City of Light (Outcast 1)

Bear returned and the image of a green wall surrounding the entire top part of the hill flashed into my mind. A couple of seconds later, Cat joined us. The wall was apparently two trees high. Which maybe meant I could get over it, but not in daylight. It would have to be done at night, when I was able to shadow and move as easily as the vampires—and that was something I was loath to do when they were so very aware of our presence in the area.

Which meant there was nothing more I could do here. Not at the moment, anyway. But the day wasn’t a total waste—I now had proof Sal was involved, and that surely meant my next move had to be questioning him.

And once I’d questioned him . . . I closed my eyes against the slither of pain that ran through me.

Once I’d questioned him, I would have to kill him. I couldn’t release him, because he would then come after me. He and his partners were already far too uncertain about my part in the break-ins at their facilities.

Of course, given what they’d been doing here today, it was totally possible that he wouldn’t meet with me. But even as the thought crossed my mind, I brushed it away as nonsense. Sal was a gray—a cool, calm assassin. He wouldn’t flinch at killing me any more than he had the hundreds he’d killed during the war, and who knew how many after. He might regret the loss of our friendship, and he might briefly miss the sex, but his emotional center, like those of the déchet soldiers, had been chemically altered. Perhaps not to the same degree, but it had nevertheless been done.

He wouldn’t miss me as I would miss him.

But before I did anything, I had to get back to full strength. To have any hope of being able to question and kill Sal, I had to be at the top of my game physically and mentally.

I spun on my heel and headed back to our bunker. It took just over an hour to get there, by which time Central’s drawbridge was down and the rail yards buzzed with life. I switched direction and took the long way around, preferring to walk through the dappled light of the small park behind the museum to the crowded confines of the pod platforms.

I finally made it to the tunnel and headed for the main kitchens on level five. The machines were running low on anything resembling fresh food, so I settled on several protein packs, a somewhat less than appealing-looking orange, and a large black coffee. Once I’d consumed those, I returned to the bunkhouse and made myself comfortable on my bed. After asking the ghosts to keep watch, I closed my eyes and focused on nothing more than my breathing, on every intake of air as it washed through my nostrils and down into my lungs. Eventually, the calm healing state began to descend. It took a while, but the persistent, niggling chill that had settled deep into my bones began to ease, and the tiredness that had plagued me over the last day or so began to ebb away.

Eventually, I took a deep breath and pulled myself from the trancelike state. The bunk room was silent; none of the ghosts were near, not even Cat and Bear.

Frowning, I pushed to my feet and walked over to the exit, pressing my thumb against the scanner and waiting with some impatience for Hank to do his bit and open the doors.

The ghosts appeared as I walked into the corridor heading down to the next level. They swirled around me excitedly, everyone chattering at the same time, creating a whirlpool of sound and color and concern.

But not for me.

For the two people who were now standing at our exit grate.

“Guys, calm down.” I waited several seconds for them to do so, then added, “Who is at the grate?”

Images flashed into my mind. One was Nuri, the other was Branna. Both of them were bloody, but Branna looked in particularly bad shape.

I swore softly and ran down into the tunnel, switching off the electro-nets as I went.

“Tiger,” Nuri said, relief in her voice as I appeared. “You need to let us in. You need to help us.”

“Why?” I asked bluntly. “What can I do that you can’t get from Chaos or Central?”

“We can get many things in Chaos, but there’s no working mediscan beds, and Branna will die without one.”

My gaze went to him. There was a rough bandage around his waist, but it was dark and dripping with blood. His left arm had also been bandaged, and even from where I stood it was obvious it had been broken in several spots. And there was a truly vicious-looking wound peeling open on his forehead.

I returned my gaze to Nuri’s. “Central has mediscans, probably far better than the ones I have here.”

“Yes, but Branna, like the rest of us, is outcast.”

“I thought you said no one in Chaos was outcast.”

“Except for us, and those like us. Or, at least, those of us they know about.”

“Meaning what?”

She waved a hand. “That is not important right now. The only thing that matters is the fact that those in Central will let him die rather than treat him.”

I have to admit, I was more than a little willing to let that happen myself, especially given what he had already done to me, and what he no doubt would do if he ever found out what I was.

“Please, Tiger, this is important.”

I hesitated, then said, “Okay. But we keep him sedated even after he’s healed. The ghosts will not appreciate his presence and may well react.”