Children of the Night

by Zan Safra

  The baobhan sith’s smile vanished. The vampire stared at me, stupefied. I stared back.

  The glow of her eyes dimmed. Her gaze swept over me, not hunting, but piercing, searching. “What are you?” she whispered.

  She glided towards me, sheathing her claws. Her eyes widened in astonishment. “Dra—”

  Someone seized me by the arm and hauled me back. Andreas snapped into sight beside me, dressed in his nightshirt with his hair mussed from sleep, his eyes huge with horror as he stared at the Dead woman.

  The baobhan sith grinned with delight. She hadn’t expected a feast.

  A string of spittle leaked from the corner of her mouth as she spread her hands, reaching for Andreas. “Would you like to play?”

  A glazed expression slackened Andreas’ face. His hand fell from my arm. Slowly he stepped past me, within her reach.

  “Andreas, no!” I lunged for him just as the baobhan sith’s hands gripped his shoulders. A sudden strength burst inside me, forking through my muscles like lightning. I tore Andreas from her grasp and shoved her. The Dead woman flew back and crashed down on the paving-stones, tumbling away until she struck the base of the wall.

  I grabbed Andreas and dragged him behind me. The Dead creature sprang to her feet. Her black fangs unfolded from the roof of her mouth like a serpent’s. Her hair writhed around her head. Her eyes bulged from their sockets, their whites a burning red.

  I raised my fists. I was afraid, but I was strong, miraculously strong, and I would stop her, I would save them…

  The baobhan sith crouched, flexing her lengthening claws, her bizarre hoof-like feet visible beneath the hem of her rotting gown. She prepared to spring. I prepared to fight—

  I heard the flap of wings. A dark shaped plummeted from above. Madrina landed between us, baring her own tremendous fangs. She opened her wings, shielding the two of us, facing the baobhan sith.

  The baobhan sith snatched the little girl, wrapping her withered arms about her. The dazed child made no sound.

  Madrina stiffened. “Release the girl.”

  The baobhan sith snarled, jerking the girl closer. “Mine!”

  A growl rose in Madrina’s throat. “Release her.”

  The baobhan sith’s eyes burned with rage. Her other hand seized a fistful of the girl’s hair. Her face contorted, further baring her fangs.

  I sprinted out from behind Madrina. I could fight the thing, save her yet. I was strong, I was quick—

  But not quick enough.

  The vampire’s fangs flashed, plunging towards the girl’s throat. Madrina’s wings wrapped around me, shielding me from the sight, but not the sound, not the wail, not the cracking, the tearing…

  “That was the end of it. We ran. I never saw the creature again.”

  The last of the memories wither away, returning me to the music room and Yurei. He sits with his eyes locked on the far wall, fists so tightly clenched that his knuckles are white.

  His voice trembles like a taut wire. “No child should see such…”

  “We’ve all seen terrible things.”

  His right fist uncurls. Slowly, ever so slowly, he rests his hand upon mine.

  A shock jolts through me. I’ve never felt his touch without gloves. His skin is cool, with calluses on his fingers, the work of years’ worth of practice with his weapon. A strange current seems to course beneath his skin, the faintest prickling shimmering between us.

  My heart pounds. I ought to say something, something that makes sense, but I can’t connect the words, not without sounding like an utter…

  My mouth grows dry. I don’t know what to do. I’ve never spoken to a young man this way. I’ve never spoken to any young man. What would the point of that be? I’m Unnatural, it’s not as though anyone would ever…

  Say something, you dunce! Say some—

  The hall clock chimes. The spell breaks. We snatch our hands away. “We should go,” I mutter.

