“The title of Maestro, for one,” Hu said.
Erik just frowned. “Why would I care about that?”
“It’ll open doors.”
“And close others,” Matthias interjected. “Most independents won’t trust you. If you go outside North America and Europe, most Blooded are independents.”
“We have outposts on every continent and people in most major governments,” Luka argued.
Matthias snorted. “Yeah, but that means shit all when most people don’t trust you.”
“Create a new title,” Erik said.
“What?” asked Luka.
“Or revive one of the old ones,” Dayida suggested. “Something that acknowledges your right to use the Organization resources without the stink of Maestro attached.”
Hu frowned but then nodded.
“What would you want in return?” Erik asked.
“Full and unrestricted access to the Agency’s notes and records,” Luka said immediately.
“Ha! Nope. I don’t need a whole bunch of your people tromping through the San Francisco office causing resentment while I’m gone.”
“Gone?” Hu questioned.
“Here’s what I’ll offer in return. You can submit information requests, and if there’s nothing wrong with it, myself or my representative will approve it and send it to you.”
“Agreed,” Luka said immediately. She felt like she was negotiating between two horrible things—Hu’s mouth, which got away from him and fucked things up, and a eighteen-year-old who was more cunning than she expected. “What did you mean, gone?”
Erik waved it off.
“Was there anything else?”
“Yes, how did you intend to staff the San Francisco office?” Luka asked.
Matthias smiled, all teeth and no mercy. “I have plenty of Blooded friends who would love to work with the Agency’s resources and have access to their records.”
Luka swallowed. “We would also like to suggest that you listen to the suggestions of those who’ve been doing this longer than you.”
Erik narrowed his eyes.
“We have experience—”
“You’re trading with them, aren’t you?” Erik’s voice held no emotion, his face went blank as he looked at them. “The Agency. That’s the other people you’d want me to listen to. That’s why you said ‘those who’ve been doing this longer’ and not just ‘listen to us.’”
Hu nodded, not seeing or not caring about the angry faces reflected around the circle. “Yes, we’ve decided on a mutually beneficial exchange.”
“So why do you need access to our records at all? Can’t your new friends give you that?” Matthias asked.
Dayida was the one who answered. “I’m guessing two reasons. The Maestres may be willing to trade with those they’ve fought for generations, but they sure as hell don’t trust them not to alter the information or delay in delivering it. After all, it’s what they’ll be doing. I’m also guessing they want access to any new information that may happen soon. Anything to give them an edge.”
Hu snapped his mouth closed and nodded.
Erik shook his head. “I would say be careful who you get in bed with, but look where I am right now, so I guess I’m in no place to judge. I’m leaving for Zebub in a few days. My mother shall be placed in charge of the San Francisco office while I am gone.”
“Your mother!” Hu exclaimed, standing.
Erik looked at him, calmly raised a hand, and slowly lowered it to the table top. Hu frowned, but his only other option was to stand like a pouting child for the rest of the meeting, so he sat down.
“My grandmother, Hettie Jayl, will be coming to help her. As a concession and sign of alliance between us, I will appoint Blooded Patrah Boothe as official liaison and adviser. All information requests you have can come through her.” With that Erik stood, his mother and Matthias rising as well. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot to take care of before I leave.”
They filed out. On his way, Erik ruffled Melinda’s hair and after a brief hesitation placed his hand on Tae’s shoulder before exiting, leaving only those belonging to the Organization in the room. There was silence before Hu exploded.
“What did you think you all were doing?”
“Don’t.” Daya rose, leveraging herself up with her fists. “You are not in a place to question anyone else’s actions right now. Elana and I will be taking a leave of absence starting immediately. We will be accompanying Erik to Zebub.”
“But—”
“We understand.” Luka rose herself, speaking over Hu. “We apologize once again for the secrets the Organization kept from you both. We only wanted to know more before we shared with you.”
“We understand.” Elana had her hands on her girlfriend’s shoulders, rubbing back and forth. “We still need time. Elliot will be coming with us, of course.”
“Of course.” It was just as she had feared, except that luckily they were only calling it a leave of absence for now. They left next, with Tae following behind. He paused by Luka’s chair on his way out. He met her eyes.
“I have to trust my gift, and it says I need to stand with him, not with the Organization. I will help my family and friends on my own.”
Then he was gone too.
Hu was still standing, just staring off into space.
“Hu, will you sit down? You look ridiculous.”
Hu obeyed automatically and Luka turned to Patrah.
“You will, of course, report everything you see and hear.”
Patrah nodded and then paused as if waiting for more before grabbing Melinda’s hand and guiding her from the room.
Luka looked over at Hu. The man was lost in thought, already trying to figure out how to turn this to his advantage. She would be doing the same soon enough, but for now she simply sat back in the chair. While she still didn’t agree with those that had wanted Erik killed right away and still wanted him done away with, she did have to admit they had been right about one point. He had changed the whole board and she needed a new strategy if the Organization was to survive.
ZEBUB
LIL
She woke to pain.
