"Just start whenever you're ready," Gerald gently began, and I took a deep breath.
"It all started when Ersken mumbled out…
"I can't believe how unfair this is. I mean, really, double watches every other day? I know we're getting paid hazardous duty pay by the King, but still." Finally, I could take no more.
"Ersken."
"Yes?"
"Anyone who aint sick is working the same amount of hours as us. The King himself couldn't stop this bug, and the City can't go unguarded. It aint anyone's fault that so many Dogs caught sick, but they are and we aren't. So shut up, and do your job."
He gave me a funny look. "Beka, I would have never taken you for one who got mean when they were tired. I thought you would just get quieter than usual." I just glared, not in the mood to talk. Currently, yelling was a perfectly reasonable response to any question, certainly keeping my temper under control took too much effort. And so I decided to prove Ersken right and simply stop talking. My new partner's constant talking had frayed my temper over the last couple days, and I found myself longing for my usual companion, Tunstall. However, the fever had hit him hard, and he lay in one of the many quarantines set up across the city.
Ersken finally took my cue, and we wandered through our patrol in silence, the market bustling around us. While the Evening Watch had the most criminals on the street (and thus demanded that only the best patrol), the Day Watch needed numbers. With the crooked mixing in with the multitudes of innocents, more eyes are needed to find and arrest the Rats. Yet, due to the number of guards unable to leave their beds, and the chaos in the city 'cause of the blasted fever, Dogs have had to double up on watches to maintain any semblance of order. Usually Fourth Watch can fill in the positions vacated by ill Dogs, but the disease has spread like wild fire among us. Too many have been sharing gear and lodging houses. What Ersken and I were doing was a necessary. We had to maintain the tranquility of the city for the greater good.
Yet for all I repeated these facts to myself, it doesn't change that fact that my body knew it should be laying flat in my nice warm bed. I'd finally have scrubbed all the grime out of me pours, and the sheets would feel so crisp around me…
"How much time have we got left?" I ask, knowing Ersken would know exactly what I was talking about.
"Beka, it's only 11 in the morning." I look up, realizing grimly that the sun hadn't yet hit the zenith of its trip. Ersken continued, "We're on duty until one tomorrow morning. We've barley been on patrol for 2 hours." Scowling, I returned to scanning the crowd halfheartedly. Hours pass with Ersken and me running on autopilot. Minutes drag on for days even as hours fly by in an unintelligible blur. Finally, we'd entered the last stretch of our watch.
"Midnight, Beka!" I smile as I too hear the bells ring out over the city.
"Just one hour left," I sigh, rubbing my eyes once more, trying to keep the exhaustion from overtaking my vision. We turn into an alley, Ersken taking point while I cover his rear. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flicker of motion, yet when I turn to get a better view it is gone.
"Beka?" Ersken calls back, noticing my pause.
"Nothing, just thought I saw something. Gods, I need to get to sleep before I start seeing ghosts."
"You already talk to them, why shouldn't you see them too?" He laughs, and I join him, both of us crazy with exhaustion. Ersken continues walking forward in a well practiced trudge, scanning around corners and into crevices to keep us from getting killed. I've watched him a great deal these last few days, and I know exactly how he does it: check left, check right, take three steps forward while scanning the area in front of him, swing baton in a well-practiced pattern, and start the whole thing over. I follow him, looking over my shoulder and double checking the alley. As we walk farther and farther into the side street, the road narrows till two grown men could no longer walk abreast. The Rouge stores weapons and general supplies back here, and so high stacks of crates create winding mazes on either side of us. Usually the Happy Bag pays us well to avoid this side street, but murder rates have spiked in the wake of the desperation. The poor have become poorer, and any entering the shadows of alleys are open to attack. We have to check here for bodies.
I continue stepping forward, but I could swear that there was a man watching me from the shadows. I spin on my heel again and again, yet the shadowed man is simply my mind playing tricks on me. My hackles are up, but this phantom fiend is simply exhaustion playing tricks with my mind. There is no one here but Ersken and I. No one.
Yet I still stop and scan the world around me. I hear rather than see Erskin continue to walk, and I turn to see him waltz around a corner. A flicker of motion catches my eye once more, and I snap my head around to see a flicker of cloth retreat into the crates.
