The buildings towered overhead, their windows like eyes, lightless and silent. Spires and etchings in the stonework had collapsed or been rendered smooth by years of storms. Headless statues haunted the bridges and the highways, a grim remembrance of the past. Natalina’s fingers wrenched deep into the expensive leather seat of the motorcar. Her dark brown hair fell in waves over her nervous eyes. Brennov drove fast, barreling down the trash-strewn streets.
They passed by a park that was not usually empty. An elderly vagrant fed the cats there every night. He was a stone-faced giant, who would mouth shoo, shoo at her if she ever drew close enough to offer a hand. It did not bother her. She had been a hermit once, too.
Thick, matted coats of gray and orange fur all gathered that night by the rickety park bench. The cats clung to each other for warmth. There was no man and there was no food. Natalina wondered how the cats might see his absence. To them, had he simply vanished forever? What if he had?
The motorcar took a sudden left, and Brennov gave her a confident wink; the scent of his aromatic the only stimulus that was immediately comforting. Natalina thought she could feel the city’s electrical wires thrumming all around them, dancing through the air and surging beneath the street.
“I hope you don’t regret your choice to come, my love,” said Brennov. It felt like he was watching her as intently as the road.
They were nearing the edge of the southwestern bloc, one of the few remaining urban areas in which wealth congregated. Greenery emerged in waves, slowly climbing the street corners, the balconies, the walkways—as if spring had only just arrived. Surely, the stretch of monolithic towers Natalina spied in the distance was their destination. There were none taller in this area.
She didn’t know how to respond, not honestly. She had no desire to attend this party, mingling with the wealthy clientele Brennov had met as a correctionist. Yet, the fear of slipping back into isolation’s grasp drove her forward. Her nerves were alight, but she’d grown used to pushing through the burn.
“I do, but surely I’ll feel better once the night is through.”
He put a hand on her left thigh. The warmth was pleasant, and the grip was strong. It was difficult to imagine that Brennov had once been as frightened as she was. Even seeing a motorcar back then would’ve drained the color from his face. Each day he seemed less like that version of himself.
Brennov guided the vehicle through an arch built into a manned guard post and onto a cobbled street split between small, picturesque gardens and towering buildings. He turned down a road which guided them towards the entrance of one building, a fountain in a state of disrepair, and a dense metal door which must’ve been the garage. He maneuvered to the door, slowing gently before a bumpertrap, and came to a stop. Beside the door sat a guard booth encased in thick glass windows; nothing could get by it unseen. Inside sat an armed guard with a wide-brimmed hat and a pair of tinted spectacles. He rose to greet them, exposing a beefy frame of equal parts muscle and fat.
“For?” he asked, expressionless.
“The party—,” Brennov began to say.
A sudden bang struck the roof of the car. The couple turned and watched as a middle-aged man with a feverish countenance—mucking up his otherwise fashionable outfit—struck the roof of the car once more. Neither had seen where he’d come from. After that second hit, he drew close to the passenger’s side window.
“Please! H-have either of you seen this woman?!” he asked, his breath reeking of alcohol.
He pulled out his wallet and showed Natalina the photo of a beautiful young redhead. She had an hourglass figure and a mole beneath her left eye.
She sat there frozen, her thoughts a jumble. Buried beneath her shock was the frigid, instinctual panic of the unknown reaching in—no one was truly safe from the city.
The guard bolted around the motorcar and clubbed the drunk over the head with the butt of his revolver.
“Get out of here or I’ll have you sent off to an assessment ward!”
“Please!” The sound warbled free from the man’s mouth, somewhere between a whimper and a demand. “I dropped Yessia off here. And then she—”
He was hit once more and fell hard against the cobblestones. The man did not get up again.
“Don’t worry about him. Balakhs… crazies, always a few trying to get an audience with the wealthy,” declared the guard, wiping a band of sweat away from the nape of his neck. “I’ll let you in.”
As the guard returned to his booth and flipped a switch, bisecting the thick, metal doors diagonally, Brennov looked his bessort over. “Vagabonds. This city is full of them. Are you alright?”
“Just drive,” Natalina mumbled, somewhat shaken.
He guided the motorcar into the indoor garage, settling on the second subterranean floor next to a cherry-red motorcar with a collapsible roof. Clumsily, she forced the door outwards and stumbled onto the hard stone. The white paint designating each parking space was faded into near nonexistence. Cracks ate into the thick, drab walls. Despite the insulated nature of the garage, the air was chilly.
Brennov removed the key from the ignition of his silver motorcar, stepped out, and opened the trunk.
“Are you sure you’re alright, darling?”
“If that man had attacked us…,” she began to say, then changed course. “Do you still keep the revolver in the second compartment?”
Brennov’s confident smile slipped, and he drew her close into his arms. “I do. You were never in any danger. And might I add, I think you would’ve shot him right through the neck if he’d tried anything.”
“You think so?” she asked, letting her head fall onto his chest.
“I do,” he said, his hand a warm weight on the back of her neck. “Now come and put on your mask, darling.”
She took a step back and watched as he removed two ornate masks from a dark leather case. Each was mesmerizing, reminiscent of the operas she’d watched as a young girl. His mask was a fox with shining black ears. Hers was a deer with two golden horns and a rose pattern inlaid in the cheeks. Natalina put on her mask and watched through the cushioned eye-holes as Brennov did the same.
His smile always lit up a room, even when he’d been too frightened to cross a street or get in a motorcar. She’d seen it then. There was always a confident, sweet man waiting to take the stage. It had been clear after their first conversation in the recovery program. But she suspected it was something about this client of his that had finally set off the transformation. In only a few short months he’d grown so daring, so bold and hungry for life. And then he proposed.
“We’re going to have a wonderful time, darling. My associates will love you,” he said, gripping her hand lightly and rubbing his thumb across her wrist.
“But will I love them?”
He chuckled. “Who wouldn’t?”
Expensive motorcars in bright, pastel colors dotted the underground garage. The sale of even a few could probably feed an entire bloc for weeks. She knew the math; it wouldn’t make much difference, but it was jarring to see so much wealth congregated in one place while the city slowly crumbled.
