Fractured (36 page)

He grinned as he stroked a hand over my mother’s wild mane. “She told me you were dying. I guess she was wrong.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“I haven’t seen you in a very long time, girl. You look better here than you did in the dark city. This is where you belong.”

“It’s the makeup,” I said, gesturing at my face. Tegan was an artist. It hadn’t budged, despite the fact that I’d been savagely attacked and hit by a van.

Sil threw back his head and laughed, revealing his brown and jagged teeth. I might have looked better, but he looked worse. Less like a Japanese businessman, and more like an animal. More savage. And more crazy, if that was possible. “It’s more than paint on your face. You never belonged in that dead place. You are completely alive.”

His hand closed over a fistful of my mother’s hair, and he jerked her close, rubbing his nose along the edge of her face. She made this pathetic mewling sound and put her arms around his waist, turning my stomach as she tilted her head up and allowed him to give her a kiss so deep that he must have been licking her tonsils. Then he wrenched her head away, and his eyes swept back to mine. “I was so happy to find Rita here. She reminded me of you immediately. That’s why I took her, actually. I had no idea how you were linked. Such a nice surprise.” His hand slithered across her chest, squeezing and pinching, making me clench my fists.

“Where’s Tegan?” I asked, taking a step forward.

“They’ll bring her up when I have you secured.” He nodded across the room, where a table had been set up in the open space on the other side of the bar. Ropes had been tied to each of the table legs, and incense smoked up from four pots set at each of the corners. “But I wanted a chance for us to have a family chat first.”

“She’s not my family,” I snapped. “She hasn’t been my family for a long time. Nice try, though.”

He buried his face in my mother’s hair, but raised his head when he heard the glass crunch beneath my soles as I took another step toward him. “Ah, but you’re wrong. You risked your life to save hers. You took an arrow meant for her. You betray yourself, Lela girl. And our Rita … she cannot get her mind off you, no matter how hard she tries.”

The Rita-Mazikin gave me a tremulous, tender smile. “
Mija
,” she whispered.

Sil giggled, running his hands over her in a way that said one thing: he owned her. “You see? This Rita is bad,” he said, his voice soft and gentle as he nuzzled her neck. “She is bad and weak. This is her first time away from our Mazikin realm. And this body … its brain is rotten. It has made her very confused. She has lost touch with who she really is.” He snorted. “She forgets where her loyalties lie.”

Rita, unable to understand his words, purred at his touch. Sil wrapped an arm around her waist. “She said she understood how this place works. She insisted she could bring you in without drawing the attention of the authorities here, and so we allowed her to try. So many plans she suggested, and because she claimed to know you, I listened to her. Until I realized she was lost in this brain, in scattered and broken old memories, and she doesn’t know you at all. Tonight she was dispatched with final orders to bring you in, and she failed
again
. Instead, she brought me that skinny little thing, thinking that would satisfy me. It turns out Rita is mostly useless to me.” He pressed himself against her from behind. “Mostly.”

My cheeks burned as I watched, wishing my phone would buzz with a text, letting me know they had Tegan, that she was safe, that I could attack and then get myself out of here. But it lay silent in my pocket. “Sorry to hear that she hasn’t lived up to your expectations,” I said. “She never lived up to mine, either.”

He chuckled. “So hostile, girl with the hair. Is that where all your anger comes from? Did this woman hurt you?” He fisted her hair and gave her a shake, drawing a little cry of protest from her.

“She never hurt me. She just … left me. A long time ago. I barely remember her.”
Let her go. I don’t like the look in her eyes
.

“Your memories are in there somewhere. But I bet you wish they weren’t,” Sil said.

“Sometimes,” I admitted.

“I’ll give you new memories. You’ll thank me. You’ll be with her again. Don’t you want another chance?” He leaned forward eagerly. “Your bodies can be together here, and your souls can be together in the Mazikin realm. It’s perfect!”

“Your idea of perfect is vastly different from mine.”

He frowned and tilted his head. “You, a discarded girl, don’t wish to be our Queen?” His expression hardened. “You’re ungrateful.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I clenched my jaw. “Oh, I’m grateful.” I took a step forward.

“Me too,” he said. And then he drew a knife from his waist and slit my mother’s throat.

