by Nia Night
In answer, I narrowed my eyes on him.
“Right,” he said. “So we take the Dark Alleys. We stick together. We don’t talk to anyone. We keep moving.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Great,” he responded.
“Gods help us,” mumbled the child.
I’d been to the Dark Alleys a few times, having been sent there on missions to take out Marks, of course. Its routes overlapped those of the railroads still used by the humans on their side of the Veil. We’d have to stop at a few stations along the way, trade carts, and take care of our basic needs. If we were lucky, we could reach the City of Shadows within a couple days.
If we were not lucky, all manner of shit could hit our fans.
Now, we stood outside one of the many entrances into the Alleys. To a human, it would look like nothing more than an old mailbox on a tiny street that could be found in any city or suburb in America. The child said as much.
“This is it?” Vida said.
“It’s one of the entrances, yes,” the Demon answered. I couldn’t help but notice how different his tone was when he spoke with her versus when he spoke with me.
“Your world never ceases to amaze me,” Vida said with a sigh.
With these mumbled words, I found myself wondering what the child’s life had been like thus far, what it would have been like to live as a human, but be fully privy to the supernatural world, to have no apparent special abilities, other than being a pawn in some fated game set up to make you a constant target.
That was way too much thinking on the matter, I decided.
I pulled the black hood of my jacket over my head, the child and the Demon doing the same with their own hoods. We’d chosen hoods that were deep, and added black scarves over the bottom half of our faces. Black gloves covered our hands, weapons hung on our hips. Anyone who saw us would hopefully just think we were a group of mercenaries, with Vida being a creature of smaller stature, rather than a human.
We should fit right in. Everyone in the Dark Alleys was hiding something.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Ibrahim stepped forward, and I gritted my teeth as his dark magic rallied around him. Even after all these years, this kind of Demon magic repulsed me, made my stomach twist and my pulse pick up. As rare as the magic was, I’d only ever encountered less than a handful of Demons who had it (Warden Valda being the only Darkness wielder at the Academy), but that almost-handful was enough. Every person who wielded it, in my limited experience, was a real fucker. Someone not to be trusted.
In short, I had both eyes open waiting for Ibrahim to betray us somehow. Hells, I expected it. I’d trusted that fuckboy Angel, and look where that had gotten me. I was not about to make the same mistake twice.
If the Demon noticed my silent reaction to his magic, he didn’t comment. Darkness seeped out of him and reached toward the old mailbox with shadowed fingers. It leaked into the mouth of the box, gripped, and pulled back the Veil.
The door of the post box peeled open, revealing a narrow stairway descending into darkness.
“Ladies first,” said the Demon.
“Chivalry lives,” I replied sarcastically. My hand went instinctively to my hip, and I remembered once again that the chain I was looking for was not there. The demon had supplied me with a couple daggers, but other than my throwing stars, that was all I had.
It’s all you need, I reminded myself. I may no longer bear the Sister’s Mark, but my hands were still deadly weapons in themselves.
Wrapping this thought around me, I started into the darkness. Vida followed on my heels, Ibrahim bringing up the rear. Soon, the sounds and smells of the Alleys floated up to me, the chill air seeping through my clothes to prickle my skin.
Down and down we went, until my boots fell on a stone ground, and the Dark Alleys appeared around us.
Train tracks ran on either side of the platform on which we stood, though none were in the station at the moment. Down the center of these tracks the platform was wide and buzzing, large enough to accommodate the various vendors, street performers, and beggars who lined the space. The scents of roasting meat and sugared nuts, of body odor and magic overwhelmed, the din of the chatter and happenings drowning out the beating of my heart.
No one spared us a look as we wound deeper into the fray, passing by and ignoring the reaching hands and claws of creatures down on their luck, the insistent sales pitches of the vendors, the stalking gaits of the commuters.
We passed a Gnome selling stew and meat kabobs from a cart, a Shifter selling pelts and furs. Torches of green flame affixed to the stone columns lit the way, creating plenty of shadows to lurk in. Eyes stared out of those crevices, the spots between vendor stalls and the cracks in the walls, but we did not stare back. It was best not to linger.
I weaved through the gathered with my companions on my tail, making my way toward the ticket booth in the center of the platform. When we reached it, Ibrahim placed a single gold coin on the counter and slid it toward the Succubus who sat inside.
Her face was strikingly beautiful in a sensual way, as was a mark of her kind. Dark hair flowed over her shoulders in waves, and full red lips pursed as she took in our group, eyes passing over Vida and me to land on Ibrahim. With our hoods and scarves, our faces were pretty well concealed, but Succubi always took more of an interest in male kind. It was male hearts they liked to feed on, after all.
“Where to?” she asked, voice like a Siren’s song.
“The City of Shadows,” Ibrahim answered.
One fine brow quirked. The Succubus’s eyes traveled over Vida and I again before settling on Ibrahim once more. She made no comment, however, only stamped three tickets and handed them to us after snatching up the gold coin Ibrahim had offered.
“Train four,” she said. “The next arrives in fifteen minutes.”
