Children of the Night

by Zan Safra

  The assistant fits a glass mask over my nose and mouth. I hear a hiss. My legs fall limp, strengthless, benumbed. The numbness paralyzes me until I can move only my eyes. The chemical only holds me still, only deadens the pain, but does not leave me asleep.

  I am still awake.

  I am always awake when they—

  I scream. The arms about me tighten like iron bands. I twist away, flailing and kicking until I fall free. I claw my way to my feet, my staff clenched in my fist. My dreadful vision turns all near to me to a muddy blur, but beyond arm’s reach a smear of grays and blacks congeals into a stone ground, stone walls, a sooty gaslight with a moth tapping at the glass.

  A dark form stirs beside me. I face it, gripping my staff with both hands, horizontally, ready to snap out in any direction. The form retreats, sharpening into the boy in the black mask.

  He slips into the shadow of the doorway. He is a young man in a black coat, with black hair askew and eyes a brilliant yellow. They shine in the dark, like the eyes of a cat lurking in a shadow.

  I find my voice. “Where are they?”

  He blinks. I realize I have spoken in the wrong language and repeat the question in Venetian. “Dove xe luri?”

  “Gone.” His voice is hoarse and rusty. “Far…from us.”

  I sort through the jumble of my thoughts. I heard the noise of a mob and followed it. I thought they must have cornered Belle, but it was a stranger, a boy in a mask. I hurled my sound and light grenades. I beat my way through the screaming crowd and caught the boy by the arm. We ran…but then there came a shock, a tremendous blow to my head that threw me against stone, and then…

  I remember.

  My hands shake. Crushed men. Broken bones and screaming…

  I killed them.

  She killed them—

  A needle of pain darts through my head. My hands fly to my face, covering my eyes. No! No! No!

  The needle explodes into a red-hot shard, a railroad spike bashed into my skull. Razored tentacles worm through my brain and down my spine, boring into my muscles, filling them with a strength that burns like molten rock and—

  And rage—

  My blurred hands flicker, their color turning from pale to deathly gray. My ragged hair falls in my face. Black.

  LEAVE ME ALONE!

  The pain fades. My colors return to their ordinary paleness.

  My legs buckle. The masked boy catches me by the shoulders, lowering me to the ground. I curl into myself, gripping my hair by the roots. My knuckles brush the web of scars crisscrossing my scalp.

  It happened again. It will never end. She will never stop—

  I bang my fist against the ground. Pain forks through my arm but I do not care.

  Never stop, never stop, never stop—

  The boy catches my fist. “Stop!”

  He lets go. My arms feel like water as I push myself up, a choking lump in my throat. The masked boy gazes back at me.

  He saw.

  He knows I am a monster.

  “What…is it?” he whispers.

  “You…” I drag out the words like the links of a chain. “You do not fear me?”

  The yellow gleam flickers as he blinks. All is silent, but for the beating of the moth against the lamp-glass.

  I lower my gaze and see a red smear on my fist in the shape of fingerprints. Patches of the same red smear one of the boy’s hands. “You are hurt!”

  He unfolds his fingers. Angry scrapes cover his palm. “When I fell,” he murmurs.

  He is hurt. Help him. Concentrate on that.

  Not the men you crushed.

  I open my coat to free the leather bandolier slung across my chest. “I…I can help you.”

  He cocks his head, narrowing his eyes. I run my fingers over my bandolier’s twenty-four vials. I am so long-sighted that I cannot make them out by sight, but the notches, dots, and x-marks I scratched into each vial guide me.

  I draw out a metal watch casing and twist its crown. The five lenses fixed to brass stems unfold like the segments of a fan. I choose the fourth. I most often try to hide that I can hardly see, but it makes no difference now.

  I search my bandolier until I find a roll of gauze bandages and vial twenty-one: powdered silver nitrate to stop infection. The masked boy recoils. “Alchemist?” he whispers.

  “No!”

  He flinches. I gulp and lower my voice. “No.”

  He draws nearer. For an instant I see his black mask glint with an alchemical sheen, but he turns his head and it is gone.

