Dawnbreaker: Legends of the Duskwalker - Book 3 (11 page)

“Better get to it,” he said. Cass nodded and turned around to find the other three standing nearby, watching them. No, not watching them. Paying their respects, each in their own way.

The team spread out then, though they all stayed close enough together so everyone could still see everyone else. They took their time searching for any sign or trail that might point to where the Weir had gone, but between the debris and the number of people who had moved through the area, all was confusion. Sky was the most skilled tracker among them, and even he looked lost. They spent no more than fifteen minutes there at the gate.

“Come on,” Gamble said. “Let’s check the compound.”

“Gimme five more,” Mouse responded.

“He’s gone, Mouse. We’re not gonna sift all this just for hope. We won’t find it here anyway.”

Mouse started to say something else, but stopped himself. The two stared at each other for a span, and though Cass couldn’t read either one of them, she got the impression there was an entire conversation going on in those looks. Finally, Gamble just said, “Finn.” And with a reluctant glance at Mouse, Finn moved out.

The team fell back into their previous formation and started working their way towards the governor’s compound. Cass felt the tension rising again. As bad as the initial walk-through had been, at least they’d kept to the perimeter of the city, with the wall on one side. Now they were headed into the centermost part, the heart of Morningside. Even though they hadn’t seen a single sign of life or motion, Cass couldn’t help but feel like they were being slowly surrounded.

Finn led them with a steady but cautious pace and as they went, Cass noticed that the level of devastation seemed to be gradually lessening. The city was more familiar here, more recognizable. There was still damage everywhere she looked, but more of the buildings were intact, fewer of the streets were choked with wreckage. Nothing had fully escaped the ravages of the Weir, but it was like a fire had spent its fury too soon, leaving a greater portion scorched, coated in ash, but otherwise standing.

Cass estimated they were two hundred yards or so from the compound when she first noticed the change. There was something subtly different, a feeling as she moved along the street, though at first she couldn’t quite place what it was. It was several seconds before she realized there was a new component to the unusual scent that clung in the air. It was faint, but sharper, coppery. Once she had identified it, she couldn’t help but notice it seemed to be getting gradually stronger. And then she noticed a strange noise accompanying their footfalls; a slight tearing or sucking sound with each step, like peeling something up from a damp carpet. Like the smell in the air, the sound grew more distinct the closer they approached to the governor’s compound. Cass had been keeping her eyes up, searching for threats, but now she glanced down at the ground. The concrete was darker here than she remembered it, coated in a gummy grit. That was what had started making the sound; the ground was sticky.

When she looked back up, the team was just moving into view of the governor’s compound, but though normally they would have been able to see the main courtyard from their position, it was obscured by a huge mound of rubble and debris. The midmorning sun was bright behind it, and its jagged silhouette made it hard to tell what comprised it, but it seemed that the Weir had dragged all the wreckage from the surrounding area and piled it up in front of the compound. It was hard to judge the scale of it at distance because it was out in the open area with not much around it to compare it to. As they continued their approach to the compound, it became increasingly clear that the pile was truly enormous; almost a small hill.

Cass’s mind started racing. Apart from her experience at Ninestory, she had no knowledge or memory of where the Weir typically lived. Did they nest? At Ninestory, they’d hidden inside the buildings during the day, a fact Wick and Finn had discovered at frightening cost. But the mountain of ruin that was before them now looked like a giant anthill, its material gathered together from whatever could be torn from the surroundings. That would explain the destruction they’d seen on the way in, why certain structures had been targeted while others went untouched. Cass’s heart revolted at the idea that the pile might in fact be a hive full of Weir. It was strange though. As she’d already noticed, many of the buildings here were still generally intact. Why had the Weir dragged so much material back from the outer parts of the city?

Gamble clicked on through the channel.

“Eyes open. First sign of trouble, we head right back out the way we came. Finn, take it reeeeal slow.”

“Check,” Finn responded.

Finn dropped the pace down again as they continued their approach. Within a hundred yards of the debris pile, the tackiness of the ground had increased to the point that Cass could actually feel it pulling at the bottom of her shoes. She glanced down again to see what was causing it. It was almost like a thin layer of tar.

