“Picky eater, then?” he asked, muting the television. Was it a challenge of some sort? Did he want to fight Ryn for dominance? Probably not. It had never turned out that way with the orderlies. Humans never wanted to fight for anything.
“Not hungry,” she said.
“We don’t take special orders here,” he said. “Eh, boys?”
The Rabble laughed and Judy murmured her agreement.
“No orders,” Ryn said. When she had first arrived at Sacred Oaks and refused food, they had tried to jab her with needles attached to bags of fluid. That was when she’d realized the horror of that place—to the authorities there, she was not competent to fend for herself. She had to be taken care of. Like cattle. Every time they’d said “for your own good” she’d had to bite off the desire to demonstrate her core competencies. At least now she could forage.
“So what’s her malfunction?” asked one of the twins, nodding toward Ryn.
“Not my business to say,” Albert Birch said. Then he leaned forward. “But she’s from Sacred Oaks.”
“I hear they put crazy people there,” another one said. “People who write on the walls with their own poop.”
“Robby!” Judy said. “Not at the table.”
“It’s true,” he insisted under his breath.
“Well, they’ve downsized,” Albert Birch said. “That Ostermeier Trust Fund’s run about dry is what the television says; some kind of bad investment deal. So they’re kicking out some of the parasites.”
“Suppose she’s dangerous,” the twin said.
“She’s not dangerous, look at her,” Albert Birch said. “Little stick like that? Figure you boys can keep her in line, am I right?”
They laughed and shared pet theories about why Ryn had been in Sacred Oaks, and Ryn absorbed it all in silence. She hated this place and everyone in it except maybe Susan.
She cut a quick path back to her room after dinner because the Rabble pushed and shoved a lot and she didn’t trust herself not to play rough. As enjoyable as that might be, she didn’t want trouble with Ms. Cross. The Rabble skirted only briefly into her bedroom before Susan shooed them out, and Ryn sat at the barred windows looking out at the darkened world. She shut her eyes until Susan asked to turn out the lights.
Near midnight, the last boy nodded off and the entire house breathed in the easy rhythm of sleeping humans. Ryn alighted soundless to the floor.
Freedom had strengthened her—she could feel it in the needled anticipation of unsprung calves as she crept from the bedroom, past a snoring boy wadded up on the sofa, and to the kitchen and the cuckoo clock that slept unmoving beneath layers of dust. “Wake,” she whispered.
Nothing. Not a tick. Not a twitch of its ornate clock hands.
“I smell you,” she growled. “Come out.”
The clock doors whined open and a streamer of dust motes sprang out, curling through the air like a serpent, igniting gold against shafts of street light. It curled twice around Ryn, took her measure, and flitted back to the clock. The thick sheet of motes all over the aged clock shimmered as they caught the light. It spoke in the raspy voice of an old man: “What right’ve you got ordering me around, deva?”
“I am Ryn. What are you called?”
“Dust,” and when he said it, flecks sneezed from within the clock. The asura did not give true names, as it was dangerous for their kind. “What’s a goddess doing, bothering an old soul’s rest?”
“I am no goddess.”
“Eh? Tell me. If you ain’t a goddess, why’re you lurkin’ around here?”
A good question—one she had not yet answered to her own satisfaction. “I am here, and I am no goddess. I am a monster.”
“Monsters don’t get to do that, dearie. Their lot was banished from cities—but here you are, spry twerp without your bones set on fire, which tells me you’re dead wrong on at least one count. You’re a deva? You can caper about with mortals? Only one thing you could be: a goddess.”
“I will never stop being a monster. That is the first and the last of what I am.”
“Some kinda loophole?” he asked, intrigued.
Ryn didn’t know what that was and she waited. He seemed like the sort who enjoyed prattle.
“Way I recall,” he said, proving her right, “the deva who couldn’t pass for anything but monsters were banished. But that curse never actually made ’em susceptible to the laws of the gods—made them weak to mortal man’s. If man’s rulers invited you in, well, there you have it.”
