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.”

“Which is why you all have a strong telepathic bond.” Then I blinked as the rest of her words impacted. “Five weeks after the war?”

Jonas’s smile held very little in the way of humor. “You once asked why I hated déchet with such passion. It’s because I fought in that war. Because I witnessed the atrocities of your people.”

It certainly explained the rage I’d seen when he told me about the gas chambers in the old Broken Mountains military base. He’d been there. He’d watched those deaths. It wasn’t history and rumors to him, but something he’d actually survived.

Rhea help me . . .

I cleared my throat and said, “My people weren’t the only ones who committed atrocities, Jonas. And most déchet had no will; they were only doing what they were ordered to.”

He snorted. “Even the humans were not so debase as to order some of the things your kind did—”

“I would not be so sure of that.” I hesitated, then added, “It was not my people who gassed yours in that base, remember. And it was a gas your people subsequently used, on us, and all of those who looked after us, even knowing what it did.”

“Because there was no surer way to wipe the stain of déchet from this world.”

“There were better drugs that could have been used,” I snapped. “There were children down there, for Rhea’s sake.”

“Something only those in charge knew. And it wasn’t as if the rangers had any say over how those bases—and everyone left within them—were dealt with.”

“But if you did, you still would have killed us.”

“Yes.” He met me glare for glare, his expression cold. “Just because I survived does not mean everyone I loved did.”

“Enough,” Nuri intervened. “The past is something we cannot change. We need to move forward.”

I snorted. “Has Branna moved forward? I’m gathering he’s another war and rift survivor.” He had to be, given the sheer depth of his hate.

“Yes,” Nuri said. “But he was caught in a completely different rift.”

I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the anger flitting through me. Anger wouldn’t help; in that, Nuri was right. “So if you’re all actually older than even I am, how is it you show no signs of aging?”

“The rifts stop the aging process. We can die, but we cannot and do not age.”

Which explained why Penny had often seemed so much older than she looked—she was, in real-life terms, as old as I was.

“And is that why you said you’re outcast? Because you’re rift survivors rather than simply Central’s unwanted like most who live here?”

Nuri nodded. “In the early years, when not much was understood about the rifts, it was erroneously believed that survivors had a connection to them and that having us in the city would somehow cause them to appear.”

“Which is wrong, of course,” Jonas said. “We are simply sensitive to their presence. We cannot draw or control them.”

“But a law was passed that forced survivors to places such as this,” Nuri continued, “and that law has never been repealed, even if we understand much more about the rifts these days.”

“So why were all those people who got involved with Winter Halo’s initial testing program living in Central?”

“Because most of them were undeclared rift survivors. As I said, the law is antiquated, and it is not often enforced.”

“Which is why you’re able to move around Central without reprisal?”

Jonas’s smile once again held little humor. “We may be outcast, but we are not without use. There are many operations that the government—for various reasons—does not wish to openly support.”

So I’d been right—they did have government connections, even if covert ones. “Well, I hope one of those black ops is not focused on either me or my bunker. And I would hope that none of you would take the job if it was offered.”

“I have promised on the goddess that I would not,” Nuri said. “You obviously know enough of witchcraft and magic to understand what would happen if I did, in any way, condone any action that would harm you.”

“That does not apply to Branna.”

“We will do our best to control Branna; more than that, we cannot promise.” Jonas’s gaze met mine, his face expressionless. “But he is only one man, and you have proven yourself more than capable of self-defense.”

Yes, but even the mightiest warrior could be brought down by long-distance weapons. I glanced at the timepiece again. “I suggest you keep a very close eye on Penny. The raids on my bunker suggest she is still of value to them.”

“She is well guarded in this place. No one is getting to her.” And no one would want to, if Jonas’s expression was anything to go by.

“I’d also suggest you get her DNA-tested.”

Nuri frowned. “Why?”

“Because you said yourself, Penny is not what she once was. Given what they’re trying to achieve, I wouldn’t be surprised if she now has vampire and even wraith in her.”

Nuri shared a concerned glance with Jonas. “I wouldn’t think that possible to achieve outside the force of the rifts.”

“These people can create rifts.”

Her expression became even grimmer. “I’ll have her tested immediately.”

