Fractured Read Free Page B

glance as his smile fell away. “Lela, in the dark city they were still enclosed by the city walls. But here—”
    “They have the whole world,” I said, the idea sitting in my stomach like a boulder. “They could split up and go anywhere. The only thing stopping them from stealing the bodies of a million living humans … is us.”
    Malachi took my hand as we walked by a group of guys coming out of the Brown athletic facility. As he stroked his thumb over my fingers, I had to force myself to focus on his words instead of on his touch.
    “We may have a bit of time,” he said. “Mazikin are like pack animals. They like to stay together. Only once during my time in the dark city were there two nests at the same moment, and that was because their population had gotten so large. At all other times, they chose one location, one base, and operated from there. It’s likely they’ll do that here while they figure out the quickest way to grow their numbers. Like me, they have much to learn.”
    I squeezed his hand and hoped they didn’t learn as quickly as he did. “What do you think is the quickest way to grow their numbers, then?”
    “I don’t know yet, but Sil came through the wall in the dark city, so he’ll be in charge of their decisions here. And he is, unfortunately, the smartest Mazikin I’ve ever encountered. There is a reason he is their leader. Ibram and Juri are also likely to be brought in, to function as enforcers. As a group, they’ll need food and shelter and a safe place to possess their victims. They will try to establish a nest right away.”
    “If there are so many of them, how do they decide who to bring in to possess the humans they capture? Did you ever figure that out?”
    “I think they actually have some kind of system.” He shook his head in disbelief. “The strongest Mazikin, and especially their leaders, have cycled through several human bodies and are quite good at acting human. Some of them even develop preferences—you’ll remember that Juri prefers Eastern European males, for example.” He scowled, and his grip on my hand tightened. His conflict with Juri went beyond Guard versus Mazikin. It was personal, and after what Juri had tried to do to me in the dark city, I suspected Malachi was looking forward to fighting him again.
    “So some of them have preferences,” I said, eager to move the conversation away from Juri. “What about the others?”
    “A Mazikin inhabiting its first human body is likely to act more like an animal, and the weaker or older the body, the more likely it is to move like a Mazikin in its true form.”
    “Ana said she thought they were more animal than human.”
    He nodded. “It takes practice and intention for them to behave like humans.”
    That’s why they were getting noticed. In addition to surveillance camera footage, at least one cell phone video had popped up on YouTube. “I guess it’s good for us that they aren’t practiced yet, and that some of them are acting weird.” We both paused as a guy ran across the street, carrying a girl on his back. His hands were curled around her knees, and her arms were around his neck. She kissed his cheek and let out a shriek, laughing as her scarf unfurled like a banner behind them.
    Malachi stared at the couple. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Weird.”
    We walked along, discussing ideas, covering block after block, passing by the party houses and bars, hiking up the crowded main drag and down narrow residential streets. I counted the times the city and campus police cruised by, wondering what they thought they were looking for, knowing they had no idea what it really was, wishing I could leave them to it and actually head off to a movie with Malachi.
    My Guard partner did not seem burdened with such petty thoughts. He nailed every passerby with a look so fierce that some of them pressed themselves closer to the edge of the sidewalk as they walked by. He was the perfect Guard, ready for anything,