Ryn snorted. “Man does not rule man. Every king belongs to a god.”
“Funny place, this one. Ruled by pencil pushers, bureaucrats, by screaming moms on the news and scared old men in ball caps and angry young ones with no fucking clue; ruled by everyone and no one. A thing happens, and half the time you’re lucky just to know who did it, forget why. And here you are, wriggling through a crack in the door like a shit-covered cat.”
His explanation satisfied. “They invited me.”
“Poor, dumb fucks.”
“Why do you live in that clock?”
“I live in a lotta places, darling. Places like this one, for the quiet. For the taste of old wood and paint, rusted springs and gears. There’s life in ’em. More life than the average person. Never trusted flesh riders anyhow. They get one taste of human insides and go batshit. Gimme a musty attic any day. Only proper house for an asura’s the one that’s dry, none of that wet biology for me, thanks.”
“Are there many flesh riders here?”
“Damn straight. Flesh riders love a good loon, and New Petersburg’s got a few thousand on the streets after shuttin’ down the rubber rooms. There’s a couple nasty asura out there, the kind who don’t take well to deva and their rules, so watch your ass.”
“You should pass the word around. I am not like other deva. I have few rules. But I do not tolerate the stink of torture, rape, and murder, the screams of the innocent weak, or the arrogance of the evil strong. I am the monster who eats monsters, and this city is mine now. My territory, my hunting grounds.”
“Warn them? Ha! You think I like the devils who shred souls and eat babies? I’d rather sit back and watch.”
“Then we have no quarrel.”
“Music to my ears, baby monster.”
He didn’t understand her—not fully—but she preferred it that way. Ryn pried open the unbarred kitchen window and crawled into the rising moans of nighttime wind. She clung to the mortar in the wall by her fingernails. The wind snapped at her T-shirt, licked her torso, and her jeans rasped against rough bricks. She shut the window, faced the half-full moon that clouds skated across oh-so-swiftly, and scaled to the roof. Every motion warmed the tight cords of her muscles, until they were hot with anticipation.
She crested the roof and perched on its lip. The black sea of staggered rooftops stretched around her, with deep valleys lit yellow by headlights and street lamps.
The air teased her black hair. She pulled her shirt up and angled one arm behind her back. Her finger traced the faint groove of a scar that covered the six slits holding back her kanaf. They tingled beneath the moonlight and she plucked a single, loose strand and examined its knife-edge gleam. By the full moon, she would have her cloak again.
She pulled down the uncomfortable, unnatural fabric of her T-shirt. Without the kanaf against her skin, she felt naked.
She leapt off the rooftop and glided soundlessly to another. Then she sprinted, vaulted, climbed the brick and the black-iron fire escapes, savored the whip-kiss of cold wind on her chest, and with every step her heart pushed hot blood into her fingertips and toes.
She lived again beneath the limitless sky, and though her jungle was brick, concrete, asphalt, and metal, it still had a pulse and life of its own beneath her soles. She loved the city even more after dark, when people emptied the streets and she was free to roam unseen. She explored the rooftops in her block, learned the best routes, the easiest jumps—though she performed the hard ones, too
, pleased that her season of near-mortal weakness had passed with something so simple as a stroke of Ms. Cross’s pen.
Only mortal laws bound her here. If she could stay free, she would only grow stronger and stronger.
When the dark gave way to deep-blue twilight, she slid down the outer wall to her bedroom window. Clutching a brick protruding a scant fraction of an inch, she took hold of black metal bars with her other hand. She braced both feet and pulled with the whole of her body.
The bars groaned, bent, then tore from the brick wall. Powdered stone puffed into the air. She dropped the bars into the alley, where they rang loud and distant. Then she rapped on the window several times until Susan woke, approached, rubbed tired eyes, and opened the window for her.
“Am I asleep?” she asked.
Ryn swung into the bedroom and shut the windows. “Go back to bed,” she whispered.
