The Outer Dark (Central Series Book 4)

by Zachary Rawlins

  “I didn’t want them to get hurt!” Vivik blurted out. “I knew it was dangerous, and…”

  “Katya is an Auditor and an assassin,” Alex countered. “If anything, you needed her help!”

  “Katya and Eerie would never have trusted Emily, okay? I knew that going into this,” Vivik babbled frantically. “I didn’t ask because they would have thought that I was a traitor…”

  Alex threw his head back and laughed.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Alex scoffed. “Why would Eerie care? She thinks all this cartel stuff is stupid, and she’s right. As for Katya…she wouldn’t have turned you down, even if she did think you were a traitor. She would’ve come along anyway, to keep an eye on you. Listen, Vivik – you’re so bad at lying, you can’t even fool me. You want me to believe Katya wasn’t all over your ass to use your protocol to find me? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Vivik opened his mouth, and Alex let him go.

  Vivik shut his mouth with a look of confusion.

  “Where are they, Vivik?” Alex asked, locking eyes with him. “What did you do?”

  “They’re safe, okay!” Vivik shouted, tearing at his hair. “They’re safe! We made sure. I’ll take you there, to them, I swear. Right after you help Emily. Please…you have to help!”

  Alex studied the motionless pair, and hesitated.

  “For all I know, they’re having a nice little chat,” Alex growled. “Tell me what you did.”

  “I found a way out,” Vivik muttered, closing his eyes. “For all of us.”

  “You asshole, Vivik!” Alex shouted. “What the hell did you do?”

  “They’re in a safe place. You know that I would never do anything to hurt either of them,” Vivik said defiantly. “And I will take you to them, I promise. That’s it, though, I swear, till you help Emily.”

  Alex swore under his breath, and then nodded, turning toward Emily and John Parson.

  “For the record, you’re a dick,” Alex said, walking away. “I’m done with you, Vivik.”

  Alex walked over and crossed his arms, staring at Emily and John Parson. They were as rigid and senseless as mannequins, eyes locked and faraway. He sighed, and then took Emily’s stiff hand with his own.

  “This better do it,” he said, glancing around guiltily.

  John Parson shivered and grimaced.

  Emily stretched, smiled, and then leaned over and kissed Alex on the cheek.

  “It’s nice to see you still think about me,” Emily said, laughing as Alex blushed. She turned her attention back to John Parson. “Now, John, have you had enough? Or shall we keep fighting like children over a knocked-over sandcastle?”

  ***

  “I know what you’re thinking, but this isn’t going to be a fight. It’ll be a slaughter,” Alistair said, covered in cement dust and surrounded – but not touched – by great concrete slabs. “Hayley Weathers can’t protect all of you. I’m going to turn your breathing reflexes off, one by one, and then we will deal with Hayley at our leisure. You missed what happened to your friends, Hayley, but I think we can help you understand.”

  A translucent green barrier settled around the Anathema trio, Drake still partially pinned beneath the debris. Alice and Xia spilled out of the shadows beside the edge of the barrier, and Xia reached out like a man warming his hand on a campfire. The interior of the barrier was filled with flame.

  They appeared further down the ramp, Drake gripping Alistair and Mitsuru’s shoulders and grimacing in pain at the leg twisted beneath him.

  Alice opened fire with her shotgun as Grigori charged the Anathema, bounding toward them, propelled by telekinetic energy.

  Song Li slashed open Mitsuru’s scarred forearm, black blood dripping from the wound like motor oil from a punctured tank, hissing droplets eating away at the concrete.

  Min-jun circled carefully. Hayley squinted at the Anathema with a distant expression. Xia spread his arms wide, and leaked fuel and solvents on the floor of the parking garage burst into flame in a dozen different places.

  Song Li hurled a handful of black blood at Grigori, but Min-jun captured the caustic liquid in a tiny barrier in midair, guiding it harmlessly past Grigori’s head. Alistair recoiled, struck in the chest with buckshot, and Drake stumbled.

  Grigori collided with Alistair, carrying him to the ground with a forceful single leg, and then began pummeling him with telekinetic fist and elbow strikes that knocked chips from the concrete behind Alistair’s head. Song Li tossed another handful of blood, the droplets settling on Xia’s mask and coat and quickly sizzling through. The cars all about the Anathema hissed and groaned as the fuel within them started to heat and vaporize.

