The Killing Floor Blues (13 page)

Naavarasi opened the attaché case, sliding out a blank piece of parchment and a green marbled fountain pen. As her palm slowly passed over the empty page, elegant calligraphy appeared in its wake. The jet-black ink blossomed like flowering vines, the rakshasi’s thoughts made manifest.

“Cute trick,” I said, pulling the parchment toward me and giving it a read. It was a contract, simple and to the point—and that bothered me. Nothing Naavarasi ever did was simple and to the point. It didn’t take long to read between the lines.

“‘Should the object not be delivered to Naavarasi by the deadline of her choosing,’” I read aloud, “‘Daniel Faust’s soul shall be forfeit’—oh,
come on
. You’ll just say the deadline is five seconds after you give me the job.”

Watching Naavarasi pout with J.T. Perkins’s face was unsettling.

“I’m hurt that you think I’d be so obvious.”

“You weren’t. That clause was to distract me from the better-hidden one two lines down.” I rapped my finger on the page. “The one that lets you redefine the definition of ‘success’ at will.”

“Language…is a fluid thing.”

I slid the parchment across the table, back toward her.

“How about this,” I said. “We shake on it instead. You give me what I need, here and now, and when the time comes I’ll return the favor. I give you my word.”

She eyed me dubiously. “And what is your word worth?”

I had to think about that.

“Depends on who I’m talking to. For you? More than for a lot of other people. Remember, I’ve got a built-in incentive to help you out: you’ve got it in for Prince Malphas. So does Caitlin’s boss. What makes you happy is probably going to make Prince Sitri happy, which makes Caitlin happy, and so on down the line.”

As she reached across the table, her hand—
just
her hand—rippled like a mirage. The skin turned the color of burnt honey, fingers lengthened, nails grew and flourished with jade-green paint. As we shook hands, a jolt of static electricity bit into my palm.

“Deal,” she said.

Her hand rippled again as she pulled away, the Perkins disguise firmly back in place.

She stashed the contract in her case and pulled out a short stack of papers. They looked like a recipe for eyestrain, covered in dense blocks of minuscule type and festooned with date stamps in faded blue ink.

“Um,” I said, reading, “I think this is the incorporation paperwork for your restaurant.”

“They said to bring ‘legal paperwork’ to conceal the ritual. That’s the only legal paperwork I had. If someone’s vexing me, I don’t
sue
them. I just…invite them over for dinner.”

I held the papers at arm’s length and squinted. They’d pass for legit at a casual glance. Under the first page was a sheet of loose-leaf notebook paper and Bentley’s familiar, cramped handwriting. His transcription of the ritual I needed. I had to smile. Just like Bentley to spend an hour copying lines by longhand rather than risk cracking a book’s precious spine on a photocopier.

“Is it what you required?” Naavarasi asked me.

“It’s perfect.”

When she spoke again, rising from her chair, she did it in Perkins’s used-car-salesman patter. “A pleasure doing business, then! I’m looking forward to seeing you again,
very
soon.”

She knocked on the glass door, and a guard came to let us out. He eyed the papers in my hand and I folded them protectively.

“
Privileged
communication,” I said.

Back in the hive, with the papers stashed under my cot, I found Jake and Westie milling around down on the crowded open floor. The sluggish air hung humid, choked with the stench of nervous sweat.

“Okay,” I told them, “here’s where it gets weird. I’m going to need you to do some things that might not make a lot of sense.”

“Brother,” Jake said, “I’m pretty sure things have already
been
weird.”

“Touché. Okay, correct me if I’m wrong. They’ll be storing Paul’s body on-site, until his relatives claim him, right?”

“Yeah, or they’ll just bury him in the potter’s field if nobody steps up,” Westie said, “but…his
body?
What’s that got to do with anything?”

I ignored the question. “And the morgue, is it close to the infirmary?”

“Spitting distance,” Jake said.

“The doctor on call, what’s his name?”

“Valentino. Guy’s all right.”

“What do I have to do to see him?” I asked. “If I tell the guards I’ve got a stomachache, that good enough?”

