Children of the Night

by Zan Safra

  Pinpoints of light grow in her pupils. “But I do have allies. I can lead them.” Scraps of dry skin flake from her face, dusting her dress. “I have hundreds of moroi and soldiers. In days I will have thousands more. My army will grow with every city I take.”

  “Every ci—”

  “Yes! I have already begun! All is in motion!”

  I press myself back into the chair as she leans towards me again. “We will rise. We will win. And the meat will learn their place.” Her smile curves into a demon grin. “As our cattle.”

  Fear locks my every joint. “Why…why would you tell me this?”

  “You and your companions are strong. You have abilities unlike any of the Dead. Together we can—"

  “Together?”

  “Yes! We are perfect allies. Unnaturals have powers. We have conquered death!” She stares through eyes turned milky, dead. “You know what they have done to Unnaturals! You! Your companions!”

  An invisible chain wraps around my throat. Jette. Her scars.

  “Will you allow their crimes to continue?”

  Yurei, his terror, his screams. Ayanda’s missing arm.

  “Will you do nothing as others are butchered?”

  Tears choke me. Stop, I beg them. Stop…

  “Help them,” Isadora breathes. “Save them.”

  Save them…

  Charcoal slashes through the memories. A drawing. A mutilated body, ripped to rags.

  Ayanda’s story. London.

  Seven hundred thousand…

  “This is monstrous,” I whisper.

  “This is justice!”

  Isadora, the corpse, the kudlak, leans forward. Hair falls from her scalp. Her face cracks like a mask. Something dark writhes underneath.

  “Think of what they have done,” she hisses. “You have the courage to fight. You have the strength to end this. All of you have!”

  Darkness stains her teeth, turning them to jagged black glass. A horrible twisted murderous thing leers at me, spittle welling in its mouth, dripping to its dress.

  “No,” I whisper. “There must be another way.”

  Isadora’s rotten face stills.

  An eternity passes.

  “What a shame,” she says, and snuffs the candle.

  A blow smashes into my face, throwing me out of the chair, onto the floor. The voice that follows is Isadora’s true voice, the croak of the kudlak. “I did not wish for this.”

  I find the armchair and pull myself up, trying to remember where I saw the door, but another blow punches me down again. My head spins. Vomit stings my throat. The fiend’s voice surrounds me. “I cannot make a moroi of you. My blood cannot hold a creature of volta.”

  I crawl, clambering across the floor. The room is invisible, lightless as the bottom of the ocean.

  “You are a Frankenstein creation. You were built. You can be unbuilt.”

  My head strikes wood. My hand finds a doorknob.

  “I will change you if I must dismantle you piece by piece. When I am done you will see the world as it is.”

  Skeleton fingers seize me by the neck and haul me back. They fling me down like a toy. “Your companions will come next.”

  I climb to my knees. A blow smashes me down again. “They will understand. They know what it is to suffer.”

  My head fills with fog. I cannot rise. I cannot lift a finger.

  “They will agree. I will ensure it.”

  A metal-tipped glove closes around my throat. “Dream well, dead girl.”

  Light flashes. Volta rushes out of me and…

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jette

  I PACE AROUND THE room where the Dead women left me, a circular one with black walls and a red alchemical light mounted high above. It seems as though hours have passed since they marched me in. Wait here, Amaranta spat before they locked me in, as though I had any choice.

  I circle the room. A smell permeates the air, faint but revolting. Death.

  The dead califactor glove lies by the wall where I tossed it. I kick it out of the way. It is as useless as I am.

  The alchemical blast was too strong. It took everything from me. And none of it has returned.

  I feel like a trapped beast. The chamber seems smaller than before, as though as soon as I glance away the walls contract by a fraction, shrinking the room to a cell.

  My cell in Edinburgh. My cell at the Scholomance.

  I tug at the collar of my gown, trying to loosen it, but the sense of choking does not lessen. I wonder if someone is watching me, watching me pace, watching me sweat.

  I keep my face blank, my back straight and my head high. If they do see me, I must not give them reason to think me weak. They do not know that she is gone.

