Outcast
KAT DUBOIS CHRONICLES, BOOK 2
By LINDSEY FAIRLEIGH
Copyright © 2016 by Lindsey Fairleigh
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events are products of the author’s imaginations or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person, living or dead, is intended or should be inferred.
Editing by Sarah Kolb-Williams
www.kolbwilliams.com
Cover illustration by Biserka
99designs.com/profiles/biserka
MORE BOOKS BY LINDSEY FAIRLEIGH
ECHO TRILOGY
1: Echo in Time
1.5: Resonance
2: Time Anomaly
2.5: Dissonance
3: Ricochet Through Time
KAT DUBOIS CHRONICLES
1: Ink Witch
2: Outcast
3: Underground
THE ENDING SERIES
Prequel: The Ending Beginnings Omnibus Edition
1: After The Ending
2: Into The Fire
3: Out Of The Ashes
4: Before The Dawn
The Ending Series: World After (2017)
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON LINDSEY FAIRLEIGH AND HER BOOKS:
www.lindseyfairleigh.com
CONTENTS
BEGINNING
MORE BOOKS BY LINDSEY FAIRLEIGH
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2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF KAT?
EXCERPT FROM ECHO IN TIME
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DEDICATION
For LP – thank you. I’ll never be able to express how much your endless friendship and support means to me. I appreciate the *beep* out of you, Duds!
1
“Pew . . .” Eyes watering, I wrinkled my nose and waved a hand in front of my face. “You’re lucky your nose is safe from this,” I told Dom. I was standing just inside the north entrance to Seattle’s “Tent District,” taking in the midday sights, sounds . . . and odorific smells. The unofficial district was very much a kingdom within a city, where those who shunned modern ways—or were shunned by them—carried out their lives off the books. And apparently out of the shower.
“For once, little sister, I think I prefer being incorporeal.” Dom’s words, classed up as usual by his faint French accent, rolled through my mind, audible only to me.
“You’re welcome,” I muttered.
My dead-ish older brother was currently watching the world around me from a tiny mirror about the size of a silver dollar hanging as a pendant on a short chain around my neck. It allowed him a view of everything ahead of me and enabled me to hear him, thanks to the skin-to-skin contact between Dom’s mirror and me. In the week since I first stuffed his soul into a looking glass, I’d done what I could to make his existence more varied and mobile—at least, on my side of the glass. I still wasn’t sure what exactly was on his side, and he wasn’t offering up much in the way of details. Or information at all. Not that his tight-lipped response to this matter was unexpected. Or annoying. Didn’t bother me one bit. Not one bit.
The point being, he now had several mirrors he could bounce between at will: the standing mirror at Heru’s mansion on Bainbridge, the silver compact in my pocket, and the pendant dangling from a chain around my neck. The trifecta created a network of sorts, which was pretty damn convenient; he could play the messenger between the rest of Clan Heru on Bainbridge and me, the off-the-radar fugitive on a mission. A rebel with a cause.
“I’m surprised any Nejerets can stand living here,” I said as quietly as I could, skirting eye contact with a greasy-haired woman peddling backpacks and other kinds of bags boasting custom modifications.
My kind, immortal beings—immortal-ish—originally heralding from the Sahara Desert before ancient Egypt had become a thing, is gifted with more than just the amazing regenerative abilities that make our lives potentially endless. Our senses—sight, smell, and hearing, mostly—are heightened beyond those of humans, something that can be both a benefit and a curse. Right now, surrounded by thousands of bodies in various stages of unwashedness, my hypersensitive nose was definitely a curse.
“Breathe through your mouth,” Dom suggested.
I could only imagine the look of horror that warped my features. “And eat this stench?” I snorted derisively. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Perhaps you should be on your way, then,” Dom said. “Make this visit as quick as possible. There are many other Nejerets on Heru’s list . . .”
I nodded, though he couldn’t see the movement, and scanned the area around me. The Tent District occupied what used to be the King County International Airport—Boeing Field, to the locals—back before gravloops, a high-speed transportation system utilizing air pressure and gravity, stole the market in long-distance travel. The now-defunct airport was surrounded by a chain-link fence on three sides and the narrow Duwamish Waterway on the east side, creating a long, autonomous pseudo-nation. The Tent District occupied a three-square-mile space in southern Seattle, just south of the once industrial-hip, now run-down and abandoned Georgetown neighborhood.
Within the chain-link walls, this kingdom of paupers was broken into four quadrants by two permanent pedestrian thoroughfares that crossed in the relative middle, one connecting the north and south gates, the other leading from the eastern gate to the “docks” spanning the entire western edge of the district. These avenues were for foot and bicycle traffic only, as automobiles weren’t allowed within the district’s fences. Guns, either. The lack of cars made it so walking through the gates was like taking a step back in time.
