Before they set out once more, Aadore tore off part of her skirt to fashion a beggar’s satchel, which she stuffed with bread, befouled tarts, and anything else that looked even slightly edible. Sean shushed her and then motioned with his cane toward the alley; he’d heard something else. They ran. On and on the day-night went, as they slunk like city coyotes toward Aadore’s home, hopeful that, if nothing else, a payload of canned foodstuffs and various emergency supplies awaited them there. Aadore refused to consider that her reinforced locks might have been broken or her home sacked. She needed a glimmer of hope in this black night. Night indeed came, bringing a miasma darker and deeper. Soon, she and Sean moved as if through a sandstorm, every step uncertain, hands acting where eyes could not. The wandering packs of damned wailed in celebration of the dark. This was their hourglass—the time of the dead. The living would have to find shelter, brother and sister realized.
After stumbling through a haunted square, splashing through lakes of filth, and picking their way quickly around toppled carriages, past stands reduced to incomprehensible trash, and over bodies too eaten to be turned into unliving vessels, the siblings entered the shadows of an enclosed arcade. Aadore was confident she recognized the square through which they ran; she believed it had been the site of a market where she had once bought fresh produce—a place not very far from District Twenty-Two. If her memory served her well, they would find laneways branching off the wall she could barely see to her right, exits that led to properties of moderate wealth. In order to get past these private gates without being electrocuted, a person would need to possess the feliron key of a city servant—or of a highly placed handmaiden to an Iron Sage’s wife, one who was often sent on shopping errands for her mistress. Aadore praised the perks of her indentureship and checked her tatters for her keys. Their jangle both alarmed and excited her.
She was towing Sean along now as he seemed to be faltering. He looked terrible, white enough to stand out in the dark, and she felt him shivering. They reached a quaint iron gate set in a tall brick wall. Quickly, she unlocked the barrier with a square key and a spark of magik. Once they passed through it, she closed the gate, which squealed a rusty summons to the monsters in the mist. Did they hear? she wondered. She wasn’t sure how these monsters even hunted; they were missing eyes, ears, the organs necessary for perception. Perhaps some other supernatural power gave them awareness. At least the fog of death and the bunkers of refuse had granted the three inconspicuousness thus far.
“Aadore!” hissed Sean.
As they’d said little to nothing for hourglasses upon hourglasses, his croaking voice startled her. Bloody Kings! She’d been standing still and dumb as a mule. Aadore remembered to move, and fast. She hurried into the clouded courtyard and squinted, hoping to squeeze shapes from the murk. A cobbled road made for foot traffic wound off into the gray nimbus ahead. The neighborhood throbbed with silence, and the air felt stale and thick in Aadore’s lungs. Her cheeks were icy cold, and the infant she held shifted and snuggled into her warm breasts. At least the stink of the dead, which had begun to creep through Menos, seemed lighter here; Aadore hoped this community had somehow survived what had happened elsewhere in Menos. Then she and Sean noticed glittering trails of broken glass and dark smears upon the road. They followed one sparkling trail through a gap in a wrought-iron fence with bars ripped apart like straw, and over a trampled flowerbed before coming to the whistling window frame of a grand dark house.
Sean examined the damaged casement. Scraps of flesh and blood hung off teeth of glass—its inhabitants must have been dragged either from or into the manor. There might be no one left here to fear what the day would bring—Death had already paid a visit. While likely futile, Sean listened for any signs that a breathing creature remained inside the manor.
After years of being drugged, strapped to a table, prodded with needles, submerged in ice-baths, and subjected to a psychopath’s litany of further torments, Sean’s senses were extraordinarily developed. When he’d gone blind from pain the first time, he’d passed out. When he’d gone blind from pain a hundred times, though, his body had adapted, and his mind had liberated itself from his flesh. He’d learned to seek distraction in the many noises, scents, and curiosities of the laboratory. Soon, he’d been able to see past the spots that blinded him and stare into the masked faces of the fleshcrafters and physicians leaning over him, including the smug, piggish face of that monster, Dr. Hex. “Is he conscious?” the master torturer would ask as Sean’s fishy eyes flicked open, and he stared into the doctor’s unmasked face—conscious indeed, though neither Hex nor his comrades really believed he could be. During his horror, Sean had learned how to see, hear, and smell incredibly well, transcending the normal sensory limits of man. He was no longer a man, though, not really. He did not feel pain as men did. It was likely that he could not feel pleasure, either. These days, he used the organ between his legs only to piss.
