Chapter 24 #2
Mycor groaned in answer, the sound knotted between agony and relief. Green fire flickered weakly through his veins where rot had been eating away, patchwork light fighting to reassert itself.
Goldie’s breath hitched as she watched Splice falter, strength bleeding away drop by precious drop.
“Stop,” she gasped, reaching instinctively for him. “You’re hurting yourself—”
Her hand closed over Splice’s forearm, and, instinctively, she pressed her palm to Mycor’s cheek.
Fire surged her veins, pleasure and agony braided so tightly she couldn’t tell one from the other. Splice’s fierce devotion burned through her like a brand, protective and desperate. Mycor’s grief sank into her chest, heavy as stone.
A sob tore from her throat. She was drowning in sensation, in need, in their shared ache. With a desperate surge, she wrenched free. The connection ripped apart, snapping through her body in a violent jolt.
Mycor reeled, eyes flaring once before dimming. Splice staggered back, the vines at his throat writhing and twitching.
Goldie’s heart slammed against her ribs. “Splice… ”
He straightened slowly, every movement heavy with exhaustion. He shook his head once, then caught her arm, grip unsteady but firm. “Come.”
“What? We can’t just leave him… ”
“We leave him now.” Splice’s voice steadied, even as his whole frame shook. “He can’t hold more without breaking. I know you felt it.”
Goldie glanced back. Mycor’s head had bowed under the weight of his fatigue, the crown of vines limp against his brow. She ached to return, to ease him.
But Splice was right. Beneath all that power she had felt the fragility, the tremor of dissolution.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Let’s go.”
They moved through the corridor together, Goldie steadying Splice as he swayed with each step. The building seemed to shiver in their wake: lights flickering, wallpaper seams rippling like the walls were trying to shed their skin.
For several paces, neither spoke. The air still thrummed with the aftermath of their connection, a charge that made Goldie’s teeth ache. Splice leaned heavily on her arm, his footsteps uneven.
Her pulse roared in her ears. The world felt tilted, her own heartbeat too loud. “What—what just happened?”
Splice turned, pale but blazing. “The bead. It broke, and ripped something open in him. How could you bring that to him?”
Goldie pulled away from him, bristling. “I didn’t know what it was!”
“How could you not know?” His voice cracked, panic edging the accusation.
“I’m a hedge-witch, Splice! Not a warlock, not a ritualist, not whatever kind of lunatic packs trauma into marbles! I’ve never seen anything like that before!”
Splice swayed, hands tangling in his hair as if to keep himself together.
Goldie’s throat tightened. She pressed her palm hard against her sternum, trying to cage the wild hammer of her heart. “Is he… is Mycor going to be all right?”
“I don’t know!” Splice’s knees buckled as if the admission itself had gutted him.
Goldie lunged, catching his elbow. “You gave too much of yourself. Sit down before you collapse.”
“It’s my purpose,” he ground out through clenched teeth.
Something hot and furious broke loose in her chest. “Well, that’s a shit purpose, Splice! You’re not just some battery for him. You’re your own damn person!”
"No, I am not!"
A throat cleared behind them, low and deliberate. Goldie jerked her head toward the sound.
Mr. Lyle stood a few paces away, his posture impeccably composed, his presence settling around them like a held breath.
He wore his I am a perfectly normal apartment manager costume with unsettling precision: glasses perched just so on his nose; a soft cardigan buttoned neatly over a pressed collared shirt; slacks creased sharp enough to slice the air itself; his ever-present clipboard in one hand.
His expression was mild, even kindly, but the air around him seemed to thicken and still, charged with the weight of things better left unspoken.
"Ah. What a tender little moment we have here.” His pale eyes glittered behind his glasses. "Roots exposed, wounds laid bare. Quite the spectacle for a communal hallway.”
His gaze drifted slowly between Goldie and Splice, lingering on each of them with the careful attention of someone cataloging damage.
"Now. Shall we discuss the matter of maintenance?"
Goldie's protective instincts flared white-hot. "If by maintenance, you mean helping Splice or Mycor with whatever the hell is happening to them, then, yes. Let's fucking talk about it."
Splice swayed, and Goldie barely caught him under the arms as roots burst up through the floorboards, weaving themselves into the crude but solid shape of a chair. He collapsed into it gratefully.
She whipped around to face Mr. Lyle, desperation sharpening her voice to a blade's edge. "Can't you do something? Some weird apartment-manager-magic-thingy? Or ask the building for help?"