  I dust a bandage with silver nitrate. In the silence the rest of the night returns to me, fragment by fragment. Belle and I on the aethership as the automaton pilot steered us towards Venice. The blast of heat as the hydrogen cell exploded. The aethership spinning, hurling us into the sea. Swimming for the docks, alone.

  Fear tightens around my chest. Belle is alive. I saw her in the water, paddling for the wharf, but then a billow of smoke swept between us and blotted her out…

  I rescued her. She is my responsibility.

  And now I have lost her.

  Tears sting my eyes. I blink them away. Stop. Collect yourself, Jekyll.

  I concentrate. Belle and I had a plan, a mad, ridiculous plan, but a plan nonetheless. Perhaps she will follow it. Perhaps I can find her that way.

  Before someone else does.

  I hold my lens over the masked boy’s injured hand. The redness of his blood is strange, glowing, the color of hot steel.

  I choose a different lens. This one is alchemized to interpret different elements and translate them into colors. His blood changes to a tangle of hues. At first I see only the common elements and compounds, those that belong in blood, but an additional color weaves through the threads: thin filaments of golden yellow, the same hue as his eyes. I have never seen such a thing.

  I fold the lens. He is Unnatural, like me. It is not so odd that his blood would be unique. None of us are alike.

  I wind a treated bandage around his hand. He winces but does not pull away. “I’m called Yurei,” he says.

  Yurei. It does not sound like any name I have heard. “I am…Jette.”

  I wind another loop around his hand. I gave myself the name nearly a year ago, on my fifteenth birthday, or the day I thought was my birthday, along with the surname that I carved into the wood of my staff. I did not want to be called by a designation any longer.

  I am no longer a subject.

  I wish Yurei would speak again. It has been so long since I met another Unnatural, apart from Belle. I want to know more. I must know more. I must know who he truly is, how he came to be here, how it is that he is free…

  And why he rescued me.

  My mind races. I was dazed and useless. I was only a burden, but he did not leave me behind. He rescued me.

  No one has ever done that. Not for me.

  Heat floods my face. There is something I ought to say, I know there is…

  Thank him! That’s what you do! Say something before he thinks you a complete...

  “Thank you!”

  The masked boy flinches. My face flames hotter. “I…I thank you,” I whisper. “You rescued me.”

  He fidgets. “It’s you who rescued me.”

  I tuck the end of the bandage into the dressing. He draws his hand back, flexing his fingers.

  Another arrow of pain streaks through my head. The skin of my hands flickers again. She is not done.

  I grab my supplies and jump to my feet. Yurei blinks at me. “Jette?”

  “I—”

  Pain stabs into my temples. Yurei stands, reaching out to steady me. I jerk away. “No!”

  He steps back, eyes widening. “Don’t follow me!” I scream. “Please!”

  I run, into a fog of shadows. The pain crackles inside my skull. I trip and fall against a stone wall. Just ahead is the entrance to a close, a small alley beside a church. I shove myself upright and run into
its thick shadows, feeling along the wall until I come to a dead end. I let myself sink to the ground, huddling against the grimy brick. The pain dies.

  I hold my breath, waiting for another spike. Nothing happens. Nothing changes.

  This is how it always is. She attacks, there is a change, and after she retreats there come smaller echoes, like tremors following an earthquake. I never know how long they last.

  Or how strong she remains.

  I could ask. But I never do. I never speak to her, even silently. I am afraid a voice will answer.

  I shut my eyes. I must get away from here. I cannot chance placing Yurei in danger. I must never see him again.

  An awful shudder rocks me. I alchemized my coat to repel water, but I am still drenched beneath it.

  I find the compacted crucible on my bandolier. Its crescent-shaped segments unfold and spiral out to form a fireproof bowl the size of a cupped hand. I find vials four and thirteen and pour quick splashes of their contents into the crucible. The new solution bursts into an egg-sized ball of red flame, hovering silently above the crucible’s surface.

  I hold my hands over the fire. Its glow stains them red. I pull them away.

