Dangerous Creatures (Book 3, Pure Series)

by Catherine Mesick

  "You're right," Sachiko said. "We won't be safe here forever. We need to get in, get out, leave town. We may have eluded the Hunter for a little while, but he'll find this place soon. We'd better get going."

  Sachiko looked at me thoughtfully. "The wine worked well enough to sneak you in here. But this isn't exactly the best part of town. We've got to think of a way to get you all the way through Zamochit and up to the castle without anyone sensing that you're human."

  "What about David's necklace?" I asked. "If it disguises vampires, maybe it disguises humans, too."

  "It's possible," Sachiko said. "But I really don't know if it has the same effect on a human that it does on a vampire. And I don't think we should risk it. We might not be able to save you if a whole pack of vampires converges on you because they can scent human blood."

  "What if I don't use a disguise?" I said. My heart was beating quickly, but I rushed on anyway. "What if I go out as myself—the infamous ghost girl—and you and David pretend that you've caught me and you're turning me in? We might be able to get all the way up to the castle that way."

  Sachiko shook her head. "That's too risky, too."

  "I agree," David said. "We might be able to get up to the castle that way, but once we were inside, they'd have us. Sachiko and I probably wouldn't be allowed free range of the castle, and you most certainly wouldn't. In effect, we'd all be prisoners."

  "But I thought you said that Innokenti and the king don't want me harmed," I said.

  "They don't," Sachiko replied. "So once they had you, they would lock you up to keep you safe. And David and I would probably be locked up, too, just so they could keep an eye on us. We might all end up languishing behind bars, not far from William—and completely unable to help him."

  "Sachiko's right," David said. "We have to get into the castle undetected. They can't know we're there."

  We all lapsed into silence.

  "I've got it!" Sachiko said suddenly. She grabbed my hand. "Come with me."

  Chapter 22.

  The first thing Sachiko did was to lead me to a small bathroom at the back of the house where I could rinse the wine out of my hair and just generally dry off.

  She also gave me new clothes and shoes—although to be strictly accurate, both the shoes and the clothes were old. Sachiko changed her clothes, too, and then she sat me down on the edge of the bathtub. She rummaged around in the shadows and then came up with several compacts that I could dimly see contained makeup.

  "Hold still." Sachiko began to brush powder from one of the compacts over my face.

  I glanced down curiously at the porcelain bathtub I was perched on, and then I glanced upward. The light from the jar candle Sachiko had brought with us threw fantastic shadows on the ceiling and walls, but despite the gloom, I could still see that there was a showerhead attached above me on the tiled wall.

  "Vampires take showers?" I said.

  "Seriously, hold still," Sachiko said. "And of course they do. Vampires are vain, remember? Anything that walks on this earth gets dirty, and no self-respecting vampire would go around covered in grime or wearing clothes that weren't clean. So that means showers and washing machines. And that's why they tend to go after young, beautiful victims, too—they like good looks and good health. That's something we can use to our advantage."

  "You talk sometimes like you're not one of them," I said.

  Sachiko shrugged. "I'm not. Technically, I'm one of them. But I don't really fit in. Now let me see your hands. Both of them."

  I held out my hands dutifully. "Can I ask you a question?"

  "You've already asked me quite a few of them," Sachiko said. "But I suppose you mean you want to ask me a question that you think might touch on a sensitive subject. You don't have to worry—you can go ahead. I believe in the truth."

  "Why are you doing this?" I said. "All of it? Why did you come to Elspeth's Grove to warn me? You didn't have to do anything at all. You could've just stayed out of it. Why are you helping me?"

  Sachiko paused in her work on my hands. She looked up at me, and her dark eyes were unreadable.

  "You remind me of me," she said at last. "I know who you are and what you're supposed to do. I also know you didn't choose that life—that life where you have to walk in the darkness and not in the light. I didn't choose that life, either. It came to me, and I wasn't allowed to say yes or no. It just happened. And actually, I don't mind this life. I don't think I was terribly happy before."

