The ceiling burst, the scream blowing me backward in a deafening heat. I turned my head to the side, body scorching like a marshmallow over flame, and somewhere, faintly, Hunter’s cry rippled in my mind. Then, like debris, it was swept away in the torrent of sand and water that mixed to cover my burns, soothe my skin, shield me from Solange…and bury me in the shards of the destroyed room.
13
I awoke to a heavy wet rag being dragged across my face. A foul heat and the stench of the unwashed dead accompanied the sensation, and though there was intermittent relief-brief moments when the rag was removed and my air passage freed-I’d barely filled my lungs before it started up again. It was a slow torture, and a terrible way to die. I was so concerned with catching my breath, I didn’t realize I’d been feeling disembodied until the tingling started up in my limbs. Immediately, and clumsily, I lifted my arms to push the rag away…which was when I touched the attached teeth. Jerking back, wiping forearms over my eyes, I squinted into the face of a dog as large and black as a tornado. One come to eat me whole.
Screaming, I scrambled backward, though since I was lying down, there wasn’t really anywhere to go. The mutant animal jolted, shook his muzzle back and forth, and advanced on me again.
“Now now. Don’t go and scare the baby girl.” An arm, just as black, came out of nowhere to calm the nowwhining animal. I squinted around splayed fingers-puny defense against nail-head fangs-in an attempt to see who the arm belonged to. “Interesting, though. She don’t usually like you mortals.”
“Th-That’s a warden,” I stammered, lowering my arms, staring into the dark. I was laid out like a sacrifice beneath a black light, which wasn’t as blinding as a bulb’s full glare, but still made it virtually impossible to see beyond the soft ultraviolet bubble. The last time I’d run into a Shadow warden-dogs, as opposed to the cats serving the agents of Light-the rabid bastard had tried to rip out my throat. Actually, there’d been two of them…though neither had been this big.
And because I’d made the mistake of releasing an arrow from my conduit into the first beast’s gaping maw, I also knew wardens grew instantly stronger and larger-not to mention really pissed off-when struck by the magical weapons. It seemed this fiend had seen plenty of battle. She ambled closer and I shielded my eyes and tried to sit up. “She probably doesn’t like agents of Light either, right?”
“Oh, she loves them.” Those strong dark hands reached through the violet rays and pushed me back down. A wide, round face followed them into view. “Bone in, still warm, and medium rare.”
Wincing, I tore my gaze from the dog to study the now-cackling woman, so dark she seemed kiln-fired, like some glossy, smooth-faced fertility goddess. Her curves were nothing like Trish’s. Those had been inviting, whereas these were daring. She wore ornamentation like Diana, but the true adornment was her skin, shoulders shining over a strapless orange dress, muscles thick and defined like giant ropes of black licorice. She had nothing at all in common with Nicola’s goth glamour. Her hair was a wild black moon, and hid nothing of her exotic face…including eyes like disks with onyx pupils filling the whole of the socket.
I’d only seen depictions before of such women in the manuals. She was, or had been, a ward mother, but unlike those I knew, she had reared the Shadow children. She cared for them until they reached full maturity at the time of their metamorphosis and left the Shadow lair. “I always wondered what one of you would look like up close,” I told her. I was mortal, naked beneath a black sheet, and obviously under her care. Why mask my words? I didn’t have a whole lot to hide.
She smirked, motioning down her body, and stood back, caressing the head of her strange pet as I took a closer look. “Just as you thought?”
“Not really,” I admitted, though the eyes were more disturbing than expected. Where the “mothers” who raised the initiates of Light had a sunken and violent cross-hatching of scars over their eyes-a product of raising children whose glyphs were as powerful and unpredictable as a solar flare-the ward mothers for the Shadows lived a rayless, shaded existence. Exposing them to the smallest amount of natural sunlight would be like forcing their face into the core of the sun. It would kill them outright.
I thought of Carlos’s worms, burrowing through centuries, hunkered deep and unseen, their work impacting the entire world.
“Why do my hands hurt?” I finally rasped, leaning back. It didn’t look like either of these Shadowy beings were going to kill me. In fact, the ward mother brought me a clay tumbler of water.
“Oh, I worked on those first. I was hoping they’d be done before you woke.” I finished sipping from the cool, fresh water, and studied my throbbing right hand. Prints had somehow been applied to my fingertips. I used my thumb to try and flick one off-that was an old trick-but they ached too much, like individual hearts lived in each tip. The woman shook her head, tsking as she pulled my arm away. “Hold on, now. You don’t want to undo all my handiwork. Let it set. Another hour and it’ll look like the real deal.”
I swallowed hard, dropping my head back again. The light was a vibrant purple halo around her dark cloud of hair. “What are you doing to me?”
“Giving you the tools you need to live, my girl,” she said, and shrugged, one large shoulder moving up and down. “Or at least to hide in plain sight. Rules are different when you’re gray.”
That’s right. That’s what the rogues called themselves. I’d have to get used to it. I looked at my body, laid out beneath a black sheet and the dark light. Get used to being gray.
She must be like Micah, I thought, which made me wonder how the physician was doing. I winced, thinking of the damage Tripp had caused him, and how odd and pained he looked with soot roiling beneath that first layer of skin. I would have never wished that upon him. Micah had only ever been kind…right up until the moment he turned his back on me. I sighed.
The dog took it as a sign to resume licking my face. After three wet smelly licks, I got up the nerve to push it away.
“Back off, Buttersnap.” The woman tapped one finger on Buttersnap’s haunches, and the animal sat. Four times larger than a Great Dane, dozens deadlier, and it responded to this woman’s index finger. I shook my head.
“Was it you who pulled me back?” I asked, noting the scratchy echo of my voice was gone as she nodded. My blood once again moved about in my body unfelt. The water and wakefulness had washed the metallic taste from my throat. I was home again…wherever home was. “You guys drugged me.”
“In more ways than one,” she said, not bothering to deny it. “We also have you on a drug that coats your organs and larger arteries like armor in case you’re assaulted, though there’s only so much we can do since you’re mortal.” Reaching forward, she inserted her hands beneath the dark sheet and stared into nothingness with those strange disc-like eyes. Her fingers, warm and strong, began to work along my abdomen, touching me in long strokes like she was smoothing out my skin. “Still, we can use other means to help stimulate your cells so they rebuild faster. As long as you don’t receive a life threatening blow by a conduit, or this so-called soul blade, you should be fine.”
So I was only vulnerable to the most dangerous weapons on the planet. How comforting.
Her massage turned circular, fingertips just short of painful on the sensitive flesh of my stomach. I glanced over to find Buttersnap gazing at me with apparent pity. Dogs didn’t like their underparts exposed to probing fingers either.
“I’m Io, by the way, and thank you for asking. Mine is the gift of touch, if you haven’t noticed.” I jerked my head upright at the chiding tone, catching an eyeful of ultraviolet. The wide fingers pressed me again into stillness, before resuming their circular probing.
“I’m sorry. I just…it was just…”
“Just outside city limits. In a burnt-out crater off of Frenchman Flat.”
Anticipating my reaction, she pushed me back down-again, using fingertips alone. “The friggin’ Test Site?”
Io saw my reservations. Shit, with those eyes, she probably saw my tonsils. But Frenchman Flat was famously the first detonation site for the nuclear facility. Back in the day, they had mushroom cloud parties, the lethal explosions used as their fireworks sequence before they knew you could
“I understand your concerns. Brought it up to El Jefe himself.” She grinned, flashing me a row of square pearly
