I left the office and walked to the reception area with my katana, as the note instructed me to do. But I didn’t stop there. Without pausing to think, I hurried to the elevator shaft, grasped the cables and pulled myself up the tube as fast as I could go.
On the surface, the sun had just set over the jagged horizon, and the sky was dark blue with bloodred clouds. It had been a long time since I’d seen anything but darkness and night, and for a brief moment I stared at the splashes of color across the sky, marveling at how quickly I’d forgotten what a sunset looked like.
So you’re going to stand there gaping at some pretty clouds like a moron until Kanin finds you outside, then? With an annoyed mental slap, I wrenched my gaze from the horizon and hurried away from the hospital, not daring to look back.
I felt a strange thrill, creeping through the shadows and alleyways on my own, the same feeling I’d gotten while exploring beyond the wall: excited and terrified at the same time. I wasn’t supposed to be out here. There was no doubt in my mind that Kanin was going to be pissed, but it was too late to worry about that now. I’d been planning this moment for days, and I needed to discover some things for myself. Besides, he couldn’t keep me in that old hospital forever, like some sort of prison guard. Before we’d met, I went where I wanted when I wanted, and no one could stop me. I wasn’t going to start submitting now, just because some moody, evasive vampire told me I had to forget.
I slipped through the sectors, remembering the paths Kanin had used but also my own knowledge from when I was a Fringer. It was much easier, now that I was dead, to move like a ghost through the darkness, to be able to leap onto the roof of a two-story building to avoid the guards, to freeze and become part of the stones and shadows. Unseen and unheard, I crept through the streets, weaving around buildings, until I reached a familiar chain-link fence. Slipping under the links, I crossed the empty lot quickly and walked into the shadowy halls of my old home.
It seemed much emptier than before, silent and deserted. I found my old locker, opened it with a creak and sighed. Empty, as I’d feared. The scavengers had already found this place.
Halfheartedly, I walked toward my old room, knowing I’d probably find it stripped clean. It never took long for scavengers to move in; I only hoped that maybe they’d left a certain crate alone, having no use for something that could get them killed.
I turned the knob, swung open the door and stepped inside, not realizing until too late that someone was already there.
A body looked up from where it crouched in the corner, leaning against the wall. I started, automatically going for my sword, thinking for one terrifying moment that it was Kanin. It wasn’t, but it was another vampire, a lean, bony male with white skin and a head as bald as an egg. He smiled, showing perfect teeth, and the moonlight shining through the broken windows fell across his pale features and the vivid web of scars slashed across his face.
“Evening, little bird.” His voice, soft, raspy and somehow very, very wrong, made me shiver. “Out for a midnight flight, on wings of blood and pain? Like razor blades across the moon, they cut the night and make the sky bleed red.” He chuckled, sending chills down my back. I drew away, and the stranger cocked his head at me. “Oh, don’t mind me, love. I get a little poetic sometimes. The moonlight does that to me.” He shook himself, as if shaking off the crazy, and rose to his feet.
I noticed the book in his long, bony hands, then, and stepped forward. “Hey! What are you doing with that? Those are mine.”
“Are they?” The vamp moved, coming away from the wall. I tensed, but he only crossed the room to set the book gently on a shelf. “Then perhaps you should have taken better care of them, love,” he purred, staring at me with soulless black eyes. “The rats here were using them to keep their skinny hides warm.”
He nodded to the corner. I looked over and saw a pair of human bodies sprawled out on my old mattress, pinched and ragged-looking—the scavengers that had moved in. From their unnatural stillness and the scent of old blood, they were obviously dead. I looked closer and saw their throats were gone, the skin around them dark and stained, as if they’d been torn out. Horror crept over me, and I nearly fled the room, away from the vampire who was truly a monster.
But there was a spot on the cement floor next to the mattress that was blackened and charred, and I had to know what it was. As I studied the remains of book pages, scattered among the ashes, my heart sank. All that time, all that work, and in the end my collection had been burned to keep two strangers warm.