Chapter 44 – The Binding Clause
Mud in his teeth. It tasted like rust and failure.
Vane's hands were twisted in Uzo's collar, dragging him over rotting floorboards, wood splinters caught in the ruined trench coat, Uzo couldn't feel his legs. He couldn't feel much of anything, actually.
Just the immovable, The gray, eating hum in his blood, He looked down. His right arm wasn't flesh anymore. It was just like how a television would be static when there's a bad signal.
The Void was chewing through the last scraps of Uzo Melbourne, climbing his ribs, aiming for his heart. Every heartbeat felt hollow, Asif they were stepping down onto a stair that wasn't there.
"Bar!" Valerius snapped.
Vane carried him up, Uzo's spine slammed against the edge of a wooden counter. Sticky, dried beer from a decades ago pressed against his cheek. Vane leaned his entire body weight on Uzo's shoulders, pinning him flat. The Lazy Lord was panting, Sweating and Scared.
"Do the damn thing!!!," Vane choked out. "He's transparent."
Valerius didn't rush, the freak didn't even rush. He flipped open that nightmare of a book-pages made of cured meat, words written in dried scabs.
"Containment," Valerius spoke silently, pulling a spool of silver wire and a scalpel from his sleeves. "Not a cure just an edit.", the Valerius pushed the blade inside, hehehehe
No warning. Just a sickening pop as the steel cut the skin over Uzo's heart,
Uzo screamed tremendously in pain and agony. Or he tried to but he couldn't his throat just moved tho in agony, Valerius was dragging the metal across his pectoral muscle, carving a box. A border. Flesh parted like wet paper.
"Chaotic data needs a margin, hehehehe," the doctor mumbled. He didn't look at Uzo's face, he just sliced open his own purple-veined palm,
Toxic blood spilled right into Uzo's open chest, It screamed.
Smoke rose from the wound, It smelled like battery acid and burning hair, Uzo thrashed, bucking hard enough to lift Vane off the ground, but the doctor's hands were like iron clamps.
Valerius with the needle, Silver wire punching through the skin. Pulling very tight. Tying the raw meat back together over the static. The friction burned.
The Void shrieked inside him. The gray ink slammed against the silver wire and bounced off. Trapped.
"Ear!" Vane yelled, fighting to keep Uzo pinned. "His ear is bleeding gray!, damm!"
Valerius dropped the scalpel, He tried to join his purple, blood-soaked thumb directly into Uzo's deaf ear.
He pressed so hard, dragging his thumb with force down the side of Uzo's neck. It tore the top layer of skin, leaving a thick, burning purple line behind.
A Bracket.
"Filter it," Valerius sighs.
Something in Uzo's head snapped. Like a tight string finally breaking under pressure.
The world crashed back in.
Silence. Just the heavy, relentless rain hitting the tavern roof, Uzo stared at the ceiling, his chest was a knot of barbed wire and fire, he touched his left ear, his fingers trembling in shock and fear. The pressure, the deafness, It was indeed gone.
But he didn't just hear the rain, he heard... scratching. Scritch, Scritch. Like a frantic quill on rough parchment.
He turned his head, the sound was coming from Valerius. From his blood.
"I hear you," Uzo rasped. His throat was shredded, every word scraping his vocal cords. "I hear your syntax."
Valerius grinned. A terrifying, too-wide stretching of his mouth. "You aren't cured, Glitch. You're formatted, hehehehe."
Uzo looked down at his chest, Over his heart, a thick, black square of scar tissue was stitched shut with heavy silver. Inside the box, the skin was gone. Swirling, condensed gray static burned beneath the stitches. A permanent redaction. His own personal cage.
He clenched his fist, the gray ink flowed. Instantly. It didn't fight him. It poured from the box, down his arm, pooling in his knuckles heavy and cold. Obedient, He opened his hand, and it sucked right back into his chest.
A weapon.
He pushed himself off the bar. His boots hit the floor hard. His knees shook, but they held. The silver stitches pulled against his ribs a sick, tight feeling, like fishhooks buried in his muscle.
It hurt so badddd but he welcomed the pain. Pain meant he was still real. Pain meant he wasn't erased. Vane was leaning against a broken table, wiping mud and blood off his face with a ruined velvet sleeve.
"Nero's going to lock down the city. Every scribe with a pulse is going to be hunting us. We blew a hole in his map."
"Good," Uzo spat, pulling his torn trench coat back on to hide the scar. The storm in his left eye spun. "Let him hunt. We're going to the House of Myth."