Page 47 of Odder Still
‘I get odder the more you know of me.’The parasite’s warmth tingles with a strange fondness. It tears through my heart, cutting me in half. I try to find its destination, but I keep arriving back at that moment I first said those words, as though the parasite is pointing at me.
Stop that. You don’t own this body yet; you’re not allowed to be protective over—
It cuts me short by curling around my consciousness, almost smothering, its sudden rush of panic tingling through my veins. The echo of the guards leaping from their cart curdles in my ears, sharp in an otherwise dulled world. I glance up the street. My vision twists with the parasite’s touch, but it centers on the three guards heading our way. They grab the few remaining bystanders, confronting them with a picture that could only be Tavish’s face.
We have to get out of here.I shove my palm against the door handle. The parasite’s warm pressure twists along my arm, and its black gashes in the back of my hand dance with color. It lurches from my skin, pressing into the lock. The guard’s demanding voices almost block out the tiny click as the door opens. I pull Tavish inside.
We stand at the bottom of an empty stairway. My skin burns where the parasite lingers amidst my flesh, so dark my worn fishnets appear grey against it, like a stenciled glove compared to the real thing. A shudder runs through me. I had barely suggested we work together, implied it without a conscious thought, and the parasite used that as an excuse to bury itself further into me. But as it coils in the back of my head, leaking fear and tugging distractedly at the memories of Raghnaid’s stare in the boardroom, I don’t know if I can blame it.
Tavish and I ascend the tight stairs. Another door sits at the top, this one wooden. It opens with ease. I press my palm to Tavish’s chest, signaling for him to stay put.
Not a sound comes from the small apartment. It resembles the rest of the lower: aged metal and grime, too small to be properly habitable, its contents messy and cheap. The central room holds a set of crooked furnishings cluttered with signs of life, from empty cups to a cluster of wooden animals arranged across the end table. Sheer curtains drape the front windows, and a pair of bioluminescent bulbs in yellow glow faintly from a holder in the low ceiling.
They light the half circle of worn sofas and rickety chairs—enough for a decent-sized clandestine meeting. Lilias is planning something, and I’m well enough acquainted to the violence and pain that’s come with her past ventures that I doubt I’ll like this one any better.
Across a stool lies the schematic for some kind of ignit-incorporating earpiece titledenergy reflector. The paper looks old, creased from many foldings and torn twice, and it bears the signature of an expert ignit mechanic who’d been unlucky enough to arrive at the rivers around the Murk a little after Lilias. I hope the older woman recovered from the ordeal.
Small, rusty tools and bits of metal clutter the schematic’s edges along with a single, nearly completed version of the earpiece. I pick it up quietly, flipping it between my fingers as I examine it. The empty slot in its side would hold an ignit no larger than my thumbnail. Lilias toted a mixed bag of similarly sized ones from the Murk—there’s no telling which color she intends to use in it.
As I set the earpiece back down, I notice lines beneath one of the paper’s tears. I lift it, revealing a map of the coast underneath. A circle marks a little inlet of water north of the dot for Falcre, but there’s no town labeled. I let the paper drop back into place and slip between the mismatched seating.
The assembly overflows into the archway of the tiny kitchen, all staring toward the open entrance to an even smaller bedroom across the way, where metal gleams from within a deadbolted wire cage: electricity sticks and pistols. The room feels far smaller suddenly, breathing down my neck. I shudder.
This is what she’s planning: a rebellion. A rebellion of stolen weapons against a society made of ignation. A rebellion at the cost of whomever she convinces to hold those weapons. But a rebellion those same people sorely need.
I stop just before the kitchen entrance, begging myself not to think too hard, not to look back over our history from her perspective. Lilias arriving at the Murk in search of anything that might free those she loves and finding a wealth of auroras and ignits to rival the one used to suppress her people. Lilias turning to violence and threats to get it. Lilias watching her brother die in the process, immediately losing the aurora, one of the only things she had managed to bring back from her trip, and striving forward anyway.
A paper flutters silently beneath my foot. I move to reveal the red symbol of the assassin’s fish.They can’t step on us forever.But who will be poisoned when the fight finally breaks out?
In the kitchen, someone shouts through a phone speaker—a masculine voice, I think—but the distance and static mar it. A stool clamps against the metal kitchen floor, followed by a curse.
“I was plenty awake—” Lilias barks. “Well, it’s your fucking fault for making me hold forever.” She raps her nails against wood. “So, it’s done? Did they take the bait? They’re targeting the youngest Findlay?”
We don’t need a victim to blame, it seems. We have the real thing after all. I watch Tavish for signs of breaking, as his whitened fingers grip too hard to his cane, but he holds himself steady.
“Don’t you worry,” Lilias says. “We’ll put Raghnaid’s head on a pike soon enough.” A brief sputter from the other side of the line leaves her shouting, “When have I ever been reckless? This is the best time, probably the only time—” She releases air through her teeth. “Aye, fine! But you’d better get back here soon.”
I waver on the soles of my feet, the rebellion flier still lying too close for comfort. Whether or not Lilias’s motives are good, there’s only one real option here. I shuffle my memories back around: Lilias finding a place that’s been repeatedly hurt by foreigners for the last three hundred years and being willing to destroy it for her own gain. Lilias, who could have worked with us, who could have sought our help as a friend instead of demanding it as an enemy, stealing what little the Murk has retained to fuel her war. Lilias, who murdered my favorite caiman just to hurt me. This is the Lilias framing Tavish. This is the Lilias about to find us standing in her living room.
I move on feet of mist. For once I feel myself in total agreement with the parasite, neither of us overwhelming the other, every strained muscle and thought aimed solely at Lilias. We hate her in equal proportions for what she has done to us, to our home. The time for fear has passed.
I had tucked both my stolen pistol and Tavish’s ornamental knife under my pant line, against my back, lest the guards catch notice, but as I pause to retrieve them, the phone clicks back into the box. Lilias immediately rounds the corner of the tiny kitchen.
I abandon the still-holstered weapons on instinct and slam my elbow against Lilias’s jaw. She sputters and sways, but she rams her shoulder into my stomach. I twist away from her, into the kitchen.
Lilias growls, the light in her eyes more feral than any of my jaguars back home. She launches herself at me, fists flying. I try to back out of her reach, but the edge of the kitchen’s metal counter hits my side like a blunt spear. Pain shoots through my ribs. The parasite’s warmth meets it, interweaving into my agony and turning the sensation into a dull ache, then into nothing.
I knee Lilias square in the stomach. She grunts and slips back a step, just enough for me to follow it up with a proper kick. This time she stumbles away, her back to the kitchen entrance and her boots skidding along the rough floor. A knife appears between her fingers.
The parasite bundles inside me, preparing to take over. I resist, reaching for my weapons instead. Lilias lunges.
From behind her swings a line of silver and blue. It slams against Lilias’s head. Her lashes flutter. She crumples, revealing Tavish’s stocky figure behind her, cane still raised.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Even the Villains
Things to remember when you’re no longer here:
