by T. A. White
“I guess we should get this over with.” Dewdrop was obviously reluctant as he stepped onto the stairs. “I was really hoping I’d never have to visit this place again.”
The woman sent him a sharp look. “You’ve been an inmate?”
Tate supposed she shouldn’t blame the woman for the judgment she could hear in her tone. If her job was to guard the criminals of society, she’d feel a little uneasy having one of those former criminals look behind the curtain.
“Not me.”
It made Tate curious. There were only a few scenarios Tate could think of that would account for Dewdrop’s prior experience with this place. She couldn’t see him visiting fellow pickpockets as that would mark him as a criminal. If you were up to no good, you’d hardly want to draw the attention of others.
Perhaps his brush with this place had to do with a prison break. Maybe that’s why the Lord Provost’s people guarded both directions. It was a fanciful notion but fit what she knew of Dewdrop and the Night Court. She could see her young friend being that bold and reckless.
“This place is creepy.” Dewdrop shivered, eyeing the walls around him with distaste.
By now they’d descended two levels and the air had become damp and chilly. If she’d thought the aura of this place was bad above ground, it was even worse below, as if the silent screams of the damned echoed off the walls.
“Guilty conscience?” Ryu asked.
“No. I simply hate being below ground with Tate.”
“What do I have to do with this?”
He sent her a look that asked if she was really going to pretend to be innocent. “You know as well as I do that something weird always happens when you enter anything even remotely resembling a tunnel.”
Tate’s mouth clicked shut. Much as she wanted to deny it, he was right. Someone always ended up bleeding whenever she ventured below. It was enough that she’d begun to develop a complex over it.
Tate stopped. “This place isn’t connected to the tunnels, is it?”
It was a stupid question. Even if it wasn’t part of the tunnels outright, there was every chance there was a link somewhere. This was Aurelia, home to the biggest known network of tunnels. Under the city was practically a beehive of passages that intersected and doubled back on themselves. Tate was a little surprised the ground below the city hadn’t collapsed, as riddled with holes as it was.
“No. The Deeps have been completely cut off from any connection with Aurelia’s tunnels and we do regular sweeps to make sure nothing has burrowed its way in,” the woman explained in a confident voice that did nothing to quell Tate’s anxiety.
In Tate’s experience, if something could go wrong it usually did. She didn’t know if Christopher had allies who would be willing to break him out of a place like the Deeps but if anyone did, it would be him.
Tate didn’t say anything about her doubts as they continued their descent, passing several levels guarded by more of the Lord Provost’s people. The guards took note of them, tensing before relaxing once they saw their escort.
It made Tate grateful for the other woman’s presence. This trip would have been a lot more tedious if they’d had to prove their right to be here on every level. Tate couldn’t help but feel glad George had enraged Ryu. She suspected from the brief confusion at their appearance that George and Ben were supposed to have acted as their escorts. Ben wouldn’t have been so bad, but George had proven she wasn’t trustworthy.
Further and further down they went until they finally reached the end.
“This is it,” the woman said, stopping in front of a door with two statues standing guard on either side. The gray of their skin provided camouflage, allowing them to blend in with the stone around them.
Their expressions fierce as they stood at attention, holding spears. Most interesting was the fact that they weren’t human, nor were they any other race Tate recognized. Their faces were almost beastlike, human features mixed with animal. Their snouts were elongated, and they had furry pointed ears. Each wore a chest plate and complicated looking sandals that reached their calves.
Tate studied the statues, feeling like they were all too familiar. They gave off the same feeling as the statues in Silvain.
Dangerous, Ilith whispered.
Tate hummed an agreement. She’d only caught a brief glimpse of what those statues had been capable of since she’d been preoccupied with other things, but they’d left a deep impression on her. More importantly, she’d seen the aftermath of what they’d done. The dismembered bodies, the shell-shocked look of those who’d been present. It had been a very memorable experience.
She hadn’t thought to ever see statues like those again since their power source was rather unique.
“This is the real reason the former emperor chose this spot for the Deeps,” Ryu said, coming up beside Tate. “After seeing what the sentinels in Silvain did, I have to agree with that sentiment. Sometimes I’m surprised by the depth of creativity and sadism present in our Saviors.”
It did make you wonder whether the differences between the two groups even mattered in the end. The Saviors, Tate was coming to find, weren’t as good or squeaky clean as legend made them out to be. They’d been human, as prone to temptation as everyone else.
“You’ll have to go alone from here.” The woman sent a cautious look at the statues.
“How lovely, we get to venture into a prison cell containing a madman guarded by homicidal statues while our escort stays behind. This has all the makings of a disaster. I should have stayed and helped Night with whatever nonsense he was up to instead,” Dewdrop said sarcastically.
“As unnerving as this place is, the sentinels serve their purpose. There’s a reason no one has ever successfully escaped from this level. They can’t be bribed or threatened. They never need sleep or food. They’re the perfect guards,” Ryu said.
“So, if we get stuck on the other side, no one is going to save us.”
Ryu’s smile touched his eyes. “There is that.”
“Comforting,” Tate muttered.
