The girl was good at hiding; Tristan had already checked the rooms by the stairs and found nothing. But she had forgotten to check the utility closet.
The door cracked open, and a pair of enormous, almond-shaped brown eyes peered out at her. Though she tried to avert her stare, a massacre of scar tissue along the right side of the girl’s head, from her crown all the way down to her jaw, seized Tristan’s attention and refused to let go. But as she studied the girl more carefully, the mutilation highlighted her high cheekbones, full lips, and the deep mahogany skin that bore no other flaws. Imperfectly beautiful, and Tristan’s own perfect mediocrity made her a little jealous.
Soiled, cast-off Western clothing at least ten years out of date hung from her underfed body and made her head appear slightly too big for her frame. She reeked of unwashed flesh. The tight coils of her closely cropped hair were determined to spring wildly from her head, except for the large swathe on the right side. Her skin, though dark, betrayed the telltale pallor of her parentage. To Tristan’s eyes, she burned as brightly as a lamp in a coalmine. She was like a baby bird, full of potential; she just needed a little push in order to fly.
“Who are you? Why do you follow me? And why are you staring at me?” she demanded in heavily accented English.
“I’ve been searching for you. I was told to find you here.”
She glanced around the hallway. “You’re not from the agency.”
“No. Obviously.”
“So what do you want, then?”
“I want to know why you’re here. And if you want to go somewhere else.”
“I came here because my parents say I am a witch. The pastor told them so.” She frowned and chewed on her bottom lip, her fingers absently stroking the burn scar. “I stayed because someone had to protect the girls. Sometimes men come here and take them to rooms. Many are sick with AIDS, or they are beaten. The boys who live here always want to make babies, and they will beat the girls if they refuse. Well, unless I get to them first. Now they think it’s true, that I really am a witch.”
“When did you know you were…not like the other girls?”
The girl cocked an eyebrow. “You’re one of them, then. A Hunter. The one I was supposed to expect. The one who came to me in my dreams.”
“That’s me.
“I was thirteen. I had strength and speed I did not understand. I could see in the dark, and hear things no one else could. When I was hurt, I healed within hours. Except…” Her fingertips flitted like insects around the scar again. “And I killed the things that preyed on my people.” She was silent for a moment, preoccupied with her own thoughts. “Where will we go?” she said at last. “Who will protect these girls?”
“I don’t know. That agency you thought I was with, maybe. You don’t have to come, but I was told I had to find you.”
The girl’s eyes brightened. Maybe the other kids were right about her. For the first time in the past five minutes, she stopped glaring at Tristan as if she wanted to murder her with her bare hands. “Yes, because you are not good at spell casting.”
“Well…I bet you need help with weapons. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Blessing. My mother chose it to appease the evil spirit plaguing our family. Do you know of the ogbanje?”
“Can’t say I’ve heard of it. My name is Tristan, by the way.”
“I will go with you, Tristan, since it is my duty to train you in magic. It is the year of your test, and you will require all your skills to pass it.” She pushed past her and led the way back through the hall, down the stairs and toward the front doors. A crowd of children had formed in the lobby to witness the departure of their guardian and the one who had come to take her away. Some of the girls wept. The boys simply watched, the bruises and cuts on their faces reminders of her justice. They did not mourn her parting.
“So you’ve trained other Hunters in magic? You seem…young.”
“I am fifteen. And no, I have not trained any others but myself. You are right; I hope you will provide me with weapons training when it is my turn for the test.”
“This is why we were supposed to meet. To help each other.”
“All Hunters should help each other. To be Called is the highest honor. Our sisters are our family.” She stepped outside into the parking lot. The clouds gave birth not to rain but to an almost blinding sunlight. Blessing glanced back at the hotel just once, with no sadness in her expression. Her lips moved a little, silently.
“What was that?”
The corner of Blessing’s mouth twitched. “My farewell to them. A prayer to keep the girls safe.”
