Dawnbreaker: Legends of the Duskwalker - Book 3 (41 page)

“I’m having all the fun I can stand, Trouble,” he said. “I gotta check in with Nimble, see if anything blew up while you were having your tea party.” Kyth smiled at him.

jCharles pimmed Nimble to let him know they were out of the Bonefolder’s place and on their way back.

“Good to hear,” Nimble said. “Hollander come lookin’ for ye.”

“Uh oh,” jCharles said. Hollander typically didn’t like to initiate contact because it made other elements in Greenstone jumpy. “What’s the problem?”

“Crew came in haulin’ hardware ta make your eyes pop out. Greens stopped ’em at the gate, Hollander’s got ’em now. Guess they’re askin’ for ye.”

“A crew?”

“Aye, two ladies, six rough lookin’ fellas,” Nimble said.

“You get a name?”

“Just one, the girl’s,” Nimble said. “Call herself Gamble.”

I
t was
the sound that first caught Cass’s attention. A shadow of her footfalls, haunting her trail. Initially she wrote it off as an echo of her own movements, enhanced by the ghost of her weary imagination; she hadn’t slept in nearly two days, after all, and she’d covered a lot of ground in that time. But as the day grew older, the noise grew more distinct, less synchronized with her own steps. Someone
was
following her, and either becoming less cautious or too tired to continue timing their movement with hers. The recognition triggered an all-too familiar fight-or-flight reaction. And Cass had never been much of one for flight.

She fell back onto paths well worn by habit. Her years of running with RushRuin had given her plenty of experience at detecting and shaking off anyone who tried to tail her. And all of her practice with increasingly risky chem deals had made her adept at drawing would-be followers into an ambush of her own design. Cass maintained her pace, scanned her surroundings with new purpose. Large blocks of crumbled, collapsed, and rounded architecture formed narrow corridors; cheaply-constructed five- and six-story buildings wasted and blown out, fortresses of concrete snow beneath the unblinking sun.

It seemed unlikely that anyone who’d started trailing her out here had anything good in mind for her, but that didn’t necessarily mean they’d continue to stick with her if she proved herself to be something other than easy prey. Unfortunately she didn’t know exactly how long her pursuer had been following her, so she didn’t have a good gauge of how determined the person was. Time to put it to the test. She passed a lane on her right and began counting the seconds until she reached the next. When she reached it, she turned the corner, continuing to count, and took her next available right. Her route didn’t take her around in a perfect loop, but it was close enough. When she came out in a place near her original starting point, she turned right again and took off at a full sprint. Best estimate, she needed four seconds in the clear to make it to the next turn.

She cut the corner at three and a half and held there, crouched, pressed up against the dry and dusted exterior wall of a building, and counted down. Six... five... four... She slipped the edge to get a glimpse, exposing as little of herself as possible. Her count was off by about nine seconds, but sure enough her admirer emerged into the street, thirty yards away, bent low to the ground like a tracker or someone trying to keep out of the line of fire. This was the moment of telling. Cass had demonstrated her awareness of the tail and her ability to escape it. The implications would surely not be lost on her follower; either he would give up and walk away, or he would escalate his pursuit. She had no interest in punishing curiosity, but if the man meant ill, he would receive it in full measure. His fate was in his own hands.

And it was a man, she could see, though only in partial profile from her vantage. Thin, wiry, balding. His remaining hair was cropped short, his cheeks were heavily stubbled. Unfortunately his reaction didn’t give her the clarity she’d hoped for. He straightened up and started looking quickly about him, obviously wondering where she’d gone. He took a few steps one direction, and then stopped, uncertain. Then he turned her way, looking up the street but not seeming to notice her. And she recognized him.

The Weir from the gate of Morningside. The one whose life she’d twice saved. It glanced back over its shoulder, the other direction. No, not
it
, she reminded herself.
Him.
He was confused now, frustrated. Maybe even a little frightened. Whatever he’d intended to do when he caught up with her, it was clear he didn’t have a plan for having lost her trail. She wondered that he could have followed her for so long without her noticing; clearly he must have been doing so since she left the others. But then she hadn’t been making herself hard to follow necessarily. She’d ducked him with such a simple trick. Even if he did mean her harm, seeing him there, hugging himself in the midst of his uncertainty, any doubts she’d been harboring about being able to deal with him vanished.

