Chaos (13 page)

TWELVE

T
WO OF THE
S
MITH’S
men grabbed Takeshi’s arms and dragged him back from their boss, but it only took a moment for him to dispatch them. His eyes flashed dark and fierce as he vaulted over the Smith and onto the table. He raised his hand above his head.

He was holding a grenade. “I brought you a present,” he said quietly to the Smith, who pressed himself next to Ana, against the metal back of the platform. “Watch this.”

Takeshi threw the grenade over the heads of the crowd. It landed near the group of Mazikin who had been hovering by the fence. They flinched away but then padded closer to the small black sphere. Their noses twitched as they sniffed at it.

I turned my head as the deafening explosion flattened me against the metal wall and rattled my chains. When I opened my eyes, Takeshi was standing in front of me and Ana, single-handedly battling three men. The Smith was nowhere to be seen. Screams and shouts melded together in a tidal wave of noise.

A skinny man with knobby fingers slipped behind Takeshi and began to reach for him, but Ana wrenched her legs up and around his neck before the guy could do much else. With a sickening crack, he fell to the floor of the platform.

“Thanks,” Takeshi called out without turning around.

“Back up a few,” said Ana.

He obeyed her immediately. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he continued to fight, and in an instant, she’d pulled her shackled wrists from the hook above her head. She dropped to the platform. Her dark eyes slid over me. “Hang tight.”

“Very funny,” I muttered.

In an instant, she’d commandeered the torture table. Even with her hands shackled, sharpened implements were flying in all directions, felling opponents who went plunging off our raised stage with screams and surprised yelps. “We have to get to that opening in the fence,” she said in a breathless voice.

“Or I could make us another one,” said Takeshi as he finished off another opponent. He reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out another precious grenade. He hurled it toward the section of fence closest to us, knocked yet another man off the platform, and whirled to face me. “Time to go, Lela,” he said softly, then grasped my waist and lifted me. My hands pulled free of the hook, and my arms fell limp in front of me. Searing pain radiated from the hole in my stomach, causing me to stumble.

“Sorry I couldn’t stop him before he did that,” Takeshi said. “I didn’t expect you to fight them.”

“Instinct,” I gasped as he dragged me to the steps of the platform.

“Ana,” Takeshi called.

“Behind you. I’ll cover your exit,” she replied.

Boom
. We were knocked backward as the fence in front of us was blasted open in a blinding flash that shook the steps beneath our feet. People squealed and scattered, so that the square was now dotted only with a few Mazikin and a handful of the Smith’s guards. I had no idea where their leader had fled to, though I wished he’d stayed to fight. I would have enjoyed seeing Takeshi give him a taste of what it felt like to have a blade thrust through his stomach.

We heard Mazikin growls and snarls behind us. They were closing in fast. Takeshi carried me toward the wide section that had been blown open in the fence, but from the corner of my eye I saw a member of the enforcement squad galloping toward us on all fours. “Tak—” I began, but then the Mazikin was felled by Ana—with a knife to the skull.

Halfway down the steps, she waved us toward the street as she turned to face another charging creature.

Downed Mazikin were scattered around the yard, torture implements embedded in their throats and chests. Takeshi dragged me onto the road beyond the fence and dropped me there. “Ana,” was all he said by way of explanation.

I lay on the rough concrete, staring at its crumbling surface and listening to the animal cries of pain coming from the yard. Then Ana and Takeshi appeared. They each grabbed one of my arms, and we were off, my toes skimming the ground as we fled along near-empty streets. We took a series of turns down dark alleys before diverting into a sort of alcove that smelled of garbage and pee. As we paused, I heard distant cheering once again. Ana cursed and said something in Spanish to Takeshi. He replied, and she fell silent.

Takeshi leaned close and examined my face in the dim glow of lights from windows above us. “I took the first chance I had to get you out.”

I wanted to ask him where he had disappeared to, but I didn’t have the breath or strength.

“It’s all right,” said Ana. “Excep
t . . .
” She pressed in next to him and gazed at my face. “You are so stupid,” she said to me, giving me a little shake. But her voice was gentle.

“She’ll heal,” said Takeshi. “Though not completely and not well.”

Ana’s expression twisted. “Is there anything that would help?”