I glanced at Jonas as I pushed away from the table. “I’ll see you tonight.”

The two ghosts spun around me, excited to be leaving again. While neither of them had my fear of enclosed spaces, they nevertheless disliked this place. They loved the noise, the space, and the color of Central, but Chaos was simply too shadowed and colorless for them.

Once we were free of it, I sucked deep breaths to clean the foulness from my lungs, then stopped close to Central’s curtain wall. While I doubted anyone would be keeping an eye on former employees, Kendra was expecting someone who was going for a job at Winter Halo, and that meant someone with tiger orange hair. And while I had tiger DNA, it had come from the rare white tiger. No one had ever told me why they’d chosen to use those genes over that of the more common orange tiger, but I’d always figured it had something to do with aesthetics. White tigers might be a genetic mutation, but it was one that was considered very desirable by most cat clans—especially if, like me, they also had blue eyes.

I closed them and imagined a face that was rounded, with dimples and amber eyes as well as the requisite orange hair. I also reduced both my height and my breasts back to normal; I didn’t mind this rather well-endowed version, but it certainly wasn’t a form I had any desire to remain in for too long.

After I’d frozen the image of my new shape in my mind, I reached for the magic. It swept through me like a gale, making my muscles tremble and causing the image I desired to waver. I frowned and concentrated harder. The energy pulsed as the change began. My skin rippled, bones restructured, and my hair color changed. The pain that came with the shift was incredible and I gritted my teeth against the scream that tore up my throat, my breath little more than sharp hisses as pinpricks of sweat broke out over altering flesh.

When the magic finally faded, I collapsed back against the wall and sucked in air until the burning had eased. Shifting was never a pleasant thing, but sometimes it was more painful than others. No one had ever been able to explain why.

With that done, I resolutely made my way back to Central. Once I was through the gatehouse, I swung left onto Twelfth. The curtain wall stretched high above me, a rusting silver monolith that under normal conditions would have cast this whole area into deep shadow. But the UVs burned night and day, and there were never any true shadows in this place.

I caught the sound of stall holders promoting their prices and goods long before I ever neared the market. As I got closer, I drew in another deep breath, letting the riot of delicious scents filter through my body and make my mouth water. The market was a sea of tents and temporary stalls that stretched across the entire street, forcing all those needing to get farther down Twelfth through the many higgledy-piggledy rows. Cat and Bear’s excitement stung the air as they raced through the textile section, making the clothing flutter even though there was no wind in this place. As we moved into the fruit and veg section, they continued the chase, eventually managing to upset a cart of oranges.

Careful, I said, even as I snagged some of the fruit for later.

They raced on, their giggles of enjoyment making me smile. Thankfully, nothing else was sent tumbling. Once we were free of the market, I began looking for Farmers. It was, as Nuri had said, one block up, and was little more than a hole-in-the-wall place that served hot drinks and the hard, vegetable-laden flatbreads shifters had once used as trail food. I hadn’t actually had the stuff since the war, and I’d certainly never seen it in Central before. This place had to be new.

I scanned the small crowd gathered at the front of the building, but couldn’t see Kendra, so I joined the line and eventually got inside. An orange-haired woman with a large circular ring hanging off her left nostril was sitting at the small counter to the left of the door.

“Kendra?” I said.

A sliver of energy ran around me as her gaze met mine. It didn’t feel like magic and it wasn’t seeking as such, but it was certainly something similar. As it faded, she seemed to relax. “Yes. You’re Zin?”

I presumed I was, if Zin was short for Zindella, the current surname on my RFID chip. “Would you like a coffee or something to eat?”

“Just a coffee, thanks. Black, four sugars.”

I couldn’t help my shudder. While I didn’t mind some sweets, I’d never been able to face my coffee with the syruplike consistency most shifters preferred.

Jonas, it seemed, was rare in that he liked his coffee with only one sugar—which, while still too sweet for my taste buds, was at least drinkable.

When I finally made it to the counter, I ordered two coffees and several of the flatbreads to add to my stash of oranges for later. Both would be better than the beef jerky I was currently living on.

And maybe, given how many credits I had on the RFID, I should take the opportunity to stock up at the market. It’d make a nice change from stealing.

