Children of the Night

by Zan Safra

  Her jaws clamp about my neck like a vise. Her teeth sink into my leather gorget but do not pierce. She bites harder, savaging me like a dog. I grab her shoulders. My fingernails sink into her flesh.

  The Dead woman screams. Her jaws open and she backs away, holding one arm. Black scratches sizzle on her flesh, as though she has been torn with hot needles. A fainter sizzling comes from my own hands. My nails are smeared with black blood. It steams, dissolving to nothing.

  My nails. My silver nails.

  I push myself away from the wall and slash at her face. She flinches and I miss. I kick her into the wall and run again, to another door that I drag open. A stench knocks me back, blood and filth and death. I hold my breath and run through, onto a walkway that stretches over five pits gaping like giant wells. Hundreds of Dead creatures swarm in each one, thrashing, clawing, screaming.

  The Dead woman bounds onto the walkway. I grab the railings and throw two threads of volta down my arms. The blast speeds into the Dead woman, hurling her into the air. She crashes down onto the walkway, twitching. I pull myself along the railing, forcing myself through the exhaustion that soaks me. I have spent…too much…

  But the Dead woman is upon me again, tackling me. Both of us fall to the metal, rolling under the railings, into the pit.

  A crowd of bodies catches me. Claws slash at my armor. A rush of volta surges down my arms. Dead creatures fly back. Others close in, until the Dead woman rises and shrieks at them, “Mine!”

  The vampires retreat, crouching like frightened beasts. I climb to my feet, bracing myself against the wall. It is built of metal plates, riveted together like the scales of a dragon.

  Metal.

  The Dead woman extends her claws, preparing to pounce. My arms feel like lead as I heave them up, curling my own hands. “Leave now,” I croak, “and I shall let you live.”

  The Dead woman stares at me, a disbelieving half-smile pulling at her mouth, but then her face twists again. “One of you murdered my sister. That one escaped.” Her lips curl, revealing more of her hideous teeth. “But you’ll do!

  She runs at me. I throw cords of volta into the plate behind me and wrench it loose. Before she reaches me I hurl it at her, pinning her to the opposite wall, so hard that the metal bends around her. She struggles, screaming, spit flying from her mouth. I peel even more volta from my heart and grab more metal plates, seven of them. I bend them down into a flat stairway, spiraling up to the pit’s edge.

  I climb onto the lowest. The vampires stare between me and the Dead woman, gaping in dull confusion. I climb onto the next plate and hear a metallic clang. The Dead woman kicks the bent plate away and comes for me again.

  I climb higher, as fast as I can manage, scraping my hands, banging my shins. The Dead woman leaps onto the lowest plate, easily as a cat. I climb onto the final plate and grab the edge of the pit, jamming the toes of my boots into the gaps in the wall, dragging myself out—

  Clawed hands grab my legs and jerk me down. I cling to the pit’s edge, hanging by my fingertips, and feel teeth sink into my flesh.

  Ice-hot pain streaks through my leg, but mine is not the only scream. The Dead woman lets go of me, mouth smeared with silver liquid, her face blackening with burns. She clutches her face, wailing, eyes bulging with terror, and falls from the plate, into the crowd of Dead.

  I haul myself out of the pit. The pain tears through my leg like hot pokers stabbed into my flesh.

  She bit me…a vampire bit me…

  I limp away. A doorless corridor appears ahead. I stagger inside and fall to the metal floor. Blood soaks my leg. Black slime coats my skin. Silvery liquid wells from deep punctures in my skin.

  My blood is silver too?

  The slime writhes like a living thing. It thins and melts away, dissolving in the silver blood.

  I tear strips of cloth from my trousers and tie them around the wounds. Well, it seems I am immune to Dead contagion. That is useful to know.

  My volta throbs weakly, little of it, but enough to keep my heart beating. I wobble onto my feet. I am injured and almost drained, but I can still move.

  I brace myself against the wall as I go on down the new corridor, headed who knows where. I will go on even if I must drag myself across the ground. They need me. I will not leave them. Never.

