Winter Halo (Outcast 2)

“So, what do you want to know?” She pulled the lid off the container and blew on the thick black liquid.

“What was it like to work for Winter Halo, and why did you leave?”

She snorted. “Simple questions, but the answers are somewhat more complicated.”

I took a sip of my coffee. It was smoky and rich in flavor—the sort of coffee they’d often made in the camps during the war. Maybe that was why this place was so popular—it harked back to a time when shifters were considered a nomadic people. Few of them were these days. The forests had mostly recovered from the destruction, but the rifts made it far too dangerous to live within them. Though in reality, the metal curtain walls should not have provided any sort of protection from the rifts, but it was an odd fact that no cities had ever been hit by one. Maybe it had something to do with the silver most walls were coated with, which was not only a deterrent to vamps, but often used against magic.

“Complicated how?” I asked. “You can take your time to explain, because I’m in no particular hurry right now.”

“Well, bully for you. I, however, start work in fifteen minutes and the boss doesn’t like me being late.”

“Then talk.”

She drank some coffee. “Halo was, at first, a good place to work. The money is above set salary rates, and being a security officer isn’t an overly taxing position either physically or mentally—not with all the electronic shit they have installed.”

“What did you have to do?”

“Watch monitors and do hourly patrols. There’s two guards per floor, but which one you’re assigned varies night to night.” She shrugged. “Even so, it can get monotonous.”

“Is that why you left?”

“No. I left because the fucking place is haunted.”

I blinked. That certainly wasn’t an answer I’d expected. “Haunted as in ghosts? Dead-people-type ghosts?”

“What other fucking kind is there?”

Her tone was sarcastic and I couldn’t help smiling. “What did these ghosts do?”

She grimaced. “Nothing at first. I mean, I heard some of the other guards saying they’d been accosted and the like, but I put it down to nerves. Many of them really aren’t made of stern stuff; they’re hiring on looks rather than suitability if you ask me.” She paused and looked me up and down. “You certainly fit the profile, and at least you’ve got some muscle tone on you.”

“Years of working in shitty positions,” I said, voice dry. “Did the women report the assaults when they happened? Or go to corps?”

“It was reported internally, but nothing ever happened. I mean, they’re ghosts. What can be done to stop them?”

“A witch could have been brought in to banish them.” But I was betting it was an option that had never been considered, even if we were talking about ghosts and not something a whole lot darker in origin. Or, in this case, brighter, given we already knew at least one of Sal’s partners was capable of using a sun shield. If there were actual ghosts in Winter Halo, I’d be very surprised.

“Yeah, well, one wasn’t,” Kendra said. “And even if it weren’t ghosts, they make you sign a contract when you’re employed that basically states anything that happens inside that building stays in that building. Anyone caught discussing or complaining outside—even to family—has to repay all credits and face the possibility of prosecution.”

“I wouldn’t have thought a contract like that would be legal.”

“It is. Had it checked before I signed the thing.”

“I would have thought even that would have been frowned upon.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” She shrugged. “But they said they had nothing to hide.”

On the surface, at least, it would appear so. “When did you become a victim of the ghosts? And what happened when they attacked you?”

“It happened when I was finally assigned to the tenth level.” She paused. “It’s the top level any of us regular guards get to. You have to be one of the favori to go any higher.”

“And how do you become one of those?”

“You’re promoted. Don’t ask me how, because I never got there.” She drank some more coffee, then continued. “The first time I was attacked, I was slammed against the wall and touched up.”

“Breasts and butt, or further?”

“Oh, the lot. Ghostly bastard even dry-humped me.”