  The missing crackle of the flames makes the silence deepen, pouring into my ears. I have not heard such a hush in a long while, not since—

  A horrible scream cracks the night. “Aiuto! Aiuto!”

  I snap the crucible shut. The screaming rises. “Aiuto! Help me!”

  I pull my staff from my belt and run to the end of the close. A shape rushes out from around a corner. He falls against a door and hammers at it with his fist. “Let me in! For God’s sake—”

  A pair of shutters opens. A candle appears. The Natural man looks up and begins to call out. The candle vanishes and the shutters close.

  He reels across the lane to land against another door. He yanks at the handle. “Help! Please!”

  No one answers. The man turns and lurches towards me. I have time only to see that he is young, dressed as a sailor, before he draws too near and melts into a blur. He falls against me. “Help me! Help—"

  His hands clamp down on my arms. The shriek rips out of me. “Let go! Let go!”

  I shove him away. He falls onto his hands and knees. His back is a

  mess of blood. Four long gashes tear through his jacket and skin from his right shoulder to left hip.

  The marks of claws.

  What in the—

  “It’s coming!” He staggers up. “Help me! Help…”

  His words shrivel into a moan. He points in the direction he came. I hear it then, a rustling, whispering sound, like cloth passing over stone.

  A gas-lamp bursts at the alley’s end. Darkness falls, so thick that even the moonlight dies. The rustling grows louder, dead leaves skittering over rock.

  “El diaol,” the man moans. “The fiend…”

  I step in front of him and spin up my staff. The rustling stops. The wall of darkness ripples. Something stares back at me.

  A mass of darkness flies at me. I lash at it and miss as the thing soars over my head and slams down upon the man. A huge figure draped in black jerks back and forth as it savages him like an animal.

  I swing my staff at it. The head catches in cloth and slides away. A hand whips out and bashes into me like a cannonball. My feet leave the ground. My back strikes a wall. The paving-stones rush up to slam against me and knock me away, into a whirling white haze, as chunks of broken brick pepper me.

  The screaming turns to a gurgle. I hear wet ripping, cracking, a noise like tearing meat.

  The sound of eating.

  Blood runs into my eyes. My ribs grind with every breath. I brace my hands, trying to push myself up. A hot coal burns at the base of my spine. My legs do not move. They lie there like dead weights.

  You…hurt…me…

  A bolt of pain blasts through my skull. The white haze turns red.

  A different voice growls through my brain, a gravelly distortion of my own. You…hurt…her…

  The tendrils rush from my brain, filling the fractures, wrenching and popping my bones back into place. My broken ribs fuse. My skull and scalp knit back together. The skin of my hands flickers. Pale. Sickly gray.

  You hurt me…you hurt me…you hurtmeyouhurtmeyouhurtherYOUHURTHER—

  Our voices fuse. You DIE!

  I shove. I bound. Onto my feet. Coal-black hair falls into my eyes. The creature raises its head. A dark veil soaked in blood. Turns. To me.

  Leaping. Hurtling. Staff strikes. Strikes. Strikes. Voice. Shrieking. Hers. Mine.

  Die! Die! DIE!

  The dark thing flies. Crashes into a wall. Falls. Lies. Still…

  She falters. Exhausted. Too much. Too soon…

  The red haze winks out. The strength and the rage and the colors evaporate. The cold and damp of the night wrap around me.

  Me. Jette.

  My staff falls from my hand. Weakness and trembling soak me. My legs give way again and I fall onto my hands and knees. My palms splash into a pool of red.

  I scuttle back. The fallen man comes into view.

  There is nothing left of him. The thing that lies in his place steams in the freezing air, a torn-up heap of bone and mauled organs soaking in a lake of blood. His face is gone. There is no skin left, only rags of red and gleaming teeth and empty eyeless—

  A deep, scratching croak comes from behind me, a sound like the groaning of old wood.

  Laughter.

  The dark thing rises, not crawling or standing but lifting from the ground. A billowing black garment hides its form. An opaque black mourning veil drapes over its head.