Takeshi pursed his lips. “I can think of one thing, but Lela might not like it. We have a choice now, go to my safe chamber or—”

“Anything,” I said in a weak voice. “I need to be able to fight.”

“In all my years in the city,” said Takeshi, “I have seen many strange things. But the strangest of all might be the key to Lela’s recovery. It’s rare, but I’ve seen it work. Lela’s one of the few people in the city who might have access to it.”

“And what’s that?” asked Ana.

“Come on,” he said, picking me up again. “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

“Where are we going?”

“Back to Zip. Lela needs to be with her mother.”

Takeshi and Ana supported me as we crept along alleyways and scrambled across streets, making our way closer to the square.

“What about the Smith?” Ana asked as we walked. “Won’t he alert the Mazikin to our presence? He knew we were here for Malachi, even if he doesn’t understand the entire plan.”

“Oh, he’ll warn them. But we made sure none of the Mazikin in the yard lived to tell about it, and most of the people and creatures out tonight were already near the square where the Queen is putting on her show. Only those loyal to the Smith and his Mazikin cronies went to see who he’d captured. He has a history of torturing troublemakers in his courtyard, and I suspect no one thought you were much different.”

“But he knew we were like you,” said Ana. “And he was furious. He wanted to catch you.”

“He wanted to please his masters,” answered Takeshi in a tense voice.

“He said you’d caused a lot of trouble,” I mumbled. I hated the Smith, and hated what he’d done, but in a way, it made sense. Takeshi had been hell-bent on provoking the Mazikin, but I wondered if he’d considered the repercussions for the ordinary humans in the city. The Smith said they’d been punished for the crimes Takeshi committed. No wonder they hated him.

“We have a little time before they’re alerted.” Takeshi pulled me into yet another alley barely in time to avoid being hit by a passing cart that was spewing black fumes into the lamplit road. “We left a real mess for the Smith to clean up, and by dawn, no one will be on the streets. But as soon as the sun goes away, he’ll send someone to warn the Queen.”

“Which means we have to rescue Malachi before then,” Ana said quietly. “If the Mazikin know we’re here to rescue him, they’ll try to make it impossible. Tonight might be our only chance to get him out of there.”

“Agreed,” I said in a choked voice.

“Agreed,” echoed Takeshi. “Here we are.”

They guided me down a set of cramped stairs and into a rocky tunnel. My pants were stiff with blood and God knows what else seeping from the gaping hole in my stomach, and it felt like half of my face had been torn away. We reached a closed metal door. Takeshi scratched at it and whined and coughed, no doubt saying something in the Mazikin language.

The door opened quickly, and Zip appeared, wearing a goatskin dress. Her claws were now painted white. As they carried me into her den, I heard a tangle of languages I couldn’t understand. Takeshi spoke in Mazikin to Zip. Ana spoke in Spanish to both of them. Takeshi and Ana spoke Japanese to each other. I let them lower me to a goatskin pallet, staining it red. The hurt was fathomless. I was drowning in it.

Someone poked at my forehead.
“Qué se robaron los dientes?”
whispered a voice I knew to be my mother’s.

Ana answered her in Spanish, and whatever she said made my mother cry out. She turned me over and pulled me against her, amber eyes gazing into mine. They were lucid once again, full of concern. She squinted at my mouth, ignoring my attempts to shrink away.
“Me alegro que todav
í
a tienes los dientes. Pero si te los hubieran robado, te daría los míos.”

“Why does she keep asking about Lela’s teeth?” Ana asked.

Takeshi shrugged absently, completely focused on me and my mother. “I don’t know if this will work.”

My mother began to stroke my hair.

“Stop,” I said hoarsely. It was too much. Too weird. Too painful. But I was too weak to move, so all I could do was beg her in words she didn’t even understand. Tears burned my eyes as my gaze found Ana’s. “Make her stop. Make her leave me alone.” I feebly swiped at her hands as they smoothed curls off my forehead.

Takeshi’s face appeared over mine. “We can’t, Lela. Not if you want to heal.”

“Can’t I heal without her squeezing me like this?” I could barely breathe.

