by Jasmine Walt
If there was any hope of escaping, wouldn’t I have escaped by now?
I try not to dwell on such thoughts, but I can’t prevent them from popping into my mind. Tonight is the night. Vanessa said we couldn’t wait for opportunity to come to us. We’ve been here too long. She’s right. So tonight, when they open the cell to feed us, I will rush the guards, and Vanessa will run to the end of the hall ahead of me so I can protect her during their inevitable pursuit.
I can’t stop trembling just thinking about it, so I try to focus on other things. Try to pretend I’m not about to risk my life. We have to do this. We have to take the dive.
The low ceiling above us shakes, and loose dirt between the wooden support beams sifts down. I glance at the roots that protrude from above, still quivering from the movement overhead. Outside the cell, shoes squeak against stone. The aroma of wet grass accosts my nostrils.
As the guards’ footsteps slosh down the hall, I can just imagine the splatter of mud all over their boots. I’m ready to rouse Vanessa and tell her to get ready, but as they draw closer, I distinctly smell blood and moist earth, and I know these are not Morts or guards coming down the hall.
Five men stop at our cell, accompanied by one of the guards. They stand with hands clasped in front of them, their eyes sinister and alarming. They’re all refined, handsome men—but there is nothing welcoming about their appearance. One of them smiles, and his canine teeth snap down to press against his pale bottom lip. He’s white as death, and immediately I realize what these men are.
Cruor.
The sight of them puts a metallic taste in my mouth. I swallow the sense of defeat. I can’t let fear of the unknown get in my way. Not now.
I pull Vanessa closer and wrap my arms around her, my attention never leaving the men. A sense of certain doom flutters in my lungs. I try to breathe quietly, as though somehow that will make me invisible, though I know that is not the case.
One of the men reaches in his pocket and retrieves a small pouch. He holds it out to the guard, his attention never shifting away from the cell. The guard—a stout man with the face of a hungry swine—opens the pouch. Gold peeks from inside. He pours some into his palm, but the Cruor who handed him the money growls.
“It’s all there,” he says, his tone colder than he looks.
The guard fumbles with the coins and pouch and hurries down the hall. The basement door thuds shut, and the cell door clangs open. The smallest of the Cruor runs his hands along the bars, looking over each cowering inmate one by one.
“Yes,” he hisses.
And in a blur, the Cruor press inmates to the stone wall, their faces buried in their necks, blood leaking in rivulets to the floor. Bones crunch. The cries of agony are deafening.
Vanessa stirs, panic in her wide eyes as she sits up straight. Inmates cower further into their dark corners, blocking their heads as though not seeing these men will make them disappear. Other inmates dash for the open cell gate, only to be yanked back so hard they fly across the cell and crack against the wall before slumping to the floor, dead on impact.
It occurs to me that they bought these people as food. Now it all makes sense: the Cruor advised the use of iron bars. Does that mean they expected some of the captives here would be their elemental enemies? This isn’t just dinner to them. That’s the perk to something bigger. My mind spins trying to find the connection between what is happening in Salem and what I know I am up against as an Ankou, but I can’t piece it together.
The pain from the iron poisoning nearly cripples me, but I can’t sit here and wait to die. I grab Vanessa’s arm and start to pull her toward the cell gate. It’s our only hope.
We don’t make it far before an auburn-haired Cruor appears in our path. He looks down at Vanessa, and a slow grin slithers onto his face.
“Look what we got here,” he says, and he laughs. “An Ankou trying to help a Strigoi!”
The other Cruor stop in their tracks, dropping nearly dead bodies to encircle Vanessa and me. Can they smell and sense our nature the way I had with them? They seem particularly interested in Vanessa and, for a brief moment, I entertain the idea of using her as a diversion to get myself out of here. William and Tess need me. Anna needs me. What good is it to die alongside this woman? Trying to save her will only draw attention to myself.
But my body doesn’t move. I can’t leave her side. I feel compelled to help her, as though saving her would somehow mean saving myself.
