Part 11: Escape from Monster Island

When did my life become so complicated? It used to be all about the steal: Taking what I wanted without getting caught, mostly because I could but also because there was good money in it. Tonight, I found myself sitting in a rickety fishing boat, staring up at the night sky and wondering where it all took such a left turn.

Six-Fingers was celebrating a fish he caught off the side—a small fish but it was his first.

Lorena sat behind the fisherman who owned the boat, draping her left arm around his collar. Her right hand kept a crescent-shaped blade tipped against his neck. He rowed to the best of his ability but after putting up a fight and paddling the length between the mainland and Moira, the old seadog looked ready to collapse.

Our boat approached the island from the angle where I knew the beach was located. We parked it in the sand and tied up the fisherman. "Be a good boy," Lorena told him, "and we'll set you free once we get back to the mainland. Be a bad boy, and I will come to your home and peel the skin off that pretty little daughter you told me was the reason you had for living." I could never tell if she was joking or not when she said things like that but I certainly wasn't going to show my concern to the fisherman. After he nodded to assure us of his cooperation, we left him laying next to the oars in the boat.

Lorena and Six knew how to put on their game faces when they were on a mission. We worked our way back to the asylum by passing through the servants' village. We didn't need to say anything to each other during the trip—we moved in and out of the shadows, trading places and signaling each other with the slightest gesture. Now this was more my speed. The quiet night complimented by a rush of cool wind and the possibility of a challenging encounter.

That last element seemed a bit lacking after a while. As we moved closer to the center of the village, we started to notice the quiet a bit more. It made us slow down to take in the environment a little better.

No one was home in any of the windows we looked in. Perhaps the staff had been called to the asylum for a meeting. We continued to move quickly and quietly but something about this didn't sit right.

Moira Asylum was worse than a ghost town: It was infested by Sarto's Gloomlurkers. We could see them through the windows, rushing down the hallways and taking out anyone they could find. Some windows were broken by the desperate and others were covered in streaks of blood and gore. Lights were on everywhere so it wasn't hard to see the massacre play out.

"I knew this was a bad idea." Funny. Saying 'I told you so' usually felt better than that. Then again, Lorena wasn't always there to punch me in the shoulder.

I didn't think Six could get any paler than he was. "Thought you said she'd be safe, Garrett!"

"She could still be alive," Lorena said as she moved forward. "Let's try the front door."

By all appearances, the asylum's front entrance was unlocked and unbarred but when we tried the handles, it wouldn't budge. Sarto had done this deliberately. She was raising an army of Gloomers in the basement—she certainly wasn't going to let anyone live to tell the rest of The City about her little surprise.

"Oi." Six waved us around a corner. He'd found a cellar door that was locked on the outside. No need to enchant it if nobody could get out. I picked the padlock, then listened for a moment to make sure we weren't about to run into something. Nothing but wind. We pulled up our masks and went in.

The cellar was being used to store old asylum equipment: There were crates, tables and worn bed frames piled up against each other. We had to weave through all of it to reach the next door. Despite her stature, Lorena navigated the maze without shifting anything. Six-Fingers had equally impressive control over his gangling limbs. Watching them reminded me of the days we used to run into each other more often. None of us were this disciplined at first but each time we saw each other again, we always had more tricks up our sleeves. I really admired the evolution of their survival skills.

We stopped and looked at each other when we heard a noise from the other side of the door. An overturned hospital bed was the last barrier between us and the open space in the cellar, and we gathered behind it just as the door came open. One of the guards fell in and was followed by a Gloomlurker that made short work of his throat. It bothered me that I knew just how easy it was for them.

The Gloomer stooped to feed on its kill. It would have been the perfect distraction if it weren't facing us, but I had a quick solution to that: I scooped up a handful of loose screws and pebbles, then passed them to Lorena since she was at the edge of the bed furthest from our obstacle. She nodded to let me know that she understood, then flung them one by one at a drainage pipe in a corner of the room. The Gloomlurker moved to investigate the sound and we were free to move on.

Lorena decided to take one step further than I would have. While Six and I crept for the door, she tipped up behind the Gloomer. I could have told her it would sense her once she got close enough. As soon as it spun around, she jabbed it in the face with her palm and cut its throat with a curved blade. Ash sprayed from the wound and when its body hit the floor, it shattered into a pile of dust.

Six-Fingers approached the dust pile and pushed some of it around with his hand. "Guess we know that's possible now."

"Figured I'd give it a shot." Lorena pulled a pair of blades from her hips and offered them to us. They were thin and light—no wonder they cut so quickly. I didn't know any of the Gloomlurkers well enough to try and change them back like I did before, so putting them out of their misery was the next best option.

