Only Ashes Remain

by Rebecca Schaeffer

  Nita couldn’t let that happen again. She couldn’t go back to the cage, even if it was one made to protect her. Even the idea of a small room with no way out made her skin crawl.

  After a while, Nita decided her thoughts were going nowhere but in circles, so she ramped up melatonin production, leaned the seat back, pressed her cheek against the window, and forced herself into sleep. She would see her mother soon enough. They could lay it all on the table then.

  They had a lot to talk about.

  She woke when they were landing with a crick in her neck. A line of drool ran down the window, and droplets of it spattered her shirt. She massaged the muscles around her neck and popped her spine back into alignment.

  The plane hummed, and the speaker buzzed with some announcement. Nita had missed the English, and they were on the French now: “. . . votre sécurité est notre priorité . . .”

  Below her, the city spread out as far as she could see. It was a metropolis of almost seven million people, and had surpassed New York as most diverse city in the world, according to Google. Towers spread in clumps here and there, tall and silver, like giant palace complexes surveying the peasantry below. Suburbia sprawled around them, a sea of houses intermingled with large swaths of green. Aside from the patches of skyscrapers, most of the buildings looked red, and Nita wondered if brick was popular.

  It took nearly an hour for them to go through customs and get to the baggage claim. The walls of the airport were papered with posters with a waving Canadian flag in the background and curly, handwritten-style type reading Bienvenue au Canada! Welcome to Canada!

  Quispe fixed her clothes as they waited for her baggage. She’d kept her sleeves unbuttoned and her jacket only partially done up in Bogotá, but not here. She smoothed the front of her jacket, fingers pressing into the fabric and ensuring everything looked perfectly arranged and professional.

  “What are you doing?” asked Nita.

  Quispe smiled at her, tight and formal, as she pulled her small piece of luggage from the rack. “Making a good impression.”

  “Have you met anyone at this branch before?”

  “A few people.” Quispe gestured for Nita to follow as she rolled her luggage toward the exit.

  Nita watched the INHUP agent’s face with interest. “You don’t like them.”

  “I respect the work they do, and I’ve never had anything but positive interactions with them.”

  “But?”

  “But they’re people.” Quispe shook her head ruefully. “And most people judge you the instant they meet you, if not before. I want to make sure they judge me the way I want them to.”

  Nita thought about that as she walked. About how even Quispe tailored herself to change how people new perceived her. That perception was based on first impressions, and that Nita’s first impression on the black market was as a victim.

  And how if she wanted to be left alone, she’d need to change that impression.

  Exiting the terminal through a large set of automatic doors, Quispe stretched her neck, searching. Nita took in the crowds with wide eyes. Metal bars prevented anyone from approaching those exiting the terminal, and people had swarmed up against them, shouting, pressing close, and waving hands. There were so many Nita wondered if there was some celebrity coming through, but although many people held WELCOME signs, they didn’t seem to be welcoming the same people.

  Too many people. Nita balled her hands. She wanted out. Away from this crowd of strangers. Her eyes flicked around, trying to watch everyone, and she kept close to Quispe. Someone brushed by her, and she flinched.

  She hated people.

  She tried to keep an image of her dissection table in her mind’s eye, the smooth metal surface and the calming glass jars. In her hand, she held a scalpel, and it was silent and empty, just her and the dead body on the table.

  She really wanted a dissection. The sooner she was away from INHUP, the sooner she could find something—or someone—to take apart.

  “Agent Quispe!” A tall woman in a navy suit approached them. She had dark red hair verging on purple and cool-toned white skin.

  “Ah, Agent Bronte. Good to see you again.” The two of them shook hands. Quispe turned to Nita, and said in faintly accented English, “Nita, this is Agent Rachel Bronte.”

  “Lovely to meet you.” Bronte extended her hand.

  Nita didn’t take it. She turned to Quispe and asked in Spanish, “Are we going now?”