Blessing’s smile should have been beautiful, with those lips and cheekbones. Instead, Tristan thought of the ocean, and of leviathans lurking beneath the waves.
~
Tristan jerked awake as the bus rolled to a stop in a barren parking lot. She blinked at Blessing, nodded, and breathed deep to calm herself. They didn’t fly because of identity and security requirements, and they paid cash. She and Blessing had stowed away in a ship’s cargo hold in the Gulf of Guinea until they reached the States, smelling of rat feces and cocoa, carrying Lassa fever for sure, maybe even Ebola, though they would never get sick themselves. All part of the job.
Nothing but farmland in all directions. The driver kicked everyone off the bus for twenty minutes, so Tristan used the opportunity to stretch her legs, have a cigarette, and use the plaza facilities. Not much of an improvement in cleanliness, but better than the onboard closet that passed for a washroom.
A Starbucks kiosk beckoned with the whir of a Frappuccino machine and the scent of over-roasted coffee. If she bought some she’d have to pee again in an hour, but it was six-thirty in the evening and coffee was the only appetizing thing in that dump of fried chicken, greasy burgers, and lamp-warmed pizza. Tristan ordered a grande iced latte with a shot of caramel. Blessing followed her like a lost puppy. To the washroom; to the Starbucks kiosk, where she ordered the same thing because she didn’t know any better. She’d never heard of Starbucks before.
Back outside, a few semis were parked at the far end of the lot. The syrupy air stank of humidity and diesel. Tristan slumped into her seat, sipping her cold, sweet coffee with a hint of bitter aftertaste. She leaned her head against the window as the bus pulled away from the rest stop. Vast green or golden fields flashed by. Sometimes there were silos, and barns and cows, or an occasional ramshackle 19th-century farmhouse set far back from the highway. Mostly there was nothing at all. Tristan couldn’t imagine life out here, cut off from civilization except for the road engraved in the land like a giant gray scab. She’d lived in Ontario her whole life until Mami Treszka’s death; Toronto contained everything she ever desired, at least back then. And yet the silence, the peace out here, must have been glorious at times. What she wouldn’t have given for a moment of that.
The bus was quiet, and most passengers sat with their eyes closed and heads drooping to one side, ear buds stuffed into their ears. Blessing sat upright, a sentinel staring straight ahead. Sometimes she sipped her drink and frowned at its bittersweet taste. Tristan wasn’t sure the girl had slept at all, on either the boat or the bus. They didn’t need much, that was true enough, and Blessing had gotten used to the necessity of vigilance. Not only as a Hunter but also as a victim of the very people she’d protected.
The sun set behind a bank of clouds, a fluffy orange and pink confection on the horizon. Tristan reached up to turn the air conditioning off. The driver made an overhead announcement that he was shutting off the lights for the duration of the night, but streetlamps and headlights still flickered in hypnotic succession outside the window. Tristan gave in to her own encroaching exhaustion, leaving her new companion to stand watch.
Chapter Nine
For several weeks, Anasztaizia saw little of her father, who had returned to his duties. At night, footsteps sounded outside the partition, stopped, then hurried down the hall. She thought she heard a faint knock once, just once, as th
ough her caller changed his mind before scurrying away. But it might have been anything. Wind blowing shut the door of the wardrobe. She found it comforting if not wholly believable.
Then, on the last day of the third week, Ispán Gergo entered her room with a parcel in his arms, his chest puffed up with the sort of pride for which he was famous. He held the package out to her.
“The treasurer will be quite cross with me,” he said, his eyes gleaming. The expression on his face—I’ve been a naughty boy!—sickened her. “But I have done as you asked. Open it! I can hardly wait for you to put it on. And happy birthday, Lady.”
Anasztaizia untied the parcel and held up a gown that, despite her best efforts, robbed her of breath. The shimmering fabric, neither purely white nor a shade of blue, was sewn with golden thread and embroidered from waist to hem with tiny silver stars. Regardless of her talents, this was not the royal tailor’s work. What sort of person might possess such gifts, and how did Father know where to find them?
