Chronicles of the Uprising (Trilogy 1): Trilogy 1 (21 page)

Even though she was just setting foot in this place for the first time, Mira felt instantly at home. These people were very close to the land they inhabited. Just as her family had been.

As they traveled further into the city, the houses were closer and the animal pens smaller, but the green was still there. Even the quaint little shops had ivy-covered walls and small flowerboxes in the windows.

Though it was the middle of the night, the city was far from sleepy, as she had originally thought. Passersby on the streets, vampires and others, looked on at her with earnest curiosity. Mira knew why. Not only was she new here, but her attire was that of a warrior. Her ill-fitting black soldier’s uniform, stolen from a dead man during her escape from New Haven, set her apart from the clean-cut, well-dressed men and women she was encountering. Her untamed hair and dirty fingernails must have made her look completely savage.

“When do we see the leaders?” Mira asked, feeling as if she might need a shower or three before actually speaking to one of these Otherkin city-dwellers.

“Soon. But before you can have an audience, you’ll need to… get cleaned up a bit.” There was no nice way to tell her how badly she looked, but Stryker had tried to break it to her gently.

She laughed, knowing the truth. She didn’t need anyone pussyfooting around her skunk-like aroma and caked-on dirt. “You read my mind.”

Relief played in Stryker’s eyes. Mira suppressed the smile trying to creep across her face. He might be a big tough wolf, but underneath there was the hint of a gentle spirit.

“Come. Follow me,” he said, taking the lead down a street to their left. “I’ll take you to my pack’s den and you can prep yourself.”

Chapter 6

Although it was unlike the highly sophisticated shower she’d experienced within the Iron Gate prison, this simple spigot of water with its gentle pressure was just as satisfying, maybe more. The water was different, somehow: softer, milder. Mira couldn’t quite put her finger on it, not that it really mattered. After her long journey, the experience was simply magical. Aches and pains melted away. Her muscles relaxed, and all the tension she’d felt washed down the tiny drain at her feet. She could have stood in that shower stall all day long, but there was still the matter of pleading her case to the ruling party here in Caldera Grove. What would she say to them? Could she really convince members of this new society, with centuries of hatred, that her human companions were different and deserved entry into a sanctuary that had never before allowed it? When she thought of it that way, the task sounded impossible.

She worried for Lucian, Curtis, and Sarah waiting in caves back where she’d left them. All alone out there in the badlands, exposed and vulnerable to the elements… she hoped they were doing all right. Without them, she’d be dead; and no matter how nice this place might be, she couldn’t truly enjoy it with a very real threat to their lives looming over her head. They weren’t the only ones she worried for. George. The closest thing she’d had to a real friend was still back there, in the prisons. She’d promised to get him out when she escaped. Now here she was, safe in the land of sanctuary. He was still there in the prison, along with all of the other vampires like herself. And what about the Magistrate, spinning his lies, keeping the rest of humanity hating her kind, fearing them, fueling their persecution and imprisonment while experimenting on them to learn the secrets of vampire blood? Since he had apparently discovered the way to turn a human, what now? He could make an endless supply of vampires to slaughter for the human’s entertainment.

She had promised to help end the Magistrate once she found Sanctuary. End his existence and find a way to save the others of her kind still imprisoned and forced to fight in the arena. All of it seemed like an impossible task. The weight of all that responsibility started a knot of tension between her shoulder blades. Not even the glorious warmth of the shower was helping to keep it from building.

“You all right in there?” Stryker called from the adjacent room, his voice piercing the roar of the rushing water. “You’ve been in there a while now. Just checking on you.”

“Yeah…uh…fine. Just relaxing.” Mira was anything but. The darkness haunting her thoughts had brought back all the tension the magical water had washed away.

“Well, hurry it up in there. I have your meeting with the council set up. They’re expecting you.”

No need to tell her twice. If Mira knew anything about leaders, they were very big on punctuality. She had to make the best impression possible if she wanted to gain their support. Mira hopped out of the shower, dried off, and re-dressed in a linen shirt and pair of pants Stryker had found for her. A quick run of the brush through her hair and a brown bandana to keep it out of her face, and she was ready to go.

Still looking pretty rugged but at least clean, Mira joined Stryker in the main living space of the joint pack house. “Let us hope they’re in a listening mood. I have quite the story to tell.”