  Quispe blinked. Then responded in English, “Agent Bronte will escort you—”

  “You’re not coming?” Nita interrupted, sticking to Spanish.

  Quispe gave in, switching back to Spanish. “Yes, I’m coming, don’t worry. I didn’t fly all this way to turn around now.”

  “Good.” Nita didn’t like the idea of getting into an INHUP car without at least one person she knew.

  Quispe smiled at them both. “I’ll be back in five minutes. I’m just going to make a quick call.”

  She disappeared into the airport before Nita could protest, and Nita was left with Bronte. The other INHUP agent quirked an eyebrow as Nita hunched away from the crowds.

  “You get along well with Agent Quispe?”

  “Not really.”

  Bronte’s perfectly drawn eyebrows drew together, but she tried to smile. “You have a lovely accent. It sounds almost British. Were you raised in the UK?”

  Nita sighed. “No.”

  This wasn’t the first time this had happened. So many years away from the US, and her accent had flattened out a bit, taking on aspects of the English that surrounded her in other countries. In Germany and Vietnam, when she’d heard English, it was mostly British. She hadn’t realized she’d absorbed enough to get an accent. It would probably go away if she stayed in North America long enough.

  She could have explained all this to Bronte, but she didn’t want to, so she ignored the INHUP agent and pulled out her phone to make a show of looking busy while waiting for Quispe to return.

  Nita connected to the free airport wireless, letting herself disappear into her phone so she could block out the rest of the world.

  There was a new message from Kovit.

  So, things didn’t work out in Detroit. I might be in Toronto later this afternoon.

  Nita’s heart leapt. Kovit was coming.

  Then it sank again. Because her mother was coming too.

  And if her mother ever found out what Kovit was, she would murder him. And it wouldn’t even be a crime.

  Though Nita was pretty sure her mother could be arrested for selling Kovit’s body parts online.

  The thought made her nauseous. The idea of her mother, smiling while she tore Kovit apart like she’d tried to do to Fabricio, like she’d done to so many other people. She could imagine her mother even demanding Nita perform the dissection.

  No.

  No matter what, Nita could never, ever let the two of them meet.

  It wasn’t five, but closer to fifteen minutes later when Quispe returned. She smiled when she arrived, and looked between Nita and Bronte. She spoke in English. “Did the two of you have a nice chat?”

  Nita remained silent, and Bronte sighed. “Come on, the car is this way.”

  The three of them made their way outside to the arrival section parking. The air was crisp with spring chill, and Nita almost groaned in pleasure to finally be away from the heat and humidity of Bogotá. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt cool in a natural, non-air-conditioner-induced way.

  The crowds were just as dense here, and Nita dodged around a group of old white men in long black robes and tall black hats who took up half the sidewalk, only to nearly bump into a young couple chatting in a blend of English and Chinese.

  Nita edged as far away as she could from the people in her path, but there were just too many. When Bronte and Quispe stopped in front of a black SUV, Nita dove for the door.

  Inside, it was blissfully, blessedly silent, like she’d entered a different world. No
more crowds. No more strangers.

  The beige vinyl slid under her fingers as Quispe slipped in beside her. In the front, a short white man in black sunglasses looked at them in the rearview mirror. With his black suit and no-nonsense expression, he looked like he belonged in a Men in Black movie.

  Nita found that strangely comforting. It was the way she’d always expected an INHUP agent to look, and there was something deeply calming about seeing her stereotype made flesh.

  The man turned his head, and for a moment his square jaw and cleft chin gave him the same silhouette as Boulder, the man who’d stolen Mirella’s eye and cut off Nita’s toe and eaten them.

  She shivered, feeling the lack of sensation where her toe had once been.

  “Should I turn the AC down?” asked the driver, noting Nita’s shiver.

  She nodded. “Yeah, it’s a bit cold.”