The acre or two nearest the northern gate functioned as something of a street fair, where it seemed that the residents of the Tent District could barter for food and goods. A myriad of jerry-rigged and dilapidated tents covered the peddler’s stalls, brightly colored paper lanterns dangled from crisscrossing strings overhead, jazzing up the place, and people crowded three or four deep at each stall, speaking loudly and gesticulating with gusto. According to the satellite maps I’d viewed online, there was a larger marketplace at the center of the district, where a cluster of old airplane hangars looked to have been converted into something of a town square. At least, that’s what it had looked like on the computer screen at the public library this morning. I’d never actually stepped foot within these fences before. And no, not just because of the smell.
The Tent District isn’t just a gathering place for Seattle’s ever-increasing homeless population; it’s a safe haven for wayward Nejerets, both the clanless and the dissatisfied dissenters. Not all of my kind approved of the Senate and its Nejeret-supremacist view of the world, and the bravest—or dumbest, depending on how you looked at it—went so far as to refuse paying their mandatory taxes to the Nejeret governing body. For the past decade or so, Heru has allowed such Nejerets to remain in his territory unharmed and unharassed, so long as they stay within this district’s fences. The second they leave the Tent District, they break the pact with Heru and become lawbreakers, punishable however he sees fit. It may sound harsh, but it’s a whole lot kinder than the reception these rage-against Nejerets—fist pump—would receive in any other Senator’s territory, let alone the punishment they would face for
skirting their tax obligations.
Technically, Nejeret society is a republic, ruled by the Senate, a body of one hundred and one representatives elected by the rest of us. But each Senate seat comes with a geographical territory, and each Senator rules as a relative monarch over their land. Heru’s territory spans the Pacific Coast, stretching from Alaska all the way down to San Francisco. His is one of the largest and richest territories, but then he’s one of the most ancient and powerful Nejerets alive. He’s also technically the ruler of all of us right now, having declared martial law less than a week ago and stepped into the role of Governor General.
Thanks to him, we were at war. With the Senate. With ourselves. Ominous as it sounded, I was convinced it was a good thing. The Senate has a darker, shadowy side that’s all kinds of evil. Even if I hadn’t sworn an oath to Heru years ago, I’d have thrown my lot in with him in this fight. This war wasn’t about politics or power; it was about right and wrong. Plain and simple.
Heru’s war was the reason I was in the stinking Tent District in the first place. As the striker of the match that sparked this whole revolution, I’d essentially volunteered to be the Senate’s public enemy number one. They wanted to get their hands on me, to make an example of me, desperately. It would go a long way toward proving their strength. Knowing this, Heru tasked me with a dual-purpose mission—he wanted me to go underground, so to speak, traveling around and recruiting support for his side, while at the same time distracting the opposition by rousing dissention within their ranks. It was a pretty damn important job. It also left me feeling an awful lot like bait. Uncomfortably so. In fact, it sort of chafed, how bait-like I felt.
But I understood Heru’s reasoning. I was a diversion. So long as it was known that I was out and about, wandering free and sowing discord, those who remained loyal to the Senate—or what was left of the Senate now that some had defected to Heru’s side—would be distracted. They’d be fighting a war on two fronts, splitting their energy and resources between battling Heru and his supporters and hunting me, not to mention dealing with whatever chaos I stirred up. And trust me, I give good chaos.
My visit to the Tent District fit into facet numero uno of my mission: to rally support for Heru. Thousands of people lived here in the Tent District, hundreds of which were Nejerets thanks to Heru’s standing offer of a conditional carte blanche. In a species that counted its population at just over eleven thousand, several hundred swinging this way or that could make a noticeable difference.
The district’s leader, a Nejeret by the name of Dorman, was an old friend of Heru’s. Or, at least, an old former friend of Heru’s. According to Dom, the two had a falling out around the last turn of the century, nearly a hundred and forty years ago, which, I supposed, was why I was approaching Dorman instead of Heru doing it himself.
I pulled up my sweatshirt’s hood and stuffed my hands into the pockets of my leather coat, then started down the walkway. I headed south toward the center of the district, where my sources told me Dorman had set up office. It was a little over a mile from the northern gate.
“Should’ve taken the eastern gate,” I commented, moving my lips as little as possible so as not to draw attention to myself. At least this was a place where being a wacky chick who talks to herself might not draw too much insta-judgment.
“But this way you have plenty of time to make yourself seen,” Dom said. We’d gone back and forth between using the northern and eastern gates—the eastern gate being a good bit closer to the district’s core. “I think you are discounting how beneficial it could prove to our cause for word of your arrival to spread among the Nejerets here. You may even draw a crowd . . .”
I agreed with him, but being the only one of us with a physical body to worry about, I was a little concerned about being jumped by covert Senate supporters or hired lackeys. It didn’t seem likely that they’d been lurking around in here, and if they were, they’d be unarmed, thanks to the pretty hefty anti-weapons security check at the gate, but there was no way to know for sure. Unless they jumped me. Then I’d be pretty sure.
I peered first to one side, then the other as I made my way farther into the district, weaving around and between people. Most wore several layers despite the current lack of rain. The chill in the air justified it, and the overcast sky teased us all about raining down its droplets of love at any moment. It was February and this was Seattle, after all.
