“That depends on who you ask.”
“Well, you’re one of us, so that’s something.”
She went around my back, setting my hackles off the moment I lost sight of her. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t read you.” She sniffed the air. “Who are you? More importantly, what are you?”
“Six. I’m—”
“A fiend, right?” she said, excitement raising the pitch in her voice.
“Who told you that?” I asked, jaw clenching.
“News travels fast in here. Anyway, I’m fascinated. I’ve never come across one before. How interesting…” her voice trailed off.
“And you are?”
“I’m Odessa.”
“Is that your name from before the fall?”
Odessa moved around in front of me, stopped, and eyed me up and down again. “I don’t remember my name from before. When I fell through the rift I landed in Little Ukraine—they gave me that name, and I guess it sort of stuck. You know, lacking an alternative.”
She spoke with her hands; they were always making gestures, moving, flowing. Strange. I looked around at the cell I found myself in. Concrete walls, no windows, a vent in the ceiling to keep the air flowing. The only furniture in the room was a toilet, a sink, and a double bunk bed, all made of the same, dull, grey chrome. There was no color in this room, no markings; and only a single light stuck above the door into the cellblock.
It was a dump.
“Alright, let me go over some ground rules with you,” she said, preparing to check a list off with her fingers. “I get the top bunk because I was here first. I drip at night, so you’d better get ready for that.”
“Drip?”
“I’m a water elemental.” She rung her hair out over the sink like it was a wet rag. I couldn’t believe it had been holding so much water. “That’s pretty much constant.”
“Great,” I sighed.
She grabbed another finger. “I like to fall asleep like… right after the lights go out. You won’t make a fuss, you won’t pace around in the dark, you won’t make a sound—you’ll just sleep.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You will. Trust me. This place is going to suck every ounce of energy you have, even if all you’ve been doing is sitting around twiddling your thumbs all day. You also won’t snore. I won’t allow it. Do you snore?”
“No.”
“Correct, you don’t.” She grabbed another finger. “We get an hour of outdoors time, an hour of rec time, and an hour for lunch and dinner every day. Every other hour of the day, we have to spend inside of our cellblock. Usually the doors are open, but since you’ve just been brought in, they’re keeping the doors shut. As long as we’re in here together, I’m going to expect conversation. Unless you haven’t been able to tell, I like to talk.”
“I don’t.”
“Do you like to listen?”
I paused. “I guess that’s the opposite of talking, so, sure.”
“Perfect, because I prefer talking over listening. What else?” she thought for a moment, grabbing another finger. “Oh, right. I’ve decided I’m going to be your guide around here, that means I’m going to show you who’s who and what’s what, so you don’t get yourself killed on the first week. There are a lot of big personalities at Harrowgate. Everybody wants something, and if you know whose back to scratch, life in here doesn’t have to be all bad.”
“I don’t want anything from anyone. I just want to sit in my bunk and do nothing.”
Odessa approached, pouting. “Six, baby, I’m willing to let you keep the secrets I know you’re carrying in that ample bosom of yours, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know they’re there. You want something.”
“And what do you want from me?”
She smiled a bright, wide smile. “You catch on quick. What does any girl trapped in a hellhole prison surrounded by angry, hungry men want?”
“Protection?”
“I think the inmates would think twice about messing with little old me if they knew I had a scary thing like you watching my back.” She hopped onto the top bunk. “And I get messed with plenty, believe me.”
“Why do they do that?”
“Even neutered dogs enjoy feeling like they’re still whole sometimes, and the easiest thing for them to do is pick on the weak. It never gets too far… the guards usually step in and stop things from escalating. Usually. But it would be nice to go a couple of days without having to look over my shoulder all the time.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m starting to like this place already.”
“It grows on you,” she said, stretching out her hand. “What do you say. Friends?”
I hesitated, but then I took her hand and shook it. “Fine,” I said, “Friends. But if you think I’m gonna go around bashing inmates around left and right, you’re wrong.”
“Oh, that’s fine. Soon enough everyone will know one of your kind has entered the building. The threat alone will be enough to keep them on their toes around us.”
Odessa turned around and settled into her bunk. Already I could see the patch of dampness forming underneath the spot where she lay. I was starting to understand why Azlu preferred it in the hole.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Having the clever idea of settling my head under the spot where Odessa’s feet should’ve been kept me dry while I slept. Sleeping on a mattress, even a thin one, was luxury compared to how I’d slept in the hole, but when I woke up, I realized I’d already lost all track of time, and that was going to be a problem.
Every mission I’d ever been on, every hunt, I’d relied on being able to tell one second from the next. Timing was crucial if you wanted to pull off a successful operation. Not knowing what time, it was felt like having a limb chopped off, like having one of my senses stripped out. I was going to have to adapt.
There was, however, something I could use.
The door buzzer sounded, startling me out of bed. A moment later, the door to our cell unlocked and opened automatically. Odessa dropped down from her bed, rubbing her hands together and walking toward the open door.