As Sean could hear only a small huffing that might be a draft, he threw his cane over the windowsill, and then lifted himself up and over the frame in a movement surprisingly graceful for a scrawny one-legged man. Aadore noticed a bit of his sinister nature then, and reflected he was like a mink in a man’s skin: lean, clever, and vicious. Sean reached down, took the infant from Aadore, and then managed to offer her his cane to use for the climb. Aadore clambered through the bay window without harming herself. She thanked her brother with a nod and reclaimed the infant. She wanted to say so much more to him, wanted to express her need and love for him, commend him for his bravery. Were the world calm, and had she the time and materials, she would have written him a poem—one of her silly, stupid attempts at rhyming, like the ones she used to compose for him when they were young…
Just then, cries from unliving throats ripped apart the silence. The dead were nearby; she and her brother had to hide.
Inside the manor, the air held less weight and smoke, and the siblings could better see where they were going. The window through which they’d crawled had once been the centerpiece of a grand living room filled with chairs piled high with velvet cushions, walls adorned with silver damask patterns, and polished teak tables cluttered with cards, board games, and ashtrays. Leisure and laughter had been welcome in this room. Sean could smell the sweet smoke of old witchroot over the stink of the fog of death.
Sean counted two exits from the room. Through the one on the right, he could see a stone slab and glimmers of kitchenware. He ignored it; they would raid the kitchen later if they had the opportunity. Instead, he motioned to his sister and turned left, entering a regal hallway flanked by a stairway going up. He considered going to the end of the hall, but a small oval table gave him pause: once used to display portraits, it had been tipped onto its side, blocking his path. Around it were scattered crimson phantographs, images drowning in a pool of blood. Pausing and listening in his disconnected way, he thought he could hear things—clawed, hungry things—shambling toward them. Sean couldn’t say how close the noises were, but he could not afford to take any chances. The dead he’d seen roved in packs like wolves. He and Aadore would need to find a rabbit hole in which to hide until those animals passed.
Sean shoved Aadore up the stairs and quickly followed her. Although he tried to move stealthily, Sean soon found himself dragging his limb. The stump of his leg felt swollen and raw against his prosthesis. Every step was like a knife driven up his femur and into his groin. The pain was endurable; he wished only that his stupid wheezing body would just shut up and obey him. Sean nearly fell at the landing and cursed his flesh. Aadore hauled him up by an elbow, and they stumbled down a barren hallway.
Signs of a great struggle were visible through open doorways, and many of the doors themselves had been splintered by some terrible force. The beautiful damask wallpaper had been splashed with sprays of red. A quick peek into each room they passed revealed no survivors. They saw a collage of horror: messy bedsheets, discarded slippers, shattered lanterns, a teddy bear gummed in bloo
d, a hand clinging to the foot of a bed—as if someone had been dragged from beneath it—and an amputated leg, which lay on the hallway carpet. That last sight made Sean’s stump twitch with phantom pains. What the siblings couldn’t find anywhere was a viable hiding place.
Suddenly, they heard a warbling from the street below. It was the unmistakable call of the unliving. There must be a horde right outside the manor.
CREEEEAK!
Dust sprinkled from the ceiling at the end of the hallway. The siblings froze, hearts slamming against their chests. Heavy footsteps and several thuds shook the roof, followed by a painful quiet. Aadore clenched every muscle and screamed inside her head. Sean pointed down the hallway toward a door that stood at the hall’s end. The pair stepped around the severed leg and approached the door. Sean motioned for his sister to halt, pressed an ear to the cold wood, and listened. Once more, he heard a drafty sound…an intake and outtake of air…Not a draft at all, he realized, but labored breathing from a real and living person. Sean wasn’t certain whether to be excited or terrified. “I think there’s someone alive in there,” he whispered.
