The Aftermath of an ***

I tied a rope around the girl's ankles, smirking to myself the whole time. Neither dead nor truly alive. I gathered her into my arms and swung her over my back. She was particularly light, which was different. On numerous occasions I found that gypsies often gorged themselves, become gluttons. They grew with power and stuffed their bellies in greed. Why not this one?

Ze'evi, the umber mare I borrowed for the voyage, pawed at the ground as I approached. I slung the body over in front of the saddle. I mounted the beast and jabbed my heels in its sides.

The whole ride, which took approximately three days without rest, I had felt dizzy and somewhat delusional. I sighed with silent thanks to the gods when past the loping hills I could make out the bricked structure that was home base to the Ukeps.

I dismounted the horse so it could be tended to by the stable boy and shouldered the gypsy. Down the dark halls others parted to make way for me. There was one man who approached me.

"Oris," he acknowledged me respectfully.

I nodded. "Myus."

Myus was one of the lead guards. Large and hulking, authoritative and unyielding. Apparently I was the only one he ever answered to and respected as an equal.

"Third one already this month?" he guessed, eying up the girl I carried.

"Something like that," I murmured, moving around him. "Dumping it straight into Doc's hands."

"He's in the supply room right now," Myus called after me. "I was just there."

"Thanks."

Like he said, Doc was in the supply room, muttering away like the crazy man he built himself up to be. He seemed to be especially agitated today, sifting through papers and tools.

He must have heard my arrival, for he immediately informed me, "While you were out on a raid we found a new lead on who's been stealing our stock." He turned around and pulled the rubber gloves from his hands. They hit the table with an audible slap.

As a Ukep it was our job to capture gypsies, trap them within their darkest memories, and bring their bodies back here, unharmed and fully preserved, to harness their energy for our own uses. We turned their power against them. As of late though there had been trespasses and our number of gypsies had been decreasing. For reasons and by persons unknown we were being robbed.

"Who?" I demanded.

"Half-breeds."

"That's impossible," I said. "We took them out in the Purge of '37."

"Yeah, well the savages are still running around, right under our noses. They're mocking us." Doc let out a frustrated sigh but tried pushing it away by changing the subject. "So what have you brought for me today?"

I had almost forgotten about the comatose gypsy at my feet. I pulled her up and lay her flat on the cool metal.

"My, my," Doc breathed, examining the body. "You've brought back a strong one."

"She wasn't hard to catch," I retorted.

"Can't you feel its aura radiating off into the air around us? Lots of young, fresh power in this body." His voice exposed his hunger. He started up the machine to his left. As he hooked up the tubes and electrical wires the girl's eyes suddenly sprung open. They glared straight through me with such intensity of hate and knowing. I found my legs grow numb, and soon I was falling.

A heavy stench clings in the air. It smells of iron and sage... My mother comes at me with that leering look in her eyes she always gets. She smiles and grabs my wrist.

"No, Mama!" I cry as she pulls me to the back room. The aroma is especially putrid in here. Candles burn all around.

She yanks my arm out so it extends to its fullest. She takes the horribly familiar blade and presses it to the soft skin of my forearm. She drags it along, creating a long, thin line that is accompanied by the others.

Suddenly the door bursts open and my father is there, looking completely livid. He swears under his breath and hastens over. My mother screams. My father yells at me to get out. I do so and don't turn back, but the blood curdling noises chase after me...

I gasped and my knees buckled beneath me. My breathing came in through constricted, shallow breaths. I held my chest and looked at the gypsy. She appeared unmoved, as if nothing had happened. Doc turned around and looked down curiously at me.

"Are you alright?" he asked bewildered.

"That—" I panted, "She..."

He studied her face and flashed his eyes in my direction, seeming to be calculating something in his mind. Under his breath I could hear him mutter some unintelligible gibberish.

"Say again?"

He repeated himself louder this time and I recognized the long lost language of our ancestors. "Lia h'aret u ya'mo tae." It rolled off his tongue effortlessly, as if he'd spoken it all his life. "An old saying that directly is translated to 'the strings have sufficed.' You have formed a bound with this gypsy."

"What?" I spat incredulously. I rose up and towered over the frail man, though he was neither weak nor able to intimidate.

"It reads in the ancient scriptures that once a millennium during a Ukep's life they will find their soul intertwined with another spiritually and mentally." As he spoke he turned to the cabinets and started shuffling through the metal boxes inside.

"What you're saying is..." The rest stuck in my mouth and I wanted to vomit.

He shook his head. "I'm not talking about the physical and emotional connection you're thinking of."

"But I have no soul," I reminded him. "That's why I didn't need to use a Trapping Spell."