  Alice emptied her clip and dropped back into her shadow. Grigori pulled his hand back for a punch and froze, a horrified expression on his face, while Alistair grinned up at him through blood and broken teeth. Song Li scattered corrosive blood by the handful, burning a hole in Grigori’s shoulder and another in Xia’s leg that sent him to the concrete. Hayley gritted her teeth, and Mitsuru’s body froze, her expression slack as Hayley and Song Li battled for control.

  A gas tank exploded, flipping a nearby Honda neatly over on to the neighboring car, setting off dozens of neighboring car alarms. A moment later, the gas tank of nearby motorcycle ruptured as well, spitting burning fuel across the concrete.

  Alistair pushed Grigori aside, and he toppled over like a rotted tree. He turned and glared at the Auditors, strain obvious on his face.

  “Let’s start with you,” he said, turning his attention to Xia, still on the ground. Forget how to breathe.

  Nothing happened.

  “Problems, Alistair?” Alice’s voice seemed to come from his shadow, but the Auditor was nowhere to be seen. “Do you happen to remember Cavan Marshall?”

  You fucking little brat. Do you know what we do to traitors, among the Anathema? Alistair thought. You can’t hope to hold me back for more than a moment, and then…

  “You’ll have to forgive Cavan,” Alice said, from nowhere in particular. “He’s working with a gun to his head.”

  Alistair whipped around, pulling a black-treated compact pistol from his jacket pocket, and snapping off a pair of shots that ricocheted from surface to surface in the garage. Alice Gallow stepped out of the gloom behind him, striking Alistair in the back of the head with the butt of her shotgun, looking almost surprised when the blow connected. Alistair reeled forward and turned about, firing from the hip at the spot where Alice had just been. She appeared behind him again, and this time Alistair was a bit faster, ducking her swing and then knocking the shotgun from her hands. Alice hit him with a straight left that numbed his jaw. Alistair only just managed to get his guard up to block a right uppercut, furiously battling Cavan for access to Alice Gallow’s mind. Alice surged forward with a combination of jabs and body shots, and Cavan limited his telepathic advantage to the point that he struggled to defend himself.

  Alice took advantage of Alistair’s distraction, attacking him as he psychically hunted for Cavan. She landed a flush right hand, breaking a rib and doubling him over. The Chief Auditor followed with an elbow, connecting with his left ear, and jarring him from his telepathic search. Alice drew a short knife from a pocket sheath and swept low, Alistair jumping back just in time to avoid evisceration. Alistair threw a kick to buy himself some space, and then drew and fired several wild shots from his pistol, sending the Auditor scrambling for the shadows. Alice disappeared before he could draw a bead on her.

  Alistair hunted for the source of the telepathic interference. Cavan Marshall had to be close, he realized, narrowing the extent of his search dramatically. There was a peculiar sensation in his forebrain, and then Alistair grinned.

  Found you, Cavan, you little shit, Alistair said, reaching psychically across the garage to the tiny agent’s office, near the entrance, where Cavan huddled beneath a desk and whimpered. Go blind.

  Cavan howled and covered his eyes.

  Go deaf, Ali
stair suggested. Cavan did just that.

  Your skin is on fire, Alistair thought. Can you feel it burn, Cavan? Your whole body is burning, and there’s nothing you can do to put it out. Has anything ever hurt so terribly?

  Nothing ever had. The dying telepath’s screams echoed psychically through every living thing within the boundaries of the Isolation Field.

  Alistair stumbled up the exit ramp, and Alice Gallow stepped from his shadow, driving her knife into his back, pushing until the tip snapped off against the inside of his pubic bone. He made a strangled, pitiful noise, and spun about, firing at nothing until his pistol was empty. Grigori batted the last of the rounds aside, and stepped forward to hammer Alistair in the side of the face, the telekinetic force of the blow instantly shattering the Anathema’s jaw and fracturing his skull.

  Hayley shivered, her teeth chattering wildly.

  Mitsuru stood motionless, slack arms leaking black blood to the concrete.

  Xia lay motionless on the burning floor.

