Scar Night Page 0,145

can’t leave her here,” Dill said.

At the sound of his voice, men turned; all bruised and bloody skin with shattered teeth. Blades shifted in knuckled fists. Sinewy muscles bunched under rags. Sneering, they began to climb towards him.

Rachel shook him. “Dill! We have to go, now !”

For a moment he stared at her, confused. Carnival was still down there, helpless. She didn’t deserve to die like this. He was weak, terrified, but he was still a temple archon. He had to do something. His hand closed around the handle of his sword.

“Dill!”

“I—”

Something punched him hard in the chest. He staggered back, winded, and collapsed. “Wha—? Rachel?”

Her face had paled, her eyes wide open, staring. “Oh my God. Dill? Oh my God.”

Dill looked down, to see his old chain mail had split open like paper. A knife was buried to the hilt in his chest. He reached for it.

“No!” Rachel screamed.

But the blood was already spurting from his heart, dark as death. It was the last thing he saw before he died.

27

Imprisonment and Sabotage

There were disconnected moments of lucidity. Chains scraping. Constant pain. Air inhaled like broken glass. Hammering metal. Glimpses of iron bars, roaring flames, seared rock, melted rock. Manacles. Black and yellow bruises, soft as rot. Bolts snapping. Rattling keys. Fat cauldrons frothing, sucking, stinking. Blood and meat. Rusted hooks heavy with slabs of butchered flesh. Shards of light on steel—hacking, hacking.

Darkness.

Then cold, hard eyes. Teeth. Scars.

And screams, terrible screams.

At some point Rachel realized the screams were coming from her own throat.

Someone was cradling her head, gently.

“Drink.”

Foul water sluicing over her parched lips.

Pain.

She was gagging, spitting.

Drowning…

* * * *

…light from somewhere.

“Don’t die on me, bitch.”

Get away from me, bitch. A Glueman with long, greasy hair, folding himself into the shadows, eating.Scar Night is her night…. The dark of the moon…One soul .

“Who?”

Intolerable pressure on her chest. “Leave me alone!”

“Drink.”

“Dill?”

He was smiling, waving his lantern, rainbow eyes and feathers glowing softly in a golden sunset. He snuffed the light. Day snapped to night.

Catch me.

“The pain!”

Scars flared in the dark, then withdrew, leaving her alone with the pain.

* * * *

Rachel woke, choking, heaving for air. A river of nails brushed against her skin. Dried blood crusted the corners of her mouth like rust. Tongue swollen, dry.

“Dill?”

She lifted her head from rough stone, and gasped. Renewed pain drove spikes into her neck, along her spine, into her stomach. Cracked ribs? Something clawed at her ankle. She reached down. Found more blood. A manacle.

“I’ll light the lantern.” A woman’s voice; a voice she knew.

She heard a flint wheel turn.

Tangles of dark hair did little to cover the bruises on Carnival’s face. Her scars seemed fresh and full of blood. The angel narrowed her eyes as the lamp glowed. They were in a stone cell with an iron grate for a door.

“They threw this in here with us,” Carnival said as she lifted the lantern and shuffled over to Rachel. A length of chain rattled across the floor in her wake. One of her wings slumped at an odd angle. “Water too. And food.” Her tone was clipped, angry. “You don’t want to eat the food.”

Rachel tried to speak, but her throat felt full of blisters. Only a weak guttural sound escaped her.

“Look at you.” Carnival spoke through gritted teeth. “You’re almost as pretty as me.”

“What…?” Rachel swallowed. “What happened?”

Carnival merely grunted.

Rachel tried to remember the fight. Images of blood and skull-like faces crowded back to her, indistinct, blurred. At once the blows she’d received seemed to cry out anew, pinched by the memory. She winced. She’d killed…how many? Clearly not enough.

Carnival was rubbing the manacled flesh at her own ankle. Rachel stared numbly at the manacle for a moment before she realized it was connected to her own by a length of chain. A feeling of sick dread took hold of her.

“Dill?” Suddenly she remembered his pale, panicked face, his eyes white as sunlit snow. “Oh my God, what happened to Dill?” He’d looked so completely alone. But the army had reached her then, and she’d been forced to turn and fight.

“In the cell opposite,” Carnival said. Something in her tone, a hint of pleasure, made Rachel feel uneasy.

Groaning, the assassin pushed herself upright, her legs shivering in protest. She picked up the lantern and staggered over to the iron grate, chain scraping after her. The lantern illuminated broken flagstones beyond the cell, and bars opposite, a mirror of their own. A passageway divided the two cells, stretched away into darkness on