Only Ashes Remain

by Rebecca Schaeffer

  They reached his room, one white door in a hallway of many. He leaned against the wall, blinking rapidly. “I don’t feel so good.”

  Nita opened his door. “Let me help you to bed.”

  She took his arm and dragged him inside. He stumbled, nearly bringing them both to the ground, but Nita kept an iron grip on his arm as she pulled him along.

  She let him go when they reached the bed, and he keeled over into it, groaning.

  “I think something’s wrong.” His words slurred slightly. “I need to go to the doctor.”

  Nita examined his room for cameras, and once she was satisfied of where they were likely to be, she leaned over Fabricio and put her hand to his forehead. It was clammy with sweat.

  He stared up at her, gaze unfocused. “Nita, can you call someone?”

  “No, I think I won’t,” Nita whispered.

  He frowned. “What?”

  She took her hand from his forehead and leaned in close to whisper, “I know what you did, Fabricio.”

  His mouth opened and closed. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you’re the one who sold me out to the black market.”

  He shook his head, eyes widening. He really was a great actor.

  “I didn’t!” he hissed. “I couldn’t have! I was on a bus to INHUP.”

  “Yeah. And during your trip you texted your contacts on the black market. You sent them my pictures.”

  “I don’t have contacts on the black market!”

  Nita rolled her eyes. “Sure you don’t, Fabricio Tácunan.”

  He winced and looked away. Nita crossed her arms.

  “Okay, yes, I have contacts. But I wouldn’t have sold you to them. You saved my life. Why on earth would I do that to you?”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask you.”

  “I didn’t do it, Nita.” He shook his head. “Why do you think I did?”

  “Can we cut the crap, Fabricio? I have the messages you sent Reyes. I can show them to you.” Nita held up her phone. She tilted her head and examined his increasingly unfocused gaze and trembling hands. “But it’s a waste of time. And you don’t have much of that.”

  “I don’t have . . .” He tried to get up, and Nita took a step back. He wasn’t even able to turn over. “What have you done?”

  “What I should have let my mother do.” Nita’s voice scraped against her throat, trying to block out the memories of his screams when her mother cut off his ear. “Saving you was the one good thing I did in my life, and I’ve paid for that kindness in blood and screams. I learned my lesson well. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

  Fabricio jerked forward, trying to reach for her. “Nita, please, I’m sorry for everything you went through, believe me when I say I understand.”

  “Oh, I know you do. That’s what makes it all the worse.”

  “Nita, it’s not what you think, I swear!” Tears streamed down his face.

  “Oh? Then what is it? Tell me.”

  He just shook his head mutely, his body trembling, whether from poison, fear, or something else, Nita didn’t know.

  “You’re a liar, Fabricio. The best I’ve ever met.” Nita turned and walked away. “But you betrayed the wrong person this time.”

  Fabricio cried out as Nita walked away, and there was a thump as he fell off the bed and tried to crawl toward her with jittering limbs.

  “Nita, wait. Please. I can explain everything.”

  Nita stood at the entrance to his room, and looked back at him once. He gasped each breath, lungs heaving, and his brown hair was a tangled mess. He reached out as though to grab her ankle, but he was too far away.

  “I saved your life. It seems only fitting I take it away,” she said, flicking off the light.

  “Nita!” he gasped into the darkness.

  “Goodbye, Fabricio.”

  She left the room and closed the door behind her.

  Five

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Nita dragged herself out of bed to catch her flight. She hadn’t actually slept. She’d lain on her bed, staring at the ceiling, imagining Fabricio slowly dying in his room, sobbing softly as the hallucinogenic properties of the plant made him lose his mind even as the organs in his body slowly shut down one by one.

  Murderer, her mind hissed to her in the darkness. You killed to survive in the market, but this is just petty vengeance.

  No, she whispered back. It’s preemptive self-defense. Fabricio sold me out once. He could do it again.

