by Keri Arthur
Was Dream here?
“No,” Penny intoned softly. “But she is aware you have come here.”
“Because you told her?”
“No, although it is my place to do so. It was the vampires who contacted her.”
Her place.... Two simple words that sent another chill through me. She really did see herself as part of the den.
“Why would they do that? She wasn’t vampire-born, so why would they obey her orders?”
“She is the mistress,” Penny said. “They have been waiting for her arrival for a very long time.”
Meaning they saw her as some sort of goddess? This situation was getting stranger and stranger. “Does that mean she makes her way here as we speak?”
If it did, then I was going to grab Penny and get the hell out of this place, even of that action brought the whole damn den on top of us. As much as I wanted to end Dream’s madness, Penny was our priority.
“There is no need for her to come here,” she replied. “She will simply retrieve your remains and have them stored until a new lab has been set up.”
That will not happen, Bear said. If you die, Cat and I will get your body out of this place.
Thanks, Bear. To Penny, I added, “You don’t belong here. You’re not one of them, no matter how much the drugs in your body are making you believe otherwise.”
Though my voice was as soft as hers, it echoed loudly across the black silence. In the right-hand tunnel, the vampires’ stirrings got louder and the sense of their hunger grew.
Jonas is ignoring your order, Cat said. He will be with you in a few minutes.
Which was both frustrating and unsurprising. He'd gone against all common sense—against even Nuri's advice and fears—to keep Penny in Chaos and as close as practical to him. There was no way he'd leave a confrontation such as this to a second party.
“I do not belong in Chaos or Central, either,” she said. “I never really did.”
“You belong with your family and friends—”
“My family is dead,” she broke in. “I do not know those who would call me kin these days.”
“You have Jonas—”
“Jonas will die in this place, as will you. There is no escape.”
A statement I had every intention of disproving. But the mere fact she could say something like that without even the barest flicker of regret chilled me to the core.
“What is this place, Penny?” I asked. “What do they do here?”
“Here?” she said, vaguely waving a hand. “Nothing.”
Was the vagueness deliberate, or did she really not know what I meant? And if it were the latter, why not? She was neither young nor dumb.
“I meant this place as a whole. What does Dream keep here other than vampires? What does she do?”
“It is little more than a storage facility,” came the remote reply.
Mere storage facilities didn’t vibrate like this place was. “Storage for what?”
“Weapons, equipment, ammunition.” She shrugged lightly. “Everything that is needed for a war.”
“And is that what Dream intends—a war?”
“I don't know her plans or desires,” Penny said. “I cannot hear her thoughts.”
“And yet you heard mine?” And if she could read my mind, did that mean Dream would also be able to?
But surely if that had been the case, it would have applied to both Sal and Winter, given they all shared the same DNA.
Penny smiled, but it contained little in the way of warmth and her eyes remained remote. “Because we both now share a connection to Jonas.”
Relief surged. At least if I did unknowingly run into Dream in some incarnation other than her Hedda Lang one, my thoughts wouldn’t give the game away. “And the vampires?”
“Their blood runs through my veins, as it runs through yours and hers. While it merely enables you to hear them, it has made me a part of the greater mind.”
Greater mind? Did that mean vampires were capable of some sort of shared consciousness? I seriously hoped not. Up until now, the various vampire nests had been operating independently, but if Dream had somehow tapped into that shared consciousness and could make them to act as one, we would be in serious trouble.
“Why is Dream part of that consciousness and yet I’m not?”
Penny shrugged. “I do not know.”
There was too damn much that she—and we—didn’t know, I thought grimly. “Then how did she become mistress? Surely only someone vampire-born could become the mistress?”
“Again, I do not know,” Penny replied. “It is not my place to question these things.”
“What does the greater mind tell you?”
“Many things, but not that.”
Of course not, I thought, frustrated. “Then why are the vampires in this place? There is nothing left for them to feed on, and no human outposts nearby.”
A strange smile touched her pale lips. “The vampires have always been here. But soon, they will be everywhere. Even in Central.”
Her matter-of-fact tone had alarm stirring. “And how does Dream plan to achieve this? We’ve destroyed her bases and disrupted her research.”
“Disrupted, not completely destroyed. Bases and research labs can be rebuilt.”
I eyed Penny for a moment, seeing the certainty in her, the conviction. There was something else going on, something we weren’t seeing. Something that could yet kill us all. “Yes, but that will take years to do, and we’ll find her long before she can achieve either.”
“While that is indeed possible, it doesn’t negate the truth of my statement. The vampires will soon control Central.”
“The attack on Chaos was proof enough that while there are vampires who have gained some immunity, there’s still a long way to go before they gain full protection. Central is bathed in UV lighting day and night, Penny. The minute they breach the wall, they will die.”
“But what if the lights no longer worked?”