Everywhere.
But especially her face. Her memories were not hazy, she remembered everything, and she’d heard of this room. It would be hard to find a ’dant in the whole of Zebub who had not. The punishment chambers below the Ruling Courts were famous. The names of those that had disappeared below were never spoken aloud again. Even Antes.
Her sight was foggy at first. Everything around her was dim and covered in comforting shadow.
Including the two forms standing over her. Brown-splattered white draped over them from the crown of their heads to as far down as she could see from her position chained to the table. She had no idea how they could see, but perhaps precision was not something that mattered much in their line of work. They had to be Antes. Their proportions were too tall and oddly elongated to be ’dants. The brown splashed across them was blood. That was clear enough.
“Oh, you’re finally awake.” The voice was light and delightful, musical like Davi’s when he’d been granted a treat or some extra attention. She hoped they’d gotten away and that Arel and Jagi had understood her choices. One of the figures leaned over farther. It was slightly taller and wider than its companion. “It’s been so boring working you while you sleep. All we got was the occasional whimper. Not nearly as fun as screams.”
The pain made itself known again as soon as it was mentioned. Lil’s legs and arms were burning with a fire so intense she was sweating, which made the wounds burn even worse. She was bound to the table not just by wrists and ankles but also bands around her neck, forehead, and midsection. She was completely immobilized.
Her mouth was not bound, a foolish mistake on their part. She opened her mouth to speak and felt nothing. Nothing answered her command; there was no muscle.
She tried to scream and what came out was a croaked monstrosity. The two figures a
bove her laughed, the light joyful voice joined by a deeper one with a cracked edge all its own, a cackle that went on just a bit too long.
It was that voice that spoke next.
“Discovered what the Queen did to your pretty weapon, did you? Ripped it right out your head. Quite a sight, I’m told.”
Lil thrashed in her bonds. Dimly, a part of her prayed that neither Min nor Davi saw the event, but a larger, more vocal part simply screamed over and over.
“Shh, shh, shh, little one, plenty to scream about. We haven’t even gotten to the good part.” The one with the soft, mad contralto voice moved out of her line of sight. She strained but could not see where it went and then the pain in the bottom of her foot started.
She cried out as the blade or whatever they were using was twisted. Soon the knife had been so busy she could only pant, cry, and wonder how much of her foot could be left. When would it hit bone? Were they planning to flay her?
Something damp was held against her foot and at first she sighed in relief until the burning came. Her eyes watered, everything lost in a haze of burn/wet/tear. It felt as if her foot was tearing itself apart in an attempt to get away. Her toes curled in the wrong direction trying to escape and fingers took hold and broke them one by one.
Her eyes watered and the darkness of the ceiling swam in her vision. She prayed for the peace of death.
“Do you know why we place you lying down like this?”
Lil was too busy biting through her lips to realize the question was actually expecting an answer until the slap across the face. Her lips burst open further, more blood flooding her throat.
“Pay attention. I’m trying to teach you something. We have you like this because ’dants can take an intense amount of pain while lying down. If you were standing right now, you most likely would have already passed out, and then where would we be?”
The white in her vision, which she now realized had been one of them leaning over her, retreated and she was left with the darkness of the ceiling.
It went on like this for quite some time, little pieces of her broken or cut off and all the time the voices “teaching” her things about her body and its pain threshold as they pushed her past it. Sometimes, in the small breaks they took between sessions, she was able to rise out of the pain.
In those lucid pieces of time she wondered when they would let her die. There was nothing she could do but hope they would grow angry or sloppy enough to end her torment soon. If she did not answer their questions it resulted in being slapped, again and again. Her right eye was swollen shut and blood ran into her mouth like rain from her broken nose.
“We’re taking a break, but we’ll be back soon. You’re the most fun we’ve had in ages.”
This was the first time they had left her completely alone since they started—nights, six-days, moons ago. She tried to crane her neck against the bars and managed to shift enough to catch a glimpse of the door.
Only the upper right corner, but she watched it with a desperate hope. She knew Arel and Jagi were gone, or at least she hoped they were, but surely there was someone else who would come to her.
Lil didn’t hope for rescue; that optimism had been cut from her flesh as cleanly as her smallest toes. She only hoped that someone still cared enough to give her a clean death.
She was so busy craning her neck that she only noticed what was happening directly above her when a weight hit her stomach. There was no part of her free of burns and small cuts, so she grunted in pain, then flicked her eyes downward.
A Nif stared back at her, small, star-shaped, bending the top point to look her up and down. It made a sad whistle in its throat. Then another fell onto her shoulder and another onto her hip. She looked up and realized her earlier vision had been correct: the ceiling was shifting and blurring.
With Nif.
More and more of them fell and began to gather around the bars holding her down. She was not hopeful; even if they managed to break her bonds, she would not be able to walk out of here, not with all the damage to her feet.
The bar on her forehead gave first, slowly bending out of the way, then the band holding her neck. She lifted her head slightly, looking down at her body now almost completely covered in an army of the shadow helpers. Something heavier fell onto her chest.
