The City on the Edge

After Blackburn left, Sloan had all but tossed her back into her cell. She landed painfully on her side on a particularly nasty spot of sticky grime. He hadn’t even taken off the shackles. Ronnie expected him to slam the bars closed and storm off as he had done before, but this time he stood at her cell and watched her. A prickle of unease crept over her skin under his piercing gaze of cold ice.

The bars were open and she could probably knock him aside and make a run for it, but something in his eyes stopped her, unsettled her. Ronnie wasn’t unaccustomed to the roving stares of grown men who should know better- the Edge wasn’t perfect, after all and it was an expression she could recognize now after being on the receiving end. But this was different. Lust was absent from Sloan’s eyes, rather, it appeared that he were studying her, perhaps looking for something he missed before.

“I had my doubts about you,” he finally said. “I suspected, but Justice Blackburn has confirmed it for me. I was curious why he asked me to find you.”

“What are you talking about?” Ronnie asked, climbing to her feet. Muck covered her arm and shirt in a gross smear of foul remains.

Sloan continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “You weren’t that difficult to find, really. You and your little band of thieves. Did you think that no one was watching you break into houses? It would seem that there is no loyalty among those in the Edge. You’re even willing to steal from each other.”

“You were watch-”

“Tell me, did you see Miss Douter and her daughters? Have the demons eaten them or were there still remains to find?”

Ronnie stepped away from the bars. The shifter mother and her two children, slain in a forgotten house and left to rot, had names after all.

She could easily picture Sloan storming into the woman’s house and tearing through everything they owned. She imagined the woman fighting back, maternal instinct flaring to life, and slashing at Sloan with claws that would leave deep grooves in the walls for Ronnie to stumble upon later. What must it have been like when the woman realized she couldn’t win and instead gathered her daughters to try and flee? Perhaps they had tried to escape out of the bedroom window but they simply weren’t fast enough. Ronnie saw Sloan standing over the mother and daughters as they begged for mercy, sword in his hand while he swung at them.

Ronnie’s hand went for her pocket where the small silver coin still nestled like a stone. Sloan tracked her movements as if he were aware of what she was hiding. If he’d been watching her as closely as he claimed, then he probably did.

“Keep it,” he said, confirming her thoughts. “A reminder. When we’re done here, I imagine you’ll understand exactly how far we are willing to go.”

The sudden grinding sound of stone against stone followed his words. Ronnie jumped, startled as the noise broke the quiet. Sloan stood motionless, unbothered by the intrusion. Heavy footsteps echoed toward the cells and the sound of them had Ronnie pressing herself against the back wall. It wasn’t the familiar sound of the White Guard’s uniform boots. These were the slaps of bare skin against uneven stone, followed by a drag of something else.

In the next cell, Cecily banged against the bars, panic in her voice. “Stop it! You can’t keep doing this to us!”

Ronnie strained senses that were beyond her grasp. She desperately needed to hear and feel what was coming for her, but she couldn’t touch her senses. She pulled at the cuffs, clanging them together noisily in a sudden fit of desperation as she tried to pull her hands through them. The edge of the metal bit into her skin and sliced at her wrists until red lines of failed attempts began to bleed.

A shadow fell into her cell and she looked up. The sight before her pulled the breath from her body. What monsters were these?

The figures stood behind Sloan like obedient dogs, tall and skeleton thin and holding flickering lanterns in their wretched hands. Each ragged breath rasped through an apparatus strapped over the lower half of their faces. They looked as though they had been stretched beyond what their bodies could support with their skin pulled taut and torn at the ligaments, showing the grey sinew beneath. Their hunched forms bent at awkward angles, as if their bones were broken and mashed back together to heal in the wrong shape. Their entire visage terrified Ronnie, but it was their eyes that had a scream bubbling up in her throat.

Lidless, open, and so very green.

“Wha-” Ronnie choked down the scream and sucked in a breath. “What did you do to them?” Her words were nearly a shriek in the cold cell.

She kept her eyes on towering witches who stared dully at her, dead on their feet.

Sloan shrugged. “I made them useful.”

Cecily let out a torn sound from her cell and slammed against the bars, screaming in a jumble of words that Ronnie couldn’t make out. Why was no one else in the dungeon fighting like Cecily?

Sloan took a lantern from one witch and beckoned at Ronnie. The witches moved immediately, lumbering into the cell. Ronnie darted to the side in a futile attempt to escape their grabbing hands. One of the witches reached out and wrapped long cold fingers around Ronnie’s arm. Each finger cracked as it curled against her skin. Ronnie wrenched her arm and twisted but the other witch grabbed her in an iron grip.

They pulled her from the cell and toward Sloan, who was already walking away. He didn’t head toward the dungeon door, but instead disappeared through a hole that had opened in the far wall at the back. Ronnie passed the other cells. Cecily was pressed against the bars. She was young- younger than Ronnie by far. Just a kid. Dark haired with a single streak of white in the front. Recognition flared through Ronnie like a flame flickering to life. Cecily watched Ronnie and mouthed an apology at her.

Ronnie turned from the girl and looked in the other cells. The two other occupants were still on the floor and didn’t even look up as the witches dragged Ronnie past their cell. She took notice of the deep stain under each of them, still wet and glimmering under the pale lantern light of the dungeon.

Oh, Ronnie thought. That’s why they didn’t say anything. They were dead now.

Her boots hit a bump when the witches pulled her over the threshold they had made in the wall. The narrow hall allowed no light save for the lantern clutched in Sloan’s hand. It cast shadows of monsters on the stone walls that prowled along beside them. They turned invisible corners, masked by darkness, and stumbled over loose stones. Something sharp nicked Ronnie’s ankle, biting through the cuff of her pants.

