by Jen Ponce
"Excuse me?"
"Sorry. Stress." I gave her a weak smile. "Is the cafeteria open this late?"
She pointed down the hall. "Won't be nothing but the vending machines, but they'll have them stocked with fresh sandwiches."
"Thanks." I headed in the direction she pointed but didn't intend to get anything. I had used ten dollars on candy out of the machine. I wasn't sure I could make it anywhere with my power; I was drained. Once I was in the relative emptiness of the hallway, row upon row of closed doors greeting me, I said again—in my head, this time—'Well? Do you know her name?'
Zech would. I know her face. I didn't use the fair.
'What do you mean, you didn't use the fair? You mean you didn't use that hook?'
No. The fair is like an energy source. People from Earth visit and the Midians sell goods but we also, some of us, go there to get charged up by the magic generated by the humans and their close proximity to our world.
'Charged up? Like getting high on drugs or something?'
Yes.
She sounded embarrassed. Hell, I figured it would be better getting buzzed off people than letting the magic blow up a human mind and using the body parts to enhance their rituals.
I stopped in the middle of the hallway. Shook my head. Crap. I'd been saying humans as if I weren't one. Was I already thinking of myself as something other than human?
If we could go back to Midia, we could look for her in town. She won't live far from the hook.
'I don't have it in me and if I pull from the Skriven—'
No, don't. We'll think of something. We need to figure out why you're draining your energy when you use the heart.
'Can you use it to get me there? It doesn't affect me when you do the magic.'
With you as weak as you are, I don't know if that would end you.
End me. As in kill me, I supposed. 'I need Tytan.'
No!
'Don't worry. I haven't been able to contact him anyway. Ravana must have him locked up tight.' I wanted to scream. How the hell was I supposed to get the ring and find two souls without any help? I needed energy. The fleshcrawler queen? No, but maybe Nex could help. 'Could I make it to the Slip? Since I'm the first unmade Skriven, and all?'
What? Are you deranged? You cannot go there. You cannot get in any deeper. They are not like any other beings. They live to trick and fool.
'Yes, well, I'm thinking Nex. You know. Energy? Could he help me out?'
She was silent.
'Is that a yes or no?'
I fear for you.
'I fear for me too. Answer?' But I already knew what I would do. She didn't need to say anything and she didn't as I concentrated on Tytan's house. I built up the image, incorporating my feelings of repulsion as well as the sickening un-rightness of the place. My knees buckled, black spots bloomed in my vision, as Arsinua call out her concern.
My only satisfaction before I passed out was I did it in the Slip.
TWENTY-SEVEN
I woke with a tongue on my cheek. I gasped. Nex floated close, so close I felt the brush of his intestines on my arm. Ugh. "Hi."
"I can't do much for you." He licked me again. Yuck.
My arms shook and gave way when I attempted to push myself off the floor. "Damn."
"I know someone who can."
My lip quirked. "What will I owe them?"
"Nothing if you give them a message from me."
I nodded. Amazing, I would get something for nothing. I didn't trust in that, even though Nex hadn't led me wrong yet. We hadn't been around each other enough for that to happen, though, and it wouldn't do to get too comfortable with anything I'd met since wandering through the hook. "What's the message?"
He told me, his voice hissing in my ear. My tired brain had a hard time catching hold and keeping the words but after he'd repeated them a few times, I had them memorized. "Why do I have to relay it? Why can't you?"
As he floated away, he said, "I am Tytan's secret. He needs all the secrets he can get to escape from her."
I lay on the floor, shivering, when I caught the shushing sound of someone walking in. I cocked my head and saw a Skriven, one I didn't recognize. That sounded funny, but damned if it didn't feel like I'd been making the acquaintance of one too many of them.
This one didn't resemble a person as Tytan always had. This one looked vaguely male but I couldn't be certain of it. Lanky tendrils of blond hair hung halfway down his back but the tendrils moved, making me think of Medusa. Smoke boiled and dripped from his eye sockets as he stared.
"I didn't know Tytan had a pet."