She stood and stepped out into the road, called to him.

“Over here.”

He practically jumped at her voice, hunched in on himself as if preparing for an impact. They stood there staring at each other for a few seconds, neither willing to move. He was poised, tensed, ready to spring away, or maybe towards her. She wanted to see which he’d choose before she decided how to proceed.

Finally, when it became obvious that each was waiting for the other to make the first move, Cass took the initiative. She held her hands up to show they were empty, took a slow step forward. The Weir coiled further, but the angle and direction was enough to reveal intent. He was about to bolt. Cass stopped.

“Easy,” she said, not knowing whether or not the creature could understand her words. It hesitated.
He
hesitated. Why was it so hard to think of them as people? “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “Not unless you start something first.”

The Weir’s eyes narrowed as if he was trying to puzzle out what she’d said. He responded with a quiet burst of vocalized static; not quite the same as the typical sound of a Weir, but in the same family. This was warmer somehow, had some measure of emotional content. Cass couldn’t understand what he meant to communicate of course, but she was certain he
was
trying to communicate.

“I don’t guess you’re going to tell me why you’re following me, huh?” Cass said. It was hard not to think of the man as a creature, as something more akin to a dog or a wolf than a man. But there was more than just animal intelligence behind the eyes. The Weir squawked again, louder this time, and afterward he closed his eyes, clenched his fists. Cass recognized the emotion. Frustration.

“You can understand me, can’t you?”

The Weir opened its eyes and cocked its head slightly. Cass glanced up at the sky, accessed her internal connection to check how long until sunset. Forty-two minutes. How long had it taken with Swoop? She didn’t know how much time she’d need to find a place to hole up for the night. The fact that Swoop hadn’t reacted to her with instant hostility when he was still a Weir had strengthened her suspicions that she might be able to move among them, but she wasn’t ready to test that hypothesis quite yet. But her curiosity was nearly overpowering. What was this Weir before her now? Not Weir, not Awakened, but something caught in-between. The image of the woman she’d killed was still strong in her mind, the guilt lingering. The similarities were too great to be ignored or to be an accident. She had to know. And if she’d been able to Awaken Swoop from his fully-Weir state with Finn’s help, maybe this creature was a good opportunity for her to try again on her own.

“I think I can help you,” she said. “If you’ll let me.”

The Weir kept his place. Cass began walking towards him, slowly, hands held open and out to the side. And even though the man-creature didn’t relax, he didn’t run away either. She stopped about ten feet from him; enough distance for her reaction time, just in case. From there, she tried to reach out through the digital to him, to find his connection and attach to it. She could sense it now, or at least picture it in her mind’s eye. For a brief moment, she thought she’d found it, but when she stretched out to it, it was like sticking her hand into mist or shadow. Form without substance, nothing to grasp or follow to its source. The Weir made another sound, this one with a vaguely questioning tone.

She had hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to try to touch the Weir. She had no way of knowing how it would react. But after a minute or two of standing there, she couldn’t think of any other way to proceed. And though she wasn’t necessarily afraid of what might come with nightfall, she didn’t really want to be standing out in the open when it arrived either. Cass held out her hand.

“Will you come with me?” she said.

The Weir looked down at her outstretched hand, and then back up at her.

“We’ll find somewhere safer,” she said. “Follow me.”

Immediately the words left her mouth, a change came over the Weir. It relaxed, moved towards her. Almost submissive. Cass turned halfway and took a few hesitant steps. The Weir followed obediently. He continued to watch her intently, but for whatever reason his posture didn’t suggest any fear or planned flight. Cass walked on, increasing her pace. The Weir matched it.

On her first trip around the loop, Cass had passed one building that seemed more intact than any of its neighbors. There was no way to know if it was a particularly good place to spend the night, but it seemed like a good option for some quick cover. She led the Weir back around her previous route, located the building. The front door had a barred gate over it, but the lock was broken off. They entered into a narrow foyer that led to a corridor with rooms on either side.

“Wait here,” Cass said, and the Weir stopped by the door without complaint. It was uncanny how compliant he’d become. His eyes were just shy of wild, but he did exactly as he was told. As Cass explored the corridor and its adjoining rooms, the thought rolled around in her mind. Did exactly as he was
told
. Responds to commands, not questions. Was he still under some kind of control or influence? Did the Weir-state make him susceptible to external demand? She checked the rear exit, the nearby staircase, and then after confirming that the back rooms were clear, Cass returned to the foyer and decided to put the idea to the test.

