Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

6. The Catastrophe

Cold stones dug into my back, while bony cold fingers dug into my throat. The strength of the strangler's fingers defied belief. Blackness of the night switched to the blackness of fainting in my sight.

Reality blended with Pareneres' play in my air-deprived head, raising my panic to a fever pitch. Bhuta had attacked me, I raved, and struggled harder to escape her clutches. A Bhuta!

I clawed the demon's wrist. It was like steel wire under the dry parchment of her skin. But when my nails pierced it, warm blood came out. Was she a human after all? The strangler hissed, dribbling putrid saliva over my skin, outraged that I was still alive. If I had slept tighter instead of sweltering over Parneres, I wouldn't have been.

The stench of an unwashed body and rotting teeth assaulted my nostrils. Bhutas were vile, but grand. This couldn't have been a Bhuta! The realization poured new strength into my weakening limbs. I tossed like a wild filly to throw her off. I wriggled, rasped, bit--anything to free my collapsing throat.

It was no use. The strangler maintained her grip beyond what was natural.

Then the eerie calm enveloped my fading consciousness.

Fighting the fear of death, I let go of the murdering hands collapsing my windpipe.

I groped for the knife on my hip. My fingers barely bent, numb from being clenched, still cold from sleeping, but as soon as I touched the handle, my hand somehow closed around it... I jerked my hand free and plunged the knife into the flesh above me.

The strangler eased her hold just a sliver, letting me pull in a trickle of air. A trickle was all I needed. One breath in--and it spelled her doom.

In truth, I didn't know if I killed the wretch, though I stabbed her again and again. I didn't check the pulse the way Gala's priestesses taught me to do with the very sick people who looked like corpses.

No, I didn't stay long enough to check. After I crawled from underneath her, I jumped to my feet and kicked her inside the alcove. Black blood glistening in the faint starlight pooled around my sandals. I backed away, afraid it would stain my trousers too. Then I laughed, because it was such a stupid thing to worry about. It would pass for mud, and if I had to sleep in the streets again, I'd be dirty from head to toe.

But I shook from an onrush of blood in my veins. My heart sang that I came through and she didn't. For the first time in my life, I experienced the euphoria of surviving a mortal duel. So for all intents and purposes, I had killed my first woman that night.

After swaying on my feet for a few moments with the heady feeling of the kill, I turned and fled. I didn't know where I was going. I stumbled around Palmyr, hiding from the Watch and waiting for the dawn, too afraid to fall asleep again. The next villain tempted to rob me might not be as famished or as mad as the one I'd just killed.

The russet light of sunrise found me by the pier, washing the blood and grime off in the tepid water, throwing envious glances at the gulls screaming over the thrashing silver fish. Alas, the birds were out of a stone's throw reach. Those who stalked the beach also left me alone. The aura of a fresh kill hung over me like the mist over the sleepy sea. I was dizzy and despondent, but a grin kept sneaking upon my face. I proved them wrong, because there was no going back to the Gala's temple for me.

I killed a woman. And even if I healed a thousand more, it wouldn't take away this one death.

***

Alas, I didn't move toward fulfilling my dream either.

Three more days and nights ran through my grasp like the sand grains.

My nights in the gutters were full of terror. Only the hope that tomorrow my misery would end, and I would sleep in the warm barracks and eat my fill, kept me from stealing.