He settled for caution as he tested the handle of the door, which turned. When he tried to open the door, though, he was met with immediate resistance. A great weight stacked against the door prevented him from entering. Still, he was a child of Menos and a man of war, and he would not give up without breaking himself first—which was exactly what Aadore sensed and worried he would do, as he put aside his cane, drove a bony shoulder against the door, then huffed, strained, and showed the wood just who was the most stubborn.
Aadore was amazed at how much strength he possessed for such a slight man. In a moment, she felt like clapping as the door buckled and relented, and cumbersome furniture fell away with a thudding crash. Sean was able to open the door no more than a pace or two: it seemed that whatever jumble lay in the room beyond would not permit more than that.
Aadore, thinking of getting the child to safety, pushed past her brother, and announced herself to whoever might be inside the room. Then she waved her hand through the space before she tested its safety with her body. While she encountered some nails and wood, it was nothing that could seriously injure her. What Aadore didn’t realize was that her declaration and little exercise in arm-waving had saved her from a brutal death by the giant blood-soaked man who waited in the shadows of the chamber beyond. Shivering with bloodlust, he hunkered by the remains of a bed frame that he’d hacked up earlier for parts. When the man heard an actual living voice, and saw the flailing arm, one that did not resemble that of a rotted being, he relaxed his guard, repressing the impulse to throw the hatchet he held. He then watched as a woman carrying something wrapped in rags shimmied through the opening.
Aadore glared about the room, alert for danger. The lavish chamber had probably belonged to the keeper of this estate. It had tall ceilings, extinguished chandeliers, and thick plaster mouldings, though all its richness showed signs of destruction. Every piece of furniture aside from the wooden skeleton of the bed had been piled together, forming a heap of bedposts, boards, cabinets, and broken chairs that had then been pushed up against the door. The curtains had been torn down, their rods and fabric bundled into the mess. In place of curtains, the bed’s mattress rested against the windows of the chamber, and very little light illuminated the room. Muggy, thought Aadore, for this place was warm with sweat. She could not place the smell—a fresh, farmy odor—that congested the chamber. Nor did Aadore spot the man who watched her. The man blinked and gaped as he scanned her features. Could it be?
Sean slipped into the room. At once, his sharp eyes spotted the lurker—a man squatted in the farthest shadows, heavy and strong. Sean placed himself in front of Aadore and held his cane as if it were a sword. “You’re not dead, and neither are we,” he said. “We mean you no harm. Step forth and declare yourself.”
The shadow moved, expanding to great dimensions, nearly scraping the ceiling with its head. Sean worried he’d awoken a giant or ogre, and mythic blood might indeed run through the body of the man who now moved into the meager light of the black room. Shirtless, hairy, tattooed in markings of blood, and wearing only ill-fitting gentlemen’s pants and boots, he certainly looked like a monster. On the man’s rock-shaped cranium ran scars in zipper patterns. His twisted lips and oft-broken nose told a tale of endless brawling. He smelled as if he were wrestler and butcher in one. The cleaver the man carried—a full-sized ax, in fact—looked small in his hand and spoke of no kind intent.
“Skar?” said Aadore.
“I’ll be fuked…Aadore,” replied the mercenary. He looked Sean up and down. “And you, lad, must be her brother. I can see the Ironguard in you. Nothing save for a soldier’s will would have kept you alive out there.”
“You know each other?” asked Sean.
Aadore nodded. “Yes—in a fashion. Why…how is it that you are here?”
Skar put down his ax and moved past the siblings. “Never mind that for now. We need to get the door blocked again, then stay quiet for a while until the dead leave. I can hear them out there. They’re close.”
“Yes,” agreed Sean.
