by Sarah Fine
And lying in the back of the shining silver cart, on a broad, intricately welded wrought iron throne, was a coppery-furred Mazikin. It was propped on its elbows with its head up, like a dog on a bed, wearing a flowing black leather gown and a crown of creamy ivory . . . No, there were no elephants in the city . . . It was bone. Had to be. The creature was wearing a crown of bone.
The Mazikin Queen.
Her black eyes swept over the square as she pushed herself up to sit. She raised her hand into the air, revealing long, straight claws that looked like they had been dipped in silver. They gave off a steely glint as she waved to the crowd, who cheered, mouths gaping, tongues lolling, teeth flashing. Behind the Queen stood two large black-spotted Mazikin with curving ebony claws. Slick leathery cloaks marked with black triangles hung from their broad shoulders, and their blunt snouts peeked out from under wide hoods.
As the cart rumbled and bumped over the rough pavement, their cloaks flapped and swayed, revealing the daggers tucked into their belts. “Sil and Ibram,” Takeshi said from behind me. “When he inhabits his own body, Juri has a place in the Queen’s entourage as well. He’s one of her favorite companions.”
I stared at the two Mazikin. The one on the right eyed the crowd with a cold, haughty indifference, but the one on the left, with a deep scar denting the top of his snout, had darting, cautious eyes that never stopped flitting over the crowd. The tip of his nose twitched and trembled, like it was picking up scents in the air. As the cart approached the raised platform, he inhaled deeply, and a wide, malevolent grin split his ugly, spotted face. His gaze swung smoothly up the cement steps and landed on Malachi. I was willing to bet almost anything that the Mazikin with the scarred snout was Sil. His expression was so similar to looks he’d given me when in his human body—when he knew he was winning, even when I hadn’t figured it out yet.
The driver of the cart pulled to a stop in front of the steps. Slowly, the Queen edged herself off her throne and rose on her hind legs. She pointed a razor-tipped finger at the sky, and the crowd abruptly fell silent.
Halfway up the wide cement steps leading to Malachi’s platform stood a Mazikin at a podium—the announcer. Heavy silver loops hung in a row from each of its ears. Its teeth were stained a vibrant red, as were its claws. Its furry arms were brown, but its face was a bleached white. It grunted into the microphone, then let out a hooting growl and gestured at the Queen.
The crowd—including the human slaves—clapped and cheered as the Queen stepped ponderously from the cart, assisted by Sil and Ibram. The folds of her dress stretched tight against her oddly swollen belly. She put a hand to it as she stepped onto the stairs leading up to the platform. With Sil and Ibram close by her sides, she approached the announcer, who bowed low and moved aside to allow her to take its place. The announcer dropped onto all fours to straighten the Queen’s skirts, spreading the black leather material in a neat circle around her feet. For a moment, the Queen’s gaze slid up the front of our building, and I quickly shrank back into the shadows as an iron-edged chill rippled through my body.
Sil, Ibram, and the announcer descended the steps, leaving the Queen alone at the podium. A few steps above her, Malachi stood chained on the platform. His dark eyes were still directed at the sky, like he was unaware of his surroundings. His expression hadn’t changed at all. I wanted to scream for him. I wanted to leap from the window and free him. The dread was nearly strangling me.
The Queen began to speak into the microphone, her deep, rumbling voice rolling over the crowd. Takeshi leaned close and spoke in my ear, translating. “Citizens, you know of my devotion to you. I am your provider, the one who paves the way. I am your lover, the one who gives you young.”
I shuddered at the sound of her voice and his, the growl and the whisper, and the way she patted her belly as she continued to speak while Takeshi translated. “I am your mother, and a mother protects her cubs. I am your Queen, and a Queen destroys her enemies.”
