Chapter 32 (Patreon)

He stayed awake through the night, watching the cogs above for the first sign of dawn. A slow trickle of flame returned to his Ember. Enough to regrow his clawed arm through yet more searing pain. He flexed it and tried to scratch at the metal of the cage, it didn’t leave a mark.

He wasn’t done.

There was flame to spare, just a little. He forced it to his lower back, focusing on the image of Krii´ttch, Ravenous Ratling in front of his ember. He pictured the thick naked tail bursting out of his skin, its weight and coarse skin. The flame reshaped him. The pulsing pain becoming more familiar. 

By five in the morning, the rising suns sprayed multicolored light through the glass. Painting the cogs and the crumbling walls in fiery orange. By then he had a thin tail, as long as his forearm and surprisingly nimble, it would have to do. 

Using his sharp claws, he cut it clean off, then drew a long cut along his abdomen. His skin was thicker than expected and brutalizing himself felt more strange than painful. He placed the tail under his skin on a bed of yellow fat. Then used the very last of his flame to heal the wounds on his lower back and abdomen, trapping the tail under his skin.

At nine Boris awoke, kindling to life the embers in the fireplace. Half an hour later, footsteps echoed beyond the door.

Nine sharp…

The professor slammed it open. “Good morning ladies and gentlemen,” He said with outstretched arms. “I trust you all enjoyed a restful night.”

He wore a pleased expression as he stepped in among the buckets and chains in the light of the fireplace, flanked by his two assistants. Wretch shot him a glare as he walked around his cage, scrutinizing him with sharp eyes. “My, my… looks like you could regrow that beautiful arm,” the professor said, circling his cage just beyond reach.

“Have you been sleeping well? You look rather tired, young man. Up all night planning something? Snatching the keys, perhaps?” he said with a wide smile.

Wretch felt the blood pull away from his face.“Wouldn’t dream of it!” 

“Good, good, because the keys are tucked in my room you see, so no luck there I’m afraid!” He snapped his fingers.“Now let’s get down to business, shall we?” He said, walking around so that Wretch had to twist his neck to follow his movement. 

“How long would it take you to evolve your right arm, to brand claws like the other?” 

“Two days,” Wretch lied. He could do it in one if he used all his flame. 

“How much flame does my dear guest have at the moment?”

“Almost nothing!” Wretch pleaded. 

The professor's smile turned sly. “Well, your lovely teacher came prepared. Jusjenko?” A figure with a mask of joyful laughter produced a necklace with a thick red gemstone inlaid with silver. The figure took a few quick steps towards his cage, drawing a thin rapier.“If you move,” The man said in a growl. “I will kill you and everyone here,” placing the cold steel of his weapon against his throat. 

Two eyes stared into his through the mask, then he pressed the medallion towards his chest.For a heartbeat, Wretch considered killing him, he’d survive the rapier thrust through his throat, at least long enough to maul the man’s arm beyond recognition. He decided against it as a string of burning light slithered out of the man’s chest, like a translucent, fiery rope. It flowed into his naked skin. Pleasant heat gathering in his chest, warm, almost intoxicating. His Ember crackled with surrendered power. The masked man drew away from the cage, retracting the cold steel placed against his skin. 

“Excellent,” The professor said, rubbing his clean-shaven chin. “We'll do this twice a day. Triple the flame. For today, change your arm and regrow the other.” 

“I’ll do it,” Wretch answered while slumping in his cage. “But I want to know something in return,” 

An exchange of looks. “And what might that be?” 

“I want to know why the Gulschaks attack us.”For the first time, the professor's expression cracked, a twitch in his smile. Wretch enjoyed the smallest of victories. 

“Oh, my…what a specimen,” The professor exclaimed, recovering with a grin. “Curious even now. I like that, so I’ll humor you.”

He looked up past the ticking gears, light streaking through the painted glass above. “Hatred is a beautiful thing, thus poorest is the man without an enemy.” 

Wretch’s claws tightened around the bars. “How is an enemy a good thing?”

“Oh, little Wretch, you fail to broaden your scope. To us Blessed, an enemy…” The professor said with gleaming eyes. “Is a resource.” 

An assistant snapped their head towards the professor. “Blasphemy! The war is righteous retribution.” 

The professor sighed. Rubbing his temple in a theatrical display “Look what you made me do, divisive to the bitter end. Savor that gift, Wretch.”

“I still don’t see it…” Wretch asked with a furrowed brow. “You mean an enemy is just a chance to grow?” 

The professor shot him a smile. “What kind of lecturer would I be if I revealed the answers? Now, the bargain has been made, and I have done my part. You, however..” 

The assistants stepped up and yanked his arm through the bars. The professor revealed his saw from a flap in his apron. He caressed it with a light touch, then pressed its teeth through Wretch’s flesh. The blade gnawed through him as Wretch howled until his voice cracked in his throat.

To Boris’ dismay, they didn’t cauterize the wound. Wretch pulled flame before the blood poured, closing the wound. The professor gave him a heartfelt goodbye, and they left him writhing in torment.

The following hours were filled with agony, forcing his flame into the wound. Guiding the flesh back into shape. The pain was dulling, more manageable. By evening the arm had regrown.  

