Night Hunter (The Devil of Harrowgate Book 1)

by Katerina Martinez

  I stared at this strange girl, frowning, my heart starting to race. “My brain is all messed up, do you understand?”

  “I do. I was like you, at first. Lost. Alone. Frightened and angry. When they found me, they took me, beat me, and threw me into this place. But my memories came back. Slowly, over time. The more I knew about myself, the stronger I heard mother’s voice. Now she is with me always, and I’m not alone anymore.”

  “And I can hear mother’s voice, too?”

  “No, silly. I am Arachnon, you are… not. We are different.”

  “You can’t tell me what I am?”

  “I wish I could, but mother won’t let me.”

  I took a step toward her, my body tense with anticipation. “What? Why not?”

  Azlu shook her head. “She thinks it will be better for you if you learned for yourself, if you found your own strength.”

  Every bone in my body yelled attack, but I couldn’t. I had to stop from lunging toward her and venting some of the anger bubbling inside of me, even if my whole body was shaking from the effort. I backed up again, pressing my back against the wall and sliding to the floor, defeated.

  I was done talking to this girl, tired, sore, and angry; so angry, I couldn’t tell whether I was hungry or not. Small blessings, I guessed. Looking around where I’d sat down, checking the floor for signs of wetness, I decided to lie down and curl into myself, sighing some of the tension away and enjoying the silence.

  While it lasted.

  “You really shouldn’t sleep on the floor,” Azlu said.

  Sighing, I tucked my hands under my head. “I don’t see another choice.”

  “Do you want to sleep up here?”

  I opened a single eye and stared at her. “I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  “No, I can’t. We’re different, remember?”

  “I can help you, if you’d only ask.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  I shut my eye again, but movement in Azlu’s corner made me spring upright. She skittered across the ceiling on her hands and feet, zipping from one corner of the room to the one directly above me. I watched her, my entire body on edge again. When she stretched her hand out toward me, I flinched away from it. It was dripping with some kind of strange, translucent goo.

  “Come,” she said, “Take my hand.”

  “What the hell is that?” I asked. A whiff of it hit my nostrils. “Oh, God, it’s awful… and sweet. How is it sweet?”

  “This is how I can cling to walls. I don’t know what it’s called… I don’t remember, and mother doesn’t like feeding me information before I’m ready to learn it, but I’m sure it has a name.”

  “And that comes out of your hands… and your feet?”

  “When I want it to. If you like, you can sleep on the ceiling with me. It’s how I’ve been sleeping, and it beats being so close to the dirty floor.”

  I stared at her. “How long have you been in here?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe a day, a week, maybe more. It’s hard to tell, but I don’t mind.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “No. I like it in here. It’s dark, and quiet… I can be alone with my thoughts, with mother. Sometimes the guards forget I’m in here and throw other people into the room with me. Like tonight, I guess.”

  “And you… watch them?”

  “Maybe, unless they’re interesting enough to talk to, like you. Other times I just sleep.”

  “What about food? Water?”

  She shrugged. “I can go for weeks without either. These collars take our magic away, they force the glamor around us and make us look human, but they can’t shut down all of our natural gifts. I’m sure your senses are still sharp, and you’re probably a lot stronger than you look. Mother says, anyway.”

  “Shouldn’t you be scared of me, then?”

  “I’m not scared of anything.”

  “So, why are you really down here?”

  Azlu frowned. “I don’t expect you to understand, but mother thinks I’m safer in here than I would be out there, so I listen to her.”

  Some of the goop from her hand dripped and splattered against the floor, releasing more of that strange, sweet smell into the air.

  “I think I’ll be alright on the ground,” I said, “I think I’ve slept in worse.”

  I didn’t know how I knew that, just like I didn’t know why the feeling of chains around my wrists was so familiar, but I also didn’t question it. Sleeping on the ground beat sleeping on the ceiling any day of the week.

  Azlu withdrew her hand and skittered to the other side of the room, settling against one corner and tucking herself into a ball as if she could defy gravity. “Suit yourself,” she said. “When they come for you, don’t let them know I’m in here. I’d like another week of peace, if I can have it. The cellblocks are too noisy.”

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I let my head settle on my hands again and shut my eyes. After a while, the natural aroma filling the air didn’t bother me as much, and I was able to drift into sleep, but it was dreamless, and restless. I couldn’t tell the passage of time in here. I didn’t know—not really—whether I’d slept for a minute, an hour, or ten hours.

  But I was in prison, now.

  The passage of time was a concept of a past I couldn’t remember, and I was going to have to get used to that, too.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I burrowed out of sleep like an animal clawing its way out of a hole. My breaths were short and raspy, my eyes stung, and the stink of the room hit me with a vengeance, but it was the sound of the door unlocking and opening that had woken me up with a start.

  The light spilling in from outside was blindingly bright. It took my eyes longer to adjust than it took the guards to storm in, grab me, and drag me out into the corridor. Blinking, disoriented, I tried to find my footing, I resisted being hauled away from the relative safety of the dark place I’d slept in, but my muscles felt heavy and sluggish.

  I had about as much fight in me as a plush toy.

