26. TALIESIN
When Francois leaves for evening chow, he tells Aurora she has to accompany him.
I watch them leave, slightly confused.
Something was going on with Rory this afternoon. She hadn’t been able to meet my eye once. Almost like she was embarrassed. Was it something I’d done?
I sit in the silence and brood until Layla steps into the cell.
She has Hector, Imran, and Clay in tow. The beefy Peruvian sees me locked in the cage, then glances away looking uncomfortable. Imran smiles, then coughs. Clay just stands there, his jaw set, like seeing me beaten and behind bars is physically painful.
“Senor Bevan," Hector mumbles. “You wanted to see me?”
“I do. You can go, Lay, thanks. Clay, stay put. You too if you want, Imran.” The poor kid slides down to sit on the floor like his legs can no longer hold his scrawny body.
I wave Hector closer. “Sorry to keep you from chow time.”
“It’s nothing,” he shrugs, crouching down so his face is level with mine. Clay leans against the doorframe, keeping his eyes on the corridor, though I can tell he’s hanging on every word. Hector is silent, waiting for me to speak. I decide to just dive straight in.
“Tell me about the shifting. Tell me what it feels like to have a beast inside you.”
Hector’s dark eyes soften, like he’s remembering the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
He sits all the way down and rests his back against the bars.
“It is like a second you, an alternative you that lives inside your flesh, your soul. Not separate, but with different brains, almost. I feel nothing of him now. It’s wrong. Makes me feel wrong.”
Fucking Null-wards.
“How did the first shift feel?” I ask.
“Like a fever,” Hector whispers. “A heat in the blood that wants to expand. Your skin feels like a suit that is too small, and then… el alivio. Relief. You are more than a man.”
Clay shifts his weight, his eyes flickering toward us. I can see the skepticism fighting with the awe on his face. He and I have always been human through and through, but I understand what he’s feeling.
We’ve seen enough of that world to envy those with magic.
Envy. Yeah, that’s putting it mildly.
“Why do you ask me these questions?” Hector searches my face for an answer, but I’m not ready to tell him the truth—not yet.
I don’t even know what the truth is.
“I’m trying to understand our new quote-unquote boss,” I lie, the words tasting sour. I don’t want to understand him, I want to destroy him. “He moves like something that isn’t fully human. I need to know what we’re up against.”
Hector nods slowly. "The beast knows a predator when he scents one. That man… I also sense something that is different, even without my crocodile. There is a vibration that puts me on edge. It is dark. It is trouble. You should be very wary of him, senor.”
“Rory thinks he has magic in this place,” I admit. "Innate magic that bypassed the wards somehow.”
Hector looks at the ceiling, as though focused on the humming Null-Wards we can’t see but can always feel. “I do not know, senor Bevan. But I know this: a penned animal is twice as dangerous as one in the wild.”
The claxon for the end of chow sounds in the distance.
“Go,” I tell him. “Get some food before the kitchen shuts.”
Clay passes Hector some tobacco for the trouble as the big man slips out.
I’m left alone with my second, and Imran.
He’s slumped against the wall, a pile of fragile bones in a faded jumpsuit, his head lolling at an angle that looks painfully unnatural.
Suddenly, his eyes snap open—wide, glassy, and swimming with a fever that’s burning him up from the inside.
“Tally?” he rasps. The sound is so weak it makes the hair on my arms stand up.
“I’m here, kid,” I reply. I reach through the bars, wishing I could pull the sickness out of him with my bare hands. “Go back to sleep. Save your strength.”
He doesn’t. Instead, he stares at the peeling gray ceiling as if he can see right through the concrete and the Null-wards to the sky above.
A beautiful smile stretches his cracked lips. “I heard him… the crocodile man.” The breath catches in his throat. “Just imagine, to have all that strength. Being a wild creature. It must be amazing.” He coughs, and a little bloody spittle escapes his lips. Clay flinches and looks at the floor.
“I wish I could do it,” Imran croaks out sadly. “Feel my skin stretch until I’m so big these walls just… crumble. Then I’d run and run, strong and scary. Nothing could hurt me. Just once.”
With an effort that seems to drain the last of his energy, he reaches a skeletal hand into the stagnant air, his fingers trembling as they claw at the shadows. “I don’t want to die without knowing what a spark feels like.”