The couple was alone as they headed toward the elevator. As Natalina wondered whether they were late for the party, a camera whirred overhead, monitoring its chosen angle. It seemed unlikely anyone could sneak past the massive security door, but the rich were always paranoid and the poor were always motivated.
At the foot of the garage’s elevator, Brennov pressed an orange button to call it down, and gave her another reassuring smile. There were no lit numbers to mark the stops of the elevator, merely a series of orbs which filled with faint blue light when the elevator was at that floor. The cage doors slid apart as the elevator landed. They entered, one after the other, and Brennov pressed the topmost button.
Her voice escaped as a whisper. “Oh, Brennov. Won’t they find me lacking?”
“My love—”
“We could’ve gone to the cinema. That would’ve been dreamy. But this… I don’t know how to mingle. You know I’m not fancy, not talkative…”
He cut her off, catching her gaze. “Darling, this was your idea. Don’t you remember? You wanted to push yourself.”
Natalina shook her head twice and tightened her grip on the bronze railing. “That’s not true.”
Had it been her idea? She didn’t think it had. Maybe he’d misunderstood her.
“It is, darling. And they’ll love you in the same way that they love me.”
A small overhead bell rang as the garage elevator reached the ground floor. The couple stepped out into the lobby. A deep-set blue carpet, inlaid with golden, spidery patterns, wove its way from the lobby’s double doors to the pair of residential elevators. Natalina spied a doorman through the tinted glass. He slouched on the polished stone steps, smoking a cigarette. The bulge of a revolver was visible through his white ruffled shirt.
Across from the garage elevator, an intricate lattice arch hung over a heavy wooden reception counter; the winding carved shapes resembling a patchwork of veins. Tastefully placed planter pots added much-needed life to the room. No one was working the counter or mopping the floors. Exiting the elevator, Natalina found herself wondering whether it had fallen out of fashion to employ servants in these high-rise sanctuaries. It was a question she had never been wealthy enough to entertain before. The cramped apartment where she’d spent her entire life was hardly a slum, but calling it quaint might be too gentle a comparison. She’d hear fights through the walls, lovemaking too, and the watchkeeper’s sirens—though that sound grew less common with each year. There were many things she’d learned about leaky pipes and chipped paint. But it was still her home.
Brennov guided her to the residential elevators with a hand resting firmly on her lower back. He caressed it once as they came to a stop before the hulking metal contraptions. The leftmost one was locked with a chain and an out-of-order sign. It wasn’t hard to see why. They were impressive displays of engineering. Twin cages that extended up the whole two stories of the lobby, allowing the passengers to see their climb. Each cage bar was industriously decorated with a variety of floral patterns. And it smelled faintly of motor oil. The possibility of getting stuck in an elevator was another situation she’d forgotten to mentally prepare for.
“Now, remember not to be rude and ask about the old country, and you’ll make a spitting impression.” Brennov said.
“The old country?” She asked, curious.
Above the elevator cage, a mechanical eye shifted downwards for each floor met in the elevator’s descent.
“I’ve told you the client wasn’t born here. Many of his friends and acquaintances weren’t either,” Brennov replied. “But you don’t need to concern yourself with such things. Just smile and say little. You’ll do great.”
“But isn’t the goal to make friends? To push myself?”
A pale blue light flickered in the iris of the mechanical eye as the elevator met them on the ground floor. The cage doors retracted automatically, and they stepped inside.
“In part… but also to be liked, my darling.”
Natalina had spent the last few days worried about making a poor impression, saying the wrong thing, but in the elevator, the thought dawned on her whether she’d been thinking about it backwards. Would she even like them?
Amidst the floor numbers, Brennov pressed the lone unmarked button, and a metal rectangle flipped outward, revealing a keypad. He punched in a code, and the elevator suddenly roared to life. Her hands shot back, and she steadied herself against the railing as the rapid jump knocked her off balance. The surge settled into a smooth and silent ascent, a testament to the wealth required to keep such an ancient machine in operation.
She stared at Brennov through the eye-holes in her mask, wondering what he was thinking about. In all their time together, she hadn’t yet been able to pierce him, to understand his way of thinking. Maybe the enigma was just another part of what drew her towards him. He’d been effortlessly handsome even with unkempt hair and sleepless eyes, and some days she missed that look on him. But she could not deny the appeal of him clean-shaved and dressed in the suit she’d fashioned for him.
He hadn’t feared the entire world like she had. Just a piece of it. A piece that had left him drifting, floating through his own mind. Like her, but shattered by a different stone. If only she knew where he’d gone and what he’d brought back from that place.
An audible ding marked their arrival, and her heartbeat quickened. There had been an awful lot of motorcars in the garage. How many belonged to the residents and how many belonged to the guests of this party? Would she be swarmed with hundreds of introductions?
The security doors slid open, and her eyes widened at the sight of the penthouse’s entryway. The floors were fashioned from green-tinted marble, and the wooden walls were a patchwork of elaborate, swooping depressions. It was dark; the only illumination was candlelight. The path ahead was suffocated by countless foreign plants Natalina didn’t recognize and strange, snarling statues. Her eyes grew wide and awful when she saw it. The statue of a beast of some sort, a bit like a dog standing on its hindlimbs, plunged its teeth into the neck of a small boy. Strangely, the child smiled at her, accepting his fate. Maybe it, and the other statues, were inspired by the monsters of old legend, but she had never seen such violent work. All the statues in the city’s museum were civic, and all the beheaded gods and warriors of old that dotted the highways and bridges were tame.
A sweet and earthy scent, not dissimilar to wyrr-root, beckoned her out of the elevator. Few others lingered in the entry-hall but a pair of women chattering behind elaborate bunny masks—each drinking a shadowy liqueur—and a solitary man reading on a satin-lined bench. As Brennov took her hand and guided her forward, none of the figures acknowledged their presence with a nod of the head or an inquisitive glance.
