Chapter 33
THE FIXER
Alina requested that we come to the lab after hours. It took both Silas and me by surprise that she would willingly want to spend time around us. I guess a perk of this business arrangement meant that she wasn’t going to kill us, at least.
The apothecary was creepy and off-putting after hours, just like its owner. I would never get used to seeing it.
We were let in through the side door by Edith, who was quieter tonight than usual.
It was like she had been told specifically not to talk to us. We were to be let in and nothing more.
The staircase seemed narrower and longer, but maybe that was because it was like we were being led to an execution. The ambiance was less than hospitable.
When we entered the flat, we were graced with quite an image. It was almost hard even for me to swallow.
Dangling from the ceiling was a cocooned silhouette, a body hung by a hook in the ceiling.
I imagined the most abominable moth would emerge from such a casing.
As wonderful as that would be, though, it was merely a man.
At the bottom of the form, slow drips seeped from it and landed in a bucket of dark liquid.
Only then did I realize it was a Vipera, bound and being drained of his blood like a pig in a butcher shop.
My stomach lurched from both disgust and the reminder of my hunger. She was a cruel thing, planning on starving me out. With the deal in place, I could only hope she meant to let me eat soon enough. So far, none of the other Hosts had budged.
A few members of the Nest stood off to the side, with the exception of Rebecca and Alina. They were standing in front of five men, who were propped up against the wall. Rebecca had a fist full of one man’s hair to keep his head up.
Alina stood, tall and dark like some phantom. As always, she was dressed in black, but she wore men’s clothes for this endeavor. I suspect it was for practical reasons.
When Edith closed the door behind us, it caught Alina’s attention. She was like a raptor bird, dialed in to everything in her domain. Her eyes traveled from Edith to the two of us, lingering on Silas.
Silas held an impersonal demeanor, but I could tell there was a silent standoff between the two of them. It dawned on me why we were here. She was sending a message. She was making a point.
“Edith.” Alina’s voice was sweet but dangerous. “Take Rebecca’s place today.”
Edith flinched at the call of her name.
Oh Edith, Alina will eat you alive if you cower like that.
She was no better than any natural predator; it was like she had grown a hunger. An instinctual need to dominate.
The Catholic sheepishly approached; even Rebecca shot Alina a look as if to ask her reasoning.
“Grip by the hair, make sure the chin is tilted up,” Alina instructed, picking up a wooden wedge and shoving it into the man’s mouth.
His eyes were wide, frantic, and his muffled babbling increased in tempo.
“I don’t . . . I don’t think I can do this,” Edith whimpered.
“You need to grow thicker skin.” Alina stepped aside and picked up a long axe that was resting against the wall. “I do not know how you survived on your own before this.”
The victim’s muffled words became shrieks when he eyed the axe.
“I don’t know—”
“Edith,” Alina warned. “I am making you do this because I care about you. I want you to go off and do great things, but you are holding yourself back. You need to go from doing what you are told to anticipating what needs to be done.” She spoke slowly, stepping a few paces forward.
“I think I will be sick—”
“Don’t.” Alina stopped and raised the axe with the blunt side forward. “You need to see this.”
Before she brought it down, she flipped the axe to be blade-forward, then brought it down on the wooden block between the man’s jaws.
The wicked blade split effortlessly through the wood and through the man’s skull in turn.
It was quick, but hardly clean. You could have blinked and missed it, though the thin splatter of blood across Edith’s face was a clear indication that the horror was real.
Though it registered to everyone involved when the top half of his head slid off and landed on the floor with a harrowingly blunt flop.
“Ah.” Alina straightened, stretching her neck from side to side, “How foolish of me. I meant to just crack the jaw. I guess we have two subjects donating blood today.” She laughed as if she had simply mixed up the sugar with the salt.
“It is a good thing that you followed instructions, that could have been your finger if it had been a hair out of place.”
Edith’s eyes slowly tracked up to Alina, something like shock and alarm in her eyes.
“Rebecca, I think you can handle the venom for tonight.” Alina handed her the hilt of the axe, stepping past us spectators as she left the way we came.
Silas and Alina came face-to-face. She paused, and so did everyone else. There was no room for a stray insult, not even a spare breath.
Silas was cold, his pupils nearly black and fixated on her.
Obsidian blood adorned her face, marked by her ambition alone.
Then she left.
The girls did not even exchange glances before they went on to business as usual, prepping the next subject.
It became clear to me that Alina was not at the head of her Nest because people loved her. She was their elected head because she was their best chance of survival, as long as they went along with her madness. They feared her; that much was clear.
From what it looked like, they had all convinced themselves they worked toward a noble cause. She was weaving an intricate web that could only get larger from here. Now that she had been made to accept our arrangement, they needed her more than ever.
Silas’s expression hadn’t changed from the last time I checked.
“You created that nightmare,” I told him. “Are you not pleased?”
“I think that was a love letter.” The corner of his lip tugged into a grin, and his eyes shone with what could only be described as deep reverence.
It only made sense that he was just as disillusioned as her.
He was hopeless. They were the most chaotic pair this world would know, and unfortunately, that would serve them well.
I feared for those who found themselves under their boots.