That only leaves us with two options: Outsmart these men, or fight.
Whatever you do, fight.
William’s voice echoes in my head as though he’s right by my side, and a strong sense of pride rushes through me. He’s right. There’s no honor in going down without a fight, and a fight is inevitable. Even if we run, it will only put our backs to them.
I need to keep it together. Let them think they are in control and make a move when they least expect it—or at least when an opportunity presents itself. Which it hasn’t yet. If all else fails, plow through them. Whatever I do, I will do something.
The fight in me is rising, but my strength of spirit is no match for my weakened body. I frantically look around, as though a solution is going to present itself any moment. The lead Cruor standing in front of us grins, and suddenly Vanessa is shaking beside me.
No, not shaking.
Convulsing.
The auburn-haired Cruor crouches in front of her and stares into her eyes. Everything about him is imposing, from his square jaw to his dark eyes and the deep lines across his forehead. His teeth have grayed and give off a sickly pinkish hue in the moonlight, and his fangs are so large his smile looks more like a snarl.
Vanessa’s eyes grow distant. As I reach to take her hand, the Cruor’s hand shoots out and catches the wall between my head and Vanessa’s. I startle. Vanessa whimpers and squirms, but her eyes seem locked with his, and she doesn’t move.
Her skin ripples and tears form in her eyes. Hair sprouts from her ears and face. I grab her arm, trying to get her to look away, but it’s as though she is frozen inside her body. Vanessa’s jaw elongates and her thin pink lips stretch. Her ears perk into sharp points. I can’t help but flinch until I see the tears sliding down her cheeks. Her hands curl into tight fists, and her face begins to shift back. I need to reach her somehow.
“Vanessa,” I whisper. “Stay with me.”
The auburn-haired Cruor growls, but he doesn’t make a move for me. No one does. They’re all hyper-focused on Vanessa.
“Stay with me!” I say, louder this time. More frantic.
“Stop!” she screams. Her desperate voice pangs my heart. “PLEASE, STOP!”
Her voice turns to a growl, and her pleas turn into something inhuman. Her face is more animal now. Her hands melt into paws as her spine curls and pops and lengthens. As she’s forced to shift, I see her fighting it, see her wolfish nails dig into the ground, see the color of her eyes flicker from normal to a glowing orange. Her stomach contracts as she transforms, no longer able to resist.
Then I smell it.
Blood.
The auburn-haired Cruor throws his head back, his sinister laughter shaking his shoulders. I follow his gaze to the space between Vanessa’s legs.
A child, not yet ready to be born, has expelled from Vanessa’s body, and I can tell its bones are broken. I squeeze my eyes shut and pull Vanessa’s wolf-face into my shoulder, shielding her from seeing this, but knowing I cannot shield her from her loss. Knowing from her howls that she is already broken. Knowing I am broken now, too.
No sane person in this room will ever be the same.
My heart crumbles, my body completely crippled by the sight. I fight the bile rising in my throat while Cruor laugh and jaunt and cheer. And then, I don’t think I’m really there anymore. The Cruor are a faraway haze, their voices fading.
I force myself to look, to take in what is left of the little boy’s angelic face, the small fingers on his hands and the tiny toes of precious fe
et that will never learn to walk. I commit the vision to memory so that I can never forget just how evil the Cruor are. So that I will never feel an ounce of compassion for the monsters who stole his life.
The anger inside me is all consuming. The preternatural world has taken everything from me. My family. My daughter. My life. And now they are trying to do the same to this woman, and I’m sitting here doing nothing?
He did this to her—that auburn haired Cruor. That monster. His influence forced her to shift, knowing it would abort her unborn child.
I leap from the ground and tackle him. He’s caught off balance and tumbles to the floor, me on top of him, my mouth crashing into the ground above his shoulder. I don’t know if the loud crack was his head or my jaw; my whole body still hurts from the iron poisoning.
