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It’s hard to believe that just five days ago I was cornered in my apartment being menaced by a werewolf. Now I live in an encampment out of an old action movie, complete with soldiers and a secret resistance; and the same werewolf is being tortured and who knows what else somewhere beneath my feet.
I try to imagine what will change if, somehow, this Resistance succeeds, think of being able to go out in the sun, walk without fear, have a boyfriend, children, a family.
But my mind keeps remembering a child’s brutalized face, the willowy figure of a crying Dryad, the cheerful acceptance in Tristan’s voice, and the pleading in Viviane’s voice as I left her to the mercy of the men.
And all I can feel is disgust for people who would hurt those who are almost people themselves. They would kill me if they could, I think savagely. Kill or be killed. The law of survival. These people have learned it well.
And rape? A small voice asks. Is that the same? That’s not murder. That’s not for survival.
I turn away from that, but the thoughts chase me spiraling into sleep as I toss and turn, tormented by dreams of screaming werewolves begging for help and Tristan reaching for me before he’s swallowed in the glare of the sun.
My eyes snap open and Tristan’s gone, but the sun remains. It’s so bright. I squint and wobble shakily over to the windows, feeling grainy eyed and sick. Looking out the windows, I can see a bustle of activity, like ants in the old school ant-farm, of people scuttling across the ground, rushing to and fro from concrete building to concrete building. With a yawn, I dress and go out, instinctively scanning the sky, then allowing myself a little smile. I don’t have to be afraid anymore. At least, not of Others.
People are gathered in the center of the square. As people pass the crowd, either they look up, interested, and then glance down again, stop and join the crowd or hurry past without looking up. Intrigued, I stroll across the patio and push into the fringes of the crowd. Startled, they move back to look at the intruder, and I push through to the front with the expertise of a small woman used to shoving through crowds to get her share. Instantly, I freeze.
She’s chained to a post by a new collar around her neck, made of dull, studded iron. Like a dog. It’s a hideous joke. People on the other side of the circle don’t even look up as they throw rocks and sticks at her, jeering. Her clothes are ripped and torn beyond recognition, just barely decent covering, and scratches and bruises mar her well formed face, the remains of a nosebleed running from her delicate nose. Her eyes are downcast, but they’re more gray than green today, half-closed. She’s kneeling, probably beaten there by the hail of stones. Her hair is oily and lank around her face, her skin seeming pale and sallow, her swollen lips pressed together as well as she can. She exudes shame from every pore of her being.
I hesitate, compassion warring with guilt and sick satisfaction. I’m frozen, but my blood freezes at the icy voice that rolls through the crowd. Everyone falls silent.
“What is going on here?”
He doesn’t even need to raise his voice. That silky, deadly tone is enough. People freeze and move aside. I try to scurry out of the way, but I can’t move, pinned beneath those evergreen eyes. Then they flick away and find Viviane. I hear his sharp intake of breath as she looks up at him. Her eyes deepen to a dark, dark green. Taine glides forward, eyes narrowed. She looks down again but he pulls her chin up, examines her face, touches a bruise with a lover’s tenderness. She winces. I try to understand: yesterday they were snarling at each other. But today…here he is.
He continues his inspection, then steps back and stares at her. Everyone is deathly silent. Most have drifted away, frightened by his presence. I understand that he’s loose because he cooperated, but I still wonder if it’s wise to let him wander around like this. He doesn’t even look at me.
“What did they do to you?”
She doesn’t answer and looks down. He moves quickly, lifting her face to meet his eyes.
“What did they do to you?”
She whispers something. He snaps back as if he’s been whipped.
“What did you say?”
This time, I can just barely hear her. Her voice is ragged, hoarse. “Please, Taine. Code 77. Please.”
Taine stares at her, his eyes horrified. She speaks again, more loudly. “Taine. Code 77.”
He presses his lips together in a thin line, closes his eyes. “No,” he says in a raw voice.
Now she stares at him. “Taine.”
He turns away. “No.”
She rises, reaches out, seizes his arm. “I demand my right!”
I can see pain etched in his face, but he shakes her grip off and his voice is cold. “And as spymaster, I tell you no.” He starts to walk away. She flings a hand after him, crawling to the length of her chain, catching at his leg.
“Taine! Don’t leave me!”
He breaks free, his voice harsh. “Human! Come with me,” he says, without looking at me. Shakily, I follow him, trying to ignore her continued cries after him, begging, pleading.
I trot to catch up with his long stride. His teeth are set, his eyes colder than ice and no more human. I shudder. He doesn’t look at me at all until we turn a corner. I have a moment’s warning as he turns blazing eyes on me before I slam into a wall, pinned by his hand flat against my chest. I can hear my collarbones creak.
“What did they do to her?”
I choke on the words. He slams me back against the wall again. My head rebounds and I see stars. “What did they do to her?”
