by Cat Hellisen
With a fist of air harder than Mekekana iron, I slam a hole through the wall ahead of me. The room reverberates from the blow, shaking old dirt and cobwebs from the ceiling. It rains down, sliding over the bubble of my magic to patter in a circle of debris around where I stand.
The old plaster of the wall is cracked around the crumbled bricks. The dust clears to reveal a hole the size of my head. I rub the powder from my eyes and blink away itchy tears. “Jannik?” I say into the murkiness beyond the cellar wall.
I am answered by an ululating shriek, more terrifying than the occasional howling of the silver-backed jackals around Pelimburg. The sound tears into my eardrums, rises higher and higher before I think to snap my bubble of silence wider. Now the screaming is all around me, echoed and doubled.
I can only hope the servants didn’t hear it. My heart remembers to beat again. Jannik or Isidro in pain – and I need to stop it.
“Alerion’s tits, can you get the fucking thing to shut up,” Isidro hisses out of the darkness. He’s alive, then.
“What – what is it?” The sound can’t be coming from Jannik; even Isidro is not that callous.
“Garret calls it the Lark,” Jannik says, and relief sweeps through me, leaving my legs trembling. “Just – just make it stop.” He sounds weary, his voice too husky.
I pull the gap wider, bricks tumbling down and shattering on the stone floor, until I have made a hole wide enough to crawl through. The darkness doesn’t reveal much. I am in a room that smells sickly sweet, of blood and pain, burned skin. Two shapes are slumped against the wall, their heads bowed and resting against each other. One raises its face to look at me.
“Jannik!” I am breathless. His name is lost under the screaming. I need to quiet whatever it is. I half-turn. It’s there – naked and crouched on all fours, eyes wide, mouth open as it screeches. An iron chain holds it straining in place as if it were a dragon dog trained to guard duty.
“Just kill the fucking thing,” Isidro shouts over the noise.
I can’t. It’s a vampire. A child vampire.
Instead I take another deep pinch of scriv, shore up my sound barrier, and use the surge of magic to pull the iron cuffs on the vampires apart as easily as if they were made of woven grass.
Hunger cramps through my stomach. I double over clutching myself, just as Isidro lurches past me and grabs the screaming vampire by the throat and smashes its head against the wall. The screaming cuts off with a sickening thunk.
“What–” Before I can move, Jannik is up and holding me tightly against him. I push him back. “Don’t – scriv.”
“I know.” Reluctantly he steps back. His coat is gone and his white shirt is ripped in several places. I can smell the blood on him. And now with the iron gone – I can feel things – his hunger, his tiredness, his rising panic. His happiness that I’m here. Alive and well.
A solid thump comes from behind me and I turn to see Isidro kick the boy vampire again. “It’s still alive.” He kicks again and this time I hear a rib snap.
“Stop it!” I scream, and Isidro whirls around to face me, his eyes wide.
His shirt is gone, his trousers torn at the knees. He is barefoot. His perfect face is a mess of bruising, hair ragged and uncombed. Isidro looks like a wild thing caught in an iron-jawed trap. “Kill it,” he says to me, and takes a step back. “Or I will. Go on – suffocate it or whatever you War-Singers like best.”
“I am not going to kill it – him. He’s a child.”
“Not really,” Jannik says. “He’s probably about fifteen.”
I look again at the body. The boy is naked, thinner than a starving Hob, and as stunted. Its pale skin is unearthly, like a cave cricket.
“Isidro’s right.” Jannik sighs, and winces. “It would be a kindness to put it out of its misery.”
“What?” I look from one to the other, my ears ringing. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this – he’s one of you and you want me to what – snap its neck as if it were a pigeon.”
“This thing is nothing like me,” Isidro spits.
The air in the room is getting faint and hot, prickly and heavy with hunger. Jannik is holding himself away from me now and Isidro is so far gone he’s shivering. “We need to get out of here,” I say slowly. I am beginning to feel rather like a rabbit locked in kennel full of dragon dogs. “I am not killing him.”