Once I had our order, I returned to the small counter and perched on the stool next to Kendra’s.

“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.”

“So you think it was a male?”

“Yeah, felt his cock pressing against me.” She laughed, the sound sharp. “But it wasn’t really erect. The old boy wasn’t enjoying himself much, it seemed.”

“And the second time it happened?”

“It wasn’t sexual. The bastard bit me.”

I raised my eyebrows. “He bit you.”

“Yeah.” She swept the hair away from the right side of her neck. “You can still see the scar.”

You could, but it wasn’t teeth marks; wasn’t a vampire bite. They were far too precise for either of those. They’d been created by either a very small blade or a large syringe.

“Do you remember much about the attack?”

She frowned. “Oddly, no. I felt this sharp sting on the back of my neck and then everything sort of went hazy. I could feel him biting, but that’s about it.”

Meaning it was possible a very short-term drug had been used. But why would anyone want to steal blood if they weren’t actually a vampire? Did this have something to do with the attempt to gain light immunity for the vamps and the wraiths? Or was something weirder going on?

“How long were you hazy?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes at the most.” She shrugged again. “What was weird, though, was the fact that my fellow guard claimed she saw nothing. I played back the vid, and she was right. Nothing showed up.”

“Had it been erased?”

She shook her head. “No, it simply showed me walking through the foyer as usual. No assault, no nothing, despite the evidence on my neck. Weird, as I said.”

Meaning someone, somewhere, had tampered with it—and had done so pretty much at the same time as the attack. “What did you do after that?”

“I went down to personnel and quit on the spot. No job is worth putting up with that shit.”

“So why did you, given you were aware it was happening to others?”

“Because it wasn’t a fucking problem until it happened to me, was it? And as I said, the pay was good. It was worth gambling on it not happening.”

“Are all guards assigned to that floor attacked?”

“All of them are attacked, yes, but not everyone gets bit. I was hoping to be in the latter group. Guess I got unlucky.” She shrugged again. “That’s why there’s such a high turnover of security guards. Some are scared to go up there again, and some simply don’t want to risk it being worse on the upper levels.”

And I had no doubt it would be worse if they were taking blood samples. It was unlikely they’d be looking for something as simple as guards with a specific blood group—especially given that information had already been scanned in from their RFID chips when they were first employed.

Kendra glanced at the time. “You’ve got a couple of minutes left.”

“Did you ever talk to the favori? Or talk to anyone who knew what was going on in the upper levels?”

“No. But I can say that everyone who was bitten was moved up. You could probably talk to personnel and get a list from them.”

Nuri probably could. I wasn’t about to risk either of my current identities being outed to Sal’s partners by accessing yet another employee.

Kendra took a gulp of her coffee. “You know, if there’s one good thing about working in a brothel, it’s that I’m at least getting paid to be touched up and bitten.”

Intuition stirred. “What brothel?”

“Deseo.”

Which just happened to be the brothel Sal had not only owned, but one that had a false rift sitting in its basement. Thank goodness I’d taken the time to alter my appearance—though I daresay if anyone did question Kendra, then an orange-haired woman asking questions about the company would still raise alarms.

And if I was going to raise alarms, I might as well do it properly. “Who runs that place now? I thought I heard something about the owner dying recently.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s news to me. The manager certainly hasn’t mentioned anything along those lines, and the place is running as usual.”

Sal had said he was a silent partner, so were the two people he’d been caught in the rift with now running Deseo? Or was it someone completely unrelated to either Sal or the immunity plot? And did he or she know about the false rift sitting in the basement?

Maybe that was a question Nuri and her crew needed to ask.

I shrugged. “Maybe it was another brothel and not Deseo.”

“Maybe.” She glanced at the time again, then drained her remaining coffee and rose. “I won’t wish you good luck, because a woman with your looks won’t have any trouble getting the job. But I do hope you manage to avoid them damn ghosts.”

“Most of the ghosts I’ve come across have always been the friendly, if somewhat mischievous, type.” Laughter ran around me at this statement, tugging a smile to my lips.

Kendra’s expression suggested she wasn’t sure whether to take me seriously or not. “Yeah, well, let’s hope for your sake you don’t discover otherwise.”

