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I. THEY STUMBLE THAT RUN FAST
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I. THEY STUMBLE THAT RUN FAST
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Some kids loved dogs or cats or horses. Tamiel loved breaking things. Sometimes he put them back together again, with as much care and application as you could expect out of a child, but they were never quite the same after he was done with them. He was not so different from the other boys his age who dug up worms, pelted birds with rocks and squashed ants under sticks and chubby palms... Only, he never quite grew out of the habit.
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Tamiel snapped off his gloves and dropped them in the sink, washing his forearms as well as his hands. The sharp sting of sanitiser was an assault on the senses but he didn't appear to notice, cleaning efficiently under his nails. The pads of his fingers were utterly smooth, whorls long burnt off by chemicals, and his actions spoke of practised ease. When he reached his biceps, the water that swirled down the drain was pink.
Doctor Tamiel Haisborough was in a foul mood. That was more than enough reason for the waiting room to be empty. The doctor tugged the elastic from his hair, face creepily placid. Only his eyes suggested that inside he was shrieking like a stilted harpy. O'Healey's clinic didn't open on Sundays on account of it being the day of the Church, so if patients had left the premises of their own accord, they weren't dying, and as far as Tamiel was concerned that was the only valid reason they had to be bothering him in the first place.
Fools. He patted down his hands, arranging the scissors and pliers on the drying rack. Fettered to moral conscience and human decency and other baseless rubbish the priests espoused, and people were just as quick to turn around and condemn you when you were elbows deep in their great-aunt and her heart decided it'd had enough. Living miserably but devoutly, emptying hope into the coffers of some faceless deity and trying to be good? Tamiel believed in goodness less than he believed in God, which was saying something. Why, when you could so blissfully and joyfully succumb to natural vice and depravity?
After all, darkness was attractive.
Tamiel knew it, and Ose apparently agreed – out of his shadow, two deceptively slim vines curled around his ankles and held fast, the appendages damp and slightly slimy, like moss, or the texture of someone's intestines. Tamiel forced himself to relax, knowing the limbs would only tighten further if he struggled, and squeeze the blood from his legs. He contemplated the ceiling. Sometimes Ose was really impressive. Smart, and he didn’t even know it. Didn’t think about his own intelligence, like a wild animal, and other times he exhibited classic infant behaviour. Possessiveness. Hunger. Greed.
The doctor glanced down, considering the creature he'd sold his soul to, and also what sort of thing it might become – the image formed easily in his mind: piercing, cyan eyes, the urge to pull back the hood and expose it to the world.
For just a moment, Tamiel felt like kicking the imp violently into the wall. He laughed instead, catching the reflection of his madness in a steel tray. Owning and being owned...
Where did one end and the other begin?
His eyes closed briefly. Without the benefit of the piercing gaze he looked suddenly wan under the electric light, whiteness skinning the composure from his face. A beat, and the impression was gone.
Coal lashes lifted as Tamiel sank into a crouch, and Ose took the opportunity to wrap around his arm, half like a child begging to be carried, half like a snake constricting its prey.
Curious how the aftertaste of victory was still bitter.