For several seconds, I could only stare at her. Then fear crashed through me and realization dawned. We’d been so damn focused on finding the children and shutting down the labs that we’d never considered the possibility of a plan B.
“Are you saying that’s what Dream intends? To shut down the lights?” I couldn't quite keep the urgency and fear from my voice. Because if that was what Dream intended, then Nuri needed to tell the authorities and have her apprehended immediately—even if we didn't yet have absolute proof that Dream and Hedda were indeed the same person.
“I don't know her plans,” Penny said. “I only know what the vampires tell me—what has filled their dreams in the long hours of the day these past few months.”
Vampires dreamed? That was a concept I did not want to contemplate. And yet if the last few months had taught me anything, it was that they were not the unthinking beasts I'd always thought them to be.
Footsteps began to echo across the silence. Running steps, oddly desperate.
Jonas.
“And what do they base these dreams on, Penny, if they have not been promised such a thing?”
“I do not know.” Though she must have heard the noise Jonas was making, Penny made no acknowledgment. Nor did she look concerned. “I have only been a part of the greater mind these last few weeks.”
“Can you ask the greater mind what they base their information on, Penny?”
The vampires are on the move, Bear commented. They are coming up from the den to cut off our retreat.
Warn us if they look ready to attack.
“Why would I do that?” Penny asked.
“Because you're not a vampire.” I took another step forward, even though I was certain the minute I made any attempt to snatch her, the vampires drawing ever closer would attack. “You're not one of them, no matter what Dream has done to you. You're one of us—a shifter.”
“Except my heart no longer beats for the sunlight. More and more, the night is my mistress, just as it is theirs. And the hun
ger—it grows.” She hesitated and glanced past me as Jonas stepped into the junction. “Hello, Uncle.”
He stopped beside me. Though he wasn't touching me, I could feel the tension in him—the fear. It washed in waves across my skin and through my mind, and it made my heart ache for him.
“Penny, you can’t stay here,” he said. “You must fight them—fight what they have done to you.”
“I would be more worried about what the vampires intend to do to you.” He might have been nothing to her for all the emotion she was showing. “You knew this was a trap. Tiger warned you of it, many times. And yet you still came.”
His fists clenched—the only outward sign of the strength it was taking not to grab her and run. But he, like me, feared that doing so would unleash the vampires.
If we were to get out of this place in one piece, she had to come with us willingly. And even then, I suspected, survival was not guaranteed.
“I came because you are family,” he said flatly. “I will not leave you here, Penny. I cannot.”
“The vampires will attack the minute you move against me. There are too many of them for you to beat.”
“You and Dream misjudge our strength and determination,” he growled back.
She studied him for a moment, and then said, “And what good do you think it would do if you could get me out of here? This darkness in me grows by the day, and there is nothing you or anyone else can do to stop that. I will endanger everything else you hold dear, Uncle, and we both know it.”
“What has been done can be undone,” he said. “We will find a way to save you.”
Just for an instant, tears glimmered in her eyes. And there was something else—a spark of sudden awareness and fear—that suggested the grip of whatever thrall she was under had briefly broken.
“If your desire is to save me,” she said, with just the smallest hint of desperation. “Then there is only one thing you can do.”
His shock coursed through my mind and added depth to my own. And yet, I knew in my heart it was nothing but the truth, however unpalatable. If the drugs and pathogens injected into her had already altered her chemistry and perhaps even DNA to the point that she now felt more comfortable with darkness and vampires than light, shifters, and humanity, there was a very big chance it could not now be reversed. That it would continue to change her until she reached the end point—whatever that end point was, be it as a vampire or the means through which the vampires gained immunity. In either scenario, the child Jonas had spent over a hundred years protecting would no longer exist.
I wanted to reach out, to offer him both comfort and understanding, but I very much suspected he'd rebuff both right now.
“No.” The denial exploded out of him.
“If you really want to save me, then it is the only way.” The desperation was stronger in her voice. “You will still die in this place, but at least I will be free of the darkness.”
The vampires flood into this tunnel, Bear warned. They will be on you in minutes.
I swore and looked at Jonas. If he'd heard Bear's warning, there was no sign of it.
“No,” he repeated. But it was softer, and filled with anguish.
“You must,” she said. “Please, I—”
Whatever else she was going to say died on her lips, right alongside the spark of awareness. Her body straightened fractionally and the remoteness returned. “Your death approaches, Uncle. Do not say you weren’t—”
She never finished the sentence.
Jonas raised his gun and shot her.
Chapter Ten
The vampires screamed in fury, and the force of their approach became so fierce it was a foul wind that ran before them, promising our deaths even as it battered our bodies.
“Turn on your halo light,” Jonas snapped. “And run.”
“There is nowhere to run,” I bit back, even as I obeyed.
He scooped up Penny's limp body and then raced toward the left tunnel. Vampires flooded out of the right one, their desperation such that they flung themselves at him, undeterred by the halo’s light or the ash of their comrades that rained all around them.