  They pulled away from the airport. A long stretch of highway blurred into a different highway, this one weaving high above the ground in between towering glass condos and businesses. The condos were so close to the highway she wondered if she could reach out the window and touch them. Inside, she could see people walking around. Ugh. She couldn’t imagine living somewhere so public. Why didn’t they close the blinds?

  They turned off the highway, and the sun vanished, the world going dark. Buildings towered high above, blocking all natural light and creating an artificial twilight in the center of the city.

  Traffic was slower here, and they crawled through downtown for at least half an hour before finally stopping in front of a tall glass and steel building, indistinguishable from every other building around them.

  Outside of the building, a metal sign as tall as Nita proclaimed this was the Canadian headquarters for INHUP. Which really just meant it was a bureaucratic building where all the paperwork was done, and all the actual facilities and investigative teams were in some unmarked compound in the suburbs.

  In front of the building, a group of protesters squatted, waving illegible signs. Nita angled her head to get a better view.

  Quispe raised her eyebrows as she took in the scene. “So, are these protesters angry about giving monsters civil rights, or angry that the Dangerous Unnaturals List sets a bad legal precedent for human rights?”

  Bronte snorted. “Neither. These ones are here about a specific case.”

  A small brown woman in jeans and a Blue Jays jersey walked by, holding up a sign that read Don’t Send Children to Monster Prison. She was joined by her friend, a tall white woman with neon pink and blue hair carrying a sign that read Banniks Aren’t Evil.

  Nita leaned back in her seat. She knew there were specialized prisons for certain types of unnaturals who were harder or more dangerous to incarcerate, but she had to agree with the protesters here—banniks shouldn’t be in them.

  Banniks were no more dangerous than any human. Eastern European, and traditionally called bathhouse spirits because they loved all things warm, people liked to say they could predict the future. The truth was that they were simply keen observers, and they never forgot anything. Perfect memory and a talent for seeing patterns. If a man isn’t coming home at night, it doesn’t take a seer to figure out that there’s trouble in a marriage.

  “What happened?” Nita asked as they passed the protesters and turned down a sloping ramp toward a parking garage.

  “A pair of kids robbed a convenience store at gunpoint, they both got sentenced to a year. The human one went off to juvie, but now there’s a kerfuffle over which prison the bannik should go to.”

  Nita frowned. “What’s the argument for sending the bannik to an unnatural prison?”

  “The claws.”

  The only external way to tell a bannik from a human was their fingernails, which grew curved and pointed. Most kept them trimmed short and painted them to hide their blackish color, and they could pass.

  Nita was silent, shuddering. She imagined what would happen if she were ever captured and charged. In a human prison, she’d soon be murdered and eaten by people who wanted to see if eating her really did grant them immortality. In an unnatural prison, she’d probably just be killed by one of the monsters they contained.

  Nita swallowed, rubbing her sweaty palms on her pants. She did not want to end up in either prison. It would be a death sentence.

  Bronte scanned her card and the parking garage doors opened, metal shutters rattling upward. They parked the car and made their way to the elevator in silence. Nita’s sneakers scuffed the concrete floor, and she shivered at the sound, trying to put the idea of prison out of her mind.

  The elevator barely fit four people, and Nita wedged herself as deeply into the corner as she could to avoid touching anyone. There was a soft ding every floor they passed, and Nita’s heart began to race, as her meeting with her mother changed from a threat in the future into the very real present.

  The doors opened to reveal polished white marble floor, high ceilings, and far too many mirrored surfaces.

  A woman waited in front of the reception desk, just below the massive blue and white arrow of the INHUP logo that adorned the back wall. Her figure was slim and curvy, and her black hair was tied back severely, but not quite well enough that Nita couldn’t pick out the hint of red dye on the tips tucked into the bun.

  Nita stopped.

  Her mother turned around to face her, a wide smile spreading shark-like across her pale face. “Hello, Nita.”

  Seven

  NITA’S MOTHER APPROACHED, smile stretching. Her lipstick was such a dark red it was nearly black, making her look like a combination of Snow White and the Evil Queen.