His head lolls toward me and Clay. He looks at us, eyes beginning to close.
“I’d run all the way home, see Mama, Papa and Avi.
Just one last time before…” His arm loses its battle with gravity, dropping heavily back to the cold concrete with a dull smack.
“Be something more than a boy who died and never did nothing.”
His eyes flutter shut. “Just once,” he murmurs, then seems to fade into sleep again.
Clay looks completely defeated, working his jaw as he tries to swallow the grief.
I hate it.
Hate it all.
After a few seconds, Imran’s breathing settles into those shallow pants that have been his regular thing for the past couple weeks.
Clay steps closer to the cage. “Tally,” he groans. “I don’t know if I can handle it.”
I lower my voice then nod to Imran. “You can. You have to.”
“Fuck, Tally,” he whispers. “Every day he’s a little worse. He hasn’t got much longer.”
Clay is probably right.
Layla thinks Imran has leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia to be precise.
We both remember a patient at Mom’s clinic, not much older than us, who looked like Imran, had the same symptoms. And that kid went downhill fast with treatment.
We’ve been racking our fucking brains to think of something to help. I’ve been to both Dimitry and Voss, but neither cared. I had nothing to offer them. Nothing they wanted.
Fuck.
But I do now—Aurora.
And I would put money on that crazy, fierce woman offering herself up to either of those fuckers if it could secure Imran treatment. She mustn’t know that’s an option.
I mean, I care for Imran, he’s a great kid, but at this stage his chance of survival is basically zero. All we can do is try to keep him comfortable.
Lay has been bartering for ginger from the kitchen, which helps the nausea, and we have magic mushrooms most of the time, but it’s not enough.
We all know the kid is hiding how much everything hurts.
“Try Hennessey again, next time you’re in education,” I tell Clay. “I think he’d bring something in with enough pressure.”
“I think he must have quit, he’s never around now.”
“Fuck. OK, and Spigot?”
“That fucking weasel brought in one blister-pack of acetaminophen, but then wouldn’t give it up unless Keisha agreed to ‘massage’ him.”
I picture the Jamaican woman and grimace. “I bet that went down well.”
Clay sighs. “At least Skid has some hooch brewing. That will ease the pain if he can keep it down.”
Skid makes this fucking awful concoction from moldy bread, fruit and veg scraps. He calls it pruno, and it’s absolutely vile. All the sewer workers drink it though, probably because their sense of smell has been destroyed.
“I feel so fucking useless.”
“Join the club,” Clay groans. “But switching back to Hector for a minute. You didn’t bring a crocodile shifter in here just to gossip about Francois. What’s going on?”
I rub my face, feeling the grit of the concrete dust and dried blood on my skin. “I’ll tell you but you’ll think I’m a fucking lunatic.”
“And I don’t already?”
“Funny. The truth is, I’ve been dreaming, Clay.
Or I think it’s a dream, I just don’t know.
I can taste the forest. I can feel the wind in my fur.
And when I wake… my sense of smell is off the hook.
And my hearing. I can scent de Vaux—his animal scent.
This has been happening ever since he fucked me up in the yard. ”
Clay’s eyes widen. He doesn’t laugh. “You’re saying you’ve developed a spark? In here? With the wards active?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s more than that. There’s a predator in me, Clay, and it wants out,” I whisper. “Whatever lives inside me wants to tear Francois’s throat out.”
“But how? Real talk, Tally. How could that be?” Clay looks uncomfortable. “I don’t want to be a dick, but are you sure your head didn’t get fucked?”
Yeah, I’ve thought about that, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure this is not a brain injury.
“When Francois and I fought, it wasn’t normal.
It was like he pushed a poison into my body so I couldn’t retaliate.
I still feel the toxicity in my body now.
Whatever that shit was, is, I think it triggered my own innate magic—somehow. ”
Clay’s face pales. “If that’s true, and you can shift, that would be a fucking game changer.”
“Don’t I know it,” I growl, gripping the bars until my knuckles turn white. “I need to find a way to let the beast out, before that de Vaux cunt destroys us all. The Guild are going to fucking rampage soon if their heat doesn’t go back up.”
Clay looks at the bars, then back at me. “If Frank’s magic is bypassing the wards, there has to be a blind spot. A crack in the system. How do we find it?”
