Stories From the Shadowlands (17 page)

But I think that is love. Imperfect, inexperienced, stumbling through the dark love, but love nonetheless.

In fact, I am sure of it.

She is the Mission: A Scene from Sanctum, from Malachi’s Perspective

Malachi stood in the Station’s corridor, his hands in the air, watching Sil drag Lela toward the door that led to the alley. His muscles cramped with the desire to stop them. His fingers twitched with the need to reach for his knives.

But he knew this Mazikin well. Sil was irritatingly fast and absolutely vicious. He wouldn’t hesitate to tear her throat out. She’d be dead before his blade hit home.

Not for the first time, Malachi wondered if he should simply let it happen, and let her go. She wasn’t meant to be here. She’d proven herself more than capable of mischief. And worse than that… she sorely tested his self-control. As far as he was concerned, that made her more dangerous than any Mazikin.

He’d come so close to giving in during those final moments in the interrogation room. His lips had been less than an inch from hers. The feel of her caramel skin beneath his fingertips had wound him tight. Her scent had made him dizzy. The only thing that had stopped him was her palm on his chest, sending her shuddering fear of him up his spine and straight to his brain. Well… that and the knowledge that her only goal had been escape. If her fingers had crept a little farther along his belt, she would have found his knife—and he had no doubt she’d have stabbed him with it if given the chance. Despite all that, he’d
still
considered going along with the farce, just for the chance to taste her. Pathetic.

That was why he’d put her in the cell, which had been a horrible mistake. He could smell the coppery tang of Lutfi’s blood from here.

Malachi clenched his teeth as Sil slid one of Lutfi’s keys into the lock and wrenched the door open. Before the Mazikin could drag Lela through, she lurched forward, her fingers clawing at the space between them. And though Malachi was far out of her reach, he felt her desperation as if she’d closed her fist around his heart.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her amber-brown gaze burning him with its intensity, her voice raspy as Sil’s fingers tightened on her throat.

Sil yanked her into the alley, and Malachi was in motion before he heard the door slam shut. “Ana!” he roared as he sprinted down the hall.

Hani stepped out of the holding cell room, blocking his path. He held up his enormous hands, bloody palms out. “The two Mazikin killed Lutfi, Captain!”

“Only one of them was Mazikin,” Malachi snapped.

“That will probably change soon,” Hani grumbled.

Malachi knew that. It was why he had to hurry. “Get Bilal to help you clean up. I’m sorry about Lutfi.” He forced himself to look into the room. Lutfi’s body lay on the floor just inside the doorway, about three feet away from his head. He’d been a loyal Guard, but it was his even-tempered kindness that had led Malachi to order him to watch over Lela, who’d had more than her share of brutality in her brief time at the Station. And now look what had happened. “We will honor him when I return.”

Hani’s expression revealed his doubt, but Malachi didn’t have time to explain himself. And in truth, he couldn’t even if he tried. All he knew was—

“What happened?” Ana called out as she came down the hall. She was wearing her armor and had obviously been preparing to go out on patrol. Malachi sighed with relief that he’d caught her in time.

Hani backed himself against the wall and saluted as Ana approached. All of the Guards wanted to touch her, but most of them were terrified of her, too. “Sil has escaped with the help of another prisoner, Lieutenant. They killed Lutfi.”

“
Sil
killed Lutfi,” Malachi clarified. The girl might be dangerous, but she wasn’t evil. He’d seen the regret and horror in her eyes right before Sil took her away. She hadn’t wanted to hurt Lutfi.

Ana frowned as she looked up at him. “We had another prisoner?”

“A girl we found in the city,” said Hani. “She stabbed Amid. Twice.”

Ana’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you sure she’s not a Mazikin? I’ve never heard of one of the citizens being so aggressive—unless… they don’t like it if we try to take the stuff they find comforting. Did he confiscate her things?”

Malachi shook his head as he took Ana by the arm and guided her down the hall, too impatient to stand still for another moment. They needed to get going if they were going to catch Sil and Lela. “She isn’t a resident of the city. She sneaked in to find a friend of hers.”

Ana snorted. “You’re hilarious.”

Malachi gave her a sidelong glance. “She was a ghost here. She knew the city. She knew her friend was here, and she came in to get her out.”

