Zuri gasped for air. She jolted upright and frantically shifted her head from left to right. The thudding beat of loud music vibrated through the floor under her. In amongst it, periodic gunfire rang out. The cracks and bangs split the air, followed by screams of anguish. She shuddered at each one. Her dry and gritty eyes stung her. She rubbed them with her knuckles and teased them into focus.
Thick bars of green metal, towering over her and tipped with razor-sharp spikes, surrounded her on four sides. In each corner of her cage, thick beams of metal cemented into the ground. Three more cages made up a single row, though she was the only prisoner. The width between the bars was just wide enough to squeeze an arm. She pushed hers through and began to claw and clasp at the outside of the door. A gut-wrenching dread enveloped her as her fingers touched the cold steel of a padlock. She rattled her cage and screamed. The scream ripped through her throat, and she hacked and coughed. Tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped to the dusty floor. She followed them, falling to her knees.
The room was stiflingly warm, the thick and humid air hard to breathe. Each breath she managed brought her the sickening smells of death and decay. Heat clammed up against her legs from the floor. On three of the four sides of her cage stood huge drums, blazing flames roaring out from the tops of them. The heat was oppressive. That midsummer heat that left her short of breath and made her worry she might never taste water again. Beads of sweat rolled freely down her forehead and joined her tears on the floor.
She could see stars through endless panoramic windows. The cold was out there. She knew it was. The sky was a purple bruise, with jagged rips of bright green aura. Only on the coldest of days did the sky grace us with such beauty. Bone-biting cold marauded the city under skies like tonight’s. But the relentless flames were impenetrable, crackling in protest, roaring up with every tickle of wind.
Strange for the wind to be inside, she thought. She rubbed her eyes again and squinted against the firelight. She scrunched her eyes and checked again, only to confirm she was right. Why was there no glass sitting in the window frames in between her cage and the tower block opposite her?
They aren’t windows.
She was on a sprawling floor with huge pillars in each corner, holding up another floor above her, and on the far side of the room, a sweeping ramp led the way up. Next to it was another, sloping down towards a flashing light.
I’m in a multi-storey car park.
Looking around once more, she noticed halfway along the vast open room that the ceiling above ended and the floor continued into the open air. Outside, a variety of vans, trailers, and motor homes dotted about. Campfires sparked and cracked in the night. A generator buzzed. A cat prowled. People lived here – she could tell by the smell of sweat and rotting food. Dim lights fluttered from inside the vehicles, and nearly all the tyres were flat. They hadn’t moved in some time. I’m in a shanty, she thought to herself, pressing her palm to her forehead.
“Arnero’s Shanty!” she gasped as her heartbeat quickened. She spun around in her cage and stared at the back wall of the vast room. Old roll shutters and sheet metal boarded up the gaps between the floors. They rattled in the wind. On the near side, making up the front of Arnero’s chambers, were concrete blocks standing strong from floor to ceiling, reinforced with the same sharp green bars that confined her.
Waist-high construction fences of silver metal stood guard over the front of the makeshift building. Behind them, two ferocious dogs roamed freely, sniffing and pawing at a dead rat. Their tan-brown jowls dripped drops of sticky blood, which they eagerly licked back up. To the left of the dogs, the body of a man lay motionless, face down in a layer of filth and grime on the floor. A stain of red lay next to him, and tracks of paw prints led through it towards the dogs.
Four men – mean, wiry, and dressed in black – were walking along the perimeter of the building in pairs. Each man held a crossbow with a full quiver of arrows resting at their thighs. Hard men, thought Zuri. Arnero’s personal guard. They moved gracefully, marching up and down in the same way Zuri had seen the City Guard patrolling the front of the Black Barracks. Perhaps these men had been City Guard once; if they had been, they definitely were no longer. Their dark eyes were deep set and ringed with black, their grizzled faces now covered with rough beards.
The room was far too quiet. But of course it’s quiet. It’s Trials day, we passed by earlier. She recalled the Crochead who had his brains blown through the metal ring fence. She spun her head, scanning the windows, and saw the two men and the woman hanging by their snapped necks from the floor above. A single carrion crow, perched on the woman’s head, cawed into the night. Her conversation with Jude came rushing back.
After the Trials, there was a closing ceremony. Most of Arnero’s soldiers and the residents of the shanty would be there. That would be the music below. The floor she was on was probably as empty as it would be for weeks. Her heart pounded again in unison with her head as she desperately considered an escape. There was none. There was nothing in her cage except herself, nothing near enough to reach through the bars, and even if there was, she was no lock pick.
