City of Light

  I fell into a tangle of tearing claws and raking teeth. My rifle went flying and, for a moment, the sheer weight of their numbers overwhelmed me, as did their desperation to taste my flesh. It stung the air, filling my lungs with its stench and bludgeoning my mind with the certain knowledge that death would be my fate if I didn’t damn well move.

  I released my hold on Jonas and surged to my feet, shaking the vampires from my back as I freed the weapons clipped to my thighs. Claws slashed at my shoulders, teeth tore into my flesh, and all I could see was a wall of stinking death on legs.

  I fired the weapons around in a circle, first killing the ones ripping at my flesh, then aiming at the black mass surrounding me. Several vampires went down, each one torn apart by the ravenous creatures around them, but I shot for speed, not accuracy, and I missed as many as I got.

  The chambers on the automatics clicked over to empty, and I didn’t have time to reload. I reached for the remaining machine rifle and fired in one smooth motion. The vampires shadowed and the stakes went through their vapor, thudding harmlessly into the trees beyond them.

  Vampires might be insatiable monsters, but they aren’t stupid.

  Energy surged across the night—my little ghosts, coming to help. Ethereal fingers tore at the pack and pulled out the flares while others reached for the stinking creatures closest to us, tossing them back into the night and forming a small but important clear way.

  Then the energy riding the night sharpened and the flares came to life, lining the clear way and leading us to safety.

  I grabbed Jonas by one leg, pulled him out from underneath the pile of putrid flesh, and then dragged him along behind me as I ran for the dome.

  Fifty yards had never seemed so far.

  The half dozen remaining vampires surged forward with us, their desperation thick and heavy in the air. One foolishly attempted to cross the line of flares, but his flesh was instantly set alight the moment the sputtering brightness touched his skin. He went up in a whoosh of flame, providing even more light, more protection.

  Then the flares began to die. I hit the ring of safety provided by the searchlights, but didn’t slow. I dragged the unconscious ranger across the road, no doubt doing more damage to his back than had been already done to his front. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except getting inside the dome and switching the security system to full.

  Because the vampires were now tossing rocks at the hovering searchlights.

  One light went down and the shadows crowded closer. I reached the security panel and punched in the code. As I did, the second searchlight went out and the vampires surged.

  The ghosts screamed a warning.

  The doors began to slide open. I dove inside, saw that Penny was safe, then pulled the ranger in and punched the panic button beside the door. It slammed shut just as the black tide hit it, and the force of their weight caused the heavy metal to ring like a death knell.

  It would be our death knell if the system wasn’t kicked into full gear. I leapt over the ranger and ran for the main control panel, my fingers flying over the keys as I fired the system to full life.

  Glass shattered and Penny screamed.

  I swung around and raised the rifle. The vampires were breaking into the dome via the fissured panels. I scanned the upper panels, wondering where the laser curtain was, then said, “Cat, get her down the stairs.”

  Cat’s energy whipped away from me, spun around the little girl, and then leapt away toward the stairs. Penny followed unbidden, her fear tainting the air, as sharp as the smell of death now squeezing through the shattered panels.

  I pressed the trigger and fired continually at the area that had been breached. It briefly forced a retreat, but I knew they were probably only waiting for my ammunition to run out. As a light atop the rifle chamber began to flash a warning that it was nearing empty, I glanced at the control panel. What in hell was taking so long?

  The rifle clicked over to empty and the vampires surged again. I threw the weapon aside and drew my knives, the sheer blades glowing an unnatural green in the shadowed darkness. The vampires screamed, a harsh sound filled with anticipation and hunger. But as they fought one another to get through the breach first, the mesh of lasers finally unfurled down the walls, ringing the room with their deadly light and slicing any and all flesh in their way.

  We were safe.

  And it was all I could do not to collapse in sheer and utter exhaustion. I sheathed the knives, then bent over, my palms pressed against my bloody knees to keep them locked in position as I sucked in breath and battled the tide of relief and fear that suddenly threatened to overwhelm me.

  Death had been close this time. So, so close.

  The little ones crowded around me, their tingly lips kissing my cheeks and their whisperings a mix of excitement and reassurance. Amusement ran through me. At least they’d enjoyed themselves.

  I took a deep, shuddering breath, then straightened. Blood dribbled from my wounds and splattered across the floor, but I ignored it. The wounds weren’t deep, and I’d heal quickly enough. Our makers had ensured that when they’d made us—couldn’t have either the rifle or bedroom fodder out of action for too long, after all.

  The ranger lay where I left him, sprawled on his back near the door. Blood seeped from underneath his shoulders—testament to the damage I’d done when I dragged him—but neither guilt nor remorse plucked at my conscience. Had the situation been reversed, I had no doubt he would have left me for the vampires while he made his escape.

  And if I hadn’t made that promise to Penny, I’d have done exactly the same.

  “Bear,” I said softly. He whisked around to the front of me, his little form humming with expectation. He liked helping; he always had. “Could you ask Cat to take Penny to the labs via tunnel D? Tell her we’ll meet them there.”

  Tunnel D was the first of the main tunnels not filled with concrete. Tunnels A to C were as impassable today as they had been when they’d first pumped concrete into this place.