Stryker rose from a large bean sack chair in the center of the oval room. His eyes scrutinized her, but the congenial smile did not fall from his face. “Don’t get your hopes up. Be brief. Be truthful. And most of all, be respectful. Their word is law.” His tone said more than his words could have. There was no hope. This was all a formality.

Mira took a deep breath. She knew this was gamble, but she had to try. No use in accepting defeat before the battle had begun. “I’ll do my best. Lead on.”

Back out into the city they walked, and just as before, the new sights and sounds amazed her. She’d had little exposure to what city life was like, with only her short stint in New Haven to compare it to. That place was the epitome of drab and dreary – dismal homes in a concrete jungle with hardly the tiniest bit of greenery. But here, along the streets of Caldera Grove, there was life everywhere. Plants, animals, people. Even in the dark of night, the city was alive and thriving.

They headed toward the center of the city, passing by larger and larger buildings as they moved inward. The construction too amazed Mira, large dome shapes and the use of glass and wood. Their sense of style and construction worked to allow nature inside as well as out. In the center of the city was the capital building. Its large domed roof was almost completely made of glass panels to allow in as much natural moonlight, and probably sunlight in the day, as possible. Taller by far than the other buildings around it, there was no mistaking that this was the central hub of the city.

“You’ll be meeting with the ruling council there in a few moments. Prepare yourself.” Stryker opened the glass panel door and waved her inside.

If intimidation was a word in Mira’s vocabulary, she might have admitted to it as she entered the building. Though wide open and filled with natural light, the moment she walked inside, the ominous pressure of her task began to weigh heavily on her.

A blonde woman sat at a reception desk waiting to greet them as they strolled in. She gave Stryker an approving bat of her extremely long eyelashes and then turned her eyes on Mira. “Oh, someone new? We haven’t had a newcomer in ages. And… a vampire, if I’m not mistaken.”

“What gave me away?” Mira asked.

She bit her lip, probably to hold back the snarky remark she wanted to say. “Uh… you look… rugged.”

Mira choked on her laughter. “I know what I look like. You don’t have to sugar coat it.”

“You’re from that big city to the east?”

“Yeah, New Haven.”

Stryker continued walking toward the elevators. “I’m going to see if the Council is ready. Mira, can you wait down here with Selene?”

That was her name. Fitting, Mira thought. She looked too exotic for a Mary or Jessica, despite her golden blonde hair. She was long. That was the only word that sprang to Mira’s mind. Not just tall. Everything from her height to her hair, even her ears, had an unusual length. Elf-like, if those creatures actually existed. “Yes. Fine. Let’s get this meeting over with.”

Stryker nodded to Mira, but his eyes were locked with the woman he called Selene. The way he looked intently at her made him wonder if they were having some silent conversation.

She walked around the reception desk and joined Mira just as Stryker turned to disappear into the elevator.

“Is it really as bad as they say?” Selene asked.

“What do you hear of the city?” Mira was truly curious. She knew how she’d lived, but those who had lived in isolation here in this city, how could they possible know what went on?

“I only know what’s in the history books. We haven’t had a city-dweller ever make it to our sanctuary. Only those from the outer territories have ever made it this far.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. What have you heard?” She hadn’t intended for it to sound so harsh, but she hated pussyfooting around a subject.

Selene’s smiled faded. “One thing seems true, your lot lack manners.”

“My ‘lot’ have been through hell and back.”

“That doesn’t mean you need to be rude. This is a place of peace. Do try and remember that. We’re not your enemies.”

“Sorry.” Mira had to turn away and bite her tongue. She didn’t need a lecture on manners from some prissy woman who’d probably never broken a nail, let alone someone’s jaw. “Please, tell me what you know about the city.”

“Really only that the city is one of the eight major cities, and the Iron Gate controls everything. Vampires are used for laborers and fighters.”

“That’s all true, but hardly scratches the surface of what goes on in a vampire’s day to day life.”

A picture on the wall behind the reception desk caught her eye: a mural depicting all manner of strange creatures surrounding a bonfire. She walked toward it, half listening to Selene’s protest that she was again being rude.

“Sorry,” Mira said again. “What is this?”

