by T. A. White
It came loose and she plucked it from her body, holding it out to the tiny human, who took it gratefully. The tiny human waved it in the air, the light from the glow lamps embedded in the cliffs causing it to shimmer like a gem.
Ilith nodded approvingly. As an acolyte who worshiped Ilith’s majesty, this tiny human was adequate. She accepted.
You are not starting a cult, Tate said in alarm.
What cult? No, this was worship pure and simple with all the benefits for both parties.
Her decision made, Ilith leaned down, nudging first the tiny human then the woman holding them. The woman squeaked even as the tiny human patted Ilith’s nose excitedly.
Yes, yes, Ilith knew she was magnificent. The tiny human didn’t need to fuss so much. Ilith would still grant her protection regardless. Though admittedly this was a wise move on the tiny human’s part. Maybe she was smarter than Ilith had given her credit for.
Ilith rose and waddled toward the nearest building. When she reached it, she reared onto her back legs and climbed up its wall.
The emperor is going to kill me after this. I won’t even be able to blame him.
Well used to her Savior’s propensity for belly aching, Ilith perched on the roof. She’d thought long and hard about it and come to one conclusion—the best way to catch a rat was to do so from the air. They’d never expect it.
EIGHT
Ilith pushed off the roof with a powerful leap. She spread her wings, fanning them hard to get lift. She climbed slowly, enjoying the rush of wind.
I really hope you didn’t cave in their roof.
Ilith circled. Up here, she had a bird’s eye view. If anything moved; she’d see it.
There was no escaping from her notice when she was in the sky. A dragon didn’t give up their prey once they’d locked on. If she wanted to, Ilith’s eyes could spot a flea on a dog’s back. That was how precise her vision was.
Tate scoffed. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?
No. No, it wasn’t. Dragons were superior in every way. Her new acolyte’s worship proved that statement.
You know that was a child, right?
Ilith started to deny it then paused. She had thought the acolyte was rather small.
Tate cackled.
Ilith let out a harrumph and turned back to the task at hand. Her Savior simply didn’t have the skills to fully appreciate her amazingness. It was okay. Ilith was awesome enough for the both of them.
Her gaze locked onto a figure of a man as he walked down the street. There was nothing furtive in his manner. Nothing to point to the fact he was fleeing.
Only, his deceptions couldn’t fool Ilith.
Ilith folded her wings. This hunt was going to be short—but fun.
She arrowed through the air, falling into a nose-dive. Air screamed past her as she made herself more aerodynamic.
Fufufufu. Yummy, yummy, mouse, here I come.
You can’t eat him. I need him alive.
Fine, Ilith thought grudgingly. She brightened seconds later. That didn’t mean she couldn’t play a fun game with the mouse.
The houses lining the streets grew large in seconds, the steep peaks and sharp protrusions on some of them threatening to spear Ilith through the belly.
Expertly she avoided them, her focus locked on her mouse.
Almost there.
Her wings snapped open at the same moment the mouse looked up. He managed to avoid her talons, diving to the side.
Ilith flapped her wings, climbing to avoid crashing snout first into another building. She circled, locking onto her prey again.
Peter had learned from last time and was careful to stay in the narrow alleyways where it would be hard for Ilith to pluck him from the ground.
She shadowed him through the city, waiting for her chance. He’d have to come out of his cover eventually.
Not necessarily, Tate said as they watched their mouse stray closer and closer to the rougher part of the Lower. That’s Cliff’s Shadow. There’s a tunnel entrance near there that he can use to evade you.
Ilith paws kneaded the air in frustration, not liking that thought. She needed to be smaller.
That gave her an idea.
She folded her wings and dove once again, shooting through the air faster than any creature could run. The alleyway the mouse was using as cover loomed large in Ilith’s eyes, the gap incredibly narrow.
You’re not going to fit!
Ilith didn’t need to.
Just as she was about to crash into the two buildings that formed the alleyway, Ilith folded her wings and initiated the change.
You crazy—Tate’s voice was cut off as Ilith chuckled. Pain swamped them in the next second.
* * *
Tate barely had any time to react as she fell out of the sky. Somehow, she got lucky, landing feet first. Peter only a short distance away. There was unmistakable surprise on his face at her sudden arrival.
He dashed away, making use of one of the many narrow openings before Tate could stop him.
“She’s right. You really do resemble a mouse,” she muttered, racing after him.
He led her on a chase through Cliff’s Shadow, turning down one alleyway after another.
His ability not to run into any dead ends pointed to a familiarity with the city that Tate hadn’t expected. Even she couldn’t have followed this twisting path without making a wrong turn somewhere and ending up caught.
She lost sight of him as he climbed up a wooden fence and disappeared over the side.
Quickly following after him, she stopped as soon as she landed.
Smart little mouse. The place he’d chosen to lose her at was a good one. An intersection of sorts, there were all kinds of places where a mouse could disappear.
Tate tapped her finger on her leg, considering her options. There wasn’t enough room to take Ilith’s shape. Even if she could, there was no way her dragon would have been able to take to the sky without knocking over a few walls and buildings.
