Carnival of Souls

CHAPTER 15

KALEB DIDN’T KNOW HOW the Watcher had found Mallory — or if the Watchers had always known where she was. Selah had been a Watcher, and the Watchers were peculiar in their trust of the witches. Even so, few daimons moved between worlds. To do so required both access to a gate and the knowledge to open it. He had a gate, acquired at great expense, and he’d been careful to avoid witnesses when he’d gone over to Mallory’s world. The only other way was to be summoned into a circle, and even Watchers weren’t likely to trust a witch enough to risk being trapped in a summoning circle.

Up until now, Mallory had acted like she was utterly unaware of daimons, of witches, of anything other than the ordinary human world. Whatever bargain Selah had made when she’d hidden Mallory in the human world seemed to have kept Mallory herself unaware of what she was — or so he’d thought. This evening, though, she had faced one of the Watchers with no discernible shock. She was obviously more aware than he’d thought, but what that meant for him was unclear. Maybe after he was home safely, he could start to try to make sense of it.

He slid through the gate and found himself in the tiny room where his doorway was hidden. He unbolted the door and stepped outside. The dim purple sky overhead made The City appear to be nothing more than pools of shadows divided by the flickering lights that were mounted on poles or walls. This particular corridor had no such lights.

In the center of The City, the Night Market glowed with pulsing lights, a beacon to anyone in city limits. The carnival evolved into an even deadlier version of itself in the wee hours, so much so that the denizens of The City had assigned it a separate identity. While even the ruling class might visit the Carnival of Souls, the Night Market was the domain of those who were without constraint or inhibition. Women of the highest caste and many of the women of the middle castes avoided the Night Market; those few who dared wander the Night Market were without recourse if they had unwanted encounters. Dallying in the shadows was always dangerous, but doing so in the Night Market was especially deadly. Several years ago, Marchosias had declared that what happened at the market was “unable to be held for judgment.” That ruling meant that neither murder nor kidnapping was forbidden after hours.

If an elimination job was low paying, the market was the place to do it — or at the least where the body was dumped. Kaleb refused to accept any job that meant using the market’s lawlessness as an assist. It made him more expensive to hire, but it also told the buyer that he was good enough to finish a job without crutches.

The dream was that he’d be able to stop taking black-mask jobs. He’d had enough of blood. What he wanted tonight was to lose himself in numbness for a few hours. Unfortunately, Kaleb was far from fit to venture into the Night Market in search of indulgences. The thought of something narcotic didn’t even lure him in. Being challenged was ever a danger, and tonight, he wasn’t sure he could handle a fight. At best, he’d survive but reveal how injured he was. Tonight, Kaleb felt like he’d been beaten, stabbed, and thrown down the street. Of course, between the fights and this evening’s encounter with the Watcher, he had been, but the combined effect of the abuse had hit him with what had to be more than the weight of all of the individual pains.

By the time he reached the mouth of his cave, he had all but breathed a sigh of relief, so seeing Aya standing in the dark waiting for him made him wonder which god he’d pissed off. He was certainly in no shape to fight her—not tonight, possibly not for at least a week. He knew that tomorrow he’d feel even worse, although he wasn’t quite sure what worse could entail just then.

“Do we have to do this tonight?” He couldn’t muster intimidating, but he tried for at least sardonic. “How about I give you a few free hits before I retaliate if we can postpone this?”

“What were you doing out when you are in this shape?” She came over and half supported his weight with one of her shoulders under his arm and her arm around his waist. “If one of the others saw you, you’d be dead.”

He snorted. “The only one who’s ballsy enough to come here is you, and unless this is an elaborate ruse of some sort that I’m too tired to follow, you”—he turned his head to look at her as they paused at his threshold—“seem to be helping me.”

“I am,” she said. “My word: I mean you no harm this night.”

“Then come into my home for this night, Aya.”

At the words that allowed her entry, they stepped into the cave, and less than a heartbeat later, Zevi launched himself across the room.

“Stop! I invited her in by choice, not under duress.” Kaleb took a faltering step away from Aya and was promptly lifted into the air by his now-growling friend.

