City of Light (Outcast 1)

I didn’t relax. One vampire might have let me be, but there were many others out there in the inverse night, and who knew what they might do?

I contemplated the broken door for a moment, then moved toward it. It was aeons old, thick with rust and slime. It also looked military grade—the same grade and design that was everywhere in my bunker.

Only trouble was, there were no other bunkers near Central, so where the hell was I? And why had the wraiths brought the children through here? Surely they hadn’t been kept here—with the vampires present that would have been a little too like tying down a lamb and expecting the wolves not to attack.

I flowed over the broken door and moved into the whiteness beyond. The room again resembled a corridor, but this time there were various doors leading off it. Some were closed, some not. Most were empty, but from several came the thick sensation of vampire. There was no sense of awareness coming from their direction, which, I guess, was another point in my favor. While it was darker than night down here, it was still day above. Vampires generally slept when the sun was up. Given I could feel nothing other than vampires close by, I quickly moved on, anxious not to incite the interest of the vamps that slept here.

The corridor ended in a T intersection. There was a sign on the wall, but the writing had long given way to grime and was all but indecipherable. Only the tip of an arrow pointing to the left stood out. I followed its lead and headed that way, if only because the bulk of vampire scent seemed to be coming from the right. The corridor widened and the walls on either side gave way to thick windows. The wide rooms beyond them were filled with the broken remnants of uterine pods, tiny medibeds, and various other machines. My stomach—or what there was of it in this form—began to knot. This was looking more and more like the laboratories in my bunker. The laboratories in which they’d taken samples, testing and retesting the DNA of their latest batch of freshly birthed creations to ensure the health and viability of each before all were sent on to postnatal care.

This had to have been a déchet bunker—but which one? I knew of only three: Central had been the smallest, with the biggest near the port town of Crow’s Point, and another deep in the Broken Mountains. I couldn’t imagine vampires haunting that place, as there wasn’t much in the way of hunting up there—not when it came to easy pickings, anyway. There were shifter communities living there now, but they tended to be nomadic in nature, and therefore had little need of the sewerage and service tunnels that had made life so much easier for the vampires in many human communities, even in this day and age. There might be plenty of cities as protected as Central, but not everyone lived in such places, and many of these smaller communities were as ill prepared as Chaos when it came to the vampires.

I continued on. Up ahead, the darkness began to grow, which in this inverse lighting meant actual light rather than darkness. Which was confusing, as any sort of light was dangerous to vampires.

And if the wraiths were working with the vampires, at least in some capacity, why would they have any part of this place lit up so brightly? They hat

ed it as much as the vampires.

As I drew closer to the light, the darkness within me began to unravel. Muscle and bone found structure and re-formed, until I was once again fully fleshed. The scanner to the right of the heavy metal door beeped as I approached, then slid open. What it revealed was a fully functioning laboratory.

I stood outside the door for a moment, scanning the wide room, letting the feel of it wash over me. There were no ghosts in this place, no scents other than antiseptic. Metal examination tables gleamed, and the medibeds that lined the far wall—six in all—made mine look like something out of the Stone Age.

I took a step, then froze as red light flared from either side of the doorway and scanned me. A heartbeat later an alarm went off, the sound sharp and strident in the silence.

I spun and raced back into the darkness, gathering it around me as quickly as I could. Ahead, in the corridor beyond the T intersection, vampires began to stir. I couldn’t risk staying here. Couldn’t risk having them realize I was not one of them. There had to be at least two score of them here, if that stirring sense of evil was anything to go by. I’d barely survived an attack by one score—and even then only with the help of my little ghosts. Two score was death, pure and simple.

I came to the T intersection and surged to the right. The vampires in the long corridor had come to life; their energy milled, and their confusion and uncertainty stained the air. I controlled my own fear and slowed my headlong pace. To get through, to survive, I had to make them believe I belonged here—that I was whoever that first vampire thought I was.

Mistress? A different tone, harsher and scratchier than the first. Problem?

Alarm fault, I growled back. I go get others.

The energy of them parted slightly, leaving me a slender pathway to the room with the false rift. I took a deep mental breath and moved through them, feeling their wrongness slither through every part of my being.

If I could feel them, they could undoubtedly feel me.

Tension ran through my particles, and all I wanted to do was run—the one thing I couldn’t do when in the midst of them.

I was midway through when the energy around me began to change. Their confusion deepened, hardened. Became dangerous. I didn’t alter my pace; any move, any suggestion of fear, would have them all over me. Yet fear stepped into my heart nevertheless, and its stain ran through my matter.

Wrong, a voice at the back growled. Not mistress.

Rhea save me, I thought, and bolted, with every ounce of speed I could muster, for the false rift. I tore through the energy of several vampires, felt their matter slash at me—through me—a sensation not unlike sharp claws tearing at flesh. Particles ripped and spun away, and I realized the true depth of the situation I was in. They didn’t have to force me into flesh. They could render me dead by simply tearing me apart, piece by energy piece.

I bolted over the broken door and streamed toward the false tear. There was no reaction as I drew close. The sphere showed no awareness of my presence and no jagged bolts of energy leapt out from the brightly lit surface to snag me.

Flesh, I realized suddenly. It was set to react to flesh, not matter.

I swore and began unraveling the shadows. Halfway down the room I hit the floor running, even as the darkness continued to bleed from my torso. The vampires screamed and claws lashed at me, biting deep, drawing blood. One arm re-formed; I was still gripping my weapon, so I fired it. The wooden stakes tore through shadows to the left and the right and bounced harmlessly off the walls. Hair re-formed; hands snagged at it and yanked me backward. I fired over my shoulder, heard the squawk as the wood tore into flesh and the taint of blood stained the air. The scent seemed to incite greater fury in the vampires, but they didn’t tear their fallen comrade apart. Didn’t eat his flesh and drink his blood. They simply ran over the top of him and continued to tear at me, their desperation and fury so fierce I could barely even breathe.

The surface of the false tear began to rotate. The lightning stirred, flickered, as I drew closer. One jagged bolt speared out, wrapping around my ankles, capturing me. I stumbled, swore, then caught my balance, trying to move faster than that burning, biting lash seemed to desire. More claws tore at me as another jagged piece of energy snared my other leg. The vampires were close—far too close.

With no other choice, I stopped running, twisted around, and raised both weapons, firing nonstop as I was drawn purposefully—but far too slowly—toward the rift. There were at least twenty vampires fighting to get at me, and more pouring through over the broken door as I watched.

I needed space. I needed time. Needed to get into the false rift and hope like hell I had the strength to survive its agony. Because no matter what, I wasn’t about to stay here.

Some vampires fell under the barrage of stakes, but others spun into darkness, re-forming once the bullets had torn past. Their screams filled the air, their fury and desperation to stop me evident in the bloody glow of their eyes.

Dark energy lashed my back. Whips snaked out and snared my upper arms, its touch biting deep. Blood stained my shirt, and the scent fueled the vamps into a greater frenzy. One gun clicked over to empty. I tried to snag it back onto my belt and reach for a knife, but the sphere’s energy had pinned my upper arm to my body and severely restricted my movement. I swore and kept firing the second.