The Caitlin Chronicles Boxed Set

by Michael Anderle

  “So now you plan to release her. Are you sure that’s wise? Won’t Bryce notice that his biggest hostage is missing?”

  “That’s if he even notices. We don’t yet know if he even remembers that Alicia is down there or where she might have been kept. According to a friend of ours—and I use that term loosely—Geralt had Alicia locked up in a private room, and there’s no sign that Bryce was ever there.”

  “So you’re pinning your hopes on ignorance and naivety?”

  “Essentially, yes,” Cynthia replied. “I’m sure you know Kain as well as I do by now. He doesn’t exactly think things through before he puts a plan into action.”

  “No, he does not.” Caitlin smirked. “I suppose even if we sent a message back to say, ‘stop it, this is a stupid idea,’ he’d ignore it and carry on anyway?”

  “In a roundabout manner of speaking…yes,” Cynthia said. “And on that note…”

  She looked sheepishly at the ground before she stepped to the side to reveal another woman who appeared through the gloom.

  “Shit,” Caitlin whispered.

  The woman was tall and dressed in tattered clothing which was torn and dirty. The skin beneath showed bruises and the occasional cut, and she rubbed at her wrists as she walked.

  “Ladies, I present to you, Alicia. The leader of The Broken City—well, as far as humans are concerned.”

  Caitlin didn’t know what to say. She looked from Mary-Anne to Alicia with an expression of shock.

  “Oh, Kain. What have you done, now?” the vampire asked.

  Alicia joined them at the fountain and extended a hand.

  “Hi, I’m Alicia, it’s a pleasure to—”

  “Oh, enough of that,” Cynthia said and rolled her eyes. “There’ll be time later for pleasantries. This is the time for talking.”

  “We can’t take her. She’s the only pawn you have on your side. Without Alicia, how will you force a negotiation with Felicia and Triston?” Caitlin asked.

  Alicia scoffed. “Whose side are you on?”

  The Revolutionary leader glared. “The city’s. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but your whole set up is a boiling pot about to explode and overflow. As outsiders, maybe we have a unique perspective here, so shut up for a moment and let us think.”

  “How dare you speak to me like that?” the woman demanded indignantly.

  Mary-Anne flashed the reds of her eyes. “I wouldn’t speak to Kitty-Cat like that if I were you. She’s right. We need to think about this. We care less about what the city queen wants and more about what’ll prevent people from getting kidnapped or killed in the crossfire.”

  “Oh, I like her,” Cynthia added. “I can see what Kain likes about you.”

  “You mean, ‘like like?’” Mary-Anne winked.

  “No! I didn’t mean—”

  “I always thought you two would hit it off,” Mary-Anne teased. “Kain and Kitty-Cat. Two ks. It has a nice ring to it.”

  Caitlin laughed. “Enough of that. I wouldn’t let Kain near me with a twenty-foot pole.”

  “I’m sure he tells people he has one of those, too,” Mary-Anne said.

  Neither of them noticed Cynthia blush at this.

  “Okay, we’re getting sidetracked. Here are our options, as far as I can make out. Number one, we send Alicia back with Cynthia to remain with the Weres which, I’m sure we can agree, will be far too dangerous and stupid at this point. Even more stupid than bringing her here in the first place given that they’ve only now managed to smuggle her out. If they’re caught taking her back in…” She shrugged.

  “Number two, we take her back to the city folk and use her return as leverage. We can say that we negotiated her return and that the Weres are prepared to talk.”

  “But they aren’t. Not yet, anyway,” Cynthia said.

  “Right. But they don’t know that.”

  “And number three?” Alicia asked, looking resigned as she sat. “Because I’ll be honest, number two works for me right now, although I’m not exactly sure what else you’ll need.”

  “Number three is that we find you a hideout. We protect you from the Weres, and we hide your return from the city folk. We use you as leverage and negotiate your return with your son and sister in exchange for a parley with the Weres. We buy Cynthia and Kain time, and we lay the foundation for the truce.”