With a snarl that made Kaleb both proud and nervous, Zevi carried him toward the bed he should’ve been in hours ago. It was embarrassing to let one of his opponents see him in this state, but there was no help for it. After Zevi lowered Kaleb to the bed, he paused, sniffed, and looked at Kaleb with confusion clear in his expression.

Kaleb held up a hand. “I’ll explain once Aya goes.” He pulled his arm out of Zevi’s reach. “Can you add something to the fire? I’m getting feverish.”

Anger vied with worry in Zevi’s expression. Muttering to himself, he went over and stoked the fire, and then returned with one of the blankets from his bed. He sniffed Kaleb again as he spread the blanket over him. “Someone was against your skin, but you didn’t have sex.”

“I didn’t.”

“Were you rejected?” Zevi’s gaze narrowed, and he ran over to Aya.

Before Kaleb could speak, Zevi had bent down and pressed his nose to her crotch.

“No!” Kaleb yelled. His exclamation was simultaneous with Zevi’s yip of pain and the sound of crashing.

“I’m not up on cur customs, but I’m pretty sure that putting your nose there is not something you do with outsiders.” Aya had her foot on Zevi’s chest. “Don’t do that again.”

Instead of replying to her words, Zevi stared up at her and asked, “Did you kill Verie?”

Aya pressed her lips together and looked from one cur to the other.

“Zevi, I told you I’d explain everything later,” Kaleb called. “Aya is our guest. No more. When I came home, she was outside, and instead of killing me, she helped me inside. She wasn’t with me when I was out.”

Aya stared down at Zevi, who was looking at her like she was his new favorite snack.

“Kaleb was right,” Zevi said. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“I’d rather not break your ribs right now” was all she said.

Zevi turned his head and looked at Kaleb. “She smells nervous, not guilty.” Then he put his hand on Aya’s foot as if to keep it there and stared up at her again. “I’m glad you didn’t kill Verie.”

“I never said that,” she muttered as she looked across the room at Kaleb. “Is he safe to release?”

“He is.” Kaleb sighed and then winced at the sharp pain in his chest. “Zev, if you can stop provoking her, I need willow bark and some of those bandages you boiled earlier.”

At that, Zevi rolled out from under Aya’s foot and was at the fire in almost the same instant. Aya stared at him with her mouth agape. “He’s incredibly fast. If he wanted to get away, he could’ve avoided me.”

“Yeah.” Kaleb watched the realization settle on Aya. She studied Zevi as he moved from his medicinal boxes to the fire and back to the bed with the speed that made it seem that he was in several places at once. Kaleb still marveled at him sometimes, but seeing that dawning clarity on Aya’s face made him remember his first few years around Zevi. Quietly, Kaleb said, “I used to get dizzy watching him.”

When Aya looked at him, he continued, “I’ve never seen anyone who can move like that.”

“If he wanted to fight—”

“Kaleb says no,” Zevi interrupted as he passed her. He went from blurringly fast to slower than even humans moved as he pulled the covers back and removed Kaleb’s shirt. “I attract too much attention when I forget to stay slow.”

Silently, Aya walked over to the bed. She couldn’t seem to decide whether to look at Zevi or Kaleb. The bruises on his chest were remarkable in their colors and shapes, and Kaleb could see as well as feel the proof of his very obviously broken rib. On the journey home, a fragment of bone had pierced his skin.

“Do you need help?” Aya asked.

Zevi looked at Kaleb, who nodded. Then Zevi held out a metal box.

“We need to adjust the bones first,” Zevi told her. He didn’t look at Kaleb. “Do you want to press or assist?”

She looked at Kaleb in confusion.

He said mildly, “She’ll want to assist. I’m guessing she’s never adjusted a cur.”

Zevi frowned, then he shrugged, opened the box, and pulled out a handful of heated, oiled bandages. “Hold these while I—” Then he slammed the box down on Kaleb’s ribs.

Kaleb screamed, swallowed, and tried to sound unaffected as he asked, “How about a little warning?”

Aya looked like she might fall over.

But Zevi was as calm as he always was when he was working. “You tense up if I warn you.”

Kaleb winced as Zevi took one of the bandages and smoothed it across his rib cage. “Then why do you warn me sometimes?”