The couple followed the entry-hall to its end and took a right at the fork, leading through another hallway filled with bookcases. A solemn melody became audible as they kept walking. It boasted a string quartet and an organ; for a moment it filled Natalina with thoughts of lonely princes and long-abandoned towers. Her attention was once again grounded as she stepped into a spacious room, characterized mainly by the lowered, circular portion in the center; the flooring of that space was some sort of white-marble with black lines, bold and jagged, zigging and zagging across it haphazardly. At one end of the room was a stone wall filled with slit windows, each overlooking a balcony full of exotic plant life in lengthy carved planters. The other walls were consumed by bookcases, chairs, and elaborate bars stocked full of that gloomy liquid. Natalina realized she was standing in some approximation of a ballroom and lounge, and most of the party had congregated there. That party comprised some forty-odd people spread throughout the room, a veritable zoo of animal masks. A few danced slowly to the tune, which came from a gold-brimmed record player. Others stood near the edges, nursing their drinks and conversing in hushed tones.
Brennov guided Natalina by hand around the lowered marble floor, drawing her toward the balcony wall. The attire of the guests proved unexpected. Many wore fashions nearly a half-century out of date, clothes her mother had spent a lifetime stitching, but which Natalina had never worked on herself. Wearing the mask proved a strange comfort; if they couldn’t see her face, they couldn’t judge her and deem her wanting.
“Esmesia, Galdt, I would like you to meet my bessort, Natalina,” he said, stopping beside the windowed balcony wall and greeting a couple.
Galdt, a broad-shouldered man somewhere between thirty and fifty, offered her a bulky hand. Natalina took it and studied his mask. It was a mass of tentacles and shaded eyes, some creature from the deep. She wondered through which set of eyes he looked out. His companion wore a much simpler mask, a lamb with an adorably pink nose.
“Is that the ring?” Esmesia piped up, lifting Natalina’s hand. “Oh, it’s gorgeous. Say it’s gorgeous, Galdt.”
He lowered his head a notch, flicked the ivory gemstone atop it once, and agreed. “Great taste you’ve got, Brennov.” He had an accent, mended in part by time or a speech therapy program, which lingered at the end of each word. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Likewise,” Natalina said as she slipped her hand back gently, feeling a bit like a doll in a toy store.
Esmesia curtsied at a half-length, but said nothing further.
“I trust you found your way without trouble,” Galdt declared, addressing Brennov. “There was an incident with a vagrant earlier.”
“We met him,” Natalina declared.
“Crazy drunk,” Brennov added. “There’s too many these days. What might you do? Call a watchkeeper? The city’s stretched thin as it is.”
Galdt chuckled in a harsh, rasping way. “Below, there will always be strife. It was so in the old country too. But up here we can be merry.”
Natalina hadn’t noticed, too preoccupied with the people, but Galdt was correct. Half the city was splayed before them. As she stared through the window, she felt like a child observing his blocks—a god over the inanimate. Crumbling high-rises, winding spires, monstrosities of dangling wire and flat, symmetrical stone, all scrambling out of the ground and clawing towards the sky as if the city itself was an organism. An organism in ruin, alien to itself after two vastly different revolutions had burned and built in equal measure. It was still home.
A lone woman in a black dress, decorated with layers of lace and ruffles, approached Esmesia. She wore the mask of a rat. Galdt finished the remainder of his drink in one throaty slurp and put his hand on Brennov’s shoulder. Two conversations began at once, and neither involved her.
“We must speak about the client,” Galdt said, motioning towards a hallway on the other side of the room.
“In private? Surely, this could wait.”
Galdt shook his head. “Natalina, you must excuse us. I’ll only take your bessort for a few moments.”
“Of course,” Natalina mumbled.
The two men disappeared into the crowd.
A piercing chill struck her as she turned around and saw that Esmesia and the woman in the rat mask had both vanished. Natalina turned left and right, scanning the crowd anxiously. She recognized no one, and neither was her gaze met with any warmth. She was a stranger, adrift in a foreign land. Was it improper form to introduce herself to someone at a party like this? Could she? Would she mumble her words and feel the spit leaking onto her lips like some sort of invalid? The music was suddenly so loud, and she wished dearly that she were holding a drink, in part to ease her mind, and in part to prevent the fidgeting of her hands. She began to circle the crowd, again looking for Esmesia. The masks blurred together into a canvas of noise. There was no lamb mask. Her heart pounded in her chest. There was no rat mask. Natalina dug her painted nails deep into her palms.
A finger tapped her on the shoulder. She spun around to face a heavy-set man with graying hair and tufts of a thick beard poking from beneath his embroidered monkey mask.
“Ignatiy at your service. Aren’t you Brennov’s bessort? We’ve all grown quite fond of the boy.”
There was a warmth to his tone and a strange, youthful vitality in his eyes. He held a glass of red wine instead of the dark liqueur. She counted that as points in his favor. There was also a sense that he, too, was a stranger. Not from the city, and neither from the old country—wherever that was.
“A joy to meet you, Ignatiy,” she replied, the panic withdrawing its tendrils. “Yes, I’m Natalina.”
“Splendid. I’d hoped that I hadn’t mistaken you for the elk,” he paused, drew closer, and put on an exaggerated accent. “It would’ve been quite the awkward mistake.”
Natalina laughed. She didn’t even know why, but for a moment she felt as if she could finally breathe.
“How do you know the host?” she asked, settling into a more comfortable cadence.
“He was the first to aid the client. Hasn’t Brennov told you anything?”
“No. He speaks little of his work. I suppose that’s normal for a correctionist.”
“Aye, that might be true,” Ignatiy declared. He then took another step closer and lowered his voice. “Our client’s a strange man, as most from the old country are.”
“Strange?” She asked.
“Have you seen those statues? Positively garish. An artist who fashions with such violence is not long for their craft.”
“I see. And you’re from?” Natalina snuck in the question, hoping it wouldn’t be rude.
“The deep south. There’s really only passing similarities between us.”
“Similarities?” she pressed, intrigued.
“A faith. Dining matters too, I suppose.”
