Silver Shadows (4 page)

I
COULD FORGIVE THE ALCHEMISTS
their light-show shock tactics because once I was able to see reasonably well again, they offered me a shower.

The wall in my cell opened up, and I was greeted by a young woman who was maybe five years older than I was. She was dressed in the kind of smart suit that Alchemists love, with her black hair pulled back tightly in an elegant French twist. Her makeup was flawless, and she smelled like lavender. The golden lily on her cheek shone. My vision still wasn’t at full capacity, but standing beside her, I became acutely aware of my current state, that I hadn’t truly washed in ages and that my shift was little more than a rag you might use to scrub the floors.

“My name is Sheridan,” she said coolly, not elaborating on whether that was her first or last name. I wondered if she might be one of the people behind the voice in my cell. I was pretty sure they’d worked in shifts, using some sort of computer
program to synthesize it so it always sounded the same. “I’m the current director around here. Follow me, please.”

She turned down the hall in her black leather heels, and I followed wordlessly, not trusting myself to say anything yet. Although I’d had some freedom of movement in my cell, I’d also had limitations and hadn’t done a lot of walking. My stiff muscles protested against the changes, and I moved slowly behind her, one agonizing barefoot step at a time. We passed a number of unmarked doors along the way, and I wondered what they held. More dark cells and tinny voices? Nothing seemed to be marked as an exit, which was my immediate concern. There were also no windows or any other indication of how to get out of this place.

Sheridan made it to the elevator long before I did and waited patiently for me. When we were both in, we went up one floor and emerged into a similarly barren hall. One doorway led to what looked like a gym bathroom, with tiled floors and communal showers. Sheridan pointed to a stall that had been supplied with soap and shampoo.

“The water will last for five minutes once you turn it on,” she warned. “So use it wisely. There’ll be clothes waiting for you when you’re done. I’ll be in the hall.”

She stepped outside the locker room, in a seeming show of offering privacy, but I knew without a doubt I was still being watched. I’d lost all illusions of modesty the moment I got here. I started to strip off the shift when I noticed a mirror on the wall to my side, and more importantly, who was looking back from it.

I’d known I was in bad shape, but seeing the reality of that face-to-face was an altogether different experience. The first
thing that struck me was how much weight I’d lost—ironic considering my lifelong obsession with staying thin. I’d certainly met that goal, met and blown past it. I’d crossed from thin to malnourished, and it showed not just in the way the shift hung on my thin frame but also in the gauntness of my face. That hollow look was intensified by dark shadows under my eyes and a paleness in the rest of me from lack of sun. I looked like I’d just recovered from some life-threatening disease.

My hair was in bad shape too. Whatever decent job I thought I’d been doing at washing it in the dark was now proven a joke. The strands were limp and oily, hanging in sad, messy clumps. There was no doubt I was still a blonde, but the color was dull, made much darker now by the dirt and sweat that scrubbing with a washcloth just couldn’t get off. Adrian had always said my hair was like gold and had teased me about having a halo. What would he say now?

Adrian doesn’t love me for my hair
, I thought, meeting my eyes. They were steady and brown. Still the same.
This is all exterior. My soul, my aura, my character … those are unchanged.

Resolved, I started to turn from that reflection when I noticed something else. My hair was longer than the last time I’d seen it, a little over an inch longer. Although I’d been well aware my legs needed a good shaving, I’d had no sense in the cell of what the hair on my head was doing. Now, I tried to remember how fast hair grew. About a half inch a month? That suggested at least two months, maybe three if I took the poor diet into account. The shock of that was more horrifying than my appearance.

Three months! Three months they’ve taken from me, drugging me in the dark.

What had happened to Adrian? To Jill? To Eddie? A lifetime could’ve passed for them in three months. Were they safe and well? Were they still in Palm Springs? New panic rose in me, and I staunchly tried to push it down. Yes, a lot of time had passed, but I couldn’t let the reality of that affect me. The Alchemists were already playing enough mind games with me without my helping them.

But still … three months.