  “Where are you taking me?” I managed, breathless.

  “Shut up.” It was Brickmore. I recognized his voice. He and his buddy Howes had been the ones to cuff me and collect me from the hole I’d been locked in, and now they were carting me… somewhere else.

  Doors and corridors passed me by in a blur, leading me to wonder whether I’d been stunned before they’d grabbed me and I just hadn’t realized it. I supposed it made sense. I was a dangerous creature, and after the ass kicking I’d given them both last night they probably weren’t going to be taking any chances with me.

  It wasn’t until we reached a gated checkpoint that I started feeling a little more like myself, but I decided not to try my luck at escaping just then. Instead, I learned everything I could, committing to memory everything from the route we’d taken to the way the checkpoints worked.

  Did they use keys, or keycards? How many guards were stationed at the gates? How long did it take to get from the hole to the first checkpoint? How often did Howes pick his nose and wipe his finger on the walls when he thought no one was looking?

  Too many.

  We crossed paths with another inmate being led around the prison by a guard. They stared at me like I was garbage, like the very sight of me either frightened or repulsed them—or both. I went to lash out at them, unable to control the rush of anger, of revulsion, that surged into my chest at the sight of them, but Brickmore clamped his grip hard around my arm and held me in place.

  “Don’t try it,” he warned.

  The guard and the prisoner passed us, eyes glaring but giving us a wide berth all the same. I hadn’t felt that pull in the pit of my stomach, that fight or flight instinct, with Azlu. It was only some people that triggered it.

  We stopped at a door marked “Interview One.” Howes rapped on the door with his knuckles, and someone called out from the other side for us to enter. Brickmore opened the door and pushed me inside. It was an of
fice, not a cell, but it was probably just as dull. A man sat behind the desk, diligently working through a stack of papers with a pen in his hand.

  There were no windows in the room. No glimpses into the outside world. I guessed the people who ran the prison didn’t want their prisoners to so much as sense there was a world outside of the walls around them. All the better to break their spirits, and their minds.

  “Inmate 26741, sir,” Brickmore said.

  The man behind the desk turned his eyes up. He had a shaggy mop of dark brown hair, stubbly cheeks, and light brown eyes that peered out from a pair of spectacles. I waited for the urge to leap across the desk and wrap his own intestines around his neck to bubble up, but strangely it didn’t. My heart was still, at least for now.

  “Thank you, officers,” the man said, “You can leave us.”

  “Are you sure?” Howes asked, “It’s a fiend. Let me stun it again for you, just to be sure it won’t try anything.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll take it from here.”

  The guards did as the man behind the desk asked and left the room, shutting the door behind them as they went and leaving us alone. I could smell the coffee dispersing into the air from the cup on the desk, saw the feather of steam rising from the rim, heard the man’s heartbeat—quickened, but not frantic.

  He looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “How was your first night at Harrowgate?” he asked, reaching for his coffee cup and taking a sip, his little pinkie rising as he tipped the cup against his lips.

  I frowned. “What kind of a question is that?”

  “Just a question. Do you feel like answering it?”

  “I feel like doing a lot of things, but considering I’m handcuffed, there’s little I can do.”

  That wasn’t exactly true. Even with the handcuffs keeping my wrists bound, there was plenty I could do, but I didn’t want him to know that. I wanted him to think he was in complete control, to lower his guard, to get complacent. That was when people made mistakes.

  The man behind the desk clicked the back of a pen and wrote a note into the notepad on the desk. “My name is Calder Graves,” he said, “I’ve been assigned to work with you, to help you remember some things that might help us better understand what happened to you.”

  “I can save you a whole bunch of time and tell you right now, I have no idea what happened to me because I can’t remember.”

  “Yes, I’ve been told.” He spoke calmly, coolly, with the soft demeanor of a man who had dealt with difficult people before. “You don’t know this about me, but I’m a Psionic mage. Do you understand what that word means?”

  “That you’re one of the people that runs this place?”

  A smile played on his lips. “No, I don’t run this place—I only work here.” He paused. “A Psionic has the power of control over the mind, which makes me the most well-suited person to help you recover your lost memories.”

  I paused, staring at the man across the desk from me, studying his nose, his lips, the wrinkles on his face. “Why don’t I hate you?” I asked.

  “Because you know me.”

  I shifted in my seat. “What?”

  “We know each other. That’s why we don’t hate each other. We’ve had time to adjust.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t know you.”

  “Yes, you do. I want you to listen to the sound of my voice very carefully, Six. Can you do that?”

  He was doing something to me. I could feel it, pressure building around the sides of my head. My hands flexed, fingers curling inwards and then splaying out. “What… are you doing… to me?”

  “The golden stone shines brightest at dawn.”

  The words were like a sledgehammer that came crashing against my forehead. My head tipped back, and my mind went reeling. Thoughts, images, voices, they all came crashing into me like waves. Relentless, hundreds of them hitting me at the same time, from all directions, coming so fast I thought I might drown in them.

  “Six…” a single, distant voice stood out above the rest. I recognized it, I knew I did, but I couldn’t place it. Not yet.