  At least I hope they do not.

  I swallow. I do not need her. I am strong en—

  My throat tightens. I catch myself. Those words.

  I breathe deep. I must not sink. I must not fall. Not now.

  The lock clanks. The door squeals open. The vampire women prowl into the room. Vittoria’s lizard tongue flicks out. Her quicksilver eyes pass over me, but she does not even bother to meet my gaze. I know why.

  I am not a person. I am not even an experiment.

  I am food.

  In a bound Vittoria covers the distance between us and grabs me by the shoulder. The cold of her touch sinks through my clothing. She shoves me towards the door. “Move, meat.”

  I nearly fall and catch myself. No. I must not let her handle me. I must not let her win this.

  I face her. She must hear the pounding of my heart, but there is nothing I can do to slow it. All I can do is stare back into her blurred face and force a growl through my teeth.

  “Touch me again and I will rip you in two.”

  Vittoria steps forward and stops inches from my face. Every drop of warmth drains from the air.

  She growls, a grating rumble like a wolf’s. “I’d like to see you—”

  Amaranta snaps at her. “Vittoria. Enough.”

  Vittoria sputters, nearly whining. “But she—"

  “Let the lady deal with her.” Amaranta turns to me and jerks her head towards the door. “Come.”

  Amaranta strides through the door. Vittoria casts me another snarl as I follow Amaranta out of the cell, my heart in my throat.

  The lady is the fiend. I know it. They are taking me to the fiend.

  We enter another passage. The same blood-red lights shine from above, making the damp walls glisten like the gut of some slimy beast. The vampires move in silence, marching me through a mist of dank rusty air. Vittoria keeps close behind me. I hear her teeth grinding.

  My heart falls from my throat to my chest, sinking further with every turn we take. All I meant to do was rescue Belle, but the detection device went silent long ago. I will never find her without it.

  If Belle is even still—

  Stop.

  The passage continues, on and on. In the distance I hear screams.

  I slide my hand beneath my mantle and grip the staff at my side.

  The dank air grows hotter. Wisps of steam curl from around a bend in the passage ahead. A cloud of damp washes over me as we reach it. Ahead a metal walkway crosses a vast space, a cavern filled with tremendous machines. Devices the size of houses churn with pistons and massive spinning gears. A sea of steam billows among the hulking machines, hiding the ground.

  I follow Amaranta across the bridge. The heat of the air soaks my clothing, turning it as heavy as armor. I lock my eyes on the distant door. Show no fear. Show nothing.

  We cross the cavern and pass through the door. The stench of death strikes me in a wave, mixed with an acid, alchemical smell.

  Like a laboratory.

  No. Hot tears flood my eyes. No, no, no…

  This passage is different from the rest. The wall to my left is bare gray stone, each block smooth and new. There is no wall to my right, only
a long row of prison bars that stretches the length of the corridor. The bloody light slides along their silver surfaces.

  Silver?

  The vampires stay well away from the bars, keeping close to the wall. I glance into the first cell and stop.

  An iastrochemical machine hums inside the cell, a device for medical alchemy. A huge convolution of curving glass pipes wraps around a skeleton suspended with its arms outstretched. Liquids pulse through the glass, one gray, one black. Glowing alchemical glyphs travel over the pipes. Imprisonment. Paralysis. Extraction. Distillation.

  The skeletal shape stirs within the web of glass, twitching clawed fingers. A vampire.

  My mouth falls open. Not a strand of muscle is left on the creature’s bones. Its white-furred head sags onto its chest, elongated face is frozen in a grimace. Its breaths are shallow and rattling. The creature is still alive, or whatever passes for living among vampires.

  A shock jolts through my blood. Needles protrude from the Dead creature’s body, jutting from its outstretched arms, its abdomen, the back of its neck, stabbed into its flesh like daggers. Glass hypodermics drain the liquids from its body.

  Needles. Needles puncturing my skin. A rush of acid heat as fluid pours into my own veins and—

  Amaranta growls at me. “Move.”

  “You do this to your own kind?”

