Disruptor by Arwen Elys Dayton

Author:Arwen Elys Dayton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2017-02-07T05:00:00+00:00

Two Watchers dragged Shinobu at the back of the line. He’d been turned into a rag doll, and the Watchers had walked over him, fallen on him, and ignored him as they killed their victims. The helplessness had been unbearable, but it had gotten worse when the smell of blood and death washed over him. He’d wished for unconsciousness to take him away. But he was still awake, a useless lump of clay now being yanked along by two careless boys who were pulling him by his limp arms.

His head flopped around painfully and at last came to rest angled backward, from which position he could see—sort of—what was happening up ahead. Maggie, leaning heavily on two boys to help her walk, led the band of Watchers across long stretches of the hidden dimensions, until they came, after a great while, to another group of frozen Seekers. The boys dragging Shinobu abruptly dropped him.

From where he lay, he could see only the Watchers’ legs, but he could hear everything they did. They massacred these new Seekers. When the coppery odor of blood reached Shinobu, the focal twisted it into something sweet, tried to make him believe death was good. He was not fooled.

The nightmare was endless. The next group they came to was, thankfully, Seekers from the house of the stag. Shinobu listened as Maggie examined their wrists and ordered the Watchers to leave them alone, while she wondered aloud at the cruel fate that had brought harm to this particular house, which had always been an ally of the foxes. Stags and foxes—the two sorts of Seekers she cared about.

He was being dragged again, for a very long way. Eventually mobility trickled back into his arms and legs. By the time they next stopped, Shinobu could twitch his feet and hands. When the boys dropped him, he managed to roll onto his side, from which position he could see a little bit better. They had found a very large group of Seekers this time, maybe a few dozen, scattered over a broad area.

The Watchers were moving between the Seekers, examining their wrists.

“A bird!” called out one of the boys.

An eagle, thought Shinobu. This is my house they’ve found.

Shinobu was an eagle and a dragon, and Maggie had spared his life solely because his ancestors had intermarried with her own. The drops of their blood flowing through Shinobu’s veins made it acceptable to keep him alive, for a while. But that didn’t mean she felt kindly toward all eagles and dragons. There was no reason to suppose anyone else would be safe.

Another Watcher hit the first boy over the head. “It’s an eagle, eejit! Don’t you know an eagle?”

The first boy took a swing at the second.

“Enough!” Maggie said, an edge of anxiety in her voice. The boys were following her eagerly while she let them kill people, but Maggie must have known that without Shinobu as her enforcer, she could rapidly lose control of the Watchers if they grew dissatisfied with her.

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