Read The Last City for Free Online

‘After we talk to her.’
    ‘You want me to talk to her?’ Eli squeaked and his heart thudded faster.
    A smile stirred the darkness of the commander’s eyes. ‘No, Eli. I will talk. But I want you to observe.’
    Eli nodded, relieved. Observing he could do. Interrogating a super-intelligent psycho like Ev’r Keets was more the commander’s realm of expertise.
    The commander left the bag and started down the corridor towards the cells. He paused and turned back. ‘Eli.’
    ‘Yes, boss?’
    ‘Well done.’
    ‘Thank you, boss.’ Eli managed to keep a straight face, but on the inside he did a jump for joy. The commander’s praise was, to him, like a rare, rare gold.
    The commander continued to walk, Diega at his side. Eli waited a moment to bask in his own newly acquired glory. He lifted up and down on the balls of his feet, feeling like bursting into flight. Jude chuckled beside him and Eli grinned at him, only then noticing another person in the room, standing in the shadows of a corner. The person was a lovely-looking girl with an impressive lump and mean bruise on one side of her head, making her no less lovely.
    ‘This is our new tracker,’ Jude told him. ‘Silho Brabel.’
    Eli’s grin stretched wider. The new recruit they’d been expecting for several weeks returned a small and uncertain smile.
    ‘I’m Eli,’ he said and went towards her. His legs got tangled in each other and he fell at her feet.
    ‘Careful, buddy.’ Jude picked him up with embarrassing ease. ‘You’ll do yourself an injury.’
    ‘Sorry,’ Eli said to Silho. ‘I’m sorry. I’m clumsy. I . . . ah . . . have problems with walking sometimes.’ He cringed at what he had just said, and yet still found himself saying, ‘And with talking too . . . and with just about everything actually.’ Eli noticed, though she was obviously a human-breed, she also resembled a pixie with an uptilt to her eyes and long lashes. From this close he could see from the grey tinge to her skin that she was unwell.
    ‘We’d better catch up.’ Jude nodded towards the corridor where the commander and Diega had disappeared. ‘Silho, follow us.’
    Eli entered the interrogation cell last. The cell’s walls, floor and ceiling were all made from reinforced grey-rock – the most effective substance for muffling screams. In the centre of the room a table and two chairs stood bolted to the ground. They were made of steel and slightly reflective so, as Diega said, prisoners could see a distorted twin of themselves – and kiss it goodbye. The tang of disinfectant, washed over urine and blood, tainted the air. Eli pushed his hands into his pockets and clung to Nelly's warm comfort. She slept on, oblivious to the fact that she was in the presence of one of the most feared criminals of all time.
    The commander and Diega fearlessly moved within striking distance of where Keets stood facing the wall. Staying as far from Keets as possible, Eli studied her back. What he could see of it, between the wraps of chains binding her arms, was a collage of mismatched skin grafts stitched roughly together, forming jagged scars, crisscrossing over faded and broken tattoos and symbols. Ev’r’s head hung low; her white-blonde hair, shaved short at the back and left long at the front, fell in her eyes.
    ‘I knew you weren’t dead.’ Diega was the first to break the cold, dragging silence.
    ‘Good for you,’ Ev’r responded, her voice emotionless.
    ‘You know how I knew you weren’t dead?’ Diega asked. ‘Because only the good die young.’
    ‘Like Fen children – right, fairy-girl?’ Ev’r shot back.
    Eli cringed. The rainbow colours of Diega’s skin flared vibrant.
    ‘Or like gypsy girls, Zingara ,’ Diega said.
    Ev’r’s back arched in a predatory way at the sound of her real scullion-gypsy name. She turned to face them. Her gaze flickered over Diega and locked onto Jude. Her eyebrows lifted and an unpleasant smile curled her lips. ‘You.’ She