Chapter 9 #2
The tunnels narrowed as the crowds fell away.
The screaming had stopped.
She reached a dead end. A single oil lantern affixed to the low ceiling, casting shadows over the headhunter’s leering face with a smile that showed too many teeth.
Clutched in his hand was the young boy trembling like a leaf.
His glassy eyes brimmed with tears as they darted between his captor and Ksenia before settling on Caromir at her hip.
The headhunter turned his smile on her—his teeth a mismatched row of yellow with a single canine capped in silver. “Move along, pretty,” he sneered. “Though—you look like a damn animal with those yellow eyes. What are you, part cat?”
Ksenia could smell his hot and rancid breath from where she stood, paying his insult no mind.
Destroy him.
“Let him go.” Bile coated her tongue, rage steeling her nerves as she unsheathed Caromir.
Before he destroys you.
“Like hell I will.” He chuckled.
She smiled crookedly. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
He stood straight, cracked his neck, and leveled his eyes at hers.
She blocked his exit under the sputtering lantern as his lips curled over pointed canines.
The boy made himself small in the corner.
The headhunter lunged, his blade sailing overhead and catching the top of the alleyway with a streak of gritty sparks.
She kicked her boot, sending refuse and dirt into his face as he screamed and scrubbed his eyes with a free hand. Their commotion echoed like a dozen brawlers were fighting.
She was upon him in an instant, Caromir slicing the fetid air between them, catching the gaudy gold chain he wore and cutting it free.
He growled as they circled one another, the lantern swinging back and forth overhead, light flashing across his snarled, rotted teeth.
He cleaved the butcher blade toward her midsection at the same time she darted out of range, catching the opposite handle of his saw and sending it off-kilter with force back at him. The momentum swung him in an arc, and he teetered on his back foot across the dusty ground.
She closed the distance, slashing up his chest, the spurt of bright red blood painting the walls as his scream echoed.
That’s it.
She kicked him in the chest, sending him to the floor as his blade dislodged from his hand, clattering a few feet away. His eyes were ringed with white, and he scrabbled for his blade.
With the toe of her boot, she sent the saw skidding away.
“No, no, please! You don’t understand, I’m just making a living—”
Twist the knife.
She leaned into his space and spoke with a menacing bite.
“No, you make your living off the detriment of others—you are the festering rot that needs to be cut out.” She slashed against his hands that futilely blocked her advance, lopping off a few fingers in jagged fashion.
He released a howl and cradled his bloody mitt to his chest.
Ksenia buried her foot in his stomach and the air punched from his lungs, his pupils pinpricked as he looked up at her.
End him.
She buried Caromir deep into the soft hollow of his throat, blood gurgling in his gullet and mouth as his eyes twitched open and closed.
Something shifted.
Caromir’s hilt grew hot as if she were gripping fire-heated metal straight from the forge with her bare hand, but she couldn’t let go. The familiar hum of her dagger twisted inside-out, which made her question whether the difference was the sound or her hearing.
That warm, imperfect tone had become discordant, as if the iron tuning fork had split down to the very grain—a shadow of itself. The sound recoiled, flattened against her rib cage, and came back again.
The blood no longer slid off the polished steel hilt, but absorbed, drawn into the metal like water into parched earth. Something hungry pulsed, deep within the blade.
The hunger and heat traveled up her arm, into her chest, spreading through her system like a surge of pure, molten metal, making her nerve endings sing. Strength condensed into every fiber of her being until her entire body thrummed.
Her head fell back.
Ah, tell me you wouldn’t kill for that feeling again…
A shudder racked her body as she came down from the high. The heat settled into wholehearted satisfaction, like scratching an itch she didn’t know she had, like the first drop of water after wandering the desert. She sucked in a breath as she opened her eyes.
She hadn’t fathomed what she was capable of, but she better understood the addictive allure of hellbound blades now.
She pulled Caromir free, the blade sliding out of the corpse with a wet sucking sound.
Quick, shallow gasps from the corner stole her attention.
The boy was pressed to the wall, eyes wide and unblinking. Ksenia had just killed a man in front of him.
Guilt branded itself in her stomach as she recalled her own warnings about hellbound blades: run faster.
“Hey. It’s okay.” Her voice came out rough; she swallowed and tried again. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
He trembled even harder.
Ksenia’s chest tightened. “I know you’re scared. But I need you to listen to me, okay?”
No response.
“Do you have a wayfinder coin?”
His eyes flitted to the corpse for a half second.
Ksenia leaned down and searched through the slain man’s pockets, trying not to think about his blood still warm on her hands. She found the wayfinder coin in a leather pouch along his belt.
Relief flooded through her.
“Is this yours?” She held up the coin so the little boy could see.
He stared at it, then at her bloody hand holding it. He nodded imperceptibly.
Ksenia cleared her throat. “I know you think I’m…what the adults warn you about. But you should get to the safe house now.”
“Are you going to follow me?” His voice was tiny.
He thought she was a monster.
“No.” The answer came quickly.
He eyed her for a beat then snatched the coin from her palm and clutched it to his chest.
Ksenia watched him edge past her down the empty lanes until the glow disappeared.
She stood there a long moment, now the most frightening thing left in the dark. Then she slunk back to the manor.