  Grigori drove Alistair to the ground, pinned his chest with his knees, and rained blows down on his unresponsive face.

  Drake drew a pistol from a holster beneath his jacket and aimed at Grigori, but Alice kicked him in the head, sending his shot wide. She knocked the pistol from his hands, and then snatched the gun before it could hit the ground.

  “Wait,” Drake began. “You don’t want…”

  Alice pulled the trigger twice, and blood spattered across her face and chest. The air was thick with fumes and the smell of burning gasoline and cordite. Grigori landed one last shattering blow and then stopped his assault, rolling off an unrecognizable Alistair with bruised knuckles and bloody hands.

  Hayley sighed and sank down against the wall, while Mitsuru collapsed to the floor like a marionette with cut strings.

  ***

  The plane descended toward the small airfield outside of the city, on a private ranch that appeared on no maps or tax rolls. No permission was asked, and no notice given, leaving the locals to scramble at the last moment.

  The local Black Sun family and cartel staff waited for them, dressed somberly and bowing low. Anastasia ignored them, waiting instead for Mai to shield her from the desert glare with a black lace parasol, and for the vampire to take her arm. The row of local dignitaries wisely stood aside and watched in apprehensive silence as the Mistress of the Black Sun arrived in Las Vegas.

  ***

  The Auditors stood in a prudently distant semi-circle while Alice examined Mitsuru’s limp body.

  “Is she…” Hayley began, then gulped. “Is Miss Aoki…?”

  Alice felt for a pulse.

  “You tell me,” she ordered. “What was in her head?”

  Hayley shook her head slowly.

  “Just Song Li,” Hayley said quietly. “As far as I could tell.”

  Alice dropped her arm.

  “Yeah,” the Chief Auditor said. “Nothing. She’s gone.”

  “She already was,” Min-jun said somberly. “This was just…”

  “Yeah. Okay,” Alice said, standing up and clearing her throat. “Let’s clean up here, and…what the fuck?”

  Alice pointed. The rest of the Auditors turned, just in time to see Alistair and Mitsuru’s bodies disappear, leaving behind only Drake’s nearly headless corpse to bleed forlornly.

  “Was that…Alistair?” Min-jun asked, nudging Hayley. “Telepathic invisibility, or…?”

  Hayley nodded queasily, turning about with her eyes closed. After a long silence, she shook her head.

  “It’s no use. They’re gone.”

  The Auditors stood in uncomfortable silence around Drake’s body.

  “Alistair got away.” Alice rubbed her palms in her eyes. “So did Song Li, and she has Mitsuru’s body. Great.”

  “Karim is dead. The sniper post was raided,” Min-jun explained quietly. “Alistair, I think.”

  “Yeah, I know. Pretty much the last thing I heard from Central before the Network went offline,” Alice said. “How is Mikey?”

  “Back in Central at the infirmary, in rough shape, from what I heard,” Min-jun explained reluctantly. “He’s lucky Karim got him back before apports stopped working.”

  They all pretend not to see the look that crossed her face.

  “Okay, this all sucks. What about Chike?”

  “Hospital in the real world. Sunrise, I think it’s called,” Hayley said, checking her phone. “Cerebral edema. If we don’t get him back to Central soon, I don’t think he’ll make it.”

  “Getting tired of hearing bad news,” Alice griped. “Just saying.”

  “I have more,” Hayley said sheepishly. “Before Alistair killed Derrida, I saw Eerie and Katya, in the Outer Dark. They were in trouble, and I’ve lost track of them since.”

  “Well, Alistair showed up here, so…” Alice shrugged. “I think we can count them out.”

  Hayley blanched, while Grigori muttered a short prayer.

  “What about Vivik?” Min-jun asked. “Or Alex?”

  “Didn’t see them.”

  “There’s also Emily Muir to consider,” Alice said, tapping her lip. “If Alistair was telling the truth, then she pulled a fast one on the Anathema the same way she did to us. Of course, Alistair is a psycho and a liar. Not sure what to make of that.”

  “Not that any of this matters,” Hayley added. “We’re stuck here either way.”