She bared her teeth, and my stomach clenched. She pointed a silver claw at Malachi and snarled something that made the crowd erupt. Takeshi’s hand closed over my upper arm, and he began to tug me backward. “Lela—”
I jerked my arm away and pressed closer to the window as she mounted the steps on her hind legs, slowly closing the distance between her and Malachi. My heart choking me, I saw the exact moment he came back to himself, the moment escape was no longer possible. His eyes darted to the Queen as she reached the top step, and then he closed them tightly. With the heavy manacle around his neck, he couldn’t even turn his head, but every muscle in his body flexed. I bit the inside of my lips to keep from screaming. Next to me, Takeshi was talking as he pulled on my arm, but his voice was merely a buzz in my ear. As the Queen stood in front of Malachi, her gown billowing behind her, I could only hear the voice of Clarence, a Mazikin I’d interrogated in the land of the living, saying eight words about what his Queen would do to him if he betrayed her.
Eight horrible words.
The Queen laid one of her hands against the side of Malachi’s face, and suddenly I knew why he had scars there, why they were only on that side. She leaned forward and whispered something in his ear, as tenderly as a lover, and licked the undamaged side of his face with her black tongue. Even from my spot across the square, I could feel his shudder. And then her claws scored down his cheek as her other hand—claws sheathed in those silver blades—jerked forward suddenly, right at the center of Malachi’s body, just below his rib cage.
His eyes flew open. The veins at his temples stood out blue against his reddening skin. Blood welled and trickled from the corners of his mouth, which opened in a silent cry. I jumped onto the windowsill, Clarence’s words deafening me, destroying me.
She will eat my heart in the square.
I was halfway out the window when I was jerked back, hitting the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of me. A calloused palm slapped itself over my mouth. Steely arms held me down. I fought and bit and kicked, every part of me screaming: Malachi Malachi Malachi. Nothing but his name in a never-ending loop, the soundtrack to the horror in my head, the sight of my love being torn apart, the knowledge that the heart that beat for me was being ripped away by steel-tipped claws.
I grabbed for my knives. Nothing would stop me from getting to him. My fingers closed around their hilts, and I drew my only allies from their sheaths, ready to lay waste to anything that stood in my way.
But then the inside of my skull exploded in a million pinpricks of light, and darkness took me.
NINE
MY EYES FLICKED OPEN, then closed against the bright light overhead. A bare lightbulb hung above the spot where I lay. The rocky floor beneath me was thinly padded by a goatskin blanket, judging by the sharp, tangy smell of it. Next to me, I heard Ana whisper, “She’s waking up.”
I slowly moved my arm up to cover my eyes. My muscles ached like I’d had a brutal workout. My stomach burbled uneasily. Somewhere in the room, a voice muttered in Spanish, but it wasn’t Ana’s. I rolled to my side and drew my knees to my chest, curling into a ball to protect myself from the memories that flooded me, of lying in the dark with hot tears hitting my face like rain, of the scratchy blanket under my chin and the ratty teddy bear in my arms, of the shaking fingers that smoothed my hair.
“Mi bebé, mi bebé,” the voice repeated.
It was my mother.
A hand stroked down my arm, and I jerked away, then retched as the motion split my brain right down the middle.
“Lela, it’s Ana. You’re safe.”
“Where are we?” I winced as the sound rushed from my raw throat.
“Zip brought us to the bottom level of her den. We’re below the square.”
The square . . . I dug around in my brain for the sequence that had landed me here. I remembered being in the square, seeing Malachi—
I sat up suddenly, my heart jabbing against my ribs.
I was in a cement-walled, windowless room with a steel door. Goatskins were piled in one corner and spread over wide concrete-block chairs. There was a concrete table in another corner and a row of buckets in a third corner. The place reeked of wet fur and goat.
Zip was in the corner, hunched over a rocking, mumbling human, stroking the woman’s wild, curly hair. My mother.
I’d gotten halfway off the floor before Takeshi appeared in front of me. He grasped my shoulders, his expression grim. “Stay down. Or you’ll probably fall down.”
Dizziness making the cinder-block walls undulate like snakes, I allowed him to guide me back to the floor. “Malachi,” I said in a scratchy whisper. “She killed him.”
“No, she didn’t.” Ana scooted toward the goatskin pallet I’d been lying on. “Apparently it takes more than that to kill someone here.”
I rubbed my hand over my chest. “She tore his heart out, didn’t she?”