“Dear God,” Sky said aloud. Not through the channel, but actually out loud. Cass looked to him and then followed his gaze to what had caused the reaction. A thin cloud had moved across the sun, cutting the glare so that it no longer blinded them to the nature of the heap. Not debris.

Bodies.

Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of corpses. Death on an unfathomable scale.

Cass looked down at the ground again and knew with sudden, horrible clarity what had so stained the ground. Asher’s pronouncement of doom over the city echoed in her mind anew. That he would slake the thirst of Death with their blood, and glut the mouth of hell with their flesh. And here before them now was Asher’s great monument, his utter desecration.

When Cass looked upon it again, something inside her broke. She knew she should be feeling horror and revulsion at the abomination outside the governor’s gate. Instead, she felt nothing. It was as if her mind, unable to comprehend the reality, had flipped a safety switch and completely detached her emotions. Her eyes roved over the pile, taking in details: faces, hands, shoes. Even those details weren’t enough for her mind to grasp hold of, to understand that the hill was not a single entity unto itself, but was instead comprised of countless individuals. Had that mass of dead flesh ever been actual living, breathing people? And yet it was impossible to tear her eyes away, for to look away was to accept what she was seeing as reality or to dismiss it as illusion, and she could do neither.

“Why would they do that?” Finn said, using the secure comm channel, and the question brought Cass back to herself. How long they’d all stood there in silence, Cass didn’t know; she realized she’d ceased to notice even time passing. From his voice, she could tell how shaken Finn was.

“They didn’t,” Cass answered. “It was Asher. That’s Asher’s doing. His signature, so everyone would know this wasn’t just the work of the Weir.”

“What are we doin’, Ace?” Sky asked. Cass looked over at the team lead; Gamble was staring hard at the pile, her mouth drawn in a tight, thin line. She didn’t respond immediately. Several seconds passed.

“Ace?”

“I heard you,” she answered, her tone clipped. After a few more seconds, she said. “Circle around, we’ll hit the gate on the other side.”

“You still wanna go in there?” Finn asked. It wasn’t a challenge, but Cass could hear the uncertainty in the words. Uncharacteristic of Finn. Completely understandable.

“If we don’t get the gear out of there, we’re not gonna be long for this world.”

“You think it’s clear?” asked Sky.

“We’ll find out.”

“We have to do something about those bodies,” Mouse said.

“Do what, Mouse?” Gamble said.

“We can’t just leave ’em like that,” Mouse replied. “Out in the open, to rot.”

“Brother,” Gamble said, turning to him, and her voice was warmer and kinder than Cass could remember ever having heard. “I know. That’s my whole life, too. And I can’t tell if I’m so angry it’s making me sick, or if I’m so sick it’s making me angry. But if we had a month with nothing else to do, that right there would still be too much for us.”

He was silent while the truth of the matter sank in. Cass’s mind hadn’t even tried to imagine what Mouse was talking about. What would they do? Bury them? Burn them? The magnitude of either of those tasks was beyond Cass’s ability to comprehend in any meaningful way. How could you bury an entire city?

“You think Swoop’s in there?” Mouse said.

No one responded at first. And then.

“I could check,” Finn answered. He turned to look back over his shoulder at Gamble. “What do you think, G?”

“Tell me about risk level,” Gamble said.

Finn gave a little half-shrug. “Maybe none. Might be just the thing to tell the thousand Weir hiding in that compound that we’re at the door.”

Gamble weighed the options. After a moment, she said, “Hold off for now. I’m gonna go in, see if I can get to the cage. If I don’t wake anything up, we’ll load what we can. Then you can check for Swoop on our way out.”

“Let me,” Cass said. “Let me go in.”

Gamble glanced over and shook her head.

“Gamble, I’m faster, I’m stronger. I can go where you can’t. I can
see
what you can’t.” Cass removed her veil, revealed her Weir-eyes to emphasize her point. “And if there
are
any Weir in there, they might not even react to me.”

