Doris came over a few moments later and handed me a beer bottle, label peeled off. “Water,” she said. “Good for you.”
I took the bottle and sniffed at its contents. Something about it didn’t smell right, and damned if I was going to drink anything these animal people gave me. But the bottle—that was worth having. “Thanks, Doris,” I said with a grateful smile, tipping the neck toward her in salute. “Good for me.”
Doris smiled, showing her teeth. I shuddered.
I leaned against a lamppost and looked the street up and down. I wondered if I’d missed my chance to escape when it was just me and Sil. I wondered how many more of these freaky people he considered a part of his family. And I wondered why he kept saying I was going to join their family. I would have to make my move soon, though. I didn’t want to find out why they were trying, in their own bizarre way, to take such good care of me.
I tugged at my waistband, satisfied that my pants weren’t going to fall down as I ran. Doris loped back over to Sil, who was in quiet conversation with the others. They were about ten yards away. All armed with scimitars, all toothed and clawed. I knew from experience that Sil was fast on his feet. Juri was packed with muscle, like a sprinter. Maybe he’d be slower over a long distance. Chimola, with his amazing girth, would not be able to keep up. Lacey looked nimble but maybe not so strong. And Doris—with her creepy four-legged run, Doris would probably catch me first. I pictured one of those slow-motion videos where a lion tackled a fleeing gazelle.
I looked around. Behind me was a line of brownstone-type houses, no alleys in sight, just a straight run up the street. Advantage, Mazikin. In front of us was an apartment building, smooth and modern, with alleys on either side. One was completely blocked with garbage cans piled high and overflowing. The other looked clear. If I could make it, maybe I could lose them in the alleys.
Or get cornered with no way out.
I banged my head softly against the lamppost in frustration.
I heard her before I saw her. She was speaking Spanish. I didn’t speak it. I didn’t understand it. I’d been told it was all I spoke until I was dumped into the system at age four, but all my foster parents spoke English, and I had lost that part of myself.
I looked in the direction of the sound. A dark-skinned teenager trudged up the street, mumbling to herself. She hunched within a bulky coat. As she walked into the green pool of light beneath one of the lampposts, her beautiful face echoed the same private agony I’d seen on so many faces since arriving here.
I closed my eyes, trying to absorb the language, trying to draw comfort from it, straining to understand. It was musical in its sound and rhythm, but her voice was mournful, pierced through with despair. I winced and opened my eyes. The girl, her long, black hair coiling down her back, had passed me now. And the five Mazikin were watching her. In fact, they seemed completely riveted. I heard Sil mutter something that sounded like “perfect.” Chimola nodded and started to follow her.
I was totally stuck. The Mazikin were distracted. This was it. My opportunity to escape. But how could I let this poor girl get collared? What if it had been Nadia being stalked, being taken? Run, whispered my selfish sense of self-preservation. Run. They might not hurt her. She might not even flee if I pulled the Mazikin’s attention away from her. People here didn’t seem to notice much going on around them, so she might not take the opportunity my sacrifice would give her. Even knowing that, my fist clenched around the bottle and I stood up. I’d taken one step forward when Chimola reached the girl and laid a hand on her arm.
I blinked as everything switched into high-resolution fast-forward. Light from the windows of the surrounding buildings glinted off the steel of the girl’s blade as she took Chimola’s arm off and then finished him with another swing of her scimitar. Sil screamed with rage and drew Lutfi’s sword as the girl turned to face him, her sorrowful face transformed, now alight with a sort of blazing glee.
She definitely did not need my help.
I took off, running in a diagonal pattern toward the garbage-filled alley to my right, planning to scramble over the bins and get out of view as quickly as possible. I smashed the bottle against a lamppost as I sprinted. It never hurt to have something sharp in your hand. Especially because I could already hear Doris behind me, closing fast.
I wasn’t going to make it to the alley—she would catch me before I even made it across the street. Just as I was turning to face the maniacal granny armed only with a broken bottle, she snarled and shifted direction.
