The Emperor

by N. M. Brown

  “What’s going on?” McQueen asked, leaning over and whispering in her ear. “What-… what’s will all the growls?” But his inquisitive questions were going to have to wait, because as she watched, the more Echo feared their fate.

  “Well,” The teen threw out his arms and smiled at Echo, his rotting yellow teeth jagged as gravestones. “It looks like we have guests!” He cried and drew a tremor from the crowd. The children listened. They fed off him, followed him… he was there leader. He had to be Shade... but that didn’t make sense. When she’d last been here, Shade had been tiny, small, barely over the age of six. Now… now he was at least sixteen.

  “This is just a sight to see.” Shade cooed and Echo tried not to backstep but instead of anger and violence in his voice, Shade was cheerful. Too damn cheerful. “Two Elders roaming my land, invading my kingdom. Now this will not do. No, that will not do at all.” He paused, “But to the first matter at hand.”

  With two steps, Shade was stood over their guide and in all the commotion she had risen her head, eyes gazing upward in adoration, and that was her downfall. Head back, like a trusting omega, her throat was exposed. The knife sliced across her skin, tore through cartilage and exploded blood across the sand floor before the poor girl could even blink.

  “NO!” McQueen screamed and his body launched forward, slipping past Echo, but before she could rip him back, there was a wall of defence. Sticks were branded, sharp metal was whipped out and McQueen ground to a halt in front of a battalion of armed cultists. “No, no, no.” McQueen continued and desperately looked at the fallen girl.

  Echo could tell he wanted to crawl over the blood-soaked sand and clutch the spurting artery. He would have crawled over hot coals if it meant there was a chance to save the girl, but he wasn’t paying attention. Shade hadn’t reacted, not even as the warm spray had brushed against his bare feet. Instead he’d examined his dull hunting knife in the candlelight, wiping the blood and gristle off onto his hand. Echo took that moment to pull McQueen back, grabbing his coat in a tight grip.

  Palm bloody, Shade smeared it down his face and onwards to his chest and as the trail ran out, Shade’s eyes flashed open with a fierce glare and let out a bellowing screamed. His cry echoed around the cavern and the hordes of followers copied. Soon the floor was shaking, the walls trembled, and Echo crouched by McQueen felt the power that came with every vibration.

  “He killed her.” McQueen muttered beneath the animalist noise. “She didn’t do anything.”

  Grabbing the muttering Detective, Echo heaved him upwards, wanting them both on their feet. “She did enough.” Which was the sad truth and only the half of it. Echo and McQueen were trespassing; not just trespassing, but they were outcasts. Elders were not allowed in the Under-ert. The punishment: death.

  “Brothers. Sisters. I am not happy.” Shade began to circle the room, keeping Echo and McQueen in the centre, but made sure that his subjects got a full view of him. “I am not happy that these Elders have been allowed to roam freely into our home! Into my Kingdom. And when I'm not happy, no one is rewarded.” A shriek of horror flew from the children around them, as rewards meant Dixie and Dixie was life down here.

  “You killed her!” McQueen cried, stuck on that little tid-bit. Echo clawed at his arms, but the thick winter coat she had so diligently told him to keep on, softened the bite of her nails. “I am going to make sure you rot in prison, you-,” But whatever McQueen could have tried to say, his words were stolen by a branch across his back, wielded by a toddler. Coughing a splutter, McQueen fell to his knees, dust clouding up around him.

  As he knelt there, dirty, blood splattered feet came to a stop under his nose and together, Echo and he looked up and saw the bare chest of Shade. “Maybe I’ll just be done with you now.” He twisted the knife in the air, a sneer on his lips.

  Echo, despite the very core of her being telling her not too, flinched as the knife swung close. The fresh tang of copper stung in her eyes and she thought for a second it might be the end, when a soft voice called across to them and Shade stilled. “Now, now my King. We haven’t had Elders among our ranks in many years, now have we?”

  Looking past the boy King, Echo watched as a girl she didn’t recognise slinked across towards them from the darkness.

  She, despite the dirt and the filth, stood out from everyone else in the room because she was dressed. Mahogany brown hair hung over each shoulder in braids tied off with leather cords and she walked slow enough the whole room could watch. Echo had never seen anyone under-the-earth wear shoes before and the more Echo examined the girl, the more her suspicion grew. The girl was swathed in layers of clothing: multiple skirts and dresses as well as an awfully expensive looking fur coat matted and streaked with grime. The fastest rule you learnt down here was that clothing was key: the more you had the warmer you stayed and the more opponents you’d taken them from. You were to be feared and this girl, whoever she was, had a lot for anyone under-the earth.

  Her dirty, filth encrusted hand reach out, slowly pulling Shade’s knife away as she seductively whispered in his ear. Echo was shocked Shade allowed someone so close to him, let alone contradict his actions. People had lost fingers for less.

  “We shouldn’t do away with them so rashly.” Echo felt the hairs of the back of her neck tingle as the girl – Shades’ Queen – sealed their fate. “We will make examples of them.”