I swallow, hard. “I don’t know.” It’s not quite a lie. He takes his hand away, nostrils flaring as he paces away from me, then back and forth, back and forth. I slump weakly to the ground and watch him, motionless and speechless. His fists clench and unclench, and he snarls. Then he begins to talk, more to himself than to me, in a deathly quiet voice. “It’s hard to break a werewolf. They have a strict Code, if they got her to break that… but I’ve seen them torn limb from limb and refusing to break. So what did the goddamned bastards do to her?”
I tremble, too frightened to speak. He turns on me, snarling, sounding more frustrated than angry. He sighs and seems to slump a little. “I need her,” he says softly. “As much as I hate her and all her kind, curse it, I need her. She may be a filthy wolf but she’s still a damned good spy and a better fighter. If I know what they did that would make her demand a Code 77....maybe….”
“What’s a Code 77?” I manage to ask.
He examines me. His eyes chill and when he speaks his voice is cool. “A Code 77 is every being’s right under Protocol. Sometime death is preferable, and a Code 77 – it’s a demand for a merciful death. A demand for a Code 77 – has to be granted. By law.”
I stare at him. “…but you said no.”
His eyes get colder. “Yes,” he says, “I did.” And he turns around, slamming his fist into the wall with all of his supernatural strength behind it. A few stones crack and a hail of dust rains down, obscuring him from view. Impulsively, while I can’t see him, I burst out, “I saw Tristan. He said you were a prick.”
He turns around. I have a moment to feel fear before his eyes are boring into mine, his shining white fangs unnervingly close to my face.
“What did you say?”
“Tristan,” I squeak. “In cage. Said…”
His thumb presses into the base of my throat, cutting off speech. He pulls me in, turning his head to my neck. I feel his cool breath, feel his lips brush my neck.
“I wish I could kill you,” he croons too tenderly. “but they would chain me, cage me, try to break me…and that doesn’t suit my plans, I’m afraid. So you will live just long enough to regret speaking that filthy lie, and what is left of you will go to the dogs.”
I’m shivering uncontrollably, managing to gasp through chattering teeth, “Not…lying. In cages…looks like you…”
He draws away, eyes unreadable. I can breathe again. “You’re not lying,” he says flatly. It’s not a question. “You did see him. In a silver cage.”
I nod shakily. He looks away. “I thought it was a dream. Every night for five years…but it stopped. He must be too weak to even dream through silver bars. Even to me.”
I clear my throat cautiously. “He…”
He cuts me off. “No,” he says in a strangely harsh voice. “I don’t want to hear you speak of him. He’s dying. That’s all I need to know. For seven years I’ve thought him dead. But he’s here. And he’s dying.”
I can’t say anything. I find myself imagining the blank expression in Tristan’s eyes as they cart what’s left of him away after he dies. Instead, I try to think about what Taine said, about dreams, and remember that some of the stronger vampires have the ability to dream into other’s minds, especially those they are close to. I hear a muffled noise, and look up.
Taine’s turned away, his shoulders hunched protectively. He’s shaking, just a little, and I realize that he’s crying. I stare at him. His brother is dead, I realize. His brother is dead. Of course he’s crying. Hesitantly, I reach out my hand, lay it on his shoulder.
Instantly he wheels, his eyes wild, snarling. “Don’t touch me!” he roars. Ice frosts around his feet and the temperature drops noticeably. I flinch back, stare into his icy green eyes, and try as I might I can’t see anything remotely human in them.
In another moment he’s gone. I slump against the side of the building, terrified. He seemed so human. For a few moments, he seemed so human.
He’s a vampire, I remind myself. Cold, merciless, heartless, a killer. He’s not human. He is Other. Completely, irrevocably Other.
With a brother, a family, connections. Protocol, their own rules and society. The more I learn here, the harder it is to think of Others as simply barbarians. Werewolves suffer and die for a code of honor. Vampires grieve for dying and lost brothers. Kaer have ties to each other stronger than any relationship I’ve ever known. Selkies are lost, die without the comfort of their Pod. They’re almost human.
But it’s that almost, I tell myself firmly, that makes a world of difference. That “almost” means the difference between dead fathers, lovers, children and their long life. That “almost” is the throats torn out, the bodies mangled beyond recognition, the corpses drained of blood before being cast aside like a rag doll.
I look at the sun, wanting the reminder that I no longer live in that world. In less than a week, I have been transplanted into a place where it is almost the paradise that the textbooks make pre-fall United to be.
I hear a sound and hurry around the corner, watch a procession of soldiers carrying something between them. Viviane is staring, her eyes round. I catch a glimpse of staring green eyes, of blood, of a face I remember last seeing staring at me from between a wall of soldiers. I feel sick. Looking away, I catch a glimpse of Taine, his face smooth as polished glass, his eyes holding the sharp edges of emeralds. He says nothing, but I can see his fists clenched from here, his nails digging into his palms. I look down, swallow hard.