Most of the Gloomers were too busy chasing or feeding to notice us, and the ones that did were quickly taken down. Slicing or stabbing the neck seemed to work best. Six discovered on accident that cutting the leg worked just as well. A Gloomer dropped on him from the ceiling and he caught its leg with his knife hand, purely by chance. It was dust before they hit the floor. Lorena reasoned it was because he nicked something called the femoral artery. Trust her to know the medical term for a part of the body that could kill you with a single cut.

The women's ward was quiet but no less of a horror show. There were bodies everywhere. None of them looked like Scribe; still, it wasn't pleasant to check.

Her room door was wide open and droplets of blood lead us in the direction of the women's dining hall. Six moved the fastest to follow the trail. The one Gloomlurker that tried to get between him and the rotating door was cut down before it could verbalize a warning. Lorena and I just followed along and kept our eyes open.

In the cooking area, the blood trail was lost in a bigger mess: The head chef and her assistant were torn limb from limb. What wasn't eaten was thrown around room; in fact, the only body part that was remotely in tact was an upper arm that gripped the handle of the oven door.

We looked through the mess to make sure none of the parts belonged to Scribe. "Shit, man. Where the hell is she?" Even in a whisper, I could hear the grief building in Six's voice. Then I saw it: A small, partial handprint on the door of the oven. I kept my knife in the ready but as I pulled on the chef's wrist, I was pretty confident of what I would find inside.

"Six. Your bun is in two ovens right now."

Scribe's small size made it easy for her to hide in something as sturdy as a cast iron oven. Luckily for her, the chef didn't have time to light a fire before the Gloomlurkers entered the dining hall.

Lorena and I kept an eye on the doors while Six and Scribe had their moment. She was understandably surprised to see him and he was in awe of how much her belly had grown. He also had to take a moment to wrap her right arm, which was still bleeding from a recent attack.

"Sixy... I can't believe you're alive!"

"Long story, love. Almost drowned out there at the Dawn but the Watch still arrested me. Tell you the rest another time. What happened here?"

"It was insane! I was by myself. Suddenly the whole building shuddered, and every door opened at once. As soon as I looked out of mine, this Freak jumped out of nowhere and nearly took my arm off! I'm only glad that I cooperated like Garrett said so I wasn't still tied down when the door came open."

I listened to them but there was something else I heard—or rather, didn't hear. "Quiet. Something's changed." We gathered near the door to the women's ward. There were no more screams of terrified staff members. No more bold challenges from suicidal guards. The Gloomlurkers had run out of other people to hunt, which meant we would have a more difficult time going unnoticed.

Lorena licked the corner of her mouth when she realized what that meant. "Well, ladies, this is officially a kill or be killed situation." She took another blade from her hip and handed it to Scribe.

I said, "Let's head back to the cellar."

Six shook his head. "There's all that stuff down there. Scribe won't make it through."

Lorena agreed with me. "We'll clear a space and use the junk to block the inner door. The only other way out we know of is the front entrance and that is not an option."

We worked our way back in the direction we came and it was no small feat avoiding the Gloomers. Lorena eagerly took the lead, taking out any solitary wanderers we came across. We played it safer when more than one was around. Pretty soon, all we had to do was descend into the foyer to reach the cellar we came from.

Twenty. I counted twenty Gloomers feasting on the corpses in the entry room. The slightest noise seemed to draw their attention. This was worse than running into a line of guards after breaking into a vault.

We had no time to come up with a plan. A Gloomlurker feeding at the foot of the stairs saw us and signaled the others. They all came racing up the staircases on either side of the foyer.

Six jumped over the upper level railing and I lowered Scribe to him while Lorena killed the first Gloomer that managed to reach us. She and I went over the rail together and made a run for it, but there was so much gore it was hard to gain any traction for speed. The Gloomlurkers followed our path and caught up just as we ducked into the cellar's stairwell.

This was not the way I wanted to die: Inches away from freedom, being hauled backwards into a room full of half-eaten body parts. Lorena was pulled first and I saw her desperately fighting against the crowd that surrounded her. I stabbed the Gloomer that had a grip on me and others turned to close in. There was nothing between me and the cellar—I could have joined Six and Scribe and shut the door behind me. Then I looked at Lorena again. Her leather gear took the brunt of the Gloomers' strikes but it was being torn to shreds and she was next.

No time to think. I pushed my way through the pack, cutting down the ones I could, until I was just as surrounded as she was. The Master Thief and the Master Assassin were going to die rescuing a pregnant spy for a pickpocket that should have drowned.

I'm not sure what happened next, but I remember feeling like a fire was burning me from the inside-out, starting in my right eye. I went blind and my arms and legs went numb. A deep thrumming overtook my eardrums—I was sure the death blow had been struck. Any moment now, the Trickster would come forward and beckon me into the Maw of Chaos.

In the midst of darkness, I heard the sea. Death didn't seem nearly as bad with the sound of churning water echoing in my head. Of course, that meant I wasn't actually dead.

I opened my eyes but there was something wrong—I could see the night sky, just not as broadly as I could before. I tried to move but lifting my shoulders turned out to be more than I could do at the time.