"Perhaps not," he murmured, unlocking a case he pulled from the top shelf. "You've read the story of Mungaeus I presume? He went through a century of his life seizing the nomadic witches and even stood in as a general in the organization that led up to The Great Purge."

I listened in tense silence.

"One day," he went on, "Mungaeus brought back a gypsy not unlike this one here. He was oddly opposing to what we planned to do with her—mind you, it was the same procedure we did with all the others. He was different. Soft and secretive, always disappearing after meals. Her name was Nadina and she had bewitched him. I-I knew it had gone too far. It was only a matter of time before things became irreversible..."

"You killed him," I finished quietly, "and then you killed her."

He turned around with a syringe in hand. Inside sloshed an opaque, silver liquid. He sighed then said unashamed, "We Ukeps have a system, Oris, you must understand that. I among many others do not want to see that crumble."

He took a step forward, and I mirrored the action with a step of my own backwards. "These are the rules, the sacrifices," he said earnestly.

In one swift motion he sprang towards me and had the needle a whole inch into my neck. Immediately I could feel the effects spiking through each nerve ending in my body. I collapsed into a heap onto the floor. My mouth moved sluggishly to form words, but the only thing coming out was saliva.

"I only mean to help you," Doc assured me and dragged my limp body up against the wall. My eyelids twitched loosely and uncontrollably as I watched him continue to work over Amethyst. Her head was angled in my direction. Once again her eyes opened, and this time I could make out a tiny sparkling tear slide down onto the table. I sucked in a harsh breath as she pushed me into another memory.

There's something different here, because I'm not anywhere I've been before. I stand in the middle of a tiny cottage that's spotted with torn and worn furniture. It's completely dark except for the soft glow of the dimming flames in the fireplace.

For a minute it's silent, and then there's commotion upstairs. A dull thump and then quick, tiny footsteps heading down the stairs. A girl about five years old runs into the room past me and skids behind the arm chair. She's breathing hard and looks frightened to death. There's something familiar about her wide, horror-struck eyes.

Of course. Amethyst.

A great, burling man comes down the stairs with a dark haired woman in his arms.

"Mommy," tiny Amethyst squeaks. She looks like she's preparing to sprint after them but is frozen in place with fear and the instinct to hide until the coast is clear.

The Ukep turns his head in the direction of the girl and she squeaks as she ducks deeper into the shadows. His face is marred with scars on the left side and I immediately recognize him to be Mungaeus. And the woman he carried in his arms...

No.

I could feel my face twist with subdued tears of my own. Her head still faced the ceiling, eyes closed, but I saw the pain etched in her face.

The sedative didn't wear off for five hours and by the time it did, I did couldn't move. Doc helped me to my feet. I wanted to curse him, fight me, crush his head, but my own legs could barely muster up the strength to go forward.

"There," he said lightly, "that wasn't too bad. If you struggle, we'll take immediate action. If you don't, then this was just a silly experiment that will no way affect you."

He opened the door and passed me to the guard outside. "Hue will take you back to your room and then send someone to fetch you some dinner. I suggest you drink lots of fluids before going to bed. Good night, Oris." The door closed in my face. I contemplated snapping Hue's arm and forcing my way back in the room, but my body was in no condition whatsoever.

Later that night after the last of the drowsiness dissipated and I had food in me I broke out of my room. Not the strongest steel could keep me trapped now. I rushed down the halls, avoiding the eyes of others and not stopping to talk to anyone.

I shouldered my way through the door, but was surprised to find it unlocked and cracked open. I stumbled into the room and slipped on something wet. My feet stood in a puddle of dark liquid...right next to Doc's imploded head.

Did you do this? I wondered in my head as I approached the table. She lay still, breathing even. She appeared almost peaceful, but I wasn't fooled.

I could feel the memories she picked from my head and forced to the front of my mind. I winced in pain as I forced them back.

I gazed down at her increasingly ashen face, knowing what must happen. "I have to get you out of here, Amie," I whispered to her. I raised a tentative hand to her cheek.

The door's creaking announces the arrival of who I suspected was Myus. I tensed and turned around, ready for a brawl. At first all I saw was the tiny silhouette of a feminine body standing in the doorway, and then the person walked forward to reveal a young girl.

Her aesthetic beauty was obvious and focused in her delicate, small features. She couldn't have been older than sixteen yet she stood with a grace that spoke as if she had lived a thousand lives already.

Before I could open I mouth, I was choked with the shock that materialized along with the wings that sprouted from her shoulder blades. They were dainty and golden, like a butterfly's, but from my experiences today I learned appearances were nothing more than deceiving.

"Who are you?" I demanded, holding my arms out defensively in front of Amie.

Black lines spread down from her lurid eyes across her cheeks. She raised her right hand and before I could react she slammed something into the side of my head, knocking me down to the ground in a state of unconsciousness.