Chapter 123 | The Scavengers | Leah
The gun barrel pressed against my temple.
The metal was ice-cold. I could smell gun oil, and the scent of soap from the woman's sleeve. Her finger was on the trigger, steady pressure, no hesitation.
"Drop your weapon," she said.
I had no weapon. The gun was on my waist, but I didn't move. If I moved, she'd shoot.
Kael stood beside me, hands raised. His wings hung behind him like two rags. Dr. Chen had his hands up too, the UV lamp fallen to the ground.
"We are Gatekeepers," Kael said. "You cannot—"
"Gatekeepers?" The woman sneered. "Gatekeepers are legends. The real threat is Night Walkers and trash falling from Side A. You two happen to be both."
She signaled to the Scavengers behind her. Two men came forward, cuffing Kael's wrists with UV handcuffs. The cuffs gave off a faint purple glow. Kael's skin immediately started smoking white, but he made no sound.
Another person came to cuff me.
"Don't touch her wings," the woman said. "Scale samples are valuable."
The man's hand stopped at the base of my wing. He pulled out scissors, wanting to cut a feather.
I moved.
Not for the gun. With my head.
The back of my head slammed into his nose. The sound of bone breaking. He screamed, staggered back, covering his face. Blood poured between his fingers.
The woman's gun fired.
The bullet grazed my ear, hot air cutting into skin. But it didn't hit. Kael leaned at the same moment, his shoulder ramming into the woman's waist. She lost balance, the gun barrel deflected, the second bullet hit the ceiling.
"Run!" Kael shouted.
We charged toward the other end of the platform. There was a door there, leading deep into the tracks.
The Scavengers fired. Real bullets and UV beams crossed paths. The walls beside the tracks shattered, debris flying. I felt something hit my back—not a bullet, but a UV graze. My skin immediately blistered.
Kael pulled me and we jumped through a side door. Behind it was a maintenance passage, narrow and dark, filled with cables and pipes.
We crawled. Our knees and elbows scraped raw on the rough ground. The footsteps and shouts of Scavengers came from behind.
"Who are they?" I gasped.
"A hunting organization from the human world," Kael said. "They hunt Night Walkers. Now they're treating us as targets too."
"How do we lose them?"
"Up ahead." He pointed to the end of the passage. "There's a vent. It leads to the surface."
We crawled under the vent. The cover was metal mesh, fixed with screws. I had no tools, could only twist with my hands. The screws were rusted, wouldn't budge.
Kael bit the edge of the mesh with his teeth, his hands working together, pulling hard.
The mesh came off. We climbed out.
Outside was the edge of the city. Wasteland. Weeds everywhere, abandoned factories and mountains of trash in the distance. The sky showed pale light—human dawn was coming.
Kael knelt on the ground, throwing up. The UV handcuffs had eaten into his wrists, the bone nearly showing.
I found a rock and smashed the handcuffs. I hit them dozens of times. The rock cracked, the handcuffs finally broke.
Two deep burn marks were left on his wrists. I tore off the hem of my clothes and wrapped the wounds.
"We have to go back," I said. "Adrian is in danger. The fragment's double is in her castle. If the anchor is destroyed—"
"How do we go back?" Kael panted. "The passage is under the city. The Scavengers are guarding it. We go back and we die."
"Then we take another way."
I looked toward the end of the wasteland. There was a highway there, vehicles driving on it. Human vehicles. Steel and rubber, no magic.
"Steal a car," I said.
Kael looked up at me. His face was covered in sweat and blood, but the corner of his mouth moved.
"You've changed," he said.
"How?"
"Before, you wouldn't say 'steal.'"
"Before, I didn't have a gun either."
I helped him up. We walked toward the highway.
The first car was a truck. The driver was a fat man. Seeing our wings, he jerked the steering wheel and nearly hit the guardrail.
The second car was a sedan, windows shut tight, speeding past.
The third was a motorcycle. The rider wore a leather jacket and helmet. I walked to the middle of the road and raised the gun.