“Guard!” There was no reply. None of the four men so much as glanced in her direction. “Guards! One of you will answer me! Answer me, you bastards!”
“Watch ya mouth, gyal, or ya may find it sewn shut,” a familiar voice spoke, calm and confident. Familiar, but strange at the same time. How peculiar, she thought as she racked her brains trying to place it.
A broad figure stepped towards the cage from a dark corner, draped in shadow. As he moved into the glow of the firelight, Zuri screwed her face in disbelieving confusion. The man was tall, muscular, with long braided hair resting on his shoulders. He sipped from a tin hip flask. A black, yellow, and green flag adorned the front.
“Jenko?”
“Zuri.”
“What is this? What’s going on? Let me out!” She leapt to her feet and ragged at the bars.
“I don’t answer to you any more, gyal. Never did. You’ll rot in that cage until Arnero’s done with ya. After that, you’ll hang with them.” He jabbed a thumb towards the bodies swinging in the wind.
“You disgusting traitor! Vile scum! My father will kill you! He will come for me, and you will suffer!”
“Your father don’t know ya here, gyal. He’s got his men scouring the city for you and the boy. He thinks you’ve gone on the missing list together.”
“I was going to.”
“Tsk…Too late for you and that young bredda,” Jenko smiled.
“Jenko…you were his best man. What is this?”
“Are you blind, gyal? I was never his man. I turned up a week after the truce. Been with Arnero since the start. I joined Dawson to watch him, to make sure he honoured the terms. For a year he did what Queen Arnero asked, but that was about to change. So we needed you.”
He swigged from his flask and moved the liquid around his cheeks before gulping it back. Taking a step towards the fire, he pulled out a second tin from the pocket in his jeans. Flicking it open, he removed a Ganji-Bud joint which he placed in his mouth. Leaning towards the fire, he let the flames snake up and light the end, puffing a thick cloud of sweet smoke towards Zuri’s face.
“You could have killed him ten times over this past year. Why am I here?”
“Arnero doesn’t want him dead yet. Tsk…We have a much more satisfying end planned out for the two of you.”
“What are you going to do to me? What about Jude? He has nothing to do with all this. Where is he?”
“I reckon that bredda’s gonna be far away from you, gyal. I heard ya arguing. Ya have ya father’s tongue.”
“You saw that?”
“I’ve seen everything, ya fool. Ya think ya father would have ya roaming the city with a little boy as ya guard? He had three of us shadow ya the whole time.”
“The Crocheads who attacked us…that was your doing, wasn’t it?”
Jenko turned and slunk away into the darkness towards the ramp, which swooped down to the noise of the floor below. Zuri exhaled and sank to the floor. Despair shackled her there like a heavy weight, pressing her down. Her cheek rested on the warm, hard floor, and tears rolled down her nose, dripping to the dusty ground.
There was no way out of this. She knew it. Whatever her father had done to break the truce would be the end of her. That was about to change, that’s what Jenko had said – about to. So her father hadn’t violated the truce, not yet. But he was obviously planning to, and Jenko the rat had told Arnero. There was no other explanation.
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Footsteps. Someone approached in the dark. Not Jenko. The sound of the shoes was different. Zuri narrowed her eyes to the shape in the darkness walking towards her from the ramp.
Arnero stepped into the light, causing Zuri to shudder with fear as the room suddenly felt cold. Something about the woman was wildly unsettling.
Though she was beautiful to look upon, an underlying air of madness emanated from every inch of her. Tall and slender, she crossed the floor with grace and speed, her bare legs sweeping by each other, punctuated by the clack of her heeled black boots. She had an angular face, steeped in deceptive youth. Her eyes were a brown so rich there was hardly a pupil. Her head was shaved, and curled ringlets adorned with gold thread dropped in braids from her temples and rested on her sharp shoulders. Her dark bronze skin shimmied in the firelight, accentuated by flashes of gold from the rings piercing her eyebrows and nose.
A final clack of Arnero’s heel signalled her arrival at the cage. Her dark lips parted into a devilish smile. Zuri winced at the teeth. Each one had been filed into a sharp point. Lots of people had these teeth. She had seen them before around the city, and even in her own shanty, Aunt Chanel had them. Apparently, people filed their teeth down willingly before The Panic, and then put plastic teeth over the top. So strange, she still didn’t fully understand why. But she instinctively knew that whether Arnero had filed her teeth before or after The Panic was irrelevant. She had used them to devour throats and take fingers. Of that, Zuri was sure.