"Garrett." Lorena moved her head where I could see her. There were a few cuts and bruises on her face but at least she was alive. My head must have been in her lap but I could barely feel to tell. My ears seemed to be the only things cooperating with me. Listening for a few moments told me that someone was rowing a boat. The boat I must have been on. Were we on our way back to the mainland? I could only remember a room full of claws, teeth and dismembered people.

I struggled to say, "What happened."

"Your hocus-pocus went off again." Six-Fingers grunted in time with the stroke of the oars. He must have been the one rowing.

"It all happened so fast." Lorena tilted my head so I could better look in her direction. "You caught fire—a strange, blue fire—then the fire exploded from you and all the Gloomers were reduced to ash. I had to carry you out of there." She smiled and tweaked my nose. I couldn't even lift my fingers to swat hers away. "You are as light as you are lean, Master Thief."

This had to have been what the Queen of Beggars meant when she said the power I had wasn't meant to be wielded violently. I could feel some of my body gradually but for the most part, I was dead weight in the boat. There was also the matter of my reduced visual range. "Did I lose my right eye," I asked and almost didn't want to hear the answer.

Lorena shrugged and shook her head honestly. "Not sure. Blood was trickling from underneath your eyelid so I bandaged it for now. We can take a look when we get back to the mainland."

With her help, I was able to sit up and look around. Scribe sat in the front of the boat, trying not to be seasick. Six was rowing like I thought he was. With just the four of us in the boat, I had to ask. "What happened to the fisherman?"

"Oh, he was ripped to pieces, the poor sod." Six-Fingers shook his head but hardly looked remorseful. "Probably shouldn't have left him tied down, but we had no idea what would come of it. Gave his pocket watch a new home, though. Was still on the beach. With part of his torso."

"Remind me never to die near you, Six."

"Oh, I'd be real respectful with your things, Garrett. You saved the life of my family and I'll never forget it. You too, Lorena. I owe you big for stickin' this out with me."

She replied, "The only thing I want now is to kill that witch, and not just for the money. She's going to turn those monsters loose on The City, and if she succeeds, then we will have lost everything."

I didn't like to play the hero, but I knew she was right. The Gloomlurkers made short work of the asylum staff and guards. They would tear through The City worse than the Graven riots. I also suspected that there were a lot more lurking than just the ones we saw tonight. Salvo could have a whole army of those things waiting for the right time to strike.

"How long do we have before the party?"

"Two more days," she answered.

"Good." That meant I had time to rest and restock my supplies. If I was going to do this, I was going to be overly prepared.

I could barely walk when we made it back to the mainland. Lorena insisted on helping me get home and Six-Fingers agreed to meet us on the night of the party. I would have preferred to have been left by myself until then, but even going up a small flight of steps took some effort. It would have taken me all morning to make it to the top of the clock tower.

When we got there, I gave Lorena a look that meant it was time to leave but she didn't pay any attention to it. She always did what she wanted, and what she wanted was to tuck me in.

"You realize I can barely move right now," I reminded her.

"Relax. I'm not about to force myself on you. Though you can't tell me that would be an entirely bad thing."

"Another time," I grumbled and waved her away. As soon as I stretched out in my bed, she crawled in alongside me and made herself comfortable.

"Shouldn't you go do something about the cuts on your face," I mumbled.

"After I check your eye and the rest of you for permanent damage." She hovered over my face so I could see the conviction in hers. "You burst into flames, Garrett. Your eye bled. You wouldn't respond to anything I did to try and revive you. Frankly, I was pretty sure that I was dragging a corpse out of the asylum until I heard you take a breath while we ran through the village. Now, I'm going to sleep here today, and when we're both awake, I'm going to make sure that you're okay."

Lorena settled in and brought her head to rest on my chest. "It's the least I can do after you saved my life twice," she added.

Sighing, I gave up on trying to get her to leave. I wasn't making much of an effort and I knew her concern was genuine. I was just tired of people getting attached to me. It didn't do Erin any good and I was sure that staying detached is part of what saved me from Sarto's Gloomlurker curse. I didn't want to be comforted by others or for others to be comforted by me. I just wanted to do what I do best.

"You brought me back to the mainland, so after you've had your sleepover, we're even."

I expected her to be upset with me for saying that, or at the very least, to turn her back on me in the bed. She must have been more tired than I thought because she didn't even move. All she did was whisper two sentences:

"You're not the only person who cares about others, Garrett. Just the only one afraid to say it out loud."

I couldn't really respond to that, and not just because I could tell she'd fallen asleep. I had said I cared once before—to Erin when I thought she needed to hear it most. The words didn't seem to help at all, only my actions did. The skills I had developed to take what I wanted and vanish without a trace. The most effective way I knew to show I cared was to use those skills on behalf of others. In a few days, I was going to do it again.