“That’s the smell. I kept...doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “I’m paid to clean to the end of this corridor. I’m paid to keep the office area clean. And I’m paid to keep the main warehouse area clean - and I’ve got to tell you, there was a mess made in there last night…”
“Tell me about that.” His eyes grew wide again. Too enthusiastic, Tira.
“I…I don’t really know anything,” he stammered. “I mean, there was some blood, and a few weapons strewn about. I mean, I think, if you ask me, I think they have an illegal fight club in there. But I’m not going to say anything, I just want to keep my job here, that’s it! They pay well, I need the money!”
“No, I get that.” I said, again going for friendly. Dealing with humans was more exhausting than I thought it would be.
“Who owns this place?” I redirected. The drumming in my head increased in cadence. I just wanted to shower and lie down. But I had no clue where to find Clay. I needed to learn all that I could. Even though I doubted the janitor knew much more.
“I don’t really know that either.”
“You don’t know who your employer is?” My voice sounded crisp even to me. Being friendly was harder than I thought it might be. I blamed my head and stench.
“I mean…” He looked flustered. “I’m not even paid by cheque. I’m paid under the table. But you’re not going to say, are you? I mean, that way I can still afford everything by not having to… oh, this is bad, isn’t it? This is bad,” he looked even more distressed than he had when a demon had popped up in front of him. “You’re going to tell on me, aren’t you? Are you from the IRS?”
“The what?” I asked, looking puzzled. “What the hell’s the IRS?”
“Um… okay. If you don’t know that, that’s okay.” he said. Now he looked like he was about to faint.
I felt very much the same.
“Okay, well, I’m going to go away, I guess. So you can keep cleaning and stuff. Hey, do you know where my weapons are?” I asked with a smile. I could really use my weapons, in case I got attacked again. I probably should have clarified that I didn’t intend to use them on him, since he grew even paler.
“Your weapons?” he asked, and he leaned slightly against the wall. Oh shit. He was going to pass out, wasn’t he? That wasn’t great. Or he might puke. I was gross enough, I didn’t need human puke on me on top of that. For all I knew, I had some on me already.
“Okay, never mind.” I held out my hands in a gesture of peace. The dog whined. I agreed. “Tell you what, I’m just going to go, and you keep on cleaning, okay? Don’t tell anybody that you saw me.”
He nodded and leaned against the wall as I walked past him down the corridor. There were three different ways to go. I looked back. He pointed left.
“Thanks,” I called out, my head now besieged by a steady hum. Time to go. The dog followed me and we soon found the main door and stepped outside.
The fresh air instantly cleared my lungs. I took a few greedy gulps followed by deep breaths, the pain in my head clearing somewhat. The night was cool and crisp, and more like fall than early summer.
Perfection. Except for the aches, gore, and missing BFF, anyway.
“Stay close to me,” I whispered to the dog, who didn’t seem interested in going anywhere else.
I took another deep breath and closed my eyes, the bright security lights on the side of the building exasperating my head wound. After a few steadying breaths, I reached out to the shadows, and felt myself pulled into them, comforted by their embrace. I reached out and touched the dog, folding him into the shadows, too, so he didn’t get scared by my sudden disappearance.
I walked carefully across the courtyard, intent on keeping us hidden and keeping us safe. I could head back to the halfway house. I didn’t know where else to go, really. But there would be no Clay. And no one to watch my back.
I was all alone, in a big, strange, scary world.
In a strange and unexpected twist, I found myself missing the comfort and familiarity of my tiny cell in the school.
Chapter Nine
After an hour of traveling cozily folded in shadows, I felt pretty confident that we weren’t being followed. I was also confident that I had no idea what to do next.
“Where the hell are you Clay?” I whispered. The dog beside me whined and placed his head under my hand again. I petted him. We kept walking together in silence.
“You don’t have to follow me,” I told the dog. I didn’t think that dogs understood when people talked, but some of them could be trained. I was pretty sure, anyway. “You can just head off and do whatever things you do. Dog things.”