  Shade stiffened and Echo thought he would at least gut the girl, but instead with horror she watched him smile, a gleam growing in his eyes as he revelled in the thought of their demise.

  Whoever this girl was Echo didn’t know but this was not like before. Before with Adin, it had been Shade and Shade alone who ruled this earth, but now there was this girl. Eyes leaving Echo’s, she nodded, her gaze off somewhere behind them and the only warning Echo had was the slight shift of sand by her foot, when suddenly the think end of a stick was rammed into her face.

  Pain flared, but it was all quick swept away as darkness took her.

  ◆◆◆

  The rough feeling of rock against her face awoke Echo, her nose crusty with sand and her teeth aching in the cold. Shifting, she slowly gathered her arms underneath herself, but found it difficult to rise. Looking over her shoulder, she saw a body covering her lower half, and as she shifted, McQueen groaned.

  “Get off me you lump.” She hissed and with what little energy she had, she pushed herself upright. McQueen moved upright too and looked aroudn in dismay. They were both, very much in Hell.

  “Damn it.” Echo growled watching the shadows flicker in the light of the candles that were scattered around them. Rubbing the back of her neck, she winced as her fingers brushed aside some hair. With gentle fingers she probed her temple and after feeling the medium sized lump there, Echo huffed. What was another injury among every single other one she had?

  Eyes closed, she tried to breath; tried to settle herself and feel the earth beneath her. Air rushed up her nose, but her throat closed as she smelt the same, cold earth. It was the same rotting stench that clotted the corridors, along with constant smell of blood. Opening her eyes, Echo took to breathing through her mouth and was pleased to see McQueen was up and awake too.

  “What is this?” He asked and together they took in their surroundings. In hindsight, she shouldn’t have been shocked by what they found. What had she expected, a bed? A window? Instead they were greeted with this inside of an egg. A small room with a domed ceiling and a curved base; the walls rough with uneven rocks. There only exit was an oval hole, covered by nothing more than a flimsy piece of cotton.

  “Home.” Echo slumped, rubbing her gritty fingers across her scalp while stretching out her back processing the situation they were in. “At least for the next few hours… days if we’re unlucky.”

  “Days?” He cried in dismay. “We don’t have days Echo. We need back up. And social services. And search and rescue. There are children down here. So many children.” Echo watched as McQueen started to panic,
trying to rise to his feet and made for the exit. But as his fingers reached for the flap, sharp knives slashed out and he fell back with a yelp. “What… Are they holding us hostage now?”

  “Until Shade can decide what to do with us.” Echo didn’t like that, but what she didn’t like even more was that girl. She’d touched Shade’s arm. She pulled him back. She’d controlled him. No one ever controlled Shade.

  “We need to leave.” McQueen commented again as if it wasn’t obvious.

  “Well unless you want to get a knife to your gut, we won’t be going anywhere.”

  McQueen let out a harsh breath as if to tell Echo she was being ridiculous, but the spurt of gushing blood from the little girl’s neck must have flashed in his memories. “These kids…” he trailed off.

  “Don’t feel sorry for them.” Echo slid down so she was lying on her back, her hands folded across her stomach and her legs high up the wall. “Don’t get suckered in by their baby faces and tiny bodies.”

  McQueen looked down at her, annoyance in his gaze. “But they’re just children Echo. They don’t know any better. Look what happened to Red – our guide. Look what happened to Wendell. If these kids knew what their fate was - if they truly understood what happened here - they would want to leave.”

  Echo bit back a response, letting McQueen get it all out. These kids didn’t care about each other, only their own survival. But McQueen would learn that. Eventually.

  “If this is the fate for every kid here, the fate for Mitch and Johnny… The world they’ve been dragged into, we must get them out. All of them. We can-,”

  “No.” Echo spat. In the tight space it was hard but Echo still managed to clamber up quickly to kneel before McQueen, a fierce look in her eyes. “No, do not pity them Queenie. Don’t look at them with a mellow heart because they will rip it out.”

  McQueen opened his mouth to argue but Echo clamped a thin, pale hand over his mouth. Leaning right it, they were breast to breast, nose to nose and Echo could feel his galloping heart.

  “Listen to me very carefully Queenie- are you listening?” Echo paused, waiting long enough for McQueen to nod. “These kids are not kids. They are not lost pre-schoolers crying in the vegetable isle. They are not kids who’ve wandered away, or been kidnapped, brained washed and living with a fake family. They are not even children who have had the misfortune of being locked in a hole for fifteen years. Even those kids were fed, watered, and taught the basics of human interaction: yes, no, do, don’t.”

  McQueen shivered under Echo’s hand as he took in the fierceness behind her eyes. She hoped he saw no sorrow or pity there, just the raw need for him to understand. He had to, or the two of them would never find their way out of here. Slowly taking her wrist, he pulled her away and in the softest whisper, asked the question that Echo knew he’d ask. “So, tell me then. What are they?”

