by Cari Z
Chapter Three
His mind occupied with the past, Rafael’s feet still moved surely enough out of Little Heaven and into the commerce district, next to the docks. People didn’t sell sex here, but they sold practically everything else. Daeva’s headquarters were located above a butcher shop, and the sticky-sweet smell of blood and meat and the low drone of flies signaled to Rafael that he was in the right place. The butchers and tanners were kept closest to the docks, where the wind could help draw the scent of death away from the city. Or, on bad days, straight into the heart of Clare, but for the most part the wind swept the stink into the sea.
A goat was screaming. It was amazing to Rafael how closely the sound resembled a human scream, and it piqued his interest. He paused at the door of the butcher shop and watched as the proprietor swiftly cut the animal’s throat and hung the carcass to bleed out, setting a basin below to catch the blood. Blood was always saved. Blood was useful for everything from food to magic, even the blood of a goat. The spells it was useful for were the little sort—better vision at night or an extra half hour of sexual prowess. The blood Rafael had used the night before, had spilled and left to dry on the cobblestones, was another matter entirely. The blood of a High One was rife with power, and it was the most sought-after commodity in the Lower City. A few―a very few―High Ones occasionally donated blood to servants who had pleased them. Those servants in turn would sometimes sell it to the highest bidder. The lowest price was more than a laborer would make in their whole life, for no more than a sip.
And Rafael had wasted nearly all of it. Daeva wouldn’t like that.
Daeva didn’t have to like it. He wasn’t the man’s errand boy and he wasn’t beholden to him. He had never cannibalized the dead like Daeva to feed his whims and he didn’t intend to start now. Rafael walked up the stairs in the back and into the dimly lit hallway that served as Daeva’s waiting room. People were there. People were always there, waiting to see him, to speak with him—the one who would help them get their revenge on the High Ones who had used and abused them. Daeva, cast out of their ranks as an apprentice. Like Rafael, he had failed. Unlike Rafael, he knew why he was a failure.
He’d been trained to be a spy, and that knowledge had served him well in his current capacity as a messiah to the disenfranchised. Daeva lied with facility, and could keep track of his lies with equal skill. He remembered everyone’s names, their families, their problems. He remembered everything. He didn’t really need a secretary, but he didn’t have time to greet and organize his supplicants, and so he employed a gullible, bloodthirsty young woman named Jill to do that job. She was writing a name down on a tablet when she saw Rafael at the top of the stairs.
“Rafael!” With a burst of excited energy, she threw herself at him and wrapped jubilant arms around his neck. Rafael accepted this impromptu hug awkwardly, restraining his urge to thrust her away. He didn’t like being touched without permission. “I just got the news! It’s wonderful!”
“What news?” Rafael asked, pushing her back and looking at her face. Plain features and milky blue eyes that glowed with unexpected fervor beamed back at him.
“The news about the contract! Xian’s contract on you! Surely you’ve heard by now, it’s all over the streets.” She looked at him in surprise. “Where have you been?”
“Healing,” Rafael replied stiffly. “When did you hear of this?”
“Oh, he came down and saw the body of the High One you killed himself! Apparently it was a former apprentice of his. The contract was declared on the spot. He’s coming for you, Rafael. Xian is coming for you! You can finally get revenge on him for casting you aside! He’ll have to hunt you down here in the Lower City, and there’s no way he knows it better than you, and…” Jill kept speaking, oblivious to the curious stares of those watching in the hall and the sickening sensation that soaked into Rafael’s body like a creeping, nauseous wave.
“When you kill him, it will send a signal to the Upper Half that we can get to them no matter how powerful they are,” Jill continued blithely. “And, of course, his blood will be very powerful. By the way, Daeva wants to talk to you about your last kill. He’s in an appointment right now, but he should be finished in a quarter-hour.”