That left picking a direction at random.
Where would she go if she was a mouse who needed a hidey hole?
Tate started walking again. There was really only one place that came to mind. The tunnels; where some folks sought refuge from those on the surface.
“The answer is always the tunnels,” Tate told herself as she trudged down another alleyway almost identical to the last.
After several more turns, Tate rounded a corner only to stop abruptly at the sight of Blade sitting on the carcass of a sleeper like it was his very own throne.
It was too odd a sight to go unremarked. The monster was at least twice Blade’s size, its body covered with long hair. Its hands were massive, the size of dinner plates. With its face turned toward Tate, it was easy to see the dead eyes and slack mouth. Tusks jutted from its lower lips, giving it the appearance of an under bite.
“Is this a new trend I’m unaware of? Treating dead sleepers like they’re thrones?” Tate asked, stepping more fully into the alleyway.
Like every other alley she’d traveled through on her way here, it was dingy and dark with only the light of the moons to see by. Despite the lack of light, it wasn’t enough to cover the trash littered around the edges or the clothes lines hanging between the building above.
“Would that bother you?” Blade asked.
Tate shrugged, keeping her distance from the other man. There was a reason the nickname she’d chosen for him was a weapon. He was a talented assassin. She’d seen him in action enough times to know how dangerous he was. Even she’d have trouble keeping herself alive if they were ever to tangle for real.
Though only half Kairi, Blade more closely resembled that part of his heritage. His black hair was cut close to the skull, leaving little more than stubble behind. Faint blue rimmed the edges of eyes that were pure black otherwise.
“Considering I was once a sleeper, I’d have to say, yes, a little,” Tate said, answering his earlier question.
“He killed four people, one of them a child.”
“In that case, never mind.”
The sleeper had more than earned any death Blade deigned to give him. From the looks of things, it had been a clean kill. There was only evidence of one wound, a bloody gaping line slashed across the creature’s throat.
The mark of an assassin. It took a lot of skill to make a strike like that—especially on a target as big and powerful as this one.
“I’m going to assume you’re not here to trade notes about the sleepers,” Tate guessed.
Blade was the personal assassin of the Lucius’s, Night Lords and rulers of the Court of Two Dawns, a powerful criminal organization whose base was located in the tunnels. He wasn’t the sort of man prone to midnight strolls where he just happened to intercept unwary dragon-ridden.
No. If he was here, there was a reason. The only question was whether he would reveal it or if she’d be left guessing.
“How did you even know I was near?” she asked when he didn’t immediately speak.
There was no way this was a coincidence.
“Those in our court and sub-courts have orders to report your presence as soon as you enter our territory.”
She was right. How unexpected—and terrifying.
“I hadn’t realized you considered me so important.”
The idea that some of the best criminals in the city kept tabs on her comings and goings was uncomfortable. There were times she needed to access the tunnels quietly. She didn’t want anyone noticing her passageway and perhaps sharing it with hostile parties.
Blade rose in a smooth movement that had Tate clenching her muscles instinctively. They’d never been enemies, but Tate wasn’t naive enough to think they were friends either. People in his line of work rarely had such ties.
“Go back, Tate.”
The request left Tate feeling like she’d been sucker punched in the stomach as she struggled to understand the reasoning behind his order.
Because it was an order. Tate made no mistake about that. The kind that would require physical force on his part if she tried to disobey.
This wasn’t the Blade she knew. If he wanted to take her life, there’d be no warning. It was why she never fully relaxed her guard around him no matter how many times he’d helped her out.
“Have you heard what happened at the palace?” Tate asked.
It was the only explanation that she could find. The Lucius’s network of informants rivaled Ryu’s. He had people embedded in nearly every government office and every house in the Upper. Probably the Lower too. There were times when she’d suspected Ryu and the Night Lords had an alliance of some sort. There were too many instances where they had worked together for the empire’s good. Not exactly the sort of behavior you expected in criminals.
It made Blade’s current actions even more perplexing.
“I’ve heard.”
“Then you know why I’m here.”
“I can guess.”
Oh joy, he was going to be cryptic in addition to being a blockade. How did Tate get all the luck?
“If that’s the case, I don’t understand why you’re stopping me.”
Tate couldn’t hide her impatience. Every second they lingered here, Peter got further away. Already the trail grew cold and her chances of catching him were dwindling.
Had something happened in the Lower that she wasn’t aware of? Something both Ryu and Dewdrop had neglected to notify her about?
“Take a look at what you’re wearing and then where you’re standing.” He pointed at her with his blade.
Tate looked down at her outfit. It smelled a little smoky but otherwise looked fine despite a pursuit across the city, changing to and from her dragon, and then a dash through the back alleys of the Lower.
She gently touched the tip of the dragon’s wings and looked up, not hiding her confusion.
Blade heaved a long sigh, expressing his impatience at her stupidity. “Anyone who sees you right now is going to assume the emperor sent you. How do you think they’re going to react to that?”