“What’s that?” I asked, sitting up.
“Time to eat,” she said, “Hungry?”
“Starving, though I hate to think what passes for food in this place.”
“It’s best if you don’t think about it. Just pretend you’re eating something tasty, like cookies, or a piece of cake. C’mon.”
I slid out of bed and followed her into Cellblock-D. Though I didn’t know exactly what time it was right now, the feeding hours and recreation hours were probably all uniformly set throughout the day. It was a poor way of keeping track of thing, but it would have to do for now.
A raucous din filled the air as prisoners left their cells and headed down into the main common area one level below. Many of them seemed to mind their own business, but others—probably the ones I needed to watch out for—were clearly waiting around to get a good look at the newcomer.
Already my nerves were on edge, my stance taut, my muscles tight. This place was filled with Natives, and each and every one of them triggered the urge inside of me. It couldn’t have been an accident. The people who ran this place knew what could happen if Outsiders and Natives, males and females, were forced into such close quarters, how volatile things could get, but they did it anyway.
We were all here, all thrown into the same place to kill each other or learn to get along. Cruelty, or genius? It was hard to say right now. It was hard to think, let alone contemplate the Coalition’s motivations.
I was scowled at, whispered about, and wolf-whistled at, but nobody touched me. Good. I didn’t think I would’ve been able to keep my hands, and my training, to myself if someone had touched me. I needed to keep a low profile, and starting a fight would absolutely elevate my profile to dangerously high levels.
“Breathe through your nose and keep your eyes down,” Odessa said, “It helps.”
I focused on the metal floor b
eneath my black shoes, listened to the sound my feet made as I walked, and breathed. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Concentrate, calm yourself. Amazingly, it worked, and I was able to follow Odessa into the mess hall without starting a major incident.
Following her lead, I made it from my cell all the way to a table, with a tray in my hands and warm orange goop in my tray. It looked disgusting—like something a cat had sicked up—but it smelled strangely appetizing, and the bread it came with was surprisingly fresh.
“What is this?” I asked, wolfing down the last of the bread after cleaning the tray with it.
Odessa stared at me, a blank expression on her face, her food barely touched. “You… like this?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I’ve eaten worse.” My eyes drifted to her tray.
She kept the bread, then nudged the rest over to me. “Be my guest.”
“Thanks,” I said, starting on her share of lunch and finally silencing the growling in my stomach. It felt like it had been days since I’d last eaten, and given that I was here on a mission, I needed to make every meal count.
“That’s impressive. Even the shifters don’t eat like that.”
“I learned the value of food a long time ago. I’m gonna miss bacon, though.”
“Bacon is delicious…” she drifted off. “Anyway, I suppose I should tell you a little bit about who’s who in here… you know, so you know who to watch out for.”
“Everyone, right?”
“Well, some more than others. Not everyone who’s in here is looking for a fight, or to get one over on someone else. Many of us just want to do our time and…” she shrugged. “Do our time, I guess, since there’s no getting out.”
“And you’re okay with that? Not getting out, I mean.”
“What’s the alternative? Suicide?”
“It’s not right.”
“I know it isn’t right, but it’s also something that just happened to a lot of us. You don’t ask for a hurricane to tear your village down and leave you with nothing. At least this hurricane feeds us and clothes us after it’s done taking our livelihoods away. Besides, there is some fun to be had in here, and isn’t fun the point of living?”
“I like to think the point of living is being free to enjoy life.”
“And I think you make your own enjoyment out of what you have to work with. Take them, for example.” Odessa gestured with a slight nod over to the table across from ours.
The people there were all wearing collars, many of them were eating, but they were all talking, sharing conversation, ideas. One guy broke out into laughter and patted another guy on the shoulder so hard he spat out a piece of bread. Camaraderie. Community. I hadn’t expected that from this place.
“They’re mages,” she said, “And over there, in the corner by himself, he’s a shifter.”
“The tank?”
“Garou. A werewolf. He likes to think he’s mister big dick swinging because he’s six feet and four hundred pounds of pure muscle and testosterone before he takes on his bestial form.”
He really was something to look at. Bald, with thick chords of muscle around his neck, his biceps, his shoulders. He looked like a lumpy sausage in that uniform of his, the seams barely able to keep him from spilling out.
“Steer clear from him,” I said, “Got it. Where are the other Outsiders?”
“They… well, they’re the ones staring.”
“Staring?”
Odessa turned her eyes to a group of about nine people, most of who were looking at me and whispering in hushed tones. I didn’t have to know what they were talking about, what they were saying. Word had clearly gotten around about what I was. Maybe the guards had told them, or maybe they knew just from the way my eyes still glowed with amber light.
Figures. Too much of an Outsider for the Natives, too much of a Fiend for the Outsiders.
“You don’t want to be sitting next to me,” I said, “I’m bad news.”
“Are you kidding? You’re exactly who I want to be sitting next to. Especially… right now.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah, because the other shifter in the block is heading for us.”
