Chapter 7
“You have what I need?” Twigs asked.
Malek smiled gleefully and produced the CD from his jacket pocket. The mix was labeled “TWIGS ‘N’ STICKS.” She laughed as she dragged her fingers over the small doodles and other shapes Malek had done around the label.
“Oh, this looks wonderful! What’s on it? A surprise?”
“A little bit. I will say that I tried to balance the mix between songs that have mad percussion and songs that use asynchronous beats.”
“Why those?”
“I wanted to make your name into a song, you know? I pretended to have synaesthesia so I could mix sensations and sounds to see what I came up with when I said your name aloud. ‘Stranger Lives’ by TACTILE reminds me of the vowel in your name, and ‘Sun Up, We’ve Run Out’ by Flames and Dreams reminds me of the way you move.
It’s me trying to get a full picture of you and what you represent without actually using a camera for a photograph. ”
“Huh. Neat. Does this have your old band on it?”
“Oh, no. No, no.” Malek shook his head as blush tinged his cheeks. “I would never do that.”
“Why not? As far as I can remember, they were pretty discordant. But good, right?”
“We were punk, yeah, so we were basically still trying to figure out how to play our instruments when we recorded everything, then mimicked that ineptitude in later albums when we did know how to play. But… that was a long time ago. I don’t put my band on mix CDs.
Seems like a dead-end self-promo since we’re not a band anymore. ”
“I know. But you can still promote your past, right? It’s still a part of you. Besides, you could always start up the band again.”
Malek went to open his mouth and argue—how can we be a band again when they’re all dead?
—but a customer came downstairs and grabbed Twigs’s attention.
She slipped the CD under the counter area and flashed her bright smile as she took down the customer’s info.
She flicked her tongue between the space in her teeth as she talked, utterly transfixing Malek with her dark marble eyes.
She was so fascinating to Malek, and he adored her beyond anything he thought possible, especially since she humoured him by requesting mix CDs in the age of digital downloads.
As much as he loved her, though, Twigs was never going to be his girlfriend.
Twigs enjoyed the single life too much, and Malek wasn’t wired that way.
Only men did it for him—and it had been a long, long time since anyone in particular had held his attention beyond a lingering stare.
Other than maybe Caspar. Malek’s mind flashed to the image of Caspar in the shower from the day before.
It still brought chills to his skin. Malek hadn’t known Caspar would be joining him in the shower, but Hayden said they had needed to do a full body evaluation before bringing Caspar into their escape plan.
When the underground’s research into his case first began, someone had suggested that Caspar could have been a vessel for ghosts.
Only people with a specific mark could be vessels, though—and that required a naked spot check to be sure there was nothing on his chest, neck, or foot.
Nothing had been noted in his medical records, but doctors didn’t always know what to look for.
Malek read Caspar quickly in the shower as free of marks, which left him to focus on how utterly delicious Caspar was.
His golden skin was like a brand-new canvas waiting to be painted.
Malek had to fight back thoughts of kissing, sucking, biting, and maybe even tattooing Caspar before he grew hard in the prison showers.
“Hey, Malek. Earth to Malek.” Twigs snapped her red fingernails in front of his face until Malek startled. The customer from before was gone and the foyer was empty.
“Oh. Sorry. I—”
“Your head was in the clouds, my dear. Were you thinking of your old band? The golden days?”
“Definitely not. And if I ever do start to wander down that path, please don’t let me stay there too long. I become maudlin and help no one.”
“Ah, yes. Malek Jallo, always the saint.” She glanced around for customers or her boss Artie, and then leaned against the counter again. “So. The new guy you’re helping.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about before. I should have warned him properly about sex workers now in the city, but—”
“Oh, sweetheart. I don’t care. I hear that shit all the time. He’ll work out his kinks. In fact, he is right now.”
Twigs’s giggle caught Malek off guard. Of course Sully was up there with Caspar right now, but Malek really did believe they were only talking.
Right? Caspar had seemed so against fucking that Malek couldn’t imagine him getting so intimate with someone so quickly.
Prison changes people, though, and freedom changes them even more.
Malek was starting to think about Abe and Odafin when Twigs snapped her fingers again.
“Malek. Jesus. We’re getting you a drink and you’re going to pay attention to me.”
“Can’t argue with that, love.”
