by Hickory Mack
It had fit very well with the calm on his face. The flicks of emotion he’d shown had only been noticeable beyond his frown because she’d been so transfixed. He’d been curious about her, then disgusted. She’d found him so beautiful. Alice frowned at the thought. It was wrong, so very wrong to want to see a demon again, but she did. Alice wanted to see him again very much. She wanted to see his face and hear his voice and she wanted to know more about him.
It took her aback, thinking like that. How had she changed so much with a single, momentary encounter? Any normal person would have been frightened. He had claws, and fangs, and six freaking tails for heaven’s sake! But she wasn’t afraid.
Alice grunted as another bout of pain wracked her insides. She made up her mind. She wouldn’t willingly betray him to these people again. He’d given her the closest thing to kindness she’d experienced in months, if they wanted more information they’d have to force it out of her.
She wondered what the woman had meant when she’d said he’d marked her. Alice had never heard of a demon doing that before, but she was beginning to realize there were a lot of things concerning their kind she’d never heard of.
When the door clicked open again an hour later Alice was on high alert, her bladder and pain both forgotten, her heart hammering in her chest. The man who entered was big and bald with thick black hair covering his arms. He wore green scrubs and was smiling a grim, tight-lipped smile. The woman had smiled at first, too, Alice reminded herself.
“Hello Miss Eustone, I’m Frank, I’m your assigned nurse today. I’ve been ordered to take you to the bathroom,” he started toward her, ignoring her attempt to flinch away.
“Are you going to hit me too, Frank?” she asked in a croaky voice, regretting her salty words immediately. Savages were not allowed to ask questions, and this man might be easily provoked, too. She needed to learn to keep her mouth shut.
“Only if you hit me first,” he replied gruffly, removing the restraints on her ankles, his fingers hot on her skin. “Gods be damned they’ve got it cold in here, you’re freezing.” Alice said nothing, watching his every move. He examined her feet and ankles, taking note of the blood on the sheets.
“Your feet are all messed up and they expected you to walk there?” He rapped his knuckles against the metal door, then looked into the camera. “Get me a chair.”
Frank removed her wrist restraints from the bed but did not take them off her wrists. Instead he connected them together like handcuffs, then helped her sit up. The door opened once more and a blue wheelchair was pushed through, the door left open. Frank watched her eyes dart to the door.
“A lot of creatures will try to run for it their first time. Heed a bit of advice, don’t bother. There’s nothing out there but some locked doors you’ll never get through. They’ll just beat you and drag you back. Maybe that doesn’t bother you much, you're no stranger to beatings. But, once you’re contained, they’ll insert a catheter, and you won’t have a reason to leave this room again,” Frank said, pulling the chair close and helping her to her feet.
Alice swayed where she stood and Frank cupped her elbow to hold her steady, pivoting her body and easing her into the wheelchair. He adjusted her comfortably then peered into her face, his breath smelled of peppermint.
“How old are you, girl?” he asked gently.
“Twelve,” she answered, unsure if the rules of answering any question asked applied to everyone, or just those in white coats. “Almost thirteen.”
“Holy fuck,” Frank muttered. “I’ve got a little boy your age. He likes to think he’s almost a man, but he’s still a boy. Twelve years old, same as you. I keep tellin’ the wife I need a new job.” He looked at Alice again and shook his head. “Come on, it isn’t far.”
They didn’t talk as he pushed her down the short hall to the bathroom. Frank kept his lips pressed tight, his mouth set in a firm, grim line. His footsteps and the rubber wheels on more cold concrete were the only sounds. Alice assumed they were in a basement, and the overly bright lights were like the ones at school, an attempt to compensate for the decided lack of the natural variety.
She did her business while Frank studiously stared at a spot above her head, the release was every bit as painful as holding it in. He instructed her to wash her hands in water as cold as the air. There was no mirror.
“I guess people aren’t down here much,” she mumbled to herself, flinching when she realized she’d spoken out loud, her eyes flashing to the big man next to her. Frank frowned again.
“Only a few,” he agreed, then brought her back to her cell, she was now
clear on what it was. A cart of supplies had been brought in, the sheets were changed and a thin blanket lay folded at the foot of the cot. “Sit on the bed, I’ll clean you up. Don’t fuss.”
Alice did as she was told, doing her best not to react to the stinging of her wounds as he disinfected them. His dark eyes were sympathetic and his big, calloused hands were gentle. Alice wondered about his son, growing up with a dad like that, in one of those big houses she’d seen.
She didn’t ask. Little savages must earn speaking privileges. If she earned a question, she wanted it to be a good one. Frank finished his work in short order, humming a flat tune while he did, then deposited his used supplies in a small bin on the bottom of the cart. He examined her face closely.
“The one deeper cut above your eyebrow will need a few stitches, I’m afraid,” he said softly, a curl in his upper lip. “I’ll need to get approval for that, a splint for the fingers and probably some antibiotics for your feet.”
Frank took her vitals and put her back into the bed, leaving her feet untethered, though he still tied her wrists to the bed. He left her a little more room to move than before, but her hands still stopped about a foot from each other. Frank covered her with the blanket and stepped back.
