“Can Pie come?” I asked before I turned to get dressed.
Drey frowned slightly. “Best not.”
That sounded even less right, but I couldn’t argue. I got dressed and ate breakfast mostly in silence. If I opened my mouth, I knew I would start asking too many questions and ruin any plans Drey might have.
It was as if Drey knew my hopes were running wild, because on the elevator ride down to the apartment lobby, he told me, “I’ve sworn, on pain of execution for treason, to use either godspeaking, a stun gun, or tranquilizers on you if you try to escape. So have the others. And all of the guards will also have loaded assault rifles and handguns. For your ostensible protection, of course, but nevertheless … don’t try to escape. You never know if one of the guards will confuse which gun to use in the heat of the moment.”
Or if they hated me for whatever reason, or if Ryse had bribed one of them to turn me into a paraplegic to make my life that much more difficult, etcetera. In any case, I got the drift.
This wasn’t an escape attempt.
Maybe the point of this venture was purely for us to get outside for a while. But if escape was impossible today, maybe I could still find a way to get word to Khaya that I was alive and desperately in need of an escape. This would be my best chance.
I wasn’t sure how even that would be possible when I saw the four guards gathered in the marble lobby. They looked more like soldiers with their Necron uniforms, bulletproof vests, and assault rifles. There was also a brown-haired woman, a Godspeaker I had seen only every once in a while, who didn’t look much friendlier, standing behind a very pale girl with nearly white hair. Maybe the girl was wearing the black tutu and so much black eyeliner to try to counteract her paleness, but mostly it served to accentuate it, making her look like an undead ballerina.
Drey had failed to mention that the extra Godspeaker would come with a Word.
Ever since our showdown in the Alps, I’d only seen Mørke from afar. Now she was close enough to … wink at me? At least that was what I thought she did as soon as she spotted me.
Their choice of the Word of Darkness made sense.
Agonya or Luft’s powers would be more likely to kill me than keep me from escaping, and if the City Council wanted me dead, it would have happened ages ago. Although Brehan could blind me, he’d also blind everyone else in the vicinity; Mørke could likely blindfold me without everyone else experiencing the same effect. I couldn’t run very far like that.
Running became even less of an option after we walked up to the group and a guard handcuffed me to Drey. As the metal cinched tight and cold around my left wrist, I noted that while I might not have gloves, the guards did.
“Is this necessary?” I asked. “Don’t you know I could cut off his hand with a Word if I really wanted to get away?” At least I was pretty sure I could; but doing that would also likely kill Drey. I wondered why they didn’t just handcuff both my hands together until I remembered that Drey was still under some type of house arrest and they probably didn’t want him running either.
Drey answered for the guard, who had barely acknowledged me except to cuff me. “They’re betting on the likelihood that you don’t want to cut off my hand.”
I was tempted to say that was a lousy bet, but I swallowed it. “So,” I said, “thank you all for joining us.”
“You’re welcome,” Mørke said. Her lip quirked up in a half-smile.
I hadn’t expected a response, not even her mildly sarcastic one, though I supposed my sarcasm deserved some in return.
“You here to blindfold me if I try to run?” I asked her.
“Check.”
“Awesome.”
Drey sighed and shared an exasperated look with the other Godspeaker—Angelina was her name. Mostly I knew that because Brehan jokingly called her “Angel of Darkness” as a tribute to her general lack of cheer and, of course, because she was Mørke’s Godspeaker.
“Let’s go,” Drey said, pulling me after him by our handcuffs.
We all exited into a parking garage, through a heavily guarded door hidden behind the lobby desk, which was already sealed off from the rest of the lobby by the glass screen and another ridiculously thick door. A white van with black-tinted windows was waiting against the curb in the garage. Angelina, Mørke, and a guard ducked into the back row. Drey slid into the middle row first, followed by me—as if I had a choice—and then a second guard sat between me and the door. The other two guards sat up front, one of them driving. I wondered if they’d drawn straws to pick who had to sit next to me.
I couldn’t see much as we pulled out of the garage onto a discreet side street in the Athenaeum—only through the windshield, since the back and side windows were so tinted. Even with my limited view, my stomach still clenched in anticipation as we drove up to the gate that would take us outside. I could see Eden City rising beyond the glass pyramid wall, its pale stone and shining metal buildings gleaming in the sunlight.
I leaned forward in my seat to talk to the guys up front, ignoring the guard who tensed next to me. “Can we roll down a window?”
“That would go against protocol, sir,” the driver said. “These windows are bulletproofed for your protection.”
Funny that he called me sir when he’d been the one to handcuff me to Drey.
“Is there going to be any fresh air involved in this trip outside for fresh air?” I muttered to Drey.
“Soon.” Then Drey leaned forward to give the driver directions, and we drove through the gate and out into the city.
Before Drey had his first sentence out, I knew where we were headed. We drove for a while through the richest section of the city, crossing over the Nectar River on one of its more ornate bridges, but soon the buildings grew drabber, turning into brick and concrete instead of marble and glass.
