Andrei

Putting pen to paper was not as straight forward as it once had been, but I hadn't forgotten how to form letters, and I discovered a method by which to keep my lines relatively straight, using tactile queues and my left thumb and forefinger as a guide. That said, after Riz, Markus, and I solidified the details of our plan, I penned a letter to Maryse, expressing my desire to apologize in person for unceremoniously telling her to piss off.

But the reason I wanted to meet with Maryse was twofold and had nothing to do with an apology. For one, we needed a distraction. For two, I had questions.

The evening of our meeting, I wore the clothes I'd commissioned earlier that week from one of the lair's tailors. I was told the pants were black and the tunic was dark blue. I'd been wearing my hair down more often those days, but kept the blue ribbon wrapped around my wrist in honour of Sinclair. I hadn't been adhering to priestly protocol where grooming was concerned either, having let my beard grow out.

"How do I look?" I asked.

"Well," Riz trailed off—a long, thoughtful pause, "you look like you in nicer clothes."

Markus patted me on the back, and I sucked in a breath of surprise, but the temperature around us remained the same, and no one cried out in agony.

"Ask lots of questions, nod often so you seem interested, maybe try to smile, and you'll buy us enough time," he said.

"What if she brings her keys with her, thinking I might ask to see Jakob?"

"I doubt visiting with Jakob Adler is how she hopes to end the evening," Riz remarked. "If anything, leaving her keys behind would be the perfect excuse to bring you back to hers."

So that was that, then. I gave a half-hearted wave to my friends before slipping through the curtain. Along the way to the common room, I stopped to say hello to a few acquaintances, but I was in a hurry. We couldn't risk Maryse leaving early if she believed I'd stood her up. But when I approached the couches near the fireplace and my nose tuned to the stomach churning scent of lavender, I knew we were in the clear.

"Andrei," she said. "It's good to see you."

I smiled, hoping it appeared less strained than it felt. "Likewise, and I wanted to apologize for being so rude the other day."

Maryse patted the couch. "Come on, sit."

While we needed answers from Maryse, I had no intention of leading her on. Her heat signature was strong, so I aimed for the corner of the couch, furthest from her without falling off the edge. I hadn't forgotten: Maryse was a Delphi-blooded Partisan and therefore was telepathic. Initially, I wasn't concerned she'd abuse her power. I'd assumed she'd earned her position at the lair because she was trustworthy and ethical. After our last session, however, I wasn't so sure. I recalled Sinclair's lessons on counter-telepathy and kept my guard up.

"You already apologized in your letter," Maryse said. "You didn't have to do it again."

"Yes, well—you were perhaps right. Perhaps we could be friends, Maryse. We do have a few things in common—scholarly pursuits among them. But that's it—friends."

"I'd settle with friends." There was a smile in her tone.

I nodded, recalling Markus's advice on how to seem interested and keep the conversation flowing. "So, tell me, how did you find your interest in psychology?"

On the opposite side of the room, a group of rowdy Partisans hooted and hollered, while another cursed incessantly. This was followed by the sound of coins being exchanged.

There was a delay in Maryse's response.

"It started when I was just a kid. We'd have defected Partisans come in sometimes, ones who'd served Palisade for years. They always seemed so burdened by their pasts. Some would have terrible nightmares, keeping everyone awake all night screaming, if they even slept at all. I wanted to help them, so—yeah, that's how."

I couldn't help feel disappointed in her answer—it was a noble cause, and I was looking for reasons to feel more comfortable with what was happening in her room as we spoke.

I nodded again. "It must be challenging, not to get too invested, not to carry the pain of others."

"It can be, but it's worth it."

Nod, nod. "And how did you come to work with the Anima?"

"Rhydian asked me to."

More nods. "So not a vested interest."

"Not initially, anyway."

"Help me understand—why keep the Anima in those cells?"

"They're locked up for everybody's safety, Andrei."

"That isn't what I mean," I said. "Given my own experience with the Anima, the surefire way to keep people safe would be to end the Anima. What are you vying to prove or disprove—what more after so many years of study are you hoping to learn?"

Maryse shifted on the couch, while over by the dartboard, someone else lost a round.

"Everybody has their own ambitions. There's a study dedicated to figuring out how their abilities were isolated and passed down to Partisans, for instance. They've made very little progress, admittedly, and their theories clash with the theology. Some are testing the limits of their immortality—how long they can conceivably be preserved without consuming life-force and how the quality or quantity of life-force consumed affects their powers."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"What do they feed on?"

"We've designed the cells with enough silver to stop them from feeding on us while we're working in the lab, so we have a delicate transfer process and a feeding schedule involving small animals and insects. They don't eat often."

"I see," I said, nodding.

"Yeah, there's a lot to learn. But honestly? Some just like seeing them suffer. Usually the ones who've been affected personally by their ilk—Rhydian for instance. Me though? I've been trying to prove they can be rehabilitated."

"And how is that going for you, Maryse?"

"I don't think they can be."

"You believe the Anima in those cages are irredeemable monsters, then?"

"I think they can't help themselves. I think some want to be better, but—you know the one next to Jakob? The female."

I remembered, and so yet again, I nodded.

"She was married four times when she was alive, all of them ending with infidelity. After her reanimation, she manipulated the husbands and wives of cheating partners into torturing and murdering their spouses before stringing them up naked in the city centre."

"…I see."

