Of the Abyss

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  Could two wrongs make a right?

  “You can summon him,” she explained. “His power will force him to come to your call, as quickly as he can.”

  “How?”

  His only other choice was to sit here and rot until his friends conquered their squeamishness and took him to the branding chamber. Until his friends, unaware until it was too late, murdered him.

  “When Umber helped you, did you get any sense of feathers, or fur? A tail, scales, horns, wings, anything?”

  Hansa closed his eyes, trying to remember. “All I can recall is how blue his eyes were. They seemed to glow.”

  “Half-­Abyssi, then,” Rose said, nodding sagely. “That’s good.”

  “Good?” Hansa whispered. “Aren’t the Abyssi the nasty vicious ones that tear ­people to pieces? Isn’t an Abyssi what—­”

  “Yes, yes, what nearly killed you. But this is a crossbreed, and bonded to you now from the first boon. He can’t hurt you.”

  He had no choice. He had decided to go for this mad plan, so he had to trust her now. “Okay, half-­Abyssi. What does that mean?”

  “It means, you shed blood, and you say his name, and he will appear.”

  Blood. Why did it have to be blood? He wiped at his face, unable to forget the sensation of Jenkins’s blood raining down on him.

  They would never have left a suspected Abyssumancer with any kind of cutting tool, but Hansa had gone in and out of this cell often enough to know there was a sharp burr on one of the metal bars. He had nicked himself on it accidentally more than once. Trying not to think too much, he slid his hand down the bar now, quickly, feeling the bite of the metal as it sliced across the meat of his thumb, deeply enough that the cut bled freely.

  “Umber . . .” As the crimson drops fell to the ground, Hansa wondered what the guards outside would do, if one glanced in now and saw him. No, he didn’t need to wonder; they would kill him on sight. “Umber, come to me now.”

  As soon as he uttered the words, Hansa had a sensation of force, pressure, pushing against him from all sides, as if he were deep under the ocean where only strange, eyeless fish dwelled. He struggled to draw breath, and felt Rose trying to help him back to his feet. He managed to make it back to his cot to sit, but the sensation did not abate.

  “He feels it, too,” Rose said. “He will come.”

  Hansa shut his eyes and focused on breathing, not thinking, not feeling, just breathing. Not passing out. Not wondering if the first person to come would be the half-­demon, or the executioner.

  He heard a conversation down the hall, but was unable to focus on it enough to know who it was. The impossible thickness in the air did not clear until the moment someone dragged him to his feet.

  “I’m quite certain I told you never to call to me again,” the spawn snarled. The cell door was open, and there was no sign of the guards down the hall, who otherwise would have come running in response to the ringing impact of Hansa’s shoulders hitting the metal bars as Umber shoved him into them. “And yet suddenly I hear my name, and I feel the pull of blood. Do you have a death wish, Quin?”

  “No,” Hansa squeaked out. Healed of the Abyssi’s wounds, he could no longer see the demon inside this man, but he knew it was there—­and even if Umber had been just a man, the fury in those eyes would have frightened him.

  “He called you to demand a second boon,” Rose said.

  Umber hissed at her, a feral expression that no pure human could accurately mimic, and then looked back at Hansa. His face only inches away, he asked, “So the witch has been giving you ideas. Has she warned you of the consequences?”

  “There are no consequences to a second boon,” Rose insisted.

  “Every time power is used, there is a price,” Umber returned.

  “For you,” Rose said. “The first two boons only bind you.” To Hansa, she added, “The second boon will force him to protect you, since harm to you will be harm to him.”

  “And vice versa, of course,” Umber added. “It goes both ways.”

  “Not much can hurt one of the spawn,” Rose pointed out.

  As they argued, Hansa tried to pull away, only to have Umber shove him back against the wall and then take another step forward, so his body was flush against Hansa’s, pinning him against the bars. The spawn’s lips hovered just above Hansa’s as he whispered his warnings.