Ibrahim thanked the Succubus, and we moved to the side, standing amidst the fray of the platform. I watched our surroundings with keen but cool interest, fully expecting an attack from some creature or another, but fifteen minutes passed without assault of any kind.
When the number four trained pulled into port, we boarded unhindered as well.
Ibrahim led us to a private room and shut the door behind us. The room was only big enough for two benches situated across from one another and a window, but we tucked ourselves inside, the child and the Demon taking one bench while I took the other.
There was an inch or two of space remaining between the brushing of our knees as we faced one another, the space far more intimate than I would have preferred.
When the Demon formed a small bubble of dark magic around us, sealing the room with it, I gritted my teeth against the feel of it.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said.
Ibrahim had closed his eyes and rested his head back against the wall behind his bench, but he opened them now and looked at me. “You’re joking, right?”
I had to swallow past the lump that had grown in my throat thanks to the bubble of that toxic magic, had to shove past the memories that tried to arise with it.
“I don’t like it touching me,” I added, voice hard.
It was an insulting thing to say, and we both knew it. To be repulsed by a Demon’s magic was to be repulsed by them. It spoke to an intolerance of something inherently different from oneself. But I didn’t care. He’d been rude to me from the jump. On top of that, the few Demons I’d met whose affinity was Darkness had turned out to be the monsters haunting the dreams of a monster.
No hurt registered on the Demon’s face, however. He clearly gave no fucks about my opinion, which made us even. I felt him rein his magic in, however, leaving it in place around the entrances of the small room but purposely ensuring that it stayed clear of me.
When he kept staring at me across the small space, making me uncomfortable and even more irritable, I snapped, “What? What the hells are you looking at?”
The child seemed to ignore us, having pul
led a book out of her backpack and begun reading.
The Demon studied me a moment longer before responding. “You don’t like Demons who wield Darkness,” he replied, stating it as a matter of fact.
“I don’t like you,” I snapped. “I don’t trust you. And I think you’re an asshole.”
He snorted and closed his eyes again, pitch-black orbs disappearing as thick, dark lashes pressed against his cheeks. He leaned his head back against the wall again and folded his arms across his chest.
“That just makes us even in our assessments,” he said.
8
It rained on the day I was to graduate from the Academy.
Not just a sprinkling, but rolling thunderstorms that darkened the sky, flashes of lightning that left images impressed behind the eyes.
I awoke early that morning, having not really slept the night before. For the first time in years, I was nervous, had a churning in my stomach that would not abate. Lying in my cot, I stared at the ceiling of the dormitory for hours, blinking into the darkness, unable to believe that the day had finally come.
When the Sisters came to retrieve the graduates in the early morning, I was already dressed in my all black uniform, already standing at attention. Nur, the same Sister who’d called me a cry baby little bitch for the first year of my time at the Academy stood before me now, face-to-face with me as I stood at stoic attention.
“I guess you made it, little Sister” she said, the first time she’d ever used the title to address me. “Woulda lost me a bet on you. Turned out you had more grit than I’d expected.”
She turned on her heels without waiting for me to respond, telling me and the other five females who would be graduating with me today to hurry the fuck up. It was time to begin the process that would make it official. Time to become a Sister.
First thing was the sterilization. We took care of this operation even before breakfast. I waited outside the infirmary with my five soon-to-be Sisters, each of us appearing cool as cucumbers while we roiled with emotions inside.
There’d been nearly one hundred and fifty in our graduating class, and now there were only the five of us. Abri was first in line before me, and we dared to share a single look of solidarity before she was called up the spiral staircase and into the healer’s room.
She emerged down the stairwell a half hour later, face stoic, but lined with sweat, back rigidly straight as she reclaimed the spot beside me, leaning against the wall for support.
Abri wouldn’t look at me now before I was called up. My stomach gave a single twist. Then I sucked it up and climbed the stairwell.
When I reached the top, there was the healer, an older Sister named Eileen, who’d been tending to our injuries for as long as I’d been at the Academy. Beside her was a table, covered in a fresh towel, though the tang of Abri’s blood and sweat still hung in the air.
Beyond the single arched window in the cold tower room, the sun was just beginning to rise, the sky still holding onto the hand of night with slipping fingers. I was told to disrobe from the waist down, and followed orders, hopping atop the table when Eileen patted it for me to do so.
This was when Warden Valda entered the room, bringing her dark presence with her. Fiery red hair hung over her shoulders, duel seraphs hung at her hips. My stomach twisted worse this time as I realized she intended to stay for the sterilization. Though I’d experienced and taken part in many horrors in my time at the Academy, countless beatings and degradations, this managed to unsettle me.
But I said nothing, of course. I didn’t cry out as Eileen cut into me. Didn’t squirm as she cleansed me of the burden of the female reproductive ability. That’s how I thought of it at the time. That’s how we all thought of it. There was no remorse, no sadness.
When it was done, however, there was physical pain. But I was given a swig of moonshine, one fresh towel to wipe with, and another to use as a pad to absorb more bleeding, and was sent back out the door.