The fears Natalina had constructed bore little resemblance to the party’s actual oddities. A faith? There had been little of that since the last plague. Would faith have spared her father from the coughing and wretching? Would faith have spared her mother from that final walk home? No temple men with their ornate staves and their unblemished white cloaks had halted the violence of the revolutions or fed those who starved in the famine’s wake. Faith was a sore topic in the city. Dining matters, on the other hand, were a point of easy conversation, and a less emotionally charged topic to focus on. She’d once read of a ‘gruel spoon’ in one of her mother’s books. It had always been an object of passive fascination. Would it be smaller than a stew spoon? Would it be half-way pronged? Was there such a thing as chocolate gruel?
As she prepared to ask about the gruel spoon, finding Ignatiy so far to be a welcoming and interesting guest, a stranger in a dashing white suit and a leather goat mask placed a gloved hand on his elbow. Ignatiy turned, curious, and the man whispered something into his ear. Though she could not make out what was said, his posture drew rigid.
“I haven’t signed that and will not. You shan’t muzzle me just for partaking,” Ignatiy mumbled to the other man.
The man in the goat mask whispered something further and squeezed harshly once before releasing Ignatiy’s elbow. He turned to stare at Natalina, a pair of emerald eyes slicing into her, dripping with judgment.
“Enjoy yourself, my dear,” he said, his voice deep and sticky as tar.
And then he was off, slithering back into the crowd.
“Who was that now?” Natalina asked.
When Ignatiy turned back towards her, the distance was evident. That rigidity remained in his posture, and he immediately took a few steps backward.
“You’ll have to excuse me. There’s a matter I must presently attend to. Enjoy the party.”
“It was a pleasure…,” By the time the words had left her lips, Ignatiy had already passed her. “…meeting you.”
She tried to trace his path around the room with her eyes, but he was soon lost in the crowd. Esmesia and the woman in the rat mask remained absent as well. The size of the party had nearly doubled since she’d entered, and the room grew claustrophobic. Bodies danced in the center to the slow, haunting orchestral pieces. Women guffawed in harsh bursts of manic laughter. Men wagged their fingers and licked their lips like hungry dogs. She felt the urge to clear her throat, but didn’t want to cause a scene. Once again, Natalina felt alone in a room full of people.
There had to be a place to clear her mind, to be alone. There had to be a lavatory. She moved towards the edge of the room and quickly found a hallway lit by two hanging candelabras; the light cast eerie shadows on the endless portraits that adorned the walls. Withered figures clad in flowing robes, sitting in dark rooms, always frowning, always alone. A scent emerged after she’d taken a few steps down into the hallway. Whether incense or perfume, she nearly gagged as she neared the first door. It was a nauseating herbal scent. Sharp like peppered vegetables, but sickly sweet like rotting petal-candies. She tried the door and found it unlocked. Stepping in, a breath of stale lavatory air was refreshing compared to the hallway’s haunting aroma. Natalina shut the door behind her, removed her mask, and let herself collapse against the metal block which held the sink, breathing in harsh rasps.
The mirror caught her gaze. Wrinkles, depressions under her eyes, and the lingering red markings left by the mask all prodded her like winged beasts. Younger, thinner, prettier—the characteristics of a woman that a man like Brennov might meet at a party like this. A party at which he’d abandoned her. A party she’d never wanted to attend. Where was he? She just wanted to feel the reassuring warmth of his hands. Selfish bastard.
A deep exhale stole its way from her throat. With it, she tried to push out all of her fears and delusions. There was respite, at least for this moment, solace in a bathroom decorated with obscene wealth.
Driven by a paranoid curiosity, she stepped towards the metal vanity beneath the sink. The drawers, strangely, were on the sides while the front was occupied by a family crest marked with unintelligible writing. She opened the drawer on the right and found only makeup accessories scattered about. The left drawer was divided: toothbrushes and steel flossing picks on one side, well-ordered, corked prescription bottles on the other. She picked up one bottle to check the label, eager to see what the host was medicating with. The label was blank, and the glass was too dark to see inside.
It was a bad idea. She knew it with a strange certainty, but the temptation lingered. It danced and pleaded until she complied, rationalizing away her instincts. Natalina uncorked the bottle and studied the dark liquid inside. Holding it up for a whiff, there was no scent to it at all. In fact, there wasn’t much of note about it at all. She supposed it was thicker than she’d expected.
The sudden explosion of liquid spurting up towards her nearly summoned a scream; however, the slimy, wriggling sensation on her nose was a much worse surprise. Immediately, she flicked her head and watched as a ten-legged, fleshy grub was launched onto the floor. The disgust and the confusion were equally measured. Who kept an insect in a prescription bottle? It was a grotesque creature, but she followed the grub as it skittered rapidly towards the lavatory wall. She didn’t want to touch it. She really, really didn’t want to touch it. But Natalina wanted even less for her snooping to be discovered, so she lowered herself near the wall and poised to scoop it up.
The creature, small as it was, had plans of its own. It took a sharp left from its path and scrambled behind the toilet. Natalina dropped to the ground, ruffling her dress, and tried to snag it before it got completely out of sight. Only inches from it, the grub snuck into a tiny crack at the bottom of the wall.
“For the love of The Clerk…,” she mumbled to herself.
Her slender fingers picked at the cracked wood, hoping to feel movement, to pluck the grub from a shallow hiding spot. Nothing came of it but dust. The nasty little creature had escaped. How could she explain it? Would they know it was her? Who, in sane mind, kept insects like that in prescription bottles? Thoughts raced through her mind. None of her friends, few as she had, would’ve dragged her to a party like this. Librarians and maids didn’t own penthouses or keep bugs in bottles.
Outside the lavatory, a pair of voices grew louder. Natalina rose to her feet and inched towards the door. She couldn’t make out anything that was being said.
She wanted to leave. What kind of freakish party was this in the first place? Were all the remaining wealthy in the city as strange and inhospitable? It didn’t matter. Her mind kicked into gear, dissecting escape plans. A quick disappearance in the elevator might work; she remembered the code, but what would she do then—wait in the car, alone in that garage? She could cling to Brennov’s side and cry about how ill she felt, that she’d eaten something foul and it had made her sick. He might resent having to leave early, but surely he’d understand if she walked him through the goat-man, and the grub, and that awful, crushing otherness she felt. Wouldn’t he?
