by Lili Zander
A muted groan. A pained whimper.
Shadow jerks her head to the right. That's where the sound came from. She put out her hand to stop me and points to herself. She's going to go in first.
We step into an alleyway, so narrow that the two of us can’t walk abreast. I stick close to my bodyguard, unease trickling down my spine. The overpowering dark, the sense of desolate abandonment, they spook me. I can’t imagine growing up here. The re-education camps were bad—Spirit knows they were awful—but at least we had daylight.
The alleyway curves to the left. Shadow flashes her torch into the darkness, and I see a shape huddled on the floor ahead of us. “Who is it?” a quavery voice calls out.
Fuck. It’s a young girl.
“I’m armed,” she continues. “I will shoot.”
It's a bluff. I can hear the lie in her voice. We round the corner, and the alleyway widens into a dead end. Seated on the ground, her back against the wall, is a teenage girl who doesn’t look much older than fourteen or fifteen.
She's pitifully thin. Her ribs stick out, and her face is gaunt. Her leg is twisted at an odd angle. A flash of white glitters under the torchlight. Bone. My stomach heaves. Spirit, that bone is sticking out of her thigh. Her leg’s badly broken.
How long has she been down here?
Shadow hurries forward. “What happened?” she asks, her voice gentler than I've heard it. “Who did this to you?”
“Water,” the girl croaks.
Great Spirit give me strength. How long has this child sat here in the dark, hidden in this alleyway, slowly starving to death?
Shadow rummages through her pack and finds a bottle of water. “Drink it slowly,” she cautions. “One small sip at a time, otherwise you will make yourself sick.”
The girl reaches for the water, and, ignoring Shadow’s advice, takes a long drink. As she drinks, Shadow pulls a syringe out of her pack.
It’s vampire blood. Good thinking. It will help until we can get her to a hospital.
Except the girl has caught sight of the needle. “No,” she wails, trying to crawl away from us. “No, I will not… I don't want… You can't lock me up, you can't take me, the way you took Alicia.”
I go very still. “What did you just say?”
“I won’t.” She covers her face with her hands, and her entire body shakes as she sobs. “I won’t.”
What did they do to this child? Keeping my movements slow, so as not to alarm her any further, I pull a pineapple bun from my pack and set it on the ground next to her. Shadow puts away the syringe. “No blood,” she says, her voice soothing. “I’ve put away the syringe. We’re not going to hurt you, bichito.”
I push the bun closer to the girl. “You hungry?”
She nods slowly.
“Eat,” I urge her, forcing the words out past the lump in my throat. She’s badly hurt, badly spooked. Who did this to her? “I have more buns in my pack.”
She tears into the food as if she hasn’t eaten in days. I exchange a look with Shadow. “Tell us what happened.”
She shakes her head, her eyes wide with fear.
She's injured, she's in pain, and she is badly traumatized, and she won't let us help her. But we’re desperate. We need her to talk. She knows something.
I wish I knew what to do.
I sit down next to her and set another bun in the floor between us. “When I was ten,” I murmur, tugging at memories I would prefer to keep suppressed, “I was sent to a bad place. The bad place had bad people in it, people that did terrible things.”
She turns her head slightly. She’s listening.
“They couldn't beat us too much, because if we were badly injured, somebody might ask questions. Mostly, they like to play games with us. Sick, twisted games.”
Shadow sits down as well.
“There was a man there. He liked to smoke. He would line us up against the wall, and he would look at each one of us, and we would stand there, our hearts beating in our chests, wondering who he was going to call tonight.” She picks up the bun, her movement furtive. I pull out the third and final bun and set it on my lap where she can see it. “What’s your name, bichito?”
“Kari,” she replies in a whisper. Progress. “What did he do to you?”
He did more than I want to remember right now. “He would point at his victim for the night. If you were chosen, you’d have to stand there, perfectly still, perfectly silent, as he put out the cigarette on your body. If you screamed, he would whip you. But if you took your punishment in silence, he sometimes let you go.”