“Come here,” she said. The Weir promptly walked to her. “Sit down,” she said. He did, right at her feet. She knelt in front of him, looked into his watchful eyes. A war raged in them. She’d been wrong before about him not being afraid. He
was
afraid, very much so. And helpless. A wave of pity rolled over Cass as she realized her commands were indeed overriding whatever liberty the Weir-man had enjoyed before she’d spoken. He
was
trapped in some kind of in-between state, partially awake, aware of his circumstance and powerless to change it.

“Take my hand,” she said. The Weir reached out and held her hand. “I’m going to help you,” she said, though she didn’t know if that would mean anything to him. “I’m going to get you out.”

And with that, she closed her eyes and tried again to find his connection. Cass spent a minute or so calming herself, breathing deeply, clearing her mind. It’d been easier before when she’d let the connection come to her. She waited. Five minutes became ten, threatened to stretch into twenty, and still she could find nothing. She’d thought after her experience with Swoop, after having observed how Finn structured the signal, that she’d be able to replicate the process. And though holding the man’s hand had made her sense of him stronger, the result was the same; there was nothing firm for her to cling to. It had been a strong memory of Swoop that had helped her find him, a perfectly clear image of him in her mind. This poor fellow holding her hand now was a stranger. Worse, he was a complete puzzle, his very existence an unanswered question. She didn’t know exactly what she should be looking for.

Then Cass realized that wasn’t entirely true. She didn’t know this man at all, but she’d seen the datastream that held all the Weir together. The thought occurred to her that maybe instead of starting at the individual, she could pull back and find the collective first, then work her way to him. She switched her focus.

The effect wasn’t immediate, nor was it easy, but Cass did find it. In her mind’s eye, the churning datastream reformed, present but indistinct, as if viewed through a fog. Without Finn’s help, her footing was less secure and she felt the strain of maintaining her connection to the signal. But her previous experience helped her keep calm. She could do this. Slow and steady.

Gradually Cass shifted her attention to the man’s hand in her own. And though she wasn’t using her eyes, the sensation was much like glancing down at a child, close at hand, while keeping an angry crowd in her peripheral vision. Her attention went to the man, but her awareness stayed with the datastream, passively watching for any sudden changes that might signal danger or require a reaction.

She could almost see him now, standing out from the raging stream. Not trapped in its flow, fighting the current like Swoop had been. This man’s personality was distinct from the flow, yet still tethered by thick tendrils and surrounded by wisps of something other. And compared to Swoop, he seemed... thin. Not in shape, but in substance, like there was somehow less of him.

And there, behind him, was something else entirely.

It was distant in her mind, itself wrapped in a mist, but once she noticed it, she couldn’t draw herself away from it. A convergence. In a manner that had no parallel to the real world, the thing seemed to both radiate and absorb the broad signal of the Weir, and others beside. A swirling nexus, half-whirlpool, half-star, both source and terminal point of the datastream. Cass’s mind bent at the image, trying to comprehend the impossible angles and movement.

And yet it had structure. Structure so impenetrably complex she had no hope of understanding its architecture. Even so, she was compelled to bypass the man for the moment, and to stretch herself towards it, to try to find meaning in its impossibility. It grew larger in her mind, began to solidify. Cass continued to reach towards it. As she did so, she gradually became aware of a vague sensation of falling, or of being carried along by the current. The nexus was drawing her to it, and now that she’d allowed herself to be caught up in it, she feared she might not be able to escape it. And yet she didn’t fight. Not yet. Just a little closer.

Though she couldn’t see any others, her gut told her there were others out there, connected to it; a vast network. This was merely a single node, one of many. And there in the midst sat something bright, brighter than all else, yet pale with a sickly light. Even without knowing what it was or what purpose it served, Cass felt an immediate revulsion. It was a bulbous teardrop, shimmering at the center of the nexus, and she couldn’t force herself to imagine it as anything other than the bloated body of an immense spider. There was something else too behind the instinctive reaction; a vague familiarity, like the sight of a strange animal triggering the memory of another’s bite. There was danger here, Cass knew.