There was that word again and me without the strength to lift a finger and flip him off. I stuck my tongue out, instead, and then said, "I have a message." I repeated Nex's words, not understanding much of it. I didn't notice any extreme reaction in the freaky dude's face, either.
"Interesting," he said after a moment.
Interesting. Great, Nex. Interesting meant boring. I was close to giving up, sliding into that dark chasm of despair where the walls were slippery. I couldn't gain purchase and I had run out of luck.
"What are you?"
I snorted. "I haven't a clue."
"Interesting."
I sighed. "Remind me to buy you one of those Word-A-Day calendars. Might help with your conversational skills."
His laughter wasn't nice. An animal stuck in a leg trap, that might be a close approximate to what it sounded like. I clenched my teeth, the noise making my fillings ache. When he was through assaulting my ears I opened my eyes a crack to see what he planned next.
He straddled me, sinking down until his weight pressed into my belly. He leaned in, his hair slipping over and around my chest and neck. The smoke in his eyes dripped down into my face, stinging me with its chill. It filled my nostrils until I feared I might drown with the wetness of it. Death by eyeball ooze. Certainly different. Not sure how that would look in an obituary though.
"Breathe."
"I'm trying," I said. My words were wet, my lungs rattled. I couldn't take a deep breath to save my life. The hair kept me from turning my head so I laid there and gurgled. A high-pitched whine sounded in my ears, black spots flashed and then my chest stopped rising. My heart stopped. I hung there—forever—waiting for the steady thump to begin again. I yearned for life, said goodbye to Liam and Bethany again, concentrated with every bit of strength I had to start that muscle back to beating beneath my ribs.
When it caught, I did sob. It thudded once, twice, with long pauses between them. Then my heart, my real, flesh and blood heart settled into a rhythm. Slower and harder, maybe, but it was pumping. A rush of energy filled me until I thought I would burst from it. Another breath, another. I tried to move but a heavy weight still pressed against my chest. I opened my eyes.
Smoke filled chasms stared down at me. The Skriven's expression like an alligator contemplating its prey, asking itself, 'Am I hungry enough to go to the trouble of eating this one?'
"You need a Draw." He tapped a finger on my forehead wondering, I imagined, if my head were hollow.
"What's a Draw?" A piece of hair slid up the back of my neck, making me shiver.
He'd moved back and smoke wasn't dripping onto my face as it had been, but he still felt too close. I couldn't cringe back, I was already pressed against the floor. "What is Tytan playing with, having you? Hmm? Leaving you ignorant. I heard he had an Archaeon Tezrya, but I can't understand why he picked a," he leaned in, sniffing at me. "—a human? Midian? Fleshcrawler? Skriven? Interesting."
Did Skriven have testicles? I was tempted to find out, except I wasn't strong enough to make much of an impact. "Shit or get off the pot. You understand that?"
He put a hand at my throat. Squeezed, his expression never changing as I fought to breath. "You're lucky the message you brought is worth more than your life." He let loose and I gasped air into my lungs. "A Draw. To a witch, that would be a familiar. To us, a human. I'm not sure what you would use, since I don't know ex
actly what you are."
Hint, hint. "I don't know, either, so quit asking." That laughter again. "How do I make one, or acquire one? No wait, let me guess, I have to sacrifice someone, take their blood, get naked and dance under a full moon while drinking my own bodily fluid and singing praises to Odin."
"What a tongue on you. Why hasn't Tytan ripped it out? I would have, if you were mine."
"I'm not. So get off."
He didn't. More of my strength had returned. My muscles weren't as slack and if I tried, I could lift my head off the ground. Whoopee doo. Why had Nex told me this creep could help me? "Nothing so elaborate. You need to merely to forge a connection between yourself and who or what you've chosen as your Draw."
"How do I do that? How long does it take? I don't have any time. I'm supposed to be collecting souls." I tried scooting free of his hair but like the arms of a horny octopus, it wouldn't leave off caressing me. I considered the kneeing-him-in-the-nuts option again. Then I saw Nex hovering behind the Skriven's head. He nodded to me. Which meant what, exactly? I felt a tickling in my head, then saw a crude line drawing that looked like a four-year-old had his way with a black marker.