  But her mind wouldn’t rest. At one point she even rose to go to Fabricio. To see if he was dead, to call for help for him, she didn’t know. But the knowledge that if he survived he’d tell INHUP what she’d done kept her from leaving the room.

  What was done was done. There was no backing away now.

  At three in the morning, she rose for her flight. Quispe was waiting in the back seat of a black sedan with two cups of coffee. Nita took one and sipped it as she climbed in. She wondered if she’d taste if it were poisoned or if she’d just slowly collapse like Fabricio. Not that she thought the INHUP agent would poison her. Mostly.

  Dark circles hid under Quispe’s eyes. It didn’t look like she’d slept much.

  Once they were buckled in, Quispe turned to Nita, folding her hands in her lap and taking a deep breath before she spoke. “Nita, I have something to tell you.”

  Nita stiffened at Quispe’s tone. They couldn’t have possibly discovered Nita had poisoned Fabricio, could they? “What is it?”

  “It’s Fabricio.”

  Nita’s voice was a bit too high. “What about him?”

  “He missed his appointment with his doctor to get the stitches in his ear out yesterday evening.” She rubbed her temples. “We found him unconscious in his room late last night. He’s been taken to the hospital.”

  Unconscious. Not dead.

  Nita’s shoulders relaxed, and she hated that a small part of her was relieved. That a little piece of her hadn’t wanted to be the kind of person that could kill a boy in cold blood, when her life wasn’t on the line that instant.

  That part of her was going to get her killed someday if she didn’t learn to quash it better.

  Quispe was expecting a response, so Nita covered her mouth and said, “How terrible.”

  Quispe’s voice was gentle. “I know you two were getting close. I’m so sorry.”

  Nita shook her head. “Will he be okay?”

  “We don’t know.” But Quispe’s tone made the answer sound a lot more like no.

  Good, Nita thought, banishing the traitorous guilt in her chest. He’ll never betray anyone again.

  Beneath her hand, she smiled.

  * * *

  When they finally arrived at the airport, their flight was delayed for an hour.

  Quispe took a seat in the departures area, black pleather airport seat squeaking, and gestured for Nita to join her. Quispe observed Nita as she sat, and Nita tried not to sweat. Had she done something to give herself away?

  “Is something wrong?” Nita finally asked. “You’re staring.”

  “I’m sorry.” Quispe sighed, her perfect poise slipping for a moment. “I was just thinking about your father.”

  Nita swallowed down the hurt that bloomed in her chest. “What about him?”

  She was silent for a moment. “Did you know I lost my father when I was a year older than you?”

  Of course Nita didn’t. How could she? But all she said was a soft “No.”

  Quispe nodded, face tight. “A car accident on his way to work.”

  “Oh.”

  Quispe looked at her, and Nita wondered if she was supposed to have said something more. Was she supposed to express her sympathy? She didn’t really care about the INHUP agent’s dead father. But she forced herself to play along. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Quispe sighed and leaned in close to Nita. “It was an awful time. My mother couldn’t support all of us, even with the rest of the family’s help. I decided to ge
t a job after school to help out. It was my first job with INHUP, at the La Paz office, translating Quechua legends into Spanish.”

  Nita was intrigued, despite herself. “What kind of legends?”

  Quispe smiled. “Local folktales of monsters and heroes. You know the type. Tales about pishtacos hunting the mountains, searching for human fat to eat. Creation myths about Pachamama—Mother Earth—and her children. The kind of things INHUP likes to comb through for pieces of information on local undocumented unnatural species.”

  Nita leaned forward. “Tell me about them.”

  Quispe shook her head and gave Nita a gentle smile. “We’ve gotten off topic.” She placed her hand on Nita’s shoulder. “Look, Nita, I just wanted to say, I know how hard the loss of a parent can be. I know how life altering it is. It can make you change all your plans, and it can hurt more than anything. And if you want to talk about it or you need help figuring things out, I wanted you to know you can talk to me.”