The motorcycle braked hard. The tires screeched, leaving black smoke on the ground. The rider removed her helmet, revealing red hair. A young woman, human, round pupils, freckles on her face.
"Are you fucking trying to die?" she cursed.
"We're borrowing the bike," I said, the gun barrel aimed at her forehead. "Or you die."
Her gaze moved from my wings to Kael's face, then to the gun. She swallowed.
"...Night Walker?" she asked.
"No," I said. "But we can ride."
She got off. Quick movements, hands raised, backing toward the roadside.
"Keys are in the ignition," she said. "Don't kill me."
I got on the motorcycle. Kael sat behind me, arms around my waist. His body was shaking, but he held on.
"Where to?" he asked.
"The castle," I said, twisting the throttle. "Take the highway. Avoid going underground."
The engine roared. The motorcycle shot forward, wind stinging my eyes.
The scenery on both sides of the highway flew past. Billboards, utility poles, human houses. The sun rose from the horizon, the light blinding. My skin started burning—the Progenitor bloodline gave me some resistance to sunlight, but long exposure still hurt.
Kael was worse. His face was buried in my back, his breath hot. The UV handcuff wounds plus the dawn sunlight—he was running a high fever.
"Hold on," I said.
"Holding," his voice muffled against my coat.
Twenty minutes later, the castle came into view. At the foot of the mountain, the iron gate wide open. The emblem on the gateposts was scratched by something, the bat pattern missing an eye.
I rode the motorcycle up the slope, straight through the gate.
The castle was terrifyingly quiet.
In the hall, the portrait above the fireplace was still burning, but the fire was almost out. Ash fell on the floor like a layer of black snow.
"Adrian!" I shouted.
No answer.
I ran to the console room. The door was open.
Adrian lay on the ground.
Her white nightgown was soaked in blood. There was a hole in her chest—not a gunshot, but some kind of energy burn. The edges were charred black, still smoking.
But she was still breathing. Barely.
I knelt down, checking her wound. The hole went through her chest cavity but didn't pierce her spine. Her heart was still beating, irregular.
Kael walked in. Seeing Adrian, his pupils contracted.
"The fragment did this?" he asked.
"No." Adrian's eyes suddenly opened. Her voice was weak but clear. "Not the fragment. Someone else. Came from Side A. A woman. Silver-white wings..."
I froze.
Silver-white wings?
"Who is she?"
"She said..." Adrian coughed up blood. "She said she's your... mother."
I felt like I'd been struck by lightning.
Mother?
I stood up. Dawn light came through the castle windows, dust floating in the beams. My blood roared in my ears.
"Impossible," I said. "My mother was a Nullblood. She couldn't fly. She died twenty years ago."
"Nullblood?" Kael's voice came from behind. "Leah. What was your mother's name?"
"Christina," I said, then stopped.
That wasn't a vampire name. It was human, ordinary, with no bloodline meaning.
But Kael's mother—the de Noct family matriarch—was also named Christina.
I looked at Kael. His expression told me he'd thought of it too.
"Same name?" I asked.
"No," he said, his voice dry. "My mother's middle name. She rarely used it. Her full name was Christina Vane de Noct."
Vane.
My last name.
"Impossible." I stepped back. "You're saying... my mother... is your..."
"I don't know," Kael said. "But if she came from Side A, if she has silver-white wings, if she's looking for the Gatekeeper's anchor—"
He didn't finish.
The castle bell rang. Not the hour. An alarm.
From the blood-crystal mirror fragments, I saw live footage of the castle gate.
A woman stood there.
Silver-white wings. Black hair. Her face was seventy percent like mine, but older, colder, harder.
She looked up, toward the castle window. Her gaze pierced the glass, pierced the distance, straight into my eyes.
"Leah," she said. Her voice didn't travel through the air but rang directly in my mind, like the Bloodbond, but stronger, more forceful.
"Mom has waited twenty years," she said. "Finally found you."