Sanctum (Guards of the Shadowlands, Book 1) (7 page)

I took one more look around the store, trying to figure out if anyone was in charge, and saw nothing but miserable, lost-looking people loading unappetizing food into paper bags.
If that’s how they do it here
…I pulled a paper bag, which was ripped on one side and covered in grease spots, from a nearby stack and walked the aisles in search of rations.

Nothing looked edible.

The apples were spotted and soft. The potatoes had sprouted. The rolls were hard as rocks. Bags of crackers and
chips were stacked on a little cart, but when I tried to grab one, it turned out to be connected to the bag next to it with threads of stretchy brown goo. I yanked my hand back and wiped it on my pants. Apparently, the food here was free, and I could have as much as I wanted. The problem? I didn’t want any of it. I tossed the paper sack, grabbed a few rolls and the least spotty apple I could find, and left as quickly as my scraped-up legs could carry me.

I shoved the rolls in my jacket pocket and chucked the apple into an alley after my thumb sank into one of its mushy spots. I began to explore the city, counting blocks and identifying landmarks, trying not to lose my way completely.

The streets were clogged with people, but each one seemed alone, locked in a private world, oblivious to everyone else. Well, the woman in the food store had spoken to me—sort of—so maybe some of these folks would, too. Time to deploy my secret weapon. I rolled up my right jacket sleeve and approached a woman wearing a sari. “Hi,” I said cheerfully. “Have you seen this girl around?”

The woman blinked up at me, then looked at my outstretched arm. She mumbled something unintelligible. Duh. She probably spoke Hindi. Or Farsi. Or Chinese. It didn’t matter because whatever she spoke wasn’t English, and I was a monolingual girl. She trudged away without looking at me again. I took a deep breath and managed not to scream.

Over the next several hours I showed Nadia’s face to hundreds of people and searched for some hint of recognition in their eyes. Less than twenty of them spoke English. Not that it helped when they did. I couldn’t get anyone to focus on the tattoo for more than a second. All of them walked away pretty much right after that. Some were too absorbed to even respond to my questioning. One guy was sitting on a bench, staring at his outstretched hand. As I tried to get his attention, a small lump of brown ooze grew on his upturned palm, almost like it had slithered from his skin. It twisted and stretched, all on its own, like a living thing, until it finally took shape. A cigar. The guy pulled a few strings of slime from its tip, stuck it in his mouth, and stared straight ahead as he chomped on it.

I backed away slowly, sank down on a stoop, and examined one of the stale rolls, thinking about how stupid and naive I’d been. Nadia could be anywhere within this maze of misery, and all I knew right now was the last place I’d seen her: a hallway with orange walls and dark pink doors. I peeked into the next dozen apartment buildings I came to, but all of them had grayish-purple walls with maroon doors.

I walked out of an apartment building, hitching a smile onto my face to combat the helpless tears threatening to break free.
Stay calm. You have the rest of your afterlife to find her
. I was 156 blocks in. Ahead of me, the pebbled surface of the road stretched into the darkness.

Stuttering steps interrupted my thoughts, and I looked up to see an elderly man approaching me. Unlike everyone else I had encountered, he seemed to be looking at me, seeing me. His face cradled a gummy smile.

“¿
Habla Española
?” he asked.

“Nope. English,” I answered, thinking this was going to be a very short interaction.

“Oh, good. I thought you were one of those spics,” he lisped.

I know I should have been really insulted, but there’s something incredibly funny about a toothless person trying to say “spics.”

Thpickth
.

“Ooh, hey,” I replied, “thank God I’m not one of those. I do happen to be a
spic
, though. Sorry about that.” I almost walked away—it seemed wiser than punching him—but this guy was the most coherent person I’d spoken to since I’d gotten here. So I forced myself to stand there and roll up my sleeve for the hundredth time.

“No matter, no matter.” He licked his lips and cheerfully waved away my undesirable ethnic origins. “Have somewhere to stay?”

“Not yet. I’m looking for someone. Have you seen this girl?” I leaned closer and showed him my arm, noticing in that moment how bad the old guy smelled.
Epic
old-man stink: rot and sick, sweet incense. I scooted back and wrestled with my gag reflex.

The old man’s gnarled fingers encircled my wrist. “Perfect,” he said, squeezing my arm in a shockingly strong grip. “You’re perfect. Come along.”