Westie snorted. “He ain’t the school nurse, friend. If you’re not bleedin’, the guards couldn’t care less.”

I was afraid of that.

“All right,” I said. “In that case, I need a razor blade.”

*     *     *

Whatever Emerson expected from the beginning of his shift that day, it probably wasn’t the sight of me rushing up to him with upraised, bloody hands, looking like something out of a zombie flick.

“You gotta help, man,” I groaned, clasping one hand to the side of my shirt. Blood soaked through at the hip, staining the beige fabric mahogany-dark.

“
Whoa
,” he said, taking a quick step back and pointing at me. “Do
not
get any of that on me. Why are you bleeding? What happened?”

I wheezed the words out like it took an effort to breathe. “Don’t know. Was just…just coming in from the yard, in a crowd of people, and suddenly I felt this horrible pain. Think somebody stabbed me.”

“Okay, c’mon.” He unclipped the radio from his belt and raised it to his lips. “Central? This is Emerson, bringing an injured prisoner to the infirmary. Need a guard to cover my shift at point C-1 for about fifteen minutes, over.”

I limped alongside him as he hustled me out of the hive and through the maze of corridors. All the while, sucking air through my gritted teeth and letting out the occasional moan.

It wasn’t a
complete
exaggeration. My injury burned like a row of wasp stings. Back in the hive, it hadn’t taken long for Jake to score a contraband blade from a buddy of his. Then it was time to suck in a deep breath and take one for the team.

Most people have some degree of love handles. I was in pretty good shape, but I had a little padding there myself. Padding that came in handy when picking a safe place to cut.

Usually, on the rare occasions I cut myself, I’m standing in front of a pentacle and chanting in doggerel Latin. Blood magic is powerful stuff. Do it enough times and you develop a certain skill for the quick, shallow slice, the kind of cut that bleeds, but not
too
much. While Jake watched, I untucked my shirt and pulled it up, took a deep breath, and raked the blade across my pale skin. It took a second for the pain to hit, an electric burn that slammed home as a four-inch line of scarlet welled up and began to pour.

“Jesus,” Jake said, taking the blade from my trembling fingers, “you’re gonna need stitches for that.”

“Trust me, I’ve done this before. I mean, it’s usually my fingertips, but still. It looks a lot worse than it is.”

I pressed my palms to the cut, smearing them together, getting blood all over my hip. My shirt was next. I bent to one side, patting the fabric against the open wound. When I’d finally finished spreading the red around, I looked like a proper stabbing victim.

By the time we reached the infirmary door, I was pretty sure the cut was already clotting. Still, I played it up and clutched my wound with grim resolve as Emerson ushered me inside.

The infirmary looked like any other doctor’s exam room, albeit with cheap, shabby fixtures and an industrial-sized lock on every cabinet and drawer. The cold eye of a security camera watched from the corner of the room as Valentino, a middle-aged man with a thick black mustache and a white lab coat, waved me toward a padded bench. I eased myself up onto the cracked tan vinyl.

“Got a bleeder here,” Emerson told the doctor. “Sounds like it’s pretty bad.”

Valentino fished in his coat pocket for a heavy ring of keys and fumbled through them one at a time, finally getting a cabinet unlocked. I was glad I wasn’t really dying. He slipped on a pair of disposable rubber gloves, then set a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a cardboard box of gauze pads on the counter.

“Let’s have a look, then,” he said and nodded to Emerson. “Thank you. I’ll take it from here.”

My attention was on the swinging door with the narrow, tall wire-reinforced window off to my left. On the other side, I could see a wall of stainless steel honeycombed with square doors. Morgue lockers. Bingo.

Emerson left and Valentino pulled up a stool. “Lift your shirt for me, please.”

I obliged. He soaked a gauze pad in alcohol and patted at the cut. My breath hitched at the sudden sting.

“Could have been much worse,” he murmured as he prodded at me.“This’ll heal up nicely. You’re a very lucky man.”

“That’s what everyone tells me,” I said.

I glanced at the clock on the wall, a sterile white face under a dusty plastic bubble: 10:04. He’d be calling a guard to take me back to my cell at any minute, and I’d lose my only chance.