“So you don’t know when to tense.” Zevi took another bandage and methodically layered it over the first one. “Open the bin and grab me two more.”

Without a word, Aya did as Zevi directed.

“You, sit up.”

Kaleb smothered a curse as he obeyed — and another one when Zevi grabbed his legs and dropped them over the edge of the bed. Humming now, Zevi wrapped bandages all the way around Kaleb.

In a few short minutes, Kaleb’s chest was wrapped, and the pain-relief concoction in the bandages was seeping into his body. Zevi helped him to lie back. “I need to check the other wounds before morning. I’ll wake you.”

As the blissful numbness hit him, Kaleb told Zevi, “Thank you.”

Zevi nodded, brought over a mug with willow bark, poppy extract, and who knew what else, and then he walked to a pile of blankets in front of the fire. Without any seeming discomfort at resting in front of an outsider, he stretched and settled himself on the blankets. He was snoring before Aya could close her mouth.

AYA HAD NEVER SPENT much time around the curs. They were, by nature, not very embracing of outsiders. These two acted like she wasn’t there, or maybe this was restrained for them. If so, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see them relaxed.

She wasn’t sure what to do. Kaleb was a ferocious fighter, but he wasn’t cold or cruel here in his home. It was like he was a completely separate person from the cur she’d seen fight.

Because he’s at home or because of Zevi?

“Should I go?” Aya asked in a low voice.

“You don’t need to whisper.” Kaleb’s gaze fell on the snoring cur. “Zevi will sleep unless the threshold is violated or I call for him. He’d sleep through the excesses of the Night Market right now.”

“Is that… normal?”

“For Zevi or for a cur?” Kaleb started to reach for the mug Zevi had left beside the bed, pursed his lips, and lowered his arm. “Or do you mean is the way he shoved my bones back normal?”

“Any of it?” Aya walked over and picked up the mug. “Actually, all of it.” She handed him the mug.

“Hard to say. The bones, yes. They need rebroken so they set right. He broke them, and now I will stay still and drink the nasty concoction he has for aiding in mending them.” He drained the mug. “And, yes, the sleep thing is normal for Zevi. He feels safe when I’m home.”

She waited, not quite sure what to say or do.

After a few moments, Kaleb looked up at her. “Not that I’m complaining about this new side of you — I appreciate the help tonight — but I’m pretty sure you didn’t show up to learn how to nurse a battered cur.”

Unlike Kaleb, Aya didn’t have a warmer side she wanted to share. In an expressionless voice, she asked, “You’ve heard about the new competition terms?”

“The winner gets to mate with his daughter or with him,” Kaleb said flatly. “Why are you telling me?”

“I don’t want to breed with Marchosias or with anyone. If I had, I would’ve wed Belias. I refused. I want to rule.” Aya sat tentatively on the edge of Kaleb’s bed. “When I realized the competition didn’t specify gender, I thought I’d found the answer: a woman can rule in The City by winning Marchosias’ Competition, but now, winning would force me to do the very thing I am trying to avoid.”

Kaleb’s gaze swept her from head to toe, and even injured, he was clearheaded enough to assess her like she was wearing a red mask. “Do you oppose the act too?”

“No.” She tilted her chin up. “But you know that already. You’ve had your scabs bring you what they know of me and the other contenders — as I have of all of you.”

Kaleb laughed. “Right now, I’m not feeling as confident that I’m still a contender.”

“You won’t be without help,” Aya said.

To his credit, Kaleb didn’t deny the truth. “I can’t forfeit, and I’m not looking for a protector, especially one who killed the last daimon she took to bed.”

Aya barely resisted flinching at his mention of Belias. “I’ve sufficient wealth to take care of you both. Neither of you would need to do mask-work again.”

“I’m a cur. Curs don’t forfeit. I’ll win or die fighting. If I die, Zevi will need—”

She interrupted, “If you die, you’re no use to me. I need you alive.”

“Do you?” Kaleb gestured at his bandages. “Then we both have a problem.”

“If I’m going to avoid breeding with Marchosias, I need a protector. You’re my best option.”

