Deadworld, p.1
Deadworld, page 1
part #1 of Chronicles of Deadworld Series
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Other books by Debbie Cassidy
About the Author
Copyright © 2019, Debbie Cassidy
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Cover by JMN Art Julie Nicholls
Format by Gina Wynn
Chapter 1
I was stuck deep in a pipe, unable to move forward or back, all because my butt was too large. The fact that all the other heart keepers were male now made sense. Men didn’t have hip issues. Having said that, none of them would have been able to fit into this slender anyway, because the pipes weren’t meant to be manually serviced.
Yep, should have waited for a mech-hand to be free, but no, I’d let impatience get the better of me. Now I was stuck, and I hadn’t even reached the rust patch I’d ventured in there to treat.
Why the heck hadn’t any of the manuals pointed out that these slenders narrowed as they reached the ventricular chamber of the heart. I’d trained long and hard to get this job, studied the damn heart in all its mapped-out glory, learned about every inch of the huge machine that kept the Hive alive—there was no way I’d somehow missed this fact about the slenders. Still, I shouldn’t have been so trigger-happy. This, right here, was obviously the reason we used mech-hands.
Okay, deep breath. I could do this. I just needed to breathe in and—
“Breathing in won’t shrink your ass.” The voice was a sarcastic drawl.
I jerked in surprise and smacked the top of my head against metal. “Fucking hell, Hunter. Stop creeping around.”
“If I was creeping, you wouldn’t know I was here.”
I froze, which wasn’t hard considering I was trapped in a damn pipe. “And do you? Creep around often?”
“Why, Echo? Worried I’ve been watching you shower?” He made a gagging sound. “I’d rather eat my own eyeballs.”
“You don’t have eyeballs.”
In fact, he didn’t have a body, but I could sense his presence now, because he was allowing me to do so. The fucker was right behind me. Was he checking out my ass?
“Fine, then,” Hunter said in his habitually bored tone. “I’d rather watch Julian jerk off.”
Julian was a guy of gargantuan proportions with awful body odor and a penchant for adjusting his package every few minutes. No surprise that Hunter would rather practice his voyeur skills on Julian than on me. I wasn’t his favorite person. In fact, I wasn’t sure he had a favorite person.
I blew out an exasperated breath. “You hate me. I know. And yet you continue to hang around me. I should report you to the Protectorate Council.”
It was an empty threat, and he knew it. I owed him, and he knew it, and as much as he professed to despise me, he continued to stick around.
I sighed and gripped the rust-treatment pouch tighter. “Look, just be useful—grab my legs and pull. I just need a tug.”
“If I could touch you, don’t you think I would have throttled you in your sleep by now?”
Was that a hint of longing in his tone?
“You don’t want me dead, Hunter. If you did, I wouldn’t be here today. And I know you can touch stuff, I’ve seen you move shit.”
Another long silence. “Fine. Truth is, I don’t want to help you. In fact, I’m quite enjoying watching you squirm like the worm you are. And I’m going to enjoy you calling in for help even more.”
I pressed my forehead to the metal beneath me with a groan. “Emory.”
Hunter chuckled. “Yes, Emory. Another delicious mark for incompetence on your record. How many is that this month? It’s a surprise you got this job.”
Anger had my jaw clenching. “Hey. I worked hard for this. I scored higher than any of the guys out there. It’s just …I’m having an off week, okay. I’m damn good at this job, and Emory knows I work my butt off.”
“Yes, so damn good that you’re here with said butt stuck in a pipe.” Hunter sighed. “Well, as much as I would love to see you shamed for the curvature of your gluteus maximus, I have other things to do today.”
“My hips, not my glut—not my ass.”
His presence brushed my calves, as if he were touching me. “Ass, hips, all the same to me. See you later.”
And then there was silence.
God, I hated him sometimes.
The smell of grease and oil and the gentle whirr of machinery that was usually a symphony to my ears did nothing to soothe my nerves. Even the rhythmic whoomph of the power that skimmed along the surface of the slender didn’t help, because I had to call this in. There was no way around it, unless … Unless I stayed here until I lost weight, and then I could … Urgh. No. Time to make the call.
I tapped the earpiece nestled in my ear. It was a standard coms device all heart keepers were required to wear, in the event of situations like this, no doubt.
There was a burst of static, and then a smooth, mellow voice filled my ears. “Echo? What’s the problem?” Emory asked.
My pulse quickened, and I told myself it was because I was about to tell him I’d fucked up again, but it was nothing to do with that, and everything to do with him. The fact that he was my mentor, my boss, the man who’d taken me under his wing and trained me, the fact that he was someone I was desperate to impress. He’d been a hero of mine for … well, forever. He was the man who’d designed our underground haven and who made sure it continued to function. We had that in common, our need to fix shit, to make sure it worked right, and now I was about to disappoint him for the second time this week.
