City of Light (Outcast 1)

“If this is the bunker I discovered, then the vamps will be in the lower service levels, where the labs and regimental bunks are.”

He briefly glanced over his shoulder. “You know this how?”

I gave him a thin smile. “I live in a human military bunker, remember? I have no doubt they were all built along similar guidelines.”

He grunted but didn’t look convinced by my answer. No surprise there, given he generally didn’t believe anything I said.

We finally reached the door at the far end of the long corridor. Like the one behind us, it had been torn off the hinges and now lay several yards away in the next corridor—but this time the damage looked new rather than a product of a war long past.

Jonas ran a finger across the frame that held the string-like remnants of what once had been thick industrial hinges.

“Are vampires strong enough to do something like that?” I asked, frowning.

“No, but some of the Others can.”

“Then I can only pray to Rhea that I never come across one of those creatures.”

“You wouldn’t know much about it if you did.” He rubbed his fingers together, and a look of distaste crossed his features. “Thankfully, the thing that did this is probably dead.”

“How can you tell?”

“There’s blood on the hinges and sprayed across the wall to our right. Their blood, like a vampire’s, has acid-like qualities; you can see the path of its spray by the stained pitting in the concrete.”

“The Others would only enter this place if there was something to hunt. That might be all the proof we need that this is the base at the end of that false rift.”

“Hardly, given there’s more than one old military base in the country.”

“But it wasn’t mine, and the only other base within reasonable distance to Central—”

“We go nowhere,” he cut in, voice flat and edged with finality, “until we’re sure this is the bunker you discovered.”

We did things his way, or else, it seemed. “And if it is?”

“Then we arrange a little cleansing party.”

There was a note of . . . not anticipation, but something close to it, in his voice, and it sent a shiver down my spine. “I’m not going to be a member of that party. I’m not a soldier, Jonas, and I want no part of that sort of action.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Even if it helps free the missing children?”

“The children weren’t at the base I discovered.”

“You can’t be sure of that, given you only saw a small section of it before you set off the alarm and the vamps attacked.”

“The Carleen ghosts said the children had been moved. Besides, the only scent in the air was that of the vampires, and that wouldn’t have been the case if the children had been there recently.”

“Maybe they’re being held on another level. The ventilation system isn’t active, remember, and even I couldn’t smell the scent of humanity through the thick layers of concrete in this place.”

The ventilation system might not be working, but there was fresh air getting to the lower levels. Even vampires couldn’t survive forever on foul air.

But I didn’t bother pointing it out. Jonas had moved on, anyway.

We walked silently through the network of corridors and stairwells. Four levels down, we began to find the bodies. Or rather, the battered remnants of what once had been bodies. The ghosts of those who’d died here flitted across the edges of my vision, and though they made no move to stop us, their fury and bitterness grew, until it became a physical weight that made both my body and heart ache.

We mean you no harm, I said, in an effort to ease the force of their emotions. We merely seek information about the children who were recently stationed in this place.

Images flooded my mind—images of death and destruction, of the blood that had soaked the walls of this place and flooded the floors. Images of the fallen who, even after death, had been given no peace, no final resting place, but rather had their bodies hacked to pieces and their parts scattered, simply because the shifters had falsely believed that déchet could rise even after death.

My stomach rose and I stumbled several steps, scattering leg bones as I battled not to lose everything I’d eaten for breakfast.