Even in the dark, I can feel Shadow's head snap up.
I put the last bun into the girl’s lap. “Who are you afraid of, Kari?”
“There is a pimp on Level 18,” she whispers. “Daniel. I work for him sometimes.”
She's a fucking child.
“They've been going missing,” she says, her voice flat. “So many people. Nobody talks about them. Alicia went down and never came back. I shouldn’t have gone, but I was hungry, and I couldn't go to the higher levels to beg. They watch the chutes, you know, and I didn’t have enough money to pay to go up. Down is free.”
Shadow nods, unsurprised.
“This time, something was different about Daniel. He was nice. He gave me something to eat, even gave me a drink. It made me suspicious…” Her voice trails away.
“What did he do to you?”
“He started dragging me away, but I fought him off. He broke my leg.”
I hold my breath. “Do you know where he was headed?”
“Ten. Daniel was taking me to Level 10.”
We have a lead.
I have to find my vampires.
18
Nero
We don't have time for subtlety; we don't have time for stealth. I assemble a team of thirty soldiers. Two of them, Tauni Fielding and Yasmin Alldred are explosive experts. “We can't go through the chutes,” I tell them. “They’ll be guarded.”
Fielding nods calmly. “You want us to make a hole in the floor.”
Ragnar knows how to recruit his team. No fuss, no bullshit. Just calm competence. “Exactly. Can you do that?”
“We can't be too close to the outer wall,” she says. “We might risk damaging the structural integrity of the tower. But yes, it can be done.”
“Then do it.”
They head up for equipment. I send the others a message as I wait. By the time Fielding and Alldred are back, Saber, Ragnar, and Mazer have joined me. I quickly fill them in on Raven’s conversation with the girl in the Lower Deeps.
Saber’s face goes dark. “You let Raven go to Level 63?”
Yeah, I thought I’d hear about that. “She had one of Ragnar’s bodyguards with her. Shadow.”
Mazer looks up, startled. “You assigned Hala to Raven?”
Ragnar looks impatient. “Is now really the time for this conversation? Saber, stop worrying. The Lower Deeps aren’t as dangerous as the InfoNet would have you believe.” His teeth bare into a grin. “You’re here, aren’t you? I come down here at least once a month.”
Mazer surveys Ragnar wordlessly, and his expression turns speculative. “Hala—Shadow—is our best operative,” he says to Saber. “She’s been fighting in the rings in the Lower Deeps since she was old enough to walk. Raven was never in danger.”
Saber doesn’t look reassured. “Where is Raven now?”
“She took the girl to a hospital. They’re tending to her broken leg.”
As we bicker, Fielding and Alldred walk around, methodically setting their charges. “We’re ready,” Alldred says in a few minutes. She points to a spot on the floor. “The explosion will make a hole here. It will be three feet wide. Anything bigger will be too loud. You’ll need to go in one at a time.”
I grip my gun. “That’s fine.”
They press a button. I hear a muffled thud, and a hole opens up in the floor of Level 11. “Let’s go,” I tell my team, and jump in.
I really hope
we find the missing humans.
They were here, but they’re gone.
The makeshift prison takes up an entire block. People were here, a lot of them. I can smell their fear-drenched sweat. Each cell has a bucket in the corner, containing a stomach-churning combination of urine and feces and menstrual blood. “They’ve thought of the sewage load,” Ragnar observes, walking through the cells. If the smell bothers him, he doesn’t show it.
“They left in a hurry,” Saber notes. “Probably as soon as that woman escaped. They sent an assassin after her, he knifed her, we’ve spread word that she’s dead. They’re playing it very safe.”
Ragnar looks around. I’m expecting him to be just as frustrated as I am, but when he turns toward us, there's a smile on his face. “They don’t know what they’re doing,” he says. “They should have burned the room and destroyed the waste. Amateurs.” He turns to Mazer. “Dr. Karling will need these buckets.”