“No,” Rafael muttered, still reeling inside from the news. There was no way he could meet with Daeva now, no way he could meet with anyone now. “Not now. Later. I’ll be back later.” He disengaged from Jill’s grasp and turned back down the hall, leaving in such a rush he nearly fell down the stairs. He stumbled out of the stench and into the relatively fresh air, conscious of eyes upon him. He hated making a scene, but his mood left no time for subtlety. He needed to get away. Rafael pulled his hood up and stalked down the street, walking so fast it was nearly a run. He needed to get home. He needed to be alone.
Home changed every month or so, one featureless boarding house after the next with nothing to make them stand out and nothing to give him away. Transients to the city were constantly on the lookout for a cheap situation, and Rafael took advantage of every opportunity to remain anonymous. Eventually he slowed his rapid pace to a reasonable one and made it the last few blocks to his latest room without attracting too much attention.
His room was on the top floor of the triangular building, in the corner facing away from the main street. It was the room with the least amount of light, and therefore the cheapest. It was also scarcely an arm’s length to the roof of the neighboring building from his window, and he valued the easy access to an escape route far more than natural light.
The chamber was Spartan, not much more than a place to sleep. Water came from a central pump, and slop was tossed into the gutter outside the window. His few worldly possessions rested on a small wooden table next to his pallet. Rafael stumbled over to the table, pulled down a basin and promptly vomited into it. He retched until his throat was raw and there was nothing left to come up but bile then collapsed onto his knees, shaking uncontrollably and spitting curses at himself for his weakness.
Xian had taken a contract out on him. He had finally gotten his master’s attention again. Years of pain and dreams of vengeance were seeing their dark purpose come to fruition at last. As much as he wanted it, as much as he had professed to want it over the past five years, there was still a part of him—a large part—that was reeling in shock. He had never truly believed his master would come for him. Not to take him back, no. Those fancies had died in the flames of anger long ago, but not to kill him either. Now there was a formal contract. It wasn’t the first time a High One had taken out a contract on Rafael, but he had never expected one from Xian. Perhaps he should have, but he’d persisted in believing that in some small way his master still cared for him.
Perhaps he had, before Rafael had targeted and murdered one of his former apprentices.
He wished he could take it back. The futility of that wish struck him as ironic, and Rafael laughed harshly through the tremors. Wishing was for fools. Wishes never changed reality, they just made whatever you lacked stand out in sharper relief against the dull gray slate of your life. Now that his mind was on that painful track, though, he let the thoughts follow through to their inevitable conclusion. It was worse when he tried to fight it.
He had last seen his master five years ago, the night before he was to be turned. He’d been unable to sleep, wired with excitement and pride. He had paced his small chamber, flipping his athame from hand to hand as he did so. He hadn’t realized he was being watched until his master cleared his throat. Xian had perfected his abilities to the point where he was practically invisible until he wished to be seen.
Rafael had immediately dropped to both knees, head bowed―the formal obeisance of an apprentice before his master. He’d heard Xian chuckle. “Very prompt, pet. I should test you more often, it brings out the obedience in you.”
“I always obey you, Master.”
“True. Eventually. In your own time.”
“Always is always, Master.” Rafael had waited
for the chuckle he’d known was coming, and he hadn’t been disappointed. Warmth had flowed through him at the sound. He’d lived for that sound of approval, that sign that he was doing well. He’d killed for it.
“Late obedience is better than no obedience at all, I suppose,” Xian had mused, his fingertips lightly touching the top of Rafael’s head. “That’s a skill that needs further honing, or so Master Kylian tells me.”
Rafael had made a face. “He wanted me to scale a tower in broad daylight just to slip a ring onto someone’s pillow! It was a useless exercise.”
“I was led to believe it was dawn.”
“Dawn is as good as full noon for an assassin. You told me—”
“It doesn’t matter what I’ve told you, Rafael. When you work for another master, you are constrained by their rules. You must obey their commands without question. That is our way.”