Malachi stepped from the mouth of the alley to my left, blade drawn. I almost wept with relief. His expression softened as soon as he saw me, but he could only spare me a glance before Doris got to him.
“Lela,” he called, his voice controlled as he met Doris’s initial scimitar blows with graceful blocks, “fold the handle down.”
He tossed his baton, which landed at my feet. I looked at my broken bottle and looked back at the baton. And I looked at Lacey and Juri, now running toward us at full tilt.
“Right,” I said, picking up the surprisingly heavy baton and holding it in front of me like it was a poisonous snake. Watch me poke my eye out.
“Just keep her off you,” he said as he fought. He sounded so conversational, like he was having a cup of tea rather than engaging in mortal combat. “They won’t want to kill you. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Right.”
Lacey was only a few yards away. Juri was behind her but took a detour toward Malachi and Doris. He obviously thought Lacey could subdue me without help.
I grasped the baton and folded the handle onto the grip, sending at least two feet of steel shooting out both ends. Then Lacey was on me, and despite what Malachi had said, the pixielike Mazikin seemed to have completely deadly intentions. Out of pure reflex and instinct, I blocked Lacey’s downward swing with the staff and kicked her in the stomach, then stepped to the side and thwacked her over the head. I jumped as Lacey shrieked and swung the scimitar back toward my legs. Steel grazed the bottoms of my slippers. I skipped back a few feet, taking clumsy, experimental swings with the staff.
I had time to see Malachi engaged in bone-jarring combat with Doris and Juri before I closed in on Lacey again, intent on doing my part and at least stripping her of the scimitar. But the tiny albino got to her feet with disappointing agility, braids swinging.
I moved my grip to one end of the staff and swung it, determined to keep Lacey at bay. She tried to block with the blade, but I was right—she wasn’t that strong. The staff crashed into her arm and she yowled. My lack of skill became immediately apparent, though. I’d left my other side unprotected. Lacey lunged and I reared back, but not fast enough. Searing pain lanced through my hip. I smothered a scream and stumbled backward as she staggered past me. When I regained my balance, I arced the staff back like a baseball bat and smacked Lacey hard in the head. She crumpled to the ground.
I looked down—my shirt was torn and soaked through with crimson. I bent quickly and grabbed Lacey’s blade, but tossed it away after I managed to slice my own pant leg with it. Out of sheer anger and pain, I kicked Lacey in the side. Doris roared with anger as Malachi shouted my name in warning.
I barely got the staff up and in front of me before Doris was on me, blade high, teeth bared.
Eyes widening.
Mouth slackening.
Doris fell to the ground, three knives embedded deep in her back.
Malachi’s defense of me cost him. The scimitar flew from his grasp. He threw a hand up and caught Juri’s sword arm, and then they were struggling for the weapon. They fell into the mouth of the alleyway just as a hand closed around my ankle. I raised the staff like a spear and jabbed downward—and kept jabbing—until Doris’s hand fell away.
“Now I understand why he cuts your throats,” I muttered.
The alley echoed with Malachi’s and Juri’s efforts to destroy each other, and Sil and the unknown girl were still at it, neither of them looking tired.
And then Malachi roared in pain.
I gripped the staff and scrambled toward the alley, my other hand pressed across my hip. Juri’s back was to me. He had won the battle for the scimitar, but Malachi’s last knife was sticking out of the back of his shoulder. Malachi was unarmed now, sheaths empty. And I held his staff in my hands. A chill raced through me as I read the pain in his eyes. Blood ringed his collar and covered his neck.
Then he saw me. His lips curled into a defiant smile. “Lela, hit him hard. Doesn’t matter where.”
Juri obviously thought Malachi was bluffing and didn’t turn around. He laughed and said something to Malachi in a language that might have been Russian. Malachi’s eyes flashed as he spat a retort in the same language. Juri growled and advanced on him. I guess Malachi was quite an effective trash talker.
I raised the staff. “This is for earlier, you pervert.”