“That’s insane.”

True. But… it was also selfless. And extremely brave.

They reached the door that Sil had used to escape the Station, and Malachi inched it open and peered outside, breathing deep. The faint sting of incense mixed with garbage filled his nose, and he was glad to have a scent he could follow. The alley seemed deserted as he stepped into the damp city air. Ana joined him, looking half-convinced that he’d lost his mind. He couldn’t blame her for that.

“What are we doing?” Ana asked as he crept to the end of the alley, a passageway between the station and the towering, crookedly elaborate pagoda next door.

“We’re going to find Sil and get the girl back.” It sounded so simple when he said it that way.

“You mean we’re going to track them back to the nest, right? That has to be where he’s going now that he’s escaped.” Ana followed him down the street, taking two strides for every one of his. “We should bring a platoon of Guards with us! Do you want me to go back and get grenades? I could meet you at the—”

“No,” Malachi said, surprised at the rough sound of his voice. “That’s not our objective.” Unable to tolerate their slow pace, he broke into a run, soothed slightly by the bump of his sheathed scimitar against his thigh.

“What are you talking about?” she huffed. “Destroying the nest is our
only
objective. You said so yourself, not even a week ago.”

“Not today.”

She pressed her lips together and ran beside him. Whether she agreed with him or not, she would help him. He couldn’t recall ever telling her how grateful he was to have her as his Guard partner, and he promised himself he would before he left the city.

On and on they raced, following footprints left in the patches of mud along the side of the road. Two sets, side by side. No one in this city walked side by side unless they were near the Sanctum, ready to leave. Which meant these prints belonged to a Mazikin and its prey. And the smeared skids in the set on the right told him the prey was unwilling. Lela didn’t know exactly what she was facing, but she knew she was in trouble. He winced at the foreign twinge in his chest as he pictured her with the Mazikin.

To his right, the massive towers of downtown seemed to lean toward them in poisonous invitation, but Sil would never take Lela there. He would be skirting south of the cancerous maze of skyscrapers, heading west toward Harag, where Malachi suspected the current nest was located.

Malachi’s stomach tightened as the road dead-ended at a huge, ramshackle mansion that hadn’t been there a week ago. He’d have to add it to his map when they got back. The wide doorframe was splintered and the door was hanging open, as if someone had tried to escape quickly. Dangling from one of the shards of wood were a few long, glossy strands of hair curling in a fragile spiral. He tugged them loose and held them to his nose, inhaling the wild sea scent he’d begun to associate with Lela.

Ana watched him carefully. “We’ve been looking for this nest for months. If you can track Sil through this girl, we could burn it out. Maybe we could get all of them this time.”

“We say that
every
time,” Malachi said bitterly as he led Ana into the mansion, which smelled of decay and mildew. The soaring entry, over which dangled a dripping chandelier, gave way to narrower passages lit every few feet by gas lamps huddling in sconces that looked like skeletal hands. This mansion must already be deserted by its occupant, or Sil would never have been able to drag Lela through here.

With the strands of Lela’s hair coiled around his fingers so tightly that his pulse throbbed in his fingertips, Malachi trailed the scent of incense. “We
will
find the nest,” he said. “But right now the Mazikin have Lela, and until we get her back, she is the mission.”

Ana shoved him abruptly, and his shoulder collided with a rusty sconce. It sank into the rotted wall with a wet squelching noise as he whirled to face her.

“Did I really just hear you say
she
is the mission?” she snarled, her hands on her hips. “What is wrong with you today? Individuals are never our mission.”

“She doesn’t belong here, Ana.”

“So what? She won’t be here long if Sil has his way, and if we don’t—”

“I won’t let the Mazikin take her!” he shouted, his determination echoing down the hallway. Lela was too alive, so different from anyone he’d met since arriving in this city. She was fierce and wild, and the idea that something that vibrant would be destroyed by the Mazikin, the thought that they would tie her to a table and pull her struggling soul away from her…

Ana took a step back, disbelief etched into her expression. “What did she do to you?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered, and began to run down the hall. They were losing time. If they lost the trail, they lost Lela. And for some reason he would have to figure out later, he couldn’t allow it to happen.