  A moment of silence passed. A veil of clouds parted, and the moon washed them all in a silvery light.

  “I vote number two,” Alicia said and raised her hand at last.

  “Who says you get a vote?” Mary-Anne snapped.

  “This is my city. Of course, I get a vote.”

  “Well, I don’t mean to state the obvious, but look what you’ve done with it so far. It’s hardly anything to brag about, is it?” Cynthia said.

  “I... Oh...hmph.” Alicia folded her arms and looked more like a sullen teen than the leader of a city.

  “What do you think, Ma?” Caitlin asked.

  “I think you’re right. Number one is a stupid idea. They’re lucky enough to have pulled her out of the burrow, let alone trying to sneak her back in. And number two doesn’t seem the smartest move either. Who’s to say that we bring her back and everyone will agree with our idea? For all we know, Alicia could turn the tables and set the city on us and the Weres. Then where would we be? Kicked out and on the outskirts of a war that will inevitably take place, killing hundreds of innocents.”

  Caitlin rubbed her eyes. “So, number three?”

  Mary-Anne nodded.

  Cynthia murmured in agreement.

  “What do you say, princess?” She grinned.

  Alicia thought about it for a long moment. “I suppose I’d finally get the quiet time I’ve wanted for so long. Although being alone somewhere in the city...are you sure that’s safe? What if Mad come while you two are negotiating truces and next steps?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Caitlin said, unable to help her smile. “We have a group of people who’ll be the perfect guard for you.”

  Jaxon yipped in agreement.

  Felicia watched them from high above on the top floor of the remains of an old city bank. She wrapped her shawl tightly to shield herself against the chill that sneaked between the glass shards.

  “This isn’t good,” she mused aloud and wondered what words would have convinced the Were to allow Alicia to join the warrior woman and the vampire. She only wished she could get closer and eavesdrop, to sneak up and hear the details. But with another vampire in the city, Felicia knew that she must be careful. If this vamp’s senses were even half as acute as her own, it wouldn’t be long before the interloper cottoned on to her existence and ruined everything.

  She watched them wander down the streets and retrace their steps as far as an old intersection between buildings. The library would be directly ahead, but they took another route and disappeared in another direction.

  “Interesting.”

  “That’s not the way back,” a voice said beside her.

  Felicia snapped out of her thoughts and realized she had forgotten Miriam entirely. She turned and her eyes pulsed with a dull red as the adrenaline subsided. The woman looked like a lower-grade carbon copy of herself—tired and beaten down. Even in the fading light of the moon, the resemblance between the two was uncanny.

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” Felicia snapped. “Something’s going on down there, and I don’t like it. I’ve never seen Weres voluntarily give back a hostage, particularly to a group of humans.”

  Miriam shuffled her feet. “What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know. But it can’t mean anything good. You need to be prepared. If there’s one person in the city who’ll be able to see right through our ruse, it’ll be my sister. Forget about her pretty-boy son so wrapped up in his own ideas of how he’ll run the town when she dies—and she will soon. The last thing we want is for Alicia to return to headquarters and expose you before the next stage of our plan.”
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  The woman nodded her agreement. As if struck by a sudden thought, her face creased into a frown.

  “What now?” Felicia demanded and crossed the room toward a man who lay on the floor. His chest barely rose and fell with each breath and blood painted his neck.

  “I was going to ask…what’s the next stage of the plan again?”

  Felicia rolled her eyes, revealed her fangs, and sank them into the man’s neck. His groans were now so weak that he hardly made any sound. As her own eyes rolled back in ecstasy, she silently thanked the Queen Bitch that, even in these days of protective communities, there were still loners whom no one would notice were missing. Outcasts were able to keep the true leader of the city fed and strong.

  When Felicia finished and the man’s final rasping breaths left his body, she wiped her mouth with the corner of her sleeve. “It’s a three-page plan, and you can’t even remember that? How the fuck have you not given yourself away down in that library?”

