Tana wasn’t sure what the clerk would consider forbidden, but she wasn’t carrying much of anything. She shook her head. After a moment, the clerk nodded and handed her a small manila envelope with a band around it.
“There’s your marker and the paperwork that says you got the exclusive bounty on one vampire.” The clerk turned and motioned for Tana to follow her. “Also, your de-registration materials. Got it?”
“So if I want to leave Coldtown, I just come back to the gates and present the marker?”
The clerk took a long look at Tana. “You’re never getting out, honey, so don’t you worry about it.”
That so unnerved her that she didn’t say anything else as they walked together down a short hallway. The clerk touched her key card to a plate near the door and it swung open. Midnight was there, leaning against the wall of another hallway, the straining garbage bag slung over her shoulder and a beat-up suitcase at her feet. Her blue hair was pushed back from her face, a streak of dye marking her ears. The skin around her eyes looked red and a little puffy, as though maybe she’d been crying.
“Both of you, go on through that door,” the woman said. “On the other side, there’s a camera halfway up the wall. Take turns looking up into it. It’s a retinal-scanning device.”
They did. The camera was only a small lens threaded through the concrete block walls. Tana stared up at it for a long moment until it flashed with a flare of light, then she walked deeper into the room. Once Midnight stepped in behind her, the door shut with a whooshing sound and then a metallic click. Airtight, Tana guessed. It had no knob or other means of opening from this side, not even a plate for a key card. She studied the room, noting the reinforced door frames and what she guessed was shatterproof glass set in the small windows at their centers. Unlike the run-down front office, this was serious business. For a moment, Tana wondered if the reason the clerk predicted she wouldn’t make it out was that a dozen darts were about to shoot from the walls and kill her. But then there was another single, heavy click along the far wall, and the clerk’s voice floated down through hidden speakers.
“Please exit through the opposite door, which is now unlocked. You will be walking into a containment chamber inside the quarantined sector. Once you’re outside, wait for me to lower you down and unlock the gate. Then you will have three minutes to enter the city. If you do not enter the city willingly during the three-minute grace period, your entry will be accomplished by force.”
“Don’t worry!” Midnight yelled. “We can’t wait to get the hell out of here.”
Tana snorted and they shared an exhausted smile. Then she stepped up to the door on the opposite side and pushed, but at her touch the door opened onto a cage suspended high above Coldtown. For a moment, Tana just looked out in amazement. An open cell was in front of her, rocking gently back and forth, thick black bars on all sides but one, where it was attached to the wall with chains. Midnight stepped past her onto the platform, dumping her stuff on the floor and sinking down next to it.
“Come on,” Midnight said. “Are you afraid of heights?”
“I am now.” Tana took a deep breath and launched herself onto the platform. It swung a little unsteadily, causing Midnight to grab for the bars and look at Tana with wide eyes. Ignoring Midnight, she tried her best not to look over the side. They were at least four or five stories up, and she could see the tops of several buildings from their odd birdcage-like perch. Smoke rose in a few gray ribbons, and multicolored lights pulsed inside what looked to have once been a church. It was a fallen landscape, the magnificent ruination of a city. Overhead, the sky was already lightening, the pale blue and gold of morning tinting the eastern portion, although bright stars still burned in the west.
Dawn was coming fast.
To the right-hand side, in back of the gate, bodies were being been laid out in a single, tidy row. Five rested there, most wound in stained sheets. Two boys were dragging a sixth body, spread out on a plastic tarp, into a place at the end. One of the boys looked up at them, but Tana couldn’t read his expression from so far away.
With the sound of metal grating against metal, the cage began to slide abruptly downward. Tana’s stomach lurched. Midnight made a small cry of surprise. As they came away from the wall, the door fell from the top, closing with a rusty clang. The cage was something she’d never seen before, not in any of the photos from Coldtown. It felt like something from another time.
“This is crazy,” Tana said dizzily.