Wasting no time, the soldier and the ogre pushed the largest piece of the barricade, a solid oak drawer, back into place. A true Menosian woman, Aadore was both mother and worker: she rocked the incredibly serene babe while gathering the smaller bits of furniture with her free arm. Between the three of them, they rebuilt the jigsaw jumble quickly and with tactical precision. Aadore had no idea if the structure would hold, but Skar tested the blockade with a shake and then grunted his endorsement.
A window shattered in the rooms below. Like a herd in the wild, the three held for a moment, waiting. They soon heard the slithering, flopping, and groaning of dead horrors dragging themselves through glass, over carpets, and up the stairs. Skar picked up his ax and gestured to the rear of the chamber before heading there himself. At the back and right of the chamber were two doorways. The first led to a lavatory that glinted with hints of chrome. The second opened into a large square closet. Skar vanished into the closet. A moment later, the siblings discovered it contained a ladder that rose to a hatch in the ceiling. Blindly and awkwardly, they followed Skar up—one of them one-legged, the other using a clawed arm so as not to drop the baby. Aadore had to fight to keep herself from slipping on whatever wetness was on the rungs. It was a relief when Skar’s long arms suddenly appeared and hoisted her up. Skar helped Sean into the attic as well, then pulled the ladder up without so much as scraping it and closed the trapdoor.
In the attic, a hint of light stole through drawn curtains powdered in dust. Cobwebs and memories hidden in boxes filled the wide space, along with draped portraits, chests Aadore imagined filled with valuable heirlooms and keepsakes, and ladies’ racks and dresses. In this space, sounds were muffled. Even with their especially keen hearing, Skar and Sean couldn’t make out what was happening in the house below. They had escaped death for the moment. The horde would have to break down a barricade and then somehow climb into the attic in order to harm them. Aadore didn’t think the creatures were that clever, not from what she and her brother had seen. We’re safe, she thought, and her body sighed from head to toe. Aadore kissed the infant on his sweaty scalp. What a good boy; what an unusual boy to have been quiet through all this terror.
While the men stationed themselves around the hatch, Aadore looked for a spot to feed and tend to the child. She decided upon a square pirate’s chest covered in a sheet, which she removed, fluffed, and shredded to fashion a new diaper. Although the Lord and Lady El had never had children for her to care for, as an older sister, she had much experience changing a baby’s bottom. The baby grumpily pawed at her as she changed him. There was hardly any shite, though the rags were so filthy and the place so dark, it was difficult to tell. Aadore unslung the beggar’s pack tied under her armpit; the knot had left an aching mark. For the little man, she made an inadequate paste out of a crushed jam-filled past
ry and some water from a silver thermos, which she’d filled at one of the few broken water pipes that hadn’t been spewing filth. She had no utensils, and had to feed the baby using her fingers. He suckled more than he ate, but got at least some food inside him. She gave him a few dribbles of water, too. He really should have milk, she worried. Aadore finished off what remained of her concoction, which tasted like a mashed strawberry tart and actually wasn’t half bad. She packed up, burped the child, and then prepared to head over and offer the shadows near the hatch a loaf of bread. Footprints suddenly noticed in the dust distracted her: glistening footprints, impressions from large wet feet, like Skar’s. Wondering where the footprints might lead, Aadore followed them around a labyrinth of tall draped mannequins till she arrived in a different area.
Blood. Blood everywhere. She tried not to step in any of it, and turned the baby’s face toward her breast although he would not understand, even if he could see it. The mad artist from the hallways downstairs could have learned a thing or two from this macabre master, who had used buckets of gore, strands of viscera, and a flayed confetti of skin to decorate his canvas: the floor, sheets, and concealed furniture of this small space. A small person had been butchered here, possibly a child from the size of the carcass, and quite recently, she gathered, from the reek of the freshly opened body cavity that lay before her. It smelled of earth, shite, raw meat, and cooking oil. She’d smelled it even when they were a floor below, though she hadn’t been able to identify it then. The scene was brutal: head and limbs had all been separated from one another; why, she did not know. It looked as if the murderer had wanted to purge this person from existence, entirely.
Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3) Page 25