Dirt rubs against my teeth, lips, and tongue, and hay pokes at my gums. I push myself up, spitting the dirt and hay from my mouth, and dig my nails into his face. It’s like ice under my fingernails, but I don’t care. Even in the state I’m in, he struggles beneath me, and for a moment I feel strong.
He backhands me and sends me flying into the wall. Vanessa, now in her human form once again, is wailing, but I do not have the strength to avenge her child. I don’t even have the strength to save myself.
The Cruor sneers at me from across the room.
The pig-faced guard comes in and rattles the bars. “All right, ‘nough for one night.”
My attacker is back on his feet now. On his way to the cell gate, he crouches beside me. “Next time,” he says, “I promise to give you my complete and undivided attention.”
It takes every ounce of strength I have left to spit in his face, but I do it. He just laughs, wiping my saliva away, and joins his coterie. The guards quickly file them out of the cell.
I try to stand, but instead I wobble and stumble back against the wall. I slide down to the ground and rest back, my head throbbing and my heart completely wrenched. I sidle closer to Vanessa and hold her while she weeps, all the while I’m wishing, praying, willing myself able to heal her, to undo what the Cruor have done, for my abilities as an Ankou to return.
But it’s useless.
I’m useless.
Tonight presses new questions into my mind. What had the Morts wanted with my family in my old life? What did the Cruor want tonight more than to feed? Why would they make this woman suffer, only to leave her, and why didn’t they kill me while they had the chance?
I won’t get these answers here, but each night that passes makes me feel more and more helpless to escape.
16
Late February, 1692
When the Cruor are gone, I am alone in a room full of loss. The loss of lives, be it through death or imprisonment, and the loss of a child who never got a chance to live. And worst of all is the loss of my own daughter creeping in. The memory I need to have but cannot bear to remember.
Tess told me she’d never experienced a fragment. She doesn’t realize how much of a blessing that curse might be. It’s knowing what you lost that hurts the most. I wish I had the strength to be there for Vanessa, who needs someone right now to hold her up while she falls apart. But I can’t be that person.
Why haven’t Tess or William come to help me? Have they left me for dead? I suppose I shouldn’t expect them to risk their lives to save me. They have the ‘greater good’ to concern themselves with.
My anger and bitterness toward them drown in emotions I would sooner deny. As tough as Tess acts, I know deep down she’s just a hurting girl who feels abandoned. Does she feel I abandoned her by getting myself caught? She would have preferred I allow the Mort to take Verity, I’m sure. William, too. I could have let the Mort take her and fled the town. If I had, I would be closer to returning to Anna by now.
What would William tell me if he were here? To fight? To stop feeling sorry for myself and do something? But what? What can I do? Perhaps he would just wrap his arms around me—then everything would seem all right, even if it wasn’t.
I am lost in the hay.
I sit in a corner, weaving together the bits of dirty hay beneath me, trying to piece together all that has been shattered. The night I brought Anna into this world plays so clearly in my mind it’s as though I’m reliving it all over again. After I bathed her, I tucked her in a small blanket, I nursed her, and I held her close. She smelled like rain. Her toes were tiny and perfect, her small hands grasped at mine when I touched her palm.
Then Pa snatched her up and took her away, and I hadn’t saved her. Within hours of her birth, I had failed as her mother. Now I might never get back to her. Certainly not as long as I am trapped in this cell. The muddy quality of the air and the dust floating around cloud my vision.
Every now and then, feet shuffle beyond the door at the end of the hall, a reminder that there is a world outside of this hole. Water drips from somewhere in the cell, one of the men nearby keeps wheezing, and several of the prisoners sob, though none as deeply as Vanessa.
After I’ve finished the straw doll, I hand it to her. We don’t exchange words; her eyes on mine have crippled my ability to form words. There are no words for the loss she has endured. Inwardly, I cringe at my own selfishness.