  Around me, I heard birds chirping, the soft whisper of a breeze rustling through leaves on a tree. I could feel it, now, cool against my skin. I willed my eyes to open, concentrating on the echo of the voice as it lingered in the back of my mind.

  An angel loomed before me, its body dark and featureless, its wings fully extended. As my eyesight cleared, I realized the sun was behind it, obscuring the details of its perfectly sharp face, the ruffles of its wings. It wasn’t real. It was a statue made of marble, or stone. I wasn’t sure.

  “Yes?” I asked, but I felt like I was dreaming, like I wasn’t really speaking at all.

  “Are you paying attention?” came the voice again. A woman.

  “Give her a second.” Another voice. Calder’s, this time. “This is what she’ll remember first when we activate her memories, but we need to let the magic work.”

  I blinked again, bringing my focus on the source of the voices. There were two people in front of me. One was Calder, his light brown eyes shiny against the morning sunlight bathing the courtyard. The other was a woman with brilliant white hair, eyes that sparkled like sapphires filled with their own inner light, and wings… luminous, vibrant wings that flickered and shifted like they were made of fire. Even kept tucked behind her back, they were impressive.

  Seline.

  “The golden stone shines brightest at dawn,” she said, “This will be the phrase that brings you back, the phrase that makes you whole again. When Calder clicks his fingers, your memories will fall asleep… by the time they come back, he’ll be the first person you see.”

  “You’re sure it’ll work?” I asked.

  “I’m sure,” Calder said, his fingers ready, “But the ride back will be a little bumpy. You’ll need time to adjust.”

  “How much time?”

  “We should cross that bridge when we get to it,” Seline said, “For now, I want to go over a couple of things and make sure they’re on the record.” She paused, bringing her incisive blue eyes to bear on me. “Against my better judgment, you’ve volunteered to take on Operation K. Before I go into detail, I want to remind you of a couple of things. Your name is Six, and you are Serakon. Eight years ago, I found you chained up and freed you from the Crimson Hunters keeping you as their captive, and for the last eight years, you have been a valued member of the Obsidian Order.”

  Two more people came into view behind Seline. One, a dark-skinned woman with ice white hair wearing a black jumpsuit. Behind her trailed, a set of massive, fluffy white wings that drank the sunlight. Beside her was a stoic man, with short, dark, hair, eyes as black as night, and long, black wings to match. He placed one of his hands on Seline’s shoulder, and she took it and squeezed.

  “These are Aaryn and Draven,” Selin continued, “Together, we run the Obsidian Order, an Agency that’s completed countless missions with the sole purpose of making this world a better, safer place for people like us—people who fall. Just so there are as few blank spaces as possible when you’re activated, do you recognize us?”

  “I do,” I said.

  “And do you know where we are?”

  I looked around at the black, stone walls surrounding the courtyard. Archways in the walls looked into corridors filled with people watching, many of them wearing jumpsuits with stripes of brass, silver, or gold; each and every one of them wide-eyed, as if they were watching celebrities perform an intimate show just for them.

  “This is the Black Fortress,” I said, “My home. I live here.”

  Seline smiled a soft, motherly smile… but then her smile darkened. “By the time you remember this, you’ll have experienced the initial hatred that sparks inside of us the moment we encounter unknown supernaturals native to Earth. It’s probably confused you. I know it confused me for a while, and even now, we still don’t understand why the hatred exists between our peoples. It doesn’t make sense, and i
t only makes diplomacy harder.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, even mages don’t know the answer, and we’re supposed to know everything,” Calder put in.

  Seline nodded. “The good news is, the feeling goes away after a while. The longer you spend with each other, the easier it is to kick the urge to kill each other to the side. But in Devil Falls, the place where you’re going… the Natives there choose to keep their contempt for us. They stoke it, feed from it, and use it. At best, they beat us and throw us into Harrowgate Prison. At worst, they slay us in cold blood with impunity. It has to stop, Harrowgate has to stop, and that brings us to your mission.”

  “I’m ready,” I said. “I want to do this. You know I’m the only one who can.”

  “I can’t say I’m glad you’re right,” Seline said, “I just wish there was another way.”

  “There isn’t, and all of you know it. Tell me what I have to do, I want to make sure it’s the first thing I remember.”

  Seline nodded. “There are two parts to this mission… both require you to take a life. The second part, Calder will explain a little more in detail in person. For the first part…” she winced, shutting her eyes. Assassination wasn’t exactly her favorite topic of discussion. “Your mission is to hunt down and kill Randall Jensen. He’s a guard at Harrowgate prison. Intelligence tells us he’s slain as many as two dozen Outsiders, surveillance confirms it. Tonight, you’ll find him, kill him, and be thrown into Harrowgate for it. They won’t kill you outright.”

  “They won’t?”

  “No. They’ll want to bring you in so they can make you miserable for the rest of your life for having killed one of their own. Six… they’ll try to break your bones, and your mind. They’ll call you fiend, most of them because they don’t know any better, others because they want to hurt you. Just remember. You aren’t a fiend. You’re Serakon, you’re a fighter—one of the best—and I couldn’t be prouder the woman you’ve become.”