The horror of hearing those words sent a violent shudder through my body. I clenched my fist and was about to introduce him to my
perfect
uppercut when something grabbed my hair and yanked me off balance. The old man let go of me and sprinted away, eerily spry…
on all fours
, like the animal granny. I didn’t have time to contemplate that, however, because a steel-covered arm was folding itself over my neck.

I bit back a panicked scream and tucked my chin to my chest, slipping free before my new attacker got a good grip on me. I ducked between his tree-trunk legs and was turning to scramble away when he grabbed my left ankle and, with one arm, hoisted me up in the air.

“Your friend got away,” he grunted in heavily accented English as he held me up like a prize, “but you’re not going to find a victim tonight, Mazikin. Tonight, all you’re going to get is me.”

It was, of course, one of the bull-like Guards. Brilliant. Like all the others I’d seen, my current companion wore a heavy helmet and a visor. The only part of his face I could see was his eyes, startling sea-green orbs that glowed like tiny lanterns.

Judging by how far I was from the ground, the Guard was definitely more than seven feet tall and possibly almost as wide. From our first few dance steps, I could tell I was
faster than he was, but that didn’t mean he was slow—I
was
the one hanging upside down, after all. My only advantage was that he obviously didn’t think I was a threat. He hadn’t drawn a weapon yet and was enjoying his strength advantage so much that he’d left his body and legs unshielded. Most of it was covered by armor, but there were open joints…and I had a knife.

Locking my arm against my body to hold the blade in place, I wriggled and squirmed, testing his strength and grip. He was straining, more interested in intimidating me than in conserving his energy. He didn’t anticipate needing it. Thank God for the male ego.

His arm started to shake, sending tremors skittering along my leg. Just as it seemed he would have to put me down or use both arms to hold me, I stomped my right foot against his forearm and raised my arms to catch myself as he dropped me. I hit the ground and jumped to the side when he grabbed at me. Again he tried to get a grip on my hair. But before he could yank me up, I twisted quickly, drew the knife from its sheath, and rammed it into the opening in his armor just behind his knee. He roared and let me go.

I shed my flip-flops and took off running, exalting in my freedom. It lasted about nine seconds. I whirled around a corner and ran smack into another Guard. “I’m not as stupid as he
is,” the guttural voice commented just before something hit me hard on the head and everything went dark.

THE FLOOR BENEATH ME
was cold. I tensed against the shivers, trying to remain still while I figured out where the hell I was.

Oh yeah. Hell
.

I kept my eyes closed and listened. Nearby, deep voices conversed in accented English. The scuffs of their boots against stone, the clank and creak of their armor, the huffs and grunts of their breaths and laughter…there were at least two of them. This was very bad.

I cracked open an eye—a cell. Stone on all sides except the front, which was barred. The Guards were just on the other side. Slowly, carefully, I turned my head. It was more difficult than I expected. First, because my skull felt like it had been
turned inside out. The knot on my temple ached fiercely. Second, because something was wrapped around the lower half of my face.

Oh. God. I was wearing a freaking
muzzle
.

I tried to lift my shaking hands to tug at it. But my hands…they were covered with leather mittens strapped tightly to my arms. Panic snaked straight up my back and into my brain. I sat up quickly.

I regretted it an instant later. My vision blurred and my head throbbed. I leaned over and dry heaved. Fortunately for my muzzled self, my stomach was empty. I curled into a ball on my side and pretended to sink back into unconsciousness, shielding my face with mittened hands but leaving a sliver of space through which I could observe the Guards. They sat at a rough wooden table in the middle of a large room, surrounded on three sides by cells like mine. Some were empty, others occupied; shadows slithered behind the bars. Gas lanterns hung from the walls and ceiling, weakly lighting the windowless space. Three wooden doors marked the rear wall.

One of the Guards noticed my movements. He shot a meaty elbow at his pal and turned to me.

The two of them approached my cage. They looked like twins. Their features were thick and bulbous, with jutting square jaws, bald scalps, and prominent foreheads that hung over glowing, jewel-colored eyes. And they both looked very interested in me.

“I think it’s quite cute, Bilal. Are we sure it’s a Mazikin?” said the one with sapphire-blue eyes. “It doesn’t smell like one.”