"Trace a binding sigil on the skin of your familiar," the Skriven said.
The picture pressed harder in my head. I had to blink when my vision blurred from the pressure. Then I figured it out. Once I had it, I didn't want it. "Shit."
The Skriven above me frowned. "No. Just tracery with a finger, I assure you."
I looked away, denying what I was about to do. "What happens to the, uh, familiar?"
"It takes the punishment for your magic."
Yeah. I so wasn't going to do what Nex was pushing me to do. Co-opt a Skriven to be my magical whipping boy? Did Nex think I wanted to die horribly or what? "What does it get in return?"
He laughed again. I wished he wouldn't. "It doesn't get anything. If it's stupid enough to get caught as a familiar it deserves what it gets."
Huh. I reached up before I chickened out and hastily scribbled the symbol I saw in my head on the Skriven's forehead. At first he looked amused, then a green flash of light bolted from me to him. He gasped, his back arching, his hair falling limp. I gasped too as I felt energy flowing into me as it had with the drink from Nex's queen. I shoved with all my might—and some assistance from the heart—and the Skriven sailed across the room.
He landed in a heap in the doorway. Nex had disappeared but I heard his amused approval in my head. As if I didn't have enough things in there to deal with, I had Nex invading too. At least he didn't live there permanently.
I stared at my newly made familiar, who looked pissed. "Sorry."
"I will kill you."
"Get in line." I formed a hook, leaving him howling imprecations behind me. I stepped into the hook between Midia and my world. 'Arsinua? Where does she live?' I waited, and then shouted, 'Where?'
I don't know, she shouted back. Quieter she added, What have you done now?
The despairing tone of her voice lit a brief flare of guilt I quickly blew out. "Where should I look?" I ran, my shoes making little noise as I exited the hook to the alien city beyond.
Turn left. There’s a man who might know a few miles down the road.
Right, as if I had that kind of time. "Picture his house."
No. You can't do that. Not without Skriven magic.
"Give it to me, Arsinua, or I'll take it from you." It would sicken me, but I'd take it from her if I had to. Thankfully, she relented and with the picture of the man's house in my mind, I used the heart—and my new familiar—to jump to the house.
I knocked hard on the door. A tubby man answered. “May I help you?”
“I’m looking for someone. A woman who sells jewelry in the fair. Short, about this high, with wild gray hair. Marantha.”
He frowned. “There are several women who sell there.”
And they all have curly hair and are short? Right. Ignoring Arsinua’s shriek, I reached out and put a hand on the man’s arm. I pictured the woman in my head and then used the heart to push my way in to the man’s brain. He gasped in shock—in perfect harmony with Arsinua in fact—but I ignored him. I matched up the woman’s face with her name, Marantha, and a vision of her home.
“Thanks,” I said, stepping away, Arsinua’s angry disapproval ringing in my ears. “Sorry!” I formed the hook and stepped through it. I used the man’s memories to locate the woman’s home and stepped onto her porch.
I banged on her door. Waited. Banged again.
Her door flew open. "What in the world?" She stopped, staring. "I know you."
I nodded once. "I came for the ring."
Her lips thinned. "What if I told you I sold it?"
"You didn't." I felt dangerous. I must have looked it. She stumbled back into her house and I followed. Incense thickened the air. Drying herbs dusted my hair as I followed her through her tiny house and I realized I was seeing a witch's house. A real witch. And it looked as I'd always pictured it in my fantasies as a kid. I'd never dreamed I'd be storming one, though, or freaking out a kind woman who hawked wares in another universe.
She took me out the back door to a small covered wagon covered in gay colors and intricate symbols.
"That's so cool," I said, the words slipping out. She didn't look impressed with my compliment.
She mumbled a few words and the side fell open, revealing the case of jewelry. She gestured. "I won't touch it. If you're intelligent, you won't either."
"I have to." But I didn't move. I stared at the ring. It called to me this time as well, gleaming in a way nothing else did in the case. It called to me. And it was hungry. "I have to."