“It should be fine.” Ryu paused and gave it some thought. “Probably.”
Tate and Dewdrop stared at him.
“You suck at making people feel better,” Tate finally said.
Dewdrop nodded several times in agreement.
Ryu headed toward the door, lifting his hand and murmuring several words. The door opened.
The sentinels came to life, their heads turning toward Ryu as their eyes glowed briefly. He didn’t pay them any attention as he touched his chest then pointed at Tate and Dewdrop, a couple of words said in ancient coming from his mouth.
Tate’s rusty memories allowed her to understand.
“Temporary Acceptance.”
When he was done, he gestured at the open door. “Shall we?”
“Sometimes I’d like to kick my younger self for picking a fight with you.” Dewdrop watched the door with a grim expression. “I’d have a much longer life expectancy.”
Tate moved toward the door. “No one said you had to come along.”
Dewdrop gave her a look and started after her. Sticking his hands in his pocket, he strolled in Tate’s wake as she entered the room first.
Singing floated from a man sitting in a corner. The melody off putting as the pacing constantly changed. The verses themselves were also disjointed and broken. Nothing about them making sense.
Tate caught something about a moon eating another while an octopus dragged the sun out of its orbit. Then a part about a dragon who swallowed the sea.
The singing stopped, but the man still hummed softly to himself as he rocked back and forth. He wore a thin shirt and pair of pants that couldn’t possibly have been enough to protect him from the cold and damp. His clothes hung off his body, making him seem almost skeletal. His hair was dirty and unkept, brushing his shoulders.
Dewdrop leaned toward her. “Why isn’t he locked in a cell?”
“No need. The prisoners can’t escape s
o they’re allowed to roam free,” Ryu explained.
“How do you keep them from killing each other?” Dewdrop asked, looking around him with an uneasy expression.
“We don’t.”
Tate and Dewdrop sent him identical looks of disbelief. Tate didn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t this. Survival of the fittest was a brutal method to keep prisoners in check. More importantly, if the occupants were free range, it meant they could attack at any moment. In this small space, it would be difficult to summon their dragons for defense.
Dewdrop’s eyes narrowed on Ryu. “This is revenge, isn’t it? That’s why you didn’t warn us.”
“What would I need revenge for?”
Even Tate didn’t believe Ryu’s overly innocent expression.
Dewdrop pointed at Ryu. “You could have at least told us to bring weapons for defense.”
Ryu’s smile was mild. “The sentinels would have prevented you from passing if you had a weapon.”
Dewdrop’s cheeks puffed out in an adorable expression of anger that belied the damage she knew he could inflict if he put his mind to it. Tate resisted shaking her head at them. Males. They were so weird sometimes. She did not understand this strange bonding method of theirs.
A soft hiss of laughter entered Tate’s mind.
Fun. We should play too.
Not happening. Weirdness was contagious. What if she caught it? There was already enough chaos in her life; she didn’t need more.
Tate kept her focus on her surroundings, noting the position of the prisoners who were keeping their distance. For now.
Tate’s small party drew the attention of everyone present. Not that there were many. A woman talked to herself as she twirled the ends of her hair with her fingers. She stood in an entrance to a hall that branched off this room. There were several branches, Tate realized. The better to ambush people from.
Another man sat on top of a mound of bones like they were a throne and he the king, watching them with hungry eyes. His hair was long. Like the singing man, his clothes were thin but more threadbare. His feet were also bare. They rested on top of a skull, his toes occasionally flexing on it.
A few others were scattered throughout, moving away as Tate advanced toward the singing man.
“These people seem more crazy than criminal,” Dewdrop observed.
“Wouldn’t you be too if you spent years locked away from the sun?” a stranger said from right behind them.
At some point the man had left his throne of bones to shadow them. There’d been no warning and Tate hadn’t registered his presence before he spoke.
Don’t like him.
Tate nodded grimly in agreement. Not many people could sneak up on her and Dewdrop like that.
He looked fascinated as he stared at Tate. “Dragon-ridden. Female no less. How intriguing.”
“Step away, Tyne.” Ryu’s eyes promised pain if the man didn’t listen.
“You seem angry. Aren’t you happy to see an old friend?”
“I don’t consider failed usurpers my friends.”
Tyne lifted a shoulder. “We all make mistakes.”
“Except most times those mistakes don’t cause you to betray the people you swore an oath to. Nor do they result in the death of hundreds.”
“That’s war for you. People die.”
“Charming,” Dewdrop drawled.
The man’s gaze moved to Dewdrop for the first time. “False bravado is only for the weak minded.”
Dewdrop looked at Tate with a disgusted expression. “Why do the people we run into keep getting weirder and weirder?”
“It’s our curse.”
“Your curse; not mine.”
She patted his shoulder. “It became ours the moment you and Night decided to stick to me like burrs no matter how much I protested.”
“My younger self was quite foolish,” Dewdrop lamented.
The stranger smiled at them. “How cute your companions have grown.”
Tate had had about enough of him. Exchanging carefully veiled threats and enigmatic statements weren’t what she was here for.