  Isadora’s form floats ahead of me like a ghost, a mirage in my mind. I am coming for them, I think at her. And I am coming for you.

  The corridor ends in yet another door. I open it and step into ankle-deep water. Barred cells line an aisle leading forward.

  I remember what Andreas called this place: the Pozi, the Wells. The lowest level of the Doge’s prison.

  I slog forward, water splashing around my boots. Every cell is silent, pitch-black. Every moment I expect a clawed hand to grab at me.

  I come to a curving stone staircase. A whirring from nearby makes me pause. It sounds like an automaton.

  I follow the stairs up. A flash of color catches my eye, out of place in the gloom. An iridescent clockwork insect clings to the prison door, golden antennae tapping at the wood.

  Fiorella’s butterfly. The little automaton follows her everywhere.

  Fiorella is here.

  The door is unlocked. I throw it open and the little automaton flutters into the air, flapping away down the corridor beyond.

  I gather my strength and follow it.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Yurei

  WALLS OF DARK STONE, a door of iron bars, an arched stone ceiling. I remember this room. It was where they first held me, when they took me from the opera house. But perhaps that was a dream. Perhaps I never left this cell, perhaps their poison deluded me and nothing that came after was true…

  Fog fills my head. The walls change about me, shifting like rippling curtains, becoming white stone, a door of heavy wood, a half-moon barred window. Beyond the walls a sandstorm rages, an unending roar. They told me once that it was the howl of demons, beings of wind and flame.

  Fog, endless fog.

  The manacle. It lies heavy around my arm, heavier than my weapon. It deadens me, turning my soul to ash. They use it to rule me, chain me in a glazed stupor, an eternal dream.

  But perhaps now…perhaps this is the true world, perhaps I never escaped the Citadel, that that life was the dream…

  The manacle’s glyphs shine red, faint embers in the dark. They burn bright when I’m summoned. They will have me conjure nightmares, execute the condemned. I drive the prisoners to madness so that they take their own lives to end the torment.

  It amuses them. How they laugh.

  Dreams…dreams upon dreams upon dreams…

  They were kind dreams, once in which I never killed, ones in which I saved. There was music. There was music and a girl, a beautiful girl I held and ached to kiss—

  Ayanda…her name was Ayanda…

  The walls of the White Citadel melt, peeling away to reveal the fiend’s lightless cell. Footsteps approach. Shadows glide over the floor. They are coming for me.

  Good. If the kind place was the dreamland, then I want to remain there. Perhaps if they kill me I can return…

  The shadows become men, palace guards and alchemists. They speak among themselves. Once I saw color when voices sounded in my ears. Now I see nothing.

  Another form appears behind them, a long, veiled silhouette. I hear its breath seethe through fangs. Skeleton hands tremble at its sides, frozen into claws.

  The sight would have frightened the dream-Yurei. He would have sensed a wrongness, fought this creature or fled. But the manacle and the fog enwrap the Yurei I am now. I see the creature and feel nothing.

  The shrouded thing falters, a hand rising to press against its head. The alchemists also stagger, blinking as though shaken awake. But then they steady, frowns dissolving. The vampire lowers its hand. “Why does this happen?”

  An alchemist struggles with the words. “The Frankenstein creature di
srupted the…we are repairing the damage as quickly as—”

  The creature shrieks at him. “Faster! Tell them! Go!”

  The alchemist runs. The creature presses a hand against its heart. “She is coming,” it whispers. “She stole my spy from me—”

  The creature stumbles again, now pressing both hands to its head. “You…” One hand points to an alchemist. “You I cannot feel.”

  The alchemist blanches. “It must be the damage, my lady—”

  “Do you belong to her? Has she stolen you from me?”

  “No!” The alchemist retreats, babbling with fear. “I-I’m loyal, my lady, n-no one has—”

  “You betrayed me.”

  “No! No, my—"

  The skeleton hand seizes him and thrusts him away. The alchemist’s spine cracks like a wishbone and the creature flings him aside. He tumbles lifelessly to the ground.

  “She is in the Palace,” the creature whispers. “She comes for them.”

