Winter Halo (Outcast 2)

“No.” His gaze moved to the crater’s rim. “Only one of them walked out of here. He left by the western edge.”

“That would have to be the person I was tracking.”

“Yes. It’s certainly not the tracks belonging to a wraith.” He rose. “We should follow him.”

“You can.” I couldn’t keep the edge of weariness from my voice. “The only thing I’ll be doing for the rest of the night is heading back to the bunker.”

His gaze met mine again, his expression unreadable. “Do you need help?”

“No. Not now, not later. But I’m guessing the latter is not an option.”

“No, but you could get lucky. The footprints could lead to another trap—this time a successful one.”

Annoyance surged and I thrust upright. Something tore across my back and that trickle got stronger. Fair payment for reacting to this man’s barbs, I guess. “Do you really think that if I wished you dead, you wouldn’t be so by now?”

“It wasn’t meant—”

“I don’t care how it was meant, Jonas. I’m sick of the mistrust. I’ve done nothing to deserve it, nothing other than being a product of a war long gone. Either treat me as you find me or live in the past with your rumors and your hatred and leave me be.”

And with that, I walked away. He didn’t follow me, but he did watch me. His gaze was a heat that pressed against my spine long after I’d left the crater behind.

I really wished I’d walked away at the beginning of all this. Neither he nor the vampires nor the damn fools trying to create sunlight immunity for vamps and wraiths would have been a problem if I just hadn’t rescued Penny and Jonas from the vamps. Our bunker—and all the ghosts who lived within it, be they young or old—would be safe.

And the children you’d rescued would now be dead.

I thrust a hand through my crusted hair and wished I could ignore that annoying inner voice. But all too often, she was right. I might not be able to love, but Rhea only knew I could do guilt with the best of them. Even after one hundred and three years, my inability to save my little ones was still driving my actions.

I guess I just had to hope it didn’t get me killed. Not before I’d rescued the rest of the missing children, anyway.

I slowly walked back through the old graveyard but skirted Carleen itself. The ruined city was an unpleasant place to be at the best of times, and it wasn’t just because of the rifts that endlessly roamed the confines of its walls. These days, there was an almost otherworldly feel to the place, which was due in no small part to both the deadly alien moss that now covered much of its ruins and the unnatural darkness that covered the false rifts.

The park that separated Carleen from Central City was still. Nothing moved, not even the leaves on the old trees, despite the wind that gently teased the nape of my neck. Once upon a time this place would have been alive with nighttime creatures, but even birds were a rare find these days. Though cities like Central had been rebuilt with all major services running aboveground to

ensure that the vampires had no means of protected access into them, there were still plenty of old service pipes and sewers outside these centers that had never been filled in. This park was near one such outlet, and in the years since the war the vampires had wiped out most of the wildlife in this area. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to be out tonight. Given the state I was in, I would have been easy meat for them.

Dawn was beginning to caress the night sky with fingers of pink and gold by the time I finally reached the end of the park. I paused in its shadows, sweeping my gaze over the rail yards that still separated me from my bunker’s southern exit. The glowing, caterpillar-like pods that transported Central’s many workers to the various production zones that provided the city with the necessities of life were still and quiet, and the city’s drawbridge remained closed. It wouldn’t open until dawn had well and truly chased the night from the sky.

I slowly headed down into the yards. The vast curtain wall that ran in a D shape around Central towered above me, its rusting silvery surface glinting softly in the wash of the UV lights that topped both the wall and every roof of every building within Central, providing its inhabitants with endless daylight. It was not a place I could have lived comfortably for any length of time. But then, there was vampire in my DNA. I might not crave blood, but I had no fear of darkness.

Only the creatures that ran within it.

I made my way through the platforms and across City Road—the only vehicular access in and out of Central—then headed for the muddy trickle of water that was still known as the Barra River. Like many things in this world of ours, its course and its appearance had been forever altered when the bombs had been unleashed.

As the curtain wall curved away from the road and the river, a ramshackle collection of buildings appeared. Chaos, as it had long been known, was an interconnected mess of metal storage units, old wood, and plastic that clung to the wall’s side. It was a place where the broken and the outcast lived, and both gangs and money ruled it—and the higher you lived, the more power, wealth, and protection you had. That particular aspect was replicated in Central, except that it was the city’s heart—and the safety that came with being as far away from the walls as was possible—that drew the wealthy and the powerful.

Nuri and her people lived in the midsection of Chaos, in a place called Run Turk Alley, which was basically mercenary central. I’d been there a couple of times now, but had no desire to return. I might not fear darkness, but I had no love of places that made me feel confined and unable to breathe—which was undoubtedly a result of being tossed into a cesspit and left to die during the war.

The thick steel grate that covered the bunker’s southern exit came into sight and appeared to be untouched—which was something of a relief given the number of times I’d come back here recently to find it under attack. There was a second entrance, but it was located in the museum that had been created out of the area that had once contained the day-to-day operational center of the Humanoid Development Project, and that made it trickier to use on a daily basis. I might have reprogrammed their computers and security systems to ignore my presence, but that didn’t mean I dared push my luck too often.

This tunnel, like the tight, circular stairwell that led into the museum, had been designed as an emergency escape route for the humans in charge of the various HDP sections. Neither had been mentioned on any of the base plans that I’d uncovered, which was probably why the shifters, after the mass destruction of all those within the bunker, had only flooded the first three levels with concrete. Doing that had taken out all known exits as well as the lift shafts and loading bays, leaving the remaining levels and the bodies of all those who had died in this place locked in endless darkness.

Or so they’d thought.

It had been through sheer luck more than actual intent that I’d found the museum tunnel, and it had been several years after that before I found this one, but the two of them gave me much-needed access points to the outside world. It might be a world I ventured into only once or twice a month—mostly for food or equipment supplies, but occasionally for company that was real rather than ghostly—but that didn’t assuage the desire to know what was going on above me on a regular basis.

I deactivated the electro-nets protecting the tunnel as I approached each one, then reset them once I’d passed. Up ahead, lights came on, the brightness making my eyes water. Then the ghosts surged around me, their energy tingling across my skin as they all endeavored to fill me in on what they’d been doing since I left. Given that there’d been one hundred and five of them who’d found death in the nurseries of this place, that was a whole lot of mental noise.

“Guys, calm down. I can’t understand a word you’re saying when you all talk at once.”