Chaos (6 page)

The Mazikin let its hood fall away from its face. Ugly stitches tracked along its skin and neck. “Only if it’s you,” it said softly.

SIX

T
HE
M
AZIKIN TUGGED AT
its own ears, lifting its head away—and dropping it to the floor. A mask. It had been hiding a man who stared at Ana like she was the only person in the universe. His honey-colored skin was flushed with exertion, and his breaths sawed from his lungs as he pulled furry, clawed gloves away from his very human hands.

“Ana?” His shaky voice drove the breath from my lungs, because it was pure, raw
want
.

Takeshi had found us.

Ana’s face crumpled as she dove into his open arms. Muffled Spanish flowed from her lips as she clung to him. He bowed his head into her shoulder, his arms trembling as he threw them around her. Something about their embrace made my chest feel like it was ripping right down the middle. I closed my eyes, unable to bear it.

A few minutes later, a hand touched my good shoulder, and I looked up to see Takeshi crouching in front of me. Ana stood behind him, tears dripping down her face. “Lela, this is Takeshi,” she said like she couldn’t quite believe it.

“Hi.” I couldn’t summon more than that.

“She said your shoulder is dislocated,” he said in faintly accented English, lifting a fold of my cloak to peek at my right shoulder. “
Aaand
she was right. Can you stand up?”

He offered me his arm, but I couldn’t reach for it. I needed my left arm to hold my right against my body. It was the only way to keep the pain at a level that allowed me to stay conscious. I braced my feet and used the wall to push myself up.

Takeshi rose as well, giving me an assessing look. His gaze lingered on my face for a few seconds before he said, “Neither of you were possessed, were you?” He lifted my cloak again to eye the knives strapped to my legs and waist. Quick as a cat, he snatched one of my blades from its sheath. He held it up to the faint light flowing in from the street. “I know exactly who made these, and it wasn’t anyone in the city. How the hell did you two get here?”

“Raphael made an opening in the dome,” Ana said.

“This is an official mission?” His eyes were wide. “The Judge sent you here? Or”—his jaw clenched—“did she sentence you here?”

Ana put her hand on his shoulder, and he turned to her. “She didn’t sentence us, but she did send us.”

“The lights and the explosions against the dome this morning—was that when you came in? It’s got the guards on the lookout. But I never thought, I never even considered—”

“Malachi was taken,” I blurted out.

“What?” The shock and disbelief on Takeshi’s face sliced right through me. “When?”

“A day or so ago,” I said, my voice breaking. “I don’t know how time passes here, but it hasn’t been that long.” Though it felt like forever.

“
He’s
the one,” he muttered, still looking stunned. “The rumors that they’ve captured a Guard are spreading through the city. I was heading to the square to find out for myself. But I didn’t for one moment think it would be Malachi.”

“Things have changed for him,” said Ana, her gaze drifting over his shoulder to land on me.

Takeshi twisted around to look at me again, almost like he was seeing me for the first time. “Who are you exactly?”

“She sneaked into the dark city from the Countryside to try to rescue a friend of hers,” said Ana. “Malach
i . . .
well, I think he was done from the moment he saw her. And I guess Lela here got herself sentenced to be a Guard right alongside him.”

Takeshi gave me the faintest of smiles. “Poor Malachi.”

I couldn’t return his smile, but I had to agree with his words. If Malachi hadn’t met me, he wouldn’t be here. “The Judge agreed to allow us to try to get him out, as long as we destroy their portal and kill the Queen.”

Takeshi laughed, then stifled it with his sleeve. “So sorry,” he mumbled. “That’s quite a mission.”

“We’ve heard there’s some sort of resistance movement here in the city. Are you part of that? Could they help us?” Ana asked.

The laughter died immediately, and he frowned. “The Resistance is a myth, bred by people who haven’t yet given up hope.”

Ana’s brow furrowed. “You haven’t given up hope.”

“I will
never
give up,” he said, so softly I knew his words were meant only for her. Especially when his voice hardened as he added, “But here I take care of myself, and I cause as much trouble as I can, and that is all there is. All there has been for a very long time.”

Ana glanced at me and looked away. When she’d told me she thought he’d be part of the Resistance, she’d said it with such pride, but this was a reminder she hadn’t seen this man in a decade or so. It was certainly a reminder to me—he’d been a Guard, but did that mean we could trust him? What had so many years in this hellish place done to him and his allegiances?

