Iron Cast(87)

“Dr. Knox asked me to prep you for the second phase,” he said almost casually. “He doesn’t trust the nurses down here. Weak stomachs, you know.”

Ada had thought that she was well past panic by now, but it reared in her throat again. Before she could attempt a desperate melody, Wilkey had fastened the gag in her mouth. Her headache flared again with renewed vigor, draining the little strength she had left. Wilkey half dragged, half carried her into the other room, past the rows of beds with white sheets covering the atrocities that had been committed underneath. The woman hooked up to the machine wasn’t screaming anymore. Her breath came in crackling, irregular gasps. Someone had pulled a sheet over the man in the bed beside her. Failed subjects, Dr. Knox had called them.

At the far end of the room, near the door to the corridor, there was a wooden chair with dangling leather straps beside a table of metal instruments that blurred in Ada’s vision. She realized with distant mortification that she was crying, but she couldn’t stop the welling tears. Wilkey uncuffed her hands and pushed her into the chair.

She tried to rise, more from instinct than from any real thought of escape, but her arms and legs felt disconnected from her body. She was nothing but her pulsing headache and her hot tears. Without her violin or her voice, what power did she have?

Wilkey worked quickly, buckling the straps across her chest, arms, and ankles. Ada tried to remember the devastation she had wreaked on him, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She had never wanted to use her talent to hurt people. She wanted to be like Charlie, playing hope and joy into places where there had been none before. Now she would never get the chance.

The thought of Charlie softened her headache somewhat but made the tears flow faster. He had told her that he loved her, and she’d given him nothing in return. Another chance lost.

Wilkey pulled something off the table, cradling it with both hands. It was a brass cagelike apparatus, a dizzying conglomeration of rods, screws, and knobs.

“I’ll confess I’m not entirely sure how this thing works,” Wilkey said conversationally. “Dr. Knox tells me that once it’s tightened over your head, it will guide in those metal spikes I mentioned earlier. Of course, we’ll have to drill the holes in your skull first.”

He smiled at her again, an almost cherubic expression in his doughy features.

Ada fought back her surging nausea and broke from his gaze. The door to the corridor opened, and Ada clamped her fingers around the arms of the chair, expecting Dr. Knox. Would they give her anesthesia first? Maybe she would just go to sleep and never wake up.

When she first saw Johnny, she thought they must have already injected her with something. Johnny Dervish was dead. He couldn’t be striding through Haversham’s basement with the same confidence he’d once had in the Cast Iron.

When he spoke, his voice was so real that Ada realized she must be dead too.

“Wilkey, what the hell is going on here?” he asked, taking in the sight of Ada with a disturbed frown.

“You’re not supposed to be down here,” Wilkey replied. He set the apparatus back on the table with the utmost care.

“Dr. Knox owes me money.” Johnny glanced at Ada. “And an explanation as to why he’s taking my people.”

“You’re dead, remember?” Wilkey said. “They aren’t your people anymore. And none of the other hemos you’ve given us survived the tests.”

“That’s not my problem. I delivered on my end of the deal, and I want my money. Where’s Knox?”

“Busy.”

Ada’s head was pounding with every word they spoke. She thought about Stuart Delaney and the other Red Cat musicians Charlie said had gone missing. Her heart was stuttering as she looked down the length of the room at all the silent beds. Johnny had been selling hemos to the HPA? He’d been selling them into this hell?

She was misunderstanding. She had to be. She coughed around the gag, desperate to speak.

Johnny leaned over and loosened the straps behind her head, ignoring Wilkey’s objections. The gag fell into her lap, and she sucked in a breath.

“Johnny”—but that was all she could manage. Her eyes were burning with tears again.

“Are you okay?” he asked her. “Don’t worry. I’m going to get you out of here.”

Wilkey laughed shortly. “As amusing as your selective compassion is, Dervish, you’re not taking her anywhere. Dr. Knox has big plans for this one, and the other two you’ve been keeping all to yourself.”

“They’re just kids,” Johnny snapped.

“So were a lot of the others,” Wilkey said, gesturing toward the long line of beds. “And none of them were half as potent as this one. Dr. Knox isn’t going to—”

The door flew open again. It was Dr. Knox this time, dragging Corinne by the arm. Ada wasn’t sure if she was relieved or furious to see her down here again. They both stopped in their tracks when they saw Johnny.

“Johnny, you— I thought you were—” Corinne sputtered. She looked at Dr. Knox, then at Ada, but no explanation seemed forthcoming.

“Knox, just what do you think you’re doing?” Johnny asked. His voice was low, dangerous.

Dr. Knox licked his lips, opened his mouth, shut it again. He had dropped Corinne’s arm, but she didn’t move. She was still staring at Johnny, her features balled up in confusion.