Once Ryn settled into her bed, Susan sleepily returned to her own. “You aren’t going to jump, are you?” she asked through a yawn.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Ryn asked.
“Please don’t jump. My last roommate jumped. Albert put the bars in after she died. Promise you won’t do that.”
“I will not die.” Ryn lay back on her bed and Susan’s comments nagged at her. How foolish and clumsy Susan’s last roommate must have been, to try to jump from the window to the rooftop. It was impossible for their species.
She really didn’t understand them.
~*~
Naomi didn’t often think about suicide, but today was different.
It was a Saturday afternoon and she rode the train back from the Docks, changed stations in Commonwealth Plaza and headed to her home in Garden Heights. The transitions between the three districts always bothered her, from brick and graffiti, to mirrored buildings that sparked in afternoon light, to the wide lawns and proud, old homes where she lived. Guilt gnawed on her, but not solely because of her neighborhood’s affluence. She mentally reviewed the last six months and thought about all the ways she was to blame. She still wore the shroud of feeling that always followed her after funerals. Iosef had a sister who was almost the same age Naomi had been at her last graveside service.
Her phone buzzed on the short walk from the train station to her street. She checked it. Denise. Could she handle Denise after a funeral? Naomi had been brushing her off too much, sensing today was coming and unsure how Denise would treat her feelings. She loved her friend, but on suicide, Denise could be weirdly judgmental.
Naomi answered the call anyway. “Hey,” she said, projecting a happier tone than she felt.
“You went, didn’t you?” Denise asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“To his funeral. That kid, the one who shot himself. The one you tutored. That was today. You went, didn’t you?”
“Uh.” Naomi shut her eyes. Of course she knows. She knows everything. “Yeah, I went.”
“You told me you were ‘fine.’ ”
“I am. I was just paying my respects. I knew him pretty well.”
“No, you knew him a little. You tutored him after school one day a week for a semester and a half. He drew you a picture once and—unless it was a different kid—awkwardly hit on you last year. But now you’re inflating your role in his life so that you can beat yourself up. You’re doing that thing.”
“I have a thing?”
“Oh yes. The whole messiah-complex thing. It was sweet in third grade when your Barbies always saved my Barbies with their superpowers, but it’s not fun anymore. It’s angsty. You’re not responsible for everything other people do.”
This was why she had avoided Denise today: the aggressive insistence that Naomi should let things go before she was ready. Before she figured out for herself exactly what Iosef meant, and what to do with the fact that a kid she had tutored—and mentored—could do that to himself. To his family. And before she had counted and tallied all the signs she had missed.
“Now you’re thinking about all the ways you could have stopped him, aren’t you?”
I hate you, Denise. “No.”
“Lies. Disgusting lies. Let me come over, though, and cheer you up with ice cream. Even liars deserve ice cream. I won’t say another word about it. You can pick the movie and tell me about all the horrifying things you did and I promise I’ll just nod and agree that you’re a terrible human being.”
Naomi had a distinct Charlie-Brown-going-to-kick-the-football feeling but she sighed and said, “All right. But after six. I’ve got homework.”
“You didn’t do it on Friday night, Miss Perfect? Slipping.”
“I couldn’t. Dad picked me up right after basketball practice. He was back from the Hill. He wanted to have dinner. Trying to convince me to volunteer at his office this summer. Had to tell him no, and that always takes hours. We’re doing Habitat again this summer and between that, Scouts, staying in shape for cross country, and wanting to have an actual job, I don’t have the free hours to give.”
“Harsh,” Denise said. “But working for a senator—even if he is your dad—has got to look good on college applications.”
“Yeah, then everyone expects me to be a College Republican or something, and that’s just not my thing. My dad kept all the political genes.”
“I can hear you doing the blech-face from here.”
It was true. She had.
“Your dad has you ridiculously over-scheduled. Too many things. You should come out with Elli and me next week.”