He shook his head. “Sorry. She has to be touching you.” He gave me a faint smile and explained. “Many years ago, I was hiding in an abandoned den when I heard a commotion outside. I peeked out to see a man carrying a woman who had been badly mauled by a Mazikin. He set her down, both of them too tired and injured to go on. And there, right in that quiet tunnel, I saw the only miracle I have ever seen in this terrible place. He kissed her face and held her close. He was crying. Though I’ve seen many tears here, most people are in too much pain to cry for anyone but themselves. But he was crying for her.”

“So the fact that he cared for this woman was a miracle?” Ana asked, sounding unimpressed.

My mother began to rock me. She was singing some song that echoed in my head uncomfortably, scraping the walls of my skull, making it impossible for me to pull away from myself. Her heart beat loudly in my ears.

“If you understood what it was like here, you’d know that it was a true miracle,” he said softly, turning to Ana and running his fingers along the side of her face and her throat, then down her arm. “But also, it was more than caring, and more than simple kindness. It’s the only reason I can think of for what happened next. The woman healed. So quickly that I couldn’t believe it, so well that within an hour, she was rising to her feet, despite the fact that she’d almost been gutted. Her skin knitted together and—”

Takeshi leaned down and pulled up my tunic. I grabbed his wrist automatically, and he grinned. “You’ve got some strength back in your grip.” He looked over at Ana. “It’s definitely working.”

I released his arm, meeting his eyes as he added, “And your wound is closing.”

Stunned, I glanced at my belly, blood-smeared but no longer bleeding. My mother hadn’t loosened her grasp, and she was still singing, smiling to herself dreamily, her cheek pressed to mine, like it were seventeen years ago, when I was still her baby and she was still herself.

“Love,” he whispered. “You are one of the few humans in this city who is
loved
, Lela.”

I blinked up at him, noticing how the pain was fading, how my belly tingled and my whole body felt warm. This was so much better than the healing I’d experienced at the hands of Raphael, whose technique felt more like being burned alive. This wa
s . . .
nice. It was comforting. And as I lay there, my mother’s unfamiliar arms wrapped around me, a truth bled into me and spiraled its way along my limbs. Rita Santos—my mom—loved me. She might have left me. She might have failed me. But despite that, her love was real. Imperfect, yeah, but deep and enduring. It was a big feeling, pushing at the fortress around my heart. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Takeshi and Ana settled in against a wall next to us, seeking rest and haven in each other. “We’ll go at sunup,” said Takeshi. “Before the fire hour. We’ll rest until then.”

“Malachi,” I whispered. “We never got what we needed to unlock his chains.”

Takeshi chuckled. “You think I’d let your sacrifice go unrewarded?” He reached into his pocket and held up a beautiful, intricate metal treasure. “It’s why I had to wait for the right moment to rescue you. I needed to snatch the Smith’s master key.”

A few more hours and we’d save Malachi. With that knowledge, I sank into my mom’s arms, letting her improbable, flawed love make me new again.

THIRTEEN

I
CROUCHED IN AN
alley a block from the square, sweat dripping down the side of my face.

Ana squatted next to me, peering at the sunbaked concrete. “It must be like an oven in that square. Takeshi said it’s almost the fire hour.”

“So I guess we’d better hurry.” I stared into her dark eyes.

“Hey, who’s the Captain here?” she said, but it lacked bite. I knew she wanted to get Malachi out of there. She just didn’t want to be incinerated in the process, and I couldn’t blame her.

Takeshi appeared silently behind us. “There are only two guards in the square, at least that we can see. There are probably a few others in the buildings around the perimeter. Very soon, they’ll all be inside when the fire hour arrives, but that will also be the most dangerous time to enter the square. Malachi is under a shelter because they won’t allow his body to be entirely destroyed.”

Unwilling to offer him even a few hours’ worth of wholeness, they didn’t want him to die and reappear at the city gates. Instead, they kept him barely alive and suffering constantly. My rage flowed through me, powerful and hotter than any flame.

“We can’t let any of them escape and raise the alarm,” said Ana.

“Then we should go now.” Takeshi raised his hood and then reached into his cloak and pulled out the Smith’s master key.

“You want me to do it?” I asked.

Ana nudged my elbow, urging me to take it. “I think you’re the best person for that job.”

I accepted the key. “You two can handle the guards?”