  She flicks a hand. “Some must be sacrificed.”

  “You are torturing it!”

  “The lowly ones are ours to do with as we wish.” She scoffs at the trapped vampire. “Wretched, brainless things. They are naught but our subjects.”

  Vittoria hisses behind me, “What do the living care for the pain of the Dead?”

  I tear my gaze from the trapped vampire, my stomach writhing. A vampire slumps in each cell we pass, attached to a device like the first. Each looks different from the last, as though each is a singular species of Dead. One cell contains a vampire of the same sort that attacked us in the machineworks. Another holds a creature with scythe-like claws as long as its own forearms. Another holds a scaly, webbed-fingered vampire that seems designed to hunt in water.

  Subjects. The word pounds in my head with every footstep. Subjects. Subjects.

  We pass dozens of Dead creatures, all captive, all drained. The last is awake. I stop again. Vittoria growls but I pay her no heed.

  The vampire’s gaze meets mine. Rags of clothing still hang from its form. Strands of whitened hair still cling to its scalp. The creature is a corpse but its eyes are alive, bright, blue, the same shade as mine.

  Amaranta snarls. “Move along, meat!”

  I reach out and take hold of the silver gate. It opens.

  Amaranta’s voice sharpens. “What are you doing?”

  I slip into the cell. The captive vampire narrows its eyes. Beneath my mantle I run my fingers over my bandolier and find vial thirteen.

  Vittoria snarls. “Get out of there!”

  I stop before the trapped vampire and reach for the nearest tube. Footsteps follow me. “Let that alone. Don’t touch—"

  I jerk the vial of silver nitrate from my bandolier and whip around, hurling its contents at them. The powered silver salt arcs through the air, into their faces.

  The Dead women rock backwards, shrieking. I run for the gate. Amaranta stumbles into my way. I pull my staff from my belt and slam it into her head, bashing her aside. She smashes into the web of glass. Vittoria staggers towards me. I spin my staff in my hands and ram its head into her stomach. She reels into the silver bars and falls, screaming, streaks of burnt flesh striping her back.

  I bolt into the corridor and throw the gate shut. The vampires’ shrieks follow me. A metal door appears to my right. I grasp the wheel in its center, heaving at it until it turns. The door swings open and I run into a glare of blood-red light.

  The smell of death chokes me. I pitch forward, falling, into a pit.

  Something grabs the back of my mantle. My collar jerks tight against my throat, leaving me hanging there, flailing at the air. I see everything in one horrible flash.

  A deep metal-walled pit yawns below me, seething with vampires. Hundreds of withered faces snap up to stare at me, a sea of eyes, red, black, slug-gray. Hungry.

  Teeth flash. Vampires spring out of the crowd, leaping at me, falling short and plunging back into the pit. Others throw themselves at the walls, scrabbling at the slick metal, strings of spit dripping from their jaws. Black marks burn on their foreheads.

  Brands.

  Whatever holds my mantle yanks me back. The door slams shut. I stumble away, looking about me. There is no one there.

  A voice speaks from nowhere. “You’re quite welcome.”

  A tracing appears in the air, filling with hues, until suddenly a young man appears in the middle of the corridor, freckled and with flaming red hair. His coat hangs open at his chest, revealing two crossed bandoliers like mine, one loaded with ammunition and another with flat-bladed knives.

  I gape at him. “Wh-…who the devil are you?”

  “My alias is the Griffin. But Andreas Greiff will do.” He glances down the corridor. “I think we ought to run, don’t you?”

  I do not bother to ask. We run. I catch sight of a flash of gold on his lapel, a pin, the same shade of gold as the chatelaine at my waist.

  We stop at a corner. I round on him. “You gave Belle the chatelaines!”

  “Yes, my brilliant foresight to the rescue again.” He rakes his fingers through his hair. “Ah…you wouldn’t happen to know a way out, would you?”

  “Me?”

  A burst of screeches echoes down the corridor. Every drop of color drains from Andreas’ face. “They’ve let them out.”