“Wondering what you’re doing here, young Zuri?” said Arnero. The dogs padded over to her and sat at her feet. She patted one on the head, and the other stared at Zuri with hungry eyes.
Arnero stared at Zuri for minutes longer than what was comfortable until she finally clapped her hands. The bang cracked around the room, and Zuri jumped back. Wings billowed as carrion fled in flocks into the night. The two dogs surged into attack. They churned the ground in front of them, jowls flapping, bloody daggers bared in their mouths. Zuri scrambled back in her cage and screamed, retreating into a ball. The dogs gnawed at the bars, growling and snarling. She could feel their hot breath on the back of her neck. She sobbed and sobbed and begged them to stop.
“Please! I’m scared. Please let me go home.”
“I’m sure you are shitting yourself, princess, but at least you’re alive. The same can’t be said for my only boy, though, can it?” She clasped her hands on the bars, looming over Zuri like a giant, like a devil lording over hell. She whistled loud, and the dogs dropped silent at her feet.
“I didn’t kill your son. Why are you doing this to me?”
“You’re an extension of your father, princess. If you suffer, so shall he. Your father took my son from me, now I've taken his daughter from him. An eye for an eye.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong! Nero was dealing on my father’s turf. Of course he was going to react. He suffered in return. The war was horrific, he lost half of his men. You hung my uncle!”
“Ah yes. Uncle Beefy. I trust your father received his brother’s head?” she said with an eager smile.
Zuri wiped tears from her eyes. “You know he did. We buried him in the Ganji farm with all the other bodies you sent. It was horrible, but I’m sure you know that.”
“I didn’t want the truce. You know that, don’t you? I wanted blood. I wanted your entire shanty wiped from the earth. Only the Conduit saved you. War is terrible for business. Make a truce or no Croc supply. Make no mistake, that’s the only reason you still breathe.”
Zuri bowed her head.
“Well, girl – speak. Do you have nothing to say? No condolences, no kind words for the brutal murder of my sweet Nero?”
Zuri closed her eyes. She watched the events unfold once more, like she was there all over again. It was a scene she’d never forget. She saw herself gripping the guardrails of the rickety balcony on the top floor of her shack as she looked down through one of the building's glass windows.
In a fit of rage, Dawson flew out of the slums below into the street, the panther on his bare chest snarling in the thundering rain. Winston the wolfhound burst past him, his massive frame bounding across the street. He chewed the ground up in front of him, and with a great leap, his massive jaws sank on Nero’s arm. His eyes were wide with terror as the mighty hound ripped its giant head left to right, tearing the arm back and forth, peeling skin and shattering bone. Nero’s screams could be heard a mile around, until they grew so loud they became silent and agonal.
The streets were ghostly then. Onlookers gasped in disbelief as Dawson cannoned into Nero and launched him backward. He careered into a stack of dustbins, and the clattering and clanging disturbed the silence, Nero’s terror momentarily broken. He raised what remained of his mauled arm in front of his face as his legs frantically pushed him back, a futile attempt to escape. With a sharp whistle, Dawson commanded his hound to a halt as he launched himself onto Nero, his huge fists cannoning into his face one after another, over and over again. Zuri felt physically sick as she watched through teary eyes. Nero’s head bounced up and down, crunching on the wet concrete. Each blow eroded more of his face than the last.
Finally, her father rose and turned back towards his shanty, the eyes of his people fixed to the floor. None dared meet his rage-filled glare. Sticky red blood dripped from his fists, sploshing to the puddles below. He eyed the crowd and eyed them some more, and then he strode back into the dark. Winston remained, chewing the mangled remains of Nero’s face.
Arnero's voice ripped her from the frightening reverie. “Ah, but you remember, I can see it in your face. You were the princess in the tower, watching the show. Tell me, did you enjoy watching my son’s death? Did it make you feel proud of your mighty father?”
“It made me feel sick. It upsets me to this day.”
“You will not earn my pity, child,” snapped Arnero with venom.
“I do not seek it. I just spoke the truth. Surely you agree Nero should never have been there? It was an affront. I dare say you would have reacted similarly.”
“Oh, I would have reacted much worse.” She bared her frightful smile and ran her tongue over the front of her teeth.
“What now? You demand a ransom, he will pay it, and then he will declare another war. Why not just declare it yourself and skip the politics?”
Arnero cackled, loud and full of glee. “There will be no ransom. Only pain.”