Ana nodded, eyeing the grenade belt slung over Takeshi’s chest. We didn’t want to use them if we didn’t have to—we had only six left thanks to Takeshi’s efforts in the Smith’s yard. But if we needed them, the fire hour would be the perfect cover, since explosions were common at that time of day and therefore wouldn’t bring Mazikin running to investigate. “We’ll take care of them.” She turned to me. “Malachi will need to hear your voice, Lela. Make sure you talk to him. He’ll need any motivation you can give him to climb down off that platform.” She gave me a sad, solemn look. “He’s in bad shape, and—”

“I know, Ana. Let’s just go get him, okay? Is Zip waiting?”

“She is,” said Takeshi. “She has a view of the square from one of the passages above her den. She’s watching and ready.”

“Then that’s it. Thank you both,” I said quietly, gripping the key in my fist.

I followed Takeshi along the alleyway. The heat intensified the stench of the city: roasting meat, gasoline, blood and shit and sweat.
This,
I thought,
is what hell smells like.
I pulled my hood over my hair as the sunlight hit me, searing my skin. Amazingly, though, I felt strong, ready to roll through my enemies. Love had healed me, and now my love would save Malachi. It had to.

We stood in a corner of the square looking out across the expanse. I’d have to run straight across it and climb the steps to get to Malachi, who stood beneath a broad piece of corrugated metal. His sweat ran in trickles, working thin rivulets through the blood that coated his skin. His eyes were closed. The wound stood out, ghastly and huge, below his rib cage. Tears pricked my eyes as I watched him. Once again, I considered what all of this trauma might have done to him. Was he still in there?

I pushed the fear away. He would be whatever he was, and the only thing that mattered was saving him from more suffering. “The guards look pretty miserable over there,” I whispered, pointing at the bedraggled-looking creatures that crouched on either side of the steps with their hoods pulled low over their heads, not even their snouts peeking out.

Takeshi, who was standing beside me, inclined his head toward a wide building that took up most of the block next to the huge cement archway that marked the road to the Bone Palace. “The other guards are probably there. The only threat they expect is from Malachi himself, but they can see as well as we can that he can’t go anywhere now.”

“Okay,” I said hoarsely, tucking the key into the pocket of my pants. “I can take out one of those guards by the platform, but not both.” I pulled a knife and held it in my right hand, the solid, welcome weight an extension of my body.

“I’ll take the one on the left, closest to the archway,” said Ana.

“And I’ll take the ones in the building,” said Takeshi. “They’ll be sleeping. Ana will help me when she’s finished with hers. Lela, when you get him loose, the entrance to Zip’s den is there.” He pointed to an alley at the opposite end of the block from us. “She’ll be waiting to get him below before anyone knows what’s happening.”

“Got it.” A few blocks away, a percussive boom shook the ground at our feet. The fire hour was starting.

“Now!” Ana cried.

We sprinted into the square. My cloak billowed behind me as my feet pounded the concrete. My soft-soled boots were so silent the Mazikin guard wasn’t aware I was coming until I was less than twenty feet away. It yipped loudly and reared onto its hind legs, but I was on it before it could draw the dagger from its belt. I used its upward motion against it, ducking low and driving up knife-first, burying my blade in the guard’s stomach and twisting. Blood flowed over my hands as it jerked. I yanked the knife out quickly and wrapped my arms around its flailing, snapping body, then hurled it to the ground. Across the square, the screech of the other Mazikin guard stopped abruptly as Ana did her thing. My opponent was still kicking and gasping. Its claws caught in my cloak but didn’t tear it, and I let it struggle as I straightened up and stabbed down with all my strength, right into the Mazikin’s throat. It gurgled and went limp.

I jumped for the steps, still hearing the sounds of frantic fighting coming from inside the building where Takeshi was taking on the remaining guards. But I didn’t pause or even look in his direction—my mission was Malachi, and I had eyes only for him. Malachi didn’t seem aware of the noise or the fighting or the heat. His eyes stayed closed as I reached the top of the platform and pulled the key from my pants.

My heart squeezed painfully at the sight of him, so close at last, so torn up. “Malachi,” I said softly, putting all my hope into that one precious word. “Malachi, it’s Lela.”

At the sound of my voice, his eyes flew open and landed on me. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a quiet moan. His lips were moving, but he didn’t seem able to put any breath behind his words. I gently touched one of the few uninjured places on his chest. He flinched, and my fingers drew back slick with his sweat and blood. “Shhh, I’m here.”

