The City on the Edge

It was too late to turn back. Whoever was waiting for them around the corner knew that they were there. Had been luring them there. A sour mix of apprehension and guilt settled deep in Ronnie’s bones at the realization. She couldn’t for the life of her understand why the sound, a simple whistle, had pulled her in like it had, but here she was carrying Lorna on her back, bleeding and exhausted.

Ronnie hefted Lorna up, who had begun to sag against her. “It’ll be okay. I promise,” she mumbled as she took one of her Lorna’s hands and brushed her lips over the scraped knuckles.

Hoping that she could keep that promise, she’d go down fighting if she couldn’t, Ronnie stepped around the corner and brought them into view. She didn’t know what she was expecting to see, the White Guard maybe, but it certainly wasn’t this.

A small group of black hooded figures of varying shapes and heights were standing around a demon. It was a thin reedy creature with a dozen long spindly legs capped in wicked looking thorns. It stood tall, coming up to Ronnie’s waist. Along its ridged back were a series of patterned holes, uniform in their placement. The demon watched Ronnie and Lorna with a cluster of tiny black eyes centered on the front of its face. It breathed in, its body ballooning obscenely, and when it exhaled, a tune of whistles escaped from its back.

A demon had led them here. In broad daylight. The very notion that such a creature was scuttling around with these people in the afternoon sun astounded her. Only desperate demons came out in the daylight, usually for food.

One of the figures, slender and graceful, with thin limbs and glittering black eyes under her hood held up a hand. The demon quivered in place as the sound died down. The woman tugged down the cloth mask that covered the lower half of her face. It seemed to Ronnie that she wasn’t that keen on keeping her identity a secret, though when revealed herself, Ronnie supposed it didn’t matter. She didn’t recognize the woman and the shadow of the hood did a good job at keeping her ashen skin from the harmful light of the sun.

Valerie flitted through Ronnie’s mind for only a moment, a burning vision of cooked flesh beneath Sloan’s cruel hand.

“Veronica. Lorna,” the vampire spoke with a firm voice. There wasn’t a question in her words. She knew exactly who they were. It was unnerving for a stranger to be addressing Ronnie by her full name. “You’ll be coming with us, now.” An order. Not a request.

Lorna stiffened at her words, her hands sliding to clutch Ronnie’s shoulders. A better position to sling magic in a fight. White light flickered at her fingertips in weak attempts to intimidate. The vampire had the courtesy to at least look sympathetic.

“Your injuries will be treated when we get there,” she offered, though Ronnie wasn’t entirely placated.

“When we get where? Who are you people? What makes you think we’re just going to follow you?” The questions tumbled out of Ronnie’s mouth before she could stop them. “Why should we trust you?”

The hooded people watched her and she tracked them with her eyes, attempting to place some sort of identity to them. Black eyes. Vampires. Green eyes. Witches. Golden eyes. Shifters.

The vampire held up a hand again and the group stilled. “You’re more than welcome to go back the way you came. What do you think is worse: death from the Blue Sickness or death at the hands of Tiberius Sloan? Those are your only options, unless you come with us.” Sensing Ronnie’s hesitation, she added, “Lorna doesn’t look so good.”

Ronnie inhaled deeply. The vampire was right, though she hated to admit it. Pain was marinating around her in pungent waves. Ronnie reached up to slide her fingers over one of Lorna’s hands. Her skin was clammy and slick with sweat. The side of Ronnie’s shirt was tacky with the blood oozing from Lorna’s ankle.

Ronnie sighed, “At least tell me where we’re going. Please.”

“Sorry, Veronica. Too many ears. The only thing I can tell you is that you’ve been there before, if it eases your mind.” The group split, half of them coming around to stand behind Ronnie and Lorna. “Now, let’s get going.”

***

After what seemed like an age of carrying Lorna’s weight through abandoned back alleys and hidden tunnels that Ronnie hadn’t even known existed, and what was that about- she’d lived here all of her life, the group finally approached the familiar jutting spires of the Rust. Even midday, it was dark as if it were stuck under a perpetual overcast sky of rolling grey clouds.

“The Rust?” Ronnie inquired to no answer. She thought back to the last time she’d been here, looking for Liam, and the vampires that had surrounded her. “Did Jack send you?”

The vampire woman looked over her shoulder at Ronnie curiously but said nothing before returning her gaze forward. Ronnie tried to bring up the faces she’d seen that night. Had this woman been among Jack’s people? This group, whoever they were, crossed the supernatural races. It wasn’t just vampires, but witches and shifters too. These were the same people that had tried to kill Sebastian, weren’t they?

A cold chill slid down Ronnie’s spine. The vampire she’d attacked that day had warned her that there would be repercussions for interfering. Was this it? Punishment for saving Sebastian? Panic wrapped around her heart, squeezing tightly. Suddenly, she doubted if she and Lorna would be leaving the Rust alive.

Ronnie tightened her hold around the witch, who squeezed back weakly, and willed herself not to show fear. The shifters in the group would surely smell it. Exploit it. That’s what predators do.

The vampire woman leading them came to a stop. The group halted, following her lead. She turned to face them. “We’re here.”

Here was a large warehouse that had seen far better days, like everything else in the Rust. The walls were chipped stone reinforced with thick sheets of metal turned red with age. Yellow paint, the declaration of a manufacturer long forgotten, was faded on a set of sliding doors that groaned and screeched as they were pulled open.

“Leave the witch with us,” the woman said as she motioned for Ronnie to enter.

“What? No.” Ronnie shook her head. “She stays with me.”

The woman sighed, pushing her hood back. Without the shadows to hide her, she looked like a tired mother. Fine lines creased at the corners of her eyes and mouth and there were streaks of grey threaded through her brown hair. Ronnie hadn’t expected someone who looked so…average.

