by Romi Hart
The other men erupted into another spate of snorting and chuckling behind their hands. Isabelle gulped and braced herself for the inevitable. She took the last step toward the porch, turned around, and lowered herself into the space. She had to wedge herself between the two men. They stank to High Heaven of something she couldn’t identify. It assaulted her senses and made her sick to her stomach.
She smashed her hands between her knees. How long would Malachai take before he came back? Maybe he tricked her and planned to leave her here with these people.
Izzy sat in silence for a minute. Then he leaned his head toward her. He murmured in her ear without facing her or looking at her at all. “He’s a peach, that one.”
She snapped around and stared at the side of his head before she faced front in a hurry. “Who—Malachai?”
He nodded at nothing. “The girl that catches him might as well be winning the goddamn lottery. That boy is solid fucking gold.”
A murmur went through the group. Someone responded with, “Word.”
Another man answered, “You got that right.”
The blood rushed to Isabelle’s cheeks listening to these people talking about Malachai. What did they know about him that she didn’t? She knew nothing about him, nothing at all, whereas he sure seemed on intimate terms with them.
Izzy sat in silence for a while. Isabelle hoped and prayed to anybody that he might forget about her when he breathed to himself again. “He ain’t never brought a woman home before….”
Isabelle cringed again, but at that moment, Malachai himself came striding up the sidewalk. She didn’t see where he came from. He took another wide step over the fence lying half-sprawled in the dirt. He walked right up to the porch. “It’s all good. Come on. Thanks, fellas.”
The group replied with a random collection of phrases that Isabelle didn’t catch. She was never so happy to get to her feet. Malachai escorted her back to the sidewalk. She accompanied him half a block before she woke from her reverie. “Hey! Hold it.”
He swung around to confront her. “What is it now? I told you it’s not safe for you on the street.”
She glanced back toward the house. “Who were those people?”
“Them? They’re the Hitchcocks. They’re solid. You don’t have to worry about them.”
“Well…..” She waved around her. “What the hell is going on? When are you going to explain to me….?”
He waited again. “What? What do you want to know? I’m taking you somewhere safe. That’s all you need to know.”
She reared back and crossed her arms. Now that she started thinking again, the fog evaporated from her mind. “No fucking way. I’m not going anywhere with you until you explain a few things. You’re…..” She flapped her hand up and down in front of him. “You’re not human. I don’t know what you are, but everyone around here seems to know all about you—everyone except me. How do you expect me to trust you when you won’t tell me who and what you really are? Riley knows, doesn’t she? She knows all about you. She lives with you in that…. that building of yours—Ogru-Kuche. That’s what you call it, isn’t it? What is it? What is……this?” She scanned the neighborhood like she was seeing it for the first time.
In a fraction of a second, she realized what he was trying to tell her earlier. Her eyes were open, but she didn’t see. She couldn’t see what was right in front of her face. Something was missing, something hidden.
He squared his shoulders. A strange expression came across his face. A wall came down that wasn’t there before. It barred her from him. He blocked her from himself in a new and different way. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She knew, though. A switch flipped in her head. She saw it all in one swirling vision. “You’re not human. I saw scales on your skin last night and I found reptilian DNA in your blood sample. All these people…..” She studied the kids and dogs and men and houses. The puzzle pieces floated around her head just waiting for the right nudge to make them fall into place. “They all know about you. They think an awful lot of you. They think you’re like winning the lottery so they must know about your…..” She hesitated to say his problem. No one around here considered it a problem.
He let his shoulders sink. He cast one quick look to his right and held out his hand to her. “Look, Isabelle. There are a lot of things around here you don’t understand. Just come with me and I’ll take you somewhere safe. It’s not far away.”
She retreated from his touch. “How did you heal your leg? How did you recover so fast from a life-threatening injury? Tell me that much.”
He let his arm drop one more time. He regarded her from a distance. “I didn’t heal my leg.”
She opened her mouth. A thousand more questions crowded to get out, but his stillness told her he wouldn’t tell her the truth.
She surveyed the neighborhood one last time. “Riley found out about you, didn’t she? That’s what you meant when you said she was different. She found out the truth and she married your brother.” She snorted to herself. “She’s lucky. I envy her.”
She turned away, but he didn’t move. He gazed down at her and his eyes sparkled. Something quiet and unmoving settled into the middle of him. “She didn’t find out. She became one of us.”
Isabelle whipped around and arched her eyebrow at him. “What?”
“She became one of us. She couldn’t marry him if she didn’t.”
She picked her jaw up off the sidewalk. “One of you? You mean….?” She couldn’t look around fast enough.
He lowered his voice to a murmur. “All these people are…..” He cut it off.
She fixed her eyes on him. She couldn’t get the clues to line up. “Are they all…. are they all reptilian like you?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head, but underneath his long eyelashes, he laughed. “You don’t understand.”
“How can I?” She shrieked at him in sudden exasperation. “How can you do this to me? Just tell me what the fuck is going on!”
