by Nia Night
“You must be quick,” Bella told us, drawing my attention back to her. “The longer one stays on that side of the third Veil, the more one becomes a part of it. If you remain for too long, you might not be able to cross back over.”
Vida looked up at me with big brown eyes upon hearing this, but said nothing. Ibrahim didn’t back down either. He simply slid his hands into his pockets and said, “After you.”
Before I could decide to throat-punch him, I strode toward the doors and drew a single breath before pushing them open.
The feeling of the place hit me immediately. It wasn’t any one thing, but a multitude of things that made it clear that I was no longer in the land of the living. The buildings were the same, the streets and landmarks, but it was colder beyond the third Veil. The air felt staler, like it was trapped in a room and had not stirred in ages. Spirits of various species ambled past, each moving as if in search of something long lost. I shuddered as one brushed by me, making every tiny hair on my body stand on end.
I’d nearly forgotten Vida and Ibrahim were with me until the child appeared at my side and took my hand into her own. My first instinct was to pull away. I was pretty sure I hadn’t held someone’s hand since my mother, and it seemed strange to be doing so now.
Despite this, I didn’t pull away. Instead, I drew the child closer, and reminded her to stay by my side. Vida nodded, biting her lip as she looked up at me with those big brown eyes.
For once, even Ibrahim didn’t have some shitty comment to make as he also took in the world in which we now found ourselves.
“How will we find the flower?” he asked, eyes scanning the dead who continued to float past, no doubt looking for a specific someone.
“Bella said it would be in the heart of the city,” I answered with a shrug. “So your guess is as good as mine.”
Ibrahim’s dark brow lowered, and I knew that meant he was as lost as I was about where to even start.
“The heart of the city,” Vida said, drawing our attention.
We waited for her to elaborate.
“I think I know where to go,’’ she added. “I saw it on the way in, and thought to myself that it looked like a heart, though I couldn’t say why exactly. If we find higher ground, we’ll probably be able to see it.”
“You saw it from the train platform?” I asked.
Vida nodded.
I gave her hand a squeeze. “Then we’ll start there.”
Another spirit brushed by me, making me shudder once more. As I glanced around, I saw that a few of the dead were starting to take notice of us, curious eyes turning in our direction, some even pausing in their tracks. My stomach twisted uneasily.
“And let’s hurry,” I added.
Neither of my companions disagreed.
I would not admit it to save my life, but now that I was here, I was glad that the Demon had insisted on joining me. I couldn’t imagine wandering through this place by myself, which spoke to how creepy it really was. I’d faced all kinds of monsters in my lifetime, but I’d never felt unease like the one that was settling more strongly within me with every passing second than I did now.
A glance at the child and the Demon revealed that I was not alone in these sentiments. For lack of a better term, we all seemed spooked.
I kept waiting to see a familiar spirit, some Mark or other that I’d taken out. Bella had said that there were a few souls who had a bone to pick with me, and I had a feeling that “a few” was a generous understatement. Would they be able to attack us while we were on this side of the Veil?
This question brought another. Could we die while here?
I had no intentions of finding out.
Sticking close together, we made our way through the city, the child’s hand still held tightly within my own. I didn’t miss the way Ibrahim’s eyes continued to scan the dead, and as selfish as it may have been, I kind of hoped he didn’t find who he was looking for.
If it had been me who’d taken him out, would I even remember his brother? How many Demon males had I killed in my time with the Sisterhood? Ten? Fifteen? It was hard to say.
It was difficult not to stare at the spirits as they wandered past. They were as diverse as the residents of the city on the other side of the Veil. Other than the fact that they were more translucent than solid, they looked a lot like they probably had in life. They wore suits and sweats, t-shirts and dresses, heels and tennis shoes. The Fae among them still had their wings, the Vampires still had their teeth. If not for the fact that I knew they were all dead, I might’ve mistaken them for alive.
But the feel of the place, the feel when one of them brushed too closely reminded me that this was not the case.
To my relief, we made it all the way to the train station without being confronted by an angry soul, and I made the stupid mistake of thinking that perhaps we would make it out of this place without such an occurrence.
Vida released my hand when we climbed the platform, jumping up on one of the benches there to get a better look at the city beyond. I watched the child with some wonder as I recognized that she was rather extraordinary.
It seemed everything the Fates threw at her she was able to take in stride. She’d watched people she’d loved die, and had kept going. She’d been given a duty that was unreasonable by anyone’s standards, and still, she smiled. Half of the supernatural world wanted to get to her in order to use her for their own means, and still she’d offered her trust to both me and the Demon, despite the fact that we’d done little to earn it.
I wondered if these were qualities that all children shared, or if they were things unique to Vida. As I watched her scan the city with those big brown eyes, her dark, curly hair still braided back from her smooth face, I thought maybe these qualities were indeed uniquely Vida.
“There,” she said, a smile pulling up her lips, little finger pointing to the east. “Come here. Look.”