I glanced across Odessa’s shoulder and saw a woman approaching with a small entourage at her back. They were all women, which struck me as a little odd. It looked more like a girl group than a prison clique, but who was I to judge anything on face value?
“Who the hell is she?”
“Her name is Knives, and she’s the worst. Seriously, of all the shifters in this prison, we got thrown in with the two biggest assholes in existence.”
“Well, well,” Knives said, cocking her head to one side. “Look who has herself a new toy to play with.”
Toy?
My blood slowly came to a boil. I should’ve known it would be a woman to try and start shit with me. When Odessa had talked about neutered dogs, my mind had gone straight to men picking on women. I hadn’t considered she could just as easily have been talking about a spayed bitch.
“Go away, Knives,” Odessa said, “I’m not in the mood today.”
“Oh, but I’m not done with you yet. Remember? I told you last time, I’d be back.”
Knives was a tall, slender looking woman, with lightly browned skin, tightly pulled black hair, and exotic, vibrant green almond eyes. The one thing about her that stood out the most, though, were her nails. They were dangerously long, and they looked wickedly sharp—like little knives. How was that even allowed in this place?
“I don’t have it,” Odessa said.
Knives scowled. “And why not?”
“Because I don’t, okay? And if you don’t keep your voice down, you’re never gonna get it.”
Knives pounced on her like lightning. She grabbed Odessa by the collar and hoisted her up and off her feet. The entourage quickly fanned out to provide enough space for their boss to take on the much smaller Outsider without interference from anyone else.
None of them, though, had gotten anywhere near me.
“Don’t test my patience, you fucking water nympho,” Knives growled. “I spared you the last time because I thought you’d come through for me. I thought you knew what was good for you, but here we are.”
I stood. “You need to back off,” I said.
Knives’ sharp eyes fixed on me. She sniffed the air and grimaced. “You reek, Outsider,” she snarled. “You need to get stepping, unless you want to know what your insides look like.”
I moved closer to her. “And you need to think more carefully about who you threaten.”
Another flash of movement. In one sudden stroke, Knives had released Odessa and taken a swing at me. She was fast, but I was fast, too. I blocked her arm with mine and then grabbed her throat with my free hand.
Her eyes went wide. I had the feeling she was used to getting what she wanted around here without much resistance. In a place where supernaturals are stripped of their powers, mages are little more than humans, and besides for a few innate abilities—little more than quirks, really—so were Outsiders.
It was shifters, then, who had the upper hand because they were naturally strong, fast, and tough, even without having to change shape. But I was also strong, and fast, and tough. I also had the benefit of having been carefully trained in hand-to-hand combat by one of the most skilled warriors in the world.
Aaryn of the Obsidian Order.
Fury filled Knives’ eyes, and with a grunt, she broke my grip on her throat by digging her claws into my arms. The pain was instant and bright, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I swept the back of her leg, taking the ground out from under her.
The crowd started roaring with excitement, sending a fresh dose of adrenaline coursing through my body. As she fell back, I grabbed the back of her head and went to slam it into the chrome table we’d been eating on, but before her head could make contact with the metal, someone stunned me.
My whole body stiffened as if I’d just been hit with a mild lightning bol
t, but my grip on the shifter’s hair didn’t release—it tightened. Four guards had to move in to break things up; one of them to peel my fingers loose enough for her to slip out of, another one to cuff me, and two more to keep her from getting her nails into my skin.
We were separated and dragged to either sides of the mess hall, but Knives wouldn’t shut up.
“You’ve made a dangerous enemy, you hear me?” she screamed. “I’m gonna kill you while you sleep and make a necklace out of your teeth!”
I tried not to listen to her. All I could hear was Calder’s voice in my head repeating, over and over, “Keep a low profile.”
I’d barely been in here a day, and I’d already gotten into a fight in the mess hall, so… we were off to a good start on that front. At least the stunning spell I’d been hit with didn’t last long. The guard dragging me away from the mess hall hadn’t even reached the door before I was able to walk on my own power again.
Different mages, different levels of magic strength—remember that.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked as I entered a corridor. “Back to the hole? Because she started the fight, I only finished it.”
“You didn’t finish shit,” one of the guards said, “Trust me, I would’ve loved to let you keep beating each other up a little longer, but you’re wanted. I don’t know which one of you was luckier, her or you.”
“Wanted? By who?”
“The boss.”
“The Horseman?”
“The one and only.”
Oh yeah. Really good start.
CHAPTER NINE
He had already been on his way to get me. That was what had my heart racing faster than I would’ve liked. If the fight in the mess hall wasn’t the reason why the Horseman wanted to see me, then why did he want me? What had I done to earn his attention?
This was the opposite of what Calder had told me to do. What Seline and the rest of the Order were counting on me to do. I couldn’t believe I was already on my way to see him. I wasn’t ready yet. But I had to be. Somehow, I had to hide my intentions from him.
Night Hunter (The Devil of Harrowgate Book 1) Page 5