Strangely, Ilith was silent during the conversation. Normally, she would have already offered to eat the stranger.
Putting her thoughts in the back of her mind, Tate told Ryu, “I’ll leave him to you.”
Not waiting for a response, Tate left the others behind making her way toward the man who’d been singing earlier.
She stopped behind him. “Hello, Christopher. Did you miss me?”
FIFTEEN
Christopher’s humming stopped.
“Nice place you have here,” Tate said, focusing on the back of his head. “It really makes a guest feel welcome.”
Christopher stirred. “Tatum Allegra Winters. It’s been an eternity.”
“Not long enough,” Dewdrop grumbled from a short distance away.
At that, Christopher’s head turned slightly. “Still dragging around the dead weight, I see.”
Tate held up a hand as Dewdrop started forward. She shook her head at him. Christopher wanted a reaction. It was best they didn’t give him one. He wasn’t the most stable of individuals to begin with and she didn’t expect his time locked away from the sun in this damp hole had done anything to change that.
“I saw Peter,” Tate told his back, changing the subject.
Christopher went still for half a second as he stared at the wall. Unable to see his face, Tate couldn’t tell how he was reacting to the news. It left her with little choice but to test the water.
“Not going to ask where? And here I thought you were friends.”
That finally sparked a reaction as Christopher turned to face Tate. To her surprise, his brown eyes were calm. Serene even. There was no hint of the madness she was used to seeing. If it was anyone else, she’d be tempted to question whether he was ever mad in the first place.
But this was Christopher. The only thing more dangerous than his insanity was his intelligence. She wouldn’t put it past him to pretend at sanity to get her to lower her guard.
“I thought you said I was incapable of having friends. What was it you said again? Ah, that’s right, I had a distressing tendency to kill every one of my allies.”
That was what Tate had thought. The Christopher she knew was the consummate survivor, willing to sacrifice anyone or anything that got in the way of his larger goals. As the months dragged on and he kept his silence, she was beginning to question that assertion.
She knew the Lord Provost’s people had offered benefits if Christopher was willing to inform on Peter. Like being moved to better accommodations. Even perhaps being transferred from the Deeps to a secure house somewhere else. He’d still be a prisoner, but he’d be a prisoner in a velvet cage.
He hadn’t taken them up on any of those offers, instead choosing to suffer in this place. There were only two reasons Tate could think of for that. Either, Peter’s importance to Christopher’s plans was much more extensive than Tate previously suspected, or the Silva man meant something to Christopher.
Tate still hadn’t decided which was the more likely scenario.
“But enough of such boring topics. I hear you’ve finally come out of the dark. Congratulations. It must feel good not to hide anymore. To allow your true name to be bandied about.”
Tate’s breathing suddenly felt loud in her ears as she fought to keep her reaction to his words off her face. How did he know she’d used her name in court? His surroundings should have practically guaranteed an information lock down on anything pertaining to the rest of Aurelia.
“I wonder how long before the thing you fear most comes to pass. Tell me, Tatum, do you think they’ll finally finish the fifth statue, or do you think the Guardians will choose to assassinate you to prevent the truth from tainting the memory of their beloved Saviors?” Madness lurked behind Christopher’s words. Hatred burned in his eyes.
There was the Christopher Tate knew and disliked. She’d been a little concerned for a
moment.
His loss of control helped center her. This man wasn’t some lost waif who needed saving. Just because he’d run afoul of an ancient artifact that had scrambled his brain, didn’t mean he was someone she could be merciful to. It was better for her future health and safety that she treat him as the threat he could so easily be.
“What? Curious as to how I know so much when I’m stuck down here?” he asked when she didn’t speak. He leaned forward. “I know everything.”
High pitched laughter echoed through the room as he sat back, the other inmates joining him.
Dewdrop grimaced with distaste. “So glad crazy-pants can still compete as most creepy person ever.”
Ryu watched Tate and Christopher with a blank expression that concealed whatever he was thinking.
“If you know everything, then you know what he wants?” Tate said finally.
Christopher examined his nails. “Maybe.”
So, it was going to be like that. Christopher was going to make it painful to drag out even the smallest of details.
Fine, if he wanted to play like that. Tate could be vicious as well.
“You know he doesn’t care about you. Why else would he have left you here?” She lowered herself to eye level with Christopher, crouching so they were face to face. “Or do you really think he’s coming after all this time?”
“What I think is that you’re desperate, Tate. You’re afraid you’re not going to be able to stop what’s coming, and it has made you turn to the one person you know you can’t trust. Even I wasn’t crazy enough to rely on my enemy for answers.”
Tate’s head tilted. “You know, I talked to your former Grandmaster about you.”
There. Finally, a reaction.
The skin around Christopher’s eyes tightened the faintest bit. He didn’t like this topic. Good. Tate was making progress. If he wouldn’t talk willingly, she’d see what shook loose if she destroyed his calm.
“Really, Tate, you should know by now you can’t trust anything that old man has to say. Haven’t you learned the depths of his greed? I’d have thought his order’s involvement with Nathan’s resurrection would have woken you up to the fact you can’t trust anyone in this doomed city.”