Shattering the Ley (20 page)

He grunted and shied from that memory, cutting away from the Amber Tower and out into the streets of the city, drawing in its scents as he slid through the morass of people, touching no one but observing everything. No one noticed him, most stepping around him unconsciously as he used his training to manipulate the Tapestry and divert their attention, to impress upon them that there was nothing of interest to see. At the same time, he focused on the scents he’d gathered from the rag. The rank odor of the Dog who’d carried it to the tower was strong and he followed it without thought, searching for the more elusive thread of woodsmoke and disease he sought, his true prey. But that prey had not passed through the immediate area in the last few months.

So he followed the Dog’s scent—rancid, layered with grease and stale alcohol and old blood. He smelled the others from the room as well, the alpha’s scent cutting away in a different direction, toward the Dogs’ barracks. The younger Dog’s scent continued to follow the older. He smelled of tallow and baby vomit, with a trace of heady perfume from his mate. He also made the Hound’s hackles rise in warning. There had been something wrong about him, something the Hound had never experienced before and couldn’t identify through smell. The Dog had been aware of the Hound’s presence almost immediately, had been able to focus on him even when the Hound had stilled and attempted to hide with the Tapestry. His awareness had been unsettling; the Hound was used to being invisible.

The Hound shrugged the thought aside. He had a scent; he had prey. Seek.

The trail led to Eastend, a flat in a building riddled with the scent of death, decay, and the dying. He stood in the center of the room where the Dogs had been, where his prey had lived, the prey’s smell permeating the contents strewn across the floor, stronger than the acrid smoke from the week-old fire or the rotten food. The Hound breathed it in deeply, locked it in place in his mind, the disease hidden in the man’s sweat taking on dimension, imbued with flavor and strength. The disease was eating him from the inside out, tainting his piss. It would gnaw at his intestines, unseen and unheard, until it killed him with a final gush of blood and pain.

The Hound didn’t care. He’d sunk into the hunt, his quarry’s tracks located. He turned in the confines of the flat and with narrowed gaze traced the scent out of the building and into the street. The dying man had panicked, had ransacked his own den, burned nearly everything, sweated through his clothes, marked the air with his desperation. The Hound’s lip curled at the fear, his hands clenching and unclenching on air. He could taste the prey’s blood.

He began to run, moving silently from the building, unseen, unnoticed. The tracks led from Eastend south and west, through Swallow and Leeds, into the ley station and the platform that led to Eld. He stood in a corner of the ley barge and watched the passengers, everyone unaware of his presence. He licked his lips, tasted their unconscious fear, his blood burning hot as they shifted and sidled in apprehension. As he disembarked at the Eld station, he faltered only once as the sights and sounds and smells struck a chord of familiarity deep inside him. He thrust the uncomfortable thrum aside, his prey’s scent too sharp for him to be distracted, and stalked through the narrower streets, through the marketplace, past a park where he slowed, the thrum through his core heightening. Frowning, he pushed on and halted outside a tavern. His prey had entered three days before, but hadn’t exited through this door.

He reached to open it, started to step into the interior darkness, blinded momentarily, but was brought up short by a woman and man attempting to exit. He sucked in a deep breath on instinct, felt a jolt through his entire body as he recognized her scent. Laughter echoed in his ears, dredged up from memory, a young girl and boy teasing each other. Sunlight flared on the metal thistles in a game of Thistle Snatch. Dogs surged through a square. Multicolored light bloomed in air as awe sliced through his gut. An ache of fear tingled in his arms as he stumbled through a ley station mezzanine, boarded a barge. Then an arm snaked around his waist, and even though he struggled, he was lifted and pulled away, his screams stifled.

He blinked at the barrage of sensations, his dazzled eyes focusing on the woman before him. She was staring at him in open shock, the man behind her—he didn’t recognize his scent—regarding him with a suspicious, possessive frown.

“Justin?” the woman gasped.

He turned and fled, dodged out the door and into the street, weaving among the pedestrians, scrambling away, people cursing at his frantic retreat. He heard the woman shout after him, the words obscured by the heady pounding of his own blood in his ears. He cut right at the first intersection, angled left at the next, then ground to a halt around a corner, hunched over, breathing hard. His chest hurt and tears blurred his vision. He sank to one knee, heard the laughter again, and lurched upright, back slamming into the stone building behind him. His breath caught in his chest, but with a painful hitch and spasm he sucked in air and seized control of himself.

He searched the street, stilled when he realized people were watching him warily. In his panic, he’d forgotten his training, had let his hold on the Tapestry go. He cringed from imagined punishment and reached out with his senses, shifting to the side along the building a few steps, then froze. Those on the street who’d noticed him frowned, glanced around in consternation, then continued on their way. Within moments, he’d been forgotten.

Breathing easier, his blood no longer thudding in his temples, the Hound took stock. His body trembled with adrenaline, not from the hunt but from raw, unbridled fear. Not fear for himself, but fear for
her
, for the woman.

For Kara.

Tears stung his eyes and he dashed them away violently, the memory of that day playing Thistle Snatch, then running from the Dogs and seeing the blossom of light in the air, jagged and sharp in his mind. Then two days later, when they’d decided to take the ley barge to Shadow, to see the subtower lit in that district. It was the day the Hound had finally taken him, after stalking him for so long. He’d snatched him from the street and when Justin had woken, he’d been in the den and his training had begun. Training that didn’t allow for a past, didn’t allow memory, didn’t allow friends. If anyone became aware of him, of what he had become, of what he
was
. . . .

The Hounds would hunt them down. They would hunt Kara down. Cory. His own parents.

Seek. Subdue. Kill.