“I can’t. Dad’s fighting that big security bill and he’s only back for one day a week.”
“Tell him to take an extra day hammering at Big Brother and you can come shopping with us. Elli’s dying to get out and see non-Madison boys, and she’s been talking my ear off about clothes for this trip all week. If you don’t come, I’ll have to deal with her going full-blown man hunter without your backup. Besides, we can do something bad.”
“Something bad?”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I’ll smoke a cigarette near you.”
“You don’t smoke cigarettes.”
“Maybe I’ll smoke something else near you.”
Naomi rolled her eyes. “You’re awful.”
“And you need to do one bad thing before college or—I swear to God—you will go former-child-star levels of crazy once you’re there. You’ll drop acid and shave your head.”
“You’re wrong. I’m the daughter of a U.S. senator and I never do bad things, especially when they’re so photogenically bad.”
“Do something bad with me next week. Your pick.”
“We will buy dissident literature, watch an R-rated movie, and try on sexy clothes. How’s that?”
“It’s a Republican’s idea of bad,” Denise hummed.
“Someday you’re going to get me arrested.”
“I’ll be sitting right there next to you.”
“But only one of us will be featured in negative campaign ads.”
“I’ll talk to you later tonight. Mint chocolate chip okay?”
“Yeah.” Naomi disconnected and, despite herself, felt somewhat better. Maybe she had cleared the pall from Iosef’s funeral.
~*~
Splat picked at the stitches he had put into the meat’s face. His excitement spiked when the auburn-haired girl crossed the sidewalk on her usual path. He leaned forward, snapping rapidly with the digital camera.
It wanted her now. But no, not just yet. It was still gathering supplies, waiting for the right moment. But it was close.
It had to be perfect. It would be perfect.
CHAPTER FOUR: Hunting Grounds
Ryn explored her new territory by night. She learned the skyline’s ridges on each block, mastered the rhythm of the elevated train and let its steel roof whisk her to and fro from riverfront to Dock Street. She stalked Oakland Avenue’s neon-lit holes and boarded-up properties. She never rode the train westbound underneath the bay, to the heart of the city with its glassed skyscrape
rs and electronic eyes. Until she had her bearings, she didn’t want to stumble upon a god.
She swept across rooftops in the Docks, ghosted between the bowed, wooden struts of water reservoirs, breezed between coils of razor wire, and blew up the iron fire escapes. She dropped through the crisscrossed maze of wash lines full of flapping laundry. The firelight of burn barrels underneath the Goldwater Bridge gave her pause. They called the place “the Draintrap.” It was inhabited by bearded old men and wild-haired women who were so skittish they glanced Ryn’s way and—not quite spotting her—shuddered. She savored the spicy smells in Bourbon Alley, a packed-full bazaar that swam with the pungent aroma of narcotic herbs and a thousand other things from across the world. She touched the gray rasp of the city’s walls, tasted the brick and exhaust, and it was filthy from top to bottom in a way that settled into her skin and hair and made her feel like she was a piece of it.
Ryn loved the night. The days confused her.
She didn’t understand the group home. Judy Birch never stopped asking questions and Albert Birch was often confused. He would wander around the house, often into Ryn and Susan’s room, especially if Susan was changing clothes. Susan would yelp and Albert Birch would apologize, backing gradually through the curtain. Ryn suspected someone had damaged Albert Birch’s brain. She knew better than to damage a human’s brain, not unless she meant to kill one.
But then two days later he burst into the bathroom as she stepped out of the shower. She felt his eyes on her. She knew then it wasn’t confusion, knew what it really was. Somehow the sin was harder to spot when she was trapped in the center of this whorl of human activity, as though the ocean of lying eyes and deceptive words dulled her knack for spotting predators.
She stood her ground, dripping cold water as Birch gawped. At first she could only think about cracking his head through the porcelain sink and how little she cared about his brain.
The One Who Eats Monsters (Wind and Shadow Book 1) Page 5