Maura was weeping, and she collapsed to the floor. “I looked then ran for you.”
The last few rooms were another bedroom, a bathroom and a study with a desk that she could see partly through an open door. The windows in here were fake and led nowhere.
“How?” Vargr asked, weapon drooping. “There’s the one entry. Where is Willow?”
“Gone. I told you.” Maura banged her head against the wall behind her. “I was scared but I looked.”
If Willow was gone, maybe she’d escaped?
“Did she run out? Maura?”
“I don’t think so.” Her eyes were filled with grief. “I think whatever it was grabbed her, took her. You see the trail of rot?”
As if unsure of their deaths, Rutger was kneeling by each body and checking for a pulse. “The study, Vargr? No body there?”
“None.”
“Wait here.” He ran back toward the entry door and passed her.
“Wait. Rutger! You need me. You can’t control the Lure.”
They both exited onto the roadway, brushing past Vincent who was only just arriving. They set off at a brisk trot. The trail led in a straight line toward the edge of War Quarter. She kept pace with Rutger then looked back and saw Vargr at the door. He was staying but that was fine.
If she could not stop this, no one could.
“Gun ready,” she told Rutger.
“Of course.”
A smeared track of rotted flesh lay under her feet and led onward. A shoe she knew was Willow’s lay at one spot, then its partner sat on the floor further along. Devastating evidence. They ran for ten minutes or more, until they could see the end of the quarter, the edge. The trail kept going and the glass door ahead, where a footbridge spanned the gap, it was smashed open. Glass glittered on the path.
They jogged to a stop, recovering, panting, knowing this was hours old.
Reality closed in and it was an awful thing to contemplate.
She went to one knee and bowed her head, staring along the floor where the glass had fallen like sharp unwelcome rain, seeing the bits of darkness there too, and the splashes of fresh blood. For a second she imagined the screams from Willow, her struggles, then she shut that down.
No.
The stench of skinsuits was strong here, as if the bad flesh had gone more rancid over time. Outside, the sun glanced off the intact glass walls, washing them with odd-shaped shadows. There must be clouds above, with the sunlight coming down through a cloudy sky. Perhaps a storm was brewing. She rose,stuffing her gun into its holster, listening to her heart beats, and she vowed never to take another day for granted.
It might rain on Willow.
She swallowed, said a quiet swear word.
Opposite was yet another quarter of unknown name. Her eyes registered the shape of signs plastered on the edge of that quarter but she didn’t bother to reallyseethem. Willow was gone.
“The blood on the soldiers was clotted, cold.” Rutger straightened, inhaled. “We never had a chance. Let’s return.”
“Yes.”
The jog back was a terrible and lonely one. Ghoul Lords had taken the one person they needed most.
It was not Cyn; it was Willow.
At the door to the apartment, Rutger stuck his arm in the way before she could enter. Pieces had been knocked from the frame and fallen to the floor. From the color of the marks on the wall, Vincent had forced his way in. “Can we get her back, somehow? Assemble soldiers and go up? Is it possible?”
“After knowing what happens on Top? How they devour us. How many there are… no, not without a proper force of us, all of us able to resist the Lure. I am not enough.” She frowned at him, bereft with anguish and her own inability.