“Echo?” His tone sharpened in concern. “Are you there?”
“Yeah. Look, Emory, I’m kinda stuck.”
“Kind of?” The tap, tap of keys drifted down the line. “You’re supposed to be on arterial duty today. I don’t see you.”
“Yeah, I did a scan this morning, found a rust patch in one of the slenders. There were no mech-hands available, so I—“
“Echo.” He groaned in resignation. “Please tell me you aren’t lodged in a slender.”
“I’m not lodged in a slender?”
“The slenders narrow as they reach the ventricular chamber. It’s the reason why we use mech-hands to service them,” he explained patiently.
“And is there any reason that information isn’t in any of the manuals?”
There was a short silence. “It isn’t?”
“No. It isn’t.”
He made a sound of exasperation. “Of course, it won’t be. The narrowing happened over time. It happened after the manuals were written. Still, it’s common knowledge amongst the heart keepers; someone should have told you.”
I pressed my lips together. I wasn’t exactly part of the boys’ club. “Well, they didn’t, and now my ass is stuck in one.”
There was only the sound of his regular breathing. “Your ass?”
I groaned. “Look, just … Can you please get me out?”
“Of course.” His tone sounded strained. “I’ll just … I’ll be right there.”
The line went dead.
Wait … Had he just said I’ll be right there. It was bad enough having to admit I’d made a bad call, but why did he have to come personally to get me out? Why not just send one of the other heart keepers?
Oh, crap.
Six minutes, that’s how long it took to get from the lab in the control tower to the slenders, but Emory made it in three. The creak and shift of the metal alerted me to his arrival, and then his honeyed tones drifted up the pipe to caress my ears.
“I’m here, Echo. Are you all right?”
My breath caught and then my brain came back online because he wasn’t here. He was outside the slender; the extractor was here—the machine he would be controlling remotely. He’d have a slight frown on his face, just two little lines between his brows, and his twilight-blue eyes behind his spectacles would be filled with a mixture of irritation and concern. Emory didn’t like getting pulled away from his projects. The tower and the lab inside it were his home, and he spent ninety percent of his time in them.
“Echo?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. I’m … I’m going to touch you now.”
Once again, my pulse skipped. Stupid pulse. I held my breath as the extractor’s mechanical hands skimmed up my thighs. Emory was touching me … Okay, so he wasn’t touching me, the machine was, and right now I sounded insane, even if it was in my own head. Thank goodness Hunter wasn’t here to see this. He’d be cackling his invisible head off. I focused on the pipe and what was going on behind me.
Emory would be maneuvering the machine with his gloved hand, because Emory always wore gloves, and now the mech-hands were on my hips. The fingers gripped me.
“I’m going to pull now,” Emory warned.
“Please do.”
He tugged once, hard, and I slid backward. The whump, whump, whump of the power skimming over the slender masked my exclamation.
“Are you okay now?” he asked.
I shimmied down a little. “Yes. I can manage now.”
“Good.” His tone morphed from concerned to irritated. “Get cleaned up, and then meet me in my office.”
The extractor scuttled away, the tap, tap of its metallic limbs echoing until it was gone. It took a minute to crawl the rest of the way out of the pipe, and by that time, Emory too was long gone.
I climbed down onto the platform below the opening of the slender. There were several windows into the pipe. But I’d chosen this one as it was closest to the emerald glow of the huge crystal that powered my underground home. From my vantage point on the metal grilled walkway, I could look down on the other heart keepers as they went about making their checks and rubbing down the cogs and pipes that made up the huge mechanical heart that ran the Hive. Everything was wrapped around a chasm that ran so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom, but we could see the glow of the crystal that nestled there.
I’d applied for this job for two reasons. The first—purely selfish—had been the desire to see the heart of the Hive, to taste the power that saturated this chamber. It had been the longing to work alongside the infamous Emory Harker and learn how this underground monolith we called home truly worked.
The other was more practical. Here, in the Hive, we got paid in rations, and the higher value and riskier the job, the more rations we got. I was working for three, so the heart keeper job had been my best bet. There was nothing more important than keeping the heart of the Hive functioning.
The crystal siphoned arcana from the earth and air, and the heart was the generator that converted the arcana into a form of energy similar to electricity. We called it arcletic power. Arteries transported the arcletic power around the Hive, to run our air filters, our lights, and every other machine that kept us functioning, but it was the slenders that were of utmost importance. They carried pure arcana to the many crystals that dotted the upper level of our underground refuge, to create a ward that would shield us from the threat that roamed topside.
“Echo!” Finn waved up at me from the platform below.