  Miriam shrugged. “I keep to myself and only answer questions when necessary.”

  “Well, at least you have that right,” the vampire retorted, more to herself than to her companion. “I’ll say it one last time: penetration, manipulation, destruction. We’ve already had my sister in the Weres’ custody, and now that she has been released in secret by one of their own, we have even more chance to play with the new Alpha and sow the seeds of distrust.”

  “It sounds exciting,” Miriam said with a face that suggested the contrary.

  “Oh, it is. Now, it’s time to poke the beehive and see what flies out.”

  After giving Miriam her instructions, she watched the poor woman flee the room and returned to her position at the window. She laced her hands behind her back and silently contemplated the possibilities of what the warrior girl and the vamp might be up to. She had always prided herself that her strengths lay in thought and logic, and this was a peculiar puzzle indeed.

  Chapter Nine

  Silver Creek, Silver Creek Forest, Ontario

  There was no sign of Dylan that day or that evening. By nightfall, Mother Wendy offered Jamie and Mabel a bed in one of the back rooms of her tavern.

  They accepted gratefully, unaware of how exhausted they both were until their heads hit the pillow. Before they realized it, the sun streamed through the bedroom windows and there was a commotion downstairs.

  Jamie looked at his Nana, who slept soundly, her mouth agape. Her snores shook the walls, and the sunlight caught the whiskers on her chin and turned them into golden threads

  Without a word, he snuck out of the room and headed downstairs.

  It wasn’t hard to find the source of the disruption. Jamie had actually been in the back room before when they debated on the right way to connect the towns of Ashdale and Silver Creek. They had spent hours over the logistics of building a highway, examined the security measures and how to communicate, and discussed how the manual labor would work when Mad could jump out of the trees at any moment.

  This time, however, the debate was a lot more heated.

  Jamie creaked the door open, and the voices ceased abruptly. Almost a dozen bodies crammed around the table. Dylan was up on his feet and rested his hands on the surface. Sully sat solemnly beside Stump, the tiny innkeeper from the Cloak and Dagger, one of Ashdale’s seediest pubs. Across from them all were Huckle, Ben, and Flo, with Mother Wendy beside them, and Ash, Alice, and Larry on the other side.

  Across the table, looking more tired than he had ever seen her, was Christy.

  “Christy?” he said, and his face lit up.

  She seemed barely able to take him in. “Jamie? Oh, hey. I know I’ve been gone a while, but it’s okay. Things here are—”

  “It’s good to see you.” Dylan interrupted the moment as he sat and regained his composure. His face was red, and his beard was unkempt.

  Jamie managed to pull his gaze away from her and tried to hide the weight that had lifted off his shoulders at the sight of her. “And you, Dylan. I worried I’d never find you. We spent all day yesterday looking—”

  “Enough of the pleasantries,” Ash, one of Silver Creek’s finest guards, said sharply. “In case you didn’t realize it, we’re in a crisis here.”

  Alice placed an affectionate hand on the man’s arm. Although Jamie didn’t know them well, he always found Ash and Alice’s relationship endearing—professional when they needed to be and completely the opposite when they were off the clock.

  “Actually, he could help,” Alice said. “More voices foster greater discussion, as my old Ma used to tell me.”

  “Who speaks like that to their kids?”

  “My parents certainly didn’t,” Huckle said.

  Dylan rubbed at the corner of his eye and sighed. “Would you care to join us? Mother Wendy, fill him in.”

  Jamie took a seat beside the proprietor who detailed the extent of the conversation thus far. It seemed that things at Silver Creek had reached a critical point. The jails were now full of citizens turning—or having already turned—Mad, and there was little space for any more. Despite the best efforts of the captain and his men, the disease had taken hold of the town and spread like a weed.

  “It won’t be long until one of us catches it ourselves,” Ben added. “At this rate, by next week, we’ll be fucked.”

