Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
The smell hit me first.
Dirt. Shit. Urine. Gasoline. Animals. Body odor. Rotting garbage.
Sour.
Heavy.
The bouquet of animals and people living together in squalor and filth filled my nostrils and my mouth with a bitter taste. The warm summer night baked the odors into the pavement, ballooning it to nauseating levels.
The paved road quickly became cobbled, loose and crumbling under the bike tires, rattling our bones.
The streetlamps disappeared the moment we crossed over to the Savage Lands, leaving us in thick shadows, only a handful of dim lights from windows cascading down softly on us.
As my sight adjusted to the dark, I took in collapsing buildings teetering on unstable foundations.
Vandalized, decaying, or destroyed, few held a hint of their former glory.
Boarded-up shops, cafes, and businesses looked as though they had been looted and abandoned long before, leaving a sad feeling in the darkened doorways of the old stone buildings.
The former life of this place was now merely shadows and ghosts.
Our ride started off quiet, a handful of figures dotting the streets or sleeping on the cracked pavement, with only strips of cloth or boxes to sleep on.
No one ventured out for an evening stroll in the temperate night, enjoying a night with friends.
But the longer we drove, the more people I saw.
Most of them were skin and bones. Drunk, dirty, dressed in rags, their frames sagged as if they had given up on hope a long time ago.
A few slept with the livestock, now fenced on empty parking lots and in old squares.
The unbelievable smell of piss and feces permeated the streets.
Human. Horse. Sheep. Hog. Most cars were picked clean and vandalized.
Some were barely shells and were being used as homes for the lucky ones who procured them.
Despair reeked in the atmosphere, my skin itching with the destitute and polluted air, stabbing at my heart.
Did Istvan know how bad it was here? He couldn’t possibly realize the extent.
He’d never let his own people wallow in this filth without trying to do something.
Now I realized how much had been kept from us within Leopold’s walls. The news shaped and painted a picture that did not match what my eyes were taking in, and night hid most of the true horrors. Poor, yes, but this was beyond that.
“Stay close to me.” Warwick’s voice jolted me from my thoughts. “This place is dangerous.”
“We just broke out of the Halalház.” I leaned closer to him to speak, our mouths only an inch apart, our bloody skin pressing into each other, sticky and dirty.
“Halalház is civilized and orderly.” He tilted his head so I could hear him, his loose hair tickling my cheek. “It has rules. This place doesn’t. Gunslingers, gamblers, outlaws, and prostitutes with nothing to lose. They will shoot you in a blink for just looking at them wrong.”
“What?” I blinked.
“There are no laws here, princess.” He gave me a side-eye, like how adorable you still believe in fairytales. As a soldier, I guess I still believed there were laws in a society we all followed.
We turned down another road, the Hungarian name still visible on the side of the building, Király u.
, meaning King. The narrow street was lined with worn and ramshackle neo-classic stone buildings, their glory days forgotten.
It was suffocated with people, buildings, and makeshift structures erected on roofs or crammed in places they should never have fit, choking out any sense of space.
It felt like a jungle—reedy, dense—making my lungs palpitate.
He slowed down to almost a crawl as hordes of people milled everywhere, closing in the narrow lane. There were a surprising number of horses tied randomly to posts or moving freely around, adding to the intensity of closed space and putrid smell.
When the curtain fell between worlds, the rulers in the West were quick to adapt and modernize, using the magic in the air to power devices and automobiles.
Not here. Only the ultra-rich could afford to buy these innovations, and most of our country reverted to simpler times.
Horses did not break down under magic. Even Istvan used a horse when he was in the city.
Magic-friendly motorcycles were the lone motor vehicle being manufactured in the East. Russia and Ukraine had cornered the market, which added to their power and dominance over other countries.
Brash laughter, talking, yelling, and music streamed down an alley where Warwick slowed the motorcycle to a stop.
Torches lit up the outside of the pedestrian lane, people stumbling in and out, women and men, fae and human.
The amount of loud and unruly people caused my lungs to pulse with anxiety.
Gunshots echoed through the lane, making me jolt with a cry, clenching the gun I was still holding.
“As I said. Stay close.” Warwick got off the bike and turned toward me, taking the gun from me and stuffing it into the back of his pants before reaching for me.