And with that, she left.

I finished my coffee, then made my way back out to the market, stocking up on meat and fruit before walking back to the bunker—only to discover it was filled with not only more engineers and museum staff, but also bright lights. While I could shadow in light, it took a whole lot of strength—strength I wasn’t about to waste, given I had no idea what I might be facing tonight when I headed back into Carleen.

So instead I walked deep into the park and found a nice tree to sit under. The meat had been cryovacced and placed in cool bags and the day wasn’t hot, so both it and the fruit would be okay until this evening. After asking Cat and Bear to keep watch, I closed my eyes and got some much-needed sleep.

I woke with dusk and made my way back to the bunker. The horde of people had gone and the museum was quiet again. Once I’d slipped through the doors, the rest of the ghosts greeted us, excitedly filling us in on everything that had happened over the day. Cat and Bear returned the favor as I hugged the food containers close, then took on vampire form and slipped through the staircase remains.

By the time I’d stored the food, then showered and dressed, the ghosts informed me that Jonas was outside, waiting. I headed to the ammunition store and grabbed my automatics, attaching them to the thigh hooks on my combat pants as I walked across the store to get a couple of the slender machine rifles I’d adapted to fire small sharpened stakes rather than bullets.

On the way out, I remembered the reason Jonas had come here, and tracked back to the bunk room to grab my tunic as well as the trail bread to munch on the way to Carleen. I hesitated again as intuition flared, and grabbed a medipac even as I hoped intuition was wrong and I wouldn’t need it.

Jonas was waiting to the right of the main doors, leaning against the glass dome that protected the old walls of the tower and the various other bits of the operations center—a position that normally would have resulted in him being fried by the laser curtain that protected the museum at night. But the power still hadn’t been restored to the museum, and the curtain wasn’t working. It was a point that made me nervous; if I could get in and out of my bunker by shadowing, then the vampires certainly could. I guess the only thing I had in my favor was the ghosts and the fact that I knew where the stair entrance had been located and the vampires—and those who were working with them—did not. Even so, I silently asked Bear to go back and boot up the lights in the bunker’s main corridors. If the vamps did get down that far, then at least the bastards would fry long before they got anywhere important.

Jonas rose as I walked toward him, his gaze briefly scanning me. “Back to normal proportions, I see.”

“Yes. Did you bring the scanner with you?”

“I did.” He motioned to the backpack at his feet. “Nuri managed to get you an apartment on Third Street—it’s small and near the gatehouse end rather than the more prized area closer to the park, but it’ll do for your purpose.”

Any apartment on Third would do. Even the so-called less preferable ends were worth more than most of the people on Twelfth could ever hope to make. “Is it rented? Because that might be a problem if anyone checks—”

“It belongs to a friend of hers,” he cut in. “Access logs have been altered to show you’ve been staying there for three weeks.”

“And the friend?”

“Left this afternoon to visit relatives in Brighten Bay. She’ll be gone for two weeks.”

Brighten Bay was an upper-class holiday port on the other side of the Broken Mountains. It was one of the few rebuilt cities that wasn’t fully surrounded by a curtain wall. Instead, both the wall and the buildings it protected stretched out over the water for about half a kilometer and then simply stopped. Despite this, it had never been attacked—not on that open side, anyway. Theories were numerous and varied, but most seemed to think the wraiths couldn’t swim and the vampires simply didn’t like or didn’t trust the sea. There were UVs, of course, meaning the sea was never dark, and that in itself provided an additional barrier for any wraiths or vamps that did get that far.

“Is two weeks going to be long enough?”

“According to Nuri, it has to be. If we do not rescue the kids by then, they’re dead.”

“No pressure, then,” I muttered.

“None at all. You want to change appearance so I can scan in your details?”

“You want to turn around?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re shy? Really?”

“There are some things I really prefer not to share, and the shifting experience is one of them. It’s . . . unpleasant viewing.”

“I am a war survivor, remember. There aren’t many things that could or would disturb me.” Even so, he crossed his arms and turned around.

I stripped, changed to the appropriate shape, then put on the tunic. As before, my breasts tested the strength of the seams. I really needed to get more clothes.

