Sanctum (Guards of the Shadowlands, Book 1) (11 page)

Sil stopped in front of a door, one that looked identical to every single door I’d seen in the building. He took the set of keys from Lutfi’s belt and tried each one while managing to keep his eyes on Malachi. The seventh key turned easily. With a rush of stale air, the door opened onto an alley. Just as Sil tugged me through it, I leaned forward against his hand, which constricted painfully around my throat.

“I’m sorry,” I tried to yell, but it came out as a strangled whisper. Malachi didn’t move. The look in his eyes made me want to run. Away from him. Toward him. I was completely unsure of which.

Sil jerked me into the alley and sprinted away, towing me in his wake.

I TRIED TO COUNT
blocks, but Sil took turn after turn and pulled me through several buildings to make it to our present position. I wasn’t even sure how long we’d been running. “Please,” I gasped, “can we rest for a while?”

“You’re in luck,” he cackled. “Some of my family will be waiting just up here. We’ll get something to eat before we move on.”

I wiped away a tear with my free hand. My other was clutched in his sweaty, clawed grasp. The back of my hand was bleeding and throbbing from the bite of his fingernails. I’d been trying to find a way to escape, but he hadn’t let me go since we’d left the Guard Station. For a while I’d hoped Malachi would
chase after us, would swoop down and rescue me. He certainly seemed capable of it. As the time passed, though, it seemed more and more probable that Malachi had simply let me go. It made my chest ache in an odd way, but I ignored that—this was no different from when I’d been alive. The only person I could depend on was me. And I needed to get myself out of here. I was certain I didn’t want to go wherever Sil was taking me. His family didn’t sound very hospitable.

An enormous, Samoan-looking man sat on a stoop outside a row of townhouses in the next block. “Chimola!” Sil called, a smile revealing his glistening teeth. “Where are the others?”

The man looked up and waved. He gave me a once-over that made me wish I was invisible. He pointed across the street as two women emerged from a high-rise apartment building hand in hand. One of them was young and frail looking. Most of her long, blonde hair cascaded in tiny braids around her face. It reminded me of those white girls who come back from their Jamaican spring breaks with cornrows, thinking they actually look good.

The other woman was older. Much older. Her iron-gray hair was in rollers; it looked as if the two women had been styling each other’s hair. The older one stroked the young woman’s shoulder and crooned to her as she helped the girl strap on a too-large sword belt. From a Guard, no doubt. The young woman was so petite that, from its sheath at her waist, the blade
dragged against the ground. Interesting. I wondered if the girl’s arm was even long enough to draw the scimitar. Maybe if I could get that girl alone…

A chuffing, pounding noise distracted me, and I looked away from the girl to see the old woman galloping toward me, on all fours.

Sil held my hand firmly, his fingernails burrowing.

“Girl watches Lacey,” the old woman snarled.

“Be calm, Doris,” Sil soothed, stroking her rollered hair with his free hand. “This girl will join our family soon. She’s no threat. And look at her hair!”

Doris’s watery blue eyes twitched up to my heavy mass of looping curls. “Perfect,” she murmured, wet, raspy breaths punctuating the word. She had some sort of European accent. German maybe? She laid a thick, spotty hand on my head with surprising gentleness. “Good girl.”

She huffed out a laugh that sounded more like a snore and loped back over to the young woman with the big sword, whose name was apparently Lacey. Doris took Lacey’s face in her hands and kissed her sloppily on the lips, then led her across the street to where the giant, Chimola, sat. Excellent. The creepy frau wanted to do my hair. And possibly something else. I had to get out of there.

“Where’s Juri?” Sil asked.

“Hunting,” chimed Lacey in a recognizably southern accent. She fiddled with one of Doris’s rollers. Doris sat down on the
stoop and pulled Lacey onto her lap. I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Doris’s animal movements were nauseatingly strong and fast.

Sil made a whining sound in his throat. “We must leave soon. Do you think the Guard won’t be looking for me? Malachi
knows
I escaped! You were all supposed to wait for me here. And where are your weapons? Only Lacey is prepared?”

Doris gave him a wolfish smile and reached behind Chimola’s elephantine bulk, revealing two more scimitars. Great. All the crazy animal people were armed with swords.

I barely got to finish the thought when a hand snaked between me and Sil, closing around one of my breasts. I reacted instantly and intensely, whirling around and yanking Sil with me so he was between me and the groper. Sil blinked, mildly surprised, but didn’t seem threatened or shocked.

“Juri!” he cheerfully greeted the groper, a hook-nosed man with a serious underbite and the build of a linebacker.

When Juri saw my face, his eyes widened for a moment, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He grinned. “It’s
you
.”

His voice sent a hard chill straight through me. It was the voice that had made me wake up screaming a hundred times before. He took a step toward me, his eyes glinting with an excitement I knew all too well.

“Stay the hell away from me,” I snapped.

He chuckled, deep and raspy. “You always said that to me right before you disappeared. But now you are here. In the
flesh
.” His hand shot out again and stroked my cheek.

I turned my face away. It was definitely him. The monster who whispered to me in my dreams, trying to keep me in the dark city forever.

“No longer a ghost,” he whispered. Then his voice rose, echoing off the surrounding buildings. “This one is mine.”

“No fucking way,” I yelled, my panic rising.

All the Mazikin laughed, but Juri seemed to think it was particularly funny. He grinned at me and then licked his lips in a truly obscene way. “Mine,” he repeated, opening and closing his hands in front of him. If my sense of self-preservation hadn’t held me back, Sil would have. He had such a tight grip on my hand that it would have been impossible to get away unless I was willing to leave my arm behind.

“Do you have food?” Sil asked Juri.

“
Ya
.” Juri opened a paper sack and removed various unappealing food items. The other Mazikin gathered around, pawing at the bag.

Sil let go of my hand to devote his attention to getting his fair share. “Girl, you go sit there. If you try anything, I’ll send Doris after you.”

Doris, who had a mouthful of something beige and juicy, winked at me and bared her teeth. It took everything I had not
to run, but I managed to walk slowly across the street and sink down onto the curb.

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.