Some questions, Anasztaizia decided, were better left unanswered.
“This is… Father, it’s beautiful, but…”
“But nothing. You are the lady, and you represent our family. Put it on, I beg you. Let me see your splendor.”
Anasztaizia shivered. She carried the dress behind her screen and shed the gown she wore, a simple tube of ankle-length violet linen and voluminous sleeves ending at her elbows. His lecherous stare crawled over the silhouette of her body clad only in its thin shift.
Oh, Gazsi, please help me get out of this.
The new dress, made entirely of silk, glowed with an impossible light from within, its gentle luminosity exactly as she envisioned Heaven. The bodice conformed to the curves of her blossoming body and flowed elegantly outward toward the floor. Magic surged through each seam, imbued every thread, its power palpable against her skin. It implored her to give him another chance to be her father, to let him love her.
She wanted to tear it to pieces.
“Are you dressed?” he called. “Let me look upon you!”
Anasztaizia stepped out from behind the screen. She marshaled her will to face him, to see the rapacious leer on his face and know he wished to devour her like the vérfarkas roaming the western plains and valleys. With his overgrown beard and his yellow teeth, his body hunched and his arms extended toward her, he may well have been one of the beasts. If she cut him, she mused, would she find hair beneath his skin?
“Oh, yes. Is this not just what you asked for? My glorious girl, clothed in the vestments of Heaven.” He embraced her with arms clad in silk, crushing her to him, her cheek smeared against his woolen tunic. Her stomach turned at the heat and the musk radiating from him, an animal scent betraying passions he dared not yet voice. Indeed, his appetites required no voice, for she felt the hardness in his leggings and wondered only what stopped him from taking her.
“It is a dress beyond compare,” Anasztaizia said, gently extricating herself. “But what is Heaven without the Sun and the Moon?” Surely, he could not afford twice again the cost of importing so much silk. He’d not risk bankrupting the treasury for mere dresses. And sorcery—what else could it be?—never came without a price. Perhaps, in failing, he would deem himself unworthy of her. The treasurer was probably lining up eligible noblewomen for him at that very moment.
“A fair question. And you need dresses. It shall be done, Lady. To imagine you could be even more radiant is motivation enough.” He kissed her hand in his oddly genteel manner, followed by a deep bow. “I have business to attend to, but Dorika will send up your supper. I will instruct the cooks to make your favorite dishes.”
“Father, you spoil me.”
“Let’s do away with such formalities. Call me Gergo.”
The blood drained from Anasztaizia’s face. “As you wish…Gergo.” She curtsied until he closed the door then flung herself across the bed. An hour later the door opened again and Dorika appeared, carrying nothing but the standard goblet of water. She must sneak my meals out to the hounds, Anasztaizia thought. No wonder they’ve grown so fat.
“Oh, there now,” Dorika cooed, setting the chalice on the bedside table and circling her arms around Anasztaizia’s shoulders. “What is it?”
“Gazsi… Has he spoken to you?”
“Once or twice recently. But as you know, things have been difficult around here, and we’ve not met as often as we’d like.”
“What has he said?”
“Nothing I will trouble you with just now. We will take care of you, the three of us. Whatever is afoot in this castle, I promise we will shelter you from it, no matter what we must do.”
The ominous tone of Dorika’s words did nothing to settle Anasztaizia’s nerves. Kept occupied by the ispán as frequently as his business affairs allowed, she had seen little of Gazsi herself in the preceding weeks. He forced her to attend meetings with the treasurer involving the stewardship of her mother’s lands, a matter that held little interest and tested her patience. “Help me out of this vile dress,” she said, sitting up and swiping her forearm across her eyes. Dorika’s own eyes widened.
“This was the gift from your father?”
“Yes. He means to give me two more. Why do you ask?”
