Nameless

into it, even a fire door wouldn’t hold. Sooner or later one of them would hurl itself against the bar that freed the latch.

Cami let out a sob, her cheeks slick with hot wetness, and gave one last kick. The shimmersilk went flying, hissing in frustration. Sirens howled—the cops had arrived, thinking there was a riot starting. Maybe there was.

She put her head down, and ran.

* * *

The holding tank wasn’t that bad. Well, sure, it reeked of cigarette smoke and stale vomit, and it was full of a crowd of jacks, some of them bloody and bruised from the scramble inside the nightclub. Still, it was brightly lit— and there were no dogs.

Her wrists throbbed with pain, and so did her shoulder—one of the cops had bent her arm back, savagely, snapping charmed cuffs on her. Cami hadn’t resisted. She was sobbing too hard, anyway, and besides, she wanted them to take her away from the thin stick of the huntsman and the leaping, yapping, barking, steel-toothed—

She shuddered, pushed her back more firmly into the concrete wall. The benches were for the people who would fight for them, so she had just picked a corner and retreated into herself. A few catcalls and pokes, but as soon as they figured out she wasn’t going to respond they left her alone.

It was kind of like school. Except they didn’t throw burning cigarettes at her there.

The holding cells were jammed. The Twists were on the other side, behind bars crawling with vicious bright golden charmwork; the charms on the jack cages were dull red. She had no idea why they’d put her in with the jacks; maybe they thought she was one, even though she had no mutation? Or maybe there hadn’t been any mere-humans left? Or charmers? She hadn’t seen any but the bartender, maybe he . . .

Just don’t think about it.

She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut, couldn’t afford to. The harsh buzzing light was her friend, it kept the shadows away. And if she closed her eyes one of the jacks in here might think she was sleeping, and try to do something to her.

Clash of keys, screams and a rising mutter.

“You! Girl, in the back!”

She raised her head, strings of damp black hair falling in her face, free of her braid and tangled into knots.

It was a heavyset jack cop, his skin scaled in rough patches and the low ragged edge of his Potential sparking against the bars. He jingled the keys again, his yellow fur-hair smoothed down under the uniform cap; his brass badge held a mellow gleam. “Yes, you. Come on.”

She hauled herself to her feet. The jacks quieted, bright-eyed with interest. The hallway pulsed with noise, burrowing into her head. It was preferable to the other sounds, the ones she wasn’t sure were actually physical.

Like the chanting, and the dripping. Plink-plink, water against stone.

The jacks edged away, and she made it to the barred iron door.

“Back up!” the cop snapped. “No, not you, kid. You’re coming out.”

“She got bail. Lucky charmer girl.” This from a gawky male teen, bone spurs on his cheekbones slicing out through peeling skin, the wounds suppurating freely and by all appearances perpetual. He was one of the loudest inmates, and the others in the holding tank mostly did what he said. Behind him, two other jacks—his friends, maybe, since they wore the same multicolored jacket he did—grinned and mouthed nasty words.

“Cryboy, if I want shit out of you, I’ll squeeze your fuckin’ head,” the cop snarled. “Back up, or we take you to a room.”

Cryboy laughed, made little kissy noises . . . and turned his back, took a couple of mincing steps away. His friends laughed too, hyena noises and crude jokes about things they’d like to do to the charmer-girl.

The door clanged and clattered, slid sideways just enough for Cami to slip out. She did, stood blinking in the hall while a fresh wave of hysterical screaming went through the cages on either side.

“Come with me, ma’am.” The jack cop actually touched the brim of his hat, and the imprisoned jacks burst into derisive laughter, catcalling madly. Her cheeks were hot. Some of the things they said were pretty anatomically impossible, but it didn’t stop her from wondering if they would, somehow, perform these weird acts if given a chance.

There was another heavy metal door with a barred window at the end of the hall; the observation slit darkened briefly and there was a clatter from the other side. It opened, Cami was prodded through—not ungently —and she found herself in a quieter hall floored with peeling gray linoleum. The guard—another cop, this one pure human—took his hand off the butt of a gun, and she was absurdly comforted. The motion reminded her of Trig.

There was also a burly, graying man, pure human, in a cheap suit. He looked almost relieved to see her, and Cami stared at him curiously. She’d never really seen a detective before, and he didn’t look at all like a creature deserving of the scorn sometimes heaped on the cops among the younger Family, especially at parties where the whiskey and calf flowed freely.

“Miss Vultusino?” The detective held up the student ID. It had been yanked from her coat pocket after they cuffed her, before they lifted her and threw her bodily into the van.

Abruptly, she ached all over. The cuts on her arms and legs were singing with pain, and her head was heavy. She managed a nod, and almost swayed.

“I’m Detective Haelan. Let’s get you out of here.”

“No shit?” The pure human cop eyed her like she was an exotic pet. “It’s one of them? Why wasn’t—”

“Shut up, Sullov.” The detective ran a hand back through his hair, a fume of cigarettes and cheap cologne clinging to him. His stubble was salted with gray too, and the pouches under his eyes could have held soup. “This way, Miss.”

So she was Miss now. Well, that was good. Except they’d found out who she was. Cami approached him carefully, held out her bruised hand, and the laminate of the ID crumpled slightly in her sweating fingers. He also had her coat, which he handed over.

“Would you like some coffee? A Danish?” He had kind eyes, she decided.

“Why not just give her a foot massage, too?” the blond guard muttered. When Cami glanced back, though, he was peering through the observation slit in the door. “Animals,” he said, a little louder. “Look at them. A bunch of animals.”

“Don’t mind Sullov. He’s subnormal, that’s why we have him working down here.” The detective’s half-grin was not pleasant at all, and the words had the quality of a challenge. He ushered Cami past another heavy locked door, swiping his hand over a charmplate near the handle and nodding as it clicked. “They’ve sent someone to fetch you. Not often we see Family in this part of town.”

She winced inwardly. Would it be Nico? No, he was the Head, he couldn’t come down here personally. Nor could Stevens—even though the Seven owned the law, there were appearances to be upheld. One of the younger Vultusino? Trig? Maybe, but that would mean Nico knew about this, too.

Haelan kept talking. About how they hadn’t known who she was, and how he hoped the holding cell hadn’t been too bad, and was she sure she didn’t want a cup of coffee? She finally agreed, just to make him be quiet, and the relief passing over his face when he heard her stutter was thought-provoking.

However mad Nico got, it was better than the dogs. And the way things inside her head were opening up. Curtains lifting, the things behind them leering and capering, full of scorched skin, the blossoming of red pain, the filth and the chains.

This one’s heart is fiery.

She ended up perched on a battered leather couch in a paper-choked detective’s office, listening to the phone ring and clutching a paper cup of boiled, ash-smelling coffee. Haelan had disappeared, and after a while Trigger edged into the room, his hair stuck up anyhow and his jacket dusted with melted snow. He gave her a brief look, nodded, and cocked his head.

That was, at least, one signal she knew how to decipher. She was on her feet somehow, tossing the slopping-over cup of coffee in the overfull wastebasket with a splash.