If he let her close enough. Currently, he stood across the room, eyes slitted.
“Kev didn’t discover that.”
“Don’t tell him,” Aubrey said, and all the power was back in his hands.
But Kev would split her open, Kev would wiggle his fingers in her guts, searching for answers, ways to please Lord Simon.
She utterly hated Kev.
“I tell you what, puss. I’ll take you out. To some wholesome Academy magicians. How does that sound?”
“Yes.” Too eager. But the Academy was her way home, better even than the police.
“Good. Tomorrow morning. Early.”
She retreated before he demanded more. Not that he would now. She didn’t think he would ever get too close now.
Only—what if closeness was Dmitri’s price for helping Aubrey?
Safety, home, would be worth whatever Dmitri wanted.
This is how desperate I am. How pathetic.
She had to gather her resources. She’d watched Mother manipulate people often enough, lurking in the dressmaker's to wrangle a ride home in Lady Clyndale’s carriage; bribing Lady Pavronay to seat her next to a baron at dinner. Mother wanted their family to meet the best people, a friend of a friend of a friend who could recommend Richard for a government post; help Andrew to a good school; supplement Aubrey’s dowry.
Mother never had to save herself from being tortured.
Which didn't mean it couldn't be done. Aubrey lapped the tips of her fangs with her tongue.
She didn't sleep that night, only drowsed briefly, her head against the wall. She’d found a wooden beam under the bed and kept it beside her on the bed, hand curled around one end.
As she waited, she felt her fangs. They retreated into her gums, sprang back when she tensed, sensing movement in the parlor. She bit her tongue and blood filled her mouth.
I don’t want these. I never asked for them.
But at least they were something, a way to keep her kidnappers at bay.
Dmitri was easy to understand. His only goal was money. He wanted someone to know about Aubrey, so he could collect payment; he saw no benefit in keeping her locked up.
One of Mother's contacts will pay Dmitri. I’ll be home soon.
She imagined Mother, tidy and trim, jewels sparkling at her wrists and neck. Mother would cry when Aubrey returned. Richard would nod sternly. Andrew would hug her—he was more demonstrative than the rest of them. Life would go back to its usual patterns. This would end, be over, fade away.
Towards dawn as the parlor's papered windows let in vague, unhealthy light, Aubrey left the alcove and waited for Dmitri beside the round table. She didn't sit down.
“Eager kitty,” he said when he entered from the outside hallway.
He didn’t near her; instead, he made sure Aubrey was watching, then ostentatiously slid a knife into a sheath at his waist. He beckoned for her to precede him out of the parlor down a dark corridor to the front door. He reached over her shoulder to unfastened the bolts, saying, “Be nice, puss.”
The door opened. Aubrey took a breath and gagged at the pervasive stench of urine and rot. The actual air seemed opaque. They walked along a cobbled street, the stones cracked and upturned. Streams of brown liquid ran in ditches alongside the road. Dmitri didn’t seem to notice. He ambled beside Aubrey, whistling softly. Occasionally, he said, “Watch out” pointing to a dung heap.
She couldn’t tell what the season was or even the weather although the temperature was cool, not cold. The houses further leaned together as Dmitri led her through cavern-like streets. Tired women passed, their breasts sagging, lips painted sideways: too bright, too big.
They came out on a larger thoroughfare, still all dirt rather than the city's normal brick or stone. The timber houses still leaned towards each other; fetid offal still filled the ditches. But the buildings now bore signs; including the two-story shop before them. A loose wooden board hung over a door-less entrance way: Apothecary and Herbs for Potions.
“In you go,” Dmitri said, motioning towards the shadowy entrance.
“This isn’t the Academy.”
“Not yet. Be patient.”
Aubrey went first up trembling stairs into a room filled with heavy, green-tinted jars and cracked bottles. A thin, greasy man straightened from hunching over a crate of bottles.
He said nervously, “Hullo, Dmitri.”
“Hullo, Max. Meet our guest.”
“The young lady who was a cat?” Max leaned closer.
His noisome breath smothered Aubrey. She retreated, feeling her fangs with her tongue. Dmitri grinned from the other side of the chamber.
“Go on,” he said. “Show him your pearly whites.”
She glared, but this was how to get home: show Max her fangs, prove who she was. He likely sold herbs to the Academy; he could carry a message.
She opened her mouth, pulled back her lips. The fangs descended without prompting.
Max gaped, the bottle in his hand tipping to spill lavender fluid across the floor. He swore and set the bottle down.
“She was a cat.”
“Didn’t I say?”
“Kev said. He lies.”
“Not this time.”
“What about—”
“The great man’s not a believer. What do you think? Would there be bidders?”
“Would there not!”
“You said we were going to Academy magicians,” Aubrey said.
“She’s tenacious,” Dmitri told Max. “Every day, ‘When will you take me to my family? I wanna go to my family’” his voice a whining falsetto.
I don’t whine.
“Now it’s ‘I want to meet Academy magicians.’ Little sycophant.”
“I want to go home,” Aubrey said through clenched teeth, and Dmitri held up his hands, a you-see-what-I-mean gesture.
“Academy magicians will bid for you,” he said.
Academy magicians weren’t like that. The kind of magicians who would bid for her would be like Kev.
They might just ask questions.
They might rip the fangs from her head.
“Spread the word,” Dmitri said.
“Yes. Yes,” Max said.
“Good. Now, we mustn’t return without Kev’s supplies. Janlep, marchgrass, simiol, and lanha.”
Max shuffled here and there about the room, ladling spoonfuls out of various beakers and tubes, leaving greasy marks on the bottles.
“I would love to hear about your transformation,” he said shyly to Aubrey.
Dmitri laughed. He snagged the package of ingredients and beckoned to Aubrey.
“Come on, puss.”
She went—in front, so she couldn’t sink her fangs into his neck, couldn’t close her mouth about the hand holding the package, couldn’t push Dmitri down the rickety stairs.
They reached the street.
Aubrey ran.
She thought she heard Dmitri laugh, but she didn’t stop, pushing her unsteady legs to move—Faster, so she wouldn't be taken to pieces, auctioned off in boxes: heart in one, fangs in the other. The top bidder will get the fangs. She rove around unsteady pushcarts—one fell as she tumbled against the vendor—early-morning drunks, gangs of dirty brats. Dmitri’s shouts came from further and further away.
No alleys. No dead ends. Just forward on the widest thoroughfare. After awhile, she had to walk, hand pressed to her side. She looked over her shoulder incessantly. Occasionally, Dmitri fell out of sight—he’d been stopped by the pushcart vendor, caught up in one of the gangs—but she didn’t lie to herself. He was there. He was following.
She debouched onto a brick road near stalls displaying jewelry and multi-hued bolts of cloth. Buyers and sellers filtered across her vision; she began to notice passersby as more than just blurs—men in trousers with suspenders, vests, and flat caps; women in straight gowns with smudged white aprons and loose kerchiefs. She thought she saw a policeman, but it was a just a day laborer wiping his face with a green kerchief.
She didn't stop even to search for a kind or helpful face: one of her Mother’s friends, someone from the Academy. Civilians couldn’t help her even if one offered; Dmitri would simply walk up and claim her. She kept breaking into half-jogs, unable to imagine what she would do when Dmitri decided this game should end.
She tried to remember everything she knew about Kingston: friends of her family; churches or hotels that might accept her name on credit. Every possibility unraveled. Her brain whirled, resisting mental effort. She trudged around carts, carriages, and street chairs, alive only to deep, inner panic. She crossed a plaza holding a square fountain and waddling pigeons. It seemed familiar, perhaps even a place she’d visited, but she kept going.
She stopped finally, trembling with fatigue and hunger. She’d brought herself to a broad, sweeping avenue. Ladies and gentlemen moved along the sidewalk—hoop skirts swinging, top hats gleaming—languid, self-contained, their voices calm and regulated. A few of Kingston’s police loitered at the corner. Aubrey gasped, ready to holler, to demand assistance.
“I'm tired, puss,” Dmitri said at Aubrey's elbow. “Time to go home.”
She jerked to face him.
“I know where I am now,” she said. “I don’t need you or Kev to help me.”
“Nobody is going to help you except me and Kev.”
“My family—”
“You think they want you back—the strange daughter who got transformed into a cat, went to live in Kingston’s slums?” He caught her wrist. “Come on.”
She pulled away from him. He reached for her with his other hand. She pushed at him frantically. Claws flicked from under her fingernails; they ripped Dmitri's left cheek from temple to chin. He screamed while she hissed, bent her head, and clamped her fangs around his wrist.
Dmitri loosed her. Aubrey dashed into the road, sliding between a gig and carriage. Green flashed across her eyes as she neared the sidewalk. She skipped sideways to avoid a collision. People were shouting. Hands gripped her shoulders. She jerked against them, flailing. A second pair of arms gripped her arms, held them against her sides.
“Calm down,” said a rough voice—not Dmitri’s. “Stop that.”
A face bent, eyes met hers. She saw a green kerchief: A policeman. “Calm down,” the voice said again and this time, she obeyed.
Continued in Chapter 4 "Evidence" on September 6, 2013 . . .
©
Katherine Woodbury