“We’re not going to hurt her. We’re going to help her. Alukorra has requested this meeting with you be private,” the woman spoke slowly, forcing her words out in a tone of impatience.

Ronnie opened her mouth to argue, but Lorna tapped a hand on Ronnie’s shoulder and wiggled her legs slightly. Ronnie loosened her hold and Lorna whimpered as she slid off her back. She was light on her feet, trying to keep her weight off her injured ankle. Ronnie glanced down. It looked worse, having swelled and turned a nasty shade of purple. Beneath her fingers, Ronnie could feel little tremors shake her slim form.

“It isn’t a good idea to leave wounds from Poor Street untreated,” the woman said. “There is more than the Blue Sickness to be worried about.”

Ronnie bit her lip, sinking a fang into the tender flesh. The brief jolt of pain helped to bring a little clarity. “Okay,” she agreed, gently unwinding Lorna from her side and holding her steady. “It’ll be okay,” she said, more for her own sake than Lorna’s.

The woman received her with careful hands. “She’ll be fine.”

“What’s your name, since you already know mine?”

The woman smiled at her, though if it was kind or mocking, Ronnie couldn’t tell. “Dahlia.” She pointed at the open door. “Now, if you please, you’re late for a meeting.”

Dahlia and a few other members broke apart from the group and led Lorna away, supporting her weight with hands that were more gentle than Ronnie expected them to be. She watched them, listening to Lorna’s rapid heartbeat, until they disappeared from view into another building, smaller and just as ancient looking as the warehouse. At least she knew where to find Lorna if she ended this meeting with a hasty exit.

Ronnie turned her attention to the open doors and with a deep breath, stepped over the threshold. As soon as she did, they slid closed behind her, scraping against the metal track. The sound echoed in the cavernous metal structure and it grated on Ronnie’s sensitive hearing, heightened even more so by her frayed nerves. Her skin prickled and her muscles tensed like they did when she went hunting for small animals in the woods around her home. Except, this time, it felt like she was the prey.

Ronnie swallowed heavily, wincing at the sound which seemed thunderous in her own ears, and looked around. It was dark, nearly pitch, save for a few streams of sunlight that managed to get through the cracks but her eyes adjusted to the change in a matter of seconds.

The inside of the warehouse was surprisingly tidy. Ronnie had expected it to be a mess of scrap and forgotten relics of an old industrial age like the rest of the Rust but it looked as if it were lived in. She wondered briefly if it was as she took a tentative step forward. Her footfalls resounded out and back at her as she moved. Any hope for a quiet approach was lost, though if she were being honest, stealth probably wasn’t going to help here when it had been made plainly obvious that she was expected.

“Don’t just stand there,” a soft voice called out from the shadows ahead. “I haven’t got all day.”

Ronnie froze, scanning the darkness with searching eyes. She thought there might be a silhouette waiting across the warehouse, but she couldn’t be sure at the distance even with her eyesight focused. Not for the first time, she wished to be a full shifter. To not be watered down by the human choke hold on magic. If she had the true power of her people pulsing through her body, no one would be able to hide in the dark from her.

There was a huff of air from the speaker, an impatient sound, and the audacity of it made a line of anger snap in her chest. The culmination of everything that had happened that day spurred Ronnie into irritated movement. She left all semblance of caution behind and strode forward with purposeful steps.

She’d been chased and shot at. There was a very real chance that she’d contracted a deadly sickness from Poor Street. Lorna was hurt and had looked ready to collapse. These people had dragged her here, making demands of her when they had no right to. She was a shifter- nature’s greatest predator, wether she could change forms or not. She refused to let herself be intimidated by a voice in the dark. Ronnie’s hands clenched around the sharp points of her extended claws and they nicked at the flesh of her palm.

I am a predator, not a coward, she told herself firmly.

The closer Ronnie got to the other side of the warehouse, the more she could make out bodies in the darkness. Plural. There were people waiting for her. She stopped just short of them on the other side of a single pillar of light that shone down through a hole in the roof. Let them come the rest of the way to her. It was the least they could do.

Ronnie’s eyes fell on a tall and familiar form and though she hadn’t been sure what to expect, she wasn’t actually that surprised to see him.

“Jack?”

The towering vampire came forward, inching his way around the beam of sunlight. With a theatrical bow like the one he’d given the last time they met, he grinned at her, crimson hair falling around his face. “Told you we’d be seeing each other again, doll.”

The figure behind him let out an annoyed huff of air. Ronnie pinned her with an equally annoyed look when she recognized her. “Oh. Ren, was it?” Ronnie wiggled her fingers at her. “How’s the hand?” she asked, none too kindly.

Ren bared her fangs at Ronnie with a snarl and clutched at her bandaged hand. Ronnie had absolutely no guilt in the pleased tingle she felt at the chunk that was still missing from Ren’s hand. It was no doubt healing painfully slow since vampires didn’t have access to fresh human blood, only the drippings from animals and other supernaturals, which didn’t have the same effects. Ren was in for a horrible time with that wound.

That’s what you get for taking Liam, Ronnie thought meanly and let the sentiment show on her face.

Jack held out his hands in a placating manner. “We weren’t going to hurt the kid,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “Honest. Still, that was an impressive fight. Ren is one of my best. She’s a good fighter.”

“Not good enough, apparently,” Ronnie quipped.

Behind him, Ren snarled and stomped toward her but the third figure stopped her as she came forward with a gentle touch to her uninjured arm.

“We aren’t here to fight each other.” Her voice was soft but there was a confident strength to it that commanded those around her to listen. Velvet over steel.

When she came into the light, Ronnie got a good look at her, surprised for the second time that day as she took in a sight she thought she would never see in the Edge- one of the Fair.