Queene Of Light. Jennifer Armintrout
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he’d scoffed once, when he’d used his pipe a bit too much. “Druids. I walked with Amergin. He gave me this harp. The fools, if they had any idea of what it meant to be a true Druid…ah, but half of them don’t even eat animals. They believe it is too cruel.”
But it hadn’t mattered. With the followers of the One God calling on him in prayer for even the most mundane situations and the pretenders invoking spirits and attempting to force their consciousness onto the Astral plane, the veil rent. The Gods “Seemed to disappear as mist into the air,” as Garret described it, and the creatures the Humans had long thought of as myth had spilled onto Earth with no hope of ever leaving. They were welcomed at first, celebrated even. But when they did not show themselves to be the helpful sprites consumed with admiration for the Human race that the mortals expected, they turned on them.
It was said the war began when the Fae races drove the Humans Underground, though the story that existed outside the Lightworld was that the Humans had fled below the Earth of their own volition. They abandoned their world for the caverns they had hewn from the dirt, tunnels for sanitation and great vehicles that shook the ground as they traveled on rails. The Humans drilled passages to connect them and create the great cities of the Underground.
As more Humans fled the world above, a mortal rose as leader among his people. Uttering his name was forbidden in the Lightworld, but Ayla had not always lived there. In her childhood on the Strip, the neutral zone between the borders of Dark and Light, she’d heard him spoken of. Madaku Jah, the Prophet. Or the Traitor, depending who told the tales. No matter if he was reviled or praised, he’d raised an army against the creatures above them and forced them into the very Underground they’d made the mortals endure.
Now, the tides shifted again. Only a fool would ignore the signs. Another battle brewed, but this one was not against the Humans, the common enemy of the Light and Dark worlds. This war would be fought in the Underground. The grim thought haunted Ayla as she shuffled to the barracks, her body on the verge of collapse.
Inside, only the Pixies had begun to rouse. They always rose early, desperate for what little sunlight they could get.
One of them stopped her with a wide grin. “Ayla, you look terrible. Come with us to Sanctuary.”
“Of course I look terrible. I have been training all night. Now I need rest, while I can still have it.”
“Suit yourself.” The Pixie flashed another winning smile. Any creature with a drop of mortal blood would look terrible in comparison to the Fae races, preternaturally young and strong. And they had gotten rest. They had not been plagued with thoughts of a newly mortal creature lying helpless in the Darkworld.
Neither had she, she scolded herself. There was no reason to think on the creature. Not to pity him. That had been her first mistake. Not to revel in her victory, obviously. All she needed to think of was a good enough reason for her failure.
So, why then, did she fight for sleep on her hard bunk, ignoring the sounds of the other Assassins as they rose, unable to chase away the memory of the Darkling’s voice and anguished face?
Four
Malachi opened his eyes to a strange, mechanical whirring and a pressing weight on his back as he lay on his stomach. He remembered the man in the tunnel, the one who had stabbed him and drugged him, the shock and horror as he realized he would be defenseless against whatever would come.
Panic seized him, and it was an emotion he did not like. In fact, he did not like any of the emotions he had experienced thus far. He jerked up, bracing his hands beneath him, the bite of cold metal meeting his hands where his flesh had not warmed it.
“Don’t move, I’m almost done.” The command was most calm, considering the man had abducted him.
Malachi swallowed, his newly mortal throat as dry as parchment. “I am thirsty.”
“Sorry, nothing to drink during surgery. It’s unsanitary,” the man responded. A flare of something passed Malachi’s face, and when he peered over the rolled edge of the table he saw the withering remains of those addictive tubes of paper the mortals in the Underground despaired of finding regularly enough to feed their habit.
Mortals lived in the Underground for two reasons. They sympathized with the denizens of the Underground, or they had been banished from the Human world for practicing magics. But the man’s reason for being there did not concern Malachi so much as what he was doing. “Surgery? I do not understand.”
“Of course you don’t.” Another burst of whirring, accompanied by an acrid scent that Malachi recognized as burned flesh, punctuated the man’s words. “Your kind are ethereal. You never need patching up, or at least you’re not supposed to. But you, my friend…you were in bad shape when I found you.”
Though the man’s words were strange, his meaning was clear. Malachi cursed him silently and rested against the table once more. “You should have left me to die.”
“It was tempting. I haven’t ever gotten my hands on a pair of these beauties. Promise me if you kick off before I do, you won’t mind me keeping them?” Another burst of whirring, then, “Okay, all done.”
The man jumped down from the table—it must have been his knee causing the pressure, Malachi decided—and helped him to sit up. Malachi teetered under the weight of his wings. They’d been too heavy from the moment he’d turned mortal, but they were lopsided and unwieldy now. “What have you done to me?”
“Saved your life. And your wings.” The man touched one of them, and Malachi hissed involuntarily at the pain. “Well, they’re gonna be tender for a while.”
“Who are you? Why are you doing this?” Malachi moved to stand, but his weakened limbs would not support him. Light danced before his eyes, leaving the room darker with each starburst, and he fell onto the table again, bending the tips of his wings beneath him.
“No, no, don’t go passing out. You’re too big for me to catch if you fall.” The man steadied him, then held out one blood-crusted hand. “Name’s Keller. And I’m doing this because I hate to see perfectly healthy folk go down for things that are easily fixed. You would have bled to death out there. Don’t let me tell you how to live, but I’d much rather live a life that’s worth something than die alone in the Sewer District. Place is a hellhole.”
“Where am I?” His vision cleared, Malachi surveyed the room. Pipes made a grid of the low ceiling, and the Human had used them to hang too-bright electric lights that gave off a terrible fizzing sound. He’d covered the walls in a wide, wire mesh fence, forming crude walls around their space. Everywhere were boxes and steel cabinets, and tables strewn with mechanical parts and tools.
“You’re in my shop,” Keller said with forced pride. “In the Sewer District. But hey, the rent’s cheap, and at least I found a dry place. You wouldn’t believe some of the hovels around here—they have to sleep in hammocks to stay out of the muck.”
Malachi said nothing. He’d seen many homes in the Darkworld. Creatures mortal and immortal fought to survive in the harshest half of the Underground, and their ingenuity knew no bounds. Keller’s humble shop seemed a palace in comparison to some Darkworld dwellings, and his numerous boxes indicated he had some way of earning material possessions.
“I outfitted you with some lightweight aluminum I won in a card game. I heard it came from an airplane.” Keller tapped one of the sore spots on Malachi’s wing, and the resultant clang distracted Malachi from the pain. When the man faced him, Malachi saw one arm was completely missing from the elbow. In its place, an intricate system of metal and wires imitated the severed body part. In fact, the man’s head seemed to be fitted with metal, as well, a long, curved piece of shiny steel that scooped around his ear. Keller scratched at the metal fragment in his skull with the false hand, and sparks jumped from the contact. “So, now you know why I’m not living the life fantastic up on the surface.”
“Yes.” There was nothing else to say. The man was clearly a Bio-mech, a creature who believed the Human body