Before I could pick myself up, she was on me again, this time with a devastating kick to my ribs. I was sure I’d heard some of them crack, but that was nothing compared to the shock and the pain of the impact. The kick had turned me onto my back, but Knives wasn’t done with me.
She went to smash my face under her wolf-like foot. I rolled to one side, then she came down with the other one, and I rolled away again. This was luck. It was instinct. It was survival. But eventually, my injuries and tiredness gave in. I could feel the world speeding up around me again. I managed to find a moment to crawl away from her, but before I could get up again, she was on me—shoulder-charging me into a wall.
I spat blood. I felt like a skin bag filled with broken bits of gravel all rattling around inside of me. Knives pinned me against the wall by my throat and punched me in the face once, twice. Before she could hit me again, I spat blood in her face. She only licked her lips with her enormous tongue and hit me a third time, cracking my eyebrow and making my entire left eye go completely black.
“Die,” she gargled, and she tilted her head back, her jaw opening wide. Odessa turned away, shielding her eyes.
I didn’t shut mine. I watched her, despite my vision—what was left of it—filling with blood. If I had, I wouldn’t have seen the flash of light. I would’ve missed Knives’ body stiffen, as if she’d been tasered. She turned her head and snarled, but was hit with another flash of light, and then another one.
After the third magic bolt struck her, she released me, and I fell into a puddle of myself.
Ironic.
“That’s enough!” Brickmore yelled. Brickmore? “You’ve made your point, but if she dies, the Horseman will kill you all, and I won’t stop him.”
More prison guards filled the room. Someone dragged me away, but I couldn’t tell who. I couldn’t move my head, my arms, my legs. I also couldn’t see out of one eye, but I did catch Brickmore picking the knife I had been using up from the ground and inspecting it.
I never saw where they took me. My wounds were too severe. I tried holding onto consciousness, but it kept slipping, slipping. Eventually, I allowed it to slide away from me, like a kite in a breeze. I watched it float away—or, I watched myself sink into unconsciousness. The world around me darkening to a tiny dot of light that eventually winked out, like a star in the night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I couldn’t breathe. I opened my mouth and gasped, but only succeeded in swallowing a mouthful of something slimy and gross. I turned to my side and spat it out immediately, then breathed as if I’d never breathed before, but the damage was done. My mouth tasted like moss covered in sweat and a little blood.
“Careful,” a soft voice bounced off the walls, “You won’t choke on that, but it’s not very tasty.”
“Azlu?” I croaked.
“Yes, I’m here.”
I had more of that goop around my eyes. I wiped it off my face with the back of my hand and slowly looked around the room. I was in the hole again, only this time I had been thrown into Azlu’s cell. She was kneeling nearby, not on the ceiling, but on the ground. She had been watching me, her head cocked to one side, her reflective eyes gleaming.
“What did you do to me?” I asked.
“I can’t say I saved your life. You’re very tough. But I fixed some of your wounds.”
“Fixed? How?”
She showed me her hands. They were dripping with the same goop I’d just brushed off my face. Flashes of the brutal hits I had received at Knives’ hands—paws?—tore through my head, making me wince as if I was about to get punched again. I touched my face, expecting to feel broken bones, missing teeth.
I was intact, as far as I could tell.
“Don’t worry, you’re in one piece,” Azlu said, “You were very badly hurt, and now you’re not. Mostly.”
I shook my head. “You’re saying you healed me? With that?”
“Of course.” She licked some clean off the palm of her hand. “I can use it to cling to walls, to make webs to sleep in, to heal wounds. I can even eat it. It’s how I’m able to go so long without needing to leave this place. I still don’t know what it’s called, but it’s probably the most useful thing about me.”
“I don’t know whether to be grossed out or thankful.”
“Thankful, I should hope.” She stuck out her hand. “Want some? I know it doesn’t taste very good, but you need your strength.”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
I sat upright, but my body ached. Azlu’s goo was clearly powerful enough to mend broken bones and torn tissue, but she was right. The only thing that was going to cure my soreness was a good meal, a hot shower, and a decent sleep. Fat chance of getting any of those in this place.
Azlu angled her head to the other side. “What happened to you?”
I sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“Looks like we both have time.”
I stared at the floor. “You were right about this place. It tries to grind your soul to dust.”
“Is that what’s happening to you? I don’t have enough goo to fix that.”
“I don’t know. I came in here hoping…” I paused and shook my head again. “I don’t know what I came in here hoping to do.”
“Not die?”
“I guess.” I turned my eyes up at her. She reminded me of a child. Her large, wide-set eyes brimmed with wonder, but they were also filled with cunning, and intelligence; traits she kept hidden from the world at large so they’d underestimate her. Overlook her.
That was something I could relate to. My whole life I’d gone suppressing the true extent of my abilities. My strength, my reflexes, the number of times I can take a hit to the face and still get back up. It was easier to beat your opponents if they thought you were weak; if they thought they could easily take you.
“How about I make things a little less complicated for you?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
Azlu’s reflective eyes caught on the amber light of my own and flashed. “Mother has told me why you’re here… you are here to kill the Horseman.”