It was something Tate should have considered from the beginning. Usually, she would have; if she hadn’t been so focused on catching Peter.
There was a reason the Night Courts had such a strong presence in Cliff’s Shadow and Seaside, two of the worst slums in the city. The people who lived here didn’t stay if they had anywhere else to go. In society’s eyes, they were the discarded dregs, either too lazy or too stupid to make anything of themselves. It didn’t matter that most of those born here; died here. They never had the opportunity to be anything or anyone else.
In the lottery that was life, they’d lost as soon as they took their first breath.
In Cliff’s Shadow and Seaside, there were no city workers to clean the streets as they did in the rest of the city. No one to service the nonexistent glow lamps. For all intents and purposes, it was a neglected island in the middle of the city. A no man’s land the city officials didn’t want to concern themselves about.
“You’re not saying this out of concern for my safety.” Tate was very certain of that.
“No.”
She thought as much. With Ilith as her backup, there weren’t many things out there that qualified as a threat. Blade was an exception, as were the two Lucius’s. She had a feeling there were other sleeping giants in the various courts, but as long as she kept her distance and didn’t go out of her way to offend them, they wouldn’t bother with her.
“What’s your reason, then?”
The wisest choice would be to listen to Blade and walk away, but Tate couldn’t help feeling that would be a mistake.
Blade had gone out of his way to deliver this cryptic warning. It deserved to be taken seriously. To do that, she had to understand.
“The atmosphere in the city is strange right now. Any strain could be the match that ignites a riot.”
Translation—Blade feared Tate waltzing into their territory and doing what she did best. Stomping on any toes in the vicinity and becoming that match he was talking about.
The worst part was, she couldn’t exactly blame him or the Lucius’s for having that opinion of her. She did have a history, after all.
“Do you know what is causing it?” Tate asked.
Blade’s gaze turned inward. “There has been an increase in the number of sleepers moving through our territory. Normally, we get about a dozen a year between all the courts. We’ve had twice that in the last month alone. Almost all of them have been extremely aggressive and needed to be put down.”
“Jaxon was right,” Tate murmured to herself.
The sleepers were waking. If true, it was happening sooner than she’d thought.
Blade gave her a sharp look. “You know something?”
Tate pressed her lips together. Jaxon’s message had been clear. The containment used to keep the sleepers in their sleep was due to fail eventually. It could happen tomorrow or a century from now. The only thing that was clear was that it would happen.
She’d kept news of this to herself for fear of how people would react. Already, half the city feared and despised the sleepers, who were the last remnants of the Creators’ desire for power. More than human, their skills and attributes varied.
Some were like Night who appeared animal but had a human’s intelligence and reason. Others were like Dewdrop and could blend in with humans more easily while still carrying the genetic traits that caused them to be sleepers in the first place.
People like the Black Order wanted to vilify sleepers as hyper-aggressive monsters that needed to be eliminated. Only they weren’t all monsters. They were like humans in that respect. A few bad apples spoiling the whole bunch.
Tate could see why people were tempted to fall into that trap. It was more complicated having to judge each one based on the merits of their own behavior. Much easier to see a monster and stab it rather than try to have a conversation and understand.
Right now, the Night Courts had the h
ighest population of sleepers with the exception of the Avertine, a traveling group of performers comprised almost entirely of sleepers and their descendants.
If Blade and the Night Court realized they were about to be invaded, would they still allow those sleepers who weren’t a threat into their ranks?
“If you know something, you need to tell me,” Blade pressed.
Very well. This problem was bigger than Tate could solve on her own. Maybe warning people was necessary.
“There is a possibility the sleepers are waking,” Tate said.
“That’s not new. It’s been going on for centuries.”
Tate found herself avoiding eye contact with Blade. “I mean all of them. Every sleeper that remains.”
An awkward silence, at least on Tate’s side, fell. She chanced a glance up at Blade only to find him staring at her with an intent gaze.
“How long have you known about this?”
Tate became very interested in the building walls that made up the alley’s boundaries. What was the material they used to build this? It certainly wasn’t stone. A plaster of some type?
“Tate.”
Wow. Tate was impressed. It was only a single word, not a particularly interesting one either, yet it contained enough threat to make Tate, who absolutely hated people telling her what to do, consider answering.
Before she could, a flash of movement over Blade’s shoulder along the roof line caught her attention. The outline of a bearcat briefly appeared, followed by a pair of eyes that shone before disappearing again.
Night. Perfect timing as always.
The invisible unease over having lost Peter’s trail vanished. She could leave this in Night’s capable paws. In light of Blade’s revelations, it was probably for the best. Night was the better tracker. Add in the fact he was a master at moving undetected—Archie notwithstanding—and that he understood the tunnel’s layout better than anyone, having spent years down there after he’d awoken, and he was their best bet for finding and catching Peter.
Not wanting Blade to realize Night had just infiltrated his territory, Tate decided a misdirection was needed. “Sleepers. Sleepers. How long have I known this again?”