I hopped up onto the bench beside her, feeling a little ridiculous and noticing how this drew the attention of some of the spirits. But, the child was right. There, in the center of the buildings, tucked between the concrete and bricks and steel, was a green hill upon which red flowers bloomed. The area was well maintained, and stood out so starkly amongst the rest of the city that I wondered at how I hadn’t noticed it upon arriving. When I squinted my eyes, it did appear to be in the rough shape of a heart. Other than us, it looked like the only thing living in the Land of the Dead.
Ibrahim hopped up on the bench with us, and I resisted the urge to shove him off. When he saw the hill, he kissed the child on her forehead.
“You’re a smart cookie, Vida,” he said.
But I barely heard him. I was too busy staring at the spirit who’d joined us on the train platform, too busy flashing back through memories that I’d just assume stayed buried deep within me.
The spirit of the first Mark I’d ever killed stared back at me.
18
I stared down at the paper the Warden had given me hours before, at the name scrawled there in curling black letters.
A graduation gift, the Warden had called it. But I was no fool. I knew a test when I saw one. I may have graduated, may have earned the official title of a Sister, but it seemed the Warden was not done with me quite yet. I wondered if she ever would be.
I had thirty-six hours to complete the task. Twenty-four hours to reach my check-in point and confirm I was where I was supposed to be, and two hours to pack up my meager belongings and say goodbye to the Academy and its occupants.
The dormitory was empty at this time of day, save for the six of us who had graduated. The long, quiet rows of matching beds were made tightly, the sky beyond the high windows in the west wall gray and cloudy.
Staring down at the small cot that I’d slept in for the past decade, where I’d huddled under too thin covers, nursing the various internal and external injuries I’d received during training, I felt a sense of unease. Though life at the Academy had never been pleasant, it had beco
me familiar, and familiarity can offer a sense of comfort in its own right.
Shrugging into my backpack, I slid my hands into my pockets and sighed.
“Where are they sending you?” Abri asked, joining me by my bed. She wore the same all black as did I, same black backpack and boots.
“I’m going east,” I said. “You?”
“West.”
“Of course,” I mumbled.
She placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, the extent of the physical affection we’d dare display while still here. “We’ll get moved around,” she said. “Maybe we’ll get closer assignments at some point. Either way, we’ll make time to see each other.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice at the moment.
“What are you two lesbians talking about?” Raidyn asked as she approached. Even her words didn’t carry the same bite as they usually would. I realized with a bit of a start that I was not the only one who was apprehensive about striking out into the world. Though she hid her true emotions perhaps better than all of us, I’d grown up with Raidyn, and I could see the unease in the set of her shoulders, the turn of her full mouth.
“Where are they sending you?” I asked, ignoring the barb.
“The Big Apple,” Raidyn said, leaving the bitchy tone out of her voice for once.
Abri and I glanced at each other. New York City was so densely populated that Raidyn would likely have her hands full with Marks. Her kill list would be longer than the Red River before the end of the new year.
The other three Sisters of our graduating class joined us then. The twins, Adira and Aadya, and Suri. As the sky beyond the tall arched windows of the dormitory continued to spit down cold rain, the six of us stood in a circle and observed one another.
“This is it, then, I guess,” Suri said in her soft voice. Of all of us, Suri was the most demure, the softest spoken. Like all of us, she was a Halfling Demon, and her mother had been a human of Asian descent. With a delicate build and bone structure, she appeared about as likely to sprout wings and fly off as she did to kill someone. I’d never said it, but I thought that perhaps this made her the most deadly.
Each of us looked around the small circle, into the eyes of our Sisters, for a few moments longer. Then, we turned toward the doors of the dormitory and filed out.
Silence was the only goodbye any of us would dare make.
Thirty hours later, I stood outside a shitty apartment building in a shitty part of the city to which I’d been assigned.
The night air was cool, a breeze winding through the streets, but my skin was flush with heat. I checked the address on my phone for the millionth time, though I knew I was in the right location.
Could the male who had starred in all my nightmares for the past decade really be in there?
I swallowed, ran my fingers over the Calidi chain around my waist. Of course he was in there. There were no mix-ups or mistakes when it came to the Sisterhood.
The city was quiet for the time of night, the shadows deep and heavy. Overhead, a sliver of pale moon peeked out from behind shifting clouds. With a final breath, I circled around to the rear of the building, where the fire escape climbed up to the fifth floor.
The fact that I’d once run for my life down a fire escape from the very person I was now about to climb up one to kill was not lost on me. Life, it seemed to me, tended to work in circles. Sooner or later, everything came back around.
As silently as a cat, I swung myself up onto the fire escape and made my way to the top floor, the wind tugging at my hood the higher I climbed. My heart thudded so heavily in my chest that I could feel it in my throat. When I reached the window of the fifth floor, I could do little but stare through the glass for several seconds, into the dark room beyond.
It was the kitchen. The window looked in on a small kitchen. I swayed in my boots as I tried to stop the rush of memory from washing over me. My mother’s face came back to me, the image of the last time I’d seen her, lying dead on a kitchen floor not unlike the one I was looking in on now. A small sound tried to escape my throat, but I swallowed it back. It had been years since I’d been able to really recall my mother’s face, what she’d looked like. Now, it was as though I were staring through a window into the past.
