Fractured (3 page)

“We may have a bit of time,” he said. “Mazikin are like pack animals. They like to stay together. Only once during my time in the dark city were there two nests at the same moment, and that was because their population had gotten so large. At all other times, they chose one location, one base, and operated from there. It’s likely they’ll do that here while they figure out the quickest way to grow their numbers. Like me, they have much to learn.”

I squeezed his hand and hoped they didn’t learn as quickly as he did. “What do you think is the quickest way to grow their numbers, then?”

“I don’t know yet, but Sil came through the wall in the dark city, so he’ll be in charge of their decisions here. And he is, unfortunately, the smartest Mazikin I’ve ever encountered. There is a reason he is their leader. Ibram and Juri are also likely to be brought in, to function as enforcers. As a group, they’ll need food and shelter and a safe place to possess their victims. They will try to establish a nest right away.”

“If there are so many of them, how do they decide who to bring in to possess the humans they capture? Did you ever figure that out?”

“I think they actually have some kind of system.” He shook his head in disbelief. “The strongest Mazikin, and especially their leaders, have cycled through several human bodies and are quite good at acting human. Some of them even develop preferences—you’ll remember that Juri prefers Eastern European males, for example.” He scowled, and his grip on my hand tightened. His conflict with Juri went beyond Guard versus Mazikin. It was personal, and after what Juri had tried to do to me in the dark city, I suspected Malachi was looking forward to fighting him again.

“So some of them have preferences,” I said, eager to move the conversation away from Juri. “What about the others?”

“A Mazikin inhabiting its first human body is likely to act more like an animal, and the weaker or older the body, the more likely it is to move like a Mazikin in its true form.”

“Ana said she thought they were more animal than human.”

He nodded. “It takes practice and intention for them to behave like humans.”

That’s why they were getting noticed. In addition to surveillance camera footage, at least one cell phone video had popped up on YouTube. “I guess it’s good for us that they aren’t practiced yet, and that some of them are acting weird.” We both paused as a guy ran across the street, carrying a girl on his back. His hands were curled around her knees, and her arms were around his neck. She kissed his cheek and let out a shriek, laughing as her scarf unfurled like a banner behind them.

Malachi stared at the couple. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Weird.”

We walked along, discussing ideas, covering block after block, passing by the party houses and bars, hiking up the crowded main drag and down narrow residential streets. I counted the times the city and campus police cruised by, wondering what they thought they were looking for, knowing they had no idea what it really was, wishing I could leave them to it and actually head off to a movie with Malachi.

My Guard partner did not seem burdened with such petty thoughts. He nailed every passerby with a look so fierce that some of them pressed themselves closer to the edge of the sidewalk as they walked by. He was the perfect Guard, ready for anything, utterly professional. I tried to do my part and stay vigilant, but as the hours dragged on, a late March chill descended on us with silent brutality. My toes got numb, and I started to stumble over the broken, uneven brick sidewalks on the west side of campus. When I rubbed my hands together and blew on them in an attempt to drive away the cold, Malachi’s hand closed around mine, and he tucked it into the pocket of his hoodie.

“We should have brought gloves,” he said, flattening my palm against his body. “Your fingers are like little icicles.”

I closed my eyes for a second, savoring this strange, unfamiliar sensation, this tender touch and what it meant: that he
worried
about me. And when I opened them, he was watching me so intensely that it sent electric bolts of heat along my skin. “I … should have planned ahead,” I stammered. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be at a movie, either. I wanted to be somewhere private and cozy with Malachi, where I could explore this crazy hunger, where I could maybe get control of it.

Because right now, I wasn’t in control. Malachi’s eyebrows rose, questioning, as I pulled my hand out of his pocket, and then his eyes grew wide as I slid my fingers up under his shirt instead. Both of us exhaled sharply as skin met skin. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. “Your hand is so cold,” he whispered, curling his hand around the back of my neck and pulling me close.

“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t really, but I started to pull my hand out.

“Don’t stop.” He laid his forehead on mine.

“Malachi …” My heart was beating so fast that I was having trouble catching my breath.

