Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
My hands go cold before the rest of me catches up.
I pull the dog whistle from my coat and give one sharp blast. The enchantment is tuned solely to Mina; under normal conditions, she can hear it from several streets away.
I wait, ears straining for her bark as the seconds tick past.
Nothing.
I leave the apartment at once and hurry downstairs.
I could not keep her with me. One heavy boot would have finished her, and dogs break more easily than people. I had to send her away. We trained for this.
Yet if she is not outside, something has gone wrong.
I try to push the thought aside.
The guilt finds me anyway.
I have failed her.
I stride down the street. My lungs and ribs scream with every step. My breath comes in short, ragged bursts, but I have no choice. A trickle of blood seeps from my split lip; I wipe it away with the back of my hand.
Being visibly injured is dangerous. My coat is spent, its wards dead, yet that hardly matters.
I have to find my girl.
The car would be faster, but on foot I can use the dog whistle and track her path through the verges, ditches and alleys.
She may have been struck by a vehicle. The thought drives a spike through my chest.
I rake every inch of ground with my eyes and resist screaming her name. I am attracting enough attention already.
Three men emerge from a pub and slow. Curiosity sharpens their faces. One snarls my name.
I keep moving, my hand closing around the knife inside my coat.
This blade was never meant for Keeley’s family. I will not punish anyone for loving a child that fiercely.
Those men, however, are another matter—the sort who disappear without leaving a gap.
At the next junction, I use the whistle again.
No response.
I turn right, back towards the terrace.
“Your dog.”
I glance sideways.
A man slumps in the mouth of an alley, his face dirty and hollow-cheeked. Even beneath the grime, he shows every sign of the Fade: toothless gums, a slack jaw, skin sagging from bone, eyes clouded and milky.
But he has my full attention.
“She came this way.” He points along the road with one skeletal hand. “Government workers knocked her out with a spell. She was breathing. I could still see that well enough.” His cloudy gaze holds mine. “I heard what they said.” He pauses. “But I’ll need something from you first.”
Fear and guilt recede. Assessment takes over.
I slip the whistle into my pocket and trigger the truth mark on my wrist. It cannot force honesty, but I will know if he lies.
“I’m dying, and no one will end it.” His tone is flat, scraped clean of hope. “My wife found someone else—afraid of catching the Fade after a century together. Our children keep away, ashamed. Friends try, but how can you burden them when your family won’t have you?”
He wipes a tear with damaged fingers. His nails are long gone. “Put me out of my misery, Hunter. Do that, and I’ll tell you where they took her.”
The truth mark hums beneath my skin. He believes every word of it.
I lower myself into a crouch. The position makes my wounds scream, but I hold still and rest the knife across my thigh.
When you take a life, you meet the other person’s eyes.
He is in no state to stand.
“Do you have anything to say to your family? Any last words?” I ask. “And do you want this done today?”
“No words.” His gaze drops to the blade. “Please—now.”
I nod.
“Two men and a woman,” he says. “White van, dog cage in the back. They kept talking about what a find she was. Overseer people, collecting dogs. She’s a purebred Malinois. One of the men breeds them. Said she’d make the perfect guard for the estate.”
His milky eyes drift east. “They’ve taken her to the Immortal Zone.”
I follow his gaze.
The floating part of the city hangs above the sea as it edges eastward to catch the best light. It will shift again by nightfall.
She is up there.
Mina is gone.
“Please,” he murmurs, his eyes fixed on the knife.
I meet his stare. “May your next life be full of joy. May those you love love you back with their whole hearts. May everything worthwhile become yours.” I cup his cheek. The loose skin folds beneath my fingers.
He closes his eyes.
One flash of steel.
Almost no blood. The Fade has seen to that. He exhales once, long and slow, and goes still.
I wipe the blade and press the summon stud on my sleeve.
The body bag rig hums into view, glides around the corner and drops to the ground. He is so light that rolling him barely strains my injured ribs. I slide him inside the new bag, search his coat and find his identification.
I read his name, swallow, then straighten.
At least I can give him some dignity in death.
The bag floats at my side as I walk back to the car.
I must find Mina.
Part of me knows the Overseer’s estate might be safer for her. Better food. Tighter security. No river stench or brown water running from the taps.
But I have to see for myself.
I cannot let her vanish.
She is my best friend.
If she truly is better off there, I will let her go.
If they have harmed her—if they have laid a single violent hand on her—I will kill every last one of them.
Once the body is secured, I face the stairs again. By the time I reach my front door, I move on willpower alone.
I open the freezer for no reason I can name and look at her food stacked inside.
For one ridiculous second, I stare at it.
Then fear sharpens into something practical. Mina will need feeding when I bring her home. Not if. When.
I go straight to the medicine cupboard, take out the healing potion and swallow it in one go. It tastes of mint and something vaguely fruity, but the sweetness fails to hide the bitter medicinal burn beneath.
The potions are meant for the children, yet today Mina needs me mobile more than some unknown child needs a bottle left waiting in a cupboard.
While it gets to work, I strip off my coat and wash the blood from my hair and skin.
The water runs rusty for the first few seconds, then turns pink as blood spirals towards the drain.
I avoid looking too closely at the bruises spreading over my ribs, then change into fresh working clothes: black combat trousers and a fitted, long-sleeved top.
The same as always.
I lay my coat out and run a prepared cleaning charm across it. Dirt and blood lift from the fabric in dark wisps. Then I press a black-market ward charge against the lining until the protective script flares back to life. Thin purple threads ripple beneath the cloth.
It has been an expensive day.
I push that thought away before it can take hold. Fear and frustration are already riding me hard enough without adding up the sums.
The potion is working; I can breathe more easily now. It will not touch the bruises, but it closes the cuts and deals with the worst of the damage to my ribs.
Enough that I can function.
My face is still a mess, but that cannot be helped.
The apartment feels bigger without her, though it is barely a one-bedroom place. The bathroom is immaculately clean. There is no proper bed, only a mattress on the floor, probably growing mould where it meets the concrete. I have yet to care enough to find a frame—or even a few pallets—to lift it.
The front room and kitchen are sparse. The built-in kitchen is functional; that is the most generous thing I can say about it.
No sofa.
No dining table.
No Mina.
I take a protein bar for the healing—or what passes for one down here—and load the coat: more knives, a set of throwing blades, and one blade so large that in my hands it borders on a short sword.
It is considerably heavier when I put it back on.
Then it is back down the stairs. Each step is a little easier than the last.
I drop the man at the crematorium.
It costs me time I do not have. If I were a lesser person, I would have left him in the alley. But he told me where she is, and he deserves better than a gutter.
A walk-in body means paperwork. The Body Farm seldom investigates Fade deaths, and the government pays hunters a small removal bonus for bringing bodies in rather than leaving them in homes, alleys or streets.
Usually, a completed form and identification are enough.
Filling it in is torture while the little voice at the back of my head chants Mina’s name over and over.
The same clerk sits at reception. She does not bother to ask where my dog is.
Then I get back into the car.
I have no plan.
Normally, it would be impossible for anyone from the Districts to reach the Immortal Zone. The security is extraordinary—layered, relentless and impenetrable by design.
But I am no ordinary District resident.
I lived in the Immortal Zone for sixteen years.
I know a way in.