Bear screamed a warning. I slid to a stop, swung around, and unleashed a rain of metal at the thick mass that poured out of the exit tunnel. Some vampires went down while others flashed to particle form to avoid being hit. As had happened in Chaos, there was no pausing to tear at their fallen comrades; their hunger for flesh and blood might be so fierce that it had become a physical force, but the flesh they wanted was ours.
“Tiger, move it!”
I turned and raced after him. The vampires chased us, their noise deafening in the confines of the smaller tunnel. Every vampire who got close was killed either by the halo’s UV light or by bullets. The junction and the tunnel soon became thick with the dead, and the air heavy with their ash, but it didn’t stop them.
The walls of the left tunnel were again brick rather than concrete, and the air washing down from up ahead was much, much warmer than it had been in the other tunnels. That strange vibration was growing ever stronger, and there was a constant rain of grime coming from the ceiling. It certainly wasn’t the ventilation system causing this shaking. No system, however strong or out of sync it might be, would affect the earth as badly as this.
But it wasn’t just the shaking now—it was the noise. A weird crunching, grinding noise.
I ducked my head sideways as a vampire's talon arced toward my face. It hit as ash but nevertheless was a reminder of the fate that waited if these lights failed.
“Jonas,” I yelled, firing at the vampire who appeared between us before leaping over his cindering body, “have you any damn idea where we're going?”
“We need to find out what Dream is storing here,” he replied. “Especially if she does have plans to kill Central's lights.”
“I can send the ghosts—”
“Yes, but they can't act against whatever is up ahead.”
I wasn't entirely sure we'd be able to, either—especially if there was no way out of whatever lay ahead other than the tunnel we were now in. No matter what sort of weapons Jonas and his crew might have brought with them, there were simply too many vampires in this place. And the halo lights wouldn’t last forever.
“Ours might not,” he replied, obviously hearing the thought, “but we’ve a good crew behind us, and the equipment they carry will.”
“Yeah, but a dozen people will not win out against an entire den, no matter how damn good they are.”
“They don’t have to erase the entire den. They just have to stop any more vampires accessing the tunnels out of here.”
Which still left us dealing with the hundreds—if not thousands—who’d already poured into the exit tunnel.
Up ahead, light began to burn—bright, fierce light. UV light. But did it represent safety or yet another trap?
Cat, Bear, can you investigate what’s up ahead?
It was better to know than not, even if the reality of the situation was that we had no real choice but to charge into whatever waited. Because the vibrations were getting stronger, the vampires’ attacks more desperate, and the air so thick with ash and brick dust it felt like every breath was filled with death and decay.
One of my guns clicked over to empty. I didn’t stop to reload it; I simply hooked it back onto my belt, reached for another, and kept on firing.
The UV light was now strong enough to start peeling away the darkness, but the vampires remained undeterred. One after the other they threw themselves at us, until the sheer amount of ash raining down on us became a physical weight, and our steps inevitably slowed.
A metal grate came into sight; it covered the entire width of the tunnel, and while there was a gate, it was closed and locked. Jonas barely paused—he simply unloaded shot after shot into the lock until it disintegrated and then kicked it open and ran on.
“Bear? Cat?” I yelled, as I followed Jonas through. “What the hell is happening? What are we running i
nto?”
A big cavern that’s being used as both a store and living quarters, Cat replied. There are four people here, but they sleep.
There’s also another tunnel—a big one, with string lighting rather than UV, Bear added. Do you want us to investigate it?
If they were using simple string lighting in that tunnel, then vampires obviously weren’t a problem—and that, in turn, was a hopeful sign that maybe there was another way in and out of this place. For now, just keep an eye on it and let us know if there’s any movement. Cat, keep an eye on the sleepers and tell us if all the noise we’re making wakes them.
The vampires poured through the gate after us, but the UV light was now so fierce that they quickly became nothing more than a wave of ash and fury. I breathed through clenched teeth in an effort to filter some of their muck from my lungs, and shook the weight of it from my shoulders.
Ten more strides and we were in the heart of that lifesaving brightness. But this was no sewer junction—it was a cavern. A vast, open, but far from empty cavern. The UV lights were sitting in what appeared to be a sort of antechamber, and were both freestanding and hanging on sturdy chains from the ceiling high above. They formed a wide semicircle around the tunnel’s entrance, and the lights on the floor immediately in front of it were well protected against any sort of missile the vampires might have used against them. Beyond the lights were boxes of various shapes and sizes stacked on top of each other, and which formed wooden and plastic skyscrapers that reached for the ceiling. Some of them were marked with government stamps, some of them not. The evil trio had obviously been stocking this place for years, if not decades.
I slid to a stop beside Jonas, the harsh rasp of my breathing making little impact against that odd, masticating sound that ran in time with the vibrations under our feet. It very much sounded like something was eating the rock and earth—and that had trepidation stirring.