  Bear made a happy little noise and sped off to complete his mission. I walked across to the ranger and knelt beside him. His pulse was still erratic, but it seemed stronger. Maybe his natural healing abilities were kicking in.

  Which meant I’d better get him downstairs and restrained. I’d been in more than a dozen shifter camps during my time in the war, and I’d witnessed the fate of captured déchet. I had no desire to have such destruction wreaked on me.

  I dragged him up onto my shoulders again and headed for the stairs. A half dozen little forms drifted ahead of me, but most of them stayed behind to keep watch over both the security systems and the few remaining vampires who still prowled outside.

  Which was odd. The vampires were smart enough to realize when their prey was beyond reach, and they’d attempted to breach this building often enough in the past to know that once the complete system was running, there was no getting through it.

  So what was it about this ranger and the child that made them desperate enough to keep battering the walls and flinging themselves at the lasers?

  Or did they, I wondered, remembering that odd darkness I’d sensed behind the vampires, have little other choice? Were they being controlled by something—or someone—else?

  That was a terrifying prospect if true. But how could it be? It wasn’t as if anyone—human or shifter—could actually communicate with them. I’m sure vampires did have some form of language, but it certainly wasn’t one the rest of us could understand.

  Maybe Penny would know what was going on—although to be honest, it didn’t matter if she didn’t. My task now was to fulfill my promise to her, then get them both out of here—and as fast as possible. Whatever they were involved in, whatever trouble dogged their heels, we didn’t need it. The world had buried and forgotten us, and I very much wanted to keep it that way.

  I made my way down the stairs and into the rarely used darkness that was D tunnel. My footsteps echoed against the metal floor, a sharp ta
ttoo of sound that my little flotilla of ghosts happily danced to. As we neared the end of the tunnel, the metal flooring gave way to undulating concrete, evidence of how close this tunnel had come to being filled. I ducked through the half-collapsed doorway into the foyer of level four, the area that had housed the main medical facilities for the bunker’s combatant déchet divisions. Several of the rooms closest to the tunnel that led up to level three had been flooded by concrete, but the rest of this level had survived intact. The medical equipment—although undoubtedly out-of-date by today’s standards—still worked. Why the shifters hadn’t destroyed these machines along with all the equipment in both the creation labs and the nurseries, I had no idea, but I’d thanked the goddess 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 that using a machine was infinitely better. Like when I’d fallen from the damn museum roof and broken my leg. The machines had turned a week of recovery into a day.

  Penny swung around as I entered the room, and her relief was palpable.

  “You’re here.”

  I raised an eyebrow as I lowered the ranger onto one of the mediscan beds. I stripped off the remnants of his torn and bloodied shirt and tossed it in the nearby garbage chute, then laid him down. The soft foam enveloped his body, and the bed instantly began to emit a soft beeping sound—his heartbeat, amplified by the light panel above.

  “You were told I would be. Why would you expect otherwise?”

  “Because people lie.”

  Yes, they did, but it was unusual for someone so young to say that with such surety. “And who has been lying to you? Jonas?”

  The light panel shimmered as I pressed several buttons. Jonas’s biorhythms came up—his brain activity was high. Either he was close to waking, or he was having some pretty vivid dreams. I glanced down at his face. His eyes weren’t moving under their closed lids, but that didn’t mean anything. I pressed another button. Metal clamps slid over his ankles and right arm. I might have been bred to be as strong and as fast as most shifters, but he was a ranger, lean and muscular. It was better to be safe than sorry.

  I set the scanner in motion, then glanced at Penny. She was studying me with solemn eyes. “Who lied to you, Penny?”

  “The man.”

  “What man?” I said patiently.

  “The man who killed my family.”

  I glanced at the crisscrossed mass of scars that decorated her arms, and again anger washed through me. “Why did he kill your family?”

  She half shrugged. “He just did.”

  “Did Jonas or the police catch him?”

  “No.” She hugged her arms across her chest, as if she was trying to comfort herself. Yet there were few tears in her eyes and no emotion in her voice as she asked, “Is Jonas going to be okay?”

  I glanced at the scan results. No major internal damage, and aside from the broken arm, no major limb damage. “I think so.”

  “He was poisoned, you know.”

  I blinked and looked at her again. “Poisoned?”

  She nodded. “He told me. He said we had to get back to Chaos quickly, because only Nuri could heal him.”

  Chaos. The one place on Earth I really didn’t want to go. And it wasn’t a reluctance that stemmed from the fact that its inhabitants were a broken mix of thieves, murderers, whores, and drug gangs, as well as Central’s unwanted or forgotten, all of them trying to scrape by the best way they could. No, it was the sheer and utter closeness of it all. Everything and everyone literally lived on top of one another; there was no space, no air, hardly any light, and certainly little room to move. I’d been there only once, but I’d wanted to run screaming from it after only a few minutes.

  And that was where Penny was expecting me to take her—my own private version of hell. I took a slow, steadying breath, then said, “Is that where you live?”

  “Nuri does. I live in Central.”

  So what in hell were she and the ranger doing in the park, at night? It made no sense. “Did Jonas say what he was poisoned with? Or how?”