I was wrong- we are not alone.
I step forward into a narrow gap, forgetting my training, squeezing my way in between two crates without any thought of my partner. Baton raised, I call out, "Reveal yourself, in the King's Name!" I receive no answer. I take another step into the maze of boxes, but there is no light to see by. I assess my position: no visual, no partner, no Rats in sight. I turn to leave, only to hear a rustle from behind. As I try and turn, realizing my Rat stands behind me, a hand pushes itself over my face and mouth. I inhale, preparing to scream, but only breathe in a lungful of drugs. As the world goes black around me, I try and buck the man off, but it is no use. My weakened limbs collapse under me, and the darkness consumes my mind.
For a while I lose myself, drifting in an ocean of nothingness. Slowly I re-enter my own world. The first thing to return was my name- and I whisper it over and over to myself as I walk towards the light.
Finally, I am myself once more. With every blink, the veil of confusion wears away, replaced with understanding and anger. I awake in a dingy hovel, which had only recently received occupants. Dust lies piled in every corner, and the furniture rots from the inside out, laying in wait for an unlucky occupant. My arms stretch out above my hand, iron links biting into my wrists as they bind me to the bed. A quick glance down reveals that my legs are bound in a similar manner. I am trapped.
"You're finally awake. Good, good, good." I arch my back to the point of pain, and catch a glimpse of the man standing at the head of the bed, like a wild cat above its prey. Slate grey eyes peer out from under thick, mouse brown eyebrows. Hair of an indiscriminate color flops lankly atop a narrow face, drawn out long like the Rat he is. "Yes, this is very good." Releasing his perch from a clenched grip, the Rat slinks to the end of the bed where I can look him in the eyes. Face to face, I spot a glimmer in his eyes that makes me shiver. As Cesspool scum, you learn to spot danger. My every instinct screamed at me to flee. Yet when tied down, freedom is an impossible dream.
A hand, covered in grease, reaches out and strokes my hair, the gentle touch belaying the rage in his stance. "My pretty little martyr," he whispers out, and nausea reels in my gut. This man, this situation, this isn't right. The hand he had twined in my hair slowly strokes over my head and onto my cheek and chin. I pause, waiting, then strike out with my teeth, snapping them onto empty air.
Gotta give it to him, the man had reflexes.
A hand cracks down, catching me right across the face. Though none of my teeth are launched out of my mouth, my tongue is caught between my jaws, and blood pours onto my tongue, and I spit the red saliva onto his face.
"You trollop, you upstart, you worthless piece of gutter trash!" it seemed as though different man stood in front of me. Whereas before an unholy lust had twisted his actions, now fury dominated the man, overriding any sense of logic or reason that had been left in his mind.
"We'll teach you a lesson on how proper ladies behave," he spat out as his fist pulled back once more.
He proceeded to thrash me with unexpected skill. Where most men would succumb to the battle fire, letting it rule their actions, he tamed it, used it as a tool. Instead of letting fly a few wild punches, and knocking me out within a few moments, the beating lasted forever. Just as the freedom of unconsciousness began to overwhelm my mind, he noticed and pulled me back from the brink. Only a few shots were directed at my head after the initial blow; most focused on my chest and stomach until my ribs burned with pain and I had emptied my gut multiple times. Finally he pulled back, knuckles raw and seeping blood.
Panting, he began to walk away, "Let's give you some time to think about your actions, before we have any more fun." The door shut definitively behind him. The lock slid into place, and my prison doors sealed with a definitive silence.
Though the gloom encroached on my consciousness constantly, cracks below the windowsill betrayed the passing of time. Just as the sun began to rise, a healer came in, healing up a few cracked ribs, and wiping balm on the larger bruises. Unabashed, I begged for him to let me go or tell the Provost's Guards of my continued survival: offering him money, power, fame. He never said a word, and hobbled out the door in quiet anonymity.
Meanwhile, the day continues in a never ending drudge. Outside my window, I could hear the sounds on the street, but no one answers my screams. Later, I was told there had been a silencing spell on the warehouse. Yet in denial of the hopelessness of my situation, I continued my verbal barrage, screaming for help and cursing my captors in the same breath.
It took a long time before it dawned on me that no one was coming for me. I was alone.