She flew at him and pounded her fist into his chest. She did it before she could stop herself. He didn’t react at all. He just slouched there under the weight of this massive secret.
It colored the whole neighborhood. She sensed it lurking there just beneath the surface. Everybody knew except her.
She turned around and looked toward the Hitchcock house. Those men still lazed on the porch like none of this was at all out of the ordinary to them—because it wasn’t.
Right in front of her eyes, a little black boy in threadbare shorts appeared out of thin air. One minute, he wasn’t there. The next second, he blinked into view. He ran up to the porch and wrapped his brown little arm around the post. He lay against it while he chatted with those men.
Isabelle’s mouth fell open for the thousandth time in a few days. “Holy fucking shit! What the….?”
She gaped at the little boy. He looked perfectly normal. He exchanged a few more words with the men before he took off. He got halfway across the yard and vanished again like he was never there.
Isabelle blinked at the spot, but she couldn’t yell anymore. She could barely whisper. “What the hell is going on?”
Malachai’s voice floated into her mind. “We’re mutants, Isabelle. We’re New Breed. We’re not human.”
She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t protect herself from those awful words. They bombarded her cheeks and eyes and the very depths of her consciousness. They destroyed her and her whole world, but she couldn’t stop them from coming. They entered her through her pores and her lungs and her hair.
“There was a toxic spill down near the Biloxi State Wildlife Management Area south of town. It got into the water and it mutated the people into….” He stopped.
She couldn’t move, not even to confront him. She could hardly breathe. Her very soul hurt. “Into what?”
“Well, into a lot of things. It mutates everyone in different ways. It mutated a bunch of us into shifters of different kinds. My
family are all dragon shifters. That’s why you found reptilian DNA in my blood. We can change into dragons. Some changed into cat shifters or wolf shifters or monster shifters or whatever. Others became wizards and magic wielders and….”
Her chin fell on her chest. She shut her eyes and burst out laughing. She couldn’t stop shaking her head. Those words kept penetrating her being. They drove their needle spikes into her bones and into her flesh. She could almost feel the poison water transforming her into something…..something alien.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Don’t you believe me?”
Her head swung up. The neighborhood looked so, so much different all of a sudden. None of those mysterious puzzle pieces whizzed around searching for a place to live—not anymore. Now they all had a home in one coherent system. Only she remained outside. “Oh, I believe you. I believe it all.”
“What’s so funny?” He breathed in her ear. He wavered there so close to her raw, battered skin.
She opened her eyes. Oh, she opened them, all right! She saw everything, everything he just said. It all made perfect sense when he said it like that.
He touched her arm and a jolt of scorching power shot to her chest. “We have to get off the streets, Isabelle. I’m going to take you to one of our safe houses. My brother Victor said you can stay here for a while—at least until we figure out what to do about you.”
She spun around. She looked right at him. Even he looked different to her now. “What do you mean—do about me?”
“Well, it’s not like we can let you walk around on the street. You know about us now. That means you’ll never be safe from the human world.”
Her eyes popped. “The human world! I am human.”
His shoulders slumped. “Yeah. I know.”
She didn’t move. She couldn’t make up her mind about…. anything.
He moved in and took hold of her arm. He turned her against her will. “Come on. Let’s go.”
11
Malachai marched toward Felix’s place, but Isabelle yanked her arm out of his grasp. “Hold up! I’m not going in there.”
He had to check the building to figure out what the problem was. “Why not? This is the safe house.”
“It’s a fucking whorehouse!” she blurted out. “You’re not taking me in there.”
He frowned at the building before he put together what she was talking about. “It’s only a whorehouse on the ground floor. Upstairs, they have apartments and stuff. Come on. This is the safest place for you. Trust me.”
She stood back eyeing the building curling her lip back from her teeth. A few girls hung out of the windows. Bouncy dance music and laughter floated through the open windows. Screams and cries echoed from behind the driving beat.
Just then, Alina Roxenburg appeared in an upstairs window. Her eyebrows flew up. She called out in a sing-song voice of invitation. “Hey, Malachai. Where you been, stranger? Are you coming upstairs?”
Isabelle recoiled as though Alina just slapped her across the face. Malachai saw the situation escaping from his hands. “We’re just going up to the apartment, Alina. Will you please tell Felix we’re here?”
Alina scanned Isabelle up and down and a shadow crossed her features. She stiffened and her smile melted. “I’ll tell him.”
“Thanks.” Malachai eased over to Isabelle. “Come on. It’s perfectly safe.”
She rounded on him baring her teeth. “Don’t tell me you frequent this…this place. I should have known.”
He chopped his hand through the air. “It’s not like that. Alina was a friend of mine when we were kids. I saved her life a few years ago when somebody beat her up and threw her unconscious body in the river. That’s all. She’s used to seeing me go through the whorehouse to the apartment on Crest business.”
Isabelle didn’t budge. “Crest? What do you mean?”
He glanced over his shoulder. He didn’t much care for the idea of confronting those military guys out here on the street. “Listen to me. I’ll explain anything you want to know once we get inside. Can we go upstairs now?”
