She stood there for a moment after, staring down at her handiwork, her face covered in red, and then she looked up and saw herself reflected in the window. “You never had a choice, mate,” she whispered, and her black leather sleeve came up and wiped her face, streaking the blood, smearing it in. “They didn’t want you alive.”
“Next stop, Piccadilly,” a human voice came over the loudspeaker. “Piccadilly Circus.”
Adelaide took one last look at herself in the reflected glass as the lights flickered on and off in the car briefly and shadows swallowed half her face, covering her, giving her the look of someone lost in the darkness. Her eyes were haunted when the lights were on then pools of blackness when they weren’t. I saw them, and they looked familiar. Somehow I knew this was her first kill.
The train ground to a slow stop with a screech, and Adelaide looked to the people on either side of the compartment before stepping to the door. She didn’t bother making a sign or any sort of gesture at them, just stepped up to the doors in the middle of the train and waited for them to open. “It’d be real smart if you lot were to wait for the next stop,” she said, and there was nothing but menace in the way she said it. “Anyone who gets off here is likely to suffer from some ill health, if you catch my meaning.” She pointed a long, thin finger at the mess she had left of Fūjin on the bench. “So, please, catch my meaning and stay on the bloody train.” There was a squeal of unease and the people bunched at either end of the compartment backed away from the doors.
Adelaide looked at herself in the window one last time as the doors opened. She self-consciously wiped her face once more, but there were a few spots of blood still on her forehead and there were flecks of other matter in the spikes of her hair. She slid out before the doors were completely open then looked back from the platform at the train. No one got on at that compartment, and the platform was nearly empty. She waited until the train started to pull out of the station before she made her way toward the exit, toward the stairs, and somehow, I knew, the sunlight she hoped was somewhere far above her head.
Chapter 7
My head felt like someone had taken a hammer to it with righteous fury, over and over again with a staccato rhythm. The world tasted like dirt and smelled worse. After a minute I realized it was because my mouth was pressed against a solid, slightly fuzzy object—the floor. Sunlight was blazing into my vision and I blinked my bleary eyes then closed my dry mouth, which apparently was dry because I had been drooling in a puddle on the carpet of my hotel room. I didn’t recognize the place at first, but after a moment I knew that’s where I had to be.
There was still an insistent hammering coming not from inside my head but from behind me. “Sienna?” a thickly accented voice said, muffled, and I pulled myself to all fours in an effort to locate the source of the noise. I turned as I smacked my lips together and the thumps began again. It was the door, and someone was knocking. “If you don’t answer the door by the count of three, I’m going to break it down.”
“Hold on,” I said, my voice scratchy and hoarse. I rolled to a seated position. I had lost consciousness in the narrow hallway of my room, just after getting inside and slamming the door behind me. My muscles ached, my tongue had a crust of filthiness on it that contained just about the worst flavor I’d ever tasted, something between foot odor and dumpster remains, and I felt nauseous. I looked to my side and saw the gaping opening to the bathroom. I rested a hand on the trim and used it to hoist up to my feet. I felt something drop off my shoulder and realized it was my duffle bag; I hadn’t even laid it down before I passed out.
“Sienna?” the voice came again, and I reached for the handle and opened the door. Light streamed in from outside, too, where Janus stood expectantly, a pocket watch clutched in his hand, a particularly fine suit making him look like an aging banker. His grey hair was meticulously in place, and he peered at me through thin glasses as though he were concerned. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” I said, blinking at him. A wave of nausea overcame me and I was forced to turn away, to dive for the bathroom where I hit my knees and heaved with no grace whatsoever. The smell of the toilet and what came out of my mouth only made it worse, doubling my nausea, and I retched again. The foul taste of the bile erased the disgusting aftertaste I’d woken up with and replaced it with the burning, acid flavor of what I was returning now. It came from the bottom of my stomach then from what felt like the bottom of my feet, I heaved so hard.