“I’m going to bring you something to eat. Don’t tell me you aren’t hungry because if you do they won’t feed you again until tomorrow. It’ll take me about an hour, possibly two, I have other creatures to attend.” He gave her a meaningful look and waved at the camera. The door clanged open and he pushed his cart out, leaving the wheelchair without a backward glance. He hadn’t been unkind, but Alice couldn’t trust him. Frank could complain all he wanted; he still took and carried out their orders.
One of the two long lights in the room was flicked off, giving her eyes a much-appreciated break. Alice wondered if Frank was really coming back. Was he really going to quit, or was it a meaningless complaint he’d muttered in disgruntled frustration? Maybe he was just trying to get her to think he was on her side, so she would trust him. If it was a trick to make her more compliant, Alice wasn’t fooled.
After she’d eaten her meal of cold potatoes covered in congealed hamburger gravy, another new face appeared. He looked a lot like another doctor, or scientist. Alice recoiled, curling her knees to her chest and scooted closer to the wall. He was middle aged, had salt and pepper hair and though he was missing a white smock, he had a metal clipboard in his hand identical to what the woman had been holding. Alice already disliked him.
“Hello young lady, I’m Doctor Pax,” he said with the fake cheerfulness of a real doctor. He pulled the metal chair halfway across the small room to sit closer to her. “How are you feeling? Anything unusual?” Alice stared at him a moment.
“I’m cold, and my face hurts,” she said, biting off the harsher words she wanted to speak. Alice wasn’t sure why he would find either of those things interesting, but he jotted her comments down anyway.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe after we’re done here I can authorize your nurse to bring you some pain pills, how does that sound?” Doctor Pax asked. Alice did not think this was one of the questions she was required to answer, it sounded rhetorical, so she let it hang there, his implication of bribery.
“I’m going to make this clear from the start. I am looking for things that may be different about you due to your contact with the
creature, Miss Alice. Sometimes they make physical changes, or physiological changes instead. Sometimes they leave traces of magic behind. We don’t know how they do these things, but let me assure you that in most cases, these changes are only temporary, you’ll return to normal within a few days. In rare cases it will take up to a week, it depends on the strength of the creature and how long the contact lasted.” He gave her an eager, expectant look.
“I- I haven’t noticed anything like that,” Alice said truthfully. Questions raced through her mind. Nobody had ever survived an encounter with any of the magical races, excepting the witches. Another lie discovered. How many people had they found alive after an attack to be able to know these things? She couldn’t ask.
“That beast marked you, Miss Alice. There isn’t a physical mark, there rarely is, but enough of his power remains on you that walking into this room feels a bit like walking into a room full of angry vipers. You look unthreatening to me, and your behavior since your arrival suggests you are incapable of causing harm but, I get a clear, menacing message. That message says, “Stay away”. When you first arrived some of my colleagues could not be convinced that you were not a demon yourself. It was only the DNA test results that persuaded them. Do you know why the creature marked you in this way?”
Alice took his words in with shock, but she didn’t wonder why he’d done it. The fox's act had confirmed her suspicions and affirmed her decision not to betray him. She shook her head slowly.
“I don’t know, I don’t feel scary,” she said aloud.
“Hmm,” Pax said, writing something down. “How long were you in the beast’s presence? A week? Two?”
Alice considered her answer carefully. She had to tell them something, she’d already given too much away to the woman earlier to feign ignorance or forgetfulness now. She didn’t think the truth would hurt anything for this particular question.
“I think maybe about five minutes? It wasn’t long at all,” Alice answered. Dr. Pax gave her a sharp look, his brows drawn tight. He scrawled something on his notes then sighed, looking at her closely.
“Five minutes. Are you very good at keeping track of time?” he asked. Alice shrugged, it was difficult with her hands tied above her head. “Let’s test it. When I say start, I want you to begin keeping track. This should be easy for you, since you grew up with some pre-initiate hunter training. When you believe five minutes have passed, tell me to stop.”
Pax pushed his sleeve up and twisted his wrist so he could look at the face of his watch. Alice watched him, wondering at the turn of events. She hadn’t expected something like this.
“Begin,” he instructed.
Alice started counting seconds.
“What is your homeroom teacher’s name?” Pax asked.
“Ms. Hollander,” Alice answered, mentally jarred out of her concentration, but she quickly put herself back into her counting.
“Yes. She did not report you missing from class. Do you know why that is?” he asked, glancing from his watch to her.
“She probably didn’t notice I was gone,” Alice murmured, remembering to keep counting.
“Why is that? Moving from Balance to Tallow, you’ve been given a chance to shine amongst your peers,” Pax asked, and Alice’s cheeks reddened. That’s exactly what had happened, when she’d first arrived. Her education in Balance had put her so far ahead of the students in Tallow, they’d skipped her ahead two grades. She’d still known the answer to every question thrown her way. Passed every test. Finished her homework earlier than anyone else. It had painted her target even brighter. They’d resented her.
