloody memories from my mind, then pushed away from the wall and stalked over to the smoldering mountain of flesh blocking the tunnel exit.