A single knock struck the door, and Natalina realized she was still holding the bottle.
“Just a moment,” she called as she scrambled to reinsert the bottle quietly in the drawer.
There were still splotches of dark liquid on the floor and on her right hand. She reached for the tissues and got to blotting, careful not to miss anything.
A second knock struck the door.
“Out in a second,” she called as she tossed the tissues in the toilet, flushed, washed and dried her hands, and gave herself a look-over in the mirror. Luckily, none of the ichor had stained her dress.
She nearly forgot to slip the mask back on, but caught herself as she reached to open the door. That awful scent greeted her on her way out. To her surprise, the hallway was empty. Natalina peered down each length. There was no one in sight. Maybe they’d found another lavatory?
Her re-entry into the ballroom went unnoticed. The room had swelled to fit what must have been over a hundred guests. Many of the masks were shockingly elaborate. Dragons with detachable jaws, fuynters with a gemstone for their single eye, and bats with ears that doubled the length of the mask. It felt like an anchor was weighing her down as she scanned the room, weaving through the crowd, trying to draw as little attention to herself as possible. Brennov had to be there somewhere. Or… Gelt, Galdt was it? Or Esmesia? Surely she’d recognize someone.
But as the minutes passed, her awkward search began to draw looks. She recognized no one in the crowd. She’d tried a hallway at the other end of the room, and each door had been locked, though she’d heard hushed conversation behind one. It had taken all of her courage to knock on that door and call out Brennov’s name, but no one had replied. The silence was suffocating, and as she faded back into the crowd, she nearly threw back a glass of that inky black liqueur. A single whiff discouraged her, and so she stepped back into the entry hall, tired, overwhelmed, and ready to wait in the garage.
Natalina remembered the alternative path at the fork. Much like the lavatory hallway, it was dimly lit and littered with portraits; the floor was covered with a tattered yellow rug. A wooden tribal mask was displayed in a glass case at the far end. She drew close and found its carved features rendered with frightening skill. It bore no resemblance to any relic native to the city she’d seen displayed in the museum. Deep stains had long left their mark upon the wood, warping it subtly. She stared at it and felt as if the carved, pupilless eyes studied her in turn.
There had been two doors in that hallway that she’d passed on her path to the mask. Each was locked tight and quieter than a crypt. It didn’t matter anymore; she’d looked everywhere to no avail. There was nothing left to do but wait in the motorcar. Whenever he finally emerged, they were going to have a long, vital talk about this ‘client’ of his and about them. She loved him, but this was cruel.
Distantly, the cadence of the music crashed to a peaceful, romantic pace. She came upon the entry-hall once more. The man no longer sat on the bench—his date had likely arrived and brushed him into the throng of people in the ballroom—but the two women in bunny masks continued to chat, unaffected by the ballroom’s noise.
As Natalina tried to move past them towards the elevator, a hand shot out and grabbed her by the arm. She nearly shrieked in surprise, but the voice was known to her.
“Floriya?” Natalina asked, more than a bit confused.
“It’s so lovely that we’re all here, isn’t it?” Floriya replied, her bright blue eyes glimmering through the slits of her mask.
Floriya’s presence made no sense. She was a librarian with a few smuggled first editions to her name and little more. She despised opulence—fetishized the impoverished even, treating the grit and struggle as something near holy. If she wasn’t buried in a book, she was at a fashionably dilapidated cafe or serving broth at a soup kitchen in her best attire. Floriya was pretentious, a flirt, and occasionally condescending, but she was devout in her own performative convictions. She was not from ‘the deep south’ or ‘the old country’. No, one look down this hallway and she’d have been gone.
“What a surprise!” Natalina said, uncertain whether to be relieved or uneasy. “How did you wind up a guest at this lovely gathering?”
“Oh, I know someone who knows someone. That’s how it always is, isn’t it?”
Is it? Was it? Natalina didn’t know. She didn’t like the tone that Flora was taking with her, and she liked Flora’s still-present grip on her arm even less. She shook it off as delicately as she could.
“I forgot my brooch in the motorcar,” she lied. “Brennov just got it for me, and I feel almost naked without it.”
“Oh, he did, didn’t he? Go along and get it then. I’m sure you’ll look dazzling with it, Natalina.”
Natalina turned towards the elevator and took carefully measured steps. There had been some undercurrent to Floriya’s words, a certain venom or amusement. She hardly seemed the same person.
At the elevator, she realized her mistake. She pressed the lone button, and a metal pad fell limp from the wall. The exterior of the elevator had a code-lock, just like its interior. Her heart skipped a beat. There was only one reason she could think of why someone would put a lock on the only exit—to keep people from leaving.
Her vision narrowed as her eyes darted around frantically. Had the two women begun creeping closer? Natalina wracked her brain for the combination. It wasn’t as if she’d taken notes. 1—6? 1—6—3? That sounded right. Was the last digit an 8? No, it was a 7. She remembered it clearly then. 1—6—3—7. Natalina punched in the code carefully. The light on the side of the keypad flashed red for a moment, and it emitted a shrill beep. The combination was incorrect.
“Is there a problem?” Flora’s unnamed acquaintance called across the entry-hall.
“No, just forgot the combination is all,” Natalina announced, trying to disguise the panic in her voice.
“Did you?” Floriya asked with a hint of amusement.
The thin flickers of candlelight seemed to shrink, stretching the shadows to new and monstrous proportions. Laughter crescendoed in the ballroom. Evidently, the romantic slow-dancing had ended. Floriya and the woman beside her moved forward into the hallway, blocking the path back.
Natalina’s nose perked up. It was the same awful smell from the lavatory hallway.
“Are you alright, Natalina?” The woman beside Floriya inquired. “There are private rooms in the back if you wish to lie down.”
