Trinity (40 page)

With a crippling thud she saw
the body land. Waking eyes, semiconscious, gazing at the cage as if
to plead ‘
l
et me in.’
The body was broken beyond
function, it lay like a rag doll with porcelain eyes filmed in
red.

Instantly the creatures
pounced, snarling, gnashing, biting, tearing, laughing, living. It
was a frenzy of tooth and claw as if this was the last time they’d
feed. Blood chartered the floor, spattered the animals and trickled
into the cage, following the grooves in the floor like a river on
course. This blood was warm, it was treacherous, it was alive. Jess
shuffled away. One prisoner cowered, hid his eyes and wept, while
the other stared intoxicated.

The body never made a single
sound, it could not, apart from the intense tearing. The ravenous
animals were satisfied, slumping back into their dens. Bloody bones
scattered the floor.

Jess let out the breath she was
holding. She closed her mouth, not realising it hung open until she
could taste the blood. The final warning was meant to terrify them.
After the final warning came the final punishment. There was no
recovering from that.

‘Let’s have a look,’ said
Dustaen. Gabrielle turned her back to the dayroom and revealed the
pendant from her pocket. Dusty’s pit black eyes gazed at it in
awe.

‘Mother Morrae,’ she rasped.
Her cat ears pricked forward and her nose wriggled. Jess looked up
from her chair showing little sign of interest. Her skin was pasty
and her eyes stared without seeing. Gabrielle couldn’t help but
notice the twitches in the older woman’s face and the way her fists
clenched tight.

‘Where did you find it?’ Dusty
asked, keeping her voice quiet.

‘Out in the fields,’ Gabrielle
replied.

‘What is it?’ Dusty asked.
Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders.

‘Angels wear pendants like
that. The Gods give it to them,’ said Oz as he took it from
Gabrielle and examined it.

‘Why would it be out in the
desert?’ asked Gabrielle. Oz ran his thumb over the hour glass
carving on the stone.

‘I have no idea. I bet it’s
worth a lot of money though,’ he said.

‘Well give it back then,’
Gabrielle snatched it from his hand and clasped the stone firmly
before stowing it away in her pocket.

‘Just don’t let anyone else
know you’ve got it. Tarvia would rage less of a fire than some of
the people in here,’ he looked around the day room cautiously but
no one was paying attention to them in their own little corner. His
gaze lingered on the two greater hybrids; an elephant and a ram,
half human half animal but twice as dangerous as both. The hybrids
and humans formed separate social groups but lesser hybrids, like
Dusty, moved between the two without unrest.

‘The hour glass is the symbol
of Khalak, God of the desert and time,’ said Oz.

‘I thought the desert was
Godless,’ replied Gabrielle.

‘You
would
think that
but it isn’t,’ he said. Although the appearance of the pendant was
miraculous, Gabrielle was concerned about Jess. The older convict
had lost her boyish vigour that brought her soul to life. She
couldn’t offer comfort in here - comfort was weakness. ‘What did
they do to you this time?’ Gabrielle asked.

‘Final warning,’ Jess had
returned bearing no new scars or bruises to match all the others,
this time the damage was internal. It was fear.

‘It worked for Shan,’ said Oz.
One of the others who had the warning with Jess sat curled up in a
corner crying quietly. Gabrielle felt her brow crease, annoyed that
Ossoldo casually brushed away Jess’s torture.

‘So what did they actually do
to you?’ She asked, trying to catch Jess’s distant gaze. The
convict fixed Gabrielle with a sharp stare. She said nothing and
suddenly Gabrielle didn’t want to know anymore. She could see the
pain behind Jess’s dark eyes and recalled the moment she first met
Jess in Khartaz prison. She had been full of life and rebellion but
the long calendar cycles had been unkind to the veteran, grinding
down her soul into a mindless drone. Gabrielle realised that if she
stayed in the prison as long as Jess had, she would end up the
same, or dead.

Gabrielle clutched the sandy
stone in her pocket and felt it warm to her touch. Already she felt
connected to the stone as if it was meant for her. It wasn’t by
accident she found it; it didn’t belong to someone else. It
couldn’t
. She let her mind and her heart grow still and felt
inspiration rain over her like shattered crystal, better than any
rain she had prayed for.

‘I’m going to escape from
here,’ Gabrielle said, speaking so quietly her friends strained to
hear.

‘Good luck with that, I’ll meet
you at the Gate to the Next Life,’ Dusty spat. Gabrielle glared at
the hybrid as her little triangle nose wiggled.

‘You wouldn’t make it, they’d
just bring you back and punish you,’ Oz said lowering his voice.
‘Trust me,’ he nodded. Gabrielle ignored them. She caught Jess’s
gaze and it was as if a fire had ignited behind her eyes. Jess
wanted to escape as much as Gabrielle did. She was willing to risk
everything on one chance.

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