Ana’s eyes were full of sorrow as she nodded. “But according to Zip, she’s done that to him every night since he arrived.”
My face crumpled as I tried to keep from crying. That was why he had that barely healed wound in the center of his chest. That was where her silver claws had torn him open and claimed their prize. “How could that not kill him?”
“I told you it was hard to die here if you’re a human,” Takeshi said quietly. “You have to be decapitated, or your body has to be completely destroyed. But if you’re wounded, even something that would be fatal anywhere else, you’ll heal. Badly, though. You’re never quite the same. I’ve seen it many times. I’ve lived it.”
Ana took his hand, and seeing that connection between them made me feel like my own heart was being ripped out. “What will happen to him?” I choked out.
“His heart will grow back. It grows back every day. And every night, the Queen—”
I held up my hand, and his mouth snapped shut. “How long have we been here?”
He sank to the pallet next to Ana, all slender animal grace. He’d claimed to have lived through that awful kind of wound, but he looked pretty whole to me, pretty healthy. “We haven’t been here long. We brought you here when you—”
“When I lost it. You hit me, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “It was the only way to stop you from killing yourself.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”
“That’s for sure. You were trying to kill us, Lieutenant,” Ana said in a hard voice as she rubbed her temple. “But you were also trying to hurl yourself from the fourth story of a building, straight into a hostile crowd that would probably enjoy seeing you disemboweled by their Queen.”
She was right. I wasn’t about to thank her, though. A bump on the side of my head throbbed with the hot, sick beats of my heart, sending another wave of dizziness rolling over me. From the corner, I heard more Spanish mumbling, then a shuffling of feet and hands. My mother was crawling toward me, her amber eyes riveted to my face. She paused a few feet away, her head tilted. Her hair was combed and pulled into a bushy ponytail. Her cheeks were sunken. Her fingers twitched like she wanted to touch me.
That was when I realized—this woman, my actual mother, hadn’t laid eyes on me since I was four years old. I’d seen her much more recently, but only while her body was occupied by Zip. The real Rita Santos had already been here, trapped in the Mazikin city, apparently serving as a renewable food source for these creatures. I watched mutely as she edged closer. A few tears fell to the bare concrete floor. Hers, not mine. I was too emptied out to cry, even when she tucked herself against my arm and leaned her head on my shoulder, whimpering softly.
“Hi,” I said, hating the way all eyes in the room were fixed on me. “How are you?”
I had no idea what to say to her. Once upon a time, we had shared a language and she had loved me. I had loved her, too. She had been the ground beneath me until she crumbled and fell apart, leaving me with nowhere to plant my feet. Now she was a stranger with familiar eyes. We needed a translator to understand each other. And in looking at her, I wasn’t even sure that would be enough. She was rocking again, humming vacantly to music only she could hear. Finally, she started to whisper to no one in particular, a rapid-fire mumble of Spanish.
Ana tried to translate in hushed tones, but after a few seconds she shook her head. “I can’t . . . Lela, she’s not making sense. I’m not sure how to . . .”
“Don’t bother.” I closed my eyes and bowed my head against my knees. My mother stroked a tentative hand down my arm while I fought the urge to pull away. “My mom’s mentally ill. Schizophrenia. Heard of it?”
From the corner, Zip let out an anxious whine. Ana and Takeshi were silent. They were from different times and places, and I didn’t expect the term to make sense to them. It barely made sense to me. All I knew was that my mom had lost her grip on reality, that her world was flimsy and drifting. She couldn’t take care of herself, let alone her daughter. Sil had told me that when the Mazikin took over her body, my mother’s soul slipped free without a struggle, because it had been hanging on by a thread. And now she was here—one more thing I had to worry about.
I raised my head and looked at her, feeling the trail of bitter regret for what should have been. In that moment, I missed Diane so badly that it was a physical pain. If she were here, she wouldn’t be huddling against my arm, singing to herself. She’d be fussing over me in a way I used to hate but had grown to count on.