A bag sat there heavily.
The cause of this.
No, that was unfair.
It was Haydn who caused this. She realized the part he had played as soon as she saw his gleeful face and remembered her odd moment in the Ossuary. He had done this, he and whoever conspired with him. Krezida, certainly. Riana, probably.
Razel?
Mayer?
At least Haydn had paid the price. She remembered the look of shock and pain on his face as the projectiles had torn through his lower stomach and crotch. She’d only had a second to enjoy the sight before they had hit her next.
All the bands were gone now, bent and misshapen or torn from the bolts. She was free, but her body protested every futile effort to rise. The Nif chattered and pressed down on her body. Cold enveloped her feet and she looked down to see the individual Nif joining together into a blanket of darkness. She felt a small flare of hope.
They would take her away the same way they had transported Haydn. The where did not matter to her.
Then the door opened. Her head turned quickly despite the pain and the hope rushed out of her. Her torturers were back, both frozen in the doorway. She could feel their shock across the room even if she could not see their faces.
“So it seems you have some tricks left, old girl. Well, so do we.” And Lil’s whole world became pain, every wound lighting up as if it were being freshly applied to her body. She collapsed panting as the feeling cut off and she became aware of a muffled scream other than hers. She forced herself to focus through the aftershocks that wracked her frame. Both torturers were struggling with black masks covering the whole of their heads.
She realized they were Nif that had fallen on the pair from above. Her body grew colder and colder as her own Nif spread higher, covering her chest. The last thing she saw before becoming fully engulfed was her two tormentors falling to the ground.
AREL & JAGI
The children were quiet. Min had only woken from her shock recently and was staring at her new arm, moving the frosted white limb this way and that. Jagi did not know how much she remembered, but she did not ask how it came to be or what had happened to Lil. Even if she recalled nothing, she took after her sib and was far from dumb. She would understand that the fact that they were running through the dark night—sticking to alleys and mostly unused streets—meant things had not ended in their favor.
They only had a day at most before Court Chayyliel called for a Wild Hunt, and they wanted to get as far from the Ruling Courts as possible tonight.
“Where are we going?” Davi finally asked quietly, his face buried in Arel’s chest.
“Somewhere safe.”
The answer must have been deemed sufficient because neither Min nor Davi asked another. They paused in an alley, waiting for a small crike to leave the next street over so they could cross without being seen. They shared a look over the children’s heads, silently communicating the fact that neither of them had any idea where that safe place might be. Chayyliel was Queen of their Court and Lord of their House, so both would be turned against them now. The safest place would be with those of their bloodline who were at cross-purposes with the House of the Long Arm and/ or Court Chayyliel.
Also, someone who would not simply kill them on sight. Hina would be the only one, but she was high in the Court of Feedings and could not be trusted with this.
Arel’s face lit up with an idea. He looked at Jagi and tilted his head southeast. Jagi shook his head vehemently, drawing Min’s attention to the argument. She looked up at Jagi and, meeting her gaze, he grimaced and then gave Arel a forced nod.
They crossed the street, turning left on the next one before ducking into anothe
r alley. They had a direction now. A place that might give them shelter but also might turn them in, depending on mood and which side June was truly on. Deeper and deeper into ’dant territory they went, avoiding occasional Court patrols and pitched battles between the patrols and small patches of the creeping dark. The dark always disappeared once it had eaten one or two of the patrollers.
They knew they had arrived at their destination when the smell of damp and rot rose around them. The Drowned district had once been completely underwater until the Court of Teardrops decided—centuries ago—to raise it from the ocean floor as a place to put ’dants out of the eyes of Antes. It still flooded on a regular basis, but the residents had their houses on stilts, grew roof gardens, and kept emergency rafts every few blocks in case some ’dants were stuck too far from shelter. They did not care much for most Antes and a few residents on the streets eyed them with ill intentions, but their expressions changed as they caught sight of the children clinging to them.
Though a part of Zebub, the district was a dumping ground that existed with almost no oversight from the Ruling Courts, as long as tributes were paid on time and they caused no trouble. Few if any Antes had reason to come to the district. Arel and Jagi turned down a street and came across the one building in the whole place that looked new and fresh. It squatted, a round ziggurat in the middle of a line of square houses, futilely trying to imitate the decay of the buildings around it with paint and decoration.
The Door greeted them as they approached the gate, clad in a clinging gold sheath from neck to dainty toes. The Door smiled and gestured for them to enter.
“Be welcome in the House of the Madame.”
They hurried inside and both of them checked over their shoulders. The Door sensed their urgency and closed the entrance quickly behind them to block any view from the street. The greeting room was opulent without being expensive. There was a feeling of relaxation and hedonism to the plush cushions dotting the floor and the vaguely erotic art lining the walls. The heavy curtains turned the room into a mysterious maze. None of the cloth or materials looked expensive, with the exception of the gold sparkling material covering the Door. It all screamed decadent, but not elitist. A very hard combination to pull off.
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