After Twigs grabbed Artie to take over the front desk, she led Malek into the lounge area.
A man on the stage grasped a microphone close to his face and twisted his hips as he sang.
When Malek studied the singer a moment longer, he realized that his hips tapered into a fin, and the man singing was a siren.
He transfixed the crowd with his smooth voice and melodic movements.
For a second, Malek wondered if he’d be taken over by the song and end up among the treacherous ocean rocks.
“Maybe we should get you a guy in here,” Twigs said as she passed Malek a beer. “Help you blow off some steam.”
“No, no, I’m fine. My mind is just… getting used to being bound to someone again. You know?”
“I did see him wearing the ring, so I suppose one of your many excuses checks out.” Twigs winked and took a sip of her cherry-smelling drink. “How does that work again? The further he goes from you the harder it is to concentrate?”
“The harder it is to stay corporeal. If he gets too far away from me or he loses the ring, I risk becoming incorporeal and being bounced to the Summerland, with all the other waifs and ghosts who have no home.” Malek shuddered, remembering his banishment. “But that hasn’t happened for a while.”
“Good, because I like hanging out with you in your corporeal form. I still want to talk about the guy, though.”
“Why? He’s not any different than the last few I brought through here.”
“Well, he is. Because he clearly hasn’t gone through all his wishes like the other ones usually do.”
Malek nodded. When people were free, they usually had a list of demands they wanted right away.
Jocasta would try to anticipate a lot of these and provide them so the person didn’t have to work Malek too hard when he was still adjusting to being bound to someone, but Malek usually relished how quickly he could dispense a new car, a new house, or cash for the rest of the person’s life and go back to resting under Jocasta’s care.
Caspar’s indecision, while not unheard of—Malek once served an elderly woman for a full one thousand of the one thousand and one days, since she wanted to have him around “just in case” something went wrong with her health—was rare among most convicts who had spent their entire incarceration developing a healthy fantasy life, most of which Malek could make come true in a couple hours.
“Also,” Twigs said, “he’s the Ghoul. Isn’t he? I mean, the glamour’s on him, but you don’t exactly forget the Ghoul of Main Street.”
“I thought no one could see him through the glamour?”
“Oh, please. I know how all of this works, so I can see past it.”
“Because of your witchy powers?”
“Oh, maybe some of that. But I saw past Chaz’s glamour, too. As soon as you know something about someone, it’s hard to forget it. It’s like one of those Magic Eye paintings. I cross my eyes and bam, he pops into focus.”
“That makes sense, I guess.” Malek could see through the glamour, too, but he thought it was because he was bound to Caspar. “So what about the public? Can they figure this out?”
“Well, the public thinks he’s dead, and most people don’t care about other people when they could be thinking about themselves—or thinking about the fact that there’s a bunch of prisoners missing.” Twigs sipped her drink as her eyes betrayed her amusement. “Have any idea how that happened?”
“Fuck.” Malek had almost forgotten about the missing prisoners. He glanced at his phone in his front pocket and winced. At least six messages. Probably all from Jocasta. He dreaded opening them, so he sucked back on his beer. “How bad is it out there?”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Twigs gave him the rundown of the news story that had been reported.
Maxine Dream of The Citizen’s Brigade stated that the Ghoul of Main Street died in a bus fire while ten other convicts escaped.
The prisoner that Malek had been playing also disappeared, but he was one of the few that could be removed from the roster entirely without anyone looking for him; they had made sure of that.
The thought made Malek relieved and sad at the same time.
I can disappear back to the Summerland and no one is ever gonna come looking.
Not even J after I fucked up this bad. He drank more and more of his beer.
“You think he’ll be safe, though?” Malek asked.
“Who? The Ghoul?”
“Stop calling him that. If we’re supposed to keep him dead, his name is now Caspar.”
“Actually, isn’t it something like Lenny Sherif now? His new identity? They made his middle name Caspar, though, since it’s always easier to accept the new identity with something familiar attached to it.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Still sucks, though.”
Twigs nodded, but didn’t seem too sympathetic. “He’ll be safe. Most of the public will believe he’s dead, and that will stop them from seeing under his glamour. I suppose if someone was dedicated they could see past it. But who would believe them? The Ghoul is dead, and for the best.”
“I guess.”