  “What about the curfew? That’s not working?” Jamie asked.

  Dylan indicated for Sully to answer. “Not exactly. People are scared of what will happen if they turn themselves in. When a person is infected, they’d rather hide it and spend the remainder of their time with their families than turn themselves in and admit that their time is up. Worse than that, friends sneak in to visit each other and come into contact with the Madness, so the disease continues to spread to families who could otherwise have been safe.”

  “Shit.” Jamie sighed.

  “That’s right. Shit,” Flo said. “That’s what has us so heated. We need to decide the next step and, either way, it ain’t going to be pretty.”

  “What are the options?”

  “The only option is to leave the town,” Alice said. “Lock the gates and take those who are healthy with us. Kitty-Cat has to be out there somewhere, surely? If she’s been gone for this long, she’s found somewhere safe.”

  “But how do we know that?” Ash asked. “If she were safe, she would have either returned or found a way to tell us where she was. For all we know, she could be—”

  “Don’t even say the words,” Dylan said bluntly and glared at him.

  “We could use the airship,” Ben suggested. “That served us well when we used it before, didn’t it? I rather enjoyed sitting on the ship and pretending I was an air pirate.”

  “Is that a long-term solution? To play in the woods and hide in a giant boat? We’d be no better off there than we are here. At least in here, we can keep track of the Mad,” Mother Wendy said.

  “Oh yeah? Because that seems to be working sooo well so far, right?” Christy glared, the bags under her eyes dark and heavy.

  “Well, what’s the alternative?” the older woman asked, her face red with growing indignation. “Kill all the mad and reduce this town into some medieval war prison in which everyone is stripped naked, tagged with a number, and given the okay? Split them into groups based on their health and set them to work under some degrading regime by some fucked-up dictator? We’ve already got rid of one. Are you ready to become another, Dill?”

  Dylan stood abruptly. “We will not slaughter our people like cattle. I will fight for every single day we can spare them all in the hope that we can find a cure. Until there is no other alternative, we honor our men and women. I will not lay a blade on their flesh unless there is no other alternative. Stump’s formula is working. People are surviving for longer than they would have without it. We are buying time.”

  “Wait, what formula?” Jamie asked. “The governor’s potion?”

  “It’s not a potion,” Stump grumbled. “Potions are for kid’s stori
es and fairytales. This is science. Somehow, science made the Madness, so science will be able to end it. Or, at least for now, slow it down.”

  The dwarf shut a heavy book in front of him. A large plume of dust erupted from the pages.

  “You’ve re-made the formula?”

  “Stump has mass-produced it. We have several of our finest scouts in the woods collecting the ingredients, and we deliver rations to those who are infected. Results have been positive so far in slowing down the disease, but we’re no closer to finding a cure.”

  “That’s because the disease is in the nanocytes,” the little man said, clearly annoyed. “As I’ve told you, we have nothing to attack these with—no equipment, no tools, nothing. The technology we require died a long time ago, and only remnants can be found in the cities.”

  “What are nanocytes?” Jamie asked.

  Before Stump could answer, another voice spoke from the doorway to the room. “Nanocytes? I haven’t heard that word in a long time.”

  Everyone turned to see Mabel standing there. She had an upside-down tattered umbrella in one hand and held the door handle with the other.

  “What do you know of nanocytes, old woman?” Stump asked.

  “Enough to know I’ll smack you upside the head if you don’t respect your elders, short one,” the old lady croaked and sat beside her grandson.

  “Nana. We really don’t have time for gibberish now—”

  “Hush, kiddo, before I lose my faculties again.”

  “This isn’t you losing your faculties?” Ben asked.

  Jamie glared at him.

  Mabel continued. “Nanocytes are microscopic cells that live in the bloodstream of vampires and Weres and give them their powers. They’re said to have come from an alien race as a gift to the Unknown and work with the other cells in their body to give them their skills—speed, great sight, hearing, and all the others.”