At least I can hope my daughter is alive. Vanessa doesn’t have hope. She has nothing. The Morts took everything from her the way they took everything from me. They stole everything beautiful about the life I had before and turned it black, and they will do the same to me in this life if I don’t stop them. They need to be eliminated, and then I will return to my daughter and rebuild what the Morts have destroyed.
I won’t make it much longer in this prison. Even my sense of smell has gone numb. I can feel the grit of dirt in my mouth but can’t taste it. My dry, chapped lips and ache in my gut demand me to eat, but there is nothing here. My injuries fight just as strongly for my attention, but I can’t concern myself with them now. Morning is coming, even the darkness has lightened. I have few hours left if I’m to escape tonight as Vanessa and I had planned.
Glancing around the room, I take in the haunted faces of those who have survived the horrors of this night. One woman in particular catches my eye. It’s almost as though I haven’t seen her at all before now. It’s almost as though no one has seen her. Surely even the Cruor overlooked her, to leave her so untouched in this room.
Her deeply tanned skin looks grayish in the dark, and her long, raven black hair tumbles in knots over her shoulders and down to her small breasts. Her hand moves by one of the folds in her dress. An alarming, nervous energy—like a vibration in the air—sweeps through me. When a guard approaches our cell, however, my trance is broken. He’s clearly being controlled by a Mort, and I groan. He grabs the iron bars and shakes them, hissing at us. A few of the prisoners startle, but Vanessa just sits limply with a dead glare in her eyes.
The raven-haired woman is whispering something, but she’s not whispering at me. I can’t make out what she’s saying, only that she’s speaking very quietly and very fast. Her tone seems to repeat a pattern. A chant of some sort. And as she chants, the guard’s grip on the cell bars loosens.
The woman’s eyes glint. She emanates a soft, pale glow, and I glance around, wondering who else has noticed, but it’s as though the other prisoners still can’t see her. Is it because I’m Ankou that I can see her? If that were true, wouldn’t I have noticed her sooner? Or not at all, since my abilities here have been so limited? Was she brought in at some point tonight without my noticing?
Her whispers grow fiercer. Somewhere behind those whispers is unsettling music. Chimes, mostly, and a distant beating drum. The music is not beautiful. It’s discordant, disturbing, and full of magical energy. Sweat soaks my scalp and drips down my spine. It chills on the night air, and I shiver.
My attention shifts between the woman and the guard who is now backing away from the cell. The intensity of the energy in the room builds. She’s doing something, I know it, and it has to do with whatever she is hiding in the folds
of her dress.
The guard turns and leaves. This woman is controlling the Mort inside of him. This world is more magical than I ever imagined, and I can’t let this opportunity slip through my fingers. I inch closer to her, wincing at the pain shuddering through my body, more noticeable now that my adrenaline has worn off.
“What did you do?” I ask her, perhaps more roughly than I intended.
“Nothing,” she mumbles.
I sidle close to her and drop my voice to a whisper.
“I’ll tell them.” I hate to threaten her, but at this point getting out of here is more important.
“That wouldn’t do you any good,” she says, and I know it’s true.
“You could have stopped the Cruor.” My words sound exactly as accusing as they are.
“I couldn’t. I could only shield myself. But I saw you help that woman.” Her whole body grows eerily still, and her gaze levels with mine. “You’re...different.”
“Couldn’t you have helped her? You controlled that Mort,” I whisper.
“Cruor are different from the spirits.”
“Why not compel him to release us, then?”
“I am not strong enough,” she says, her voice cutting out. “I need more time.”
“Let me help you,” I say, holding out my hand. “Show me what you have.”
She pulls away. “No.”
“Come on,” I say. “I’m the only one who noticed you. There must be a reason for that.”
“Forget that you saw me,” she says. “You only saw me because I allowed you to.”
“Why, then? Why allow it and then turn me away?”
She waves her hand in front of my face, practically staring through me. “Forget it. It was a mistake.”
I’m starting to understand Tess’ approach to life. She’s unbiased, even if it hurts good relations with other people. Now I know why. It’s about survival, in every sense of the word.