  Yurei nods. We leave the music room as the clock strikes eleven. I hear the children’s voices echoing in the distance. Yurei slowly holds out his hand and I take it. The strange feeling of his fading sweeps over me, and I…

  I interlace my fingers with his. Yurei looks away, but not before I glimpse the slightest tugging at the corners of his mouth. He softly squeezes my hand. I try to look everywhere but at him as we walk, hoping that he won’t see my smile.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jette

  HUMIDITY FOGS MY GOGGLES as I lean close to the glass alembic. The alchemical synthesizer thrums with energy as silver lunaric acid speeds through the web of pipettes inside, pouring into a marble-sized glass sphere. Two metallaric graspers rise from the alembic’s base, seal the marble and lower it into the release chute. A tiny hatchway opens and my new grenade falls into my gauntleted hands, still smoking.

  I step back and take off my goggles. The alchemical lights dotting the wood-paneled walls shine on the dozens of devices perched on the counters spread about the room. The sharp and sweet smells of the compounds brewing within them fill the air as they trickle into twenty-four vials. A little spider automaton hops from device to device, searching for dust.

  I have never loved a room so much. When I first entered I wanted to run in every direction and activate every device, imagining every possible thing I might create, but soon I calmed myself and concentrated. There was no time to scurry about. I set to work.

  I have no room for mistakes. I cannot predict what may happen. But if a weapon fails, or a medicament does not take, one of us might die.

  Everyone might die.

  I slip the new grenade onto my bandolier and tug off my gauntlets. The cloth of my new laboratory vestment still feels strange and stiff. I have never worn one before. Whenever I sneaked into the Collegium’s laboratory I wore my uniform dress and hoped I would not douse myself in something flesh-eating. I intended to make do the same way. I did not know what to say when Belle told me she had commissioned one from the Shadow Palace’s automata.

  The memory alone makes me embarrassed again. I was so nervous in the hours before Belle arrived with the new vestment. I had hoped for something plain and serviceable. I could hardly stammer out a word when Belle appeared with an entire stack of clothing.

  I brush a trace of dust from the vestment. The garment is wine-red, double-breasted and with a high collar. Belle designed it to be gathered at the waist and added ruffles to the back like a short chain. Flair and charm! She said. There’s no point in doing anything without proper style.

  I touch the cloth. The vestment is unique, not something spit out of a factory. It was made for an individual, for me.

  I am not a number. I am not a ragged prisoner. I am different now.

  I am a person.

  I brush the staff at my belt, running my fingers over the scratched letters. A person with a name.

  The laboratory door squeaks open and Andreas strolls in. He looks about, eyebrows raised, and whistles. “Impressive.”

  I look down at my boots. They look strange under my new garment, scuffed and mismatched. “The automata did the repairs.”

  “Not enough credit to you, I think.” He leans close to a glass-encased gearbox, studying its workings. “I didn’t give this room much thought. I wouldn’t have known what to make of these…ah, things.” He casts me a smile. “What do you think?”

  “Oh, it’s magnificent! I have never…I mean, I have never had a laboratory to myself. I had so little time before. They never let me into the laboratories alone. I had to sneak about to accomplish what I wanted, and it took months to formulate and generate my first independent compounds, and that is without mentioning my more unconventional projects, and of course my…”

  I stop when I notice him staring at me. “You think me strange,” I mutter.

  “No, it’s just that I’ve never heard you say so many words at once.” He grins. “I rather think—"

  Pain crosses his face. His
arm, still bent against his side, tenses.

  “Your treatment!” I run to the alembic filled with newly-concentrated silver nitrate. I sift a portion into a vial and return with it and a roll of gauze bandages. Andreas sits on the countertop, sliding painfully out of his jacket. Patches of blood stain the bandages I wrapped an hour ago.

  I set down the vial and bandages. In the light of the glowing device beside him I can see plainly how ill he is. “How do you feel?”

  He smiles weakly. “Much better, in fact.”

  He looks worse.

  I unwrap the bandages and examine the wound through my lenses. When I treated him earlier I used a highly-concentrated dose of silver nitrate. It prevents infection in ordinary wounds, and I thought that its aseptic property combined with its silver base might do something against a Dead-originated contagion. But the black tendrils have not retreated. The burn has not even begun to heal.

  No change.

