by Raven Dark
“We’ll see.”
While waiting for Steel, I leaned against the wall by the door, silent, watching Grizzle watch me. Watching him squirm in his seat, his gaze flitting more and more rapidly around him. Minutes ticked by, every second wearing Grizzle down as he no doubt wondered what would happen to him when Steel returned.
I’d hoped he’d give up the name of his superior readily, but privately, I was glad he hadn’t made it that easy. Such thinking stretched the bounds of my warrior ideals, but road warrior crews didn’t stay alive if they played by all the rules.
The key turned in the lock, and the door squealed open. Steel stepped in, a large, heavy iron box about the size of a food crate in his hands. The door banged shut and the lock clicked.
“An interesting thing, isn’t it?” I straightened and nodded to the box as Grizzle eyed it warily. Walking over to me with the box, Steel didn’t look precisely comfortable holding the thing.
The box looked suitably ominous, considering its contents. Made of dark grey steel, a single glass pane split the box into two sections. A handle on the top of the pane allowed the divider to be pulled out, so that whatever inhabited one section could move freely to the other.
Grizzle’s worried expression had me wondering if he knew what the box was for or what was in it. If he knew, he’d have been considerably more frightened.
I withdrew my knife from my belt and ran the tip of the blade along the metal side of the box, producing a nerve-rattling screech. A loud skittering sound filtered through the many small breathing holes on the sides and top of the box.
“What the fuck is that?” Grizzle said, visibly trying to back away as best he could while still sitting in his chair. Unlike with Madi’san’s chair, the legs of his were nailed to the floor. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“A present for you,” Steel said mildly, kneeling and setting the box on the floor at Grizzle’s feet.
“The deserts around the Grotto are filled with so many fascinating things.” I sheathed my knife and stalked to the merchant’s side, lightly tapping the side of box with my foot.
The scuttling from within grew louder, faster. Steel stepped back, but I was sure he’d done so a little too quickly.
“What’s in there?” A vein in his neck pulsed wildly. His eyes were so wide, the whites of them showed all the way around. “Hawk, you don’t have to do this. Let’s talk about this.”
“Give me a name, Grizzle.”
He shook his head, face slicked with sweat, sickly gray. “I can’t. Don’t you get it? I—”
“Remove his footwear, Steel.”
“You’re gonna wish you’d done what he asked, man.” Steel untied Grizzle’s feet and removed his boots and socks. He tied one foot to the leg of the chair. Then he moved the box closer.
Grizzle tried to pull his ankle out of Steel’s impressive grip, twisting violently. “What are you gonna do? Let go!”
“A name,” I said.
“I can’t. Hawk, you can’t do this. You’re Yantu!”
“Yes, I can.” I tapped the side of the box again with my foot. The scuttling started again. “Do you know what’s in there?”
“No. Let’s talk about this!”
“It’s a Giant Death Stalker scorpion,” I said as if he hadn’t spoken. Unsheathing my blade again, I held up my hand and sliced a small cut across my palm. Then I knelt, held my hand over the holes in the top of the box and let the blood drip inside.
A single drop fell. The scurrying inside turned frenzied, the box rattling.
“Did you know they grow unusually large out here?” I went on, watching Grizzle’s eyes grow huge. “This one is almost the size of Steel’s hand.”
Grizzle groaned like he was going to be sick, and his throat worked hard.
Steel had put himself by the door, and I fought a smile. Grizzle’s chair rattled with his efforts to free himself. I opened the empty compartment of the box as I talked, not having to fake my fascination. Unfortunate events in my life meant I had an unpleasant familiarity with these creatures and their stings.
The lid of the box was comprised of two sections, one half sliding apart to create a hole through which a leg or arm could fit in, or it could slide all the way out to leave the compartment open. Latches locked the halves in place when needed.
“Have you ever been stung by a Death Stalker scorpion, Grizzle?”