“But you’re my master,” Rafael had said stubbornly. The exercise had irritated him to no end. He was an assassin, not an incompetent night crawler playing espionage games. “I’ll never work for Master Kylian again. Once I ascend I can refuse any jobs I don’t want to take, can’t I?”
“And if you don’t take any jobs because they don’t suit your fancy, how long do you think you’ll continue to be offered them?” The pressure of Xian’s hand had increased minutely. “Immortality is a gift given to few, and you must work hard to earn it. If you do not perform, if you do not continually prove that you are worth the expense of that gift, it will be retracted. Very few people survive that process, Rafael.” He’d lifted his hand away and a few strands of Rafael’s hair drifted after it, clinging to Xian’s fingers. Rafael had wished that the rest of him could follow them. He’d desperately missed his master’s touch, missed it all the more since he had been spending more of that past year currying favor with other masters than spending time with his own. Patronage was important among the chosen of the Upper City, but the only person who Rafael had truly cared to impress was Xian. He simply couldn’t drive himself to perform for others the way he could for his master. Of course, it had helped that Xian hadn’t asked him to waste his time on stupidity as well.
“You didn’t understand the job.”
“I— What?” Rafael had been momentarily taken aback.
“Master Kylian asked you to do what he did when he did for very particular reasons, Rafael. You haven’t taken the First Draught yet, the sunlight doesn’t damage you. You could have climbed that tower without inflicting damage on yourself or on any of the unfortunate people you would have had to have fought through had you been inside the tower itself. The ring was no lover’s token. It was a warning, a very personal warning that needed to be delivered in a very personal way for the point to be made clear. You completed the task, eventually, but eventually was nearly too late. Timing, Rafael. Timing and efficiency. Sometimes the best concealment is out of the shadows, sometimes the best kill is not the death of the body, but the death of the ego. Do you understand this?”
“Yes, Master.” The rebuke, delivered quietly, had still stung like a blow from the whip. The pain of it had gone deeper, though. Physical pain Rafael could handle. Physical pain at the hand of his master he’d relished. This pain had been new, foreign, and it had shuddered inside him like a malicious parasite.
“No.” Xian’s voice had suddenly sounded very tired. “I don’t think you do.” Rafael had ached to look up at him, but the protocol forbade it. “Assassination requires original thought, which you have never had difficulty with. It also requires exacting attention to detail, intricate planning and most of all, a reason. Without a reason, a death is just a murder, not a message. Master Kylian could have made his reasons clearer to you, and perhaps he should have. However, just because you don’t understand the message, Rafael, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
“How will I know the difference?” Rafael had whispered. “Between reason and murder?”
“I don’t know,” Xian had admitted after a moment. “It comes with time. Most apprentices never let it bother them, honestly. They obey, they make mistakes, they learn. Obedience is safer than questioning in the Upper City. I wonder if…” He’d trailed off.
Rafael had felt a moment of panic, the shuddering, alien pain coalescing into a lump in his chest. Something was happening, he had done something wrong and his master was hurting because of it. He’d broken protocol then without thought, reached out and taken his master’s hand. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again, I’m sorry.”
“Rafael.” Xian had chuckled, but the sound had been slightly forced. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Suddenly Xian had knelt in front of him. Rafael had kept his eyes down, but just barely. He’d felt Xian’s gaze on his face and wondered what his master saw there. He hadn’t said anything, but after a moment he’d felt cold lips on his forehead. They’d lingered for a moment, more of a benediction than a kiss, then were withdrawn. “Tomorrow won’t be easy on you.”
“I know.” None of the tests were easy, and he’d known his ascendance would try every aspect of his character.
“I hope so.” If Rafael hadn’t know better, he would have thought his master sounded…worried? What was there to be worried about? Then Xian had stood. “Try to rest, pet. You’ll need your strength.”
“Yes, Master.”
Xian left. Rafael had raised his eyes and watched him go down the hall and out the door and into the blackness beyond. It hadn’t hurt him to see him leave. After all, he would see him again. Soon he would be able to see him forever.
