Soulkeeper Page 33

  No amount of training or stealth seemed necessary for tonight, though. Empty did not begin to describe how the streets felt. People were in hiding. Windows were boarded over, less than a quarter of the streetlamps were lit, and the few patrols of guards she spotted were enormous groups detectable from blocks away and therefore easily avoidable. Jacaranda cut through enclosed alleys whenever possible, but sometimes it couldn’t be avoided. At one major crossroad she paused and scanned each of the four directions, seeing no one. She started to cross and hesitated upon realizing she’d forgotten a vital fifth direction: up. She looked to the black sky, the stars, the moon…

  And the shadow of an owl that passed over the moon.

  Jacaranda picked a direction and sprinted. Her hands clutched the hilts of her daggers with white knuckles. The nearest cover was a shelter of the kind that had sprung up all throughout Londheim since the refugees arrived: long slabs of wood and cloth wedged into open crevices to create a shanty. Jacaranda fled toward it with one eye on the sky. She saw nothing but stars. That was meager comfort. The stealthy predator would likely take her before she knew it approached.

  Jacaranda slid to a stop just within the shanty and breathed a sigh of relief. To her surprise, she was not alone in that dilapidated space. Two adults and a child huddled at the far end. Their bodies were covered with thick ash-gray coats and matching gloves. Wide, flat hats rested atop the heads of the two adults, while the small child wore a headscarf. They looked at her with pale yellow eyes, a peculiar family trait. A wave of nausea interrupted Jacaranda’s attempt to address them. Their faces. She couldn’t identify their faces. It was like a haze in her brain. Male? Female? Black? White? Nothing was coming through.

  “Is something wrong?” the one on the left asked in a masculine voice. He lifted his hand toward her. For one brief moment she swore she saw red fur and palms like the paws of a canine. Light like stardust passed over her vision, and suddenly it cleared. The couple weren’t strange, faceless beings. No, they were a tired man and woman with smears of dirt splotches on their faces and rags stuffed into the interior of their coats for warmth. A little girl huddled before them, her arms crossed and her cheeks red from the cold.

  “S-sorry,” Jacaranda said. She sheathed her daggers. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”

  “It’s no bother,” the man said. He smiled wide. Though his face was dirty his teeth were immaculate. “We’re just taking a respite from the weather.”

  “Papa,” the little girl said, tugging on his coat. “Look, look, she’s different.”

  Jacaranda followed her pointing finger to her exposed throat. Her scarf. It’d slipped during her run. She spun sideways while tugging the fabric up below her chin. Her every muscle tensed. Hate it as she might, she would kill to protect her freedom.

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Jacaranda said.

  The husband and wife exchanged glances.

  “No, I think we do,” the husband said. “Her eyes have always been the sharpest. Do you fear us, Jacaranda?”

  Jacaranda positioned her palms atop her daggers. She’d never given them her name. Something was deeply amiss. Whoever this man (was he a man?) might be, he showed no fear of her undrawn weapons. He stepped closer, and closer, his eyes locked onto hers. The pupils took on a feline slant.

  “You are not alone,” he said, his deep voice an edge above a whisper. “This fearful world will make room for the old even if blood must be shed. Should you ever feel ready to use those daggers of yours in the purpose of good, seek us out.”

  “Seek who out?” she asked. Those pale eyes paralyzed her.

  “We are the Forgotten Children. Whisper our name, and you will find us.”

  Back to a tired, poor, dirty man and his family. His wife smiled at Jacaranda so sweetly.

  “You’ll kill to protect your freedom?” she asked. Her hands wrapped lovingly about her daughter. “So will I.”

  Her teeth were suddenly far too white and far too sharp. Jacaranda felt violated. Could they read her thoughts? Did they do so even now? Just what were these three? She took a step back, and then another. The threat of the great owls above seemed meager to the trio down here below.

  “Merry hunting,” the father said. The three rushed past her to the street and then off into the night. They ran fast, faster than a human was capable of. Jacaranda clenched her teeth and pretended not to notice. Damn all the oddities and bizarre things that threatened to swallow up Londheim. She just wanted her vengeance.