  Sachiko began to dab at my hands again. "But even though I don't mind it, I still didn't choose it—and I'm still an outsider. And so are you. We're all outsiders in this house, you, me, David. And we're all being used by them—that group up at the castle. I would help anyone in that position."

  Sachiko straightened up. "I think that's good enough."

  She held up a battered mirror, and I peered into its murky depths.

  For just a moment, I thought I saw a light flicker somewhere in the dark glass. I remembered Cormac's words about his final gift to me, and I wondered if I was seeing the lights of the Sìdh. Did they know at this very moment that there was a vampire nearby? Were those lights meant for her? But even as I stared at the light, it vanished, and I was left alone in the mirror's cracked surface. I continued to stare deep into the mirror, but the light did not return. Perhaps I'd never seen it at all—maybe it was only reflected candlelight. I turned my attention to what was actually in the mirror.

  In the dim light, I peered at my reflection. Sachiko had darkened my eyebrows considerably, and my face and neck appeared to be liberally caked with mud. There was also a scar now that ran across my cheek from my ear to my chin, and the scar looked both angry and old. Even though I knew it was fake, it looked frighteningly real to me, and I couldn't help putting up a hand to confirm that the scar was only makeup.

  Sachiko swatted my fingers away. "Don't touch it. You'll ruin my work."

  "How did you learn to do that?" I asked.

  Sachiko propped the mirror on a shelf and began to apply makeup to her own face. "Vampires have a lot of time—we learn to do a lot of things. I'd give you some messed up teeth, too, but we don't really have the time. After I do my face, I've got to do David's, too. Then we'd better get out of here."

  "What are we supposed to be?" I asked.

  "Sanitation workers."

  "Sanitation workers?" I said. "Like garbage men?"

  "Yes. You sound surprised."

  "I am."

  You didn't think vampires had garbage men?" Sachiko said.

  "I'd never really thought about it," I said. "But if someone had asked me, I would have said no."

  "Well, we do have them. Any community generates waste of some kind, and that waste has to be hauled away. But vampires, in their vanity, don't like to think about garbage. They like to think they're above all that and that they're pristine and perfect. But they aren't, and somebody's got to take care of the garbage."

  "I imagine, then," I said, "that being a garbage man isn't just a normal job like it is for human beings."

  "No, it isn't," Sachiko replied. "Around here all sanitation jobs are done by the less fortunate—at least in terms of looks. Vampires are supposed to heal easily—not have scars and blemishes and the like. But sometimes things go wrong—limbs don't always heal properly, discolorations and blemishes don't go away, scars remain. Vampires with problems like that can sometimes find themselves shunned by their more perfect brethren, and they often find themselves working at jobs other vampires avoid. Oddly enough, some of the disfigured vampires actually prefer things that way. Most vampires want to be beautiful—but there is a less-glamorous subculture. They like to think of themselves as actual monsters. And that's a further point of contention."

  "So we look like the kind of vampires other vampires don't want to associate with," I said.

  "Exactly," Sachiko replied. "Our appearance will keep other vampires away. And then there will be the smell."

  "The smell?" I said.

/>   Sachiko turned a gap-toothed smile on me.

  "I couldn't help blackening just one," she said. "And, yes, we are going to smell truly awful. I plan to take us on a trip through the garbage heaps. We'll really need to immerse ourselves in the role, so to speak. And the aroma should help to disguise your human scent. Wine alone wouldn't be enough to get you all the way through Zamochit, but the smell from the heaps should do it."

  There was a knock on the door, and then David poked his head into the bathroom.

  "Are you two just about done yet?" he asked anxiously. "Because we really need to get going."

  "I think we're both good," Sachiko said, waving him forward. "Come here, and I'll fix you up, too."

  "Do we really have time for that?" David asked.

  "It'll just take a minute," Sachiko said. "And we don't want the whole thing to fail because one of us was too good-looking to be a garbage man."

  "Fine," David said.

  Sachiko quickly got to work on him, and before long, David had a scar over his eye and a face covered in mud.