I frowned at her, every last one of my aching muscles tightening. “What did you say?”
“Please, there’s no need for alarm. I’m a friend.”
“The last person who told me I was their friend just stabbed me in the back and almost got me killed.”
Azlu paused. “She wasn’t a very good friend, then, was she?”
“No…” my eyes narrowed further. “Why do you think I’m here to kill the Horseman?”
“I don’t have to think. Mother told me after you left my cell, and I trust mother.”
That means she knew before I did.
I went to push myself up to standing, but my hand was stuck to the ground. The goop around my fingers and wrist had solidified and wouldn’t budge. I was more likely to break my wrist trying to yank my hand free than actually get anywhere.
“Let me go,” I said, my voice a warning tone.
“Not until you understand that I am a friend. I have no intention of hurting you or telling anyone what your secret is. I also don’t want anything from you.”
“Then why don’t you let me go?”
“Because if I do, I’m afraid you’ll try to hurt me. There’s no need for that. I’m here to help.”
“And how can you help?” I snapped.
“I can do for you what no one else can… I can listen.”
“I don’t like to talk.”
“I’m sure you don’t, but mother can sense your tortured soul. She wants me to soothe you, as best I can. If you allow me to, I’ll do that.”
The goop around my hand started to loosen and shift. I wriggled my fingers free first, then pulled my hand out of it entirely. I could’ve stood up. I could’ve lurched toward her and grabbed her scrawny neck. But I didn’t. Instead I stared at her, silently, in the dark, trying to figure out how she could’ve possibly known what my mission parameters were.
&nbs
p; I took a deep breath, and instantly regretted it. My mouth and throat were still coated with some of that disgusting slime, and I could taste it. “How do you know what I’m here to do?” I asked.
“Like I said, mother told me.”
“And who is mother?”
“Mother is mother.”
I shook my head. “Look, if you’re asking me to open up to you, I’m going to need you to answer some questions first.”
Azlu smiled a soft, comforting smile. “I don’t have all the answers, but I’ll try.”
“Okay… let’s start with mother, then. What is mother, and how does she know so much about me?”
“Mother made me. Mother made all Arachnon, and we are all bound to her. We hear her thoughts, she hears ours, and through her, we can hear each other’s.”
“So, you’re… some kind of hive mind?”
“If it will help you understand my people more, we can use your terms. But our bond is much deeper than that. Mother is a Goddess. The Great Widow.” She turned her head down, her eyes dimming. “But she is far away.”
“Far away?”
“I am a little spider far away from home. I can’t hear my brothers and sisters; only mother, but her voice is weak and distant. A whisper. Even still, she wants to help me. To make sure her child survives in this strange place.”
“And mother knows who I am.”
“Not in the way you think. She sees this world through my eyes, and she gives me her insight. Mother saw your heart, saw what was written on it, even if you couldn’t.”
“Is that why you told me to remember? Did she know I had lost my memories?”
“Not lost… hidden.”
I sat back, leaning against the wall, now fully convinced. If I didn’t believe her before, she had sold me with what she had said. When I first saw her, I thought she was just a little eccentric. A little quirky. Maybe a little insane. But it’s often true that those people are blessed with a keen insight into others and the world around them. I had thought there was no more to it than that.
Turns out she has a direct link to a Goddess on the other side of the rift.
She couldn’t have opened with that?
“Alright,” I said, “You answered my questions, so I’ll tell you.” I paused and took another deep breath. This one tasted less rancid than the last. “I am here to kill the Horseman.”
“You infiltrated this place?”
“I did.”
Azlu giggled. “That’s funny.”
“Funny?” I frowned, “Why?”
“Because a few years ago I crossed paths with another who infiltrated this place. She was also pretending to be someone else. Only she was trying to break an inmate out of here, not assassinate the head guard.”
“Wait… I know this story.”
“You do?”
“I mean, I only know of it.” I remembered Calder telling me something about a prison break a few years back. It was a time before the Horseman. “Do you know who it was that broke into the prison?”
“Even if I did, it’s not my place to say. In any case, we’re supposed to be talking about you. I can tell you like to deflect, but it won’t work with me. Mother won’t allow it.”
“Right…” I said, trailing off and staring at her.
I got to my feet. I couldn’t deal with the idea of sitting down any longer, and I wanted to stretch my legs. My muscles still throbbed but having the world underneath my feet felt good and right. It allowed me to get my bearings, to feel a little more like me.
“You don’t want to kill him,” Azlu said.
I stopped at the far wall and turned around to look at her. “It’s not that.”
“It isn’t?”
“I mean… it can’t be. He’s the Horseman. Everything I’ve been told about him, what he’s done, the people he’s murdered. When I came in here, the world felt like it was the right way up, but now…”
“It’s upside down. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not true.”
I stared at her. “I need to kill him. He’s my target. There are so many people out there who are depending on me to make sure that man no longer draws breath. He’s a monster.”
“In more ways than you think,” she paused. “But you know why you don’t want to kill him. You don’t need me to tell you.”
