I arched a brow. “Why not just take her out?”
“Because it’s her choice not to accept my help.”
“It might not be her choice to have someone protect her, then,” Slaughter said.
“You’re right. I know this is wrong, but I can’t let her stay there alone. I think a very powerful magus wants her dead and I think he’s already trying to get her killed. I know this is a big ask, but—”
“I’ll go,” I said.
My brother looked at me as if I’d grown three heads or maybe joked about how rock wouldn’t dare beat paper. “Are you insane?”
“New world, new me. Send me. I’m down.”
Mass rolled his eyes. Crush, however, was leaning forward, eyes gleaming, his sandstone skin as rough as sandpaper. “You mean Above, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Korri said. “Inside a prison built by the magi to house their political prisoners. Oh, they don’t reference it that way, but that’s what it really boils down to. Anyway, I need you down there as soon as you can go because she’s already been beaten. I can’t lose her.”
Crush nodded his understanding; granite, we all did. ‘Goyles stuck together. Clan loyalty was paramount, as was familial, and romantic loyalty. Lone wolf ‘goyles didn’t exist. For long, anyway. “I’ll go too.”
Korri waited in case anyone else would speak up but my brother and his friends were silent. Not surprising. Massacre hadn’t gotten my love of adventure. “Thank you. I really appreciate this. Anything you need before you go down, during, after, just let me know.”
Chapter Two
“All we got to do is punch a Keeper she said.” Crush was looking mighty uncomfortable in his witch clothes. We ‘goyles didn’t usually cover ourselves. Our stone skin and lack of modesty meant we were naked twenty-four seven but here we’d been reduced to fleshy bodies that needed protecting from the elements. “How do they stand this?”
“Feeling like rubbery snot? I do not fucking know, but dude, we’re Above.” I’d never quite been this excited before. Number one item on my boulder list and I’d already checked it off.
“True that,” Crush said and bumped knuckles with me. “What do these Keepers look like?”
I pulled out the info from my pocket, then handed it to my friend. “We could probably toss a rock through one of their windows too. It sounds like it doesn’t take much to stir the wrath of the magi.”
Korri and Lux had brought us Above and dropped us off in a place they called Hell’s Mudroom. Korri gave us a tour, gave us info about the history of the place, the types of people who lived here, the conflict between the magi and witches that stretched back centuries. It sounded a lot like the troubles between ‘goyles and demons, though our strife didn’t involve enslavement. We’d kicked demon asses the last time they tried to invade our clan territory and tell us it was theirs. Pruflas still thought we were squatting on his land but Pruflas could go fuck himself with a sword because it was ours.
“Do you want to get something to eat before we get thrown in the clink?” Crush asked, eying the food in the stalls with the intensity of a starving ‘goyle.”
“Sure, why not? She gave us a disc thingie that’s supposed to help us pay for shit. Let’s fill our bellies and then get our asses thrown in jail.”
We did just that, gorging on the food available in open-air stalls all around the WD—aka the Witch’s District, aka Hell’s Mudroom, and when we were sated—well, when I was sated, Crush was a fricking black hole when it came to food—we hauled our fleshy witch butts to the Wall.
“The Wall,” Korri had said, “with a capital W.”
We hadn’t really understood what she meant but seeing it made me realize what a big deal it was. Yellowed stone rose twenty-five feet into the air. There were guards on the wall with weapons of some sort, stunners probably. That’s what Korri said the Keepers used on the witches most of the time. They had guns, but those were employed as much because manufacturing bullets and weaponry was expensive, especially when there were cheaper magical options.
There was a dreary look about it and it cast a pall over the WD, shading the closest ramshackle buildings from the sun. The witches avoided looking at it. Their heads were turned away, whether by choice or instinct, I didn’t know. I did know it was hella depressing and it needed to be knocked down. We didn’t touch it, though, because our intrepid guide and Queen of Hell told us messing with the Wall held stiff penalties, up to and including death.
We wouldn’t be very much help to her friend if they killed us before we even got inside to protect her.
So, we choose a more direct route. We walked up to the gates where the Keepers stood guard. They checked passes and generally made the witches’ lives awful. It seemed only fitting Crush and I each picked one and hit them square in the face.
Two guards knocked out, more swarming to help, and we had ourselves a little melee.
It was fun while it lasted, but eventually we had to let them take us down. Crush, I saw, was a little too into Keeper-punching, and so I tripped him the next time he started wading in to smack a guard to the ground. Crush fell like a tree and I let myself follow, and then the Keepers had the stunners pressed against our flesh.
It fucking hurt. We were both so used to our stony skin that this weak-ass witch flesh was a shock.
Ha. Shock.
I laughed and winced as they hauled me to