She hesitated, but when he took her arm and propelled her into the building, she offered only marginal resistance. He honestly expected her to make his life a living Hell. He wasn’t anticipating her to come this quietly.
She bowed her head and refused to look right or left on the way through the bar. Men and women of every description called out greetings to Malachai. He did his best to nod and wave to them, but he didn’t stop until he got Isabelle to the stairs.
He pushed her up three flights to the very top floor. He unlocked the apartment with the key he got from Victor. He locked himself and Isabelle inside, but he didn’t relax until he checked the windows and shut the curtains.
She stalked to the nearest couch and flopped down on it. Her honey-blonde hair flapped against her shoulders and she crossed her arms over her chest. “How long do I have to stay here?”
“Until Victor can satisfy himself that you aren’t a danger to us anymore.”
“Me—a danger to you!” She huffed under her breath. “That’s a good one.”
He peeked through the curtains and crossed the room to the nearest closet. He took out a gun case and unclipped the latches. He cracked it open on the floor. “Yes, Isabelle. You are a danger to us, not the other way around. If you flapped your jaw to the whole world about us, the military would attack us. They would have no choice but to throw all their resources at us.”
She shook her head, but she refused to look at him. “I don’t believe you.”
“They’ve done it before.” He took out a shotgun and screwed the barrel onto the stock. “They would have to make all-out war on us if the public found out. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the last time they sent their forces into our territory. They want to wipe us out. Our anonymity is the only thing preventing them from bringing it all on. As long as they can plausibly deny why exactly they keep invading New Orleans, they can’t bring in all the forces they could. Even so, you’re putting all of us in danger just by being here. They’ll come after you. As long as we protect you, we’re in just as much danger as you are—maybe more. They don’t exactly have to worry about answering for it if they kill one of us.”
Her head jerked around and she stared at him. Her countenance went through a series of rapid changes before she snapped back and stared straight ahead.
He concentrated on putting the gun together—not that he would need it if the shit went down. He did it just to give himself something to do. He cracked the action and sighted through the barrels. It was all clean, of course. Victor wouldn’t keep guns in this apartment if they weren’t clean and ready to use.
Malachai leaned it against the table and picked up a rifle. He assembled it with methodical attention. He left Isabelle to stew. Now she knew about the New Breed. Victor didn’t give him permission to tell her everything, but she was already teetering on the edge of figuring it out for herself, so why not?
He didn’t really care to protect someone when they didn’t know what they were getting into. Isabelle was a guest of the Prometheus Crest now.
The second that thought crossed his mind, she picked it up through the ether. “What’s a Crest?”
He put the rifle next to the shotgun. “There are several house Crests of Anarock.”
“What’s Anarock?”
He paused in picking up the next gun. He cocked his head to examine her and discovered her features contorted in what looked like pain. Her eyes skipped around the room. She wouldn’t look at him.
He waved his hand. “This is Anarock. Anarock is a city—our city. It’s a shadow society hidden in plain view. You saw it out on the street, didn’t you? It’s us. It’s our world. It’s the world hidden beneath the surface, the world humans would like to pretend doesn’t exist. It’s mutants and magic users and monsters.”
She blinked up at him, but she didn’t answer. Did she understand a word he said? How could he expect a human to understand
what Anarock was? Anarock had to be seen to be believed. He couldn’t be certain she would ever see Anarock—not really.
She opened her mouth once before she got herself to speak. “What’s a Crest?”
He studied her for a second. She just didn’t get it. She was still in shock. He kicked the case closed and got up. He moved across the living room so she could see him clearly. He showed himself to her. Maybe if she looked at him long enough, she would see a man instead of a monster.
He sat down in an armchair across from her. He leaned back against the cushion and draped his arms over the sides. “A Crest is a house. It’s a group among our people. Our Crest is the Prometheus Crest. It’s the leading house Crest of Anarock and my brother Victor is the man in charge. Riley is his wife. Our Crest is dominated by shifters. Like I told you, the Griffin family is made up of dragon shifters, but we have supporters from all the different groups. A lot of people support the Prometheus Crest. Then there’s the NightRage Crest. They’re mostly magic users and wizards and stuff like that. They live over in Hoffman Triangle and Zion and places like that. We don’t mix with them much, but political alliances are always shifting. You know how it is.”
He observed the changes passing over her features. She didn’t hold to one of them long enough to put together any cogent response. Everything he said bounced off her.
“You asked how I healed my leg. A young man I know found me on my way home. He’s a monster belonging to the NightRage Crest. He has healing breath in his monster form. He fixed me and they brought me home. That’s how I healed my leg.”
She whipped around to stare at him. “What about Riley? How did she become one of you? Is she a monster, too?” She burst into hysterical giggles like that was the biggest joke imaginable.
“She’s a dragon shifter just like us. She was a pilot stationed at Barkman Air Force Base. She got scrambled to fight dragons who were flying over the countryside. She got shot down and she fell in the water. She changed into a dragon and came back here with Victor. That’s what happened to her.”