I stripped off my poor excuses for clothes and stepped into the stall, pulling the curtain closed behind me. When I turned the water on and it came out hot, it was all I could do not to sink to the floor in ecstasy. I’d been so cold for the last three months, and now here it was, all the warmth I could want. Well, not
all
the warmth. As I turned the temperature up full blast, I secretly wished I had a bathtub and could just sink into this heat. Still, this shower alone was glorious, and I closed my eyes, sighing with the first contentment I’d experienced in a very long time.

Then, remembering Sheridan’s warning, I opened my eyes and found the shampoo. I applied it to and rinsed my hair three times, hoping it was enough to get out the worst of the grime. It’d probably take a few more showers to ever be fully clean again. After that, I scrubbed my body with the soap until I was raw and pink and smelled vaguely antiseptic, then just gloried in standing under the steaming water until it turned off.

When I stepped outside, I found clothes folded neatly on a bench. They were basic scrubs, loose pants and a shirt like you’d find hospital workers or—more fittingly—prisoners wearing. Tan, of course, since the Alchemists still had taste levels to maintain. They’d also given me socks and a pair of
brown shoes, kind of a cross between loafers and slippers, and I wasn’t surprised to find they were exactly my size. A comb completed the gift set, nothing fancy, but enough to attempt some semblance of neatness. The reflection that peered back at me now still didn’t look good, exactly, but it certainly looked improved.

“Feeling better?” asked Sheridan, with a smile that didn’t meet her eyes. Whatever strides I’d made in appearance felt lame beside her stylish grooming, but I consoled myself with the thought that I still had my self-respect and ability to think for myself.

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”

“You’ll want this too,” she said, handing me a small plastic card. It had my name, a bar code, and a picture from much better days on it. A little plastic clip on its back allowed it to attach to my collar.

She led me back to the elevator. “We’re so happy you’ve chosen the path to redemption. Truly. I look forward to helping you on your journey back to the light.”

The elevator took us to another floor and a new room, this one with a tattooist and a table. Whatever comfort I’d taken from a hot shower and real clothes vanished. They were going to re-ink me? But of course they were. Why rely on physical and psychological torture alone when you could have the added element of magical control?

“We just want to do a little touchup,” Sheridan explained cheerily. “Since it’s been a while.”

It had been less than a year, actually, but I knew what she and the others really wanted to do. The Alchemist tattoos contained ink with charmed vampire blood woven with compulsion spells
to reinforce loyalty. Obviously, mine hadn’t worked. Magical or not, compulsion was basically just a strong suggestion, one that could be overridden if the will was fierce enough. They were probably going to double their usual dose in the hopes of making me more compliant so that I’d accept whatever rhetoric they were now going to subject me to.

What they didn’t know was that I’d taken steps to protect against this very thing. Before being taken, I’d created an ink of my own—one made with human magic, something equally appalling to the Alchemists. From all the data I’d gathered, that magic negated whatever compulsion was in this vampire-derived ink. The downside was, I hadn’t had a chance to inject that ink into my tattoo and provide that extra layer of protection. What I was counting on was the claim from a witch I knew that the very act of practicing magic would protect me. According to her, wielding human magic infused my blood, and that would counteract the vampire blood in the Alchemist tattoo. Of course, I hadn’t really had a chance to practice many spells in solitary confinement and could only hope what I’d done in the past had left its mark permanently on me.

“Become one of us again,” said Sheridan, as the tattooist’s needle pricked the side of my face. “Renounce your sins and seek atonement. Join us in our battle to keep humans free of the taint of vampires and dhampirs. They are dark creatures and have no part of the natural order.”

I tensed, and it had nothing to do with the needle piercing my skin. What if what I’d been told was wrong? What if magic use wouldn’t protect me? What if, even now, that ink was working its way through my body, using its insidious power to alter my thoughts? It was one of my greatest fears, having my
mind tampered with. I suddenly had trouble breathing as that idea crippled me with terror, causing the tattooist to pause and ask if I was in pain. Swallowing, I shook my head and let him continue, trying to hide my panic.