"She knows what she did is wrong. She's even shown remorse, and I believe her. But if she got out? She would do it again. Her cycle is as sure as the air we breathe to survive. A need, a compulsion. Like I said, they can't help themselves."

I thought of Alexander. His only compulsion, as far as we were aware, was to set fire to the house in Istok after his sister murdered the family within. Once the families had stopped moving into the cursed home, and there was no one left for his sister to kill, he would set fire to it every five years and start all over again.

Having been lost in the thought, I returned my attention to Maryse—nodding.

"—males, number eight—he lost his son to an illness when he was only three," she continued. "After reanimation, he spent centuries kidnapping young boys from their families, reanimating them so they couldn't die from disease. Those boys would often be compelled to go home and murder their parents—resentful and not understanding it wasn't their fault they were taken. There's pain there—real pain, in number eight. But he'd do it again."

"What about Jakob?"

"He won't tell us, and if the other Anima know his story, they won't tell us either."

Maryse couldn't tell me anything more about Jakob, but I wasn't there for more information about Jakob. She'd given me what I needed when she confirmed the Anima were suffering with the reality of their evils. The sliver of humanity they retained from their pasts disapproved of their trauma-based compulsions—much like an addict, disgusted with themselves for opening that fresh bottle, yet unable to stop.

I'd promised my friends an hour, and so for the duration of my time with Maryse, we spoke about life at the lair, about Rhydian Sinclair and Emerich Bach, and about my parents. Maryse was brought to the lair around the same time they died, so hadn't met them, but she said their presence was felt for years, making it feel as though she had. I had no way to check the time, so I tacked on what felt like an additional fifteen or twenty minutes to what felt like an hour, and then I excused myself as to not be late for lessons with Riz.

More than ever, I missed Sinclair, and in many ways—to my surprise—I missed Oskari.

When we conceived our plan to help Jakob, we knew we'd be burning a bridge that may never be rebuilt. The people at the lair had been gracious, but there were a number of occupants who supported humiliation and torture where the Anima were concerned. That was their prerogative, as much as it was ours not to abide. Their pain was real. Maryse had confirmed it, and Markus felt it.

Stepping into the laboratory that night, the empath inhaled sharply as if kicked in the stomach. A quiet pat, pat as Riz wordlessly reassured his old friend. The Anima were awake. I didn't need eyes to know theirs were following us as we moved toward the cages. The instinct, that feeling of being watched—neutered as they were, they were still predators and we were prey. But they knew why we were there. They wouldn't blow our cover.

Last I'd been able to count, there were twenty-four cages and sixteen Anima.

"Asa!" Jakob hissed. "Come, come. I've missed you."

Two more steps forward.

I kept my voice low. "Jakob, I'd like you to meet Riz and Markus."

"Hi," Riz said, quietly.

"Hello," Markus followed, quieter.

There was the squeak of flesh against the silver bars as Jakob forced his hands between them.

"Let me touch you," he said, so I waited patiently while Markus and Riz had their faces felt by the one-thousand-year-old boy.

When the formal introductions were over, the heaviness in the air was enough to suffocate. We didn't have much time.

"I'll get started," Riz said.

Footsteps as he made his way around the lab.

"Will it hurt?" some wondered.

"Not much," he said.

And cage by cage by cage, Riz circled the room, asking the same question, "Are you sure?" and each time getting the same response, "Yes, please," and each time stopping their hearts, evaporating the fluids from their bodies and ending their lives with nothing as much as a sigh of protest.

Markus, who in hindsight should have stayed behind, wept quietly to my left.

In the end, I was told there were fifteen piles of ash.

Only Jakob remained.

"I want it to be you, Asa."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Jakob. You promised to tell me everything."

"Did I?"

"You did."

"Well, I lied. There isn't enough time to tell you everything," Jakob said, his knuckles knocking against the bars as he stuffed his hands through once more, urgent. When he spoke next, he sounded like a child who'd missed his nap. "Come on, make it go away."

"Not everything, then," I said. "Tell me something."

There was a lasting pause while I came to terms with having been tricked, until finally…

"I had such pretty eyes, just as yours were, and I was cursed, just as you are. But I wasn't simply a Partisan, Asa. I was the first Partisan. Back then, they called me Abomination. A freak. A monster."

Riz and Markus crept closer.

The air fanned around us, the cage rattling.

"Do it, now," Jakob said, and I imagined him waving his hands or shaking his knee—on the verge of throwing a tantrum.

One step forward and I took his hands. They were small and cold.

"I don't know how."

"Yes you do, Andrei, son of Kaisa."

Pat, pat as Riz wordlessly reassured me.

I hesitated, and then…

"Riz," I said. "Key."

"Drei…" Riz seemed about to protest.

"Markus?" I turned my head to the left. "What do you feel?"

Markus, too, hesitated, and then, "He isn't like them," he said.

Jakob whimpered and I loosened my grip on his hands. More rattling when he pulled them back inside the cage.

"Riz," I repeated. "Key."

The clinking of metal as Riz searched for the correct one from Maryse's set. I'm told they were numbered, and I remembered from my first visit to the laboratory, Jakob's cage was number six. The lock clicked and the cage squeaked open.

"Jakob." I reached for his hand but found his knee instead. "Come on. We're taking you with us."

Silence for a time until the Anima joined his hand with mine. "Where are we going, Asa?"

"Home," I said. "We're going home."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.