  We sprint down the corridor. Water roars ahead. The passage around us vanishes as we dash out onto a ledge, but there is nowhere to run. The ledge overlooks the vast cavern of machines. The fog pulses, writhing with the heat of the boiling rivers below it.

  Andreas groans. “Ei, drek.”

  The screams of the Dead cut through the roar. The nearest machine churns just ahead, ten feet below.

  I take a deep breath. “Follow me.”

  “Wait!” Andreas grabs for my arm. “Not ye—"

  I jump.

  The surface of the machine slams into me. The metal burns my hands. I scramble up just as Andreas lands beside me, throwing out his arms to keep his balance. The slick metal shudders with the motion of the gears. Andreas points to the nearest machine, a tangled mass of pistons. “That one!”

  We run across the surface and jump. I land, inches from smashing my face against a piston. I steady myself just as Amaranta and Vittoria bound out of the corridor and onto the ledge. A crowd of Dead creatures pours after them, eyes shining in the mist.

  Amaranta points. The vampires rush past them, charging straight towards us.

  Andreas pulls the revolvers from his belt and fires into the mob. Two Dead creatures fall, holes in their hearts. “Go!”

  We leap from machine to machine. With each landing Andreas spins to fire into the crowd. Vampires pitch out of sight, into the mist or the gears, vanishing in spurts of black blood. Amaranta and Vittoria bound ahead of the others, the pair of them splitting to run alongside us, meaning to race ahead, block our path, but we are nearly—

  The mob reaches us.

  A scythe-clawed vampire lunges at me. I swing my staff into its head. The Dead creature’s jaw dislocates with a crunch. I strike it again and kick it in the chest. The vampire topples into the mist as another creature launches itself at Andreas. He shoots it out of the air and hurls a knife into the eye of a third. “Behind you!”

  Something seizes me and throws me down. I twist onto my back as a wolf-like Dead creature looms over me, jaw agape. I kick its knee. The creature falls onto me, pinning me beneath its weight, its face dissolving into a smear. I scream as I ram my staff into its head. The creature falters, long enough for me to shove it off. As I roll onto
my feet the vampire catches my skirt. I throw myself back, tearing free. A piece of my skirt rips away, taking the chatelaine with it. It strikes the metal and bounces over the side of the machine.

  The Dead creature tackles me again, sending us both rolling across the machine, over the side.

  My hand catches a rivet. I jerk to a halt, swinging above a mass of gnashing gears. The vampire plunges past me. The creature wails as the gears drag it into their teeth, crushing it in a horrible explosion of gore.

  Gunfire cracks above me. I kick at the wall, searching for a foothold. My shoes slide against the metal. The muscles of my shoulder scream.

  The water roars. The heat boils. My fingers slip and I fall.

  Pain explodes inside my skull. Dark lightning tendrils stab into my veins, filling me with fire and strength and rage and her—

  Metal. Slamming into my back. But no pain. The gears seize me. Halt. Strain. My bones. They do not crack. I do not break.

  The machine groans. Gears trap me like vises. I. Cannot. MOVE—

  A scream. My hands. Grasping the teeth. Metal buckling. Sparks. Gears jamming. Breaking.

  Bashing my way out. Vaulting into gunfire. Flying blades. Vampires bursting out of the mist.

  I scream. I run. My staff, a flash of black. Snapping bone. Sprays of blood. Nothing will hold me. Nothing will hurt me. Nothing! Nothing nothing NOTHING!

  A vampire falling. Smashing its skull. Kicking it over the side. A billow of mist. Amaranta. Atop the opposite machine.

  They are naught but our subjects.

  Subjects. Subjects. Subjects subjects subjects subjects—

  Amaranta leaps. I leap. Crashing. Gripping. Slashes. Claws rip cloth. Glance off my skin. Her hands around my throat. Mine grasping her shoulders.

  Tearing.

  Freezing blood sprays me. My hands open. The two halves of Amaranta fall over the side of the machine and disappear into the mist.

  Every drop of rage drains out of me. My knees strike the metal. My hands splash into a frigid pool of black. They are pale. Jette’s.

  The world swims around me. What did she…