He straightened where he stood. He should never have remembered. His training should have held. He needed to forget, to protect her, to protect them all. He was a Hound. He belonged to the Baron. The alphas must never know what had happened.

Heaving in gulps of air, body shuddering with effort, he ruthlessly gathered the sunbright burst of memories, bundled them tight, and buried them deep. He hunted every last shred of the life he had forgotten and strangled it into silence. Seek. Subdue. Kill. Seek. Subdue. Kill.

He was a Hound. He could be nothing else.

A thin whimper escaped him.

Five minutes later, he raised his head and unclenched fists, his body calm, centered, fingers aching. He glanced around, drew in the scents of the street, caught a lingering trace of woodsmoke and disease. His blood quickened. Excitement tingled down through his arms, his stance suddenly alert. One hand rose to wipe wetness from his cheeks. He regarded the salty moisture on his fingers a moment, then flicked it away.

He began to move, a smooth, deadly lope. He’d caught the scent of his prey.

He was a Hound, and nothing could distract him from the hunt.

Kara couldn’t think. She could barely breathe. Her lungs felt constricted, her chest tight, like bands of iron had been wrapped around her and they were getting tighter and tighter. Blood pounded in her ears and heat suffused her body from head to toe.

Justin. After all this time.

She blinked in the background blaze of light, managed to suck in air and ask, “Justin?” Her own voice sounded raw and weak to her.

Then the boy—Justin would be twelve now, she thought, since she was sixteen—bolted.

She lurched forward, a cry escaping her, one hand reaching to catch him. But the sunlight was too blinding after the darkness of the tavern and her hand closed only on air. She pulled herself up short just outside the door, Marcus a step behind her, hand on her back. She wiped frantically at her eyes, but saw nothing in the street beyond, except the usual pedestrians.

“Justin!” Her voice cracked and she choked on the dryness and ache in her throat. “Come back!”

Her hand clenched and unclenched before her, but then she let it drop back to her side. She swallowed against the stone that had lodged in her throat, the moment of pure joy and excitement at finally seeing Justin dampened by a renewed sense of loss.

Marcus’ hand snaked around her waist and he pulled her close. She leaned into his shoulder and turned into him, even though her eyes still scanned the street.

“Who was that?” Marcus asked. She felt the words as a rumble in his chest. “Who’s Justin?”

“A boy I knew when I was in school. A friend.” Her voice was dull and flat. “He used to run around with Cory and me before . . . before he vanished. He was with us the day I decided to see one of the subtowers activated. I dragged Cory and him to the ley barges, took them to Shadow. But after we reached the district, as we were heading up to the mezzanine, Cory and I turned around and he was gone. I always thought I’d failed him somehow, that it was my fault he disappeared.”

“Why?”

She pushed away from the warmth and vibration of his chest, but not out of his protective arm, and sighed. “Because he told us someone was watching him, and I didn’t believe him. He had always been strange and I thought his insistence a man was stalking him was part of that. But then he vanished and . . .” She groped for words, but finally shook her head. “I should have believed him. I should have protected him better.”

Marcus hugged her, then rested his hands on her shoulders at arms’ length and stared into her eyes. “He wasn’t your responsibility. Besides,” he glanced toward the street, “are you certain it was him? All I saw was the shape of a boy in the doorway, surrounded by sunlight.”

Kara frowned, thinking back to the image she’d seen when the door had abruptly opened in her hand. The sun had forced her back in surprise. It had glinted gold on the boy’s hair, soft and fine like she remembered, but she hadn’t really been able to see the boy’s features. Only the vague impression of a nose, of eyes, of an expression of shock fractured a moment later by pure fear.

“I don’t know.” Doubt niggled at her. “I thought so. It
felt
like him. If it wasn’t him, why did he run?”

“If it
was
him, why did he run? Unless he didn’t want to be found.”

Kara screwed her face up in a frown. It didn’t make any sense, either way. She hadn’t gotten a good look, the boy’s face lost in silhouette, and she had no idea what Justin would look like now. People changed so much over four years, especially boys Justin’s age. He’d certainly been taller, more gangly, and thinner than she remembered.

She shoved out of Marcus’ grip and began walking. “No, it was him. I know it. And even if he doesn’t want to be found, I deserve some answers.”

“Kara!” She didn’t turn at Marcus’ exasperated tone, broke into a jog when she heard him sigh and begin to follow. As she moved down the street, she glanced into the alcoves, into doorways, down the alleys and cross streets. The niches were empty, doorways vacant, the narrows scattered with people, none of them Justin. “Kara, wait up!”

When his hand closed on her shoulder, she twisted out of his grip and turned on him with a glare. “Don’t.”

Marcus halted, anger flaring in his eyes. “Kara, what’s going on? What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for him, what do you think?” She started off again.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” He mumbled something low under his breath, then followed again, coming up on her side, not touching her. “He ran off. He obviously doesn’t want to be found. How do you even know he went this way?”

Kara halted abruptly, Marcus moving two steps beyond before realizing she’d stopped. “I don’t,” she said sharply. “But I have to do something.”

“What? You can’t search the city yourself, you can’t even search Eld.”

“I can . . . I can tell the city guard, the Dogs.”

Marcus snorted. “And you expect them to do anything about a boy who’s been missing for, what, three years?”

“Four,” Kara said sharply, but she felt the sudden surge of energy, of hope, fading, the despair returning. Marcus was right. The Dogs would scowl at her for wasting their time, same for the city watch. They had more important people to find, like the Kormanley. Who else would care? Her parents were dead, and she’d lost track of Justin’s parents in the intervening years. Ischua? Perhaps. But he’d hardly known Justin. She couldn’t even remember if the Tender had ever met him.

Which left only her. And Cory. She had to tell Cory.