Sloan stepped on something brittle and it snapped under his boot. A bone. Skeletal remains and scraps of cloth littered the floor. Ronnie sucked in a breath and gagged. The air was sour on her tongue and it lingered like spice. Even without her heightened senses she could smell the rot that hung in the air like atmosphere on a rainy day. The smell propelled her back to the little boarded up house with the decaying bodies of a desperate mother and her daughters. Their killer was now hauling her off to do unspeakable things.

Fear like Ronnie had never known before gripped her- it punched through her chest and dug down deep into her guts, twisting and churning and tearing everything apart as it did. Her eyes burned and she blinked rapidly to clear them, biting her bottom lip so hard that she tasted blood.

The hall grew brighter, just slightly so, as it came to an end. It opened up into a cavernous room must have expanded beneath most of the manor’s lawn. Ronnie’s eyes darted around, taking in every strange contraption attached to the walls and every helpless body still strapped to a table. It struck her how similar the room was to a healer’s quarters, but Sloan was no friendly witch and there would be no healing in this place.

“Set her down there. I want her to see this.” Sloan pointed to chair that looked ready to turn to dust. The witches dropped her onto the seat and the wood groaned under her weight.

Sloan set down his lantern and replaced his White Guard coat for a plain white jacket that buttoned up to his throat. The witches left Ronnie where she sat, unconcerned that she would pose a problem. They ambled across the room and towards a row of dirty metal tables lined up against one of the walls. A few were empty, but many of them had a body. As the witches approached, Ronnie saw a few of the bodies spur into motion, struggling against the bonds and crying through their gags.

A metal vat set into the floor took up the center of the room, surrounded by arcane symbols that were out of place in a human’s home. Ronnie couldn’t tell how deep it sank into the floor, but she got a good view of the slimy green substance that bubbled in it. Chains hung from gears attached to the ceiling, dipping down into the slime and vanishing from sight.

Sloan stepped around the vat, staring down into as he circled like a predator. “Do you know how we won the war?” he asked suddenly, catching Ronnie off guard.

“What?” She hadn’t even heard his question.

He clucked his tongue at her, as if she were a little child. “To win a war, you need to utilize every resource at your disposal. When Marla’s Battle first began, we were outmatched. You see,” Sloan crept over to her, one foot in front of the other with precise steps, “humans are undoubtedly pure. Untouched. And while it is a blessing, it left us somewhat shorthanded. Even with the elves and the dwarves on our side, we still struggled to match the dissenters. The shifters. The witches. The vampires. Hellhounds. Mermaidens. Fairies. The other races possessed strengths that we lacked.”

“You still won,” Ronnie spit out bitterly. What was the point of all of this?

“We did indeed. And do you know why?” Sloan retreated to the vat. He plucked at one of the chains. “Because we used every resource available.”

The chains jerked and rattled, like fishing line that hooked a water beast. Sloan walked to wall and clutched at a lever. “Allow me to give you a demonstration.” He pulled the lever up.

The gears on the ceiling protested, but began to turn, clanking loudly while the chains retracted from the vat. Ronnie watched the surface of the boiling slime, waiting for something horrible to jump out at her.

Something was coming out of the slime and it took a moment for Ronnie to realize what it was. Fingers. Then hands. Then long dark arms. When a crown of black hair broke through, Ronnie finally let out the scream she’d been holding.

“Anya!”

The young witch hung limply by her wrists. Her brown skin had turned a sickly shade of grey beneath a thick layer of slime. She coughed and spilled a mouthful of green down her front. Her skin sagged on her bones, leaving her cheeks hollow and her eyes sunken. Her green eyes were so faded that Ronnie couldn’t make them out when they locked gazes.

Anya’s mouth opened and her lips moved, but no sound came out. Hot tears rolled down Ronnie’s cheeks.

“What are you doing to her?” she screamed at Sloan.

Sloan cupped Anya’s chin and turned her head from side to side, examining her closely. “I’m doing the same thing that I did to them,” he pointed to the two witches that were still prowling the metal beds. “I’m using resources to win a war that is still being fought.”

Ronnie understood then. She understood why Sloan was so severe on the Edge and those who called it home. They weren’t people in his eyes- they were raw materials. Experiments that hadn’t been conducted yet. Ronnie thought of the buildings plastered with missing persons posters and wondered how many of them had met their end here, in this very room.

“Why witches?” she asked. Her throat protested the words but she had to know.

“They’re different. We’ve tried to make ghouls with other races, but a witch’s body holds and processes magic differently. The elves figured that out. This device,” he tapped the vat with the tip of his boot, “the elves built this.”

Lorna. Malik.

“Where are my friends?” Ronnie demanded. She looked around the room wildly for the scruffy face and red hair she knew so well.

Sloan seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. “I don’t have them here. They’re still on the other side of the manor with the other witches.”

“Why are you keeping shifters away from everyone else if you can’t use us?”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t use shifters. I just haven’t found a way to turn you into ghouls.” Sloan stroked a finger down Anya’s cheek. “Ghouls were our greatest weapon. Strong. Loyal. Obedient. And the best part was that the other side couldn’t bear to strike down their friends, despite what they’d become.”

Ronnie looked past him to the two witches poking at squirming bodies.

No, she corrected herself. Ghouls. They aren’t witches anymore.

“They don’t look like anything,” she said.

Sloan frowned and observed the ghouls. “I’m aware,” he agreed almost bitterly, as if it were a personal failure to him. “Magic has changed since Marla’s Battle. It makes the results,” he paused to think of a suitable word, “unpredictable.”

Then what’s going to happen to Anya?