“Fuck. Hawk, please don’t—”
“Their sting is excruciating, said to be one of the five most painful stings in the world. The strongest of men have killed themselves within minutes just to end the pain.”
Ignoring his shouts for the guard, I grabbed his ankle and pushed his foot into the empty compartment.
“The venom is a nerve toxin,” I said. “Within minutes, the body feels as if it’s on fire. Minutes after that, it feels like your skin is being burned off.”
Grizzle groaned again, and the smell of piss filled the cell.
I slid the two halves of the lid into place so that the hole fit snugly around his ankle. He thrashed and screamed. I put my hand on the handle of the divider and stopped, glancing at his face.
“Last chance. Your employer’s name. That’s all we want.”
He licked his lips. Opened his mouth twice but said nothing.
I shrugged and started to pull up the divider that walled off the scorpion from its prey.
“His name is Lars!” Grizzle screamed.
“Pardon?” I put my hand to my ear, though I’d heard every word. “Lars who?”
“I don’t know his last name. No one does, you crazy fuck!”
I lifted the divider out a little more. The scorpion scraped at the steel.
“I’m telling the truth! Lars wanted this place for himself. He wanted the General taken out so that he could take over here.”
“And where do we find this Lars?”
“At the Grada Villa North Hotel in Zone 2, dammit!”
A sick sort of disappointment pricked at me. He’d nearly shattered my world in more ways than one. I freed his foot and latched the box shut. Grizzle let out a long sigh of relief.
“You’re going to let me go now?” He looked between Steel and me hopefully.
I glanced back at Steel. “What do you think, Steel?”
My club brother’s lips twitched.
“Oh, come on,” Grizzle shook out. “You don’t have to do this. I told you his name. I don’t know how to get back here. Don’t you remember? Your guards kept us blindfolded while we were coming in and out of the Grotto. And when we left, you had us blindfolded practically all the way to that hotel you took us to. If Lars asks me where the Grotto is, I wouldn’t be able to tell him shit!”
Straightening, I withdrew my blade one last time. Even if we could have trusted Grizzle not to tell this Lars where the Grotto was, standard Legion law wouldn’t allow us to release him. He was a traitor, same as Patch. And as the General had said when dealing with Patch, there was only one way the Dark Legion dealt with a traitor. “Say goodnight, Grizzle.”
Grizzle’s eyes widened, and the color faded from his face. “No!”
I rammed my blade into his heart.
As soon as we left the room, Steel and I returned the scorpion to the large atrium in one of the caves near the mines, watching him burrow under the sand at the bottom of the tank with the other scorpions.
“I’m glad Setora wasn’t there to see what we did to Grizzle, Brother,” I said, feeding the scorpions and then shutting the tank’s lid.
“Why?” Steel looked at me through the glass, leaning on the table where the tank sat. “You know we had to kill him. Setora would get it.”
“Would she? You saw the way she reacted to Patch’s execution.”
This was one of the many reasons I’d never allowed myself to get close to anyone but Sheriff, even keeping Pretty Boy and Steel at a certain distance. Most people couldn’t accept the uniquely dark things I had to do within the Dark Legion. Sheriff kept himself aloo
f for the same reason. I wanted to give Setora more. More than what I had up to now. But that would mean expecting her to cope with things most people—and especially women—could not.
“You’d make her get it,” Steel said.
“That’s right, I will. When she wakes up.”
Setora understood a lot more about the Dark Legion’s laws than she once had. She was one of us now, even if she didn’t yet fully believe it herself.
Her soft, beautiful, heart-shaped face floated through my thoughts, perfect light shining through the darkness that was my world. Our world. That thick, pale, lavender hair flowing like a curtain, half covering that smooth back of hers with the Dark Legion’s mark.
She didn’t think I’d noticed the tattoo the other night when I’d taken her, but I had. When she woke—and she would fucking wake up—I’d tell her so. I’d tell her, and then I’d tell her the secret in my past that I refused to let keep us apart any longer.