“Lela.” He looped an arm around my waist. “It’s late, and it’s very cold out here. We have school tomorrow, and we haven’t seen any suspicious activity. Maybe we could go back, and …”

He trailed off, and we both stepped aside, getting out of the way of two guys in puffy coats and backward baseball caps trudging up the sidewalk toward us. I heard snatches of their animated conversation about the Red Sox as I turned back to Malachi. “Go back … and what?” I asked, staring at his parted lips. An inch or two from mine. Not close enough.

His fingers burrowed into my hair, as mine flexed over his back, under his shirt, where I could feel the striping scars made long ago by Juri’s jagged claws. They were hot beneath my fingertips. Malachi groaned softly and—

He raised his head abruptly, jaw tensed.

“On your knees, shithead.
Now
.” The voice came from behind him. From one of the two guys in puffy coats. I wanted to kick myself for not staying alert to
all
the dangers of the street, not just rampaging Mazikin.

Malachi stood very still for a moment, his eyes never leaving my face. The second guy took a step to the side, watching me with a smug half smile that sent a jolt of pure adrenaline through my body. I took a step back, and he shook his head. “No, no, don’t move,” he said to me, waving a knife in my direction. “We’ll get to you in a second.”

Malachi’s nostrils flared. “We’ll give you whatever you want.” His voice was shaky and high, saturated with fear that didn’t show in the smooth, steady arc of his hands as he raised them in the air. “Whatever you want. Just don’t hurt—”

He spun, looping one of his arms under his attacker’s, revealing the gun the guy had been holding to his back. With the guy’s arm locked tight against his chest, Malachi jerked to the side so that the weapon pointed away from me. He wedged his elbow against the guy’s throat and then kneed him in the balls, belly, and thigh before head-butting him. Wet squeals and whimpers punctuated every heavy thud. The second guy jumped on Malachi’s back but instantly went careening backward as Malachi drove the kid’s lungs through his spine with an elbow, and then crushed cartilage and bone with a devastating kick to his knee.

It was all over in less than five seconds.

Malachi snatched the gun from the thug’s limp hand. The guy was crumpled on the sidewalk, his nose gushing blood. The guy’s friend scrambled up on his good leg, clutching at his abdomen, wheezy sobs bursting from his throat. He hopped-ran-hobbled away, all crooked and broken and panicked, like a cockroach that had been sprayed.

With a look of absolute disgust and hatred, Malachi tossed the gun into an alley next to us and drew one of the knives from beneath his shirt. I managed to recover from my shock quickly enough to grab him as he cocked his arm to throw it.

“No, Malachi, let him go!”

“He threatened you,” he said sharply, his muscles tensing as he prepared to let the blade fly.

“No! You can’t do that here! It’s murder!”

Malachi paused, his face a rigid mask of rage. He lowered his arm and watched the guy running up the street, leaving his bleeding friend behind. Still holding the knife, Malachi sank to his knees next to the mugger, who was really just a skinny kid, probably a banger, trying to be a big man, lost and stupid and scared. But that wasn’t how Malachi was looking at him. His eyes were blank, like a shark’s, as he grabbed the kid by the hair and wrenched his head back.

“Oh shit, man, I wasn’t going to hurt you. I fuckin’
swear
,” the kid babbled, all nasal and snotty, refusing to look Malachi in the eye. I couldn’t blame him for that.

I put my hand on Malachi’s arm. “You have to let him go, too. He won’t call the police—he doesn’t want to draw their attention.” I tried to keep my voice even, but it was hard. I’d never seen Malachi look so predatory.

He leaned down slowly, speaking directly in the kid’s face. “If I see you again, you will not live long enough to regret it.” He held his victim in a punishing grip until the kid’s eyes darted up to meet his and widened when they registered the absolute raw truth in those words. Then he let the now sobbing kid slump back onto the pavement. “
Run
,” he whispered, baring his teeth.

The kid hesitated, like he thought Malachi might take him down as soon as his back was turned, which did appear to be a distinct possibility.