Events hadn’t work out like that. Rafael had been judged unfit for ascension, and the next morning instead of taking the First Draught of that god’s blood that changed you into an immortal, he had been ejected from the Upper City. The days that followed had been so unutterably miserable, so completely steeped in agony, that he couldn’t remember them, even when he tried to hurt himself by doing so. His mind wouldn’t let him relive more than bits and pieces of that time. Flashes of crimson streams turned black beneath the glow of torchlight, a hint of fire in his throat, the flesh nearly destroyed by screaming. He hadn’t been able to speak in more than a whisper for months. It was only because he had been drinking Xian’s blood since he was a child that his ragged vocal cords had healed at all.
Now Xian was coming for him. He hadn’t seen him since that last night, that final goodbye. Had his master known what was going to happen to him? Had he known how the council would decide? Had he tried to warn him? He must have known, he could have―
Idiot! Rafael was furious at himself. The tremors had diminished to the point where he could get up, and he hoisted himself onto his pallet and forced his breathing to slow until it was steady. He needed to be calm. He needed information. He needed to plan. And, he thought with a grimace, he needed to talk to Daeva. Daeva was a viper and no mistake, but he knew things.
He took a moment to clean himself up, looking into the sliver of mirror he kept on the table as he wiped away his cold sweat with a damp cloth. His face was drawn with strain, from fighting and healing, from loving punishment and hateful fulfillment. Lines of care creased the edges of his mouth and across his forehead, and dark circles made deep, lifeless smudges of his eyes. His skin was waxy and pale and the stubbled growth of black beard from the last few days made the contrast even starker. His hair, at least, was clean. He’d had the sense to pull that back before leaving Feysal’s, and it hung along his back, a long and slightly sodden tail. He looked…ghastly, Rafael decided. He couldn’t go to Daeva like that. Not that he needed to be pretty, but he did need to be strong. Daeva respected strength.
So Rafael sat down and shaved, and was pleased when he didn’t cut himself. He combed out and retied his hair. He straightened his clothes, making sure they were still clean. He threw the slop into the gutter outside his window and chased the scent of his sickness out of the room by burning a sachet of dried flowers and herbs. By the time he finished his series of little rituals, he was
feeling more himself. Self-possessed. Competent. Strong. Not a child who had been temporarily broken by the memory of a disappointing parent, the failure of a hero, the death of a deity. Especially not one who blamed himself for his own disillusionment.
He returned to the slaughterhouse, pushed past the petitioners and a confused-looking Jill and knocked loudly on Daeva’s door. After only a moment’s pause, he pushed on through.
Daeva was alone, as Rafael had known he would be. Jill would have put up a lot more of a fuss if he’d been engaged. He liked to make people wait—it was another way of exercising control over them. Daeva loved the feeling of control, of power. In that at least he and Rafael were very similar.
Rafael crossed the room and sat down in the chair beside Daeva’s silently. The man ignored him, which suited Rafael just fine. They always began with this game. It was simply another ritual, the prelude to ignoring the fact that they hated each other and pretending to get along. Daeva looked at the parchments stacked before him, and Rafael looked at Daeva.
Thin. Spare. Ascetic. All words that immediately seemed to apply. He looked like a man who denied himself pleasures, who provided a living example of the sacrifice he demanded of his most ardent followers. Rafael smiled inwardly. He knew the truth behind the pallor and the sunken edifice of Daeva’s face. He did deny himself the more human things in life—alcohol, rich food, tempting company—but it was only so his darker addiction would have a more profound effect. Daeva, like Rafael, had drunk the blood of High Ones for years, all throughout his apprenticeship. Unlike Rafael, who had done everything possible to purge himself of that blood once he got over his bout of madness, Daeva went to great lengths to retain its potency. He was still an addict, and he paid for that addiction with the blind, faithful giving of his congregation and, if he had things his way, with Rafael’s skill. That was the major source of their disagreement.
