My Black Beast (9 page)

Lowell shrugged and bit into it. Not good. He
dropped the fork back into the bowl and almost gagged. The meat,
whatever it was, tasted like a combination of chicken gristle and
old shrimp. He wasn’t hungry yet and counted that as a sort of
blessing. He’d probably need to eat it eventually and he hoped that
the future need would make it easier to stomach. Other than the
awful taste, it was bland. Like muddy water that’d been filtered so
it still has that earthen taste but none of the grit. The better
part of an hour passed, filled with poking at the weird meat and
wondering if he was being tortured or treated to a fine
delicacy.

It wasn’t long before the door started its hum
again. Really, it seemed a bit busy for a prison cell. He stood,
not sure what to expect. A pair of guards led in, and grabbed him
by his arms. They didn’t stop at just securing him and it was his
back slamming against the far wall that signaled the end of the
short trip. The old man was behind them, walking briskly, a frantic
look on his face. He looked dead at Lowell.

“
Marka! She gave you a
thing?!”

“
What? No.”

“
DO NOT LIE!”

“
She didn’t give me anything!
Jesus! Let me go!”

The old man ignored him and began to paw over
his jacket and pants squeezing things.

“
Hey! HEY! What the hell,
man?”

Lowell would have turned his pockets out if
he’d just asked. Degoed began patting the flats of his clothes,
looking for anything he could find. Lowell had hardly noticed until
the Elder hit on the locket and lifted up his shirt. The old man
reached out to grab it and Lowell’s eyes flared. With every ounce
of blind rage, he raised a leg and plunged it into the plush robes.
He thrashed wildly against the wall.

“
NO, FUCK YOU! YOU DON’T TOUCH
THAT! THAT BELONGS TO ME!”

He was screaming wildly and the guards were
struggling to hold him still, both looking terribly nervous. The
crumpled form pushed up from the ground and stood, clutching his
ribs. Fair dues by any count. The Elder said a few words through
hushed, heavy breaths and the guards let Lowell go.

“
A precious thing. I do understand
it. I make apologies again, Lowell.”

The tone of the broken English didn’t match
the words. He was sorry, certainly, but it had nothing to do with
keeping him prisoner or the events that led to the kick. He wanted
something. Something Lowell didn’t have.

Whatever he wanted was elsewhere and so the
Elder Werra turned and left without another word.

Chapter 9

Counting the passing of days
by way of
sleeping seemed to be a decent enough way to go about things. He’d
just invent days and sort of keep track in his head. There was
nothing in the room strong enough to mark the walls in any
meaningful way. He’d tried to keep his jacket on as well, so he
wouldn’t lose it or so that they couldn’t take it but the room was
so standard in its temperature that he’d given up on the idea that
he’d need it. He tossed it around from time to time just to give
himself something to look at.

Lowell wondered what his mother must be
thinking by now. Cops had probably been all over his apartment
looking for stuff. It had only been three days or so but that was
likely enough for them to start looking for him. He doubted they’d
look wherever he was now. Didn’t seem like the sort of place that
was on the SPD patrol list. Did they rule that sort of thing a
suicide? Seemed likely in his case. No one was apt to talk about
how chipper and full of life he generally was.

A frown swept over his face and he looked down
at the locket. He’d been holding onto it a lot more since the old
man had last visited. He opened it for the first time in years and
it squeaked a high pitch little squeak. Inside was the picture of a
girl of twelve. She had a soft face and a big, dopey grin. Her long
brown hair was a mess in the picture. Lowell shut the locket and
shut his eyes. He gripped the jewelry tightly and muttered
apologies into the stale air of the white cell.

Another sleep crawled by and Lowell decided to
do something at least. Marka was probably dead by now. That had to
be what that old asshole had meant. He was doing some jumping jacks
and pushups and the like when he heard shuffling on the observation
area. A guard he’d never seen before had come by and was talking to
his watchers. They looked down at him a few times and laughed
occasionally. One of the guards mimed a large bite being taken and
they all looked like they’d die from how hilarious whatever he’d
said was.

What was he miming? Lowell remembered the
creature that Marka had killed those nights ago and there was a
sinking feeling. They didn’t have one captive, did they? Not that
he was exactly stoked on the idea of being killed by weirdoes in a
sewer city, but this was across more than a few lines. They were
bringing him bowls of meat slop a few times a day, maybe he could
catch the door and pull it open.

He took up his perch in front of the door and
waited. And waited. And got bored and started drawing things on the
door with his finger. Or, at least, he was pretty sure he was in
front of the bit that was the door. Whatever seam there might’ve
been was hidden completely. His legs had started to hurt from
sitting on the floor so he got up to move around a bit. He hadn’t
been pacing for long when he heard a few faint thuds from above. He
ran back to look and the guards normally overlooking his cell
weren’t at their posts. He ran back over to the wall, waiting
expectantly for the door to open, but it did not. He kept himself
at the ready in spite of the lack of movement. He couldn’t miss
this opportunity.

Rather than the smooth slide of the door,
there was a sudden shudder under Lowell’s feet. The ground moved.
He looked down just as the sound came. A massive rumble followed by
a sound like someone was tearing a flock of birds in half. Even
through the stone it was near deafening. Lowell fell to his knees,
covering his ears for whatever little good it would do. There was
another sound among it. He could swear it was a roar. The sounds
seemed to ebb for a half second before picking back up. When the
noise dropped he heard a deep thud against the far wall. The wall
that lead outside.