He ignored me and continued to be my silent shadow as we crossed into a slightly more populated area. I folded more shadows around me.
The strip ahead of me was covered in lights. Some flashing, some steady, some colorful, some white. People strolled about in amazing clothes, some picking up the shine of the signs and reflecting it straight into my brain.
Usually I loved this area, but tonight, it made my head ache. My grasp on the shadows weakened as pain wrapped a vice around my brain. I leaned on a nearby wall and forced my feet to move down an alley. I collapsed beside a big garbage bin, having only natural shadows to rely on, the stink of the bin not nearly as bad as the one coming from me.
The puppy sat beside me. I wrapped my arms around my knees and lowered my head. Was it really only last night that I’d been in this same pose in solitary, when Clay had come to take some of the light away from me and keep me safe?
We’d been out here for not even a day, and I’d already lost him. I was in a strange world without a friend, and without a destination. What was I supposed to do? Just pick a guild? How was I even supposed to do that? Pick up pamphlets?
Shit, I missed school. I’d hated it, but I’d been safe. I hadn’t had to worry about what to do next. Tears streamed down my face, and I let them, imagining they cleansed some of the gore from my cheeks.
No. I didn’t miss school. I missed Clay. I missed not feeling alone in the world. And, truth be told, I missed having someone to guide me. I’d leaned on Clay for so long, following him into capers and battles, relying on his contacts and plans, that I didn’t really know how to do any of it by myself.
That would have to change.
If I were to save Clay, I’d have to smarten up real fast.
“No weapons,” I mumbled, the sound of my own voice snapping me back to the dark alley. “No friend.” The dog whined beside me. I lifted my head, smiled, and patted him.
“One friend here. One missing friend.” I corrected myself. The dog wagged its tail.
“First, shower and sleep. And food.” It wasn’t really a plan, but it was next steps. It would be dawn in a few hours, so I could sleep the day away. Go back to the warehouse at dusk, when no one expected me and I wasn’t in such rough shape. A good night’s sleep would do wonders for me.
And I could look for tracks. Some kind of trail. Maybe my janitor friend would have stumbled on something.
I’d ask. Nicely.
“I guess we can keep each other safe,” I told the dog as I stood up and stretched. Okay, time to stop moping and head back to the halfway house. I pulled up my hood over my head. I was a mess, but folding the shadows around me hurt my head too much right now.
I glanced at the street, surprised to see a few Traded walking with the humans. A woman with silver hair walked by, angel wings trailing behind her. Pearlescent skin, purple eyes.
An angel. She was an angel, just like I was a demon. I wondered again where the Traded came from, and where my true home was, knowing that the angel must wonder the same thing.
The sight of someone so different, like me, invigorated me.
“Let’s do this,” I mumbled. I put my hand on the dog’s head, made sure my hood covered as much of my face as possible, stuffed my hands in my pockets, and walked out onto the crowded and fluorescent stretch of street.
No one stopped me.
No one asked anything of me. No one even gasped at the sight of me.
Still, by the time I ducked down the side streets and found the halfway house, I was exhausted. The day had taken its toll, not being able to hide in the shadows being the most taxing of all. I stumbled into the house and found our cots.
The room was still empty, so I collapsed on my bed, too tired to immediately bathe. Who cared, anyway. Everyone else, it seemed, had found somewhere better to be.
Now that I lay here, alone in the dark, I found that I couldn’t sleep, my mind riddled with worry. What had Clay told me before going on this heist? Not much of use.
But we had been tested the day before, apparently. And Clay had acted a bit off when we’d left the school. I walked back through the day, reliving the moments and conversations.
Fatigue completely left me as I realized he’d deflected a very important question. He’d never answered if he’d received a guild invitation, asking me if I had, instead.
I hadn’t.
I hadn’t, and I’d told him.
But Clay had never answered the question.