When he didn’t reply, she added, “I have a plan. I know protector arrangements are usually about money, but I have that. I need your ferocity.”

Kaleb glanced back at Zevi, and she saw the struggle he faced. As a cur, he had two competing interests: to protect his pack and to counter any challenge.

Finally he looked at her and said, “How can you help me?”

“I can weaken your opponent, so you’ll win.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Then, I’ll forfeit and offer a blood oath as your chattel in public. For one year, you’d be my protector. If I’m your property, no one — even Marchosias — can claim me. If you take me as a bloodmate, only you could impregnate me, and we can agree privately not to do that. I’ll buy time, and you’ll survive the fight. I can help you win. You’ll get the prize and the girl. All I need is someone strong enough that my being… property is believable.”

Kaleb shook his head. “If I accept you as mine after he made this announcement, I look like I’m rejecting Mal— Marchosias’ daughter. No deal.”

“Then I’ll move in as Zevi’s bloodmate for one year. You can announce that as your price: you accept my forfeit in exchange for the right to gift me to your packmate.” Aya’s temperature dropped as her mind filled with fear that she couldn’t entirely quell. “You’d still own me.”

“Why would you do this?” he asked, not unkindly.

“I can’t breed.” She shuddered. “It’s the one thing I can’t do. All I want is to rule, to make The City be the place it could be. If Marchosias is already noticing me, do you think he’ll lose interest? If I win, I’m his. If I forfeit a fight and am an unclaimed breedable woman, the odds of him not claiming me are so slim as to be laughable. And if I have a child… I’ll lose everything. You understand”—she glanced at the sleeping cur—“what it means to risk it all for something or someone. I want to serve The City, and if I have a child, I won’t be able to.”

Kaleb’s attention was fixed on her now, and as he watched her, Aya knew that he also had secrets that would cause her problems she couldn’t see yet. She hadn’t survived this long in The City without learning to read the clues people didn’t think they revealed.

Does he suspect me as well? He’d be a fool not to.

Finally, he said, “I’ll only accept your offer if you can guarantee my win.”

“I can do it.” She held his gaze. “My kill count will be yours, too, if I’m your chattel.”

Kaleb paused as that detail settled on him: with her kills added to his, he’d be ranked first by a huge margin. He could win the whole competition without killing anyone else in the fights. “And all you want…”

“I won’t breed under any circumstances. That term must be inviolate,” she stressed. “If we do this, if I’m bound to you or to Zevi, I’ll not bed down with whoever I’m bound to.”

“Agreed, but if I win and breed Marchosias’ daughter, I will live in the palace. That will mean that you will live within Marchosias’ reach too.” Kaleb spoke very clearly. “I cannot tell him you are for Zevi’s uses exclusively. He’d kill Z, and anything that results in injury to Zevi is a no-starter.”

“If you gift me to Zevi as a bloodmate, only he can get me with child,” she murmured. “If I have to be lent to Marchosias or anyone else, I’ll do it. All I ask is that you help me avoid one thing. Everything else is negotiable.”

After an indeterminate number of moments during which Kaleb stared silently at her, he nodded. “There are knives on the fire. The short one is silver. If you grab it, we can do this once it cools.”

Aya walked to the fire and retrieved a knife from the saltwater that was boiling over the low flames. A flicker of magic went through her as she cooled it down to a slightly less horrible temperature. She wanted to get this done before Kaleb could change his mind.

“It must not have been in there long,” she lied evenly. “We can do it right now.”

She pressed the edge to her palm and then held the knife out to Kaleb.

Once he’d cut his hand as well, they clasped their palms together. “I’ll support you in acquiring his daughter. I’ll support you in the fights, give you my kill count, and be yours to command. For the next year, starting in this moment, I’ll do all you ask in exchange for your protection,” she swore.

“I accept you as my property, Aya. I will protect you from harm and keep you safe from breeding with Marchosias — or any other daimon — in exchange for your support,” Kaleb vowed.

She released his grasp and carried the knife to the fire. With her back to him, she whispered a simple spell to make him sleep and then said, “Thank you.”

And then she left the two sleeping curs, so she could begin to procure what she needed to help Kaleb survive.