Iron Cast(73)

Corinne felt she owed it to them, somehow, to not look away, but her eyes fluttered downward of their own accord. Her shoes clomped on the floor, and she could almost see her reflection in the scrubbed white tiles.

When they finally passed through a doorway into a smaller room, it was a strange relief to be pushed inside, where there was blessed concrete under her feet. She didn’t know exactly what she had expected to find, but the empty table with its four wooden chairs was not it. Overhead, a single bulb gave off a dull yellow glow, flickering intermittently. Corinne thought vaguely of Dante and his inferno again. They had traded one circle of hell for the next. Very faintly, she could still hear the woman’s muffled screams.

Agent Wilkey made her sit in one of the chairs facing the door. Ada dropped into the chair beside her and laid her head down on the rough grain of the wood. Though she was trying to hide it, Corinne could see that she was flushed and shaking. Corinne wasn’t in much better shape herself. She wished she could reach out and take Ada’s hand, give some comfort, draw some in return. Agent Pierce left the room, and Agent Wilkey stood in the corner, arms crossed, humming to himself. Corinne briefly tried to summon an illusion for him—something clawed and bloodthirsty—but it was an impossible task and she knew it. If she didn’t speak any words first to prepare his mind, then she couldn’t make him see anything. The attempt made her feel slightly better, though.

After a few minutes that might as well have been decades, the door opened again. Corinne recognized Dr. Knox from Jackson’s imitation of him. The squat, spectacled man in his pristine white coat seemed out of place in the dank room. He wiped a handkerchief across his shiny bald head and shut the door behind him. The room still held the barest scent of disinfectant. Agent Pierce had not come back.

“This is disappointing,” Knox said to Wilkey, tucking the handkerchief into his pocket and sitting down across from Ada and Corinne. “I expressly instructed you to bring Temple too. I’ve been told he’s showing signs of abilities well outside the norm of his affliction. I need him for the next phase.”

“We’ll pick him up later, when the streets are quieter,” Wilkey said from the corner. “We know exactly where he is.”

Corinne caught Ada’s eye as she straightened suddenly. Agent Wilkey saw the movement and smiled blithely at both of them.

“Interesting setup you have at the Cast Iron,” he said. “I’m assuming that basement was part of the Underground Railroad?”

Corinne’s chest was tight. No one outside the Cast Iron was supposed to know that the basement even existed. The blueprints gave no indication. City inspectors had no records of it.

“Take off the gags,” Dr. Knox said. “We can get started with these two, at least.”

Out of the breast pocket of his coat he retrieved a pencil and pad of paper. He flipped to a clean sheet and set it on the table.

Agent Wilkey unbuckled Corinne’s gag first, dropping it on the table in front of her. When he freed Ada from hers, she let loose a string of Portuguese on him so fierce and fluid that Corinne was a little in awe. She hadn’t understood a word of it, but judging from the tone, there was plenty of cursing involved.

“That’s enough of that,” Dr. Knox said. He took something else from his pocket and set it on the table between them. It was a piece of metal, the size and shape of a nickel. Despite the assault on her senses from the other sources in the basement, Corinne could tell that it was pure iron.

“You should probably work on your intimidation tactics, Doc,” Corinne said.

Without the gag she felt more like herself. Not being able to speak—and give derisive commentary—was like missing all her limbs. With effort, she pushed all that she had just seen to the back of her mind. From the corner of her eye, Corinne saw Ada raise her chin slightly.

“A gun might be more effective,” Ada said. “Or a knife.”

“Hell, even a pair of pliers will do,” Corinne said. She turned to Ada. “I liked the Portuguese, by the way. Very incisive.”

“Thank you,” Ada said, falling easily into the rhythm of their familiar banter.

It was as if they’d made the decision together. Dr. Knox and his HPA cohorts clearly wanted them terrified and compliant—a pleasure that she and Ada would deny them.

“You going to teach me some of those curses anytime soon?” Corinne asked.

“Not a chance.”

“How about just the translation for ‘Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood.’?” She looked at Dr. Knox and smiled innocently. “I have a feeling I might need it tonight.”

Dr. Knox did not appear to be perturbed by their exchange. He only scratched the tip of his nose, checked his watch, and sighed.

“If you’re quite through,” he said, “I would like to get started.”

“By all means,” Corinne said.

“There’s only one simple rule,” Dr. Knox said. “You do exactly as I tell you, or Agent Wilkey will hold you down and shove this iron down your throat.”

Corinne’s breath caught in her lungs despite herself. Suddenly the small iron coin on the table seemed enormous, crowding every corner of her vision. When she was thirteen, only a year after she had manifested as a hemopath, she had taken a dare from one of Carson’s boys to hold an iron fishing sinker in her closed fist for five minutes. She’d made it forty-seven seconds before the pain became unbearable, radiating through her body until she lost touch with the world around her, until she had dissolved completely and nothing but the pain existed.