I bolted up, ignoring the throbbing of my head, and turned on the small light just above Clay’s bed. I looked at the sheets, the pillows, even under the mattress. I found nothing. But these hiding spots were all too obvious. If Clay had to hide something, he wouldn’t have just left it there. Somebody would have stolen it.
What would he have done?
I turned to look at the dog, who sat beside the bed, looking at me with curiosity.
“Can you smell this, and figure out anywhere else that this smell is? Like, find the trail?” the dog cocked its head and looked at me. Let’s go more practical instead of full sentences. I picked up Clay’s pillow and handed it to the dog.
“Find him! Find where he went!”
The dog stood back up, sniffed the pillow, wagged its tail, and started to follow a trail down the room towards the back, where the door to the men’s’ bathroom stood. The dog wagged its tail at it.
I propped it open and glanced in. Nobody was there. I stepped in. This place was filthy disgusting. Not, like, dead animal room disgusting, but more like concentrated gross into one small space. The signs all over the walls that the Traded were responsible for cleaning their own space were ripped down or rebelliously filthy.
I tried not to look at what was on the walls and floors and ignore the wads of debris as I followed the dog.
I felt like I matched this place a bit too much. I really needed a shower. I needed a shower, and I needed a change of clothes, or at least to clean the ones I was wearing. And I needed to not be in this room anymore.
It wasn’t the worst thing that I’d smelled over the last few hours - but it came close.
The dog led me to the garbage can in the back of the bathroom, near some urinals, which I tried very hard not to look at. The dog stopped, sat down, and stared at the garbage can.
“In there?” I asked.
He lifted his paw, as though to indicate it.
“Great.”
Sometimes, it’s best not to think about what you’re touching, or what you’re doing. I mean, I was wearing gloves, but even the gloves didn’t quite feel like enough to block what I was touching.
Had I not been so suspicious of Clay’s behavior, and wanting so badly to be proven wrong, I would have stopped. Hopefully I didn’t find something really gross left there by Clay. Some bathroom habits were best not shared between friends.
I shuddered. This bathroom garbage was a great hiding spot, though. According to what I was finding, this hadn’t been emptied in a long, long time.
I gagged a couple of times, my stomach rising into my throat, and pushed it back down, focused on finding whatever Clay had left there. Finally, I gave up on digging through the garbage, and just kicked it over. This place was so messy that nobody would even notice.
A package covered in black cloth caught my attention. Clay wore exclusively black, so it could be his. Nothing else really jumped out at me, so I picked it up. The dog stood up, looking pleased.
“Good boy, Max,” I said. Max. That was a good name for the dog. He was helping me, so he deserved a name, right?
Satisfied that I’d found what I needed, I walked out of the bathroom. The package could wait for now. I couldn’t stand myself anymore, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to uncover my friend’s secrets just yet.
It was time for a shower. It was quite past time, really.
I stepped into the other facilities marked for women. A much cleaner space greeted me. I’d matched the other bathroom more.
Ugh, it was definitely time to shower.
“Come on,” I told Max, and he followed along. I turned the shower on, pleased that it had hot water. I loved heat. I peeled off layers of clothes and threw them in the bottom of a shower stall, which looked refreshingly clean, and tossed some soap on them.
That could just get sprayed for a while.
I turned another shower on, already reveling the thought of warm water washing away the grime.
“Come on,” I told Max, who also stank to high heaven. And that cut needed to be washed, so infection didn’t set in.
He cocked his head, his ears on the alert.
“Don’t tell me you don’t like getting wet.” He looked at me. I sighed, and coaxed him closer. He took a hesitant step forward, then stopped.
“Come on,” I stood up and coaxed him into the gentle stream. He went in, but looked really unhappy. He whined and wriggled a bit, but let me soap him up and clean him. I gently cleaned his wound, softly speaking to keep him calm as he trembled a bit.
Poor thing. Nobody should have to go through that.