And once I let her see the worst of me, she’d be all mine. No more hiding, no more using my Yantu ways as a wall to hold us back from what was meant to be.
Thirty minutes later, after I’d changed my clothes, I’d entered Sheriff’s bedroom where Setora still laid in his bed, Steel on my heels.
“Any change, Doc?” I asked as soon as I had the doors closed.
Doc finished checking her vitals and shook his head. “Not yet.” He put his hand on each of our shoulders in turn, then left us alone with our woman.
Setora lay too still, like a porcelain doll, her thick hair spilling across Sheriff’s pillows like a curtain of perfection. Her eyes moved rapidly behind her soft lids, her kissable lips slightly parted with her uneven, shaky breathing.
My heart felt like someone had punched me in the chest.
So much for my Fortress.
Steel and I seated ourselves in chairs to either side of Setora’s bed. Steel picked up a book from a small table near the head of the bed and opened it. He bent toward her and slowly, haltingly began to read.
“‘Wha—what did the man with the ss-word say…’”
Sheriff came out of another room before I had a chance to hear Steel finish. He squatted near my chair while I reported what had happened with Grizzle. He nodded, widened his eyes at the part about the scorpion, then made a curious face at the name Lars.
“Do you know who that is, Sheriff?” I asked.
“The name is familiar, vaguely. We’ll have to look into it.”
I nodded.
“How can she not be getting any better?” I hissed.
“‘That cat has been getting into the co-all bin again’,” Steel read on. “‘I’m telling you, we have a…mouse in our house.’”
“I don’t know, but she will. She has to.”
We said nothing for a moment, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing. Both remembering the way our woman’s blood looked in Doc’s vial, blue and luminescent.
Then as I took her cold and listless hand in mine, the question of what she was no longer mattered.
All that mattered was the hope that she’d open her eyes and once more shine her light into the dark fortress that would always surround my heart.
A man’s heart is a fortress,
Strong as a rock,
Unbending to all but her raging storm.
Yantu Proverb
Chapter 2
Unanswered Questions
The garden sprawled as far as the eye could see, beneath a sky too blue for its own good. All around me, an endless bed of flowers covered the landscape in so many colors I didn’t think the Maker could have created them all. The colors bore a familiar dream-like, too crisp look, but when I tried to think of where I’d seen colors like that before, the thought slid away like fog through my fingers. The air smelled of springtime and fresh-cut grass, and for some reason, horse.
How long I had been here, I didn’t know, but I’d never been anywhere so peaceful. I could have lived here forever. I wanted to live here forever.
My feet were bare, allowing the soft grass to tickle my toes as I walked. I wore a loose, coral-colored sheath dress that felt incredibly soft and cool. The skirt was flowy and long, nothing like the slave’s frock I once had to wear while in the Grotto. I loved it.
When I’d found myself here, it seemed that I couldn’t get warm enough, and I’d questioned why in the Maker’s name I wasn’t dressed for the climate. But as time went on, the sun’s warmth chased away the light chill, and comfort set in. The kind of comfort you feel when you come home after a long time away.
Home. Come home.
Every so often, I heard my name being called from far away, never close enough for me to respond, and never with enough urgency to warrant searching it out. The voice was warm and casual, like a mother calling me in to help in the kitchen.
Mother. But I didn’t have a mother. She was gone. Sadness pricked the bubble of safety that surrounded me but then vanished, carried away on the breeze.
Home. You have to come back to us. Come home.
I came to a stone bench in the middle of the garden and lowered myself onto it, turning my attention to that velvety blue sky. If it were important, whoever it was calling me would find me here. I was in no hurry to leave this place.
It had been so long since I’d been alone with my thoughts, out in the open light of day, under the bright blue sky, with only myself for company. And even if I felt a small twinge of…something, the perfection of this place pulled me back in.