Then the door opened with a faint knock. Zap, the trustee, stood on the threshold wringing his hands. He looked at me before he looked at Valentino.

Right on schedule.

Back in the hive, before my self-inflicted injury, I’d gone over my “shopping list” with Jake and Westie.

“Twine, or thick string,” Jake repeated. “Sure, that’s doable. And…a pack of cigarettes? I thought you didn’t smoke.”

“They’re not for me. Now, I don’t suppose either of you has an ‘in’ with Brisco’s little trustee buddy?”

“Zap?” Westie asked. “We’re not exactly close, but we’re not on bad terms neither.”

“What would it take to get a favor out of him if it won’t put him out too much?”

“Eh, he’s pretty laid-back,” Jake said. “As long as it won’t risk his trustee job, he’ll probably help out for a few bucks on his commissary account.”

I craned my neck, glancing at a clock set above the door to the yard.

“Okay, I’m going to be inside the infirmary at ten sharp. At five minutes after,
precisely
, I need Zap to deliver a message.”

*     *     *

“Message from the front office,” Zap said, sounding breathless. “You’ve got a phone call.”

Valentino glanced at the counter behind him where an old beige phone sat quiet and neglected. “They couldn’t transfer it to me?”

Zap shook his head. “Interoffice lines are dead again.”

“Fourth time this month.” The doctor sighed. “Did they take a message?”

“No, that’s the thing,” he said, then looked my way again. “Um, could I speak to you privately real quick? It’s…it’s about your wife. There’s been an accident.”

The doctor spun around, wide-eyed, the tail of his open lab coat swinging in his wake. The moment I’d been waiting for. I leaned forward, my fingers dipping into his oversized coat pocket and latching onto his key ring. The ring slid out effortlessly as he strode for the door, and I clasped the keys against my palm to muffle them.

Valentino joined the trustee out in the hall, keeping one foot in the door as they conversed in hushed tones. I didn’t need to listen in. I’d written Zap’s script.

St. Edna’s, the small hospital in Aberdeen, was calling with an urgent message about the good doctor’s wife and her involvement in a car crash. At least, that was what Zap was telling him. Valentino poked his head in.

“Stay
right here
,” he told me. “I’ll be back.”

Then he was off to the races, with Zap in tow. Leaving the wolf in the henhouse.

It was understandable. Everything was locked down tighter than a submarine door, and the camera in the corner was there to ensure good behavior. Of course, that assumed anyone was actively watching the screen, one of dozens if not hundreds all across the prison.

I wasn’t planning any mischief in here, anyway. My business was in the room next door.

I jumped up from the padded bench, ignoring a sudden twinge from my cut, and darted to the swinging door. The air dropped ten degrees on the other side. The chemical-lemon scent of antiseptic clung to every surface, sticking in the back of my throat.

Two examination tables stood on a water-stained granite floor, with a drainage vent between them. Both had an occupant draped under ivory sheets.

I pulled back the sheet on the first body. Not Paul, but I instantly recognized him from the flowery neck tattoo that read
Emilie
. It was the con I’d come in with, riding side by side on the prison bus. The one Jablonski had truncheon-whipped.

He had more than a head wound, now. His face looked like he’d gone ten rounds with a meat tenderizer, one eyelid a puffy mound and the other caved in over an empty socket. I wasn’t sure if that had killed him or the savage rents that peppered his chest, leaving his flesh torn and ribs cracked.

Jesus
, I thought,
what happened to him?

I had a sneaking suspicion that whatever he’d gone through, it had happened in Hive B.

All the more motivation to get the hell out before it could happen to us, too. I replaced the sheet, stepped to the second table, and pulled back the other one. Paul could have been sleeping, if not for the ash-gray skin and the crumpled ruin where his heart used to be.

I figured, given the distance between the infirmary and the front office, I had fifteen minutes at most. Enough time for Dr. Valentino to get up there and find nothing but a dead phone line. Then he’d call St. Edna’s; they’d have to search for his wife’s name and ultimately tell him there was no such patient. If I were really lucky, he’d call his wife to make sure she was okay, and they’d chat for a while.