“Right, let’s do this.” I lightly plucked the soft material away from my belly in a vague attempt to cool the sweat still dotting my body after the shift.

Jonas grabbed the scanner from the backpack, then hit a button. Blue light swept me, running my length several times to store all measurements—even my iris details. Once it had beeped to indicate completion, I held out my right hand, the underside of my wrist facing upward. His fingers wrapped around mine, his grip light and warm as he held me steady. I tried to ignore the flick of desire it caused and watched as he pressed the scanner against my skin. This time there was no sting of an RFID chip being inserted under my flesh. Instead, there was an odd, warm tingle as the information on my existing chip was altered.

When the scanner beeped to indicate it was done, Jonas released my hand and stepped back. “Nuri has sent a new tunic, but said there will be more clothing in the apartment by the time you get there. Here are the address and security details, as well as the details of the new ID.”

He handed me a piece of paper and a tunic in the softest pink. I scanned the note quickly, then tore it up. The ghosts chased the pieces as they fluttered away on the breeze.

“You can now turn around again while I resume my regular shape.”

“Seriously, have you ever seen a shifter shift? It’s not pretty—”

“I have, but I’d still like you to turn around.”

“You can’t have been in many camps during the war,” he commented, turning. “Because nakedness was commonplace.”

“I’m aware of that. But being naked in front of someone I’m—” I cut the rest of the sentence off. It might be stupid to refuse to admit to the attraction, given the pheromones that often stung the air whenever we got too close, but by voicing it, I gave it power. Made it something we had to confront rather than ignore.

He didn’t say anything, even though there was something in his expression that said he was well aware of how I’d intended to finish that sentence. He turned around. I repeated the shifting process, then redressed in my combat gear. Once that was done, I leaned against the wall and sucked in air.

“You okay?” Jonas asked.

“Yeah. It’s just that multishifting in such a short time period always takes it out of me.”

“A problem all shifters face,” he said. “It is not something we ever do lightly, no matter what human history might have you believe.”

Which was an echo of a statement I’d made and one that had a somewhat bitter smile twisting my lips. The shifters had come out relatively sparkly under the prewar human version of history compared to the hatchet job the shifters had done on us after the war.

I folded the two tunics up and placed them near the door; they’d be safe enough there until I got back. The vamps and Sal’s partners were the only ones likely to come out at night, and two nondescript tunics weren’t going to help them much.

“I don’t know what your plans are this evening, Ranger, but I’m heading back to Carleen.”

“Then so am I.” He dropped the scanner back into the pack, then slung it over his shoulder. “Do you hope to find that stranger again? Because it’s unlikely he’d risk a second meeting so soon after being discovered.”

“He could be a she, remember.” I made my way across City Road and headed for the park.

Jonas shook his head. “The scent track I followed from the false rift site had male overtones, not female.”

I glanced at him. “But we’re talking about people who now share DNA and can shift form.”

“Which does not mean they can alter their basic physiology. They can’t become male if they are female—you can’t, can you?”

“No.” Though Rhea only knows our creators had certainly tried to make that happen. The in-tube death rate of the lure program had been high enough, but that rate became one hundred percent every time they tried to create a multisex body shifter. “But just because I can’t doesn’t mean that rule will hold when two males and a female were fused by a rift.”

“I think it does, if only because, psychologically, they’ll identify as one or the other.” He shrugged. “How did your meeting with Kendra go?”

“It was interesting.” I dug the trail bread out of my pocket and offered him a piece as we moved into the park. “She claimed the place was haunted.”

He shook his head. “By ghosts? Or something else?”

“She said ghosts. I believe it might be someone using a sun shield.” I broke off a bit of the bread and munched on it.

“That’s a rare talent—”

“And one Sal was not only capable of, but also his partners. Remember, I was tracked to Old Stan’s by someone who neither of us could see.”

“Someone whose scent was feminine.” He was silent for a minute, his gaze sweeping the shadows. “Did these so-called ghosts do anything?”

I quickly repeated everything Kendra had said, then added, “But the wounds she showed me were made by either a knife or a needle. I believe they were taking a blood sample.”

He frowned. “Is that going to create a problem for you when we get you in there?”