“Good fucking question,” I reply. “Any ideas?”
Clay hums, his expression turning thoughtful. “I think you need to trust Hector. Tell him what’s going on. He’s the only Digger with a shifter inside him, so he’ll know what to look for, right?”
I nod, but then something occurs to me. “We have had another Digger come in since the Great Awakening—little Sky.”
We look at each other for a beat, then Clay shrugs. “I don’t see it, Boss. That little kid? But Layla could talk to her about it, or your Princess, the kid loves Aurora.”
I raise an eyebrow at him and he snorts. “And the kid isn’t the only one, am I right?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I grumble.
“Gotta say, from here it looks like you have a real soft spot for her. Or maybe a hard-spot.”
“Fuck off, Clay. You gossip like an old woman.”
Imran moans quietly in his sleep. Clay exhales deeply and gets to his feet. “I’m going to take this one back to his cot.”
My nose picks the unmistakable odor of Francois’s ominous scent. “Yeah, get out of here, Clay. Frank’s on his way back.”
“How do you know?”
“Told you, I can fucking smell him.” I also know Aurora’s scent now and wish I could put it into words. Fresh, wild, rainclouds? Nope, that’s not quite right. Crisp? Mint?
Fuck knows. I’m not a fucking perfume expert.
“That’s wild, Tally. OK, I’m out, I’ll talk to Hector as soon as I have Imran settled.” My friend gives me a sharp nod, drags Imran to his feet then splits, half carrying the boy out of here.
I slump back against the wall, feeling fucking desperate.
Gods.
Moments later, Francois enters with Rory. I ignore him to focus on Aurora. Is my girl OK?
My girl?
I wish.
“Hey,” she says, walking immediately toward me. “What’s going on? You look better but sad.”
“Just worried about Imran,” I sigh.
“Fuck. Yeah, I’m sorry.” She turns to de Vaux. “Open the cage,” she snaps. “I want in.”
He scowls in return. “I find myself annoyed that you want to be in there, Aurora. Maybe I will have your cot moved to the outer cell—with me.”
Fuck.
“If you do that, then you’ll regret it, let me assure you,” Rory hisses. “Give me freedom and I’ll dedicate every second of it to making your life miserable.”
Francois’s lips twitch in amusement. “Cheri, do not ever lose your fire.” He removes the key from his pocket. “For now, you may return to your caged life, but in time I believe you will choose an alternative.”
“Dream on,” she mutters as Francois unlocks the bars and she slides in. “Wish there was something I could do to help Imran.”
“We all do, but there’s nothing.”
We sit in silence for a while until Rory digs in her coveralls pocket. “Brought you a sandwich,” she passes me the Quo classic. “You seem healthier.”
“I’m feeling stronger today.”
“Good.” She glances back at Francois as he picks up his book once more, then leans her shoulder against mine.
“You’re not the only one worrying over a kid. Sky broke today,” she sighs, her voice so low. “In the showers…that poor, poor girl.”
My jaw tightens. “Did something trigger her? That was supposed to be a safe time.”
“It was undressing. She has a number, Tally, etched right into her skin like a serial number on a piece of property. The traffickers did that to her. She was scared and ashamed for us to see it.”
I feel the animal in my gut let out a low howl.
I’ve dealt with gangs and killers, but human trafficking is a different kind of evil.
“I promised her she was safe with us. I promised no one would ever touch her again. But Dot…” She looks over her shoulder again and lowers her voice even further. “Dot thinks Francois is the kind of man who buys what that brand represents.”
I look past her at the Frenchman on the other side of the room. “I wish there was a way to make him feel even an ounce of the pain his kind have put people like Sky through.”
Rory nods. “Let me know if you come up with anything. I’d do anything to make him suffer.” Her fingers curl into the foam pad.
I lean closer, our faces almost touching. “You can have the first strike, Princess. I’ll hold him and you can extract your revenge in whatever way you like, understand?”
She meets my gaze with blazing eyes. “That might seem weird, but I think that’s the most romantic thing anyone could ever say.”
Francois looks up from his book, fixing us both in his gaze.
He doesn’t say a word, and after a minute returns to his reading.
Aurora lies back on the cot and after a second I squeeze next to her. After a while her breathing regulates and I know she’s asleep.
I want to stay awake forever, because this is the most peace I’ve ever known.