“No, I want you to tell me. If you know, if you have an answer I can hold onto and use, then I’ll believe it if you tell me. It’s like everything I thought I knew about the world shatters when I’m around him. I hate him. I know I do. I can feel the rage in my heart. It prickles my skin, it makes my heart pound—it both sickens and excites me.”
“Do you think he is manipulating you? He is a powerful mage, after all.”
“That would mean he knows what I’m here to do. Right?”
“Not necessarily. Perhaps he… likes you.”
I scoffed. “Likes me? No. The Horseman hates me just as much as I hate him. I’m an Outsider. A fiend. A thing. I have no value to him except for the value I have, and when I’m done being of value, he’ll discard me.”
“So? Why don’t you want to kill him?”
“I do want to,” I hissed, my voice skipping off the walls like a stone thrown across a lake. I lowered my tone. “I do. He needs to be put down.”
“How strong was your intelligence on him?”
I hadn’t realized until then, but I had been pacing around the room. I stopped, now, and rounded on her. “What?”
“What did you know about him?”
“We knew… he had killed people. There had been reports of the way he would beat, capture, and sometimes kill Outsiders without compassion. We also know he’s the head guard in this place, and that the people he works for consider him their most powerful asset in the Coalition’s fight against us.”
Azlu shrugged. “I may not look very clever, but the Arachnon are a very direct, and efficient species. We like to get to the root of a problem using facts and logic.”
“The Horseman is a killer of Outsiders. That’s a fact.”
“Facts can be wrong. You came into this place with a firm vision of the Horseman in your mind, one based on loose information. What you found, however, is different to what you thought you were going to find. Isn’t it?”
My mind sent me plummeting back to him; not to the other night, but to tonight. I thought about the way he had carried me. The way he had cleared his desk and set me down. The way he had carefully tended to my wound and healed it. I thought about the knife I had taken from his rack, and how I could’ve plunged it into his back, but I hadn’t.
I hadn’t done it because I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself, in that moment, to killing the Horseman, not after what he had done for me. Not after the care he had shown. That’s what had thrown me. That’s what had turned my mission on its head.
“It is different…” I admitted. “But the Horseman is my target. I’m here to kill him. I have to.”
“What if he’s not your target?”
I scoffed again and rolled my eyes for good measure. “That’s insane.”
“There are far greater devils in Harrowgate than the man you know as the Horseman. Look deep enough and you may just find them. Root them out, and then perhaps our kinds will find peace.”
I stared at her for a long moment, transfixed. Her back was straight, her hands both rested on her laps, and her legs were crossed together. She looked like a different person, and to make things even weirder, the way she had just spoken had sounded strange, as if it was coming directly from another mouth.
“Mother?” I asked.
Her reflective eyes widened, and she leaned a little closer. “He is coming,” she whispered.
I heard them a moment later, voices tearing through the silence outside. Faint, but growing nearer. I reached for Azlu’s hand and helped her up. “It’s him,” I said, “The Horseman.”
“I know,” she said, “I think I’ll be going wi
th you this time.”
“With me? Don’t you want to stay in here?”
“I used what was left of my reserves healing you. I will need to eat real food soon to recover. What passes for food in this place, anyway.”
I turned to look at her, my eyes grave. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. Understand?”
“I know,” she said, “But I can also take care of myself.”
“Huh. I’ve spoken to you more than I have to anyone else since I got here.”
“Even the Horseman?”
“You can’t call what we do talking. There’s a lot more pointing, hissing, and yelling.”
The Horseman wasn’t walking anymore, but running. He barked at the person next to him to unlock the door at once, and when it opened, I saw him standing in the light, his eyes filled with a mixture of anger, and maybe even relief.
He walked slowly into the hole. Azlu gripped my hand more tightly, the sight of him clearly having more of an effect on her than on me. He looked at us both, then extended his hand out toward me.
“You were not supposed to be brought here,” he said.
“And yet, here I am,” I said.
“This was a mistake. Please… come with me.”
Please? “What about her?”
“She will be taken to her cell.” He paused, then looked at the guard at the door. It was Sanchez. “She will not be harmed,” he barked.
Sanchez nodded. “Come with me, spider girl,” she said. “I can’t believe we forgot you were in here.”
Azlu shrugged. “No harm done,” she said, and she left the cell with Sanchez.
The Horseman hadn’t withdrawn his hand. I stared at it, then I looked up at him… and I took it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“I think I’ve seen more of your quarters than my own cell,” I said as I followed the Horseman through the door. The thought had struck me just as we had arrived, and I had to immediately give it life, otherwise I may have exploded.
The Horseman didn’t answer my question. Instead, he let me step through the doors into his quarters and shut the door behind me. “Sit,” he said.
I was surprised to find his desk, and the space around it, was still a mess. In all the time I’d known him, there hadn’t been so much as a single strand of hair he allowed to stay out of place. He was possibly the most well put together person in existence. But now there was this. Chaos. Disorder. Even blood.
Night Hunter (The Devil of Harrowgate Book 1) Page 14