He was a huge, hulking figure wrapped up in dark overalls, which were, at present, rolled down to his waist to reveal a grease-smeared cream vest that exposed his muscular, inked biceps. His feet were encased in kick-the-shit-out-of-you boots, and a clipboard hung casually from his fingers. He raised his free hand in greeting, and his vest stretched tight across his pectorals. Yeah … I really needed to not be focusing on his physical attributes, especially considering he was one of my closest friends, and even more so because he was a Lupinata, and the wolfmen were strictly off limits.
Finn grinned, showcasing even, white teeth; his dark hair was tucked behind his ears, and his hazel eyes were lit with warmth. “Bunty’s at eight?”
I nodded.
“Your turn to buy a round.”
I rolled my eyes. “I have mouths to feed.”
“You always have mouths to feed.”
“Then you should always buy.”
He shook his head. “Fine. But you owe me a dance.”
“Heck no. Not after last time, Mr. Two Left Feet.”
He slapped a hand to his chest and put on a wounded expression. I gave him a flat look, and he backed up with a chuckle.
“Fine, no dancing.” His tone was light, but his eyes glinted with disappointment.
Or maybe that was my imagination.
He frowned and looked from me to the slender. “Wait, what are you doing up there?”
I sighed. “How about I fill you in later? I need to go see a man about a slap on the wrist.”
I left him confused and hooked.
Just the way I liked my men.
Fine, so I didn’t have any men, yet, but when I did …
The control tower was Emory’s domain. He kept a skeleton staff to help monitor the many camera feeds and machines that ran this place. Every single bit of data collected was channeled to this chamber of the Hive. And Emory was the wizard who worked it.
He was leaning over a monitor, black gloved fingers flying across a keyboard when I entered. A long-sleeved black polo shirt hugged his slender waist and stretched across his broad shoulders. His silvery-blond hair fell across his forehead in tousled waves. He kept it short at the back and sides, but the top was longer, softening his somewhat stern features.
Danika, his assistant, looked up from her screen and tutted silently at me. Her irises were rimmed red, telling me she was due a lunch break soon. Sanguinata didn’t have to drink blood every day to survive, just a couple of times a week, and the older ones could go much longer without feeding.
Truthfully, if it was a toss-up between the wolfmen and the suckers, I’d take wolfmen any day.
She raised an index finger and ran it along her throat with a grin that flashed her fangs. Bitch. She loved to bait me. Usually, I’d give her the finger, but today I couldn’t help the dip in my stomach.
I pushed down the nerves. No need to cow. This hadn’t been my fault. I’d made a call based on the data available to me. It had been the wrong call, but what mattered was that the rust patch was still there, and it needed treating.
Emory turned to face me. His stunning twilight eyes locked onto me, and the indents at the corners of his mouth deepened as he studied me. I’d washed the grime off my face and changed out of my grease-smeared overalls back into my cargo pants and vest top. But my dark hair was still pulled up in a messy knot. Maybe I should have brushed it out?
I stood tall, meeting his gaze steadily. But my five-foot-six height was nothing compared to his six foot three.
He nodded, as if satisfied by something. “Come with me.”
He strode off, and I followed, trying not to check out his tight butt or the way his dark pants were hugging his taut thighs. I wasn’t one of his many groupies. I was attracted to his mind, not his body.
The women who drooled over the Creator of the Hive were many, but Emory didn’t have time for anyone or anything but his machines. Okay, not strictly true, he had time for me and the other heart keepers, but only because he wanted to make sure that we kept his creation ticking.
There was no denying he was a powerfully built, attractive man, but most nephilim were. The fact that he was the son of Councilwoman Harker added that extra layer of appeal for most.
The woman was legendary. There were even books about her. I wasn’t sure how much was myth and how much was fact, but some of the stuff they said she’d done was far-fetched, and considering that a lot of the other players mentioned in the history books were dead, it wasn’t as if we could get easy verification.
All supernaturals were nephilim, the product of Black Wing and human unions. According to history, at one time, the nephilim had rivaled humans in number. They’d lived amongst humanity for centuries—wolfmen like Finn, and blood-sucking Sanguinata like Danika, incubi and succubi, and creatures like the Protectorate who had elemental affinities. Their numbers were tiny now, but they continued to protect us, the humans who lived among them.
This place had been built specifically to shield what was left of humanity. My fingers stroked my wrist, playing with the mark that had been branded into my skin at birth. A mark only a select few of us had. One that doomed me to a fate I didn’t need or want.
We rounded a corner, and then Emory was pushing open the door into his lab and standing back to allow me through. The entrance area was all admin—paperwork and plans and files. Emory liked to record stuff old school. But the back half was filled with chemicals, machine parts, and monitors.