My fingers itched for my absent sword, Mercy, but I was trying to lay low. At least, when I wasn’t trying to draw a crowd. And laying low with a katana strapped to your back is harder than it sounds. Or maybe it’s exactly as hard as it sounds. In any case, I missed Mercy. Desperately.
At present, my possessions were minimal. I’d been living out of a backpack for the past four days—a good old vintage forest-green JanSport—ducking out in bars until they closed and kicked me out, then breaking into basements to crash for the night. This is my city, and I know how to live on the lam here. Once my mission takes me out to other cities—to other territories—it’ll be a whole new ball game.
Honestly, right now I probably looked and smelled like I fit right in here. Sponge baths in bars just aren’t the same as a good, long, hot shower.
As I made my way deeper into the Tent District, a hand-painted sign caught my eye. “Hey, they have rent-a-showers here!” I said, my voice hushed but excited.
“I hardly think a space so densely packed with Nejerets with questionable intentions is the wisest place to make yourself vulnerable by disrobing.”
I frowned, excitement deflating. “Yeah . . . you’re probably right.”
“You could always rent a motel room.”
“Maybe,” I said. We’d had this chat a dozen times before, but the idea of a skeezy motel clerk knowing I was there made me uneasy. I wasn’t willing to let my guard down anywhere I might be vulnerable. “Or we could head to a gym after this. They have shower stalls.”
“Truly, little sister, is personal hygiene really our biggest concern at present?”
I snorted. “Says the guy who doesn’t have a body to keep clean.”
It was a little crazy, having gone from not talking to Dom for over three years to having him constantly buzzing in my ear, my own personal angel on my shoulder. Dealing with his constant companionship was a bit of an adjustment, but nearly losing him made me appreciate what otherwise might have annoyed me. I was just glad he was still in my life, and I was as determined as ever to find a way to bring him all the way back to the land of the living.
“So what’s this Dorman guy’s deal, anyway?” I asked, angling my face downward but watching my surroundings through my lashes. I knew the Nejeret in charge of this place was several centuries old and that he’d been born in Virginia around the time of the American Revolution. I knew he was of Heru’s line, a great-great-great-descendant to some nth degree. But I knew next to nothing about him, about the kind of man he was. I had no clue how I might get through to him, regardless of what bridges had been burned between him and Heru in the past.
“His deal?”
“Yeah. Like, is he an asshole? Does he have any triggers? Is he gullible? Is he cold like Heru?”
Dom laughed softly, a hushed, dry sound. “Dorman is nothing like Heru. He’s a quick-witted, good-natured man with a kind heart and a friendly sense of humor, and he has no taste for violence or killing, though he’s more than capable of taking care of himself when need be.”
I frowned. “He sounds like a pretty stand-up guy.”
“Indeed he is.”
“Which makes me oh so curious about what happened between him and Heru. Must’ve been one hell of a falling out.”
“Indeed it was,” Dom said in his patented that’s-all-I’m-going-to-say-about-that tone.
“Hmm . . .” I strolled the rest of the way in silence, thoughts tumbling around in my head. I hardly considered myself the best choice for this kind of mission, but I knew as well as anyone that we had to play the cards we were dea
lt. After all, I’m kind of a big deal in the tarot card world. And by tarot card world I mean Seattle’s tarot card world. Capitol Hill, specifically. That’s pretty much the only place where anyone knows about me and my fortune-telling prowess. My skill as a tattoo artist, however—that draws in clients from all over the country.
Some fifteen minutes later, I closed in on the enormous hangars at the heart of the district and was surprised to find a crowd of Nejerets watching my approach. They fanned out behind a smallish man wearing jeans, brown leather work boots, and a navy blue raincoat, the hood pulled down to reveal a Mariners baseball cap. Like all Nejerets, he appeared to be in the prime of his life, both youthful and ageless. Well, all Nejerets who aren’t me; I’ll look eighteen until the day I die.
“That’s Dorman,” Dom said.
I removed my right hand from my pocket to zip up the sweatshirt under my coat a few more inches, concealing Dom. He would still be able to hear what was going on around us, he just wouldn’t be able to see anything. It was unfortunate, losing a second set of eyes, but it had to be done. He was the ace up my sleeve. Or down my shirt, in his case. But still, he was my secret weapon. Secret being the key word.
I nodded to Dorman as I approached.
He took a few steps toward me, his hand extended, a tentative smile curving his lips and rounding the apples of his cheeks. At first glance, he seemed a jolly fellow. Warm and welcoming, too. I glanced around, fearing that I was being punked. Practical jokes aren’t really my thing. Like, at all. My ex-partner-in-sanctioned-crime Mari tried pulling one once, back during our days as the Senate’s dynamic assassinating duo, and she’d ended up with a face full of salt water and spit and a pretty decent shiner. She’d only tried once.
“You’re Dorman, I take it?” I said, shaking the Nejeret’s proffered hand.
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