I think of Dr. Karling receiving buckets of piss and poop and blood, and I can’t hold back my grin. Yes, I’m petty. We need Dr. Karling, but after what he said to Raven, the scientist is never going to be my favorite person.
“Why are you happy about that?” Saber asks. “We’re still no closer to finding them.”
“I’ll take my wins where I can,” Ragnar replies. “Levitan is running out of allies. He’s a paranoid asshole; there’s a very small set of people he can trust. How many people can he disclose the details of this plan? How many vampires would follow him if they know he has a virus that could kill them? Not too many. Nobody with any kind of integrity will ally with Levitan; they know his reputation. So he has to rely on hired help. They make mistakes.” His green-grey eyes rest on me. “I’ll pit the worst member of my team against Levitan’s best. As Levitan is about to find out, you can’t buy loyalty.”
He looks grimly satisfied. “He's dangerously isolated. He drove Marya Revit away with his attack on Ghani. Things look hopeless right now, and we’re making very little progress. But at the end of the day, we’re dealing with just one person, not a massive conspiracy.”
Saber looks up. “Why would his attack on Ghani have driven Marya away?”
Ragnar’s expression turns surprised. “You didn't know?” He shakes his head. “Why is it that I know more about your ex than you do? Marya's foster father lived on Ghani. He was killed when Levitan deployed the virus on their colony. It was probably a punishment for Marya's failure to bring in Raven, but it was also a bad miscalculation.”
Saber’s got a very peculiar expression on his face. Leaving him to his thoughts, I take one final look around the room. Whatever Ragnar might say, disappointment chokes me. We’re running out of time. We have two weeks left. In that time, we must find the prisoners and thwart Levitan's plan.
I'd hoped against hope that when Raven told me about Level 10, that they might be an answer here.
But once again, we’re too late. Once again, Leviton's calling the shots, and we’re reacting.
I straighten my shoulders. “Move out,” I order the team. “If we have to go down to the surface and fight our way up, tower by tower, looking for the prisoners, then that’s what we’ll do.”
Resolve hardens my spine. We’re not done, not by a long shot.
19
Saber
I’m alone in the apartment when Raven walks in. She takes in the glass of slenti in my hand, and her eyebrow rises. “Bad day?”
I pat the seat next to me, and she crosses the room and sits down, resting her head on my shoulder. “I'm sorry we didn't find anything,” she says softly. “I know we’re running out of time.”
“That's not it.”
She laces her fingers in mine. Reaching over, she teases the glass from my hand and takes a sip. My lips twitch. “Really? You’re stealing my drink now?”
She winks at me. “What are you going to do about it?”
I smile at her. “I'll think of something.”
She laughs breathlessly. “I'm sure you can,” she agrees. She takes in the half-empty bottle next to me. “Should I ask why you're drinking a bottle of slenti on your own? I didn’t have you pegged as a solitary drinker.”
“Ragnar said something to me today.”
A peculiar look flashes over her face, gone before it appears. “What did he say?”
“It was an offhand comment about Levitan's allies. Ragnar said he didn't have many of them left.”
She releases a breath. “And? This can't be too much of a surprise. Levitan was responsible for the death of your teammates. He told you to kill Overlord Zimmer. This does not sound like a man who cares about other people.”
“Ragnar also said that Marya had a foster father on Ghani, and Levitan had killed him along with the other vampires there when Marya failed to retrieve you.”
Raven looked stricken. “Oh no,” she says softly.
“Don't you dare feel responsible about this,” I warn her. “You were fighting for your life. You did what you needed to do.” I stare into my glass. “I would've sworn that I was in love with Marya, and I didn't even know she had a foster father. When we were fighting on Merin, she accused me of not knowing anything about her. It turns out she was right.”
I tighten my grip on Raven's hand. “Marya doesn't matter. She's in the past. She almost kidnapped you. She would have taken you to Harek Levitan. If I see her again, I will strangle her with my bare hands.”
“I don't think she wanted to kidnap me,” Raven interjects. “She looked pretty reluctant about it. If Levitan was blackmailing her, the way he’s blackmailing Astrid, then she might not have had a choice other than to obey.”