Lowell pressed his back against the near wall,
hands still on his ears. This was bad. There was definitely a roar
in there. A crack formed low in the wall. He could see the weight
of the impacts now, growing the fissure with each strike. It began
to spider outward and soon pieces began to fall. One final blow and
a hole formed. It wasn’t large, but he watched it intently against
the insistent warnings of whatever shred of instinct was left in
him.

On the other side he saw the swift spin of
whirling dreadlocks and the hole widened more.

“
MARKA!”

He called out but stayed where he was. Another
five strikes and the space had widened to the point that he could
get through so Lowell stood and moved toward the edge. She stopped
kicking as he came near. The opening was a tight fit but he made it
through and stood outside for the first time in what seemed like
forever. He’d wished for a breeze or anything of the sort, but
there was nothing. Nothing to differentiate the air from the inside
of the cell. The same light and air and smells. In the distance,
there was a massive flow of smoke from an adjacent building. It
moved up into the air along with the sounds of shouts and the odd
inhuman screech or creak. The smoked shifted and for a second he
could swear he saw a jagged line of light that looked like frozen
lightning.

He looked down at Marka, remembering she had
been the one to free him. Her leg was glowing intensely and her
face was stern. The skin between the tattoos was hot red and there
was no possible way she wasn’t in pain. Her expression softened
when her eyes caught his and she grabbed the edge of his shirt,
pulling him away from the hole in the wall and from the chaos
behind them.

There were no guards the entire run toward the
front gates that Lowell hadn’t even realized were there on his trip
inside. He figured he couldn’t really be blamed for that. The
guards must have been all pulled to that massive collapse. Lowell
watched Marka as they ran. She was favoring her tattooed leg just
the slightest bit now that the glow had disappeared.

They took a much less direct route through the
streets than the guards who had dragged him to wherever he was
locked up. The area was much more obviously lived in, with clean
streets and well-kept walls on all the houses they passed. Had they
just consolidated for some reason? Moved everyone inward? Maybe it
was something worse, hard to tell. Certainly there was physical
damage that had been done to outlying buildings. Maybe those
monster things tunneled in out there?

The scenery blew by without so much as Lowell
feeling particularly winded. Whatever the girl had done in the cell
had worked. Or maybe it was the awful meat he’d forced himself to
choke down. Either way he was finding he could more or less keep up
with Marka’s ruthless march forward.

Soon enough they were well out of the center
city and were moving for the outskirts. Street after street passed
and some of the terrain began to feel familiar. Lowell was willing
to believe his mind was playing tricks until they came to a stop in
front of a crumbled wall.

“
No, Marka. This… we shouldn’t be
here.”

She tugged on his shirt and went in without
him. Standing alone in the street he gave a final plea to no
one.

“
They know about this
place.”

She knew that, surely. He followed her in to
find her rooting around the bookshelf, flipping through each of the
books and tossing them to the ground when they didn’t hold whatever
she was looking for. Lowell watched quietly as she ran through each
tattered book left on the shelf. She came to one he recognized and
started flipping. It was the book with the picture. He felt a
strange sinking feeling as she flipped through it.

Sure enough, she came to the picture and
pulled it free. Marka turned and held it up for Lowell. She brought
it to him and handed him the picture, pointing to it.

“
I don’t understand. It’s a
picture. Is this your mother?”

She nodded and pointed to the woman’s neck.
Lowell hadn’t seen it before, but she wore a ring on a thin chain
around her neck. It was barely visible in the rough
rubbing.

“
The ring? Is this what that old
man wanted?”

Marka stepped back and motioned for him to
turn around. He did. There was a distinct sound of stone sliding
against stone. It didn’t last long and then it happened again. A
tug at his clothes told him to turn around again. She held the ring
up to show him.

She took the picture from him and placed it
flat in her hand. She put the ring in the center of the paper but
nothing happened. She looked at it a moment, curiously, and
adjusted the ring. Another second’s wait and the ring began to let
off a slight hum. It filled with the magical light that he’d seen
so often and as it did, it pulled the etching away from the paper,
leaving bits behind here and there. The ink sucked toward the
middle of the page and up through the halo of the ring. When it was
done the page that had held the picture now held words in a script
he couldn’t decipher but he knew the shapes well enough.

She handed him the paper and pointed to the
ring and then back to the paper. He didn’t understand. The ring
maybe had some sort of hiding magic? Maybe they were supposed to
hide with it?

“
The ring hides things?”

She shook her head impatiently.
“End.”

End? End what? The book maybe? She pointed to
the paper before he could try to get anything else out of his
mouth.

“
More.”

“
More of the book? It’s not from
that book?” he asked, pointing across the room at the pile of tomes
on the floor.

She shook her head again. Then
where?

She led him outside and pointed in the
direction of the tower. Not quite at it, but at a tower beside
it.

“
The giant tower? We’re going
there?”

She nodded solemnly.

“
Well. Fine. Should be fine.
Right?”

He forced a smile and looked down at her. She
looked at him with her unchanging face.

“
Yeah, we’ll be fine. Can’t have
you running off by yourself anyway.”

Chapter 10

They had taken another series
of
unpopulated back roads to get to the building Marka had pointed to.
The tall, grey stone was opulently decorated with facades and
inlayed murals. Again an ever more youthful parade of figures in
heroic poses. He’d noticed that whatever sort of creature Marka was
fighting the night they’d met never seemed to appear in any of the
art, though several of the books had had labeled sketches of things
that looked extremely similar.

Lowell pushed the thought aside as they moved
quietly down the side of the long building. It was a tall place as
well, maybe three storeys. Before they’d left, Marka had been
deeply focused on the page she had showed him. She tucked it into
her clothes and patted at the area regularly to ensure it was still
there.