  Nita quietly took Quispe’s hand from her shoulder. “Thank you for the offer. But what would really help right now is if you just stopped bringing it up.”

  Then Nita got up and walked away.

  She couldn’t go far, it wasn’t a massive terminal, but it was big enough for her to walk far enough away that she couldn’t see Quispe.

  Nita rubbed her shoulder where the INHUP agent had touched her, shuddering. Why did the woman have to go poking into Nita’s business? Nita had lost her father. She didn’t need an INHUP agent trying to butt in and act like a surrogate parent. Nita didn’t need to “talk about it” or “figure it out.” She just needed to be left alone and not have it brought up every five minutes.

  Nita wandered the halls, looking for a distraction, something to take her mind off things before she ended up wallowing in her own grief again.

  A family sat at the small coffee shop, all of them chattering together, a dozen people with luggage, from old grandparents to small children. Nita’s heart tightened at the sight. A part of her wished she had that, wished she had more people in her life than just her parents, more connection with her father’s culture than just pieces of a language and knowledge of which soccer teams to root for.

  Intellectually, she knew she didn’t want a big family. Too many people, too many forced interactions, too much nosiness. But she wanted something, some more connection to her roots. Especially now that her father was gone.

  No. She wasn’t going to think of that. She needed a distraction, she refused to start crying in the airport.

  She found a combination magazine stand/breakfast shop and browsed the selection. Most of it was pop culture, some politics, local news. One paper blared a headline about men disappearing in one of the logging camps in the Amazon, blaming “las patasolas,” a type of unnatural Nita was unfamiliar with. But there were no details afterward, so she put the paper down and searched for something more interesting.

  She paused her flipping on a page of a newspaper condemning INHUP for not adding kelpies to the list of dangerous unnaturals.

  The Dangerous Unnaturals List was composed of types of unnaturals it was okay to shoot on sight, since killing them was considered preemptive self-defense. It had creatures like kappa, which ate human organs, and unicorns, men who consumed the souls of virgins.

  It also contained zannies. Like Kovit.

  If anyone in the world knew what he was, they would be within their rights to murder him on sight. And if anyone ever found out Nita knew what he was and didn’t report him, she could be arrested.

  It was easily the least of her crimes.

  She rubbed her temples, resisting the urge to check her phone for more messages from Kovit. It wasn’t even six in the morning yet. He wasn’t going to answer.

  She succumbed and checked anyway. Of course, there was nothing.

  She rolled her eyes at herself and looked back down to the paper. She had some time to kill, so she let her eyes wander through the article. It was an opinion piece, condemning INHUP for not adding kelpies to the list despite never having found a kelpie that hadn’t murdered someone.

  Nita tapped her finger on the paper. So far, the Dangerous Unnaturals List consisted of unnaturals that were, fundamentally, human on the outside. They could interbreed with humans and looked mostly human inside and out.

  Kelpies were none of those things. Outside and inside, they were as non-human as unnaturals came.

  Though they could look human if they chose.

  Originally from the Scottish Highlands, they were semiaquatic, like crocodiles. Some researchers speculated that kelpies were related to crocodiles, but Nita thought this was clearly wrong, because reptiles needed warm water to thrive, and kelpies needed cold. That’s why these days they were only found in Scotland and on the east coast of Canada and the States. They’d come over with the waves of immigrants hundreds of years ago as conditions in the Highlands became more perilous, and they’d never left.

  In legends, kelpies would appear as beautiful horses by the side of the water. If you got on the horse, it would ride into the nearest lake, drown you, and feast on your rotting body.

  But kelpies could also look human and lure their victims to the water that way.

  Whether they could physically shape-shift, it was some sort of illusion, or something else entirely, no one knew. A body had never been dissected or studied, so no one even knew what their real form looked like.

  They were also very rare these days. Because they couldn’t reproduce with humans, their species was dying. Between laws, hunters, and technology making it more difficult for them to run from their crimes, kelpies were slowly going extinct.