She hadn’t spoken. They’d been watching her, waiting for her to speak. They were judging her, weren’t they? Did they know about the grub? Or maybe they thought her mad? A stain on Brennov’s name? Or was it another verdict that danced behind their eyes?
Natalina raised her eyes to the gloom above. Had she just heard a hissing sound? It sounded as if some kind of mechanism had sprung to life, and now that hissing was everywhere above her.
“I… I just need to find Brennov,” Natalina replied, her head feeling like it had been submerged in a dark pool.
She nearly fell once as she stumbled her way past the women. To her surprise, neither tried to stop her.
The ballroom was spinning like a sideshow whirligig. Every color that made up the curtains and the art popped with a newfound visual force. It had gotten hot in the room since she’d left. Each step further into the room felt as if an inch of her had simply melted right off. And the people! Even more seemed to fill the space, laughing with their cold eyes, drinking the foul-smelling black liqueur.
Natalina moved through the crowd as best she could, but each footstep felt as if it might send her stumbling. She scanned again for her lover, but he was still absent. He’d left her. It was a gnawing feeling, clashing with the uncomfortable warmth. The screeching, growling laughter around her was rapturous. They’d all left her. This was not her place. This was not her party. It didn’t matter to them she was no longer the girl who lived alone, speaking to her parents through their old photos, weeping as she sewed gowns of celebration. They would never be her people.
A pallid hand grabbed her shoulder, and a man in an owl mask spoke to her in an unfamiliar language. She recoiled at the touch and pulled away. Suddenly, the entire crowd was staring at her with those cold eyes. They approached. An outstretched arm there, and another there too. Two men moved towards her with purpose. Where could she go? Was there an exit? She spun wildly, looking for a route through the crowd. Natalina noticed the balcony door. A pair of fingernails swiped up the back of her left arm, just sharp enough to draw a sliver of blood. She ran then, throwing off another arm as it drew close.
The door exploded outwards, hitting the stone wall with a smack loud enough that it sent a bird perched on the roof soaring into the night. It was like breathing fresh forest air after spending a lifetime in a crate. If Natalina could’ve choked on the chilly night air, she would’ve. Her senses started to clear, and as they did, for a moment, she could feel the entire city below; its painted eyes, its lonely laughs, and the endless buzzing and humming of the countless miles of wire.
Dark figures moved toward the door.
“No, you can’t!” she shouted to no one in particular.
There were only seconds to decide. An expensive-looking patio chair sat near the door. It squealed against the stonework as she dragged it towards the door and shimmied it under the handle, preventing it from twisting down and opening the door. It was an awkward solution, and far from a permanent one. Countless masks fought to get a sightline through the slit windows whilst the door jiggled and writhed against the sturdy chair.
Natalina backed up slowly and tried to gather her thoughts. The locked elevator, the masks, the vagrant, Nataliya and the goat-man… how did any of it fit together? Had she been invited to the party of some kind of cult? She’d only ever read of those in fiction. Whoever comprised this party, she wanted nothing to do with them.
The door shuddered something fierce. She couldn’t see through the hordes pressed up against the slit windows, but she was sure they were trying to break down the door. Natalina scanned nervously around the plants and outdoor furniture for a weapon or some kind of tool to escape. A sliver of light drew her eyes across a chasm of open air to a window. It was from one of the closed-off penthouse rooms. A thin ledge ran along the outer wall, beyond the balcony, but it did not quite reach the window. It was stupid. It was suicidal. She glanced back, scouting for any other way out. A crack erupted on the door’s exterior like a sudden burst of thunder.
She scrambled towards the edge of the balcony and looked once more towards the ledge. The jump from the ledge was too far, and the window wasn’t open. Her fingers would give instantly, and she’d plummet to her death. Natalina glanced below, and her stomach flipped as she squinted. It was an open-air free fall down some seventy-odd floors onto what appeared to be some kind of small, forested park. Her legs felt weak, and she steadied herself against the railing.
Then she saw it. A hint of stonework below, barely visible over the edge. There was another balcony beneath the penthouse. It was smaller and unlit, but she thought she might make it if she swung carefully.
A slurry of splinters was launched outwards as the head of an axe burst through the door. Luckily, she’d moved just out of sight from anyone peering through the windows. If she escaped quickly enough, they might just assume she jumped to her death. It was just dark enough for the tree-cover to conceal her fate.
Another crash shook the door. The music began to leak onto the balcony, as did the shouts. Natalina climbed over the railing, keeping her feet between the bars and her grip firm. A moment later, another violent hit sent a piece of the door flying clean off the balcony and into the night air.
It took the last gust of courage that she possessed, but she lowered herself carefully. A soft breeze tickled her body as it dangled over the behemoths of iron and dark masonry. The dry stone bit coarsely into her fingers. It was already difficult to hold on, but preventing herself from looking down was worse. Any moment they’d be through the door—she felt that screaming in her guts—and so she swung. Once, twice…
Another loud bang sent the door handle skidding onto the floor, where it clattered against the railing and nearly went sailing off the edge. Then came the scraping of the chair. Natalina let go on her third swing. Her eyes were closed. She didn’t want to see the end coming.
It was not the rush of wind and then a thorny and fatal embrace that met her, but the hard smack of old tiling beneath her. As she opened her eyes on the decrepit balcony, she heard footsteps surging overhead. Jeers and excited conversation filled the air. It was impossible to make out a word that was said—there were just too many voices clambering over each other.
The balcony she’d landed in was a mess of torn, filthy rags and empty flowerpots. A single sliding glass door separated it from the cavernous interior it was attached to. With trembling fingers, Natalina grabbed the metal handle and pulled. It let out a muffled, rusty squeak. For an agonizing moment, she thought she’d be discovered. But the chaos overhead was simply too loud. She slipped inside the apartment like a ghost.
The unit was unlit. Any illumination was graciously provided by the sunset’s wake. The apartment appeared unfurnished and reeked of decay. Her only hope of escape was to find the entrance. Whether it led to a shared hallway or the elevator, she couldn’t know. Natalina steadied herself against a wall and brushed through a dense cobweb, old enough that it unraveled at once in a shower of dust. Each step was a test of the age of the floorboards; they creaked and groaned with the protest of an old puppet.