When he finished, I didn’t
think
I felt different. I still loved Adrian and my Moroi and dhampir friends. Was that enough? Or would the ink take time to work? And if my magic use hadn’t protected me, would my own strength of will be enough to save me? Obviously, I’d overcome the previous round of re-inking. Could I do it again?

Sheridan escorted me out when the tattooist released me, chatting away as though I’d just been to a spa and not subjected to an attempt at mind control. “I always feel so refreshed after that, don’t you?”

It was kind of unbelievable to me that she could act so casually, like we were friends out for a walk, when she and the others had left me starving and half-naked in a dark cell for months. Did she expect me to be so grateful for the shower and warm clothes that I could forgive everything else? Yes, I realized moments later, she likely did. There were probably plenty of people who emerged from that darkness and were willing to do anything and everything for a return to ordinary comforts.

As we journeyed up another floor, I noticed that my head felt clearer and my senses seemed sharper than they had in months. Probably with good reason. They wouldn’t be subjecting me to that gas, not with Sheridan around, so this was likely the first pure air I’d breathed in a long time. Until now, I hadn’t realized what a shocking difference there was. Adrian could probably reach me in dreams now, but that would have to wait. At the very least, I could practice my magic again, now that my
system was no longer polluted, and hopefully fight off any of the tattoo’s effects. Finding an unwatched moment to do that might be easier said than done, though.

The next corridor we entered had a series of identical rooms, doors open, revealing narrow beds inside. I continued keeping track of everything we passed, each floor and room, still searching for a way out that didn’t seem to exist. Sheridan led me inside a bedroom with the number eight written outside.

“I’ve always thought eight was a lucky number,” she told me. “Rhymes with ‘great.’” She nodded toward one of the two beds in the room. “That’s yours.”

For a moment, I was too taken aback by the idea of a bed to recognize the larger implications. Not that it was very comfortable-looking—but still. It was leagues away from my cell floor, even with its hard mattress and thin sheets made of a material similar to my old shift. I could sleep in this bed, no question. I could sleep and dream of Adrian. …

“Do I have a roommate?” I asked, finally taking note of the other bed. It was hard to say if the room was occupied since there were no other signs of personal belongings.

“Yes. Her name is Emma. You could learn a lot from her. We’re very proud of her progress.” Sheridan stepped out of the room, so apparently we weren’t lingering. “Come on—you can meet her now. And the others.”

A hallway branching off of this one took us past what looked like empty classrooms. As we headed toward the corridor’s end, I became aware of something my dulled senses hadn’t experienced in a while: the scent of food.
Real
food. Sheridan was taking us to a cafeteria. Hunger I hadn’t even known I possessed reared up in my stomach with an almost painful
lurch. I’d adapted to my meager prison diet so much that I’d taken my body’s deprived state as normal. Only now did I realize how much I craved something that wasn’t lukewarm cereal.

The cafeteria, such as it was, was only a fraction of the size of Amberwood’s. It had five tables, three of which were occupied with people in tan scrubs identical to mine. These, it seemed, were my fellow prisoners, all with golden lilies. There were twelve of them, which I supposed made me lucky thirteen. I wondered what Sheridan would think of that. The other detainees were of mixed age, gender, and race, though I was willing to bet all were American. In some prisons, making you feel like an outsider was part of the process. Since this one’s goal was to bring us back to the fold, they would most likely put us with those of shared culture and language—those we could aspire to be like if we only tried hard enough. Watching them, I wondered what their stories were, if any of them might be allies.

“That’s Baxter,” said Sheridan, nodding toward a stern-faced man in white. He stood in a window that overlooked the dining area and was presumably where the food came from. “His food is delicious. I know you’re going to love it. And that’s Addison. She oversees lunchtime and your art class.”

It would not have been clear to me that Addison was a “she,” if not for that introduction. She was in her late forties or early fifties, wearing a suit just as prim if less stylish than Sheridan’s, and was stationed against the side wall with sharp eyes. She kept her hair shaved close to her head and had a hard-angled face that seemed at odds with the fact that she was chewing gum. The golden lily was her only ornamentation. She was pretty much the last person I would’ve expected for an art teacher, which in turn led to another realization.