The light disappeared from view, and I spent the night shivering on the oaken bed. Dawn came once more, and I squirmed on the bed, dying for the privy and some water. Even as my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, my bladder ached with a need to expel waste from my body. Sometime, around mid-afternoon I guessed, the man entered my room once more. From the grin on his face, he knew he had the upper hand.
"My little martyr, have you learned your lesson?" Pride screams at me to vent my anger on him, but my biological needs hold back my tongue. Shame seeps through me as I nod my agreement. Childish delight shines from the man's face, and he claps his hands with joy. "Good, good, good," he slinks over to my bed, crouching at the edge. "Now, I'm sure you need something from me. Don't you, pretty?" he said, making the question more of a statement. Instead of waiting for my answer, he plows on ahead. "But I'm also sure you know, pretty, that nothing is without a price." For the first time, true panic creeps into my mind and body, adulterated by neither adrenaline nor anger. I feel my hands above me begin to quake.
"Price?" I whisper out, trying to remain steadfast against the terror that threatens to overwhelm me. With only a sick grin, he leans down and presses his lips to my ear as I shudder in revulsion. His teeth nipped at my earlobe before meandering a path down my jaw line. Tears leak from my eyes. But for all that disgust threatens to consume me, I hold still as a statue. Finally, he backs away, something like pride shinning from his face.
"Yes, yes, we were right. The guardswoman learns so much faster than the others. Survival instincts." Then he seems to snap back into reality, and addresses me once more, "Good girl." He pats me on the head like a dog. "Now we must make sure you behave. But how?" The creep stills, head cocked as if he listened to another voice. "Yes, yes, good idea, sir," he mummers in agreement to some unspoken suggestion. He slithers over to a bureau, and pulls out a rag and a vial. Uncorking the glass, he holds the rag to the top, pouring out a thin stream of liquid onto the rag. He creeps back to the side of my bed, and I fight once more to free my wrists. Once again, a vicious slap cracks across my face.
"Bad. Hold still." I refuse, but the rag held over my face quickly quells any resistance. My mind suddenly stops functioning, and I can't stop giggling. "Why am I tied to this bed," I thought to myself, "and where am I?" My captor is untying my wrists, and though I sense that this is important in some strange way, for the life of me I can't remember why. I sit up once my arms are untied, giggling at some unknown joke.
"Who are you?" I grin at him. He smiled back, and helps me up, holding me when my legs give out from lack of use.
"It's of not matter to you," he quietly replies. "Just know that our names will be tied together for all eternity. Come along." He leads me out of the room through the only door, which connects my prison to a long hallway with two other doors. He leads me to the one on the right, pushing me inside and closing the door behind me. I look down, and see it's a privy. Suddenly, I remember how badly I have to pee. Dropping my uniform pants, I sit and relieve myself. Finishing quickly, something screams at me to delay.
"Are you done?" My captor calls.
I pause, torn between two options. Why do I want to stay here? Why not follow the nice man back? Suddenly, snapshots flood back. Ersken, the alley, the darkness, his lips. I feel the drug begin to loosen its hold over my mind. Pitching my voice high, inserting random giggles, I call out, "I…I'm not. I don't feel well."
"Hurry it up. You have one more minute before I come in and get you." Anger underscored my captor's outwardly jovial tone. Quickly, I scan the privy. For a moment I lose track of my train of thought, but I force myself to remember his touch, his slimy awful touch. The anger and shame that laces through me wears off the remaining effects of the drug, and I search for any weapon I can use to my advantage. There once was a small window, high on the wall, but it was boarded up from the inside. However, I quickly notice the lines of nails binding the relatively new boards to a rotten window frame. Standing on the privy, I lean up, resisting the urge to chortle in glee, stretching as far as I can to grab hold of the lowest board. Three nails hold the ply wood in place and a swift wrench on the boards jerks one end out of the window sill. However, the second end remains steadfastly bound to the wall. Using both hands now, I grab hold of the edge, slowly working the remaining nails out of their wooden tomb. I hear a voice in the hallway.
"Oi, Seth, the girl's not in the room."
"No, she's in the privy. Not feeling well or some such nonsense. Girl! Hurry up. You have ten seconds." Furiously, my hands work on my last chance of escape.
