five families now cursed with ident babies. Rona’s helped deliver all of them, but won’t do the marking. Says chopping fingers off infants is no job for a healer. Sometimes I’ve heard these babies crying as I passed by, but I’ve never seen any of them. The shame is so great and guys like Nash would throw stones, so the unfortunate families raise them inside, behind bolted doors. Four long years of despair and misery before Slayers take them away to the ident camps.
What must it be like to be their parents? Just cruel.
And yet where would we be without the Saviour’s law to protect us?
‘Hey, see the bandages?’ says Nash, pointing.
Further along, two ident boys stand in their cage, gripping the bars. I see their forearms, bandaged from the Cutting. I see too that both bear the telltale mark of the ident, the little finger hacked from their left hand. Sick but clever that. Word is, back in the early days of the Saviour’s law, desperate parents would hide their ident offspring by splitting them up. No way to hide a missing finger though.
I look back at the redheads, but they see me staring.
Although I’ve paid good money to be here, I have to look away. Okay, so I know these girls are freaks, but it still feels wrong to gawp. Just does.
‘C’mon,’ says Nash, making to head off, ‘I’ll show you something better.’
‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Those girls.’
Nash stops and stares, obviously not bothered in the slightest that they can see him looking. ‘Yeah. Cute, but not my type. What about them?’
‘Which do you think is the evil one?’
Nash frowns at me, like I’m some kind of drooling idiot.
‘Well, my money’s on the redhead. Oh wait – they’re both redheads!’ He slaps his forehead, and this sends Vijay and Mary into fits of laughter. ‘Look, we’ll find out tomorrow at the Unwrapping. Now are you coming or what?’
I let him drag me away.
But the look on those girls’ faces, it dents my mood.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still buzzing, but I’m not so dazzled now by everything I see. Maybe that’s why I start noticing faces in the crowd that aren’t red and shiny with having a good time. I nudge Mary and point out one such woman. She’s got a little boy by the hand. To look at her long, grey face, you’d think she was at a funeral, not a fair. Her brat looks fed up to the back teeth too.
‘You can’t please some people,’ I say.
Mary winces, surprising me. ‘The Saviour giveth, the Saviour taketh away,’ she says, quoting Freshwater’s preacher, old Fod. ‘Even idents have families.’
Cassie catches up and grabs my hand. She’s shaking.
‘Hey, what’s up?’ I ask her.
‘I’m glad there’s only one of me,’ she whispers.
‘You wait till you see this thing,’ says Nash, with a weird laugh.
‘Is it scary?’ squeaks Cassie, her brown eyes wide.
Nash leads us out of the crowd, towards an alcove set deep into the stone wall of the arena. As we get closer, I see wrist-thick iron bars sealing this space off and turning it into another cage. A torn canvas awning flaps above it, filling the alcove with scuttling shadows. Off to one side, a sun-scorched old man sits cross-legged on a mat, watching us. Sharp-eyed kids are hanging about.
‘Is it some wild animal?’ I ask Nash.
‘Wait and see.’
One brat is slow clearing out of our way. Nash shoves her aside. I expect screeching and swearing, but the girl hardly notices. She just keeps staring at the cage, her grubby face a muddle of fright and teeth-bared anticipation.
Weird. All I can see is a heap of rags and bones.
Until the rags and bones move.
The rags are rags, but those bones still have skin on them. As my eyes adjust, I see a mottled hand clutching the rags around a filthy wasted body.
A skull-like head slowly lifts to regard us.
‘Oh – my – Saviour!’ I make the Sign of One again.
I’ve never seen a real-live twist before and my guts tie themselves into cold knots. Idents I expected to see, wanted to see. But this monster with twisted blood – this I’m not ready for. I take several steps back despite myself.
Cassie pulls free, turns and runs. Don’t blame her.
Nash sneers, but I’m not fooled. He can act tough, but he’s eyeing those bars same as me, gauging their strength. He’s scared too. Who wouldn’t be?
The bane of Wrath, a devil in human form.
Those iron bars are the only reason we still have throats.
I force myself forward. A breeze shifts the awning and shadows scatter. I see the mad hatred in the creature’s bloodshot eyes as it watches me. I’m so close now its stink shoves up my nose. The twist’s skin is covered in muck and a rash of angry red scars, its waist-length hair filthy and matted. I thought I was a bit skinny, but this thing’s nothing but skin and bone. Male or female? Impossible to say. It hisses at me like a rock viper and shows me its teeth, all filed to sharp points.
Nash elbows me, scaring the crap out of me. ‘They always have one here.’
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
Behave – or the twist will come in the night and get you!
It’s what grumpy old folk like to growl at naughty little children to scare them. Seeing this disgusting monster is like having my worst nightmares made flesh. It’s horrible to think one of those redhead ident girls will end up like this.
But that’s why we have the Cutting and Unwrapping.
‘You scared, boy?’ asks the twist’s keeper, the old bloke.
‘Not me,’ I say, grimacing.
‘Y’ought to be.’ He cackles, pulls a leather cosh from his belt and rasps it along the cage.
The twist lets out this blood-curdling scream, bounds to its feet and hurls itself at him. Its skeletal arm shoots out between the bars, bony fingers clawing for the man’s throat. Only just in time, he steps back out of range.
It happens so fast – inhumanly fast.
Behind me, I hear children’s delighted shrieks.
‘See what I mean?’ says the man. He spits into the dust at my feet, then looks at me, unblinking and seemingly uncaring, as the twist thrashes to reach him. ‘Some folks, they don’t believe in evil; they gotta see for themselves.’
Mary tugs my sleeve. ‘You got a credit?’
The