Zuri could feel Arnero’s eyes pouring over her, malevolent, scouring her for fear, for weakness. And fear was there, right beside weakness, but she’d do all she could to mask it. She pushed to her feet and glared at Arnero, turning her back on the evil witch in defiance.
“I believe you are unaware, princess, but the truce was…conditional. Operate within our own borders. No attacks on each other, planned or spontaneous. No serving each other’s punters. But I needed more than that. So what do you think I did?”
Zuri stared at her. She stared at her so hard her eyes might burst. She imagined the power in her eyes popping Arnero’s skull.
“That’s it, princess. Hate is good. Hate means you’re not yet broken. But you will be.”
Zuri’s mouth was bone dry, and her throat was gritty and narrow. She hacked and hawked and searched for moisture. She felt tired now, unsteady.
“I’m tired of this. I’m tired of games. What did you do? Spit it out, witch.”
“I demanded a prisoner. A prisoner to solidify the truce. To go a small way towards calming my desire for blood. Collateral. If the bastard breaks the truce, the prisoner dies –”
“Who is the prisoner?” Zuri interrupted.
“– but the prisoner, sadly, is nearing death. You, princess, are the replacement,” she smiled.
“Who is it? Who is the prisoner?”
“Bring her in!” Arnero shouted over her shoulder.
“Who is the prisoner?” Zuri screamed, rattling her bars. Her throat surged in painful protest.
Arnero’s laugh rang loud and full of manic glee, her head tipped back as she cackled with delight. Finally, the laughter subsided as her head snapped forward, face-to-face with Zuri. She bared her teeth as she whispered, “Let’s have a look together, shall we?”
Chains rattled violently, clashing and clanging against the floor, as the whimpers and screams of a woman echoed about the vast room. Jenko’s veins bulged in his thick biceps as he dragged the prisoner across the floor by her chained neck, like a wounded dog. Her raven black hair, cracked and matted and thick with filth, cascaded over her face, obscuring her eyes. Her arms and legs protruded from a ragged old blouse. Awash with black scales and weeping sores, her bare feet were battered and bloody, leaving red footprints in their wake. The woman shook violently as her head swung side to side, and her high-pitched wails turned Zuri’s stomach.
One of Arnero’s soldiers unlocked the cage next to Zuri. He swung open the heavy door, and with a savage yank on the chain, Jenko launched the prisoner into the cage and locked it shut. The woman immediately retreated into a ball, clutching her knees and rocking back and forth. She whimpered behind masses of matted hair.
“Come now, don’t be shy. I’ve brought someone to see you,” sneered Arnero.
The woman remained as she was, unwilling or unable to look up.
“You will look at me now, slave!”
Still, the woman remained as she was, rocking forward and back. Zuri could hear faint sobs emanating from under the hair.
Arnero growled in frustration, “Give me a pin of Croc, now!”
A soldier scuttled away hastily into Arnero’s chambers, returning moments later. He handed Arnero a dirty syringe filled with a beautiful golden liquid. Its flecks of bronze floated about it like crisp autumn leaves on a warm evening wind.
Arnero stomped over to the woman’s cage and held up the syringe. “If you want your fix, you will entertain my whims. Now look up at your new friend!”
The woman snapped from her trance, lifting her head and turning quickly towards Zuri. Her bony hands, a mess of cuts and sores, brushed away her tattered hair to reveal her gaunt, tired face. Zuri’s heart stopped, consumed by shock. Her head vibrated as her hands shook uncontrollably.
“Mumma?”
The dead and empty amber eyes of her mother stared back at her. A single tear trickled out and down her grimy face as the faintest of smiles cracked through her grimace. Her weak arm raised slowly towards her bars, and with her fingers extended, she reached for her daughter.
The clink of plastic hitting the floor wrenched her gaze away, and she spun and dropped, scrabbling for the syringe Arnero had tossed into her cage. She thrust it up to the firelight in triumph, the weakness evaporated and the shaking stopped, as she slipped the needle into a bulging vein in her groin. She slammed the plunger home. Her body spasmed as she groaned in pleasure, sinking back to the floor with a warm smile. Her eyes slowly closed as her head nodded and lolled. She was at total peace.
“Anyway, I’m sure you and Kady have much to catch up on.”
Zuri’s eyes blazed at Arnero, hatred pouring out of them, her fists clenching the bars so hard they might fold over on themselves. Tears streamed – tears of joy, tears of anguish, tears of fury.
Her mother was alive. Zuri knew then she had to escape, and she would. Or she’d die trying.