Chapter 5: The Gate

The Eastern District gate had opened inside a rail yard, and half the sky above it was red.

Kerensa stepped out of the guild truck in a black dress and a pair of borrowed boots.

Ahead of her, hunters in Nyberg jackets ran toward the gate with their weapons drawn.

News drones hung in the air above the fences, filming everything.

Ward jumped down beside her, still in his suit jacket.

"The Haglund team went into the engine shed," he said. "They called for help twenty minutes ago and then nothing."

Rafe was already at the gate mouth.

He stood in front of the black tear in the air with both hands open at his sides.

The air in front of him bent, and three small beasts that tried to come through folded up and stopped.

"I can hold the mouth," he said, without turning. "I can't hold it and go in."

"I'll go," Kerensa said.

He looked back at her, at the torn hem and the boots.

"The registry says you're..."

"The registry is wrong."

He held her eyes for a moment.

Then he lowered one hand and the air parted in front of her, a gap the width of a door.

"Go left at the red container," he said. "Don't die in my dress."

"It's your dress?"

"It's the guild's."

She went through.

The engine shed was split in half by a roof beam the size of a tree.

Under it, six hunters in Haglund jackets lay against the wall, bleeding and breathing.

In front of them stood the beast.

It was a stag as tall as the shed, with antlers of gray bone that dripped ash.

Kerensa knew it.

She had waited for one on a ridge in the dark for six hours.

It was what had killed her.

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