In no time at all we pulled to a stop in front of the garage where I’d lived and worked with Drey since I was six years old. Even before, as a toddler, I’d lived at his bachelor pad of a tiny apartment and ridden in the front seat of the garbage truck with him while he was working. This was practically the only home I’d ever known.
It was ridiculous that it was such a short drive away, and yet it felt a world away. The last time I’d been here, Drey had been lying in a pool of gore on the floor. I thought he’d died, but he’d only been in the process of it. Now, one of the garage’s two huge doors was rolled up, and guys I didn’t recognize were tinkering with one of the green trucks inside. Drey had cycled through employees quickly, probably so no one could start asking too many questions about either of us. That gave me hope that the guys who used to work there with us had just been transferred as usual, not arrested when everything went down.
“See, the place is getting along without us just fine,” Drey said, staring out the window. He sounded nearly as homesick as I felt.
“Indeed,” Angelina said dismissively from the back seat. “The outside world is beneath you, Tavin.”
Mørke cupped her hands around her face as she peered out the window. Even her nails were painted black. “I think it’s cool.”
I almost felt grateful for her presence, then.
“You don’t need this anymore,” her Godspeaker insisted to me.
“No, the outside world doesn’t need me anymore,” I snapped. “Only sick people do.” I felt a pang as I said it. Khaya definitely didn’t number among those people. I changed the subject. “Will I be able to get out of the car at some point? Not here,” I added. It was too painful looking at my old home, let alone walking around it.
Even if Drey and Angelina were saying it in different ways, their point was the same: I didn’t belong here anymore. Maybe Drey hadn’t meant it quite like that, but it still felt like a punch to the stomach. And yet as I looked out the window, I knew it was true.
I was someone else now—something else—no matter how much I wa
nted to be the same old Tavin.
Drey gave further directions, and after that we drove to the edge of Eden City. There, without too many eyes around, I was able to get out of the car and walk along the river, with Angelina and Mørke following behind us and the four guards forming a loose perimeter. A breeze blew more strongly than it ever did in the Athenaeum, and the river smelled like a real river: like algae and rank mud, nothing artificial. Better yet, the sunshine wasn’t filtered through the Athenaeum’s panes of glass. There were only shipyards and graffiti-covered storage containers within sight, but it was still almost nice.
There was that word again: almost. It was almost nice. It was almost like the old days with Drey. It was almost bearable being the Word of Death. But not quite. Drey was doing his best to make my life less miserable, but it wasn’t good enough.
Then again, it could also be worse.
I was just thinking that at least I wouldn’t have to kill anything today when Drey stopped in front of a chain-link fence. We’d veered away from the mud of the riverbank, walking up a heavily potholed road until we were bordering what looked like a junkyard on the other side of the fence.
Drey held up his handcuffed wrist, and the guard unlocked it. The guard unlocked my handcuff too.
I shot Drey a questioning glance. “What’s going on?”
Drey didn’t answer. He only lifted the metal hatch on a gate—which was unlocked, oddly, in this neighborhood—and said, “After you.”
I stepped through, feeling nervous for some reason. With good reason, I discovered, when one of the guards closed the gate right behind me and held the latch down. Reflexively I tried to lift it, but the guard had better a grip than I could get with my bare hand. And his gloves were Necron, so I couldn’t even pretend to threaten him.
If the whole area hadn’t been fenced in, and the fence crowned with spirals of razor wire, I would’ve thought this was my chance to escape. As it was …
“What the hell?” I demanded.
“You were right,” Drey said from the other side of the fence. “We’re done with mercy killings. But I’m not going to let you go straight from that to … harder things.”
“Wait—what is this?”
A snarling growl answered for him and I spun against the fence, the metal links biting into my fingers. I would have scaled the stupid thing if not for the razor wire, because a massive Rottweiler had come out from between cars—a classic junkyard dog, big tendrils of drool hanging from its mouth and a spiked collar around its neck and everything.
This was why the City Council had let me leave my gloves off.
“Killing in self-defense should be easier for you at this stage … ” Drey began after a pause. But even he sounded hesitant at the sight of the dog.
“Oh, you’re doing this out of kindness? How stupid of me.” I edged along the fence, trying to position a rusty car between the dog and me, but it lunged and feinted, sticking too close. All too soon, it would be near enough to sink its teeth into me. I already knew what that felt like and I didn’t care to experience it again.
I would have to move fast.
“Stop trying to run, Tavin,” Drey said, recognizing my stance. “You’re the Word of Death; you just need to—”
I was the Word of Death, and I ran my ass off. Throwing myself into a sprint, I headed for a close formation of old vehicles, the dog at my heels. I launched myself onto the hood of a car, and then scrambled onto the roof. My boots drummed on metal, denting the surface, but I didn’t slow down to step more lightly. I leapt from the car onto a nearby bus, using my arms to heave myself up. The dog jumped and nipped at my ankles, but I hauled myself out of his reach just in time, scooting away from the roof’s edge for good measure.
I stood, dusted flecks of rusty paint from my palms, and took stock of my situation. Yep, indeed, I was stuck on the top of a bus with a crazed dog and a razor-wire fence between me and safety. The river glimmered prettily in the distance.