“You’re going to leave it here as a witness?” Isidro stalks toward me and I can’t help but take a nervous step away from him. “Are you insane – forget your sentimental–”
“No.” I look around the room for something we can use to bind the child. There’s a tattered pile of rags in one corner that might be its nest. “Jannik, tie him up, gag him, and then cover him as best you can.” If I am going to be sneaking out of House Eline with two stolen vampires and a body, I suppose it will look only slightly less suspicious if the body isn’t naked.
“You’re taking it with?” Isidro is shrieking now. “We don’t have time for this, Felicita. And since when have you had a sympathetic heart, or are you trying to make up for your brother–”
“Shut up!” I yell. In the sudden startled silence I can hear Isidro wheezing, Jannik shuffling to his knees to bind the boy fast. “One more word, Isidro, and I swear I will strangle you instead.”
I need to get us out of here – not least of all before Garret and Carien return. There is also the more immediate problem of being locked in a room with two starving vampires.
There, on the far side of the room, a door. I breathe a small sigh of relief. At least I don’t have to smash a larger way out for the three of us. The lock clicks and tumbles open under my magic. “Isidro,” I say. “Open the door.” I need to keep him occupied.
Thankfully he does as I ask, and the door opens onto a short white passage leading to a small set of stairs. Jannik slings the unconscious body, wrapped now in discoloured rags, up onto his shoulder. The boy must weigh nothing more than a sack of feathers. We creep out, me in the lead, Jannik behind me and Isidro in the rear. Jannik’s terror is scraping all over me, and their combined hunger and pain is needling; pins poked through my organs and up out of my skin. I look down, half-expecting to see points of blood all over my arms.
“Turn left,” Jannik says, when we come to another set of passages.
I follow his directions, always keeping the magic ballooned around us and the air held still. It’s exhausting me and tight spots of pain are flaring at my temples. My mouth feels gritty, as if I have drunk red desert sand instead of water. I push open another set of doors, and see a familiar room shining darkly with glass. “Saints!” someone shrieks and I lash out without thinking. There’s a vast tinkling crash and the sound of glass and metal and screaming intermingle. The harsh cry is cut short, and the last pieces of broken glass clatter into stillness.
“Oh Gris,” I say and clap my hand over my mouth. I’ve killed someone – a servant. My eyes burn. I didn’t mean it.
Behind me, Isidro fumbles at the mantelpiece. The scrape of a match against stone grates in the shocked silence, and he lights a fatcandle lamp. The wick sputters, and the flame casts dancing orange light over the mess I have made of Garret’s antique displays.
My victim lies in the middle of the remains of its glass cage, neck twisted. Not a servant, at least. The mynah. Silver-grey feathers ripple in a slight breeze. The black eye in the scaly blue face mask is drying, losing the glisten. Slowly, I take my hand from my mouth and breathe out. “We need to leave.” The edges of my magic are faltering and just the thought of taking more scriv tears at the lining of my stomach, sharp as an ulcer. I can already taste blood in my mouth. “Quickly.” I step over the shards of glass and the dead bird. The door leading out is still unlocked and I open it onto warm night air perfumed with honeysuckle and pine resin. I wave my hand for the others to follow me, and lead them down the road as fast as I can, and down to the side street where Master Sallow is thankfully still waiting.
We tumble tow
ard the safety of the carriage. “Master Sallow,” I glance at the vampires, at the hunger lighting their eyes. “As fast as you can, sir.”
He pulls the nervous unis in hand and touches his brow.
“Where are we going?” Isidro says once we are hidden inside the carriage. I pull the curtains closed. He’s shivering badly now, and he looks feverish and gaunt.
“To our apartments.” I glance at Jannik. I want so badly to reach out and take his hand in mine, to feel the warmth of his fingers as we intertwine. I can’t touch him – not until all this scriv is out of my system. “Is he still alive?” I gesture at the boy. Jannik has let him crumple to the floor. He presses his fingers to the boy’s throat, frowns, then nods.
I want to be far from this place before Garret comes back to discover the theft. We might have had a few more undiscovered moments – but when he comes back to that mess of splintered glass and the broken-necked bird, there will be no doubt that someone has been in his territory and has stolen from him. He will find all his treasures gone, and he will know who took them.