  Sachiko stood back and looked at her handiwork. "I think that will do."

  David sprang up from his seat on the bathtub. "Finally. Now let's get out of here."

  Holding the candle high, Sachiko led the way to the door of the basement. She paused at the door and turned to me, her face bathed in the soft light from the candle.

  "Whatever you do," she said, "don't say anything while we're out there. And if I tell you to run for the barrier and save yourself, then I want you to run. Don't worry about David and me. We can look out for ourselves. We've been doing it for a very long time."

  She blew the candle out.

  We slipped quietly out of the basement, and Sachiko led the way up the stairs into the alley.

  After the near darkness of the basement, the soft, silvery light that suffused Zamochit was a welcome relief. Sachiko ran across the alley swiftly—but not so swiftly that I couldn't see her—and I followed her. David followed behind me.

  The three of us ran through the streets of Zamochit, slipping from shelter to shelter, with Sachiko picking out the path. As we ran, I noticed that the houses and buildings we passed—which were already shabby and dilapidated—were growing steadily shabbier.

  Eventually, I began to see small shapes with bright eyes slinking through the shadows, and I couldn't help crying out when I caught a clear glimpse of one of the creatures in the silver light.

  It was a rat.

  "Quiet!" Sachiko hissed at me. "The rats are nothing to worry about. They get in everywhere—even the barrier can't keep them out."

  She led us on, and before long, I caught a strong scent of decaying refuse.

  "We're close," Sachiko whispered. "As if you couldn't tell. Just keep following me."

  We ran on, and soon we were in amongst dark mounds of discarded materials of all kinds—we had found the garbage heaps. The heaps seemed to stretch for a very long way, and I was glad for once that I couldn't see very well—the light was sufficiently dim to keep the things in the heaps largely a mystery.

  But the one thing that wasn't a mystery was the smell of the place—it was so strong that it was nearly overpowering.

  "I know it's bad," Sachiko whispered. "But that will work to our advantage. Trust me."

  I looked around in alarm. I had a terrible feeling that Sachiko was about to tell me that I should roll around in one of the heaps—the better to cover myself with the smell that would conceal me.

  Sachiko glanced at my face.

  "Don't worry," she whispered. "You won't really need to touch anything around here—at least not with your hands. I think it will be enough for us to get our shoes dirty. That should carry enough of the garbage smell to cover your scent. This stuff is pretty powerful."

  Sachiko spotted a dark, unpleasant-looking puddle, and she hurried over to it and stomped through it with both feet. She stopped then, and bending up one shoe, she sniffed at it gingerly.

  "That should do it," she said.

  She waved me forward, and I reluctantly followed her example. David walked through the puddle after me, and then Sachiko gave us both an experimental sniff.

  She wrinkled her nose in displeasure.

  "You're both good," she whispered. "Time to fly."

  Sachiko grabbed me by the hand, and we took off with blinding speed, streaking through the shadowy heaps till they became nothing more than a long, dark blur.

  I could just make out David racing along beside us—he was a smaller, paler blur that had a vaguely human form.

  Soon we had left the garbage heaps behind, and we were back out into the village of Zamochit. We ran through the streets at a pace that only a vampire could summon up, with Sachiko pulling me along by the hand, and from time to time, we crawled up onto a rooftop so we could rest in relative safety.

  As we sat on the roof of a small house on one such rest, there was a thumping sound beneath us—as if someone in the house below had just knocked over a chair—and Sachiko stood up quickly. There were shouts after that.

  "I'm sure it's nothing to do with us," Sachiko whispered. "In fact, I know it isn't. It's just two vampires arguing. But all the same, I think we should move on."

  Sachiko took me by the hand, and the two of us clambered down the side of the house. David slid down after us.

  A door opened then, in the house across the street from us, and a woman stood silhouetted in the doorway.

  I stepped away from Sachiko, and I stared at the woman for a moment, transfixed—I was suddenly reminded of my first visit to Zamochit. On that night, after I had accidentally crossed the barrier, I had wandered through the streets alone with no idea of where I was or where I was going—and curious eyes had begun to follow me.