  “I granted the first boon because you had been so infected by the Abyss that your survival would have made you a mancer, and the last thing Kavet needs is for one of those bastards to have an elite position in the One-­Twenty-­Six. The first boon leaves a connection, but it dissolves quickly. The second boon binds two souls tighter, and longer.” Umber continued, his breath warm, and his voice a gentle whisper. “And in case you find this to be a convenient way to correct your problems, you should know that the third boon creates a permanent bond, one that can take many shapes.” He ran a hand up Hansa’s chest, slowly sliding skin against skin. “The submissive party—­and that would be you, pretty man, since you have no power of your own with which to make it otherwise—­may find himself losing all he is, his every thought, every breath, devoted only to his master. It’s called a soul-­bond. Sometimes the bond takes a less intense form, a gentle ache when the master is away, one that can be ignored and lived with, but often it is an all-­consuming passion.

  “Know this, boy: I do not want you as my slave. But if you force me, I assure you, I will enjoy you.”

  At that, he kissed him.

  A punch to the jaw might have been expected. He would have known how to respond to that. Strong fingers twining in his disheveled hair, holding his head in place, were not. Umber’s body was almost fever-­hot, hard against his, and his mouth was unapologetic, demanding, challenging.

  Hansa hesitated, off-­balance, unable at first to process the bewildering move so he could respond appropriately. For a wild moment, he could only think, If Ruby kissed this way—­He managed to jerk his head to the side only when Umber bit him, drawing blood from his lip, and then licking it away.

  “Guh!” He shoved at Umber with all his strength. The move only pushed the spawn back a ­couple feet, but at least it was something. “Don’t you ever do that again!” he shouted. “Ever!”

  “He’s trying to scare you,” Rose said.

  “It’s working,” Hansa grumbled. He scrubbed at his tingling lips with the back of his hand.

  You’re the one who called me here, pretty little soldier, Umber replied, his voice an invasive ripple in Hansa’s mind. He stepped forward again, placing one hand on the bars to each side of Hansa’s head. Tell me to go, and I will leave you alone. Insist on this boon, on the other hand, and you will not be rid of me for years, until the bond fades. Harm to you will mean harm to me, and since your status in the guard makes you less than popular with Abyssi and mancers, you can be assured that I will be nearby. All the time.

  “You aren’t asking for a third boon, Hansa,” Rose said. “Just a second. And as far as I can tell, you don’t have much of a choice, so whatever he is telling you . . . it can’t mean much.”

  She was right, but having decided that this was the only way to save his own life did not mean he was willing to inflict this creature on his friends and family. He asked Rose, “If I do this, how do I keep him away from me after?”

  Rose answered carefully. “When you speak your demands for the second boon, you can and should be very specific.”

  Hansa drew a deep breath.

  “Okay.”

  His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, trying to get his pounding heart out of it, and started again.

  “Okay. This is what I want:

  “First, I want to be cleared of all charges. Make a new, reliable witness, do whatever you have to do—­don’t hurt anyone,” he added quickly, “but I want to walk out of here with a personal apology from Winso
r Indathrone and an agreement that I can return to my job if I want, but that when I choose to leave it I will receive a continuing salary, for life, in order to make up for the false charges.”

  “That’s easy enough,” Umber sighed. “What else?”

  Easy. Any release from this cell would have been sufficient; Hansa had aimed high because he had expected to be told it was impossible, and he wanted to know the limits of the creature’s power. Now he realized he had no idea what an Abyss-­spawn might be capable of. He asked, “Can you bring Jenkins back? My friend, who was killed by the Abyssi. Can you—­”

  Umber started shaking his head before Hansa finished. “I know how Abyssi kill. There probably wasn’t enough left of that body for even a necromancer to revive, and that’s before the Quin burned the remains.”

  He had to swallow twice to rid his throat of the lump that had suddenly developed there. So far, Jenkins’s death seemed like an abstract thing, but he could feel the reality of that loss waiting for the moment when he was past his panic of this moment and stopped to breathe the first sigh of relief.