There was a dark rectangle at the end of the room, and she could only assume it was a hallway. Keeping a cautious pace, she moved towards it, her fingers trusting the wall for guidance. The wallpaper was inconsistent. Some patches remained secured, whilst for others, Natalina’s light touch was enough to tear them loose. She continued her slow escape until she brushed against a doorframe. A glimmer of hope bit her. She groped in the dark until she found the knob and then twisted it.
Nothing. It wouldn’t move at all. Maybe it had rusted? She considered trying to force her way in, but decided against it. The door would probably do more damage to her than to it. Her fingers brushed past the other end of the doorframe, and she continued on.
At a certain depth, the interior was utterly lightless. The air was dry. Her skin was dry. Distant shouts were her only accompaniment. She had to go faster. The wall bent right, and she faced a decision: continue forward or turn with it. Natalina turned, making it maybe five paces before the floor was ripped right out from under her.
The fall lasted only an instant. A scream half-stumbled out before she caught and swallowed it down. The stench of masonry and dust choked the air, watering her eyes. Her left foot throbbed, badly bruised. It had caught onto a pipe jutting through the gap between the floors as her right arm grabbed hold of the surviving edge above. The panicked breaths came harsh and fast, choking on the filth. She was stuck between two floors.
Below her lay a lightless void that could’ve been a hole to the other side of the world for how little she could discern of it. One slip and it was unclear whether she’d go crashing into the floor below or several stories to her death. She tightened the grip of her right hand and felt as the splintered wood ate into her palm. Gritting her teeth, she pulled herself upwards, inch by hard inch, until her stomach was hoisted back onto solid flooring.
Another wave of laughter drifted through the distant sliding door she’d left ajar, reminding Natalina that she had no time to rest. With clenched fists, she dragged herself fully out of the hole and clambered to her feet. Dusting herself off, she felt several nasty cuts across her skin and a large tear down the side of her dress. But she wasn’t impaled, and she hadn’t broken a limb. Blinking, she glanced around the room. She’d been in the dark long enough that her eyes had adjusted. She was in a wide, communal room with a heavy door at the far end of it. Best of all, she could see two locks on her side of the door.
Giving a wide berth to a second gaping collapse in the floorboards, she rushed over to the door, found it unlocked, and thrust it open. The hallway was similarly encased in gloom, pierced only by the bruised, dim light of a stained-glass window. Two bulky metal elevator doors sat at the end of the hallway opposite the window. Her spirits soared. The mechanical eye above each door was dead. It felt like a miracle that no one had beaten her here, but the arithmetic made sense. It must have been a bottleneck up there. A panicked stampede of drunken socialites congesting the only exit.
Natalina was running again before she knew it. The corridor was a graveyard filled with the trash, furniture, and memories of the former occupants. They’d left behind their mattresses and their dressers when they’d fled the high-rise for any of the hundred brutal reasons the city gave them to leave. She closed the distance to the elevators. Something about the second set of doors pulled at her attention. Her finger hovered inches from the call button when two cold realities snapped into focus: the second elevator was dead, and the first elevator had just started moving.
From deep in the first shaft came the roar of metal and the chewing of gears. The hand-width of sliding metal was the only thing standing between her and capture. Her spirits fell as the eye above the elevator filled with light. There was almost a pulse to the illumination, some kind of imperfection. It began to sweep downwards. Slowly, methodically, floor by floor. For a moment, it felt as if the elevator had existed out of time. That if she simply didn’t look away, it wouldn’t move. But that was a coward’s deceit.
She spun back toward the hallway. It was a ruin. Cracks ravaged the plaster, exposing pipes and the rusted structural beams that supported the immense weight of the building. Cobwebs choked entire doorways. Stains wore the remaining wood like old injuries. No one lived here. No one had lived here for at least a decade. She was completely alone again, a feeling more familiar than any other. It had been her entirety. Until she’d met Brennov. He was the one who’d coaxed her out of her cocoon, who’d taught her to face the world, to face uncertainty, and to know love once more. And then he lured her to this tower. Hadn’t he? Behind her, the eye above the elevator was shut. Was there anything she could do? Anything at all?
A new thought cut through the panic in her mind: fire stairs. Sometimes they were outdoors, but never on buildings this staggeringly tall. They had to be inside. Natalina’s eyes swept through the gloom, hunting for any door that didn’t look like an apartment entrance. Most of the doors still had their unit numbers attached.
6704. 6706. 67—6710.
A vibration shivered through the floorboards. Then a noise, like some kind of muted avalanche, came spilling out of the cracked walls. She whipped her head around, tracking the noise as it grew louder, sharper, shedding its muffled distance. It swelled into a frantic drumming of footfalls and a rising tide of voices. Then, a mob burst through a doorway halfway down the hall. It was a blur of motion as the masked guests rushed her, laughing and shrieking in strange tongues.
Natalina bolted towards the nearest door and twisted the knob. It was locked. She scrambled for the second, but then they had her. Hands gripped her arms, her hair, her waist—a teeming, suffocating mass of flesh. She kicked violently, heard a scream, and kicked again harder. One of her fingers went into the soft mush of an eye socket, and then one of her fists collided fiercely against a throat. Somewhere in the center of all that carnage, a cold little needle was pressed into her neck.
The world grew dark a moment later.
Nothing of the hallway remained when Natalina awoke. She took a whiff of the air, expecting the dry, sterile scent of an old hospital. It was anything but that. Rusting metal were the words that came to her mind. It was all she could smell. Alarmed by the realization, she began to study the room.
Below her was a sea of cracked tiles, shaded a faint, watery green. The walls and ceiling were smooth, unpainted stone. No windows permitted a view into the outer world, and the lack of any visible entrances left her pondering how she’d been moved into the room. It was like the room had been built around her. Where was she?