  “Darling.” Her voice was sticky and syrupy sweet.

  Nita hunched her shoulders out of instinct. That was never a good voice. She cleared her throat. “Aunt Theresa.”

  Her mother’s sharp eyes took in the two INHUP agents, and then she walked up to Nita and enfolded her in a hug.

  Nita stiffened, her whole body going rigid like she’d seen Medusa. Her hands were fisted at her sides, and her heart beat a panicked pace in her chest.

  Nita’s mom was hugging her.

  Nita’s mom never hugged her.

  That was something her father did. Her father took her in his arms and rested her head against his chest, warm and steady. Her father brushed the tears from her eyes and placed a gentle hand on her back. Her father loved her unconditionally.

  Her father was gone now.

  This hug wasn’t warm or gentle. It was sharp and angular and awkward, and Nita just wanted to crawl away from it. Her mother’s fingers curled into her back, nails digging in painfully. If Nita were anyone else, they’d have left bruises.

  Finally, mercifully, her mother pulled away and smiled at the INHUP agents, her teeth so white they looked bleached. “Thank you so much for bringing her back.”

  Both INHUP agents looked uncomfortable under her mother’s smile. Nita could see it in the way Quispe’s hand twitched at her side, and Bronte turned away, eyebrows drawn together ever so slightly.

  Bronte cleared her throat and glanced between them. “You’re her aunt? I thought Nita mentioned you being her mother’s sister.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you’re . . .”

  Bronte waved her hand vaguely, and Nita sighed.

  “I take after my father,” Nita answered, not even having to ask what Bronte was referring to. It was always the same thing.

  Back in North America only a few hours and this already. She’d forgotten how tedious it was. Her skin wasn’t particularly dark, but it was noticeably darker than her mother’s, and in the years she’d spent living in the US when she was younger, half-formed statements like Bronte’s had been a common feature. They never got less annoying.

  Bronte smiled wide, clearly hoping it would cover the sudden awkwardness. It didn’t. “Oh, of course.”

  Beside her, Quispe might have rolled her eyes.

  “Well,” Bronte said, clapping her hands together. “
Let’s get the paperwork started, shall we?”

  The paperwork, as it turned out, took nearly half an hour and required multiple pieces of ID (all fake) from her mother, signatures on at least three forms from both of them, and her mother showing a picture of the two of them together when Nita was younger. Nita hadn’t even known there were pictures of her and her mother together. She wondered if it was Photoshopped.

  Nita was also required to give contact information independent of her mother, so she gave one of her many extra email addresses. One she rarely logged into but she could still check if she was so inclined.

  When everything was done, Quispe and Bronte each handed Nita a card with their contact information. Nita pocketed them with a smile, though she doubted she’d ever use either.

  They also gave her the new passport, but her mother plucked it out of the air and pocketed it before Nita could even raise a hand. Typical.

  Then it was over, and the two of them were walking out of the Toronto INHUP office.

  Her mother grabbed Nita’s arm the instant they were outside and tugged her to the curb. The street was four lanes , but felt oppressively narrow with the towering buildings on either side and the press of traffic, cars, pedestrians, and cyclists.

  Her mother flagged down a taxi and dragged Nita into it. Nita twisted out of her grip as they got in, and her mother gave her a sharp glance.

  “Where to, ma’am?” asked the driver, a middle-aged white woman with owlish glasses. No less than six air fresheners hung from her rearview mirror, all of them shaped like books.

  Her mother waved her hand. “Just drive straight for a while.”

  They moved through traffic faster than Nita expected, but still not quickly. Shifting in her seat, she looked over at her mother. There were so many things she wanted to ask, but she didn’t even know how to start, and she didn’t think she could with the taxi driver listening in anyway.

  Her mother unclipped her hair, and it tumbled down to her shoulders in slinky black and red strands, framing a heart-shaped face, like Nita’s. Same jawline, same nose, same lips.