THIRTY-FOUR

HER AMBER-BROWN EYES CAUGHT
the candlelight and flickered, allowing me to witness the moment life left her body. Blood flowed down the front of her shirt. Sil abruptly let her go, and she crumpled to the floor. He wiped the knife on his pant leg.

“Wouldn’t want her trying to help you at the worst moment,” he muttered, nudging her body with his toe.

Somewhere below us came a chorus of animal howling followed by a muffled explosion. In the far corner of the room, part of the dance floor caved in, crashing downward.

Sil’s eyes brightened with anger. “Explosives or not, they will never win. When Rita failed to capture you, we made other plans.”

Fear encased my heart, burbling up like acid in my throat. He knew I wasn’t alone. He wasn’t even surprised by it. “I wouldn’t underestimate them. We could go down and join the fun if you want.”

His eyes narrowed. “You are a stupid girl. Don’t make me damage you.”

“You’re going to have to. Unless you’re going to stand there and let me kill you.”

I feinted to the right, and then to the left, herding him backward toward the jagged, yawning mouths of the empty window frames. I kept my arms close to my sides, but loose. My newly healed wrist felt stronger than ever. I felt like I could snap him in half.

He held up his knife and laughed nervously. “I should have brought something bigger, probably.” He tossed the knife out the open window, ruining my hopes of stripping it from him and gutting him with it. His fingers curled into claws, revealing his filthy, serrated nails.

My phone buzzed again.

Sil’s gaze zipped straight down to the bulge in my jeans pocket. “You should check that. It might be important.”

“It can wait.” And then I attacked.

Sil was fast as ever and took off running. He dove onto all fours, and then bounded up on the bar, grabbing one of the few remaining light fixtures and throwing it at me in an effort to slow me down. I skirted the bar and ended up by the table with the ropes, the place they’d planned to tie me up and sacrifice me. Sil watched me with half-lidded eyes, waiting for me to attack again. I dipped a toe in one of the pots and stirred quickly, sending a thick haze up around me. I took a few steps back and did it again, hiding behind the thick fog, and then pulled my phone from my pocket and held it close to my face to check the newest text.

I have Tegan

It was from Jim. My knees nearly buckled with my relief. My head jerked up as Sil roared and charged, flying from the bar to the tabletop in a single wild leap. He didn’t slow down as he crashed into me, curling his steely fingers around my arms and trying to flip me onto the table. I brought my knee up, driving the breath from him with a blow to the stomach, and then leaned back and slammed my fist into his weaselly, dirt-smeared face.

The floor shook with another tremor from below, throwing Sil and me both off balance. If Malachi and Henry kept this up, the place was going to collapse. Sil took advantage of the moment to wrap one of the ends of the rope around my wrist, catching it in the noose-like loop and tethering me to the table.

“One down, three to go,” he whispered, and then cackled like he’d made a hilarious joke.

I clawed at the rope around my wrist, but had to give it up as he charged again. I ducked to the side and then used the rope to clothesline him as he spun around, knocking him back onto the table. Then I crouched and flung myself over him, flattening him back onto the table as I straddled him, pinning his skinny shoulders with my knees. All rage and fear, I jerked my hand down and around, drawing the rope tight around his neck. With my free hand, I held his forehead to the table, and with my other, I pulled.

And pulled.

And pulled.

Until spots flashed in my vision. Until they coalesced and became my mother’s eyes, staring at me from beyond, condemning me, loving me, forgiving me, I had no idea.

Fierce animalistic howls from below yanked me out of my trance. I looked down at Sil. His eyes, bright red with burst blood vessels, were half-closed. His face was frozen in an eerie smile. I leaned forward and put my fingers on his sweaty throat. Nothing.

I rolled away from him, untied my wrist, and climbed off the table, wiping my hands on my pants. I’d done it. It had been easier than I’d thought. Now I needed to figure out what the hell was happening below. I checked my phone and read the text that had come first. From Malachi.