  “He was scratched.”

  Poison had often been administered that way during the war, but I wouldn’t have thought it to be practical these days. Not when the mediscan beds could detect—and treat—all known ailments and poisons. “By whom?”

  “The man.”

  Suspecting I’d only get a repeat of her previous answer if I asked the next logical question, I simply said, “Let’s see what the machine says before we start worrying.”

  “He’ll die,” she said, in that same solemn little tone. “You promised you’d look after him.”

  “I am, trust me.”

  She didn’t say anything, but it was evident she didn’t exactly trust me, either. But I guess that was to be expected, given everything she’d obviously gone through.

  Nothing in the results suggested the ranger had been poisoned, so either Penny was misinformed or whatever had been used on Jonas had been created after the war and therefore was not in the system’s databanks. I set the machine to HEAL. Mechanical arms reached down from the ceiling, carefully realigning the ranger’s arm before the lasers kicked in to set it.

  I turned to fully face Penny. “Why don’t we go get something to eat while Jonas is patched up?”

  Her nose screwed up. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Well, I am.” I gently touched a hand to her back and pushed her reluctant figure toward the door. Despite her cherub face, her skin was cool and her body skeletal. She might not want food right now, but she desperately needed it. I guided her down the hall and into the small dispensing kitchen that had once served as a break area for the staff on this level. There was only one machine working these days, and the coffee it produced was pretty vile, but it was still better than nothing. I hit the button for a strong black, then glanced down at her. “I know you’re really not hungry, but surely you could manage a small protein meal?”

  She shook her head, studying me solemnly, the steadiness of her gaze oddly disturbing.

  “What about something to drink? A soda? Milk?”

  “You have milk? Real milk?” Her voice was surprised more than interested.

  I smiled wryly. “No, not real. It’s powder-based but drinkable.”

  Her nose screwed up again, and I can’t honestly say I blamed her. The powdered stuff was little more than a chemical stew, and it certainly tasted like it. But real milk was rarer than gold, and it definitely wasn’t in the price range of the average Joe in Central—even if he had a decent job and wage. And it was damnably hard to steal something that wasn’t available in the sort of establishments I could risk theft in.

  I silently handed her some water, then heated a protein meal for myself, collected my coffee, and walked across to one of the small, padded benches lining the far wall. She didn’t follow, just watched me, the cup in one hand and the torn fingers on the other clenching and unclenching.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Penny,” I said softly.

  “I know.”

  I studied her for a moment, wondering if her unnatural calmness was merely shock or something more serious. “Why don’t you tell me how your parents died?”

  “I told you, they were attacked—”

  “By the man who lied to you,” I finished for her. “Do you know his name?”

  She shook her head, then raised the cup and took a sip. A shudder ran through her thin frame. “That’s awful.”

  “It’s recycled and does taste a little tart, but it won’t kill you.”

  “I can’t drink it.” She placed the cup on the floor beside her feet, then clasped her hands in front of her stomach. “I really need to see if Jonas is okay.”

  “That screen up there”—I pointed to the light screen flickering above the main door—“will let us know when the healing cycle has finished. Tell me how you know Jonas.”

  “He’s my uncle.”

  “You’re a shifter?”

&nb
sp; I couldn’t help the edge of surprise in my voice. She really didn’t smell like a shifter. Jonas did—at a guess I’d say he was panther, not only because most rangers tended to be cats of some kind, but because of the mottled, night-dark color of his hair. It was the usual indicator of species. Mine was a mix of white and black, and my eyes were blue, because my genes had come from the rarer white tiger.

  Penny nodded solemnly. “He’s my mom’s older brother.”

  “Was it just you and Jonas who survived the attack?”

  She shook her head. “Jonas wasn’t there when Mum and Dad were killed. He found me later and rescued me.”

  “From where?”

  “From where I was hiding from the man.”

  Something flashed in her eyes. Something dark and angry and very unchildlike. I frowned, once again oddly uneasy. There was something amiss here, with her, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

  Yet the ghosts were watching her with fascination and absolutely no sense of disquiet. They surely wouldn’t be so relaxed if they’d sensed anything untoward, especially given that their sense of these things was usually more finely tuned than mine.

  “Can you describe the man for me?”

  She studied me for a minute, then pointed at me and said, “He wore combat pants like yours, but though he walked through the shadows he wasn’t comfortable in them. Not like you.”

  Something twisted inside me. My combat pants had been made with a special gray material that took on the colors of its surroundings and made us near invisible from a distance. Like the shirt—also gray, but patterned with darker swirls—they were déchet specific, designed not only to withstand the rigors of war, but to carry the many weapons warrior-trained déchet were proficient with. There was a ton of both still in the base exchange and, with the war long over, I’d taken to wearing them. The only people who’d look twice were shifters who’d survived the war, and most of those generally weren’t found in the areas of Central I visited.

  “So this man was a soldier?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose so. He fought Jonas, and almost won.”

  The twisting ramped up a notch. Only a highly trained fighter could ever hope to beat a ranger, even in this day and age. I touched my cheek. “Did he have an inked bar code here?”