Rita, on the other hand, seemed like she was the one who needed to be fussed over. She sounded forlorn and lost as her bony fingers touched the back of my hand. She squinted, leaning forward and placing her palm against mine, lining up our hands. Ana looked worried, probably because she’d witnessed me flinch away from touch on more than one occasion. I was more able to tolerate it now, but not without some effort. The only person in the world whose touch I craved was . . . I pulled my hand away from my mother’s and rubbed my palm along my pants. “I’m sorry,” I said as her eyes met mine for the first time.
“Lela?” she whispered.
“Yeah.” And—I couldn’t help it—hearing her say my name did funny things to my heart.
She mumbled something else and curled against my side, sinking into herself again.
I drew a slow, determined breath. “Can somebody tell me how we’re going to get Malachi out of that square?” I couldn’t bear the thought of him suffering a moment more than was necessary. “And then how we’re going to get to the portal?”
Takeshi gave Ana a sidelong glance and looked away.
“What is it?” Ana asked.
“I want to free Malachi as badly as you do. If you’d never shown up, I would have done it by myself. But destroying the portal and killing the Queen? That is an impossible mission,” he said. “It was cruel for the Judge to send you here, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least.”
“She didn’t force us,” I said. “We pretty much demanded a chance to come.”
“That doesn’t mean you owe the Judge anything.”
“Are you saying you want to let the Mazikin keep possessing people?” I stared at him.
“I’m saying I’m not particularly interested in what the Judge wants.”
“What about us?” Ana whispered. “If we do this, we could get out, Tak. We could be free.”
He laughed. “What makes you think the Judge will ever set you free, love?”
Ana’s jaw clenched, and Takeshi pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry,” he murmured to her. “I’ll help you.” He framed her face with his hands and stared into her eyes. “I’ll help you.”
I looked away from them. Once we had Malachi back, he would help. I knew that for sure. Not because of his feelings for me, and not because the Judge ordered it. Because of his sense of justice. Malachi cared about so much more than himself. That was simply who he was.
“Since you hate the Judge and don’t seem to care about our mission,” I said to Takeshi, “tell me what Malachi is to you. I need to hear it.”
He sighed, squeezing and releasing Ana’s hand before moving to squat in front of me. He tipped my chin up with his fingers, and I was so caught by his solemn expression that I didn’t pull away as he started to speak. “The only thing that kept me sane when I first arrived here was knowing Malachi would take care of Ana, that he would protect her when the Mazikin who’d possessed me went after her. If I were in that square and he were here, he would be plotting my rescue, as surely as I’m planning his. He is one of the strongest, best men I’ve ever met, and the one I’d want at my side if I went into battle. I love him like my own brother, and I will use whatever skill and knowledge I have to help you free him—and to keep you whole while we do that. Because, if what Ana says is true, Malachi feels for you what I feel for her. So if I happen to hit you over the head in the process, I’m sorry, but I’d do it again if that meant saving him from losing you forever.”
“He could never lose me forever,” I said hoarsely. “But I appreciate your help.”
Ana put her hand on Takeshi’s shoulder, and he rose to his feet as she said, “We should try to get to Malachi at dawn, when the Mazikin have fled to their lairs. He might still be guarded then, but the crowds will be gone.”
Takeshi gave her an uneasy look. “That’s only a few hours away.”
Zip crept over and laid her clawed hand on my mother’s shoulder. “Le ayudaremos,” she said as my mother crawled back into the protective circle of Zip’s furry arms. The Mazikin spoke in Spanish to Ana, who translated: “You get the Captain and bring him here. We will take care of him.”
“Something tells me it won’t be that easy,” I said.
Takeshi pointed to a darkened hallway at the far end of the room, opposite the steel door. “Zip’s got a few ways out. She’s pretty resourceful, and she has some means. She said she works at the Bone Palace, in the kitchens, so once we get Malachi, perhaps she’ll help us get in.” He gestured at the door. “That passageway connects to an underground tunnel beneath the square, but there are several other passages that lead to other dens and tunnels. We’re in a warren of sorts, and as far as I know, none of it is mapped. That’s the way the Mazikin live. Little planning and no control. The Queen rules with fear and promises, and the enforcement squads are brutal but disorganized. It’s one of the reasons I’ve remained free for all these years.”