“Dude, you need to go,” I snapped at the thug, keeping a firm grip on Malachi’s arm as he knelt beside me. “Do as he says.”

The kid looked at me with terror in his eyes, but he lurched to his feet and took off, his feet clunking unevenly against the sidewalk, his arms pumping. Malachi watched him go, and judging by the tick in his jaw, it was taking a lot of effort for him not to nail that kid with a knife to the back. After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, the kid turned a corner and disappeared. Malachi bowed his head. He put his hand over mine, holding it to his arm, like he needed the contact as badly as I did.

“Are you all right?” I asked, my voice trembling. Malachi hated guns, having watched as Nazis shot and killed his brother, Heshel. It was one of the many reasons I wasn’t even going to suggest that Michael supply them for us to defend against the Mazikin.

Malachi nodded. “I’m all right.”

I stared at the dark smear of blood where the kid had been. “We need to get out of here.”

Silently, Malachi rose to his feet and sheathed his knife.

“Come on,” I said, already walking. “We’re going home.”

I got us back to the car, nearly jogging in my desperation to get away from the scene of the attack. Malachi didn’t say a word until I had the key in the ignition.

“I disappointed you,” he said, barely loud enough for me to hear.

I sagged into my seat. “No. You scared me. You have to understand how things work here. This isn’t the city you’re used to.”

“I know.”

I started the car and pulled away from the curb. “People here aren’t like they are in the dark city. The Mazikin aren’t the only ones who’ll talk back to you. They aren’t the only ones who hurt people.” I knew this all too well. “And Guards don’t have any authority, so you have to be careful. You don’t want to be arrested. Trust me.” I knew that all too well, too. “You’re used to doing whatever you need to do, but you can’t. You’re used to being the law, but you aren’t.”

“Yes, Captain. I understand.” His voice was as distant as his expression. He folded his arms over his chest and turned his face to the window. Neon signs and streetlights painted him pink and yellow and green, and I wanted to stop the car and hold on to him, but I couldn’t. He’d made me nervous, and I needed him to
get
that, for our safety and for our mission.

But still, it felt so upside down. Malachi was the leader between us, not me. I wanted him to be in charge, but at the same time I realized he couldn’t be. Not here. Not on my turf, where everything he’d learned over the last seventy years would get us in a crapload of trouble.

I pulled into the driveway of a pretty little Victorian tucked into a secluded lot, which happened to be less than a half mile from the waterfront mansion where Nadia’s mom still lived, alone. I had to wonder if Raphael had chosen this place as a joke: it looked more like a gingerbread house than a Station for Guards.

I walked with Malachi up to the wraparound porch, my chest aching. What had happened back there on the street still lingered between us. I had no idea how to be in a relationship, but I knew
this
didn’t feel right. “You’ve got to say something,” I finally said.

He turned to me quickly, like he’d been waiting for permission. “I never expected to be a liability, Lela.” He opened his mouth and then closed it again, like he didn’t know if he should have said that or not. “I want to be an asset to you. I want to destroy anything that threatens you.”

All the tension in my body evaporated. I slid my arms around his waist and pressed my head to his chest, where his heart beat solidly beneath my ear. It was the feeling, the sound, the scent that made me feel strong. No one else in the entire world could do this for me. In fact, I shied away from most other people, hating to be touched after so many years of not having a choice about it. But Malachi … was different. He let me choose, he sought permission, he waited for me, he gave me control. And when I showed him I was ready, he was there. He wrapped his arms around me, his hand skimming up my back and settling in my hair. The feel of it was like this glowing ball of light at the heart of me, sending waves of honey warmth along my limbs.

“You
are
an asset to me,” I said. “And you did protect me, okay? But I want to protect you, too, which means we have to be careful.”

“Agreed.” He bowed his head and kissed my temple. “Lela, anger is something I’ve worked to master for many years, and tonight I was nearly its slave again. If not for you, I might have done something I would have regretted always. Thank you.”

His lips were on mine when the front door swung open, momentarily blinding me with the light from the entryway.

“This looks like a
hell
of a lot of fun,” said an unfamiliar voice. “Can I have a turn with her when you’re done?”