The unicorns are at full gallop down the empty streets, and the carriage jolts and bounces, slamming the breath right out of me. The unconscious body slides across the floor and the head cracks against the wood of the seat. Isidro hisses in delight.
“Who is he?” I say to Jannik.
He’s breathing fast, holding himself tight as if all his organs are about to come spilling through his skin. I can taste his hunger, can smell the scriv in my own blood. Traces of fiery pain lash along my sides. Cuts. Or wounds from sharp nails. “What – what is this?” But I don’t need to ask. Jannik’s control is slipping, the walls of his house slowly dissolving. I do not know if I can stand to feel all that he is suffering. Coward.
I glance down at the boy vampire. His nails are ragged and sharp like an animal’s.
“He belongs to Garret,” Jannik says, the words bitten out between small gasps. “He’s had it – him – for years. We’re not certain how many.”
“Too long,” says Isidro. “The thing is mad. You can’t save it.”
We’re all thrown across the carriage as the unicorns veer around a bend.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Isidro says. “It’s waking up.” He slams his foot down on the vampire’s face. There’s a crackle of bone and a wet meaty sound as the boy’s nose crumples.
“Will you stop!” I scream at him. “We’re almost there, and then we can sort out what we’re going to do with him – but not if he’s in pieces by the time we get there.”
“One less problem to deal with,” Isidro says.
“You’re scared of him?” I am incredulous “He’s barely more than a child.”
“I watched it chew on the hands of the last one of us who had the pleasure of being down there.” Isidro’s still yelling at me, his voice hoarse and frightened.
“What–” I draw back and look down at the bloodied face.
“Yes,” Isidro says. “Exactly.”
The carriage is slowing, the unicorns cantering then jolting into a trot and finally the slow amble before we stop. “We’re here.” I breathe properly, finally freed from a little of my fear.
The door opens and Master Sallow’s broad face looks in on us.
“Jannik,” I say. “You’ve bought nillies for blood-letting?” It has only occurred to me now that if he hasn’t replaced the lost stock, I’ll have to pay a servant to stand in as food. And I do not want to do that. Were it not for the scriv in my blood I could offer myself to Jannik, but I would not have Isidro touch me either way.
“There are,” he says.
I tilt my face up and close my eyes briefly. That’s one good thing. “Right.” I take charge. “You and Isidro do what you must. Master Sallow, if you could help me move this.” I indicate the body.
Sallow raises his eyebrows but kneels down to grab the boy under his arms and haul him free.
“I’d stay clear of the teeth, were I you.” I follow him down and into the apartments. “Take him up to the lavender suite.” I instruct a serving maid to bring me a spare shirt and trousers from the servants’ uniforms, and another to arrange hot water and new clothes for Jannik and Isidro.
Sallow watches me as I carefully unravel the stinking filthy cloths from the boy’s body. “The first sign that he moves,” I say. “Hit him.” The boy is pinch-thin, but now that I’m looking properly at him under the lights of several fat-candles, I can see my earlier guess was wrong. He’s not really a child, perhaps a few years younger than me, emaciated, and every rib showing like a starving dog’s.
I send for another bowl of warmed water and set to washing the filth and blood away. His skin is bruised, slack, the dark hair a matted snarl. Around his neck is still a thin iron collar with tiny leaves stamped into it. “We’ll need this off.”
Master Sallow leaves to find our head gardener, Master Bermond, who comes with his hands bound in leather gloves and carrying a wicked-looking tool with pincer-blades. He snaps the iron collar with single powerful twist. The metal clatters on the floor, and Bermond leans forward to hold it up in his gloved hands. “Nasty thing,” he says.
“You’ll need to dispose of that,” I say. “It must never be found.”
“As you say.”
I shiver to look at the damage it’s done to the vampire’s throat. Years of burns on burns. The skin is rotted, filled with pus and charred flesh. I have no idea where to begin.
“Maggots,” says Bermond.
“I beg your pardon?” I look over at his dark face. “How so?”
“They eat at the dead meat.” He shrugs. “Everyone learns it sooner or later.”
“Consider me instructed – you know how to do this?”
He nods once. “I’ve maggots for feeding the hens,” he says. “I can bring some.”