“Shining isn’t what they want. They want coal workers and laborers in Tallow, not hunters and scientists and doctors,” Alice said.
“So you tried to blend in and be like everyone else. That’s very tactical of you,” Doctor Pax looked briefly at her hand, her gnarled, broken fingers. “How has that worked out for you so far?”
“Splendidly,” Alice said bitterly, she’d completely given up on her counting, which was, she knew, what he’d wanted. She could only run on instinct now. He was quiet for a drawn-out moment.
“Ms. Blanchard, the woman from earlier, informed us that Stanley Eustone had not yet reported you missing either. How does that make you feel?” Pax baited her, but Alice only shrugged. She wasn’t as bothered by the knowledge as he seemed to think she should be. “It’s been twenty-four hours since you were taken in by our men. How long before then had you been on the run?”
“It’s time. Five minutes are up,” Alice said, refusing to answer his last question. She’d already been there a full day. They’d given her one meal, and one bathroom break in that time, but she didn't know how long she'd been unconscious. In her father’s timeline, she’d already been missing over thirty-six hours. He hadn’t said a word, nor had her teacher. Pax examined his watch.
“Six minutes and twenty-three seconds. This space will not have put you under the same stress contact with a magical being would have. Yet you believed a longer amount of time to be shorter. Do you agree it is possible that you were wrong about how long you were in the presence of this creature?” Doctor Pax asked, light humor in his voice. Alice scrunched up her face. The movement hurt.
“It was a short amount of time, but I agree that I could be wrong about the exact number of minutes, yes,” she said. “It was very fast.”
Pax wrote a few more things down, flipped his page up and read whatever was written on the page underneath.
“Such a short amount of time does not explain the strength of your mark. Unless there was sustained, direct contact during that time. Where did the creature touch you?” he asked. Alice again pondered the answer. She didn’t see the harm in the truth, once more.
“It never touched me. It never came within three feet of me,” she insisted but Pax frowned.
“Earlier, to Ms. Blanchard, you referred to the demon as male. Are you attempting to conceal information from me, Ms. Alice?” he asked.
“N-no,” Alice stammered. He’d caught her there, she admitted to herself. “I changed it because of something I learned in Balance. Many species can appear male or female. I don’t want to call it a male and give the wrong information due to the form it took when I saw it.”
“Hmm. And it never touched you.” Pax repeated.
“Never. I swear.”
“It says here that Miss Alice Eustone is twelve-years-old. Which is more than old enough to understand that lying to an authority, is a punishable offense.” Pax stated, setting his clipboard in his lap.
“I’m not lying!” Alice said, her eyes wide.
“Only a higher being, a Lord, can do as you describe, no lesser has the power. There are no demon Lords remaining in this biosphere, Alice,” Doctor Pax said sternly. The biosphere contained the six nests within their colony and all the lands between them. He stood abruptly and snatched the blanket off her bed, leaving her bare legs exposed to the cold. “I have many more questions, but there is no point in continuing today. We will revisit this conversation when you have decided to be truthful.”
Doctor Pax walked toward the door and the bolt slid open immediately.
“Wait, I’m telling the truth!” Alice called to him, but the door clanged shut behind him, leaving her alone once more.
Chapter 4
Pax’s people kept Alice in a constant state of confusion. Coming and going at all hours, the lights were brought back to full strength, she had no idea what time it was, let alone what day. She was told when her father finally reported her missing, and from her wildly inaccurate estimation it had taken him an additional two days.
They wouldn’t let her sleep for more than a brief cat nap at long intervals, constantly doing tests and measurements. A different person each time, keeping her from feeling comfortable with anybody. Alice only saw Frank once more, and when she did, he kept the commentary to himself.
One pair weighed her and took her height. Another pair, they were always in pairs n
ow, took her to a room with a huge machine. They tried to make her lay real still while she was inserted into it and it whirred and clunked and made all sorts of scary noises. The first time they tried it she thrashed around, so they strapped her down with firm instructions not to move. They took her blood, so much blood. Sometimes it left her feeling lightheaded and dizzy. No one told her why they were taking it and she was never told the results of any of their tests.
Once a pair had brought her to a room with a treadmill. They’d hooked her up to a heart monitor and made her walk and run, tilting the machine up and down. They were simulating different terrains. Trying to figure out how far she would have been physically capable of traversing before showing up in their nest. The data would be skewed. They were barely feeding her, she was exhausted and far more broken than she’d been that day.
Sometimes a pair would come into the room, stand over her bed without a word, write something down and leave, no explanation given. She wondered if they were gauging their fear response to the mark that was still apparently attached to her.
Alice was constantly cold and uncomfortable. They fed her infrequently, at some point she figured out it was probably once a day, but by then it was too late to calculate how many days it had been. They always brought something that had started out hot, but left too long so it was cold and gross by the time they gave it to her.
One pair came with a large vial and a needle. When they injected her with whatever was in it, she went temporarily senseless. She couldn’t see or hear. Alice had come to life then, screaming in desperate fear. She was beaten into submissive silence, two of her ribs broken. It felt like days before her senses returned, but she had no way of knowing.