Almost. Almost paradise.
My days settle into monotony. I wake up, get dressed, go outside. For a few days I scan the sky out of habit, but soon I stop. No one looks at me. The only words they speak to me are “sorry” or “excuse me” when they bump me, and those without a backward glance or even a steadying hand when hurrying soldiers nearly knock me down. I haven’t seen Taine since they brought Tristan out. I haven’t seen Aliah for longer. Sometimes I see Keearh in the distance, recognizable by his wings, folded though they are, but he never comes close. Viviane stays chained to the post for a few more days, but then she, too, disappears. The only one I see at all is the Dryad, and she rarely, and always with a handler holding a silk lead that hooks to the collar around her neck.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all the same bland foods, and I soon grow sick of them. But they’re all there is to eat.
I find out that the edges of what they call the encampment are protected by an enormous electrical and stone fence, and guards with dogs. Keira circles the sky daily, and every time I catch a glimpse of her dark shadow I cringe and feel the terrible prickling between my shoulder blades, expecting to feel her strike at any moment. There’s no point wondering when I’m going back. I’m not. To tell the truth, I’m not very concerned. After all, what is there for me in
There seems to be a lot of activity in the encampment, but it isn’t clear exactly what is going on. People vanish only to reappear weeks later, but they say nothing about their experience, especially when they see me lurking, hoping to overhear some news. Some people just…vanish.
Days blur into weeks, and I guess it must be nearly two weeks before a note summons me to the presence of the head for a special demonstration.
I arrive in a crowded room I haven’t seen before, guided by the curt guard’s directions. It seems to be some sort of open roofed amphitheater. Finding an empty seat, I sit down and scan the audience.
The structure is packed with people, all of them murmuring excitedly. So no one knows what we are to see. My gut churns nervously. I look around for the head and find him sitting in an opulent, canopied area, settled back on an enormous chair. He reaches down as if to pet a favorite dog, and for the first time since our arrival in this place, I see Aliah.
She’s huddled next to his chair, curled ungracefully into herself. Her eyes are even wider than normal, and seem frightened. She’s more slender than before, almost to the point of being gaunt. She wears only gauze veils over her bare skin, and a chain clinks that links her to the chair. He strokes her cropped black hair and I can see her trembling. I don’t have to guess what her duties are. I feel a wave of disgust, followed by curiosity as the Head stands and claps his hands together. Instantly the crowd falls silent.
He turns silently, hand still raised. Eyes follow him to the cage being wheeled out into the flat, sandy area below. The cage is opened and the guards shove a man out so he crumples on the ground. I look at him closely, but he seems to be just a man – dirty, unshaven, emaciated, but a man nonetheless.
The other hand rises and falls and a piercing shriek splits the air. In a single gut-churning instant, I realize what is going to happen, but I still don’t have time to look away as the Kaer lunges into the sky, then folds his wings in and plummets down upon the man like a falcon. The man screams once, and only once. A murmur ripples through the crowd as they stare interestedly at the man, his throat ripped out and his blood pooling in the dirt. Keearh has already soared up again, circling in the tight spirals of a bird of prey. The Head gives a whistle and Keearh turns toward him, when suddenly another voice rises over him.
“Yassa!”
I’d recognize that silky voice anywhere. Even with its raw edge, it’s still seductive and beautiful enough to set a woman’s bones afire. If she could forget what he is. Everyone turns, and there he is, standing proudly atop a banister. I can see corpses of the guards who died silently in his path. His wavy black hair streams in the wind, his face seeming almost flushed. He’s shaded by the canopy of the pavilion he stands on from the painful sun. He opens his mouth and gives a strange whooping noise. Keearh wheels, stares at him, hesitates. Taine cries again.
“Yassa!”
“Seize him!” cries the Head in a shrill voice. Guards surge forward, stumble on bodies, cry out in disgust as they step on faces. They’re afraid, too. Taine knows it and he ignores them.
“Yassa, heart of my heart,” says Taine, more softly. “Yassa. Do not let them leash you. You are not a pet falcon to be called to the hand. Kill them. Kill them all and spill their blood to feed my hunger. Yassa.”
Keearh’s golden eyes flicker. His great wings beat once, twice, as he hesitates, wavering. I see him yearning to answer that call. In another moment, he would have I am sure – and I wonder what would have happened if he had. But the whistle blares out again, and Keearh turns, screaming his rage and frustration, and then the soldiers reach Taine and they are holding his head so he can’t bite and he thrashes in their arms but they are too many and too strong.
Keearh flies back to the ground, folds his wings, and waits to be leashed. His eyes are lowered, and I am sure that I am the only one who sees the flash of defiance in his eyes, and the way he looked back, once, at where Taine was fighting.
I am afraid.