“I was saying, that no one knows what goes on because no one has ever escaped, but then you just rudely walked away again.” She huffed like an annoyed child. Mira was beginning to dislike her; she reminded Mira of Olivia. Too self-involved to possibly care about the thoughts and feelings of others.

“Well, again, you did not answer my question. What is this paining?”

“That’s the founding of Caldera Grove.”

“And these creatures?” Mira pointed at some of the mural’s more unique looking creatures.

“We prefer the term Otherkin.”

“Otherkin, then, what manner of…” Mira was at a loss for words. She’d apparently insulted the woman and knew any other word she picked would just continue to do so.

“Mostly shifters. The mural depicts them in their half forms, so you can see and appreciate the duality of their natures.”

“And the others?”

“You ask too many questions.”

Mira turned and met the icy blue stare of Selene. “Can you blame me? Until a couple of days ago, this place was a myth to me.”

“You’re the myth. A vampire breaking free of a city behind the Iron Gate.”

“Why Iron?” Mira asked. “I’ve often wondered that. Seems such an odd metal. Why not steel?”

Selene’s lips pursed tight. Clearly Mira had hit upon something important. ”You ask too many questions.”

“I just think it’s silly. Vampires are allergic to silver. I guess it isn’t prudent to make a city wall out of that, but Iron isn’t really going to stop a vampire.” She hoped her innocent-sounding rambling would lead Selene to divulge whatever it was she was hiding. “I mean, what exactly were they doing with iron?”

“Otherkin are metal-sensitive,” Selene practically blurted out.

“But I have no allergic reaction to iron.”

“Half-breeds have lesser allergies. Natural-born Otherkin have reactions to nearly all metals, iron being the worst.”

“I’m assuming I’m a half-breed then?”

“Were you born a vampire?” she asked with as much snark as Mira had ever heard in all her years.

Rather than get annoyed, Mira actually appreciated the snooty little Otherkin woman’s quick-witted retort. “So what other half-breeds are out there? If I’m allowed to ask more annoying questions.”

Selene took a deep breath and held it in, as if that might hold in the information she was teetering on the edge of divulging. “It’s not really for me to say, but vampires and werewolves are the only two Otherkin half-breed classes.”

“Fascinating.” Mira wondered if she should dare press for more information.

Selene walked over to the mural and pointed down to the bottom. “See? Here are your kind and theirs. This place was founded as a sanctuary for all who were oppressed by humans.”

“So the humans must have known about your kind. That’s why they built the Iron Gates. It was to keep your kind out.” It was all beginning to make sense, except for one small detail. “But why were the humans worried about you? They’d already enslaved my kind.”

“History tells us that more than a hundred years ago, when the humans turned on our kind, they used our weaknesses to control us. Vampire kind were the easiest to enslave. Your light sensitivity was your undoing. Werewolves were destroyed by silver. The few that survived ran wild in the badlands. The rest of our kind were killed by iron poisoning. A mass exodus led by our High Council took those that remained to the sea. It was here that we found a new home, and never looked back.”

“And you just let the stragglers rot in the human prisons,” Mira sneered.

“I wasn’t there.”

They knew all along that their kin were being tortured and killed and did nothing to save them. They turned tail and ran away, leaving those that remained to rot and die.

Selene must have seen the disdain in Mira’s eyes. “Our kind would have been wiped off the face of the Earth or enslaved like you were. For the good of the race, they had to start fresh in a new land.”

“Spoken like a coward. If you knew the atrocities that I’ve been through, you wouldn’t be so dismissive.” Mira tried to suppress her anger. Selene, annoying as she was, had not been the one to turn her back on the vampires. The High Council was. And she was about to meet them. Pleading her case was teetering on the edge of a lost cause, and she hadn’t even begun yet. Still, though, she’d do her best.

Before Selene could respond to Mira’s insult, the elevator dinged and Stryker exited through the parted doors. “They’ll be ready for you in a moment. Time to head up. I trust Selene has told you all you need.”

Mira did a double take. She’d assumed she was pumping Selene for information, but clearly that was not the case. This little interlude had been set up. Crafty. These Otherkin were all full of tricks. “She’s told me plenty.”

“Good. Set your personal feelings aside and remember: be respectful and brief.” Stryker waved her toward the open elevator doors. “I wanted you to know what you were up against.”

“You could have told me all of this yourself.”

“No. You needed to hear it from someone with no investment in the result.”