My lips tighten. “Marya’s killed too many people to be offered the benefit of my goodwill.” I lift my eyes to hers. “As you’ve pointed out many times, I can be arrogant and high-handed. I can be oblivious. I don't want to make the same mistake with you.”
“You're not oblivious.” She shifts her weight onto my lap. “Yes, you can be a little arrogant.” The corner of her mouth lifts up in a smile. “Actually, who am I kidding? You can be very arrogant. But you listen to me. You don't dismiss my opinions. You don’t make decisions for me. You could have sent me to that safehouse planet of yours…”
“Corvallis,” I interject.
“Yeah, Corvallis. But you didn't. You haven’t given me a hard time about going to the Lower Deeps.”
“I was getting around to that.” I brush a kiss over her cheek. “I’m not going to stop you, but for the record, I hate that you're putting yourself in danger.”
“I know.” She puts her hands on my face and leans in. “Stop beating yourself up about this.”
She’s so good to me. “Were you happy at the ball yesterday?” I press her. “Do you want to take political lessons with Kaleb? I have a duty to the Empire, but my first thought is always going to be about you. If you don't want this life, tell me, and we will move away from Starra and do something else with our lives.”
She chews her lower lip. “I love Starra. Even though it's only been a day, I love the energy here, the vitality. I could spend an entire lifetime exploring the towers.” Her face clouds. “And yet there’s so much bleakness here too. So much darkness. Astrid said something to me yesterday. She made me realize that I can make a difference.” She gives me a small smile. “I've never been able to make a difference before.”
She’s wrong about that. So wrong. She’s made a huge difference in my life.
For a second, she looks sad, and then she gives me a cheeky smile and takes another sip of my drink. “Really?” I demand.
“Once again, what are you going to do about it?”
She's wearing her hair in one thick braid. I start undoing it. “Get on your knees, Raven.”
Her eyes go dark. She slides to her knees. She frees my cock and looks up at me, a smile dancing in her eyes. “Is this what you were thinking?” she asks, her hand curling around the base of my shaft.
The way she’s looking at me, her bright bl
ue eyes luminous with need… I groan out loud as she takes the tip of my cock in her mouth. My head falls back, and I close my eyes, desire for her boiling in my blood.
She licks up my shaft, and then she takes me deep, swallowing my length. Fuck me, her mouth, that talented, sexy, sassy mouth is doing all kinds of wonderful things to my cock. “Look at me,” I order, my voice raspy with desire. “Look at what you do to me.”
She wrecks me. From the first second I laid eyes on her, I think I’ve known that she’s the one. I thought I was in love before; it wasn’t until I met Raven that I realized how wrong I was. There will never be anyone else for me.
She bobs her head over my length, and I tangle my fingers in her hair and pull her deeper. She chuckles around my shaft, and her laugh sends lust shivering down my spine. She pulls back with a wink. “What’s the hurry, Saber?” she teases, echoing the words I’ve said to her too many times to count. “We have plenty of time.”
She teases me. She challenges me and defies me. She sits next to me and holds my hand when I’m upset. She steals my drink to make me laugh. She thinks I saved her back on Boarus 4. She’s wrong. She saved me.
Raven swirls her tongue over my head, her blue eyes hazy with lust. Her right hand is between her legs. Fuck, she’s touching herself. That’s so hot that I almost shoot my load right there.
“Are you wet, kära?”
“What do you think?”
“Show me.”
She plunges two fingers into her pussy and holds them up. I grab her wrist and suck them into my mouth. “The taste of you…” I growl. “Take off your clothes, Raven.”
She obeys cooperatively and then gets back on her knees. Fuck. Strands of her dark hair caress my thighs. She grasps me with one hand—the other back between her legs—and lowers her mouth again on my cock, sucking the head, pumping my shaft. She cups my balls, and I scrape a nail across her erect nipple. She whimpers around my length. “Do that again,” she moans.