"Ten." Pulling, pulling with all my might,
"Nine." Are they starting to break free of the wood, or is it just my imagination?
"Eight." Yes! They're coming out! But too slow by far.
"Seven." I can slip all my fingers between the board and the wall, and I use all my body weight to try and pull board out of the wall. Blood begins to drip down my arms as my hands are ripped up by the splintered wood.
"Six." It's free. It's finally free.
"Five." Three nails, about three inches long, are stuck into a length of board about the width and length of my hand.
"Four." I set myself up right to the side of the door, prepared to ambush Seth the second he comes in.
"Three."
"This is taking too long. GIRL! GET OUT!" Who said that? Seth, or his accomplice?
"Two." CRASH! "No!" A boot crashes in beside my hip, breaking the lock and slamming the door open. I swing at where my attacker's chest should be. However, the man that flew into the privy is not Seth, and is nearly five inches shorter than my captor. The nails only skim the edge of his face, leaving long scratches across his cheek bone. Fury written across his face, the new man turns around, fists swinging. His knuckles make a solid contact against the side of my face, and I hit the ground hard, head spinning. Instinct saves my life as I kick my feet up into the accomplice's chest as he swings down a dagger, intending to implant the length of steel into my gut. However, instead of skewering me, he found himself flying over my head into a wall. I hear a sick crunch, and he lies prostrate on the ground.
Springing to my feet, I scan the room quickly trying to find Seth. Suddenly, I meet his cold grey eyes. "You're being very bad. Very, very bad. Drop the nails." No matter how crazy a man is, you can't argue with him when he has a loaded crossbow pointed at your chest. I hold up my hands and drop my makeshift weapon, surrendering.
"Drop to your knees," Seth commanded, and I comply, hands still in the air. I feel the kiss of steel at my neck.
"Let's just kill the bitch, Seth." His lackey proposed, pressing his dagger a little further into my neck for good measure. I feel blood drop onto my head from above. At least I got in one good hit.
Seth shook his head. "No, she is a martyr. Others must learn from her example. They haven't learned from the others, but maybe this one will be the droplet of water that pushes the river over its banks." I wait, wait for an opportunity.
The lackey begins to pull his dagger away from my throat. "Seth, don't you think this is getting…" I never let him finish his sentence. Quickly, I grab his wrist and throw him over my shoulder once more, this time into his partner instead of the wall. He lands hard on his back, his feet knocking the crossbow askew. With a twist, I relieve the sidekick of his knife, and plunge it into his chest.
The punch that whales me across the face plunges me back into the darkness.
When I finally reemerge from the blackness of my mind, I awake to find a rather angry kidnapper staring down at me and my limbs immobilized once more. Quickly, he thrusts another rag over my mouth, one laden with just enough drugs to make a thin, grey sheet drop between me and reality.
When I find the Black Apothecary who mixed these cocktails up, I'm gonna give him a taste of his own medicine before calling the Guard.
He stands up, beginning to stalk around me.
"What to do to a girl as bad as you?" He croons, and the sick admiration in his eyes is worse than the fury of moments ago. "When I finish our little game, you will be begging for death. And when this is over, and I cut your throat, remember that you had to turn to me and ask for my permission to leave this world." His voice remained level and calm, a strange contrast to his words. Even under the false lethargy of the drugs, I knew this was the end of everything. No more sunsets or sunrises, no more kisses or hugs in my future. This was the beginning of my last moments of life. And my last sight would be this cracknob in front of me. Tears began running in rivers down my face. The drugs continue to addle my mind as he eases my pants off.
"Let me go, let me go…" I weep out.
"Shhh, little one," he croons, gazing down on my body in sick admiration, "You know you want it. You know this is exactly what filthy, sleazy trollops get when they ask for it. And remember, in the end, you have asked for it time and time again." Disgust and shame rip through me, and I try once more to buck him off me, but my limbs feel like lead and my kick misses his head by a foot. I tug at the chains binding my arms to the bed, but it is a hopeless maneuver. I am trapped; pinned down like a calf at the slaughter.
"Please, please have mercy," I beg, desperation overcoming my pride. "Please, don't do this."
Wild eyes gave me my answer. There was no way out. No help.
"Please, please, please, please, please….." A swift punch to my ribs knocks the wind out of me, and though I strain to speak I can only wheeze in tortured gasps. Seth pulls out a knife, efficiently slicing down the front of my shirt, revealing my breast band.
"Please, please, please," the phrase becomes my mantra, whispered to whatever god might hear my pleas. Unbidden, prayers drop from my lips, "Please Goddess, take mercy on your daughter. Please, Mirthos, take justice upon those who break you holy laws. Please, Peaceful One, look down on your scion with…"
A hand presses down on my throat, clenching off any last words I might wish to throw to the heavens. A knife appears at the edge of my vision.
"Gods don't take mercy on upstart bitches who ask for it. Your filthy mouth soils their names as they pass from your lips. The gods are punishing you; they need me to do this. I'm their living tool."
For the first time, I look directly into his red-rimmed eyes. "You're pox-rotting insane. A murderous crack-nob 'ho get's off on dousin' 'hoever he can." Panic had me slipping into Cesspool chant, and in a moment of terrifying clarity, I thought that My Lady would be proud of me holding onto my civilized side for so long.
To my shame, he laughed, "You think we haven't heard that line before? Only a select Few understand the cause. All the rest must be punished." He smiled down at me, cutting off my breast band in an eerily practiced maneuver. Tears roll down my face as he reaches down, his hand reaching for my loincloth.
There is no more hope. Not for me. Resigned to my fate, for the first time since he grabbed me in that dark alley, I stop fighting.
His fingers move under my loincloth, yet I can't bring myself to care. I am the walking dead. What happens in the remaining hours of my life no longer affects my fate. I am the dead.
After all these years, I will finally know the paths into the beyond.
He begins to pull my underwear down, but suddenly pauses. Then I hear it too: footsteps in the hallway outside my final resting place. I hear shouted commands, and someone rattles the locked door handle. Could it be….? No. No, no one knows where I am. A cry echoes into the room, "In the King's name, open the door and surrender yourself!" Seth looks at the door once, then sprints across the room. Flipping over a rug, he reveals a trap door set into the floor. He looks back once at me, then jumps into the tunnel below. I hear his footsteps recede into the distance even as the door breaks open.
Guardsmen and women, clad head to toes in black, rush into the room. Someone covers me with a cloak, while another unties my hands. I hear someone call for a healer, even as reports begin to come up from the tunnel. There's no sign of a man, and the tunnel is a dead end- the roof has collapsed, obviously recently. A man calls out for someone to get news back to Goodwin before she cuts someone's head off. Ersken walks over, and tries to help me up, but I can only scream. And scream. And scream. Another rag descends over my face, and for the final time I slip into the glorious release of unconsciousness.
"Then I woke up a few hours later, and refused to give a statement. When Goodwin went to find someone to escort me home, I snuck out and walked home on my own. Then I ran into Rosto."
"How did you get the knife?" Gerald asked, and Beka admired the thoroughness of his investigation.
"I'll answer your question when you answer mine. How did you know I got the knife?" she shot back, taking her residual fear out on him.
He scowled at her, "Rosto told me- I interrogated him as a part of my investigation. Once again, how did you get the knife?"
A shrug as Beka temporized, finally answering, "I snuck back to the crime scene. I had to know if he'd been caught. I only had to ask around a little to find out where I was going- everyone and their mothers knew about the sting going down in the Cesspool. I just walked into the crime scene and took it."
"I doubt it was that easy- you're pretty easy to identify."
"Everyone was exhausted, doing their job and getting out of there. One more guard, even one beat up pretty bad, was not an issue. As long as no one caught my eyes, and I didn't make too much of a fuss, I got by."
"Well, thank you…" The door slammed open, and the pair leapt up, weapons drawn.
"Toz-a, this is my investigation. Needless to say, I should have been present at the interview of our victim," Viktor stood in the doorway, cheeks blushed with anger.
"As you should know, son, special victim cases often involve adapting the protocol to ensure all comfort for the victim," Gerald strictly corrected.
Anger pauses the scene as the two Scanrans glared in unrestrained antagonism. Finally Viktor turned on his heal and storms out.
A tear slowly etched a line down Gerald's otherwise emotionless face. "What has Corus done to you, my boy?"
Beka was afraid to answer.