Freeing prisoners now will be up soon

But that text had come in several minutes ago, and none of my Guards had come up. With my pulse pounding in my temples, I jogged over to the window and climbed carefully onto the collapsed deck to retrieve Sil’s discarded knife. Even though I’d killed Sil, I still couldn’t shake the bad feeling I’d had when I came in here. With the knife in my hand, I reentered the club and crept across the dance floor, which was unstable and soft beneath my boots, rotten nearly all the way through. As I neared the caved-in area, I heard a sound that made my stomach knot with fear: chanting.

The Mazikin weren’t supposed to be chanting. They were supposed to be running for their lives.

I got down on hands and knees and crawled toward the collapsed section. Dusty light was filtering up from the lower level, revealing the smoky swirls of incense floating and breaking apart just above the hole. I inched forward on my belly, not wanting to fall through the floor and land right in the middle of them. Finally, I hooked my fingers over the edge and looked down, squinting through the haze and trying not to cough as I inhaled the sickly sweet fumes.

About fifteen feet below me, through the crisscross of splintered floorboards, I could see one end of another altar. Pots of incense at the corners. A group of Mazikin massed, leaning over a struggling figure tied to the table. I could see his chest and shoulders straining against the ropes. And when one of the Mazikin dropped to her knees to stir the incense, their victim’s face was revealed.

Malachi.

THIRTY-FIVE

PARALYZED BY DISBELIEF AND
horror, I stared down at the boy I loved, unable to fathom how they could have caught him. He was so strong, so invulnerable, so unstoppable. But now he’d been stripped to the waist. His armor had been tossed to the floor next to the table. Blood coated one shoulder and flowed from a wound in his neck, a clean cut rather than a bite mark. His jaw was ridged, and his eyes were clamped shut as he fought to free himself from the ropes; his wrists were torn and raw from his efforts.

Several of them were touching him, running their hands over his body, exploring their prize. One of the Mazikin, a young woman standing near his shoulder, slid her fingers along his chest. She bent to lick his cheek, her pink tongue seeking his skin. His eyes flew open as he jerked his face away.

And that’s when he saw me. His chest heaved, and his eyes grew wide. In them I saw too many things to name. Love. Regret. Fear. And pleading. It was a look I’d never seen before, and my throat closed as I translated it. He knew what was about to happen to him, and he didn’t want me to watch.

It jolted me out of my paralysis. My fingers clenched around the knife as fiery rage swept through me, more powerful than anything I’d ever felt before, disintegrating any terror or hesitation, sending wave after wave of determination and strength through my body.

Malachi was going to get his wish. I had no intention of watching. I was going to kill. Them.
All
.

I plunged through that hole with a rending crash as my boots collided with rotting boards, and was in the open air for a split second before landing with a crunch on the Mazikin that had just tried to taste his skin. I grabbed her hair and wrenched her head back; then I drew my knife across her throat as the rest of the Mazikin roared with surprise and stumbled away from the table Malachi was tied to. With my blade dripping red, I dropped my first victim and spun around. There were at least twenty Mazikin in the dimly lit rectangular chamber, which looked like it had once been a private party room. A lot more than we’d anticipated.

I dove for one of the ropes holding Malachi’s wrists and began to slice at it frantically, but a muscular arm looped around my waist and yanked me away before I could cut all the way through. As I was carried backward, I stabbed my captor in the wrist. The arm let me go, and I turned to see a stocky male stagger back. I buried my blade in his neck, splattering blood on a group of Mazikin closing in on me. Malachi was shouting, but I couldn’t hear his words over the snarls and grunts of the Mazikin.

Smoke burned my eyes; one of them was stirring up the incense, filling the room with its heavy haze. Above the table, a dense shape began to coalesce, and then was blocked out as several Mazikin launched themselves at me at once, driving me into a wall. My head bounced off its upholstered surface as my legs kicked at them. I drove my knife upward into the gut of the fat Mazikin directly in front of me, and it doubled over, allowing me to see the ghostly shape near the ceiling turn in the air … and dive into Malachi’s body.

His shoulders slammed into the table, and then he arched up, his head snapping back. His face twisted with agony, his mouth opened in a silent scream. And my whole world shattered. Dimly, I felt the Mazikin grasping at me, trying to wrestle me to the floor, but my heart was with Malachi on that table. Every muscle in his body was rigid as he fought with the smoke beast trying to pry his soul loose, trying to send him to hell.