Sanctum (Guards of the Shadowlands, Book 1) (25 page)

“You wait too long to finish me off,” he complained. “You always stand around to see how I’ll react. You did the same thing with those two female Mazikin. Don’t do that if you get
attacked again. Keep fighting until they don’t move when you hit them. Only then do you stop.”

I lunged for him again, but as always, he was too freaking fast and dodged to the side. He made a grab for my leg, and I spun out of the way, slipping in the gravel but managing to stay upright. Only problem: my awkward flailing allowed him the moment he needed, and he was behind me in an instant. His arm snaked around my neck, but this time, and much to my own surprise, it barely fazed me.

I broke his hold and actually succeeded in pulling him off balance. In my giddiness and triumph, I jumped onto his back as he stumbled, wrapping my arms around his neck and hanging on for dear life. He laughed and staggered, grasping my knees and swinging me around playfully. I leaned forward and bit him lightly on the shoulder, completely astonished at myself. He gasped and fell to one knee, then started chuckling again.

“Bite them back. I hadn’t thought of that.”

I was laughing too, mostly out of relief that he hadn’t been totally offended by my crazy behavior.

“Probably because a real Mazikin tastes gross,” I said,
whereas you taste quite nice
. “But anyway, you’re paralyzed by my venom. So tell me about Bratislava.”

“All right. I give up. I’m at your mercy. So, be merciful. Get off my back, and I’ll tell you about Bratislava.”

I squeezed him a little tighter because it just felt so freaking good. “You mean I shouldn’t keep biting you until you stop
moving? Ah, well, your loss.” I slid my hands up over his chest and shoulders, slowly letting him go, half wondering where the real Lela had gone, half enjoying that this flirty creature had temporarily taken her place.

He turned and gave me a solemn look. “In all respects, you are one of the dirtiest fighters I have ever met.” He sat down on the gravel, dusting his hands on his thighs. “And that’s a compliment. So. Bratislava is a beautiful city. It’s right on the banks of a river, the Danube. It is an ancient city with a long history, and there is an enormous ruined castle that sits right in the middle of it, just on a hill. I don’t know if it survived the war. I imagine it looks quite different these days. I’m not even sure what country it belongs to at this point. It was Czechoslovakia, but it changed during the war.”

I sat down next to him. “Malachi,” I said gently, “I want to hear about
your
city, not
the
city.”

He shot me a rueful smile, knowing I’d caught him trying to give me the cheap tourist guide version. “My city was a neighborhood with narrow cobbled streets. My father owned a shoe shop, and we lived just above it. But I was hardly ever there. I was always running after my brother, Heshel, and his friends, trying to keep up with them.”

“And were they good boys or bad boys?”

“Well, they were good boys who became bad boys.” Malachi wrapped his arms loosely around his knees and looked up at the indigo-black sky. “I was sixteen when the laws were changed and they said we couldn’t go to school anymore. I was seventeen when they said my father couldn’t own his shop, when they made us move to the Jewish Quarter. I was eighteen when they made us sew the star onto our clothes. One at a time these big changes came, but every day there were smaller ones. The circles under my father’s eyes became darker and deeper. My mother got thinner. She lost her laughter. And my brother and I lost our belief that the world was safe. There were gangs on the streets. No one would stop them from attacking and hurting us. So my brother and his friends, especially one of them, Imi, started fighting back. Imi was a wrestler, an athlete, and he taught us to defend ourselves. And we did, for a while.”

“That’s where you learned to fight like you do?”

“Yes, I learned how to fight on the street, and it’s come in very handy over the past several years.”

Several years. Malachi had been fighting for several decades, and apparently it started before his short life even ended. After he died, there had been no rest. What had he done to deserve this fate? Had he just been unlucky?

“Do you ever get to take a break here? I mean—I guess there’s no vacation time….”

He laughed. “Do I get to go on holiday—is that what you’re asking? Where do you think we are?” His face turned serious and sad. “When I am released from the city, then I will rest.”

“Ana said you’ve stopped drinking the water and you’re not eating often. She told me it means you might be ready to leave soon.”