“Your reaction should be offensive, not defensive,” Drey called from behind the safety of the chain links. The gang of guards with their guns stood on either side of him. They looked even less interested in helping me than Drey did. If anything, they looked entertained. Angelina appeared disinterested, while Mørke was chewing nervously on one of her black-painted fingernails.
“Want to demonstrate for me?” I called back at him, shielding my eyes. The sun was bright out here, and the sky so blue. The roof of the bus was even kind of nice, a place I would have climbed up on to hang out as a kid growing up in the city. Too bad there was a ravenous beast thirsting for my blood circling it, snarling and barking at me. Gods, why couldn’t I have been the Word of Flight instead of the Word of Death? All I had to do was lift off, and I would be free.
But no. And if Pavati and Tu were going to rescue me, this would have been their best possible opportunity. I wanted to leap around and shout for help on the off-chance they would come swooping down in a helicopter or something, but I’d be making myself look like an idiot for no good reason. Besides, Tu would probably tunnel up from the ground, anyway.
They weren’t coming. I was on my own. The ruse of this whole outing had definitely been on me.
“So this dog’s owner doesn’t mind that we’re here to kill it?” I asked, watching the dog pace back and forth beneath me.
“He called a shelter,” Drey answered, “to report that it was acting too aggressively even toward him, so he wanted it to be picked up and exterminated. I’ve been in touch with Eden City’s animal services since … well, since I took over as your Godspeaker, so—”
“So now I’m here. Great. Was that the whole point of this? Not to actually let me breathe some fresh air for once, but to sic a demented dog on me?”
“The purpose was two-fold.”
“Nice. Sort of like killing two birds with one stone. Except one of the birds is a dog.”
“Sarcasm isn’t going to help.”
No, only killing the dog would. It circled the bus in a frenzy, kicking up dust. It even let out a whine between its growls, it was so eager to get at me.
In another lifetime, this dog could have been as cute and cuddly as Pie. Okay, maybe not quite as cute, but certainly as nice. Instead, it had been made into a monster. And now another monster-in-the-making was here to kill it. I was sure the Athenaeum would argue that they needed me, just like the dog’s owner had probably argued that he needed a dog like this. It was an endless cycle of monsters making monsters to supposedly kill other monsters.
There wasn’t much else for me to do.
I considered stretching an arm down the side of the bus to reach for the dog from a safe distance, but I’d likely get my hand chomped before I could speak a Word. The only way for me to get close enough yet still avoid its teeth was to get back down on the ground.
I banged the roof on one side of the bus, the clangor echoing around the yard. “Hey, dog. Hey!”
The dog trotted quickly over to that side, growling deep in its throat. I spun and jumped off the first side, rolling as I hit the dirt. I came up fast, but only fast enough to see the dog racing around the hood, coming straight for me.
It leapt for my face before I had time to think. I meant to shout Gods! as my hands tried to stop it in mid-air, but the word twisted in my mouth. It became a Word.
“Gut!”
The dog careened into me, making a stranger, wetter sound than I would have expected. It still flattened me to the ground, but didn’t seem to have any more interest in biting off my face. It took a few steps to one side and collapsed. When I saw all the blood staining the dirt beneath it, I lifted my head to look at my chest.
The dog had left its entrails on top of me.
I sat up, heaving the hot stinking mass away. Half of it seemed to stay behind, sticking to my Necron suit and leaking under my sleeves. And I’d been worried about only
my hands getting dirty.
The gate squeaked open behind me, but I was too occupied to bother looking.
“Interesting choice of Words.” Drey stood over me.
“Not my choice,” I muttered. “Apparently the Word of Death goes into auto-defense mode when I’m under attack. Good to know.” I took another minute trying to wipe off the red goop before realizing it was somehow in my hair too, at which point I gave up. I was almost glad Khaya couldn’t see me like this. “So we’ve had mercy killings and now a self-defense killing.” I squinted up at Drey. “I imagine the next step is cold-blooded murder.”
His expression might have been stoic if not for the eyes that betrayed him. “They’re going to expect it of you someday soon, Tavin. You have to know that.”
“Oh no, all this time I was thinking they wanted me to plant the damned flowerbeds.” I spat and tried to wipe my mouth off with a black sleeve that turned out to be even bloodier. I spat again. “This blood was a little warm for my taste, anyway.”
Drey offered me his hand, but I ignored it as I stood up and looked down at myself. I laughed.
He raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Looks like I get the front seat.” I glanced at the guards, who were taking in the gore spattering my clothes. Even Angelina’s face was twisted up in disgust. “Unless anyone wants to sit next to me?”
They gave up the front seat. And they didn’t even cuff me for the ride back to the Athenaeum.
twelve
I’d been right that the next step in my training would involve cold-blooded killing, if not yet murder. The Death Factory truly began to live up to its name. And even though I’d managed to leave the Athenaeum for a few hours, I was no closer to contacting Khaya. But I wasn’t even sure if I should anymore.
Over the next several days, I killed other animals. Some were cute and cuddly, others scary. None were sick, and most were getting bigger in size. I half-wondered if they’d make me work my way through a zoo, all the way up to elephants or something. But I knew we wouldn’t get that far. The end-goal would come before then … something more human-sized.
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