Dorika brushed a tendril of copper hair from her face. “It’s nothing, I just… I haven’t seen anything like this in a long time.” Her movements were swift, as if she had just remembered something of great importance to which she must attend. “Make no mention to anyone that you got your blood last month. I will send Árpád by in a little while. He’s quite anxious to show you his new routine.”
“Thank you,” Anasztaizia said, her voice barely a whisper. Dorika kissed the top of her head.
~
The presentation of the second dress passed much like the first. Her father lingered longer, held her until she could scarcely breathe, blasphemously proclaimed her the ancient moon goddesses restored to earthly magnificence. The dress radiated an eerie silvery white, and the phases of the moon shifted in precise rows of embroidered silver across the skirt. Again, the fabric whispered to her of her father’s love and made promises of desires fulfilled. She threw it into the back of the wardrobe as soon as the ispán left her.
But it was the Sun, that treacherous star, whose radiance brought forth the most terrible of Ispán Gergo’s intentions. It was the Sun, and all dwelling beneath its wicked light, to which Anasztaizia pledged her vengeance.
The ispán was already standing when Anasztaizia emerged from behind the screen. Her dress, like the two before it, blazed with a curious glow. In shades of yellow, white, and orange, she became the center of Ispán Gergo’s universe, one singular, smoldering desire he could no longer deny nor restrain. The cloth did not speak to her this time. It seized her father’s mind instead.
“Oh,” he gasped, stroking her bare arm beneath the cap sleeve. “Oh, this is exactly what I hoped for.” He brushed the back of his hand against her cheek then let his fingertips trail down her throat and, hesitantly, over her nascent breasts. “Do you love this dress as I do?”
“It is exquisite,” Anasztaizia said, hoping he did not notice the tremor in her voice. She felt as if she had just climbed out of the ditch surrounding the castle, shivering and covered in filth.
“And do you love me?”
Her eyes burned with tears. She could not force herself to meet his stare. “It is my duty as your—”
“I do not speak of duty. Don’t you see?” His fingers sank deeper into her arm. “This is what she wanted! You are good and beautiful, just as she asked you to be. This was my promise to her!”
“Father, you’ve gone mad in your grief. I understand it, I do. But you’re frightening me. Please let go—”
“No! Now I have another chance. You will not refuse me. I have suffered enough!” He hurled Anasztaizia onto the bed. She did not scream; the staff wouldn’t come anyway, knowing the ispán was there.
“You are a woman,” he said. “I know you’
ve gotten your blood. You will bear me the heir your mother could not, and I will have my family once again.”
How had he discovered such a thing? Had he seen the laundry Dorika carried from the room the morning Anasztaizia woke with blood on her shift and the sheets? Did he have spies waiting to inform him of the momentous occasion when he might infect her with his own seed? Their children would be mad, deformed. And he did not even care.
Anasztaizia struggled to restrain a wail of grief as he hiked up the dress and shift around her waist. She squeezed her eyes shut as he clamped one hand over her mouth. If he were only angry with her, if he wished only to hit her, she might have accepted it. And he did hit her, both with open hand and balled fist, his knuckles driven so deeply into her flesh that she bit the inside of her cheek. Blood flooded her mouth. He pulled her hair and screamed obscenities with the savagery of a demon’s tongue. But he hated her even more than that, more than she ever imagined.
He climbed on top of her and thrust hard, puffing stale breath onto her face with each bestial grunt. She smelled ale and the sourness of sweat beneath his arms, for he did not bathe as often as he had when Lady Katinka was alive. Flesh tore somewhere deep inside, and with it came blood, but it did not deter him. He would split her in two like a log for the fireplace.
Ispán Gergo pulled her arms up over her head and squeezed her wrists so she couldn’t scratch or hit him. He shoved harder, faster, into her. He was too heavy for her to throw off even if she had the strength to buck her hips. Anasztaizia stopped fighting altogether. She hoped he would lose interest, and prayed to whatever god heard her that she would not soon find herself with child. She imagined floating up out of her body and into the forest, far from there, where she might never see his face again.
Those of My Kind Page 6
