Winter Halo (Outcast 2)

“O-positive.”

“Good. Having the most common blood group makes our task a little easier.” Nuri pushed upright and walked over to the old bench. When she returned, she handed me a small piece of paper. On it was a name—Kendra James. “She’s a former employee of Winter Halo who is willing to talk. I’ve set up a meeting with her for ten this morning.”

I glanced at the old timepiece on the wall. It was now after nine, so she wasn’t giving me a whole lot of time to get back into Central. “Where? And what does she look like?”

“Place called Farmers on Twelfth, about a block up from the market. And aside from the orange hair, she has a nose ring.”

Which was unusual, as most shifters tended to avoid piercings. “And there’s enough credits on the current chip to at least buy her a drink?”

Nuri nodded. “We put five hundred on it, so more than enough.”

Meaning I could have had more of those macarons. I finished my stew, then pushed the bowl away and rose. “How long will it take to set up the new ID?”

“When is your next meeting with Fontaine?” Nuri countered.

“Tomorrow night.”

“Good. We should have it mostly set up by then.” She hesitated. “Be wary if you head into Carleen over the next couple of days—there have been some very bad vibrations coming from that place recently.”

I frowned. “Bad in what way?”

“There is a dark magic growing in there now—a magic far blacker than the stuff that guards the false rifts. It stains the earth and fouls the air; I can feel the force of it from here.”

“That’s probably the huge wall that has been raised around the main plaza. It protects the false rift that was shifted there recently.” I grimaced. “The ghosts were complaining that it blights their bones with its malevolence.”

She frowned. “Can you describe it?”

I hesitated. “There’s no sign or indication that it exists when you approach it. There’s not even any sort of energy overflow. But it is, according to little Cat, two trees high, and when you get within arm’s reach, a thin strap of green light snaps up from the ground and attempts to snare you. Its feel is foul, and it’s unlike anything I’ve come across before.”

“That sounds like the energy of the earth itself has been corrupted,” Nuri murmured. “And if that is the case, we are truly dealing with a witch of some power.”

Of that I had no doubt. “Can you counter such a barrier?”

She hesitated. “It takes time to dismantle spells from unknown origins, and I fear that is something we do not have enough of.”

My frowned deepened. “Meaning time is running out for those kids?”

“Yes.” She rubbed a hand across her eyes, and for the first since I’d met her, I sensed fear. “But my main worry is what these people intend. If they’re anywhere near finding a form of immunity for either the vampires or the wraiths, we are all in deep trouble.”

A chill ran through me—a chill caused not so much by her statement, but rather by a sinking feeling that the vampires would attack en masse sometime in the very near future.

I shivered and rubbed my arms. “When I asked Sal why he and his partners had separated the five children we rescued from the others, he said it was because they had outlasted their usefulness.”

Jonas frowned. “Did you ask why?”

I nodded. “Yes, but he didn’t really say. He just said that all the children in the program were either survivors of the rift doorways or the children of said survivors.”

I hadn’t actually been aware that there were two types of rifts at the time, but, according to Sal, while most did kill, the small minority that were doorways bled not only magic into this world, but also the matter—the very atoms of creation—from the other side. And this meant that those who survived such doorways were neither of this world nor of the other, but a creation of both.

Nuri and Jonas shared a long glance. In that moment, I remembered all the times I’d not only glimpsed the darkness in Penny’s eyes, but also seen it in theirs.

It was a darkness I’d also glimpsed in Sal’s eyes, and one I now knew to be the darkness of a rift.

Both Jonas and Nuri were rift survivors.

Chapter 5

Nuri must have seen the realization dawn in my eyes, because she smiled grimly and said, “We were caught in a rift with Penny five weeks after the war had ended, when few were even aware of their existence.”