Chapter 9 · Dock Seven

The projection died with a sound like a breath being strangled.

For one second, the underground chamber held only the afterimage of the girl in black water. Her pale face floated above the cracked floor, eyes closed, silver wires threaded through her throat and wrists. Then the image collapsed into a scatter of blue sparks, and the old badge in Eve’s hand went cold.

“Shut it down,” Cain said.

His voice was low, but the command carried through the room.

Eve turned on him. “You knew her.”

Cain stood beneath the failing emergency light, one hand pressed against his ribs. Blood had soaked through his shirt where the hunter’s blade had opened him earlier. His face had gone gray around the mouth, but his eyes remained fixed on the dead patch of air where the girl had been.

“I knew what she was.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

Beyond the sealed door, something slammed into the metal hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. Nora’s voice crackled through the wall speaker.

“Eve, we have a problem. Three problems, actually.