A graduation gift, the Warden had called it. The fucking bitch.
The window was locked, of course, but I had no trouble manipulating it to get it to open. I’d been trained to break and enter as efficiently as I had to kill, and it seemed both skills would be tested this evening.
Quick and easy. That was how we were supposed to take out the Marks. Whatever got the job done. Get in, make the kill, get out. Let the Collectors clean up the mess.
Easing up the window, I slipped inside, my boots landing on the linoleum without a sound. I slid a dagger out of my jacket and crept across the space. A darkened hallway beckoned beyond.
More memories tried to flood in. The smell of whiskey and shambling steps. The unpleasant noises from beyond the closed door to a bedroom. The smell of bacon and pancakes in the morning. The blue and purple of fresh bruises hidden by the collar of a fluffy pink bathrobe.
My fingers flexed around the knife in my hand as I made my way down the hall. The first door I reached was the bathroom, the smell of piss floating out. The bastard always was a disgusting piece of shit, had never helped clean or pick up anything.
There was only one other door in the short hallway. As I crept up to it, I saw that it was open. A bedroom lay on the other side.
And in the bed in the center of the room, snoring softly, the Mark lay sleeping.
Callum.
The Demon who’d haunted my nightmares. The male who’d scarred me in more ways than one.
The son of a bitch who’d killed my mother, and then had tried to kill me.
Perhaps the Warden had been right; perhaps this was a gift.
I took a step into the room. And another. The shadows welcomed me as one of their own. The male on the bed continued snoring. Through the single window, the sliver of moon peeked down, the sole witness to the endeavor. The silver of it caught on the blade in my hand, flashing like an isolated strike of lightning.
Another step, and another, and I was standing over his prone figure. The killing calm settled over me, regulating my breathing, my heartbeat, steadying my hand, and the blade clutched therein. The clouds beyond the window shifted, illuminating his face for a moment, and my head tilted as I took in the familiar features.
He looked the same as he had the last time I’d seen him, only older. A bit of gray had begun to weave through the once jet-black hair along his temples, into the stubble over his jaw. As he breathed peacefully in and out, I caught the scent of whiskey, and knew that though I’d changed very much in the years past, the bastard before me had remained very much the same.
I raised the knife. It flashed once more in the moonlight.
As if sensing his inevitable demise, Callum’s dark eyes flew open.
But it was too late. I plunged the blade into his heart, slipping another knife out of my pocket with my other hand and running it across his throat. He tried to rally his dark magic, but the effort was futile, and I savored the look of terror that came into his black eyes as he realized this.
His legs beat against the mattress, his hands coming up in a worthless effort to staunch the bleeding at his neck. I watched in silence, drinking in the scene as the realization of who was responsible for his end flashed behind his eyes. Blood bubbled from his lips and spilled down his chin as he uttered his last word.
“Iliana,” he said.
It was not a question, but I leaned further over him anyway, pleased when the moonlight lit my face, no doubt bringing my features into focus.
“Yes,” I said. “Iliana.”
With this final exchange, I drove the knife in his heart in deeper and twisted my wrist, making a mess of the organ within his chest. I watched as the light left those dark eyes, as the dark magic that permeated the aura around him
died out into nothing, dissipating like smoke on the wind.
I don’t know how long I stood staring at him, don’t know why it seemed impossible to draw a complete breath or think a complete thought. At some point, I withdrew the blade from his black heart and cleaned it with the edge of his blanket. Though I could have left, I remained in the darkened bedroom as I sent the first of many texts to the Collectors, letting them know the job was done and they could come begin the clean up.
I received a confirmation from them, and another text from someone else.
The Warden.
It read: Well done, Iliana. Welcome to the Sisterhood.
For whatever reason, this praise seemed to wake me up from the trance I’d fallen into, seemed to zap some of the triumph out of the moment. I exited the apartment swiftly, going out the same way I’d come in.
I paused on the threshold of the window in the kitchen, however, looking back at the space a final time before taking my leave. An image of my mother flashed once more before my eyes, but not as I had last seen her. This memory was a pleasant one. She stood over by the stove, a spatula in her hand, a smile on her pretty face—a face I vowed not to forget.
But as the image faded, the specifics of her features were lost to me again, a ghost on the wind. I shut the window and descended the fire escape, and when my boots hit the pavement and started to move away, I did not look back again.
There was no reason to look back. Not anymore. I wasn’t going that way.
19
The spirit stared at me, and I stared at him.
Recognition was obvious in his dark eyes, and a spark of fear snaked up my spine. My question about whether or not the spirits could hurt us while on this side of the Veil resurfaced, and I supposed I would soon find out the answer.
As Callum stared at me, I forgot about the other spirits, about my two companions. I’d never thought I’d see the bastard again, had been certain I’d buried that particular Demon long ago in a dingy little apartment in a bad part of town, the watchful eyes of a quarter moon the only witness.