Come to me. Too long away. Come back.
When I tried to put a face to that voice, the thought slid away, half formed, yet when I considered the length of time spent here, that feeling, that twinge of awareness, turned into a nagging sensation at the back of my mind. Why would I want to leave?
The twinge came again, a hard tug on my consciousness this time. I turned to look behind me. Someone was walking up the path, headed toward the stone bench where I sat.
I couldn’t make out who it was, or even whether the person was male or female. Watching them was like looking at a moving mirage in the shape of an adult person. The more I strained to make them out, the less clear the shape rendered itself. Birds twittering nearby caught my attention, and I turned to watch them take flight.
Shouldn’t I have been doing something? Focusing on something?
“Setora, you need to wake up now.”
I startled, glancing beside me. The person I’d seen a moment ago now sat at my side. When had they gotten there?
“We’re all waiting, worried sick out of our minds. You need to come back to us, sweetheart.” The voice was so sad, each word filled with pain.
I stared. The face was featureless, without anything that told me who it was, reminding me of those road warriors who chose to wear stockings over their faces when they raided towns. Looking at it made my heart quicken.
Who…?
A feather-soft petal alighted on my lap, tickling my arm in its descent. I touched its softness to my cheek, then closed my eyes.
Again, that twinge tugged at my consciousness.
I looked at the person again.
“It’s been three days, Petal. Please come back to us.”
Steel. That wasn’t who it had been before, was it?
“We all need you to come back, woman.” His words, filled with so much loneliness, called me to open my eyes, and ate at my resolve to remain in this perfect place. This sanctuary. They begged me to return to the cold and the pain, to that horrible, crushing pain.
“No. I will stay here a bit longer.”
It occurred to me I wasn’t supposed to talk like that to him, but it also felt right somehow.
I stood and strolled along the path in front of me, making my way to a pool with a large fountain. A sculpted marble woman stood atop the fountain, her alabaster arms raised in welcome. Her delicately sculpted expression was filled with serenity and a compassion I’d never seen before in a person. She was welcoming something, but what or who?
With a sigh, I sat down at the fountain’s edge, adjusting my skirts. The crystal blue water was cool and clean as I skimmed my hand across its surface. When I paused to watch the ripples, a face, the beloved visage of someone dear to me, formed drop by drop into a perfect likeness.
Hawk.
“Kitten, I refuse to believe you can’t hear me. I’m going to keep talking to you. If you want to stop me, you’ll have to open those pretty eyes of yours.”
The water’s blue color bled into a black so dark that nothing reflected off the surface. Hawk’s face was gone, along with the light, along with the garden. All was darkness. The flowers at my feet wilted and died, and when I looked up, the sky was dark, with a burning sun.
“Master?” I called into the shadows around me. Maker, why couldn’t I see anything?
Hawk began to speak again, his voice in the void comforting me, lulling me into a relaxed state.
“That night you made me laugh, that’s when you got in, Kitten. In here.” He wasn’t there, I couldn’t see his form, yet I knew he was talking about his heart. “That ridiculous story about the animal in the dress. What was it?”
“Otti and the Blue Dress.” I smiled.
Hawk laughed, and the sound had me frozen in happiness. It felt like eternity had passed since I’d last heard the sound.
“Look, what I’ve been trying to say—and doing a piss-poor job of it—is that I’m sorry, Kitten. I hurt you. Over and over again. See, I didn’t know what to do with you. I spent my life fighting my demons, building a defense against pain and loss, and then you come into my life and blow all my defenses out of the water.”
His voice sounded closer now.
“With you, I wanted to just be, but I don’t know how. Every time I think I can meet you half way, it scares the shit out of me, and I don’t think I’ll ever come back from it.”
He grew quiet for so long, I thought maybe I had floated further away into the void, into that all-encompassing darkness and silence. Where I was alone except for the words of my master, his hurt and confusion echoing in my mind.