I panted as I made my way back down the spiral staircase, sweat creasing my brow, pain lancing through my stomach, making my knees shake. It took several pauses, several deep breaths to make it to the bottom and stand up straight again. It took more strength than I might’ve had if not for the eyes of the others on me. On this day of all days, not a one of us would show weakness.
But when I joined the others at the bottom of the stairwell, I didn’t meet any of their eyes. As we waited for the other females to have their procedures, Abri and I didn’t glance at each other. We didn’t speak a damn word.
We leaned against the wall and gritted our teeth. We were glad when it was done.
The next event of the day was to receive the Sister’s Mark. We were allowed to have breakfast before this, but the six of us didn’t feel hungry after the sterilization. We ate, anyway. Forced down what we could. The Sister Superiors were watching, after all. Always watching.
And receiving our Marks was a much more pleasant prospect, an honor we’d been shooting to achieve for as long as we’d been between the walls of the Academy. I’d grown up with the five females with whom I would share this honor, and though some of us didn’t get along, we would soon be Sisters of the same graduating class.
There was Abri and myself, of course. There was Adira and Aadya, along with Raidyn and Suri. After forcing down breakfast in silence, we were taken to the main hall to receive our Markings.
The hall was packed to the brim with students. They lined the wide staircase overlooking the space, stood along the walls, leaned over the railing above. Utterly silent as they looked on with envious eyes at the handful of us who would be going from student to Sister on this day.
Abri lead the group of us, with me on her heels. Six Sisters sat in the center of the hall, ink and needles on trays set up beside them, six empty stools in front of them. I took the chair in front of Sister Nur, pulling up my black sleeve and offering my right wrist. Around me, my five fellow Sisters did the same.
We sat in stoic silence as the Marks were inked into our skin, as the Academy looked on as witness. I wasn’t alone in watching the inking with rapt interest. Pride swelled in my chest as I watched the Mark take hold, as the fruits of my labor finally came to harvest.
I’d made it through the years, through the training, the torture. I’d watched those beside me die, females I’d come to care for against my will, until it became obvious that not caring at all was the only option. I’d killed creatures big and small, and even three other students when circumstances had dictated that it was them or me. I’d survived The Games, year after year after year. I’d gone through the graduate exams and lived.
I’d lived. That, in itself, was a miracle, a dream we’d all held for so long while its realization had seemed impossible on so many occasions. And now we were going to be let out into the world.
Unleashed upon the world, though I didn’t think of it that way at the time.
Once the Marks were on our wrists, Warden Valda strode behind us where we sat on our stools.
“Remove your shirts, little Sisters,” she said.
It was the first time we’d been called Sisters publicly, and by the Warden, no less. Another rite of passage as the school watched on, females as young as five bearing witness.
We removed our shirts with pride. We sat up straight as the Warden strolled behind us with a switch—a long, thin stick from the wood just outside the school’s gates. She started with Abri. Eight lashings, one for each of the tenets of The Sister’s Code, and one more for good luck. Abri took the whippings in the same silent manner as she’d taken the rest. We all did. The pain was an honor, the blood we spilled a sacred offering to the Gods, a representation of the blood we would spill with our own hands.
The healer came by and wiped the blood from our backs, spread some salve over the split skin to keep it from bleeding or infecting, and the six Sisters who’d installed our ink returned with six black, long sleeved shirts. On the shoulders was the Sisterhood’s insignia—two seraphs crossed b
ack to back with a curling S behind them.
We donned the shirts and stood at attention. The Warden stopped before Abri and handed her a folded up piece of paper. Abri took it with a nod. I was handed my own next, and so on down the line.
Our first Marks.
The first people we would kill as Sisters. Written on scraps of parchment between our fingers.
“Open them,” said the Warden, after all six were distributed.
My fingers were steady as I did as I was told, as I unfolded the paper and looked at the name written inside.
When I looked up, the Warden was standing in front of me. She leaned in close enough to kiss, red lips tilting up at the corners as she studied my face for the reaction she knew she wouldn’t find.
“A graduation gift,” she said, voice lowered so only I would hear.
I bowed my head, but when I looked up, I met the Warden’s gaze for the first time in nearly a decade. I’d learned the hard way very early on that students did not look Sisters in the eyes. We were to stare ahead, standing at attention when they spoke with us. To make eye contact was disrespectful; we hadn’t earned the right.
But, today, I was no longer a student. I was a Sister in my own right.
I met the Warden’s gaze and thanked her for the Mark that she’d called a “graduation gift,” despite the fact that we both knew in reality it was a challenge. A final test. To see if I was really ready to become a monster who could hunt monsters.
Starting with my own Demons.
9
I awoke with a start, unfamiliar with my setting, breath catching in my lungs.
The small compartment in the train car was silent around me as my mind stepped out of the dream of my graduation day, as it caught up to the present.
Examining the compartment door, I saw that Ibrahim’s dark magic still held a protective perimeter around it. Nose wrinkling, I looked at the Demon, where he sat as still as a statue on the bench across from me, eyes still closed, head resting against the wall behind him.