“Given that we’re not sure what they’re actually testing for, I can’t say. They’ll find both vampire and tiger shifter DNA, but it might be something of an advantage in this case.”

“Except that they’ll know you’re a déchet.”

“Yes, but for all they know, the person I’m replacing might be one of the rare survivors of a vampire attack and therefore a dhampir. I’d imagine their DNA would be similar to that of a déchet, given survivors undergo a physical change.”

“Yes, but the vampire factor will undoubtedly cause alarm. The next logical step would be to check that person’s history, as all survivors by law have to be listed.” He paused, his expression thoughtful. “It could be possible, of course, to alter said history and add a line or two about surviving an attack.”

I snorted. “And how are you going to do that? With the government connections you swear you don’t have?”

“We are not connected. As I said, we just undertake certain operations on a per-mission basis.”

“That is a connection in my books.” I finished the portion of trail bread and brushed the crumbs off my fingers. “Whatever is going on at Winter Halo is happening in the upper levels. Until I can get in there, Fontaine is our best source of information.”

“If he knows anything. He may not.”

“If the financial director doesn’t know where the bodies are buried, I’m not sure who would.”

Jonas half smiled. “Stranger things have happened.”

Yeah, like a ranger being attracted to a déchet despite his experiences in the war and the hatred that ran river deep within him—not that he’d verbalize the attraction any more than I intended to.

It took us just under an hour to get to Carleen. I paused on the wide, empty verge that separated the park from the city’s broken walls and scanned the area. As usual, Carleen was still and silent. Something had changed, though—the pall of darkness that hung over this place whether it was night or day had deepened. But it wasn’t just the darkness that came from the suffering and the death of all those who’d been in this city when the last bombs of the war razed it, nor was it the darkness that came with the presence of so many rifts. This darkness held not only a deep and alien sense of power but also hate. The sort of hate that had started a war and almost destroyed a world.

And it was coming from the center of Carleen, where the wall of unseen energy surrounded the city square and the few building remnants that still stood there.

Nuri was right. The magic was growing in power. What that meant for not only Carleen and its ghosts, but also those of us who lived beyond its broken walls, I couldn’t say. But I had a bad feeling we needed to find some way to either stop it or destroy it before it gained too much of a foothold in this world.

“There are no rifts nearby,” Jonas said.

“I wish the same could be said about that magic.”

He glanced at me sharply. “It’s moved?”

“It’s more that it’s bleeding into the surrounding areas rather than moving.” I hesitated, then forced my feet forward. “I think you’d better tell Nuri to get her ass up here as soon as the sun is up tomorrow. I think it’s a threat that needs to be dealt with promptly.”

He didn’t say anything, meaning he was more than likely passing my comments on to Nuri. I jumped onto a low section of wall and once again paused, taking in the ruptured remnants of buildings and—to my left—the remains of what had once been a main road through the city. It was littered with building rubble, weeds, and trees that had been twisted into odd shapes thanks to the eddying magic of the rifts. Plastic of various shapes and sizes—rubbish that had survived the destruction far better than Carleen itself—provided spots of color against the gray of this place, as did the alien moss that continued to claim a growing portion of the city, and which glowed with an unworldly luminescence.

“Nuri is on the way.”

I glanced at him. “She’s risking coming out at night? When she’s night-blind?”

“Yes. There are such things as night-vision goggles, you know.” He stopped beside me. “She asked us to wait for her.”

“You wait. I need to go investigate the rift this magic protects.”

“But—”

“No,” I cut in. “It’ll take Nuri at least an hour to get here, and that is time we cannot spare if indeed it is running out for those kids.”

“If the magic has grown, then you may not get past it. Nuri can at least tell us where its boundaries now lie.”

“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.”

I released them. Once they’d left, I took a deep breath, drawing in the night, letting it filter through me, change me, until I was once again little more than shadowed energy. I surged upward, being mindful of both the distance I was traveling and the shield I couldn’t see but could still feel. Once I was well over sixty meters in the air, I moved toward the square, making sure I took a curving path rather than a more direct flat one. The foul energy briefly grew more intense about three meters in and then disappeared. Its abrupt absence made me feel a whole lot lighter—and a whole lot cleaner.