  Jacaranda kept a roof or awning above her head the rest of the way, and like a thief in the night she slipped into Quiet District. Only here did she really have to worry about guards patrolling the streets, for even in potential end times the wealthy kept a firm hold upon their valuables. Despite the earlier scare, Jacaranda knew there was only one safe way to approach, so to the tops of the towering spires she climbed. She jumped roof to roof, sliding through twisting bell towers, crocket-coated spires, and interlocked balconies with railings adorned with stone triangles. She climbed one last spire, circled around its top, and looked upon the ugly, overly stretched mansion of Gerag Ellington.

  Nothing could have prepared her for the visceral reaction she felt upon seeing it. Every daydream of returning had been painted red with rage and the satisfying spilling of blood. Gerag suffering. Gerag pleading for his life. A singular focus had fueled her, protected her, but now daydreams broke before reality. Locked-away memories lurched wildly through her consciousness, and no discipline could shove them back.

  In that mansion she’d knelt nightly at the side of a bed stinking of sweat and expensive tobacco. Gerag loomed before her like a creature more appropriate to the dark entangling forest of the Oakblack Woods than a civilized city. Sometimes he forced himself into her mouth. Sometimes he merely finished upon her face and chest. Never in her. In his own words, she was too valuable an asset to risk dying to an unwanted pregnancy.

  The memories assaulted her like stirred hornets. She couldn’t keep them away. The taste. The smell. The sensation of semen on her tongue. She’d never cared. She’d never resisted. He’d lanced pins through her nipples, dripped hot wax across her labia, and ordered her to perform her best imitations of pleasurable noises. Sensations rolled over her along with the memories, and it was as if she relived each and every one for the first time.

  Jacaranda closed her eyes and bit down on her tongue. She had to regain control. The brutal memories faded first, for those she could easily process. Gerag was a beast. He was vile. Of course he would inflict pain and call it pleasure. More stubborn were the memories where he wasn’t cruel. Memories when he was in his kinder moods. Being soulless did not remove physical sensations. It only meant she didn’t care. Now she did care, and in far too many moments she remembered her pleasure in having Gerag inside her, the enjoyable way her body had tightened about him, how it increased her natural breathing rhythms and flushed her neck with heat. She remembered the heightened sensitivity of her skin as he kissed her every inch.

  Guilt wrapped each memory in spiked chains. How could she murder him if she felt such things? How dare a single memory of him not overwhelm her with disgust? Was she confused? She’d spent her entire life absent from her body. Could she really be angry at how it was used? The guilt weakened her protective walls. More memories burst through. Deeper fears.

  What would happen if he captured her? Could… could she go back to what she’d been? Could she live with a real chain about her neck instead of one made of tattoos? For a brief moment she envisioned herself under Gerag’s power and it weakened her knees. She slumped, tears rolling down her cheeks. She’d never experienced anything like these emotions. Jacaranda failed to understand any of them. Horror at the thought of his hand on her skin. Terror at losing control of her life. Guilt for her past actions, no matter how ardently she protested that they were not of her own making. Rage at herself for being so helpless before her doubts and fears.

  All because of that
mansion. That fucking mansion, and its fucking owner. She’d thought to scout it out, but now she wondered if it’d be best to burn it all to the ground, rendering it impossible to return to the mansion’s hidden rooms, its underground trade, and its cruel master with his sadistic perversions. His every whim, she unable to resist. For some that might dampen the joy. For Gerag, it only excited him further.

  Oh shit.

  Jacaranda turned to the side and vomited air and stomach acid.

  “What is wrong with me?” she whispered. She stared at her shaking hands as if they betrayed her. “It’s just a building. It’s just a place.”

  Jacaranda heard the gunshot a fraction of a second before bits of wood splintered free from the shingles and pelted her legs. She immediately turned and slid down the side of the spire opposite Gerag’s mansion. The smooth stone bruised the ridges of her spine until her feet caught the next spire and wedged her in place. Damn it, she’d been here too long. Her high perch might go unnoticed by nighttime travelers (assuming there were any in Londheim anymore), but a dedicated guard would observe more than just the road. She could only count herself lucky that the opening shot had missed.

