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“I’ll be okay,” I said softly. “And it’s the only way to get the information we need about those children.”
Cat drifted forward and patted my arm; Bear was not so easily mollified. “I promise I’ll come back,” I added. “But this has to be done, and I have to do it alone. I cannot risk Sal or anyone else who comes after me sensing your presence. Besides, I need you to help protect the bunker.”
Bear’s energy combined briefly with mine, forming the link that allowed him to speak. Nuri is there. She will not let us come to harm.
“Not unless she needs to,” I agreed. “But the vampires may well mount an attack, and you have to be there to help protect the little ones, Bear.”
His energy withdrew. He wasn’t happy, but he accepted the situation. I wrapped my arms around their little forms, feeling their particles in and around me; feeling their fears and concern.
“Go,” I said, releasing them. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
They went reluctantly. I pushed to my feet. Pain flared across my ribs, but it was little more than an echo of the pain that would have hit me had I not taken the time to heal myself. I picked up the small vial and studied it. It had been a long time since I’d used this stuff, and I wasn’t looking forward to the aftereffects. But it was the only way I was ever going to get anything resembling the truth from Sal.
I uncorked the tube, quickly tipped the frozen liquid into my mouth, and crunched the ice before swallowing it. It would take little more than ten minutes for the fast-acting poison to leach into my skin; it wouldn’t kill me, but it would kill anyone who came in contact with me. Even Sal, who could heal himself against any wound, but who didn’t have the immunity to the more severe toxins that I did—and they didn’t come any more toxic than Sueño. It was fast, and it was very deadly.
But before he died, he would talk.
I took a deep, quivering breath, then became one with the night again and moved toward Central. The haphazard walls of Chaos came into view, the bottom levels wrapped in darkness, the upper levels randomly lit by patches of bright light. I swerved away, keeping to the shadows that hugged the curtain wall between Chaos and the drawbridge. Though I wasn’t entirely sure where Old Stan’s was from this side of the wall, I knew it was closer to the main gate than Chaos itself.
At the midway point between the two, I surged upward. The closer I got to the top of the wall and light of the UVs that poured over it, the more the shadows within began to unravel. As my flesh form began to reinsert itself, I made a last, desperate lunge for the top of the wall. My hands slid against the slick surface and suddenly I was sliding backward again. I cursed, scrambling madly, and, at the last possible moment, found a fissure big enough to hook my fingers into. My momentum was such that the sudden stop just about wrenched my shoulder out of its socket, and I hit the cold metal wall hard enough to force a grunt of pain. For several seconds I just hung there, my heart going a million miles a minute as I sucked in air and tried not to look at the long drop below me. If I did fall it wouldn’t actually matter, as I could become night again and stop long before I got anywhere near the ground, but that knowledge didn’t stop my irrational fear of heights asserting its ugly head once again.
But hanging here was wasting time, and I had a bad feeling that was something I was fast running out of. I lurched upward, grabbed the far edge of the thick wall, then pulled myself up onto the top of it.
Central stretched before me, bright and quiet. While there were guards stationed atop either drawbridge, they only did random patrols of the main wall if the vampires were notably active. The UVs had long ago been protected from any sort of standard weaponry taking them out, and, as far as I knew, the last of the bombs had been destroyed at the war’s end. None had been made since. No one wanted to take the risk given the amount of rifts already rolling across the landscape.
I took another deep breath, then called to the sun shield. While the guards might not actively patrol, if they happened to be looking the right way and saw a shadowy human form running along the top of the wall, they would investigate. As light wrapped around me, I finally looked down, searching for a way off this wall. Old Stan’s was only a few buildings away to my left, but I needed a building that was taller. I might have a tiger’s sure-footedness, but I couldn’t run the risk of breaking something with that sort of drop.
I padded along the wall, moving away from the inn and the markets. The ramshackle buildings that hugged the wall grew ever taller, and I soon found a building where the drop was only a couple of floors. I took another of those deep breaths to calm the butterflies and irrational fears, and jumped down. I landed safely, my fingers barely brushing the rooftop as I steadied myself, then moved toward the edge of the building and jumped to the next one, then the next, moving steadily downward each time.
As I neared the inn, I let the sun shield unravel and jumped down into the lane. The two old men sitting on either side of a fire burning in an old bin gave me a nod as I walked past them but made no comment. But there was a gleam in their eyes—an odd watchfulness in their expressions—that made me wonder if they were something other than just old men huddling near a makeshift fire. Given what I’d discovered when moving the bed to get into the hidden stairwell, it was very possible that these old men were actually guards.
I pushed open the door and stepped into the cramped foyer. Old Stan still manned the desk and gave me a nod before returning to his reading. Something within me relaxed. If there’d been someone waiting upstairs, I had a feeling he would have warned me.
I took the stairs two at a time but slowed as I neared the top floor. While instinct might be suggesting Old Stan could be trusted to pass on a warning, I wasn’t about to take chances. The fourth floor was dark and silent, but I couldn’t sense anything out of place.
I stepped into my room, but again, nothing and no one waited. I relaxed and stripped off my clothes as I walked to the bed. I was as hungry as hell, but it was the middle of the night and the majority of Central was asleep. If Sal came calling—and I had no doubt that he would—then he at least had to find me in bed, if not asleep.
I crawled into the thick but scratchy sheets and tried to relax. But there was no getting rid of the tension, and I practically jumped at every little creak. It certainly didn’t help that it now felt as if thousands of tiny ants were marching across my skin, making it prickle and sting. It was the first indication that the drug was taking hold.
I closed my eyes, willed myself to ignore the hostel’s creaks and groans, and slept.
Only to be woken by the realization that someone was watching me.
Tension rolled through me, but a heartbeat later, Sal’s seductive, satiny scent enveloped me, and I relaxed.
But only outwardly.
“Sal,?
?? I murmured, not having to feign the sleepy exhaustion in my voice, “what in Rhea are you doing here?”
“I came to apologize for my rather ungentlemanly manner yesterday morning,” he said. “And to check that you were all right, given you didn’t turn up for our dinner date.”
That was because I’d totally forgotten about it. I opened my eyes. Though his smile touched the corners of his silvery eyes, he was watching me a little too carefully. Suspicion and regret stung the air, though I wasn’t entirely sure whether the latter was his or mine.
“If there’s one thing I have no expectations of when it comes to you,” I replied, “it’s gentlemanly behavior.”
He laughed softly and reached out, hooking the edge of the blankets with one finger and pulling them away from my body. The cold air caressed me, sending goose bumps skittering across my skin and making my nipples harden. Or maybe that was a side effect of the sudden heat in his gaze. He might not trust me, but he sure as hell still wanted me.