Blood still leaked down his arm from where he’d been shot, but it looked like the bullet had grazed him—lucky him.
I was only in my sports bra, my gray pants so soaked with blood they were sliding off my bony hips, the weight pulling them down.
Both of us were shot, bruised, wounded, covered in dirt and blood, and not one person gave us notice as we entered the lane.
Walking through the entryway was like passing into another world—a dark fantasy and a terrifying circus.
It was unlike anything I had ever seen. Overwhelmed, I stopped in my tracks, my mouth parting.
My senses were inundated with stimuli. The stench of body odor, liquor, smoke, vomit, and food slammed up my nose.
The boisterous noises had me darting my head around the pedestrian lane packed with bars and restaurants.
The air reverberated with the sound of high-pitched laughter from scantily clad women, coupled with music from pianos or live bands.
Tables were filled with people drinking and gambling, people kissing or fighting, passed out, dancing, or doing drugs right in the open.
One fae had partially shifted into her fox form, alluring everyone who passed to come watch her dance.
Most customers were dressed in simple cotton trousers or skirts with shirts and jackets in muted, dull colors, as if they had been washed and worn for so long they’d lost all pigment.
The insipid fabrics emphasized the shirtless men and painted women strolling around, their eyes empty, but salacious smiles curved on their mouths.
Women in racy fantasy costumes dangled from the ceiling on hoops and swings. A hammock high up was filled with multiple naked forms—groaning, touching, licking—not hiding one bit of their ecstasy as they openly fucked each other.
“Full house!” A man’s voice bellowed, drawing my attention to a group gambling at a table inside one of the bars.
All the doors and windows were open on this balmy night.
“My reward. Come.” The old man curled his fingers at one of the young men near him, beckoning him over with a lustful sneer.
The boy couldn’t have been older than fourteen.
I turned away, feeling sick to my stomach.
I wasn’t na?ve, but my world had none of this depravity.
Not in the open anyway. We kept our sins hidden.
I hobbled forward, the pain in my leg screaming louder with each step, but I was still caught up in the debauchery around me.
Feeling overwhelmed and uncomfortable, the lane seemed to tighten around me, figures knocking into me, pushing and touching my emaciated frame with ease, forcing me to tuck closer to Warwick.
We reached an intersection in the path. A building on the corner boomed with activity, my skin shivering with the extra energy and shock.
Women draped out of the windows above, motioning to the men walking by as music streamed out, enticing the people below.
Men paraded in and out, some not even bothering to proceed up to a room, their pants down around their ankles as they fucked against the wall, right under a sign that read Kitty’s House.
Feeling revolted, but unable to stop watching, my stomach twisted, my innocent world crashing in around me as my gaze caught more lewd acts among the shadows in the alley.
“Here.” Warwick turned me toward the whorehouse.
“What?” I yanked back on his arm, almost falling, realizing I had been leaning on him much more than I wanted, my leg barely able to hold my weight. “Here?”
“You gonna get righteous on me, Kovacs?” His brows furrowed as he tugged me forward, my feet stumbling to catch up.
“Warwick!” A woman yelled down, her smile growing into elation, her eyes turning hungry.
“Warwick! Warwick’s back!” More women joined in from the windows waving down, pushing each other out of the way to see and call down to him.
Why was I not surprised he was well known at a whorehouse?
“Gods, Warwick. We’ve missed you. It’s been so long.
We thought something happened to you.” A stunning dark-haired woman blew him a kiss.
“Madam is going to be so happy to see you.” Her voice was like velvet, a song in the air.
Alluring. An inkling, a tiny voice, told me to follow her, to be near her, a hook drawing me in.
“Hey, Nerissa. You know I’m not that easy to get rid of.” He winked up at her, his eyes glinting, only making her lids lower with desire. Suddenly the voice inside my head flipped. I wanted to punch her in the face. “Been held up elsewhere for a bit.”
“Well, we’ve missed you. Me most of all.” She curled her finger at him. “Come upstairs and let me show you . . . like old times.”
I didn’t even know I moved until I felt Warwick’s arm wrap around my torso, tugging me back, a snarl curling my lip.
Where the fuck did that come from?