  She…

  The fog in my skull thins. The girl…Ayanda, her name is Ayanda…

  The fiend mutters, not to those remaining. “I have no time. I must see to my battalions. I have no…”

  She turns, regarding me. “Send the Infernal mongrel.”

  The alchemists share a perplexed glance. “My lady?” asks one.

  “Command him to hunt her.”

  “My lady, is that…” The moroi’s black-veined throat shifts as he swallows. “We have not had the opportunity to…that is to say, he has lived unharnessed for a number of months. He may have gained the strength to overcome—”

  A low growl scratches from the vampire’s throat. The alchemist begins to sweat. “My lady, human Infernals are too unpredictable to—"

  “Obey me.”

  “He will never—”

  “Obey me!”

  The alchemist recoils. The fiend approaches the bars. “It is fitting,” she whispers. “Let her learn betrayal again.”

  A quavering, croaking chuckle leaks through jagged teeth. The fiend turns away and leaves the corridor.

  One alchemist wipes his forehead. “The lady is not—”

  “Quiet!” The other alchemist enters the cell. He pulls back his sleeve to reveal a smaller manacle engraved with glyphs and an insignia, a dueling scorpion and locust.

  The symbols burn, melting the fog. I…escaped…not a dream…

  Ayanda…Jette…Belle…Andreas…

  I claw at the fog, shredding it. Help them…I have to help them…the fiend doesn’t own me, no one owns me…I swore I’d die before I let—

  The alchemist’s voice echoes through the fog. “Stand.”

  The manacle’s weight increases, a chain pulling me further into the fog. My body stands.

  No. There was…there was an opera house, a vivid, golden place…and music…

  A spark of color follows his voice, a poisoned flicker of red. “You heard the lady’s command. Answer.”

  My mouth forms the word. “Yes.”

  “Proceed.”

  The manacle drags me away, trying to drown me, so that the rest of me obeys, but—

  “No.”

  The alchemist’s mouth tightens. “Do as I say, Infernal!”

  “No.”

  He begins to meddle with the golden cuff. The manacle heaves at me, dragging me into the depths. But I know what’s coming. I won’t allow it, not this time. They think they’ve enslaved me again.

  But I’m no one’s slave.

  “No.”

  My mouth twists into a mad grin, a snarl. “You…don’t…own…me.”

  A pause. They stare.

  The second alchemist reaches out and tears off my mask.

  The air is like acid thrown in my face. Explosions of pain burst inside my entire body. I scream as I fall, my bones lengthening, straining, cracking as my face crushes, sinks, tightens, as my voice turns to a distortion, black flames to black oil—

  I try to cling to the world, but the pain, the pain and the shrieking chaos in my head…Jette, Jette was there at the Academia , Jette, help me…

  But her face, her face is gone…and there’s another world, a red sky streaked with gold. There’s music on the wind, wind through the obsidian mountains…

  MusicmusiciciclesongsAyanda—

  Ayanda, I scream for Ayanda, for her, for anyone to cast me a lifeline in this typhoon…

  The white fog turns to black mist. The manacle I can no longer fight drags me into a pit.

  And I laugh. Laugh laugh laugh laugh.

  The pain subsides. The alchemist with my mask backs away, yelling to the other in a voice thick with terror. “Siore!”

  He steels himself and nears, mask outstretched to trap me again. I strike him and send him into the bars. The other man commands, “Enough.”

  I look down at him. The second alchemist lies groaning on the floor, blood drenching the back of his head. I snarl at him, the chaos boiling again, driving me to…

  Stop. See what I command you to see.

  The words are another lifeline, one I catch, cling to.

  See the place whence you came.

  The manacle burns on my wrist. The halls of the White Citadel rise to surround me, tapestried, arched windows battened against the storm.

  Remember the one you hate. When you find the Draculesti, see her as him. Now go.

  Take your revenge.

  I move forward, slogging through air turned to liquid, wandering deserted halls. I am here again, trapped in this white catacomb. He captured me again. I thought I killed him, but he survived, survived and hunted me, caught me, shackled me once more.