  Another gunshot, and she flinched involuntarily. The lead clacked upon the opposite side of the spire. It might be her imagination but she swore the sound was perfectly lined up with the position of her head.

  Have to move. Have to get out.

  The need for patience pushed back against her panic. If she waited for the next shot she could flee before the shooter reloaded. She pressed her knees closer to her chest and dropped even tighter into the V-shaped wedge between the spires, making herself as small a target as possible. Come the third shot, she’d roll free and sprint away from the mansion. Patience. Patience.

  That third shot never came. Her nerves steadily frayed. Was the shooter summoning more guards? Gerag had heavily relied on Jacaranda to keep himself safe. With her dead he’d likely overcompensate until he crafted a replacement. There might be more than just the two guards he usually kept inside the mansion protecting his secret basement.

  “I hope you’re not waiting for me to waste a shot,” a man’s voice called from somewhere atop Gerag’s mansion roof. “I have the entire night to kill. Can you say the same?”

  Jacaranda bit down a curse. No, she couldn’t. She envisioned the layered rooftops of the stretched mansion and used the man’s voice to guess where he hid. All of the vantage points would provide easy shots against her if she fled to either side of the spire.

  “Come now, don’t be shy. Surely you know I’d have killed you with my first shot if I wished. Let us talk a bit to alleviate the long, tedious night.”

  Responding meant confirming her sex. Even that was more than she wished to reveal. If this shooter also noticed the color of her hair underneath her hat, or perhaps the color of her eyes… what would it take for Gerag to question Devin’s story about her untimely death?

  “No? Still plan on hiding? Well, I guess that leaves me no choice.”

  No choice? What did he mean by that?

  The answer came in the soft thud atop one of the lower portions of the mansion rooftop. It seemed this mysterious shooter had come to her. Jacaranda readied her daggers. She’d be easier to hit at such a short distance, but at least she could attack back. Better to risk death fighting than fleeing from an unseen bullet.

  Jacaranda waited until she heard the first footstep and then rolled to the left. She slid down the side of the spire to the lower portion that smoothed out onto a flat ridge with tiny iron spikes. In that brief second she took in her foe, analyzing him with cold intellect more akin to her soulless self. He was a muscular man dressed in white. To her surprise, his rifle was slung across his back instead of readied to shoot. A sword hung lazily from a loose grip in his right hand. Weirdly, his buckled shoes were a bold red.

  Does he truly just want to talk? she wondered as her feet touched the rooftop. Perhaps he did. Perhaps not. Her mind was set. One way to prevent Gerag from hearing her description was to kill the man who’d spotted her. She sprang off her toes, a bladed missile aimed straight for the man’s chest. Based on the smile on his face, he was far from displeased by the prospect. Her daggers lunged forward like the fangs of a biting cobra. The man swirled his sword, parrying both safely to the side, and like that, the battle began.

  Jacaranda had never faced someone who fought in such a fluid, elusive way. He didn’t challenge her speed by attacking faster than she might parry. He didn’t challenge her strength with powerful chops that dared her to block. His grasp on his sword never tightened beyond that lazy, comfortable grip. She’d slice and lunge with ever-increasing aggression and he’d casually bat aside the thrusts he could not dodge. When she tried to surprise him with a sweep of her leg, he hopped over it like a child playing a game of jump rope.

  With no apparent reason or timing he suddenly swung onto the offensive, his curved sword looping into circles and figure eights. It drove her mad. Her training was based on the concept of a dance, with each of her actions forcing a reaction from her foe and vice versa. Him? He moved through a series of maneuvers with little regard to her own actions, confident he knew what her reactions would inevitably be. Half the time he didn’t need to parry or block her swings because of her poor aim. Other times he deftly sidestepped and ducked, sometimes before she herself had made the decision to attack. With the small space in which they fought, it should have been hard for him to remain so maneuverable, but he used every inch as if he’d spent his entire life there.