His long fingers curled over a handful of gravel. “Ah. She noticed. Well, it’s just a sign, not a guarantee. The only way to get out of this city is to go before the Judge. He decides when someone is ready to leave, and his word is the law. I will only go when I am relatively certain of a positive verdict. It’s coming soon, though—I can feel it.” He lifted his eyes to mine and smiled. “But I still have things to do here, right?”

“Thank you for what you’re doing for me. And for Nadia.” I reached out and touched his face. He closed his eyes and sighed as I ran my fingers along the ridge of his cheekbone.

“You’re going to have to get out soon, too, you know,” he said quietly. “Nothing here will nourish you because you don’t belong here. You’ll be fine for a while, but you can’t stay here forever looking for her. You’ll starve.”

My hand fell into my lap. “Ana told me. So I guess it’s important to find Nadia as soon as possible, for both of us.”

He opened his eyes, and I sank into his gaze, totally lost in those dark brown depths.

“For both of us,” he repeated, as if he was trying out the sound of it.

In that moment I could picture it: journeying outside the city with him, Nadia beside us, exploring that beautiful Countryside. Together.

I SANK DOWN ON
the steps outside the apartment building, exhausted and discouraged. We’d been looking all day. Seventeen high-rises. Nothing.

At every door, Malachi or Ana pounded and entered. Every apartment contained a single resident. All were unresponsive to inquiries about Nadia and unable to look at my arm for more than a moment. They were too busy staring at the television. Sitting motionless at a table. Crying in the living room. Gorging in the kitchen. Shooting up in the bathroom.

One chunky middle-aged dude was in the bedroom, writhing on top of what appeared to be a headless body. Judging from the telltale stringy slime that hung over the edge of the cot and jiggled with each of his movements, he had grown the
body himself. I had to wait in the hallway, gagging at the sight and at my own memories. After that, Malachi said we’d be more efficient if we stopped questioning people—so now, once we saw that the person inside an apartment wasn’t Nadia, we immediately moved on.

Although I’d been aware that it would be a long, painful process, I hadn’t really been prepared for it emotionally. A crest of anticipation carried me past each threshold, followed a few seconds later by a crash of disappointment. It sucked the hope right out of me.

Malachi touched my shoulder. “Are you ready to go? I was hoping to get through another five buildings today.”

Ana came out of the apartment building shaking her head. “We have to keep moving, guys, or this is going to take years.”

I got to my feet slowly. “Lead the way.”

Malachi’s brows drew together. “We might be at this for days. You understand that, right?”

“I do. I just…I didn’t know how it would feel.”

“Lela, I thought you were some kind of tough girl, but now I’m starting to wonder,” Ana barked. “This was always a long shot. You’ve got to prepare yourself—we might not find her.”

“That’s not helpful,” warned Malachi.

She put her hands on her hips and took a step toward him. “What do you want me to say? I’m not willing to soften the truth for her like you are. I’m starting to wonder why I need to be here. I mean—you and I should be patrolling, searching for
the nest. Instead, we’re here, looking for one person in a city of millions.”

“Go then,” he replied in a flat voice. “If that’s what you—” His attention was suddenly drawn to something above us. I tilted my head up to follow the line of his gaze, but then my face collided with the front of his breastplate as he grabbed me and staggered back. A few feet behind us, Ana cursed fluently.

“What—” I slapped my palms against his chest in protest. Despite my attempts to shove away, he wouldn’t let me go. Then I heard it: an awful, splattering crunch. I froze in Malachi’s arms. He was breathing hard, hugging me tight. His hand came to rest on the back of my head, pressing my cheek to the engraved surface of his armor.

“I never get used to that.” Ana sounded like she was about to be sick.

Malachi laid his hand on the side of my face, lifting my chin so I could meet his eyes. They were dark with sadness. “We’re going to turn around and head down a different block, all right?”

“Malachi,” I said, pushing against him, “let me go. What just happened?”

He didn’t release me, either unwilling or unable to let go. “A suicide.”

My eyes went wide and I stopped fighting him. I swallowed hard. “Are you telling me someone just jumped from one of
these buildings and landed right next to us?” My voice sounded very small.

Malachi nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off mine.

“Malachi, Lela, get a move on.”

He looked over his shoulder and nodded before turning back to me. “I’m going to let you go.” It was more like he was asking me than telling.