  “Are we?” Alice smiled despite herself. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  “What do you mean?” Hayley put her phone back in her pocket. “Like the Anathema guy said. No apports. No long-distance telepathy. I can’t even raise Central…”

  Alice started up the exit ramp, motioning for her Auditors to follow.

  “Oh, yeah, well, telepathy and apports, sure, none of that’s gonna work,” Alice said, stretching with her arms over her head as they walked. “You’ve got me, though, Hayley!” Alice put her arm playfully around the young Auditor. “Nothing to worry about!”

  “But…I mean…no one can make an apport protocol work right now, not over distance. Not even you, Ms. Gallow! I think. Right?”

  “Oh, Hayley! Here I thought I’d let you in on the secret already today,” Alice said, laughing. “I don’t blame you for not figuring it out, though. I didn’t get it myself until recently – well, maybe I did, once or twice, but I forgot. You must have noticed that my protocol kept right on going, even after apports stopped working? I don’t think I’m an apport technician at all, baby. I’m something much worse.”

  Alice led them into the elevator, and Grigori punched the button for the surface.

  “Oh. I guess that’s good for us?”

  “That’s the spirit!” Alice clapped Hayley on the back, throwing her other arm around Min-jun’s neck. “Okay, people, it’s back to work. This has been a bad day, but we aren’t dead, so the fight isn’t over. You aren’t stuck anywhere, as long as you have me. We have so many accounts that need to be reconciled! Anathema, Thule, Black Sun…where do you guys wanna start?”

  ***

  “Are we just gonna let him walk away?”

  Alex glanced at Emily uncertainly, voice low so that the receding figure of John Parson would not overhear. As they watched, he wandered into the ruins of the World Tree like a blind man, pausing occasionally to drag his hands through the crust of pulverized crystal.

  When Alex glanced back a moment later, Parson was gone.

  “No,” Emily said, patting his hand with an affectionate smile. “We are going be very, very grateful that he didn’t lose his temper with us. I’ll warn you now, Alex – whatever happens, don’t ever pick a fight with John Parson.”

  “What?” Alex looked stumped. “But you just…?”

  “We weren’t fighting,” Emily said, with a demure blush. “I was reasoning with him. Apologizing, and clearing up misunderstandings. Even with your help, I could never dream of fighting John Parson.”

  Alex glanced at the murdered World Tree, but Parson was
gone.

  “So I didn’t help at all?” Alex asked. “You didn’t need…?”

  “Ah, you’re sweet!” Emily laughed and tousled his hair. “Don’t feel bad. It was a very nice gesture. I’m not entirely the girl you remember, though, Alex. I’m not so helpless.”

  “I…I don’t think you ever were, Emily,” Alex said. “I think everyone just underestimated you. Myself included.”

  “Oh, Alex! If only you’d said all the right things when we first met. Still, that is a lovely thought, and I do appreciate it,” Emily said. “I really had gotten completely over you, but you seem to have done some maturing recently. The Alex I knew…”

  “Yes?” Alex demanded, red-faced. “What?”

  “…was rather oblivious, and a bit selfish,” Emily said fondly. “The least romantic boy I ever met. Is interrogation by a Yaojing really such an edifying experience?”

  Alex hesitated for a moment, caught between conflicting emotions, and then he laughed.

  “Probably not,” he said. “I’m trying to make the best of things, lately.”

  “See? There you go again!” Emily pointed at him in amazement. “When did you become so grown up, Alex?”

  “Guys?” Vivik asked hurriedly, stepping between them. “What do we…?”

  “Did you forget?” Alex snapped, glaring at Vivik. “You promised, remember? Katya and Eerie. Take me to them. Now, please.”

  Emily turned to Vivik with a stern expression.

  “Vivik, dear,” she said. “What exactly have you been telling Alex?”

  “The truth, I hope,” Alex said. “Where did you leave Eerie and Katya?”

  “They’re safe, where we left them,” Vivik insisted. “It’s the Outer Dark, obviously, but…”

  “…yes, a safe place, far from anything,” Emily said, shaking her head. “They can’t go anywhere, and no one can get to them. Without Marcus’s abilities, the further reaches of the Outer Dark are inaccessible. We left them at one of the anomalies. You know, like the Inverted Spire, before you wrecked it, or Marcus’s garden.”