A soft crackling sound from the street drew our attention. Takeshi cursed. “I lost track of time. The fire hour is coming. We need to get below, and then we’re going to put your arm back in its socket.”

He said it like he did that kind of thing every day. I shoved off the wall as he strode to the center of the room and picked up his Mazikin disguise. “I have a place close by. We won’t be on the streets for long. Still”—he pulled the Mazikin face on over his own—“best to be cautious.”

While Takeshi collected Ana’s knives from the bodies of her victims, Ana tugged on her own cloak, then came over to me. She pulled my hood over my head as I clutched my right arm and swayed unsteadily. Even distracted by my pain, I could see the glow on her face. She didn’t care whether Takeshi had changed. She had been waiting for this reunion for years, and now she had it. I couldn’t begrudge her—I was hoping to have a reunion of my own very soon.

With our hoods low and our cloaks pulled around our bodies, we exited the building. The heat nearly flattened me as I drew the searing air into my lungs. Ahead of me, Ana cringed under the blazing sunlight. The enormous ball of flame, magnified through the dome, was directly overhead. Takeshi glanced up and growled something incomprehensible, and both he and Ana began to jog. I stumbled along as quickly as I could, but each step jarred my shoulder joint. It was all I could do to keep from screaming with every footfall.

A sudden explosion close behind me sent me careening off a wall. Takeshi pivoted on his heel toward me, his cloak swinging, his half-open Mazikin snout leading the way. It bounced off the side of my face as he slid a steely arm around my back and wrenched me away from the wall. He hustled me down the street, muttering urgently in Japanese. A flash of flame erupted not a block away, and I started to turn my head toward the threat, but Takeshi lugged me forward with a sharp, merciless strength.

“Up ahead,” he said to Ana, who was right in front of us, her steps halting as she tried to figure out where to go. She froze in place as another nearby explosion sent a wave of heat at us. Black smoke billowed into the air from the flaming carcass of a mechanized cart up the block.

“Are those car bombs?” I asked as we drew parallel with Ana, Takeshi practically carrying me as I tried to hold my arm still.

“No. It’s the rays of the sun magnified under the dome. We’re going to combust if we don’t get inside,” he said, his voice muffled by his mask.

Ana’s eyes flew wide. Takeshi’s arm was so tight around my waist that I could hardly draw breath. His gloved, clawed hands were digging into my side. “Here, right here,” he said as he propelled me into a generic concrete building, right as a power line crackled above us.

Ana burst through the doorway in a shower of sparks. She threw her hood back and smiled, and I felt Takeshi’s rigid body relax.

“Let me guess,” she said to him. “The fire hour.” Her statement was punctuated by another explosion outside.

“As the sun moves directly overhead, it gets focused through certain weak spots in the dome,” Takeshi replied as he led me across the space, toward a back room filled with a pile of rubble. “The Mazikin have their private dens above and below. The first floors of every building in the city are meant to allow shelter if anyone gets caught out. They are public ground.”

He led us around a few piles of crumbled cement and metal scraps, toward a thick wall at the center of the building. He moved aside a thin sheet of concrete to reveal a large jagged crack. Murmuring to Ana, he guided her inside—and down a hole. My heart beat a little faster as she disappeared. He turned to me. “This is going to hurt.”

I leaned over. Ana was standing in a dimly lit space right below me. “I’ll catch you,” she said softly.

“This is
really
going to hurt,” I muttered, and Takeshi chuckled. Steeling myself, I clumsily edged to the opening in the floor. The hole was about six feet deep, judging by the fact that Ana’s head was right next to my boots as they dangled below me. I could do this. I could take it. I could—

“No more thinking,” Takeshi said. Then he shoved me. With a yelp, I plunged down, landing hard, but Ana managed to catch me before I collided with the floor. Agony exploded in my shoulder, and I clamped my teeth together to keep from screaming.

Takeshi landed lightly next to us, leaving the hole above us completely dark—he’d replaced the sheet of concrete. He pulled his mask off and didn’t look the slightest bit apologetic as he glanced over at me sweating cold drops of distilled pain. “All around you are Mazikin,” he said. “They mostly hide from the elements and sleep during the day, but you never know when one will happen by.”