“I’m fine. You don’t have to protect me like this.” I hoped he wouldn’t notice the clamminess creeping across my exposed skin.

He smiled, but it looked a little painful. “I’m sorry. It was reflex. I’ll try to keep my hands to myself next time.” He let his arms fall to his sides.

“That’s not what I meant,” I mumbled.

Disoriented, I turned in exactly the wrong direction. The wreckage of a human body lay scattered in front of me. After that first second I could barely see it because all I could picture was my own body plunging from the cliff, hitting something hard. I’d hit something hard.

No sound made it past the roaring in my ears, no words made it past my screams, no thoughts made it past the memory that had finally caught up with me: my last memory of my life on Earth.

I awoke on a cot.

Narrowing my eyes in the dim light, I saw our supplies organized against the wall. I was in the bedroom of the high-rise
apartment where we’d stayed the night before. I lay still for a few moments, trying to recall what had happened after Malachi’s arms fell away from me, but was distracted by the voices coming from beyond the closed door of the bedroom.

“—doing your job. I swear, what has gotten into you? Just over a week ago, finding it was all you cared about, and that made sense to me. And now?”

“Now I have an additional objective.” I had to strain to hear Malachi’s considerably lower, considerably calmer voice. I sat up slowly, trying not to make a sound.

“That’s a pretty convenient way of describing her. Lets you off the hook, doesn’t it? Malachi, have you counted your mistakes in the last few days? The number of times you sacrificed duty and practicality to protect her? More than you’ve made in the last seven decades, I bet.”

I winced at Ana’s words. She was probably right, and I felt guiltier by the second for pulling Malachi away from his responsibilities.

“Helping her is the right thing to do. And she is strong, she—”

“Strong? Did you not witness her fall apart after that guy hit the pavement? Did you not just carry her unconscious body for several blocks? Did you not—”

“Tell me what your first week in the city was like,” he snapped. “Or shall I tell you about mine? Here is what I know:
neither you nor I were as put together as she is. You are comparing her to us as we are now.”

“That’s who she needs to be if she’s going to accomplish the ridiculous task she’s set for herself,” Ana countered.

“She is special—you can see that. It’s why you agreed to help me in the first place. She had visions of her friend—she either had this ability within her or she was
chosen
to have it. Either way, that makes her exceptional. And then, on top of all that—she
knew
what this place was like. She wandered here in her dreams. She
suffered
here, Ana. She was terrified of having to return. But she came anyway. She was willing to give up her own eternal comfort, happiness, and safety in order to try to find her friend.”

“And that’s the only reason you’re helping her?”

My ears strained in the silence that followed. I was dying to know the answer to that question myself. He must have made some response, because Ana continued speaking a moment later. “You aren’t fooling me. You of all people should know better than to play with fire like this. And regardless of how
special
she is, the two of you cannot continue on like this forever. She will fade away soon. What are you going to do if she’s not willing to give up? Are you going to hog-tie her and drag her to the Sanctum? How far will you go to save her? How much will you sacrifice before this is over?”

I wrapped my fingers around the edges of the cot to keep myself in place while I fought the urge to press my ear against the door.

“Whatever,” said Ana after several seconds. “I have to get out of here. I’m going to patrol to the northwest, so at least one of us is doing the job we’re pledged to do.”

The door slammed. I lay back on the cot and turned to the wall, heart hammering. I pulled my knees to my chest and squeezed my eyes shut.

Ana had not made any secret of her impatience with Malachi, but I hadn’t known the extent of her frustration. She obviously thought he was making a huge mistake by helping me find Nadia.

The bedroom door squeaked open. Soft footsteps approached. Malachi’s movements were almost silent as he knelt beside my cot. I held my breath as he sat there, wondering if he would touch me.
Wanting
him to touch me. And then he sighed, like he had lost some battle inside his own head. His hand brushed my back and his fingers found the tip of my braid where the loose ends looped and coiled. He stroked my hair gently. I allowed myself a tiny breath as I stayed perfectly still, face to the wall, smiling and fighting tears at the same time. When I finally lifted my hand to wipe my eyes, he withdrew abruptly. I turned over and looked at him.