She spat a word I didn't understand but recognized as a cuss word. "Nothing in this world forces us to act against our true natures. If you take that ring, then it was always in your nature to be a killer."
I itched to slap her, violence humming under my skin. I felt, rather than heard, Arsinua agreeing and in desperation I said, "What would you do then? Hmm? Let your kids die? Give up? Give in? If I don't take that ring and collect those souls then I've doomed my kids. I kill or they are killed."
The woman shook her head. She'd made up her mind. I tightened my jaw. I'd made up mine, too. My kids weren't going to die. I strode forward and snatched up the ring. It slipped on the middle finger of my right hand as if it belonged there. "How much?"
"I don't want anything from you."
I spun on her. "Then why did you even have it? Why not destroy it?"
She trembled in the face of my anger but didn't back down. "I couldn't." She skirted me and flipped the side of the wagon back up, a lock snicking in place. "The only way to get rid of it is to pass it on."
Pass it on. Which meant what? "This was yours, right? You used it." When she flinched, I stalked toward her. "This was yours and you used it." I held my hand up in accusation, thinking I'd put it on the appropriate finger. "Now you give me shit for taking it?"
"I know what it is." She nodded once. Swallowed. Looked away. "I know."
Marantha? I can't believe she would've ever used a ring such as this.
'Yeah, well, desperate people do desperate things.' To the woman, I said, "Thank you."
She held up her hands as if warding off an evil spell. "Leave. You owe me no thanks for taking that abomination. If anything I owe you."
I nodded. I edged around her house to leave, not comfortable with tromping back through her house or opening a hook in front her. I stopped dead at the street. "Arsinua. Is it possible to make a hook to a person?"
Why not? Why shouldn't anything be possible? What's death, what's evil to anyone?
Shut up, witch. She knows her place. Hunter. Killer. She will survive.
With Arsinua breaking down and Neutria cheering me on, I focused my attention on Yarnell. If I had to have a soul, then I was going to collect that evil bastard's first.
A flare of bright pain shot through my skull, then the hook appeared—not as a doorway this
time, but a tunnel on the ground. I wondered at the difference, shrugged it off and jumped into the swirling hole at my feet.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I didn't land. I entered. Yeah, I entered a person. It was such an oogy, awful sensation I would've scrambled out without Neutria holding me in place. She was happy.
You took a skin.
"No. No." As I spoke I felt the startled jerk of the man whose body I was inside.
Skin. But not skin.
"Oh that's helpful, Neutria."
I felt her mental shrug. It should take their mind. This one kept his.
A mad urge to giggle burbled up inside me. Ha. I was a walking matryoshka doll. Neutria and Arsinua were in me. I was in—I rummaged around in my host's brain—Yarnell's body. Another question answered. I'd found Yarnell and I could hook to a person. Of course, it wasn't the result I'd wanted. I'd wanted to pop up right before him and snatch the fucker out of the air like a cool ass assassin.
Instead I had invaded his body. "Does this mean I can root around here and snatch his soul?"
Arsinua refused to talk to me. Neutria didn't know. She had some bloodthirsty suggestions though. The simplest? Change. Let me free.
Split the guy open. Guts and blood. Spatter and gore. Not pleasant. And since I wasn't wearing the guy as Neutria would, then what had happened to my body? Was it in stasis somewhere, floating around in the ether? Still by Marantha's house, drooling as my mind dithered here?
My life was shit. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. For a moment I turned that over in my head. Then I laughed and damn it, it felt good. So good I had to hold my belly. It was then I noticed I'd moved Yarnell's arm to his stomach. I had done that.
He said, "What in the Slip?"
That was funny and I laughed harder. Doubled over. Obviously I was having a nervous breakdown. Or would that be a humorous breakdown? Snorting, I realized I'd reached Yarnell's hand up to wipe tears from his cheeks. I blinked his eyes and looked out through them. A group of men and women stared back. The creepy Skriven wasn't there and I was grateful. He might have been able to sense me.