  “Then . . . what I said before. I go free. And I want you to stay away after that. You aren’t to go near Ruby, or anyone in my family. You don’t talk to them, you don’t make eye contact, you don’t even stay in the same room with them.”

  This time, Umber did not just accede to the terms. “Two exceptions. You have enemies, and I have enemies that could use you to get to me. Therefore, I go where I must, to protect you, should I need to, regardless who else is there. And, should one of your kin approach me, walk into the market where I am shopping or into the hall where I am dancing, I’ll avoid speaking to them but I won’t get up and run away just because you wish it.”

  Hansa turned those words over in his mind, but they seemed reasonable. “All right.” He glanced to Rose.

  “Your freedom,” she said.

  “What?”

  “A clause anyone who deals with the Others needs to know,” she said simply. “You want to add the condition that he must do nothing to impinge upon your freedom, beyond what is absolutely necessary in order to ensure your reasonable safety. Otherwise, he could lock you in a room somewhere without violating the agreement or endangering himself.”

  Again, the thought, What am I getting myself into? flashed across Hansa’s thoughts.

  It isn’t too late to change your mind, Umber suggested.

  Yes, it was.

  “Finally, you are to do nothing . . .” He tried to re-­create Rose’s exact wording. “Nothing that impinges upon my freedom, beyond what is absolutely necessary to ensure my reasonable safety.” He glanced to Rose again, but this time she just nodded.

  “You’re sure of this?” Umber asked, though by now he no longer sounded as if he expected the answer to be anything but “Yes.”

  “I am.”

  “The boon must be sealed in blood.”

  Blood . . . of course it was blood. If this was a taste of what a mancer lived with, Hansa could understand why the Quin wanted so strongly to wipe them from the city.

  “Okay,” he said, nervously. “How—­”

  Umber lashed out with a small dagger, which Hansa hadn’t even noticed sheathed at the creature’s waist. Hansa recoiled, unsure at first if he had been cut. Then he noticed the beads of crimson, along a cut low on his stomach. It wasn’t deep, but the blood welled immediately.

  Umber hooked one hand over Hansa’s belt, and then knelt, holding Hansa in place as he licked the blood away with leisurely laps of his tongue. Hansa looked desperately to Rose for guidance, but saw that she had blushed and averted her gaze.

  Umber rose, and pulled Hansa close again, to whisper in his ear. “A taste for me—­and a taste for you. Call to me again, demand of me anything else, and it will be more than a taste.”

  “I thought you couldn’t hurt me,” Hansa managed to choke out.

  “ ‘Hurt’ is a relative term.” Umber pulled away with a grin whose joviality was disturbing in context. “I’m off to meddle with the legal system. Hansa, I’m sure your fiancée will come running up, eyes swimming with her apologies. Give her a kiss for me.”

  At that, he walked away, pausing only to close the cell door behind himself again with the words, “We wouldn’t want anyone to be suspicious.” How he had opened it in the first place was a mystery.

  Hansa collapsed to the ground, cutting the back of his shoulder on the same burr he had used to slice open his thumb earlier. “Damn it,” he cursed, pressing a hand to the new wound. The others, he realized only then, had both closed. The one on his thumb was gone completely, and the hand-­long slice across his stomach had faded to a shiny scar.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Mancer?”

  Xaz grumbled, and tried to turn about in her sleep.

  “Wake up, Mancer.”

  “Five more minutes.” Pulling the edge of her cloak more tightly around her, she rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in the fluffy silk and fur beneath.

  Someone crawled onto her back. She was almost awake enough to protest when he nipped her on the fleshy bend between her neck and shoulder, hard enough that she yelped and jerked up—­slamming Alizarin into the ceiling of the coffin. He hung on, so when she fell back to the coffin’s floor, he collapsed on top of her.

  “Awake now?” he asked.