With the scraps of flame that remained, he grew another rat’s tail. He severed it while Boris wasn’t looking and hid it under the skin with a cut from his claw. 

When the clock hit six in the evening, the two masked figures returned with the usual bowls of food and water. One used the same medallion to flush flame to his struggling ember, the other, held a sword ready to impale him.He endured it in silence.

The flame was welcome, he had tails to grow.

By nightfall, Boris emptied the reeking buckets, cleaning them with fresh water from a tap. The masked assistants returned one more time at nightfall and soon Wretch heard a deep, rhythmic breathing from the armchair. Jonah must have heard it as well, because he was the first to speak. “Did you see it, Ezra? Did you see the house with the plants on the balcony?” 

It was quiet, Wretch and the others looked to the one who had suffered the longest. The faint blue moonlight illuminated the mutilated prisoner. He looked as alive as the rest of the interior, his breathing as artificial as the ticking of the clocktower's gears. “I saw it,” Ezra answered.

Wretch’s heartbeat skipped a beat. 

“Alright,” he whispered. “Then I have a plan, but first let me tie these together.” 

He set to work, slicing open his skin and pulling the hidden tails free. They had cost him, and he was behind on schedule, the professor expected him to change his other arm to a dark claw tonight. He’d have to manage. 

Knotting the bloodied tails together, they formed a rope as long as him. 

“I used this trick with my hunters once.” Wretch said, running his hand across the tails.“Reflecting the morning light across the city. I checked last night. The sun rises at five. Boris wakes at half past eight. That gives us a window to alert them.”

If the professor is lying and they are still alive. He added in thought.

Jonah flashed a toothy smile, dangling his only foot. “Never seen Boris up before eight."

“Perfect!” Wretch whispered, looking up to the other cages. 

“But how are we going to reflect the light? It’s not like we have a mirror, unless you can grow one out of your body?” Cynthia asked.

Wretch gave a grin. “Oh, I can do better.” 

He held his hand out of the cage and visualized it. The trick up his sleeve. The Blinking Blade.

It burned into existence in his grasp with the soft crackling of a fireplace. The orange light lit the gasping faces of the others. It had been waiting for him, in a pile of trash down in the Lows.

Boris grunted in his sleep. Wretch’s veins turned to ice. They all froze, holding their breaths. Not moving even a finger. 

In his mind, he begged the man not to notice. Boris turned to the side and mumbled, his breathing returning to deep, rhythmic snores. 

Wretch and the other exhaled. “We’ll use this to catch the light,” Wretch said. “And the rope to get it up to Ezra.” 

“In the morning, I can hide the rope in my hair,” Victoria said, her voice more varied in pitch than usual. 

Jonah glanced at the blade “What about that?” 

“I will return it to my hand. It can’t go invisible or anything. But I will drop it into the bucket, It’s murky enough to hide it.”

“If Boris empties them, I will return it to my hand. He doesn’t seem that aware, so I’m confident he won’t notice if I have my back to him and hold it close.” Wretch said.   

Victoria gave a low laugh. “By the Saint, it’s a shit plan… But it's better than nothing.”

One by one, the prisoners nodded. 

He tied the rope around the handle of the Blinking blade, throwing the other end to Cynthia. She caught it with her one arm. Reeling it in like a fish. 

She threw it to Victoria, who threw it up to Ezra. Jonah with his one leg wasn’t much help. How the boy could be so cheerful despite it all was a mystery he couldn’t solve. 

Ezra returned the rope to Victoria, who tied it up in her long, dark hair. Then the boy studied the blade in his skeletal hand. He gave Boris a long stare and then looked back at the blade. 

“He will get what he deserves.” Wretch said, studying the snoring man. “I promise.” 

They whispered through the night. About the plan, about food they craved and a long interrogation from Jonah about blessed weapons. 

“Has anyone else come here to visit you besides the professor and his masked dogs?” Wretch asked after a while.

Jonah stared into the wall, no doubt imagining Blessed powers.”There was one. Didn’t like what the professor was doing, they argued.”

“What was his name?” Wretch asked, trying to collect every clue he could.

“He had a hood, but the professor called him something, it started with a G,” Jonah said.

“Grendel,” Cynthia said.A memory flashed before his eyes. A page from the book his father had left him. Black ink depicting a humanoid beast crouching on the rooftop of a burning church in a veil of smoke, and next to it, a portrait of a young man with white hair.

“Grendel the White Death,” Wretch whispered.The terrorist with a bounty of ten thousand.

The other prisoners looked at him.”You know him?” Jonah asked.

“No, Do you think he stays here?” Wretch said.

Cynthia shook her head.”I doubt it, they hated each other, you could feel it.”Good, or we’d be doomed against a monster like that.

Silence stretched and they slept in turns. At last, Wretch looked down at his human arm, dirty, weak, pathetic.But it was human.

He had taken it for granted, believing he’d still be able to grow without sacrifice. 

He’d worked hard after joining the Richter’s. But had he done everything to improve? No, I dulled, lost the greed and hunger. I won’t lose it again

He forced the flames into his flesh, pouring through his veins like molten glass. The arm blackened, skin burst and fingernails ripped free. 

Wretch didn’t flinch.