When I reached the center of the old city square, I paused and studied the ground below me. I’d half expected vampires or wraiths or some other force waiting for me, but the square was empty and quiet. The only thing stirring was the occasional dust devil caused by the wind drifting through. The false rift still hovered above the bones of Carleen’s people, meaning what I’d seen on the other side of the wall had been nothing more than an illusion.

Unless, of course, what I was seeing now was the illusion.

I took a deep breath to calm the nerves, but just as I started down again, movement caught my eye. The rift had begun to spin gently on its axis, its dark surface alive with shimmering, sparkling energy.

A heartbeat later, a fist-sized hole appeared in the shield I’d only been able to feel up until now. Light began to peel away from this point, until what had formed was a doorway.

Through this stepped a woman.

She was tall, thickset, with dark hair and skin, but even as I watched, her form began to ripple—change—until what stalked toward the rift was tall and thin, with pale skin, close-cropped blond hair, and an odd mark at the nape of her neck.

And the power that radiated from her was every bit as powerful as that I sensed in Nuri—only its feel was corrupted, alien.

This was our earth witch, and the third of Sal’s partners.

I arrowed down as fast as I could, but the woman disappeared inside the rift before I could get close enough to grab her. I cursed and shifted shape, landing feetfirst and in my true form. Lightning lashed out from the rift’s dark surface; it wrapped around my wrists and ankles, then unceremoniously dragged me toward the fast-rotating dark orb. Air spun around me, thick and foul and filled with dust, growing stronger and stronger, until it felt like I was being pulled into the heart of a gale—and one that might very well lead to a trap. Just because there’d been nothing waiting for me on this side of the unseen shield didn’t mean there wouldn’t be anything on the other.

The darkness of the rift encased me. Energy burned around me, through me, tearing me apart, atom by atom, until there was nothing left but an echo and a thought. Then, piece by tiny piece, it put me back together again.

I had no idea how long I hung in that darkness, silently screaming, but eventually the energy died, the whips holding me disintegrated, and I was jettisoned out onto a surface that was hard and cold.

All I wanted to do was collapse in a bleeding heap and let my body repair itself, but I had no idea where I was or who might be near. And the witch I’d followed surely couldn’t be too far away.

I forced my head up, sucking air into my burning lungs as I scanned the immediate area. The room wasn’t locked in darkness, as I’d half expected, but instead washed by a clean blue-white light. I couldn’t sense my quarry’s presence—or anyone else’s, for that matter—but the room itself wasn’t empty. Rows and rows of high metal shelving stretched before me, each one filled with an assortment of boxes or old bits of office equipment. Dust swirled through the air, the only indication someone had been through here recently.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, then crawled over to the wall and called to the healing magic. I might want to give chase, but doing so when my strength was low wasn’t a good option right now.

Once the lash marks on my body and limbs had healed and my energy levels were somewhat replenished, I changed the color of my hair and eyes as well as my scent, then pushed myself upright.

The dust had settled, but it had left enough of a trail to follow. I wove my way through the metal canyons and couldn’t help noticing that many items on the shelves bore government bar codes. Had I landed in some sort of dumping space for unwanted items? It might explain the government-marked crates I’d discovered in the Broken Mountains base—though all of those had seemed far newer than anything here.

I continued on, but the room was vast, and it seemed to take forever before I finally reached anything resembling a door.

But it was one hell of a door.

It was ten feet high and at least that in width, and made of a sturdy metal that rivaled anything I had in my bunker. It not only had blood and iris scanners on board but almost medieval-looking dead bolts. While these had been slammed home, they weren’t actually padlocked, but they didn’t need to be, thanks to the attached electronics.

I wasn’t getting through this door with anything short of a cannon. Certainly, none of my weapons would make even the smallest dent in it. And I doubted I could shoot the panels out of action—as I had done in the basement of Deseo—simply because these appeared to be a more modern version of the ones I had in the bunker. Shooting them sure as hell hadn’t gotten me anywhere.

Which meant I had two choices—either I went back through that damn false rift, or I made some noise and got some attention.

After a moment’s hesitation, I stepped up to the door, raised a fist, and hit it as hard as I could.