  I discard the bandages and begin to treat the wound, trying to show no emotion whatsoever. Belle was right. Dead blood is poisonous to Unnaturals. And if we do not destroy the fiend quickly, it will kill Andreas.

  Finally he breaks the quiet and motions with his head towards a certain device. “What’s that concoction? It wasn’t there an hour ago.”

  I squint at the alembic. “That? A concentrate of combustible argentic acid. If my hypothesis is correct, it ought to dissolve Dead flesh.”

  “You whipped up a flesh-melting acid in an hour?” Andreas grimaces, sucking air through his teeth. “Frankly, you’re more terrifying when you’re sane.”

  A lump rises in my throat. Andreas grins again. “That was a compliment.”

  I do not know how to take a compliment like that.

  He gestures at the other humming devices. “What’s the rest of this, then?”

  “These?” I point to one alembic after another. “That one is an anodyne for pain, that there is a concentration of nitroglycerin, those are various explosives, and those are a variety of medicaments for the immediate treatment of wounds…”

  Andreas points at an alembic filled with dark fluid. “And that?”

  “Oh, that? Black tea.”

  He frowns. “Tea? Are you ill?”

  I remember that Venetians only take tea for stomach upsets. It is a dreadful way to live. “I am not,” I say. “Tea is beneficial regardless.”

  I begin to wrap the bandages. Andreas winces. “I wouldn’t have believed you the medical sort,” he says. “I thought you more of a…well, a battler.”

  My fingers fumble with the bandages. I manage to steady them. No. I must not let memories swallow me.

  “They trained me in alchemy,” I say. “But only in the simplest of operations. I had to learn the more advanced concepts alone.” I wrap a loop around his arm. “I wanted to learn iastrochemistry. Alchemical medicine, that is.”

  I continue wrapping. Andreas flinches, no matter how careful I am. I do not know how to help him. All I can do is try to slow the infection and give him time.

  “You must not over-strain yourself for the time being,” I say. “I cannot say how quickly your condition will progress. It is possible that physical exertion may exacerbate it further. I know nothing of…”

  Whatever this is.

  “Matters concerning the Dead,” I finish.

  Andreas nods, smiling crookedly. “I defer to your advice, dotoresa Jekyll.”

  He gazes off into an imaginary distance, his smile falling away. “That was considerate of them, to educate you.”

  Lock it away, do not drown…

  “It was only to test me,” I say. “To ensure that the other…that the other procedures did not damage my capacity to reason.”

  The scars on my head seem to burn.

  He sighs. “As bad as it was, I wish they’d taught me. Something useful, at least.”

  I pause. “They taught you nothing?”

  “Didn’t bother. What would I need with knowledge? They intended to sell me to some government or other.” He snorts. “I barely knew my letters when I left.”

  The thought of it leaves me blank with shock. The alchemists at the Collegium kept me from most knowledge, but at least they taught me that. I could sneak into the libraries and teach myself what I needed to know. But Andreas could not have done even that.

  “How…when did you escape?” I ask.

  “Oh…eight years ago, now. I was eleven.” Bitterness slides into his voice. “They didn’t create me out of whole cloth. Too complicated. Too expensive.”

  A terrible dread washes over me. “They did not?”

  “No. They abducted me,” he says. “I was…four, I think. I don’t remember much of my early years. Just pieces of my first language, single words.” He sighs. “And my name, of course. I wouldn’t take on theirs.”

  I try not to show what I feel. I have heard rumors that some Unnaturals were not created in laboratories, but were captured as small children and altered. I cannot imagine how terrible—

  Andreas snorts. “It seemed I was rather too unruly for them.”

  “What happened?”

  “I removed myself from their tender care. What else?” he says. “My godmother found me wandering the streets of Minsk and brought me here. The rest is obvious.”

  “Have you ever tried to find your family?”

  His voice flattens, measured, too even. “Yes. I never did.”

  I finish wrapping the wound. I should not ask further. I have no right to pry.

  I cap the vial of silver nitrate and go to return my materials to their counter, but a soft murmur halts me. “Am I dying, Jette?”

