Page 76 of Odder Still
For Tavish. For the auroras. Maybe it won’t come to that though. If Greer likes dramatics, I have plenty of those, so many teeth that I might not need to bite at all.
I cross the room, three strides carrying me to the desk. I don’t have to think about the motions: my own hand reaches instinctively for Tavish’s ornamental knife stashed in my belt while my parasite uses our other hand to toss back my hood. It returns the arm faster than I could imagine and somehow just as fast as I expect, catching the knife perfectly as I toss the weapon from one hand to the other.
Greer puffs on their cigar, but their neutral expression flickers, their eyes widening ever so slightly as they fix on the gleaming black lines engraved into my skin. “You’re the one they brought before Raghnaid, aren’t you? The first sentient host on record.” Their fingers twitch as though they might reach across the massive desk to grab for me. Their gaze sweeps across my cheek and down my neck, and I can feel my parasite sparkling beneath it, warm and a little savage. “If things were different…”
I should want them to be different, but I find the desire to fling myself at scientists has vanished entirely. Maybe it’s my parasite’s fault. It told me I couldn’t—wouldn’t—cut it out, and now I feel certain—it feels certain—we feel certain together, that once I’ve done my part, it will leave on its own accord. “What Tavish said about the auroras was the truth.” I waver between sounding like him and sounding like me. Between a diamond knife and a drunken sledgehammer. “Ignoring it because you’re scared and selfish isn’t an excuse.”
“It’s not just the murderers who make genocide possible,” Elspeth adds, as though they can’t help themself.
I twist Tavish’s ornamental knife along my knuckles and flip it into the air, catching the hilt between two fingers. “We’re not here to play politics. If it’s your blood I need to draw to stop the ignation mutants from multiplying and the ignits from failing, then you had better hope that red fits with your color scheme.”
Greer stares, the creases of their lined face too hard to read in the dim light. They lean slowly, but not for the phone. Instead, they flick a cane free from the shadows of the shelves, pulling the end off to reveal a blade beneath. They swipe it at me over the desk.
I block it with the ornamental knife, my parasite coursing through my arm as I swing. The sword cane fumbles in Greer’s grip. I grin without mirth. “Careful. I have an aurora, and it makes me stronger.”
“I see that.” Greer slips the sword back into the cane, the motion decisive, almost mechanical. One edge of their lips quirks. Their eyes gleam when they meet mine again. “You’re going to do what it takes to fix this problem with the ignit cycle?”
Of course. The reply leaps to my lips, but I hold it back, trying to pick my own feelings out of the tangled mess they make with my parasite’s. It’s impossible; we are too linked, too melded together, as though it’s woven its love for the auroras into me just the same as it’s woven its own body. Whatever is wrong with their ecosystem, I must help. “If not us, then who?”
My parasite curls closer, affection spilling off it.
I’m still getting rid of you though, I remind it, soft but stern.
‘Silt-breather.’
The term feels like a pet name instead of an insult.
Greer stares at us—my parasite and me—and we stare back, like smirking into a mirror, one predator to another. I can’t locate that shocked, disgusted man who was so ashamed of killing the very same poachers he would never have lifted a hand to save, who let Lilias wield him like a weapon because he was too tired to fight back. All I find now is determination and fury and the shimmering beast entangled with me. It feels an awful lot like justice.
Greer takes another long inhale, then blows out a gust of smoke so thick it could be a rising mist. Slowly, they stand. “However strongly I think you will fail, if you have the courage to go the distance, I suppose it would be just as foolish not to let you try.”
I give the knife a final flip and slide it back into my belt. “Frankly, I don’t give a damn what you think.”
But Tavish does, even after all Greer has revealed themself to be. It’s clear in the pinch of his brow and the tension in his lips. He clears his throat. “If I find something that will get my mother out of the way, not just work around her, but do what you want—replace her even.” His diamond voice stutters, but he tightens his jaw and asks, “Would you stand by me, then?”
“If you plan to do that, you call me.” They walk around their desk, cane still in hand. Their gaze passes from Elspeth to me, then to Tavish, landing there with certainty. “Weareall entitled, every one of us company heads. If she does come down, I want to be there for it.” They extend a little card to Tavish, pressing it against his hand until he takes it. “This is my radio frequency. Don’t use it unless you have a proposition that will work.” Their eyes narrow. “Do you know how to wield a sword cane?”
They tug Tavish’s cane from him and press their own model into his hands instead. The black wood and silver accents fit him perfectly. Tavish slides his fingers over it, his expression softening.
So does Greer’s, somehow, turning almost timid. Almost brave. “The uh, insulated hilt should keep any of the BA’s shock sticks from affecting you. It was your grandmother’s and her great-grandfather’s before her—no Findlay’s ever touched it. Use it in a way that’d make her proud or don’t use it at all.”
“I will,” Tavish says, and his diamond voice has never been more his than this, not a thing of Findlays but of power itself.
Greer huffs as they return to their desk and snatch up their glass. “I still don’t want any of you in my house. So, fuck off before I change my mind.” But as they lift their whiskey, I swear their lips twitch up.
I almost want to warn them about the rebellion that’ll surely be arriving for their head soon. Almost. But when I told Ivor I wouldn’t bring the BA down on them, I had meant it. So I usher us from the room without another word, stepping from the deep shadows into the bright desolation of the upper city. It feels like skipping time, the world moving forward while my emotions still recover from the last ordeal. I force myself to breathe and walk, and to think only about what lies in front of us.
With Tavish’s expert guidance, we traverse the upper districts through backstreets and deserted alleys. We see little more than the occasional high-level worker, Tavish pulling us back and redirecting us whenever we come near a potential threat. Every ominous click of heels from a larger path and gentle whir of the passing trolley still wears on me, but the silence somehow scares me worse, too empty and echoing, as though the upper city holds its breath for the coming rebellion. My parasite watches everything I do with the kind of interest that demands attention without actually taking control, reminding me of how Alasdair’s blue tabby would perch on my shoulder.
Even with our roundabout travel, we reach the lowest level of the Findlay Estates within the half hour. The guard at the workers’ entrance has vanished, leaving the door locked, but we slip inside as a pair of whispering maids exit. Bowls of rising dough clutter the otherwise empty kitchen. I duck into the pantry to swipe a bottle of whiskey, taking a few long drags of it. It burns down my throat and lights a hearth in my chest. Even without the blurring buzz the rest of the bottle would offer, those few gulps steady me. I pause, the bottle dangling between my fingers. My hand moves on its own, leaving it on the counter. It’s not my parasite’s doing, and it’s not mine. It’s just ours.
We move deeper into the estate, navigating through the staff hallways once we reach the siblings’ floor. On feet like a ghost, I sneak out into the main corridor to check for the cats. They’re nowhere in sight and neither are their little, pearl-studded bowls or their clam litter box. I hope that’s a good sign. They don’t belong in this extravagant mausoleum alone.
Tavish leads us up a final set of stairs and through a door separating the estates from the corporation. From there, we have only to wind our way down a stairwell and enter the sentinel station surrounding the Trench’s only entrance.
It takes me one perfectly aimed punch to knock down the man guarding it. I bind him with his own handcuffs and leave him in the supply closet. His security monitors display choppy, grey images of halls and rooms throughout the corporation, but none of them seem to show the Trench’s lab itself.
Tavish runs his fingers over the series of bolts and ignation-fueled boxes that bar the door to it. His brow tightens. “I don’t understand. The unlocking mechanism on this has been disabled. No one can pass through this door now, not even my mother.”
