Winter Halo (Outcast 2)

“My ghosts can tell me that.” I met his gaze evenly. “And let’s not pretend you are, in any way, concerned for my personal safety. Just that of the mission to rescue the children and the part I still have to play in it.”

“Meaning you have yet again misjudged me.” He waved a hand, as if in dismissal of the disbelief that instantly sprang to my lips. “Go. I’ll wait here for Nuri.”

I hesitated, then simply nodded and leapt off the wall. But that didn’t stop the questions that crowded my mind. How the hell had I misjudged him? He’d done nothing but snipe and mistrust from the moment we officially met in that cell lit by vampire lights. Had done nothing but question both my motives and my actions, attempting to trip me up and reveal secrets. While his overall demeanor had lightened somewhat since he peeled away the last of those, the hatred of my race still ran deep. I could feel it, even if I could no longer see it.

I reached the road and headed up the long slope toward the central plaza, taking care to avoid the long strips of moss that now covered a good third of the broken asphalt. I knew from experience the moss leaked a substance that acted like acid on the skin; to say it was an unpleasant and painful experience would be something of an understatement.

Both my little ghosts kept close as we moved farther up the hill, but the Carleen ghosts were noticeably absent. Whether they’d been banished, or whether they’d simply fled the encroaching magic, I couldn’t say, but it left an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Anything that frightened ghosts sure as hell was worthy of fear.

“Bear, do you want to warn me the minute we near that barrier?”

His reassurance swept through me, though both of them were uneasy about getting too much closer. But it had to be done, just as the rift it was protecting had to be explored; there was no other way we were going to uncover where it went.

The farther we moved up the hill, the closer we got to the plaza, the more the dark magic grew, until its foulness burned every breath and my skin itched with the sting of a thousand fire ants.

This might have originated in a dark witch’s corruption of the earth’s power, but it was now being fueled by magic that wasn’t of this world—the same magic I’d felt in the shield that protected the false rifts, but deeper, more dangerous. Maybe that was why I was aware of it tonight when I hadn’t felt it previously.

We were still a good twenty meters away from the top of the

hill when Bear’s energy slapped against me, warning me to stop.

I’d been right—the dark magic was on the move, even if at a slower pace than I’d first feared. But there was still no sign of its presence on the ground or in the air; if not for the foul corruption staining my lungs and burning my skin, it would have been easy to believe nothing had changed since I was last here.

I glanced up. Again, nothing. “Cat, can you check how far up this thing now goes? Bear, do you want to check the circumference? But be careful, both of you.”

As they spun off to investigate, I crossed my arms and studied the city square above me, even though I couldn’t see much of it from where I stood. But I could see the top of the false rift. The first time I was here, it had hovered at the base of the bomb crater, above the remnants of the shelters that now housed little more than the bones of all those who had died there. I shouldn’t have been able to see the rift from where I stood, which meant either the rift had grown or it had been moved again.

If what I was seeing was real, that is.

Given the strength and bite of the magic, it was totally possible that it was fouling not only the earth and the bones of the ghosts, but what I was seeing as well.

I shivered and rubbed my arms. I really didn’t want to either breach it or go into that rift. I had a bad feeling doing either would be inviting trouble. But I wasn’t about to turn around, as much as instinct was telling me to.

I couldn’t.

Cat returned with the news that the height was now three trees. Which meant, working on the average size of the trees in the park, somewhere between forty-five and sixty meters.

“Is it open at the top?”

Her energy touched me lightly. Yes.

I wasn’t sure whether that was good news or bad. It certainly made it easier for me to get in there, but that might well have been the whole point.

Bear’s news also wasn’t great—the barrier had leached much farther down the other side of the hill and the force of it was destroying whatever building remnants had survived the war.

“Did you see the Carleen ghosts?”

Bear made a brief connection. They have gathered near the old cemetery.

I frowned. “The one outside the walls?” The one I’d battled the wraiths in?

Yes, though they gather inside the walls, not beyond them.

I hesitated and then said, “Cat, could you go down there and ask them why they moved?”

You don’t want us with you? Bear asked.

I caught their hands lightly. “I’d love for you both to accompany me, but I’m going into the false rift and we already know you can’t. Once you’ve talked to the ghosts, go back to Nuri and Jonas. Keep an eye on what they’re doing. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”