  Yurei!

  A piercing, terrified wail of crackling green, Jette’s. Yurei, help!

  I stumble about. Belle’s scream joins hers. Yurei!

  Ayanda’s. Yurei, please! Help us!

  I run. Lingering pains slow me. I drag myself along the wall. I can’t let pain stop me. He captured them…he captured them as well, he has them…

  My hearts beat wildly, bursting with panic. They must be Infernals as well. That’s it, I can’t believe I never realized…and now he has them, he means to do to them what he did to me…but no, no, I won’t allow it, I’ll free them even if I must kill him again…

  I stumble on, listening, hunting. No need to fade. He won’t escape. No one escapes me.

  I hear the footfalls then, many, striding steps and strange ones, scuttling, creeping. The pains lessen, my strength returns. I run towards them, prowling, hunting…

  I round a corner. Citadel guards run into the vast chamber, their spears at the ready, and at their head…

  Him.

  Him.

  Him.

  The fog and the chaos in my skull quiet, turning to utter, crystalline calm.

  Nothing of him has changed. Nothing of him ever changed. He was forever immutable, an automaton carved of flesh. His eyes find me, green and cold as jade.

  Life enters them as those eyes rake over me, feeling. Surprise. Stupefaction. Recognition.

  Fear.

  Acid, vicious, tearing rage boils in my blood, sending juddering ripples through the black oil of my voice. “Salahm, daroga.”

  Only his voice has changed, muddling, not its colorless twist. Yurei?

  Their voices, Jette’s, Belle’s, Ayanda’s, green, vermillion, silver, wailing. Help us! Please!

  Andreas screams, translucent quartz. Yurei! Save them!

  The daroga motions to his soldiers, ordering them to retreat. I twist my wrist and grasp my blade. “Free them.”

  He stares at me wordlessly, shaking his head. Yurei, what—

  “Free them!”

  Yurei…it’s me…Yurei…

  “I know who you are!”

  I launch my weapon. The blade streaks towards his eye. He deflects it, swatting it aside, but that isn’t enough to stop me. I won’t let him torture them as he did me, I’ll end it he
re—

  The daroga turns as I circle him, still shouting, words through water, unintelligible. I strike. He dodges. I strike again, again. He evades, deflects, shouts. Stop…Yurei…listen to—

  “You created this,” I hiss. “Are you proud of your work, daroga?”

  I couldn’t stop what he did to me, but I’ll stop him now, I won’t let him hurt them—

  “Tell me!”

  I strike true. The cord lashes around his neck. I drag him to the ground. He struggles to rise but I throw him down again, on top of him. One of my hand seizes his hair. My other presses the point of my blade against his throat.

  Now. It’s time to end it. To avenge ten years of torment. To save them.

  His pulse throbs against the point of my blade. His voice reaches me, not in words but the faintest scrape of color…

  Silver.

  Cold ivory. Moonlit chimes. A hand, fingers entwined with mine…

  The daroga’s form shimmers. His muddled voice solidifies, paling, but the manacle keeps it at bay. It’s a trick. It’s a trick to capture me. I know who he is, the one I hate—

  Yurei…Yurei, it’s—

  Silver. A girl with a silver voice…Ayanda?

  Yurei—

  A silver voice. Ayanda’s voice.

  The manacle. See her as the one you hate. Obey.

  The murky face taunts me, impossible to discern. I know it’s a lie, a trick…of course he would try to trick me…this can’t be her, this can’t—

  Obey. Take your revenge.

  Obey…I’ve always obeyed…but the words, there were words that left my own mouth, a century ago…you don’t own me…

  I tighten my grip. Everything, the daroga is everything, a torturer, a murderer, just as the rest of this whole damned world—

  Silver. Yurei…it’s me…

  The blurred face stills, resolving. Ayanda’s face.

  AYANDA!

  I try to release her. The manacle clenches. See her as the one you—

  No.

  Obey.

  No!

  The manacle burns. An invisible garotte tightens around my throat. It’s punishing me. It wants to force me, it thinks it can rule me, but it can’t, not again, no longer—