The Dark Tower: A Scene from Sanctum, from Malachi’s Perspective

When his palms hit the warm, slick metal, he knew he’d survived the dark tower yet again. His hand slid down, seeking the handle. His fingers curved around it desperately, and he yanked the door inward. As soon as he did, the crying and screaming and shouting quieted. The stench of burning flesh evaporated. The blood and the death and the bone-deep grief faded back into memory, still present, but not so fresh, not so
now
.

He staggered onto the street, the damp silence wrapping around him like a moldy blanket. As always, he began to strip off his armor, needing to shed his weapons for a moment and be himself, just a man and not a Guard. His breastplate hit the sidewalk with a heavy
thwock
, buckles clinking. His satchel, belt, bracers, greaves… he stepped away from all of it and looked up at the tower.

This time had been different.

Every time—
every
time—Heshel’s voice had come to him when he’d needed it most. Like a rope tossed to a drowning man, his brother’s voice had pulled him from the churning sea of suffering. It told him he was strong enough, that things might get better if he endured. Always it told him to endure.

He hadn’t heard Heshel’s voice this time.

He’d charged into the tower, his heart pounding fiercely, taking no time to ready himself for what waited inside the mouth of the devouring evil that was this building. He’d only had one thought, one hope—to get to Lela, to pull her back, to prepare her. But as soon as the door had shut behind him, his own special hell had swallowed him like it always did. He’d fallen to his knees and begun to crawl through the horror of his worst memories, like he had done hundreds of times before. But when his hands started to sink through the floor, when his mother’s screams and that acrid, heavy smell threatened to pull him under… it was
Lela’s
voice that had filled his mind.

Come to me
, she had pleaded.
I want to see you. I am so close, if only you endure
.

Like nothing ever had, those words had gotten him moving. But they had also terrified him. What had she become to him, that she’d replaced his own brother as the lifeline he needed? As he thought back to last night, the way her body had felt against his, how right it had been, how overwhelming and new, how hard it had been to let her go… he thought maybe he already knew. This was so dangerous. But he wanted to surrender to it.

The door to the tower swung open with a muted pop. Ana stumbled out, eyes streaming. She fell to her knees on the sidewalk, her breaths coming in wheezy sobs. Malachi clenched his fists. He wanted to go to her, to comfort her, but he knew from experience she would push him away. Whatever she saw in there was the height of terrible. Takeshi had told him a little about what had happened to her, enough to help him understand her a little better. Ana was sharp edges and barely contained ferocity for a reason. But since Takeshi had died, Malachi wondered if it was worse, if what Ana saw in the tower included things that had happened in the dark city. He wondered if she might have to relive what he had done to Takeshi. The thought made it easier not to go to her. He didn’t want to add to her pain.

Ana shoved herself up and wiped her palms on her pants. “Lela?”

“Not yet,” he muttered.

Her eyes met his. “I need to go. I’ll be back.”

“I know. I’ll be here.”

She nodded and took off, running at full speed. Malachi watched her disappear around a corner and then sat down to wait, his chest aching.

Lela had been the first to go in. She should be out by now. What was she going through in there? He knew she’d been brutalized, that she’d suffered. He’d had to watch her relive it last night in the training room, and it had left him tense with rage and exhausted by sorrow. Especially when she’d asked him to play her attacker so she could conquer her fear. He admired her for that, but feeling her tense up when he touched her… he’d
hated
it.

With every minute that ticked by, his heart beat faster. His palms started to sweat. Cold prickles of dread raced down his spine. He couldn’t do a thing for her. She was entirely on her own.
Come out, Lela, I need to see you. Please. This is not the end for you
.

Almost as if she’d heard him, Lela pulled the door open, and Malachi jumped to his feet and lunged for her, relief singing in his veins. He caught her before she fell and scooped her into his arms. She was frighteningly limp, and the most awful, vulnerable sound came from her throat as her head came to rest on his shoulder. He strode away from the building, wanting to get her out of its oppressive shadow. She was breathing hard. Her hair was a mess. He sat down at the curb with her in his lap and ran his hands over her arms and legs, searching for wounds, needing to make sure she was whole. And when he got to her hands…
No
.