Chapter 10: The Salt-Tithe

The rhythmic thrum of the Siphon's new heartbeat pulsed through Lena's bones, steady as a gator's tail in still water, while Jax's callused hands steadied her against the salt-slick floor. The world was a blurred collage of industrial gray and bioluminescent green. Her ears rang with a dull, cottony silence, the aftereffect of the harmonic scream that had nearly shattered the junction. Above, the catwalks groaned, shedding flecks of rust like iron snow.

"Steady on, Lena," Jax grunted. His voice was a muffled vibration against her shoulder, more felt than heard. "Keep your feet under you. The floor's still weeping."

Lena reached out, her fingers trailing along the cold, vibrating side of a massive turbine housing. The metal felt different now. It wasn't just a dead husk of Terrebonne steel; it was alive. The Scrambler Box she’d lashed to the casing had fused entirely, the plastic and wire melting into the iron like a graft on a cypress trunk. She could feel the machine’s new pulse—a slow, deep throb that matched the rise and fall of the bayou’s tide outside the walls.

"The fever’s gone," she whispered, her voice rasping. "But my soul feels like an empty cicada shell, Jax."

He didn't pull away. Instead, he gripped her elbow tighter, his eyes scanning the cavernous gloom of Sector 4. The "Drowned Man"—that wretched manifestation of salt and sorrow—had vanished, dispersed into the brine once the gear-cycle broke. Now, there was only the dripping of stagnant water and the smell of magnolia blossoms competing with the sharp, metallic tang of ozone.

"You did something back there," Jax said, his gaze fixed on the fused machinery. He looked shaken, his tactical skepticism finally eroded by the sight of the bayou claiming the machine. "That wasn't just a bypass or a short-circuit. The whole damn station... it's breathing, Lena."

Lena leaned her head against the cold metal, closing her eyes. The "Gator’s Truth" settled into her marrow: the Siphon hadn't been built just to move water. It was a net. A spiritual gill. 

"They were catching them," she muttered, the words clipped and rhythmic as if she were reciting a root oath. "The spirits. The old ones. The ghosts of the cypress groves. They were pulling the hum out of the swamp to light up those high-rises in the Upper Districts. A harmonic bleed, Jax. They were bleeding the bayou white."

Jax swore softly under his breath. "Corporate bastards. We need to move. The telemetry went dark for them ten minutes ago. They’ll be sending a response team to see why their shiny toy stopped screaming."

Lena looked down at her palm. The wound she’d opened to bind the magic had sealed into a thick, crystalline salt-scab. It throbbed in time with the machine’s heartbeat. She looked at Jax, seeing the lacerations on his arms from flying metal shards, the way his hands trembled despite his firm grip. He’d stayed. Even when the world turned inside out and the machines started singing, he hadn’t run.

"I owe you, Jax," she said, her voice dropping to a low, heavy tone. "A life-debt. A salt-tithe. I don't forget that."

"Pay me by staying alive," Jax replied, pulling a piece of gauze from his tactical vest and pressing it into her hand. "Wrap that. We’ve got a long walk through the guts of this place before we see the sky."

Lena tried to stand fully, but the bone-deep lethargy pinned her. She reached for the silver locket at her throat, her fingers finding the chain. It was bent, the metal cold and dormant. Aunt Maribelle’s influence was gone for now—the interference she’d kicked up had severed the old woman’s tether. It was a small victory, but a hollow one.

"Can you jam the rest of it?" Jax asked, nodding toward the manual override catwalks. "If they get in here and restart the pumps—"

"They can't," Lena interrupted. The certainty was absolute, a heavy stone in her stomach. "The gears are fused. I didn't just break the clock; I turned it into a tree. To restart this, they’d have to cut the heart out of the sector. Gator's truth."

Suddenly, a high-pitched whine cut through the rhythmic thrum. It wasn't the machine—it was the sector alarm, a distant, mechanical shriek. Red emergency lights began to pulse against the damp walls, casting the junction in the color of old blood.

"Hellfire," Lena hissed, the lethargy vanishing as adrenaline spiked. "They’re here."

"Not yet, but they’re in the pipe," Jax said, his hand moving to the holster at his hip. "Come on. We take the cooling vents. They're too small for a full riot squad, and the salt’s too thick for their scanners to pick us up."

They began to move, Lena leaning heavily on Jax as they navigated the twisted architecture of the fused Siphon. The industrial cathedral felt smaller now, the shadows pressing in. Every few steps, Lena had to stop, her fingers searching for something tactile—a mossy patch of damp concrete, a rusted bolt, a trickle of brine—to ground herself. The magic had drained her, leaving her senses raw and overexposed.

As they reached the first bypass valve, they found it seized solid, the metal warped into the shape of a closing fist. 

"Move aside," Lena said. She didn't have the strength for a full binding, but she had the focus. She pressed her salt-scabbed palm against the valve. She didn't command it; she hummed to it, a low vibration that mimicked the new heartbeat of the sector. *Open, mon coeur. Let the water flow.*

With a groan that sounded like a heavy sigh, the valve turned. A rush of cold, silt-heavy water poured out, slicking the floor.

"How did you—?" Jax started, then shook his head. "Never mind. Don't tell me. I’m done asking how the voodoo works."

"It's not voodoo, Jax," Lena muttered as they slipped through the opening into the narrower vent tunnels. "It's just listening to what's already there. The Terrebonne suits... they only know how to shout."

The vents were a labyrinth of dripping pipes and cramped spaces. The scent of magnolia was fading, replaced by the sour smell of old grease and stagnant air. Lena could hear the distant clatter of boots on metal floors, the muffled shouts of corporate security teams. They were close. 

"No no, not this way, no no," Lena whispered as they reached a fork. She could feel the vibration of the response team's footsteps through the floor. They were being funneled toward the main exit.

"They've got the perimeter gated," Jax said, peering through a slat in the vent. "Floodlights. They're turning the marsh into a goddamn stadium."

Lena leaned against the vibrating wall, her breath coming in shallow gasps. She needed a diversion, something to mask their exit. She reached for the silver locket, twisting the bent chain around her finger until it bit into her skin. She thought of her mother, of the way the fog used to roll off the water during the ritual drownings, thick enough to hide a leviathan.

She pricked her finger on a sharp edge of the locket’s broken clasp. A single drop of blood fell into the stagnant puddle at her feet.

"The cypress don't lie, cher," she whispered, her voice falling into the rhythmic lilt of a chant. "The roots whisper what your heart’s too stubborn to hear. Give me the veil. Give me the breath of the Bayou's bones."

Jax watched in silence as the water in the puddle began to churn. A thick, unnatural white mist began to pour from the vent slats, rolling out into the larger chamber like a physical weight. It wasn't just fog; it was a dense, cloying shroud that smelled of salt and ancient rot. 

"Go," Lena commanded, her voice sounding thin and distant.

They scrambled through the final stretch of the cooling vent, emerging into the humid night air of the bayou outskirts. The transition was jarring—the transition from the heartbeat of the machine to the chaotic chorus of frogs and cicadas. 

The mist she’d summoned followed them, a loyal hound of vapor that blurred the line between the industrial ruins and the cypress swamp. But as they sought cover behind a massive, moss-draped oak, the silence was shattered.

A massive beam of white light cut through the fog, sweeping across the reeds. 

"There!" a voice barked over a loudspeaker, distorted and cold.

As they slipped into the cypress shadows, the first Terrebonne floodlight pierced the mist, pinning them like spirit-trapped moths.