As far as Zap went, he’d just claim he got duped by a prank caller. Happens to the best of us.

A rack of mortician’s tools hung on the wall, secured in a wire cage—bone saws and rib spreaders and hooks and hoses. A padlock dangled from the hasp of the cage door.

I felt the minutes ticking away as I tried one key, then another and another, fumbling my way through the ring until one made a hollow
click
. The wire cage opened with a rusty groan.

The Hand of Glory was old-school sorcery, dating back to the eighteenth century. One of the earliest attempts at an invisibility spell, or at least one of the earliest that actually worked. Sort of. Right now, it was exactly what I needed to secure our escape plan. I was familiar with the spell, but I’d never actually used it, because it was so hard to find the key ingredient these days.

The severed left hand of an executed murderer.

“On the bright side,” I told Paul’s corpse, “in a way, you’re still breaking out with us.”

Then I surveyed the rack of tools and picked up a bone saw.

I may have committed a tiny little murder
, Paul had told me when he signed on for the escape plan. One requirement down. As far as the other part, well, he’d been shot by a prison guard. If Jablonski didn’t go down for killing him—and he wouldn’t—that made it, by default, a legal execution.

I cheat at magic.

I took the sheet covering Paul and tucked one end into my shirt, wearing it like an oversized bib. Dead bodies don’t bleed, but they do leak. I stretched his left arm out on the slab, turning his palm facedown, and fired up the bone saw. The circular blade screamed like a dentist’s drill forged in hell.

It chewed through his wrist, spitting a stream of brown and red flecks that drifted down to the concrete floor along with a trickle of blood that had pooled in the base of his arm. The air filled with a stench like rotting meat mixed with burnt microwave popcorn. I just held the saw steady, careful, cutting as clean as I could until the last sinew sliced apart and the severed hand pulled free.

I tucked Paul’s arm against his side and covered him back up. All I could see was the clock, the minutes counting down like seconds as I ran to a washbasin and gave the blade a quick rinse in cold water. Far from perfect, but it looked clean enough at a distance. Valentino would discover Paul’s missing hand before he discovered the tool that did the deed.

And by then, we’d be long gone. Assuming I wasn’t about to get caught in the act.

I locked up the tool cage, slipped Paul’s severed hand under my shirt, and hustled back into the infirmary. I poked my head out the door. Just as planned, Westie was right outside with his trusty mop and bucket, taking his time as he swabbed the grimy floor.

He slid the bucket toward me with his foot, and I tossed Paul’s hand into the water. It made a tiny splash and bobbed in the soapsuds.

“Jesus Christ,” Westie said, his horrified gaze snapping from the bucket to me. “What the hell did you
do
in there?”

“I told you: here’s where it gets weird. Head back to the hive and meet me outside the bathrooms on tier three.”

He covered the hand with his mop and rolled the bucket away, muttering obscenities under his breath.

I’d barely gotten back to the bench, sitting innocently and catching my breath, when Valentino stalked into the room.

“Your wife okay?” I asked.

“Some people,” he seethed, “have nothing better to do than—yes, she’s
fine
, thank you. Now let’s see how that cut’s clearing up.”

I lifted my shirt and he rubbed the cut with rubbing alcohol again, mopping away the dried blood. The alcohol felt freezing and hot at the same time, with a sting like whiskey going down my throat.

“Hm, doesn’t need stitches, I don’t think. Might have a hairline scar, but it should heal clean.”

He turned on his stool, reaching for the cardboard box of gauze pads he’d taken down earlier. As he leaned to one side, I gently slipped the key ring back into the pocket of his lab coat.

I held a pad in place as he taped it along the edges, covering the cut under a fluffy white blanket. “Just keep that in place for a couple of days,” he told me, “and let me know if it seeps through.”

“Thanks, Doc,” I said, “you’re a real lifesaver.”

I hoped so, anyway. My little adventure in the infirmary had yielded the key ingredient for a Hand of Glory. Now came the hard part: making it work.