The manacle around his neck was the first to go. I jammed the key in the lock and sent a silent prayer of thanks skyward as it turned easily and allowed the heavy iron cuff to swing away from his throat. He groaned as his head fell forward. I knelt at his bleeding, blistered feet and unlocked the manacles at his ankles. I freed his right arm, which fell heavily at his side, revealing deep wounds in his wrists where he’d tried to pull himself loose. Bracing his body with mine, averting my eyes from the barely closed wound covering his reforming heart, I unlocked the manacle on his left wrist.

And then he was free. He sank onto me, and I couldn’t hold him up. He was over six feet tall and outweighed me by about sixty pounds. We fell to our knees beneath the shade of the metal overhang, his sweaty face against my neck, his arms limp and twitching. To my left I heard an explosion and a scream. I couldn’t tell if it was human or Mazikin, but it didn’t matter. “Malachi,” I whispered. “Open your eyes and look at me. Look at me, Malachi. Please.”

“I wish you were really here,” he said weakly.

“I
am
here,” I said, the tears springing to my eyes. “And I need you. I need you to stand up and help me. We’re getting out of here.”

He winced as a wistful smile pulled at the raised claw marks on his face. “I miss your scent. Wind and salt. Like the sea. Wil
d . . .
” He slumped against me. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

“Oh God,” I said, my voice breaking. This wasn’t working. He didn’t believe I was real. I took his face in my hands, as carefully as I could manage. “Malachi? Come on, open your eyes. I’m right here.”

“I miss you,” he mumbled, but his eyes stayed closed. “So much.”

The heat at my back was nearly unbearable. My spine was being hard-boiled; I needed to move. I gazed into his face, the dark circles around his eyes, the wounds on his right cheek, the blood on his lips, and a desperate idea hit me. For the last seventy years, Malachi had been a Guard. It was who he was. It was more real to him than nearly anything else.

I swallowed hard and mustered as much volume as I could. “Get up, Lieutenant,” I barked. “That’s an order!”

His eyelids fluttered. “Hmm?”

“Up,” I snapped, holding my face close to his. “Get. Up. That is an
order
.”

He blinked slowly, like he was trying to clear his head. His gaze sharpened as he focused on my face. He grabbed my arm, holding on to me for balance. “Lela?” His hand landed on the side of my neck, and he pulled me close, until we were nose to nose. “You can’t be here. They’l
l . . .
I won’t let them.”

It broke my heart. He was worrying about
me
. “Then I need your help,” I said as his metallic breath huffed against my face. “I’m not leaving this platform unless you’re with me.”

His muscles tensed beneath my palms, but his limbs wouldn’t quite work right, and he couldn’t rise to his feet. I slid my arms around his waist, ignoring his sharp intake of breath as my chest pressed against his, putting pressure on the wound at the center of his body. With all my strength, and a little help from him, I pushed us up to standing and held him as he raised his head.

He froze, muttering something I didn’t quite catch.

I looked up into his face, terrified that I had caused him unnecessary pain in my clumsy attempts to get us moving. “Are you okay?”

He swallowed, his gaze riveted on something over my shoulder. He repeated what he’d just said, and this time I understood it: “Behind you.”

I’d blocked out the rest of the world over the last few minutes, because I was so focused on Malachi and what he needed. That had been a terrible, stupid mistake. I twisted around. We were completely surrounded. Not by Mazikin. By people. Arrayed silently on the steps behind us, daggers sheathed in their belts. I searched their faces, mostly concealed beneath hoods, and didn’t recognize a single one. Ana and Takeshi were nowhere among them. The dark-cloaked leader in the center took a few steps toward us, lifting her hood and showing me her face. Pale skin and white-blond hair. The one I’d seen in the city, near the factory, and in the square two nights ago.

I reached behind me, holding Malachi steady as his legs began to buckle. “Who are you?” I tried to sound braver than I felt. Were these people loyal to the Smith? An
d . . .
had Ana and Takeshi been taken? Had they been killed?

The pale woman smiled, but it didn’t reach her ice-blue eyes. “I’m Treasa Kirwan, servant of the Tanner,” she said in a loud Irish-accented voice that cooled the temperature in the square at least ten degrees. “And you’re coming with us.”