  “This is one way to pass a night,” the man said as his sword ricocheted left to right, batting away her trio of thrusts. “Please, tell a man your name. It feels wrong to be so intimate with a complete stranger.”

  Jacaranda couldn’t shake the maddening feeling that he wasn’t trying to harm or kill her. There was something almost playful about his occasional jabs. She couldn’t decide if he was the better sword fighter, or if his style was so different from her training that she was making poor decisions all throughout the confrontation. She pulled away from another strange, slanted weave of his sword and backed to the edge of the rooftop. Sweat dripped down her face and neck as she sucked air into her lungs. Instead of denying her rest, the man crossed his arms, his blade carefully tucked into his armpit. Beads of sweat trickled across his copper skin.

  “How rude of me,” he said. “Asking for names without giving my own. I am Tye the White, third rank of the Faultless Eye. With whom do I have the pleasure?”

  “Anthea,” she lied. “Are you Gerag’s new hire?”

  “Are you familiar with his old hires?”

  Damn it. Stop giving away information.

  Jacaranda pulled her hat lower, guarding her face from the moonlight. It took all her willpower to keep from checking the position of her scarf.

  “I’m paid to know things,” she said. She’d encountered several hired killers in her life, working both for and against Gerag. Perhaps she could fool Tye into thinking she was one of them. It wouldn’t be unusual for rival businessmen to strike during the chaos. Hard times were coming, and all of them would be jockeying to be the ones who survived, if not thrived.

  “And what do you know of my master’s mansion?” Tye asked.

  “It is poorly guarded by a single man more eager to play than to protect.”

  “How harsh,” the man said with a laugh. “If you weren’t alone I’d have sent my first shot straight through your forehead. I only play games when I know I will win.”

  The insults and the ego merged into a red feral rage in her mind. What she’d give to grab him by that patch of hair beneath his lip and rip off his entire lower jaw. She leapt into a new frenzy, all her skill and training pushed to its limits. Who the fuck cared if he didn’t wish to dance with her. She’d make him. Jacaranda ensured that her every strike would embed somewhere fatal. As counterintuitive to her training as it was, she forced herself to ignore his every action. He would respond to her. If she
took a cut to her arm, she’d live. If he didn’t parry or dodge her stab for his heart, he’d die. A trade she’d happily make.

  Jacaranda thrust once, twice, kicked him in the stomach, and cross-slashed while falling back a step to avoid a desperate counter. Their blades connected. She hooked her right dagger inward and then twisted, pushing Tye’s sword farther outward. Her left hand shot through the opening, her dagger aimed at his eye. He dodged backward, but not without injury. It wasn’t much, just the tip of her dagger lancing a portion of his lower lip, but it felt like a significant victory. Between the two of them, she’d drawn first blood.

  Tye weaved away, adding separation between them. Jacaranda allowed it, a part of her also enjoying the brutal exchange. When she was soulless she didn’t care about the battle except as a means to accomplish what Gerag asked of her. For the first time she felt pride in her abilities, and satisfaction at proving herself equal to or better than her foe.

  Tye wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and glared at the large splash of blood staining his glove. Jacaranda thrilled at seeing his pristinely white outfit tarnished.

  “That’s enough,” he said. “You’ve become a poor guest. It’s time you leave.”

  “No good-bye kiss?” she asked, unable to help herself.

  Tye grinned. Blood rolled down his chin from his split lip.

  “I don’t kiss my whores.”

  He looped his sword in a long, wide circle and then dashed forward with nightmarish speed. There was no playfulness to his probing thrusts, no amusement to his relentless assault. He predicted her parries and forced her to exert additional strength to shove aside a killing blow. The distance between them vanished, and while that should have favored her smaller daggers, he elbowed and kicked with each twist and turn of his sword. Jacaranda’s mind screamed for her to take the offensive, but she couldn’t spare the second to even breathe. Tye was in complete control of this fight, and that meant her defeat was inevitable.