“Well, Hani,” answered Bilal, “this one stuck Amid pretty good, which in my estimation makes it less cute and more likely to be a Mazikin.”

“We’ll certainly know once Malachi’s done with it,” Hani mused.

Bilal looked concerned. “Does Amid know it’s awake?”

Hani looked back over his shoulder. “Not yet. I was hoping it would stay down until Malachi got here so he could deal with it.”

All three of us jumped as one of the doors at the back of the room crashed open. Another Guard—the one I’d stabbed. “I was told Malachi has been summoned,” he boomed.

“Amid, it’s procedure to summon the Captain when we capture a live Mazikin,” Bilal said apologetically.

“I will question it myself,” snarled Amid. He pulled a set of skeleton keys from a peg on the wall and fingered them. When he found the right one, he jammed it into the keyhole at the door of my cell.

Bilal laid a hand on Amid’s arm. “Remain in control of yourself.”

Amid jerked his arm away. “I will question it. I bet I can get it to spill its secrets before Malachi steps over our humble threshold. Then he will see who’s in control.”

Hani looked at Bilal and shook his head. “Let’s go get something to eat.”

Bilal looked disgusted, but all he said was “Malachi will not be happy.”

My heart sank as I watched them disappear through the door on the far left side of the room.

Amid wrenched open the door of my cell and took a few cautious steps inside. I lay still but could not completely conceal my helpless, terrified tremors.

“Oh good,” Amid chortled evilly, “you’re awake.” He nearly took one of my arms out of its socket as he dragged me to my feet. “Let’s go someplace where we can talk, just you and me.”

Amid yanked me out of the cell and shoved me in front of him. It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other. My head was killing me.

He clamped his enormous hands around my arms from behind. The hot tar of memory started to bubble up from the caverns of my mind. I shook my head to try to stay in the moment, knowing I’d need every bit of wit and cunning I had to make it out of this situation alive. I immediately found out shaking your head after you’ve just gotten a concussion is a really stupid idea, though, and was almost carried away by the waves of nausea that crashed over me.

Amid guided me roughly toward the door on our left and locked an arm around my neck as he tugged it open. Some of those thick, sticky memory bubbles popped, and I thrashed
as he edged up hard behind me. Then he kicked me right at the base of my spine. I landed on my side on the rough cement floor and scrambled to my feet, but it felt like my vertebrae were in pieces, and I couldn’t quite stand up straight. The floor suddenly looked very inviting.

I backed against the rear wall as Amid advanced. “I said I just wanted to talk,” he explained as he reached out. “I’m going to take off your muzzle and mitts, and you’re going to be a nice little monster, all right? Relax, Mazikin—I’m going to give you something you want.”

I stood still as he unbuckled my restraints. As soon as they were loose, I scooted away. “Thanks,” I said as I put as much distance between us as possible. The room was large, but not nearly large enough for my liking.

“How’s your leg?” I asked as my gaze streaked along the walls. The only way out was the door we’d just come through. Amid grunted by way of an answer and watched me with an expression that was a nauseating combination of amusement and hatred. “By the way,” I added as I edged a few inches closer to the door, “just to clear things up, my name’s not Mazikin. It’s Lela.”

His sea-green eyes narrowed, and he knelt to pull his hunting knife from its sheath. “You can call yourself whatever you want.” His gaze bored into mine as he sent the knife sliding across the floor toward me. “Now—try to cut me again.”

Well, shit
.

Because I had no choice, I scooped the knife from the floor. I wondered whether it was going to be plunged into my flesh sometime in the next few minutes. It seemed highly likely.

“I thought we were going to talk,” I said in what I hoped was a friendly voice. “I really
am
sorry about your leg. You kind of caught me by surprise. Survival instinct, you know. Nothing personal.”

I shuffled sideways, trying to find a path to the door that kept me out of his reach. He grunted again and stalked toward me. Crap. This guy was going to slaughter me, and I had no idea why, apart from the fact that I’d escaped the first time he’d tried. It seemed like a case of mistaken identity—he kept calling me a Mazikin, and I had nothing to do with those sword-wielding folks the other Guard had killed. I crouched low (in part because I couldn’t actually stand up straight) and realized I had nowhere to go. He was now between me and the door.