Page 18 of Odder Still
Both of Blossom’s brothers are safe at home, but that doesn’t stop the anger that tingles up my heels and through my knees, as though the caiman blood Lilias left smeared across my boat deck had sunk into me. The fear grows in time with it, locking me in place like cold, cruel manacles. I want to charge and I want to run, the way Blossom couldn’t, the way I couldn’t while watching her die. I want to, but I can’t. I can do nothing at all.
The spell only breaks as Lilias lunges for me. I shove off her first punch with my forearm and slam a fist into her gut, but she catches hold of my tattered scarf and pulls. It rips up the middle, starting with the tear Ivor’s accidental tug made and unraveling the worn threads. I grab for it as I stumble backward, but that just yanks it free entirely. It drops to the ground between us.
People still clamber around us, lost in another billow of vapor, but their sound doesn’t reach through our shock.
“It’s latching after all,” Lilias whispers. She takes a step—one more than I can seem to—treading on my fallen scarf. “Wonder just how long you’ll be sentient for? Well, we’ll be locking your body away in a lab, anyway.” As she talks, her hands run through motions that aren’t quite Murk signs and aren’t quite fidgets.
Her words repeat in my head.Locking your body away in a lab. Just how long you’ll be sentient for. Latching after all. How long you’ll be sentient. How long.Then the cycle jerks to a stop, the parasite panicking over a specific phrase: ‘Locking away.’
Terror douses all my other emotions, washing away my dread and fear in a haze of reactions not my own. It drives me away from Lilias, carrying me along the rim of the fountain, toward the stairs. I half expect a bullet in my back. Instead, Lilias bolts after me.
As I round the fountain, I run into the workers covering up the graffiti symbol, only the fishlike tail of it remaining. Their guard shouts as I leap between them. The wet paint slips beneath my feet. I catch myself and keep moving. Toward the gate.
This was not a good plan, I shout, but the thought feels distant, listless. The parasite’s fear distorts my vision, and the closed archways on the lower side of the gate come up too fast, their spikes facing out. I scream. My mouth never opens, but the sound pounds through me, and with all my might, I throw myself away from the barbs before the parasite can run us both to our deaths.
I crash to the metal floor with a thunk that blurs the world. The parasite’s heat snaps out, taking my energy with it. Groaning, I push off the steps. I have three seconds to think—three seconds in which Lilias runs up behind me, the slew of guards still turning toward me from their short line of permitted workers. My options: Fight past Lilias and vanish into the lower city, letting the parasite dig deeper. Or, fight into the upper city and hope that I can reach Tavish before anyone worse finds me.
Good plans are for people who value their continued existence, and mine is going to include a parasite slowly consuming my brain. Maybe a terrible plan is in order.
I scream and charge the open archway.
Unlike the smaller side gate Tavish brought me through, this entrance is expansive. Two platforms rise out of the floor on either side of the chamber, one holding a submersible, propeller-laden vehicle painted with a Sails and Co. logo of a crossed spyglass and hammer. The light-up board below it boasts a launch time of an hour and a destination I don’t recognize. I steer around it, heading for the only currently open archway to the upper city.
Workers yelp and scoot to the side as I sprint past. The first guard lifts her weapon too slowly, and I dodge, the tails of my vest flaring as I leap and duck. The rest charge me. They approach on all sides, electricity crackling down their weapons, but they slow to a mixture of caution and violent alarm, their gazes locked on the parasite.
“Never seen an aurora up close before?” I ask.
A tremor runs through the guards. The one at the crux of the half circle speaks up. “You got a level eight or nine? Anyone attempting the gate without a level eight or nine gets a three-month sentence.”
I lift my palms to my sides. “No, but I have something the Findlays will want very much to see, don’t you think?” I pause, glancing back at the lower districts, to where Lilias stands in the shadows of the stairs, her face half-hidden in her broad hat. Her posture screams rage. “Unless you believe it’ll make the Findlayshappyto lose an aurora?”
Despite their visible BA allegiance, this statement seems to kick them all in the gut. They step forward as one.
“Give it to us, then,” the same guard barks.
“If only it were so easy.” It comes out more a grumble than I mean it to.
The guard’s freckled cheeks go red. His weapon shakes, the electricity sparkling. “Hand it over!”
An armed attendant dressed in black pushes into the gate from the upper districts, their straight bangs flaring over eyes that could match Sheona’s, lash for lash, as they strut into the space. Their polished boots squeak against the pristine floor. They bear no trace of the BA insignia. They wave the guards back. “If you touch that aurora and it dies, it’s your arses on the line.”
They snap to attention. “Aye, Mx. Malloch.”
“At least someone’s got sense around here,” I mutter.
“You’re not wrong, but you’ve no right to say it.” Malloch stops in front of me. Their eyes narrow on the parasite. “Where’s it from? How long’s it been there?”
“South,” I reply. “And a little while, but it only started properly digging in yesterday.”
Malloch spins on their heels and strolls back toward the upper city, motioning for me to join them. Most of the guards return to their work, but the one who spoke earlier follows us with a second on their heels.
“Mx. Malloch!” he calls. “We’ll escort you.”
“That’s unnecessary, Gillies,” they snap. “The aurora, and by extension this one’s host, are under the authority of my client, Raghnaid Findlay. The BA can stand down now.”
Gillies holds his stick tighter. “We insist.”
“Un-insist, then.”