Mr. Lyle lifted his eyebrows with the mild surprise of someone who'd just been asked whether he'd checked the water pressure in 3B. "I assure you, Ms. Flynn. The building and I have already been in consultation.”
The smile he offered was genuinely warm, almost fatherly.
His eyes, however, were anything but. They were placid as a still pond, but beneath that surface lurked something vast and ancient.
It was the gaze of something that had watched civilizations rise and fall, that still remembered exactly where it had buried the keys to doors that should never be opened.
Goldie held his gaze, jaw set, refusing to back down even as every instinct screamed at her to look away. Her pulse hammered against her throat, but she didn't flinch. She stared right back, channeling every ounce of stubborn defiance she possessed.
Hellraiser sex kink, unlocked.
The phrase—and the memory of a half-drunk Nell slurring it—landed like a cymbal crash in her skull. Unbidden, the image bloomed: Mr. Lyle in his cardigan, clipboard in hand, draped with hooks and humming cheerfully while making minute adjustments to his restraint harness.
A laugh tore out of her, sharp and wrong, and ricocheted off the hallway walls.
Mr. Lyle raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow, and the eldritch weight in his gaze lifted, softening into something that could almost pass for ordinary human amusement.
"Touché, Ms. Flynn," he said mildly, as if she hadn't just laughed in the face of something older than recorded history.
Then, he turned his attention to Splice.
Without preamble or explanation, the apartment manager crossed the space between them and placed two fingers against the hollow of Splice's throat.
Mr. Lyle closed his eyes, his breathing slowing to an almost meditative rhythm.
For a long moment, the hallway was suspended in crystalline quiet.
Then, almost imperceptibly, Greymarket itself began to respond.
The corridor lights dimmed as if the building were drawing power inward. The floorboards beneath their feet hummed. The very air grew thick and expectant, heavy with intention.
Splice shuddered once, deeply. The restless vines at his throat steadied their frantic twitching, settling into something closer to natural movement. His breathing, which had been shallow and erratic, found a steadier rhythm. The tight lines around his eyes began to ease.
Finally, Mr. Lyle withdrew his hand. He brushed his fingers against the front of his cardigan with the same care he might use to remove a speck of lint.
Splice straightened in his makeshift chair, though his movements remained careful, testing. One hand rose shakily to adjust his collar. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse but steady, carrying genuine gratitude. "Thank you."
The apartment manager inclined his head. “Of course. I wish I could do more, but unfortunately that is all I am permitted to do within my limits, and the limits of the building itself.”
"Noted," Splice replied.
A faint crackle began to skitter through the corridor walls. Plaster seams stretched and shifted, while a single light bulb flickered with uncertain rhythm. The building released a long, low groan.
Goldie winced, shooting a wary glance at the restless walls around them. "Uh. Is that... structural damage? Because if this ends up itemized on my rent statement—"
"I’ll take care of it," Splice interrupted.
Mr. Lyle's eyebrows lifted with sharp interest. "You will take care of it? Not the Thornfather?"
Splice gave a short, jerky nod.
The apartment manager adjusted his glasses with precise fingers and began writing on his clipboard. "Something certainly stirred the day Ms. Flynn found our former tenant," he murmured, tone as casual as someone noting the weather in a logbook.
"Former tenant?" Goldie blurted.
“Oh, yes. Marlow Truckenham resided at Greymarket Towers for a brief tenure. Apartment 8J. Thirty-some years ago.” Mr. Lyle’s pen continued moving. “He never fully attuned to the building, however. Particularly not after his sudden trajectory.”
Splice stiffened, but Mr. Lyle went on as if reading a maintenance report. “And now the Assistant insists on assuming responsibility for repairs himself. That is new. That is… singular.”
The apartment manager tore a sheet from his clipboard with crisp precision and handed it to Splice. “We operate on a thirty-day net for such matters. But if you require additional time due to complications, the building is not without flexibility.”
Splice gave a short nod.
“Assistant. Ms. Flynn.” Mr. Lyle acknowledged them both with a nod, and then turned neatly on his heel and strode down the corridor.
Splice and Goldie stared down at the sheet of paper in his hand. The air between them was thick, weighted with the echo of Mycor’s touch, the shard of Splice’s devotion bled into the god, and the sharp edge of Mr. Lyle’s calm.
Goldie’s voice came out sharper than she meant, breaking the silence.
“Truckenham was a Greymarket resident?”