Iron Cast(88)

“My job,” Dr. Knox said at last.

“We had a deal,” Johnny said. “I want my money.”

“Right, right,” Dr. Knox said, bobbing his head. There was something wrong with him. He seemed bewildered. “Agent Wilkey, if you would be so kind as to—”

But he cut himself off and frowned.

Wilkey was shaking his head and chuckling. “Slagger bastard,” he said, drawing his gun. “You almost had me.”

“What are you talking about?” Knox demanded. He threw out an arm to shove Corinne back as she tried to move forward, which was the moment when Ada put it together.

“Knox’s eyes aren’t blue,” Wilkey said, raising the gun.

Before his finger made it to the trigger, Johnny whirled on him, something glinting in his hand. Ada saw that it was his pocket-knife half a second before he sliced it across Wilkey’s throat. For a moment everything was still. Wilkey coughed once. It was a wet, horrible sound. The gun fell to the floor, and he pressed his hands against his neck. They were immediately rimmed with blood. He staggered, and Johnny gave him a shove. Johnny’s expression was one of pure disgust as he watched Wilkey fall.

“I never liked you much,” he said to the twitching form. Then he cast an appraising glance over Dr. Knox, who seemed to be sagging around the edges. “Let me guess. James Gretsky?”

“We all thought you were dead,” James said, becoming himself again in less than the time it took for Ada to blink.

“How did you even get in here?” Johnny asked. He knelt down and started unbuckling Ada’s ankles.

“We called ahead,” Corinne said. “James imitated Mr. Haversham so that the nurse would have the gate open.”

“And she bought that?”

“There may have been a very persuasive French horn in the background,” James said.

“Where have you been?” Corinne asked.

“I’m sorry,” Johnny said. He pushed his hands through his greasy hair. “I had to take care of some things, but it’s over now.”

He met Ada’s eyes, and she felt him searching her. Trying to guess how much she had figured out. How much she was going to tell the others.

“Johnny, why?” she whispered.

She could see in his expression that his mind was racing, but she couldn’t tell what choices he was weighing. She did know the moment he made his decision. She saw it in the set of his jaw, in the flash of regret in his eyes. He stopped his work, having freed only her left ankle, and sat back on his heels.

“You were never supposed to know,” he said softly. “I tried to keep you both out of it.”

“What are you talking about?” Corinne asked.

“Johnny, all those people.” Ada’s gaze was drawn over his shoulder, toward the rows and rows of unmoving bodies. They’d been snatched off the street and murdered by a madman’s experiments. And Johnny had been the one to give them up.

“Can we talk about this later?” Corinne looked between the two of them, frowning. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

She moved to help Ada but hesitated when Johnny stood. He turned his knife over once in his hands. Wilkey’s blood still gleamed red along its edge.

“I can’t let you leave,” he said. “No one else can know.”

He spoke so frankly, so simply. Then he drove his blade into Corinne’s belly, aiming upward for her heart.

Ada’s vision slanted, but in that moment her nausea and headache deserted her. She was left with nothing but the clarity of Johnny Dervish with a bloody knife in his hand, and Ada knew he was coming for her next. She closed her eyes and told herself to sing, but the music had deserted her too. A hot, aching sob was building in her chest. She couldn’t breathe.

In a faraway and foggy part of her mind, she had the thought that maybe she couldn’t live without Corinne. Maybe her lungs knew that. Maybe her heart would stop next.

When she heard Corinne’s voice, echoing around her in a cloud of static, she almost couldn’t comprehend the words.

“This is a public service announcement, brought to you by Gerard Manley Hopkins, who gave a lot more thought to the meaning of life than is strictly healthy.”

The cavalier tone was entirely Corinne’s. Ada opened her eyes to the impossibility before her and immediately felt sick again. James was kneeling on the floor, and the girl in his arms was Madeline, her long hair tangled around her face as she gasped for breath.

Johnny was staring down at them, knife in hand. He looked wildly around the room; then realization dawned on his face. Ada followed his eyes to the loudspeaker mounted over the door. Johnny swore and fumbled for his earplugs. He ran into the corridor.

“Maddy, come on,” James was saying, his voice breaking. “Maddy, please.”

Ada struggled against her restraints, but of course it was useless.

“James, you have to untie me,” she said.

He didn’t look up. Over the PA system, Corinne was flying through the poem at a breathless rhythm. Underneath her voice Ada could hear a sonorous tune, churning out persuasion so powerful that Ada almost lost herself in it. It was a French horn. She shook her head to break away from the music and whatever illusion Corinne’s poem would conjure.

“James!” Ada cried. “Look at me. He might come back. We have to go.”