Natalina tried to raise her right arm. It snagged on some unseen restraint. She lifted her neck and saw that her other limbs were similarly restricted. Panic surged through her, and she tried to thrash against the metal that bound her. It was pointless. Shivers wracked her body. The surface she lay on was cold against her bare arms and legs. Even before she turned her head and saw it more clearly, it was the rough feeling on her neck and the stiffness against her back that revealed she was imprisoned on a slab of stone.
She did not know how long she lay there. Terrified at first, then angry, and at last just bored. The click of the door only came when she’d worn herself so ragged that sleep seemed a welcome respite. It was like a great shadowy vault opened before her as a mass of people filled into the space, revealing it to be bigger than any of her guesses. She did not recognize the strangers. And she was glad of that. Many looked less than human. Sunken eyes, unhealthily gaunt frames, hairless heads with swimming eyes. It was then that she understood. These were the people she’d been surrounded by; these were the guests? Where was Brennov? Had he been captured too? Or was it worse… had he abandoned her? The idea gnawed at her, never letting up.
The room was swollen with them. Her stomach sank as Brennov entered last, a drunken swagger to his step. He approached her slowly, pushing and shoving through the crowd, his eyes locked to hers with the confidence only a fanatic can muster.
“Brennov? What’s going on? Get me out of here!” Natalina called out, nearly shouting.
“It’s alright now, my love. These people will care for you as they’ve cared for me. They’re your friends.”
“Friends?!” she screamed. “Free me from these ghouls!”
“Don’t make this difficult, darling. Soon, they’ll love you as I do.”
“I don’t want their love!”
A frail man emerged from the crowd, his long, raven-black locks tied tightly in an unfashionable bun. She could not forget his piercing green eyes.
“Our guests are waiting, Brennov,” he said as he handed over an ornate wooden box.
“Vyrgiliv, you know it’s sweeter if she’s willing.”
“Willing?” Vyrgiliv cackled. “Fancy you’ve found yourself a pet?”
A sudden venom entered Brennov’s glare. He spoke with the low, scraping growl of a cornered dog. “Shut up! What could you know of my bessort?!”
“Much. You were never very astute.”
Brennov stepped closer to the man. Their steely eyes cut each other up.
“You knew what this was from the start, Brennov,” Vyrgiliv declared coldly.
They remained locked in that silent combat. Two prey animals sizing each other up, waiting and thinking. Finally, Vyrgiliv relaxed his face and put a hand on Brennov’s shoulder. “You’ve partaken in our rites before. Now, restrain yourself, my boy. This was always her fate.”
Natalina had never known how Brennov’s mind worked. It had always been an area of interest. But with time, she’d picked up a few things. The lust he felt for her, she could always read that in his eyes. Anger, too, though that had frankly always been a rarity. What she saw now was an expression she hadn’t encountered since the early days of their treatment: surrender.
Brennov’s shoulders sank with the conciliatory gesture, and any fight died then.
“Please, Brennov. Darling. I love you,” Natalina pleaded.
Her cries were in vain. Brennov’s expression had settled once more. There would be no reasoning with him. He lingered, but finally gave Vyrgiliv a solemn nod and then set about opening the box.
“Darling? Whatever it is you’re doing, it’s not too late. We can still leave.” Tears welled in her eyes. She knew her pleas were in vain, but couldn’t muster anything else. Her heart lay in tatters.
“Hush now,” he replied evenly.
Brennov removed a metal apparatus from the box. Individual hairs of varying colors found themselves knotted about the wiry frame. At the chin, he fastened the device carefully with a pair of leather straps. Natalina twisted and nipped at the air, fighting the device in the only way she could until a figure stepped forward and whacked her with something hard. Nausea welled up and stars crossed her vision. She began to wretch and almost by instinct swallowed it back down.
A cold cylinder plunged nearly an inch down her ear canal.
“Please… Brennov please… I’m so scared… tell me what you plan to do?” Natalina forced out the words.
The man called Vyrgiliv replied instead. “We will release a wriggling little creature into your ear. Once inside, it will burrow deeply into your brain and produce a chemical as it nests. It will leave you in a state of ecstasy.”
It was too much to process at once. It sounded utterly outlandish, but then the sound of a heavy spring-latch tripped. She felt a wriggling warmth enter her ear.
“Hush now, my love. It’s already over,” Brennov spoke as he massaged her forehead with icy fingers.
She screamed as it ate. Hundreds of tiny teeth dug into her ear canal; blinding white-hot agony filled her mind. She couldn’t think. It was just heat. Overwhelming, immense, scalding heat. Tearing apart everything she’d ever been and ever was. She lost it: her perception of time, of the room, of material reality. Every single moment that had happened in the entire course of the universe wrapped over and over itself into one moment that was happening then.
And yet, light flushed back into her mind. Cognizance filled her. There was no room. It was an infinite garden. And the guests were joyous and beautiful—every one of them. Nothing existed within her left ear, no sound, no sense, but every other part of her felt unadulterated bliss.
Then came faint orchestral music. A century out of date. From the recordings her mother and father had played when they’d been young and danced as lovers do. There was a swinging chorus and beautiful string instruments. If she were not bound, she would dance herself, and then she would weep with joy.
She looked up at Brennov’s face and watched, not in horror but in love, as the skin and muscles rearranged to reveal twelve button-like eyes. His jaw unhinged, and a pair of fangs descended from the roof of his mouth. Hundreds of little snaps emerged from his back, each resembling a finger splintered by violence. The skin split like fabric, and a mass nearly ten feet long, carrying hundreds of stubby insect legs, emerged from it. Brennov towered over her.
“I love you, darling,” Natalina declared. And her words were true. She had never been in a deeper love.
Strange syllables came from the dark hole behind Brennov’s fangs. She understood nothing, but giggled as if he’d said the sweetest and silliest thing.
At last, the pieces in her mind were sewn together, and she realized the purpose for which she’d been born. The surrounding figures blurred together in a lovely patchwork of squirming legs and dripping fangs. She loved them all dearly. Not for the false human facades they wore, but for their true forms.
“Eat me, my children,” Natalina said. “Take your fill of my flesh.”
There was only ecstasy as she was consumed mouthful by mouthful.
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