  The thing straightens, looming ten feet in height, a pillar swathed in black. Black-clawed hands emerge from between the layers of cloth, twice as long as a man or woman’s, chalk-white and so withered that I can see every joint and tendon.

  The hands of a corpse.

  Every thought left in my head freezes, but for one. No…no, it can’t—

  The vampire barrels into me. Skeleton fingers ram into my throat. I grab its arm, a limb so thin that my fists close around it. Bones twist beneath its papery skin as it lifts me up. I kick at it but my strength is gone. The thing draws me nearer, dissolving into a black cloud that engulfs me in darkness and cold and the stench of blood and filth and rot—

  From a distance come noises, men’s voices, a ringing howl.

  The hand opens like a trap. I fall hard to the ground. The veiled thing cranes its neck, staring up into the sky. The howling grows louder.

  It lowers its head to look at me. A talon unfolds, pointing at my face. Then it rises, laying the finger before its own face, where lips would be.

  Shhh.

  The vampire explodes into dust. The cloud whirls and spirals up into the air. The wind catches it and it is gone.

  I lurch to my feet and grab my staff, stumbling away from the murdered man, into the dark.

  Chapter Five

  Belle

  MY HAIR DRIPS SEAWATER, droplets that trickle down my cheeks and into the corners of my mouth. My boots squelch and rub my toes raw as I follow the armored girl, down twisting lanes, over strange, straight rivers with walls of stone. My legs quiver beneath me. I have never felt such exhaustion. The volta that keeps me strong and vital has lessened. I feel it in my chest, a spider’s web of lightning enveloping my heart, burning weakly.

  The sea…I lost volta in the sea…

  I feel benumbed, as benumbed as I felt when I struck the water, a blow like a slap from a brick wall. A half-second later came another blow, against a floor of mud, broken shells, stringy weeds that twined around me as my mind detached from the rest of me and floated away…

  I left her! I must go back!

  A knot rises up to choke me, a monster clawing its way up my throat. How could I leave her? How?

  Shards of the past hour fall into place. Venice was off the stolen aethership’s bow,
drawing nearer as the automaton steered us on. Jette stood at the stern, searching the horizon for pursuers. I stood at the bow, hair flying in the wind, my eyes flitting from dome to dome, spire to spire…but then…

  I left Jette.

  The weight of it crashes down on me. She rescued me. And I left her alone.

  The city changes. The buildings and the land end at the edge of a wide river lined with grand palaces. The armored girl goes to a small dock and a row of moored, canvas-sheeted boats. I stammer out in Continental, “¿A-adonde vamos? Where are we going?”

  She turns back to me. Her eyes are dark, piercing, seeming to shine even in the gloom. “To a safe place.”

  She undoes the covering of one of the boats and tosses it aside. The craft is shallow, with a black hull and a pointed prow that curls like a tendril of ivy. Attached to its stern is a wide wheel studded with flat wooden paddles.

  “It’s Republic property. It steers itself.” She works the levers protruding from the gearbox at the stern. The boat’s engine hums to life. “Come along.”

  “I mustn’t.”

  “What?”

  “I-I mustn’t leave, I must…I must go back.”

  “What?” She looks about and back to me, her gaze ever more piercing. “The carabinieri are everywhere! We’ll be seen!”

  “I-I mustn’t…I mustn’t!”

  “Be quiet!”

  “I mustn’t leave!” My voice rises. I cannot stop it. “I mustn’t! I mustn’t leave her beh—”

  My volta surges. A corona of blue sparks burns around me. Screaming fills my head, a howling tempest of noise and sparks—

  My volta thins to threads. The ground strikes me and then there is nothing, nothing at all.

  Words in the dark, floating past.

  What is she? She can’t possibly be a…look, she isn’t patchwork or rotten…

  A hand against my forehead. Poor thing…

  A hand lifts my head. The rim of a glass vial meets my lips. Liquid pours into my mouth, hot, tasting of iron. I choke on it but the hand holding my head tightens. The rest of the liquid pours down my throat. I drift away, into a fog, asleep, awake, neither, both.