Once I was satisfied with my work, I let him step out. He did and shook his fur dry, his tail low as he found a corner to sit in and lick off the remaining water.
“Everyone’s a critic,” I sighed, and then focused on washing my hair and skin, and then my clothing. The only thing that would have made this even more heavenly would have been a hot bath. I threw on my blue school jumper, which would do for pajamas, and hung my clothes to dry.
I felt drained. The heat had sapped my remaining strength and energy, but I couldn’t sleep until I dealt with the black cloth, and what it contained.
“Come on, Max,” I whispered. The dog stood up and followed, though he looked exhausted, too. Cloth in hand, I headed back to my cot. The whole place was still completely empty. Darkness still reigned outside, but dawn would probably break through soon.
Clay’s cot felt more private than mine had, so I slipped into it instead. The dog lay down at the foot of the bed. I now understood what wet dog smelled like, but it smelled infinitely better than gory dog, so I liked it. I scratched his ear and he closed his eyes, snoring almost immediately.
I grinned, comforted by the presence, and took out the black bundle of cloth. I undid the knot and slipped the contents onto the bed. This was definitely Clay’s. I recognized his scribbling on some of the papers. I guessed it was the details for our ill-fated heist. There was a name, a location, a time. That was it, but it was more than I’d known before.
I was surprised that Clay had written it down at all. But he’d been worried about his memory lately, having taken one too many hits to the head during all of his various fights. I guess he’d just started to cover himself to make sure that he didn’t forget. That was smart.
Clay wasn’t stupid. Lots of people thought he was because he didn’t always speak quickly, or speak his mind right away, and he tended to brood a lot. But he was sharp. He just didn’t feel the need to announce his opinion every two seconds, like some people.
And Clay was loyal. Clay had never let me down before, and I certainly didn’t intend to let him down either.
My heart dropped as I saw something else on the crumpled sheets. It was a medallion. Unless I was mistaken - and I knew I wasn’t - it was a guild medallion. I didn’t recognize it, but Clay had received an invitation to a guild. On one side of t
he medallion, some kind of explosion was depicted. On the other side, a mace - all spikes and strength and nastiness. Maybe he’d been invited to join some kind of demolitions club? I didn’t know, and my mind was growing foggy from pain, fatigue and worry.
Why hadn’t he told me? Why wouldn’t he tell me? Was it because I hadn’t received an invitation myself? Was he worried about that? Maybe he’d hoped that he could bring me along, and just wanted to figure out how to first?
That had to be it. We’d never really been separated since we’d met at the Margrave Academy. And being separated now? Well, it wasn’t the best feeling in the world.
“Be safe, Clay,” I whispered, my words punctuated be the dog’s snores. “I swear I’m going to find you.”
The day had been long, and my head began to throb again. I turned off the light beside the bed, lowered my head, clutching the medallion in my hand. The bed was small, and made smaller by the dog, who was as wet as me.
But I was comforted knowing that I wasn’t alone. That I’d found some kind of ally in the insanity of this day. Despite my worry for Clay, I quickly slipped into blessed sleep.
#
A growl hummed in the background of my dream.
Clay and I are on a heist, running towards something and from something. It’s dark, even too dark for my night vision, and I can’t see him. I try to reach out to him, but he’s nowhere. And I’m alone, unable to see anything, knowing I’m chased when I’m supposed to be the chaser.
The growl increased.
A bark joined it. I snapped awake, my hand instinctively going towards the dagger that I normally kept under the pillow, sheathed, of course. I’d learned that lesson the hard way. Except the dagger wasn’t there, and I remembered that I was weaponless.
The darkness over me changed in quality as a shadow crossed the threshold of my eyelids.
Before I could act, the dog barked, and his weight left the bed as he leapt. And then, a thunk and a yelp.
My eyes snapped open. I pushed myself to my knees - but before I could leap or get in any sort of position to attack, a blow came for the side of my head. I caught it with my arm, gritting my teeth not to yell with the pain.
Hell Born Page 6