  Silence pours into my ears like liquid. I hear nothing but my own pulse.

  “I-I cannot say.”

  His crooked smile returns. “No need to spare my feelings.”

  I must tell him the truth. There is nothing else I can do.

  “I do not know.”

  Andreas bows his head. Suddenly he rakes his fingers through his hair, disheveling it. His hands tremble, curling into fists, as though he is bursting with tension and fighting to contain it. “It’s not death I fear the most.”

  The vial in my hand slickens with sweat. “Then what?”

  He lifts his gaze. The glow of the device beside him makes his feverish eyes shine. “Succumbing to her.”

  He rakes his hair again. “I’m already a danger.”

  “That is clearly not the case,” I force out. “Your mind is your own.”

  He stands, looking about in agitation, jaw so tight that its muscles stand out. He stares into the device’s alembic, a bulbous glass filled with a glimmering green compound. Slowed streaks of volta sway within it like seaweed, casting sickly light.

  “I hear her at times, giving orders to the others,” he whispers. “I don’t think she realizes I’m there. But I dream of her voice.”

  The curve of the glass distorts his reflection, turning it to a mad, melted painting. “I thought them only fever dreams. But she’s grown louder.”

  “It is only a voice.”

  “No.” His voice is barely audible, hissing through his teeth. “I want to obey.”

  He brings his fist down against the glass, softly, a slow knock. “That’s how it works, isn’t it? She doesn’t subjugate you. She corrupts you,” he says. “Waking is like dragging myself out of quicksand. And every time I dream, I sink deeper.”

  Andreas and his ruined reflection turn to look at me. “If I do succumb, you know what must be done.”

  It takes a moment for his words to make sense. At first they are meaningless, or perhaps I made them so, to fool myself into believing that he meant something else. But the way he looks at me makes it clear. And turns me into freezing stone.

  “No.”

  He slams his fist against the glass. “I won’t endanger—aaah!”

  He doubles over, clutching his arm. I run to him and grab him before he falls. T
ears of pain trickle from his eyes. “I’ll be a danger to you. All of you may die because of—”

  Another spasm weakens his legs. I drag him to the counter and help him to sit. He wipes his eyes with his cuff. “You know that, Jette. You know what you must do.”

  “No!”

  Hot pain darts through my head. A flash of gray sweeps over my own reflection. Andreas does not flinch.

  I want to run, run, not only from the laboratory and the palaso but away from this, from everything…

  “Why…why do you ask me?”

  He meets my eyes. “Because you’re strong enough.”

  Strong enough.

  I want to retch.

  Strong enough…

  I must hold fast, I must not allow…I must not allow the memories to…

  “That will never happen!” I yell. “I will never harm you, do you hear? You shan’t become a moroi! I will tear her apart before I allow—"

  Pain spears me again. I cover my face. No, not now…

  It fades. My hands tremble as I lower them. “You shan’t become a moroi. I shan’t allow it.”

  The alchemical clock behind me begins to chime, gears spinning as colors speed across its glass like an octopus’ skin. Midnight.

  Andreas forces a smile. Before my eyes the old him returns, the wry, confident Andreas. “Very well. Let’s plan our attack, shall we?”

  I help him into his jacket, benumbed. We leave the laboratory. The corridor seems to change as we walk. The papered walls melt into riveted metal. The men and women in the portraits turn to leering fanged skeletons.

  I stiffen my spine and stare straight ahead. Hold fast. Do not sink.

  I try to order my brain. A plan. We…we will devise a plan. I am quite good at those. I must not…mustn’t think of…

  We come to the parlor. Its lights gleam and its hearth crackles. Belle, Yurei and Ayanda are already there, gathered about a large map spread over a table.

  Belle looks up. “Oh, hello, Jette!”

  I murmur something I cannot even understand. I must not let them see. If they see they will ask what is wrong and I will fall and sink and…

  Lock it away…it is the past, it is gone and buried and I will never…