  “Animals.” Echo replied with conviction. “They’re not fed, they are not watered, they are not looked after in any sense of the word. You fend for yourself. You steal from others to become dominant or you scavenge by taking leftovers; bugs, worms, rats or anything else they can find.”

  “That’s inhuman.”

  “That’s survival.” Falling off her hunches, she mirrored McQueen on his knees. “You don’t get second chances here.”

  “There’s no discipline? Or order?” McQueen breathed, but it wasn’t a question; just a weary statement. “And they can’t leave, because of this drug, Dixie?” McQueen asked, trying to piece it all together. Echo remembered once doing the same; piecing together how Shade ran his Kingdom and what power he held.

  “Pretty much. If they get a toe on the food chain and survive their first few months, they don’t want to leave.” McQueen shot her a disbelieving look, and for once Echo happily continued. “They don’t remember their old life, or how they got here. ‘Monkey see, monkey do’, or in this case, ‘rabid child see, rabid child do’. They’re too busy working out how to win their next meal or gather their next bucket of water to try and escape. A few more weeks and they’re completely placid with their life. They don’t remember any better, they don’t know any better, they don’t want any better.”

  “It’s so cruel,” McQueen whispered.

  Echo shrugged, unsurprised by the truth of the situation. In most kidnapping cases, when a family member did not do it – which wasn’t very often – the child ended up in one of three places. The online Black Market where they were sold for pornography, enslavement, to perverts or other nefarious reasons. The other two options were to never be seen again or found dead. How many of the children down here had vanished without a trace? All of them, Echo would bet.

  “Don’t,” Echo ordered from the side of him as she watched the holy Detective get a far off look in his eyes.

  “Don’t what?” McQueen bit out.

  “Get that thought out of your head Queenie. You can’t save them. You can’t get them out of here and return them safely to their homes.” McQueen scowled as he realised Echo saw right through him.

  “Why not?” He whispered almost like sullen child. “Why can’t we save them? Cassi can work on the drug; she could find an antidote or a diluted version of the substance to ween them off…”

  Echo looked at him with a stern face, but McQueen just looked right back instead of listing all the reasons,

  So, with a half-cocked smile, Echo shook her head in pity. “You’ll see why Queenie. Give it a day, maybe two, and you’ll see why these creatures are un-saveable.” Sliding back down into a slump, she relaxed speaking softly, before rolling over onto her side. “But hope you don’t find out Queenie. You won't like the truth any more than my crazy ideas.”

  XXVI

  McQueen woke with a start and instinctively kicked out with his leg. He heard a muffed oomph and the sound of flesh hitting rock before he was even able to sit up.

  Darting forward, he ripped back the flimsy curtain and scouted the hall outside, but it was pitch black and soundless. Not even rats in the dirt could be heard. Rubbing his eyes, he cursed himself. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep; for one it was bloody uncomfortable, but secondly, he felt exposed. In such tight sleeping quarters, it was ridiculous, but there wasn’t a door to sleep behind, or a window to jump out of. There was only the raw earth and candlelight which made it all so… archaic. He felt unsafe.

  “What the hell happened?” Echo mumbled sleepily from his side.

  “I-… I felt something on my foot-… on my shoe.” McQueen corrected. Some of the candles had died, and those that were still lit didn’t supply a lot of elimination.

  “Check your shoelaces.” Echo ordered though a yawn, cracking her back.

  McQueen shot her a dubious look but lifted his foot, nonetheless. There his leather shoes shone dully through the dust and dirt, but there were no laces. “What-… where’d they go?” He spat, even checking the ground where his feet had been.

  “Probably in someone’s hair… or to tie something up. A shoelace has a lot of uses.” Echo explain nonchalantly, cracking her neck in the other direction.

  “Why take it?” He asked as he wriggled is toes, finding all the extra room. He scowled as he realised there would be no way he could run in these; his shoe would fly straight off.

  “Why not? It was by the door, in easy reach and you were asleep. Sleeping people don’t attack awake people.” Echo gave him a sleepy smile and McQueen. Curling tighter in a ball she let out a soft laugh. “Aren’t you glad I told you to put your coat back on instead of you stupidly using it as a pillow or something?”

  Touching the wall behind him, McQueen felt the freezing chill that seeped into his fingertips and was extremely glad of his coat. “They’ll really take anything?” He mused.

  “Anything.” Echo answered. “And the dead don’t disturb them either, so if you see any naked dead bodies, they weren’t always like that.” He shot her a sour look but just she returned him one a pure innocence. “You wanted to know why they can’t be saved; I’
m just giving you the four-one-one.”

  McQueen opened his mouth to tell her… something, he was sure he could have thought of some silver lining, when the curtain flap twitched again. Framed in the doorway, two boys stood - no older than fifteen – and they each held a weapon. Sharpened spikes of metal, wrapped with fabric at one end, they waved them in an aggressive manner.