As soon as he heard my voice, Juri spun around with the scimitar leading the way. I cracked the staff down on his wrist. He dropped the blade but barreled into me, sending me crashing to the ground. My head hit the pavement, and when the stars cleared from my vision, Juri was lying next to me. Malachi was perched on his back, knees pinning the perv’s muscular arms to the ground, calling my name. I squinted, trying to bring his face into focus.
“I’m all right,” I mumbled, noticing the frantic edge in his voice. He stared at me for a few seconds, like he was deciding whether or not he believed me. Then he jerked the knife from Juri’s back and grabbed a handful of the man’s greasy hair, yanking his head up in this terrifying, I’m-going-to-destroy-you-now kind of way.
Juri didn’t seem intimidated at all. He looked me right in the eye. “You. Are. Mine,” he growled, then grunted with pain as Malachi slammed his forehead against the pavement.
I scooted back instinctively, needing to get as far as possible from both of them.
Malachi’s eyes shifted back to mine, and indecision crossed his face. “Lela, would you please go see how Ana’s doing?”
Something in his voice begged me not to argue, so I rolled painfully to my side and staggered toward the street. The girl, who I assumed was Ana, seemed to be holding her own. As I turned to tell Malachi so, he appeared behind me, blocking my view of Juri. He put his hands on my shoulders and steered me out of the alley. He turned toward the sword battle in the street and took a single step forward. As if he’d felt Malachi’s eyes on him, Sil abruptly broke away from Ana and took off running.
Ana was after Sil like a shot, turning her head only to shout, “I’ve got this, Malachi!”
“Who’s that?”
“A colleague,” replied Malachi, watching her sprint around a corner. For a moment I thought he would go after them, but he turned back to me instead. His lips were pressed in a tight line. I couldn’t read what lay in his eyes as he looked me over. Once again I was frozen in place, half of me wanting to run toward him, half wanting to run away. Saving me the trouble of making a decision, he closed the distance between us and knelt in front of me.
“How bad?” He gripped my waist and lifted my shirt, gently peeling back my pants from my hip. To my surprise, I didn’t flinch away. I put my hands on his shoulders and looked up at the sky, wondering if he would catch me if I fell.
“I don’t think it’s bad,” I tried to assure him at the same moment he saw the wound and cursed loudly.
“Did any of them bite you?” His hands roamed over my arms and legs, searching for other injuries.
“No.” I looked down and noticed that Juri’s blood was smeared across my shirt. And Malachi’s hands were covered in it. “Shouldn’t we be washing their blood off us? Won’t it make us sick?”
He returned his attention to my hip. “Is a snake’s blood venomous?”
“What?”
“Mazikin blood isn’t the problem, Lela. It’s harmless, like a snake’s. But their mouths, their saliva…”
I glanced down at him and saw, for the first time, the source of the blood on his collar. He hadn’t been as lucky as I had. The wound was ragged and deep. Blood oozed from it steadily, and a white crystalline substance crusted around the edges.
“Oh my God. He bit you,” I whispered, reaching to turn his head so I could see it better.
He pulled my hand away and stood up quickly. “Sit down, unless it feels better to stand. I need to finish this, but then we’ve got to get going.”
“But we’re so far—Don’t you have, like, walkie-talkies or something? Can’t you call for someone to come get you?”
His brow crinkled. “A walkie…you mean a telephone?” He shrugged. “We don’t have telephones here.”
“Why—”
He winced and closed his eyes. “Maybe we can talk about this more later, but we have to go. Now.”
I turned my head away as Malachi made sure Doris and Lacey would not get up. But as his whispered chant carried across the street, I turned to watch him, mesmerized, as he bent over their bodies, eyes closed, maybe apologizing, maybe praying. I’d never been so confused by anyone. One moment he was ruthless and merciless, and the next he was staring at his victims with sorrow in his eyes. One moment he was locking me up with an amused smile on his face, and a few hours later he was risking his life to save me. I knew how to read most people, what to expect from them. With Malachi…not so much.