He gestured at a narrow, rocky tunnel leading downward. Bare, crudely fashioned lightbulbs had been strung every twenty feet or so, allowing me to see that we had a walk ahead of us. Ana went first, and I was behind her. I tried not to be nervous about having Takeshi behind me, but it was hard to relax around him. Finally, after hiking a shallow downward path for a few minutes, we reached a metal door closed with a heavy padlock. Takeshi fished a skeleton key from his pocket and jammed it into the lock, then pulled the door open. His razor-tipped fingers were firm under my elbow as he guided me down another set of stairs, past dripping rock walls toward a glowing light at the bottom. We were deep within the earth, the temperature much cooler than it had been above. My boots slipped on the moist stairs, and I nearly fell, but Takeshi caught me. His build was slim, and he was only a few inches taller than me, but he was clearly stronger than he looked.

At the bottom of the steps lay an open cave-like chamber, complete with a thick pile of goatskin blankets and a satchel leaning against the wall. Takeshi led me to the mound of blankets and gestured for me to sit down.

“You live here?” Ana asked as she reached the bottom of the steps.

“I live nowhere and everywhere,” said Takeshi as he tugged on my cloak, carefully pulling it off me. “There are salt caverns like this all over the city, and I’ve made a few of them into safe chambers. None of them last forever—they eventually cave in or are discovered, and I move on.” He tucked the skeleton key away in his pocket and bent to remove a few of the goatskin blankets from the pile I was sitting on. I leaned to help him and moaned as it jostled my arm.

Takeshi carried the blankets across the room and set them in a corner. He met Ana’s eyes. “We have to get her shoulder back in the socket, then we should all rest. We can’t be on the streets for the next few hours, unless you feel like being cooked alive. You two were taking an incredible risk by being out there at this time of day.”

“Tourist mistake.” Ana stepped around him to squat in front of me. “You okay, girl? You’re really pale.”

“I’m great.” I leaned back against the cool, damp wall and closed my eyes, fighting the urge to puke.

“You don’t have to be tough, Lela,” Ana said gently. “You don’t have anything to prove. That Mazikin would have torn my throat out if you hadn’t been there.”

“Just help me get my arm working again. I won’t be able to fight with my shoulder like this.” The idea of being unable to defend myself in this hellish place was terrifying.

“You’ll be ready to throw punches before the next fire hour.” She inclined her head toward Takeshi. “He’s done this for me before. He’s a pro.”

“But it’s going to be painful,” Takeshi warned.

I didn’t see how it could be more painful than it had been when I was shoved without warning into a hole, but whatever.

He got on his knees in front of me and secured my gaze. His eyes were a cinnamon brown, and I let myself stare, taking in the finely sculpted lines of his face. Silver-pink scarring tracked down the left side of his cheek and neck, but it didn’t ruin him, only made him look more intimidating.

“Try to relax,” he said as Ana scooted over next to me and took my left hand. Takeshi had removed his Mazikin gloves and now cradled my limp right arm in his warm hands. “You have to release the tension in your muscles, Lela, or this isn’t going to work. They’re all seized up around the injury.”

Ana pulled the heavy glove off my arm and stroked the back of my hand. “You’re safe. Just take a deep breath and think of being far away from here.” She paused. “Think about that dance you got to go to.”

“Um, it wasn’t that relaxing, but I’ll try.” And I did. As Takeshi slowly moved my arm, pressing the elbow against my side, I thought back, not to the dance, but right after, to the last time I’d been in terrible pain. Malachi’s voice, soft against my skin, whispered,
I’ve got you.
Just hold on to m
e . . .

I didn’t close my eyes quickly enough to contain the tear that streaked down my face at the memory of how, in that moment, with his cheek pressed to mine and his voice in my ear, I’d given myself over completely, letting him hold me together when I couldn’t do it myself. It had been the best and worst feeling in the world. And now all I had was the shape of it carved onto my heart, the hole he left behind.

Ana’s fingers brushed against my face. “You’re doing great, Lela. Doing great.”

Stars exploded behind my closed eyelids as Takeshi held my elbow still and abruptly levered my lower arm away from my body. As the pressure and pain ratcheted up, I let out a slow breath and imagined Malachi holding me down, keeping me from shattering.