  A young girl with blond ringlets and the face of an angel had come to my aid then, stepping out of her house and beckoning me toward her door. She told me that her name was Veronika, and she had warned me that Zamochit was full of vampires—at the time I'd had no knowledge of the city at all. But Veronika hadn't wanted to help me—her well-lit door and promise of safety was actually a lethal trap.

  The woman in the doorway moved, and the spell was broken. I'd thought for just a moment that I was seeing Veronika again, but as I glanced around I could see that I was in a different part of town entirely—and this was clearly a different woman.

  "Be off with you," the woman shouted. "We don't need your kind around here."

  Sachiko grabbed me by the hand again, and the three of us ran off.

  We continued on through the village, resting on rooftops when we needed to, and eventually, the large, graceful bulk of the castle loomed before us, silvery light streaming faintly from its windows.

  "You two wait here," David whispered, as we sheltered under the eaves of a house that appeared to be uninhabited. "Since I have the necklace, I'll scout around for a safe way in."

  Sachiko nodded, and David vanished.

  David had not been gone long when a dark shape appeared and began to move toward us swiftly. A man, tall and thin, streaked right up to where Sachiko and I waited in the shadows. But instead of stopping as I feared he would, he continued on past us—as if he hadn't even seen us.

  A moment later, a second man rushed past us.

  Sachiko frowned as she watched him.

  "Come on," she said.

  She held out a hand, and together we climbed up to the roof of the house behind us. But Sachiko didn't seem quite satisfied with our perch, and she helped me to climb up to the roof of the adjacent building, which was a little higher.

  From there, she scurried up alone onto a still higher roof. After a moment, she leaned down and held out her hand.

  "Come up. You should see this."

  With Sachiko's help, I climbed up onto the next roof and perched precariously on its narrow, slanting surface. I looked up toward the castle, and I could see what had piqued her interest. A steady stream of small, dark figures were running out of the castle a
nd into the streets of Zamochit. And in the houses closest to the castle, people were hurrying out of their homes and running deeper into Zamochit.

  There were no screams or other sounds of panic, but people were clearly fleeing the castle.

  "I wondered why we didn't run into more people on the way," Sachiko said. "Something's going on tonight."

  Mindful of Sachiko's injunction not to speak, I traced a one-word question in the dirt of the roof.

  Hunter?

  "No," Sachiko said. "It's not the Hunter. He's after you—and he would have a better idea of where you actually were. He wouldn't attack the castle unless you were in it. It must be something else."

  Sachiko paused, and we both continued to watch the silent exodus.

  After a moment, Sachiko shook her head. "I have no idea what's going on up there. Whatever it is, maybe it will work to our advantage. Maybe they'll all be so distracted that we can get in and get out without any trouble."

  Soon another shadow came slinking through the streets toward us, and this time, the figure jumped up on the roof of a nearby house in one swift, fluid motion. After a few more jumps, the shadow came to join us. It was David.

  "I've found a good way in," he said. "We can go in through the back entrance where the garbage comes out. Nobody will notice us there. Besides, there's some kind of emergency going on up at the castle. They're all running around preparing for something. Nobody's going to pay any attention to a few sanitation workers who may just happen to wander into some parts of the castle where they wouldn't ordinarily be."

  "Did you find out what's going on?" Sachiko said.

  "No," David replied. "But it's definitely got them rattled. And I can't see any sign of trouble at all. It's like they're all running from nothing. Whatever it is, I think it might help us out."

  "I thought that, too," Sachiko said. "Do you think it's safe to go now?"

  "Now's as good a time as any," David said. "And I think we can stick to the ground. No one is going to be looking at us. They're all looking out for themselves."

  The three of us slid down off the roof, and then we were off, speeding through the night once again. This time, we didn't pause to rest on any rooftops, and as we drew nearer to the castle, several dark figures hurtled past us going in the opposite direction.