When he was finished, he collected his weapons, wiping the blood on his pants before sheathing each knife. He collapsed his staff and snapped the baton to his waist. He walked into the alleyway and came back out with his scimitar and Juri’s. With practiced movements he attached Juri’s sheath to his own belt, and then approached me again.
“Can you walk?”
I pasted on a big, cheesy smile. “Of course. It’s just a cut.”
He laughed, his face transforming for a moment into that whimsical expression I’d seen earlier. “Can you run?”
“Probably,” I said, eyeing him. “Can you?”
His face became serious as he met my eyes. “For now I can.”
My heart clutched a little at his honesty. “Where are we going? How far?”
“We need to get back to the Station. I don’t know how much time I have, and we both need to see Raphael.”
Back to the Station. No freaking way. I shuffled backward. “I’m not sure I want to—”
He gave me a thoroughly exasperated look. “I swear I will carry you if I have to, and that would be unpleasant for both of us. Your hip is laid open to the bone, and I…I’ll be dead in a few hours if we don’t get back to the Station now. And I’m not going without you. So please cooperate, just this once.”
Considering he’d rescued me from a chillingly unknown fate at the hands of the creepiest bunch of people I’d ever met, I decided not to argue. Especially because, despite my earlier vows to the contrary, I absolutely did not want him to die. Judging by what he’d said about his injury, I might be able to escape from him without actually having to go into the Station. But I wanted to help him get to safety first. “Lead the way.”
“Thank you.”
Malachi set a blistering, painful pace, and I forced myself to ignore the throbbing sting of my wound as I ran behind him through the alleys and streets of the city. Once again I tried to spot landmarks, identifying features…and once again I was totally lost. After what seemed like an hour, Malachi’s long, steady strides faltered. He slumped down on a stoop in front of a dark building with shattered windows.
“I need to rest,” he mumbled, “just for a minute.”
“Sure,” I huffed as I sat down next to him, “whatever you need.”
I hadn’t been sure I could keep up for much longer. He’d been running in front of me, so this was the first opportunity I had to look at him since we’d started our return journey. I didn’t like what I saw. His olive skin was sickly pale, stark against his black hair. He was shivering.
“How are you doing?” His teeth chattered as he spoke.
“Better than you are
, I think.” I raised a tentative hand to his face. He didn’t react as my fingers brushed his cheek. It felt like I was afraid it would: clammy and cold. He was in bad shape, and I had no idea how far we were from the Station. I wouldn’t be able to get him back there if he collapsed.
“Is Raphael a doctor?”
He nodded. “Sort of. He’ll heal you. It won’t be hard for him.”
“And you?” He needed it more than I did.
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “At this point I don’t know.”
That was not what I wanted to hear. I stood up. “Let’s go. Now.”
He didn’t move. “I need to rest. Just for a minute,” he repeated.
“No way. You’ve rested enough. Up. Get up.” I took his hand and pulled. He allowed me to guide him to his feet. I slipped beneath his arm and put mine around his waist. “You’re going to have to help me or we won’t get there. Come on. Now.” He leaned on me and let me lead him forward. “Tell me which way.”
Much slower now, we trudged along a main road. Malachi mumbled a steady stream of instructions but got quieter as we proceeded. He started to have trouble lifting his feet.
“Numb,” he whispered, closing his eyes and leaning his head on the top of my mine. We stood there for a second, and I realized this was as close as I’d ever willingly gotten to a guy. Malachi seemed perfectly content to stand there, half embracing, half leaning, but it was obvious to me he wouldn’t be able to remain upright for long.
“How far are we from the Station?”
“Not far. But I don’t think I can make it.”
We were right in front of an apartment building, and it gave me an idea. I might be strong, but I wasn’t strong enough to carry Malachi, who felt like two hundred pounds of solid muscle. “Listen to me. I’m going to leave you here, and you’re going to tell me how to get to the Station. Can you do that?”
“No. You stay with me.” He was obviously trying to sound commanding, but his voice was weak and filled with pain. It kind of ruined the effect.