  Nita let her eyes wander over the rest of the article. It was talking about species that had been famously exempted from the list, despite eating humans, like ghouls. Ghouls were one of the oldest recorded species, originating in the Middle East and appearing as far back as ancient Sumerian texts as “gallu.” The article talked about several famous cases of ghouls living off people in crematoriums, and how the species as a whole couldn’t be condemned as evil.

  Nita sighed and put the paper down. She didn’t know what she thought of the Dangerous Unnaturals List anymore. She’d been a staunch fan for so long—in theory, killing monsters was good. But things got more complicated after she’d befriended one of those monsters.

  She shook her head at herself and wandered back over to Quispe. Their plane had started boarding, but Quispe remained seated, her phone pressed against her ear. She was nodding, forehead creased, and listening intently to whoever was on the other end of the line.

  Nita hesitated a few steps away; Quispe looked up and saw Nita and the boarding line for the plane.

  “Thanks, keep me updated.” She hung up and gave Nita a smile. “Good news!”

  “What?”

  “Fabricio’s going to be okay.” Quispe’s whole face lit up. “The doctors say he’s going to pull through.”

  Nita stared, mouth slightly open. A tiny bit of relief bloomed in her chest. The last little remnant of the girl who’d felt so good for saving him, who’d been so proud for doing a good deed. The girl who wanted too much to pretend she wasn’t bad.

  But Nita wasn’t that girl anymore. It was a phantom guilt she felt in the same way she felt her severed toe, and she pushed it away and let anger fill the place where it had once been.

  She tried to imagine what would happen now. Fabricio would wake up. If he hadn’t been planning to tell on her before, he would now. Her shoulders tightened, and her fingers curled into fists at her side.

  Fabricio was like a goddam cockroach.

  She forced a smile onto her face. “That’s great! Do they know what happened to him?”

  Quispe shook her head. “They think he ingested something. They pumped his stomach, and have been treating him for severe toxic shock. He’s still not conscious yet, but they’re hopeful for later today.”

  Nita gritted her teeth. She couldn’t have Fabricio ratting her out befor
e she got to Toronto. She’d be arrested before she could leave INHUP custody. She needed to do damage control.

  “Can you send him a message for me?” Nita asked.

  “Of course!”

  Quispe handed Nita her phone, and Nita frowned at the blank email screen. How to threaten Fabricio not to talk without giving away she was threatening him?

  I’m so happy to hear you’re doing better after being sick. I’m glad INHUP is there to take care of you. It’s too bad they can’t contact your parents to let them know how you’re doing.

  I’ve enjoyed our chats, and am eager to continue them another time, when we’re both out of INHUP. Until then, enjoy INHUP’s hospitality for as long as it lasts.

  Nita stared down at her message. Clunky, but she thought it got the point across.

  If he told them what she’d done, she’d tell them what he’d done. She’d reveal who his father was and ruin all Fabricio’s plans.

  When he got out of INHUP’s custody and back into the real world—it was on.

  Nita didn’t know how or when she’d do it, but she would find a way to destroy Fabricio once and for all.

  Six

  THE FIRST HOUR of the flight to Toronto was awful.

  Nita tried reading, but couldn’t focus. Ditto with movies. All she could think about was her upcoming reunion with her mother. She couldn’t stop playing out imaginary conversations in her head.

  In some of them, Nita screamed at her mother for everything that had gone wrong, threw broken dishes at her, and told her she never wanted to see her again. Obviously, that was nothing more than a fantasy.

  In other scenarios, her mother told Nita it was her own fault for breaking the rules, for not following her mother’s instructions precisely. For not toeing the line. And Nita was forced back into the dissection room, trapped with nothing but dead bodies and tools for company, never to see the outside world again.

  She shivered softly at the thought, because it was so horrible and so believable. She’d replace the glass cage of the market for one of her mother’s making.