  “Yes, I—­stop that.” That last, as he started to lick the side of her neck, lapping away blood. The bite hadn’t been hard, but an Abyssi’s teeth were sharp like daggers, and cut through flesh easily. “Get off me.”

  Instead, he started to purr, the deep rumbling making Xaz’s whole rib cage and spine vibrate.

  “You taste uncomfortable, and a little angry,” Alizarin pronounced. “But you also taste of power. A little dusty, cold like the Numini, but still power.”

  “Okay. I’m awake,” she snapped. “What did you want?”

  “I don’t remember,” he said.

  She drew a deep breath, resisting the urge to cuss, before she asked, “Did it have to do, just maybe, with our leaving this Abyss-­spawned coffin?”

  “Maybe it did.”

  She waited patiently, but no more information was forthcoming. “Get off my back,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. “You’re making me nervous.”

  “Am I?” He nuzzled at the back of her neck, and then leaned his cheek against hers. “You and I are going to have to deal with each other, Numenmancer. It would be best if we learned to get along. Or something like that.”

  “It would help if you would get off me,” she answered, “and then promise not to bite me again.”

  He did roll to the side enough to let her shift onto hers, but he chuckled as he did so. “Mancer, Mancer, you forget who you’re talking to. Letting a little blood occasionally shouldn’t upset you.”

  “Well, it does.” She raised a hand to where he had bitten her, now that she could. The wound was gone, though there was a warm wetness, almost like her own sweat, from his saliva. “And I have no desire to do it again.”

  “Pity.” He wrapped his tail around her waist, holding her close. “Because I do. And you’re going to have to deal with the fact that you are not dealing with one of the Numini. Hold on now.”

  “Hold—­what?”

  She clung tightly to his shoulders as she felt the world dissolve and spin. Suddenly she was upright, aboveground, standing—­clinging to him—­and freezing, wondering why she had wanted to come back up to the surface.

  She pulled back, which made her immediately realize that she was still wearing nothing but her nightgown; she had lost her robe in her struggle with the guards, and the following flight. The cotton was thick and warm for its intended purpose, but it did not provide nearly enough protection for what seemed to be midafternoon in the city of Mars.

  “Where are we?” she asked, t
hrough chattering teeth, though a moment later she recognized the salt tang in the air. “Are we at the waterfront?”

  “Not far from it,” Alizarin said, “but ­people do not go to this section much since the Abyssumancer was discovered here. They do not like to walk where demons have been called.”

  “I c-­can’t imagine,” she drawled, through chattering teeth. “I need to g-­get ins-­side, and warm up. Need cl-­clo-­clothes,” she added. She couldn’t walk into any human establishment looking like this.

  “This way,” he said.

  He put an arm around her waist, and despite her intellectual desire to pull away, she could feel his heat radiating through her nightgown and into her, and she was glad for it. As he had said, the Numini were cold creatures. They didn’t produce warmth. Abyssi were creatures of fire.

  “We can’t let ­people see us,” she protested, as he led them into an alleyway that would cut into one of the busier streets.

  “It will be fine,” he assured her. “No one in there has the sight, and I can hide us from anyone else.”

  Nevertheless, she cringed as he guided them both past a pair of men speaking in furtive tones at the alley’s mouth. Xaz brushed against one of them accidentally, but he did nothing more than scratch at his arm after she passed.

  Alizarin pushed open the door of one of the most popular taverns on the wharf, and she tentatively followed. If any of the sailors here did notice a scantily-­clad woman walking into this kind of place, she was going to be in trouble. Or, they were going to be in trouble, since Alizarin was likely to kill them all.

  No one even glanced their way.

  The demon walked past the innkeeper, who didn’t blink as Alizarin put a hand to the door to the back room and pulled it open. Neither did the matron tending the kitchen, as Alizarin and Xaz stepped inside, the Abyssi guiding his mancer to the fire.

  “If you wait here, I can find you more suitable clothes,” Alizarin said.

  “Don’t kill anyone?” she asked, knowing she was powerless to keep him from doing so, if he wanted.