“You don’t know that,” Gamble said.

“No, I don’t. But I
do
know how they’d react to you,” Cass answered. “Let me go in and scout it out at least.”

“I can’t allow that, Cass,” Gamble said. Cass opened her mouth to argue, but Gamble held up her hand. “I appreciate it, I do. But if something went wrong, you wouldn’t be able to coordinate a response. You’re right, on your own you’re way better suited for this than I am. But this is a team job, and you don’t know how to run a team. So it’s gotta be me.”

“You oughta both go,” Mouse said. Gamble looked over at him with a hint of frustration, but Mouse continued with a shrug of one shoulder. “You’re both right. So put Miss Cass on point, and you back her up.”

Gamble looked around at each of them in turn and when she reached Cass, she shook her head. She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t argue.

“You guys are going to be the death of me,” she said. And then she held up her pointer finger and made three small circles in the air which, judging from the reaction of the three men, meant something like
let’s get to it
.

Finn resumed the point position and led them around to one of the other gates. It too was open, and he paused just outside. Gamble motioned for Sky. He glanced around at the buildings outside the compound and after a few moments, signaled back to her his preferred position. Gamble nodded. Sky winked at her and then headed off across the open ground towards the building he’d indicated, with Finn in tow.

Gamble took over and led Cass and Mouse into the courtyard of the compound. They came in from the side of the main building, moving at a slow walk. Cass scanned the exterior of the building, the place she’d called home for the past year. Inside the compound walls, everything was almost exactly as she remembered it. An island untouched by the storm that had ravaged everything just beyond its borders. Uncanny. The Weir had breached Morningside here, coming up through the emergency tunnel that led from the compound out under the city’s wall; the tunnel that had long been a closely-guarded secret. Given the level of destruction outside the compound, Cass had assumed that it would be at its worst here, where the fury of the Weir was first unleashed. Instead, it was as if the compound had been the eye of the storm, the center of calm while the tempest raged all around.

They circled around to the front of the building, where a long concrete staircase led up to the main entrance. The heavy doors at the top were closed. Gamble stopped at the base of the stairs and surveyed the building, searching for signs of what might lay within. Cass and Mouse drew up close on either side of her.

“Hey, Ace,” Sky’s voice came across the secure channel, “we’re set. I’ve got eyes on you right now.”

“Check,” Gamble whispered back. There was a slight echo to it from Cass’s perspective; she heard the whisper both from Gamble’s mouth and as it transmitted with a slight delay across the comms. Normal pimming was instantaneous, but also sent a burst of signal that the Weir could track. Whatever system Gamble’s team had figured out was low-frequency enough to escape the Weir’s notice, but the delay was one of the side-effects.

Mouse went up the stairs first and Gamble followed after, but motioned for Cass to hold where she was. At the front entrance they took up positions at the door, off to one side. Gamble was crouched and Mouse stood tight behind her, holding his weapon up and ready with one hand, with the other hand her shoulder. Mouse squeezed Gamble’s shoulder and at that signal, she tried the door with painstaking care. Sure enough after a few seconds, Gamble was able to ease the door open just enough to get a glimpse inside. A few moments later she pulled the door silently shut. She and Mouse returned to the bottom of the stairs.

“Door’s good,” Gamble said. “Front hall’s clear.”

“You just want to go in that way?” Cass asked.

“Tempting,” Gamble answered. “But I think we better take the side passages.”

Going through the front would give them the most direct route but they would have to pass through several large open areas with many entryways. There were side entrances they could use that would follow narrower passages, with fewer angles to cover.

“If we have to come out in a hurry, though, it’s good to know the front’s an option,” she added. “Mouse, you’re on the door.”

“Check,” Mouse responded. “Stay in touch.”

“Yep.”

“You be careful in there,” Mouse said, and he said it almost casually, but he was only looking at Cass when he did.

Cass nodded. “See you soon.”

Gamble led Cass around to the side of the building, right to the entrance Cass would have chosen if it’d been up to her. There was a stairwell that led down to a door, but before they took it, Gamble stopped and turned to Cass.