I take another glance at the filthy wound. “Good, yes. Please do.” I’ll leave that for now and work on cleaning the rest of him. The fresh blood washes easily from his face, but his nose is a mess of tender bruising, swollen and disfigured. I do the best I can, and work his limp arms through the sleeves of the clean shirt, and his legs into the trousers. The nakedness does nothing for me; it is rather like putting the skin and fur back on a dead animal – a bizarre and hideous task.
When he’s dressed I rebind his wrists and ankles with the strong rope Bermond left for me.
Jannik enters the room just as I’m tying the final knot. He is still pale, as always, but without that sweaty, hungry look. His wounds are hidden. I stand, reach out and lay one hand softly against his chest, just lightly feeling the bandages beneath the silk. He winces.
“Scriv?” I draw back. “I thought it would all be gone by now?” Certainly, I can feel no trace of magic in my system; all that I’m left with is a pounding vicious headache behind my eyes, and a sour taste I cannot swallow away.
“A little,” he murmurs. “You’ve cleaned him.”
“Except for the burn. Bermond is going to come deal with that – maggots – don’t ask, and the hair.” I eye the mess. “I think I’m just going to cut it all off.”
“He’s not a pet for you to groom,” Jannik says.
“I know that. All I gave him was a little decency.”
Isidro slips through the doorway. “I want to go home.” He is cleaned, dressed, his hair combed back into place. Even the bruises look better now that the cellar’s grime is washed away. Despite this, Isidro has lost something of himself. Whether he lost it in Eline’s house, or in Harun’s treatment of him, or his own mother’s betrayal, I don’t know.
“I can’t stay here,” he says.
“It was a pleasure,” I snap back at him. “The next time you decide to run away and get yourself sold to a madman, I’ll leave you to rot.”
He glares at me. “I suppose I should thank you.”
“Oh sweet Gris, never mind.” I raise my hands in exaggerated despair.
A groan sounds from the boy, and we all of us fall silent and stare at
the shifting body. The cloth they gagged him with is lying next to his cheek. I wonder if I should have stuffed it back in his mouth. Too late now.
A pale tongue tip darts out of his mouth, licks at his dry lips. His eyelids flutter.
“I’m not staying,” says Isidro. “Get me back to Harun.” Panic colours. his voice.
“Hush.” Jannik catches his arm gently, but his gaze never leaves the boy lying at their feet. They both take a few paces back, leaving him a wide berth.
He wakes shrieking. Loud enough that all I want to do is press my hands over my ears and let Isidro lay into him again. “Gris.” We’ll need to knock him unconscious. Maybe Isidro was right and I should have just snuffed him out like a fatcandle
He falls silent as suddenly as he began, and curls up, bound wrists resting just below his knees. He flicks nervous glances back and forth at us, at the room, down at the clothes I’ve dressed him in. He scrapes his arms up and down against his legs.
“Can you speak?” Jannik asks him softly.
The only response he gives is a baring of teeth so feral that the boy might as well be a cur in the Lam heaps. He hisses, pulling himself smaller.
“Have you a name?” I say.
His eyes are indigo like Jannik’s but without a flicker of intelligence or comprehension. I might as well be trying to have a conversation with a rock. I try again, keeping my voice soft. “Felicita,” I say, and press one hand to my chest. I point at Jannik, name him.
“Leave me out of this,” snaps Isidro.
I shake my head and huff. “Fine.” I repeat our names, then point to the boy, and wait.
A knock at the door sets him off screeching again. Bermond the gardener enters carrying a small wooden pail and a handful of thin rolled bandages. He appears slightly alarmed, until he sees the boy. “Eh,” he says, looking at the figure writhing on the floor. “Hold this.” He passes the pail to Jannik who takes it, peers in, and then raises his eyebrows without comment.
Bermond snaps forward and grabs the boy by the nape then backhands him in a rushed blur. The boy’s head snaps forward and back, and he goes quiet. “You hush now,” Bermond informs him. The boy goes still, fingers curling. He seems almost content. Bermond works fast, setting thin bandages against the mess of the wound then waving his hand for Jannik to pass the maggots over.