by Tim Akers
Grimacing, Emily dragged herself forward. He held the pistol on her, a little half smile wrinkling his face, until she collapsed next to me on the sofa. Her skin was cold and pale, and sweat beaded her face.
“Enough? This is a good start, but we really don’t have much time. Not the usual leisurely chat, for us. I’m going to start by assuming that you don’t have it with you?”
“What?” I asked.
He reached forward and cracked my face with his pistol. With my arms bound I fell to the ground, smearing blood on the carpet.
“I don’t want to sit through this again.” Arms on my shoulders, he grunted as he lifted and then dropped me onto the couch. Emily was gaping at him. When I looked up he was leaning against the desk, as though he had never moved.
“Jacob…” she whispered. “Fucking… Jacob…”
“That wasn’t my question. I don’t blame the boy, of course. From what I’ve heard you’re a talented girl. But let’s keep to the subject. Is it with you?”
“You mean the Cog?”
“I do.”
“Never heard of it,” I spat, blood dribbling down my chin.
His face didn’t change, but he hunched forward. Emily pressed herself back into the couch. Didn’t make any sense to me. I was the one getting punched, no need for her to flinch like that. Only the spook didn’t punch me, not yet. He set down the gun, then pulled on the thin leather gloves. His hand on my knee was heavy, like lead.
“Jacob. There are things you should know. Secrets. I know this whole thing has been very difficult for you.” He turned his head to look at Emily, then back to me. “Your family, as well. Hard on all of us. I’m not here to make things more difficult. It may get difficult, in the short term, I’ll admit that, but what happens is really up to you. Okay?”
“You’re a psychotic fuck, Sloane. Don’t play with me.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just my nature.” He squeezed my knee like an old grandfather. “But really, I’d like to help. Is there anything I can answer for you? Any questions you might have that might make this whole thing go easier?”
“Say you have me, and you get the Cog. What are you going to do about our winged friend?”
“The Angel?” He smirked. “Things are being lined up for him. Don’t worry. And now, I suppose, it’s my turn.”
He pulled his gloves tighter, then leaned close and ran a finger across my face. His face was screwed up in concentration.
“They did quite a job on you, Jacob Burn. I can feel it, burning out of you. The bruise is already fading. There is a fracture, as well. Here.” He stabbed an iron finger at my cheek. Pain shuddered through my face. The bones ground. I did what I could to not scream, but it was a near thing. “Yes, but not for long. Healing already.”
“What do you know about that?” I gasped as he dropped me back on to the couch. He wrinkled his brow.
“Yes, see. Curiosity. Questions.” He pulled a chair over and sat down, his hands folded casually in his lap. “And then answers. All very simple. So. What do I know about your little talent.”
“Don’t listen, Jacob,” Emily whispered, angry. “He’s just a thug. He’s just making shit up to get you talking.”
“Does it matter? I’ll tell you what I know, and you can believe it or you won’t. Doesn’t matter.” He leaned close to me. “Your heart, Jacob, is a favor done for some very powerful people. A debt that will be repaid, you understand.”
“Let me guess. You’re here to collect.”
Again, that smile. That dead, damn smile.
“It’s not your debt, Jacob. Now. My turn. The Cog isn’t here?”
“Fuck off.”
“I will take vulgarity as a demure negative. But you have it?”
“Fuck. You.”
“Hm. Look, Jacob. We both know that I can keep breaking you, and you can keep unbreaking. And as much as that idea interests me, well.” He tossed his hands up. “Time. It’s all down to the damn time. It’s just not in our favor.”
“Jacob…” Emily said. Her voice was laced with terror.
“But it’s just your body, right? There are ways around that.” He stood up, peeling off the gloves, throwing them on the table. Walking over to the jumble that was apparently Marcus, he rubbed his hands together. “Dear Marcus, for example. I could not… speak to his body, in my usual way. You made sure of that, yes?”
Hauling up the roughly dressed pipes and crude bolts as though they were foil, Sloane held the machine in front of us and flipped it on.
“Marcus?” he asked.
The pipes moaned. The legs struggled to find purchase, like a drunk on ice. Finally, the device stood on its own.
“But we found a way, didn’t we, Marcus?”
“Jacob? He’s here, isn’t he?” the pipes groaned. “Right here. I found him, like you said. Like the deal.”
“Deal is such a broad term, Marcus.” Sloane rattled the machine. “You found him, like we demanded.”
“That’s just a trick, Sloane.” I squirmed until I was sitting up. “There’s nothing of Marcus there.”
“Oh, but there is. Bits of him. The bits that can still be hurt.” Sloane ran a hand gingerly across the manifold, then slapped the lever off. Again, Marcus fell. The noise of the collapse was heavy.
“Like the soul machines in your lovely zepliners. You remember those, Jacob.” He twirled his fingers, like a butterfly in flight. “The spirit in the pipes, away from the body, in the machine. And if the body goes, well, the pipes are still there. And the soul.”
I thought of the captain on the Glory of Day, his metal voice on the Glory.
“Marcus was dead,” I said.
“Yes. Hugely helpful, you killing him. Something about souls, Jacob, and the people who kill them. Like two magnets, brought together.” He patted the collapsed shell of Marcus. “It’s slow, but inevitable.”
“This is how you kept finding us?” Emily asked. “At the lab, and now here?”
Sloane shrugged.
“My point, Jacob, is that I don’t need to hurt your body. And I don’t need to wait until you die to hurt your soul. It’s easier that way, but that’s… simply not on the table.”
“I’m terrified. Really. You should tie some more straps on me, because I might shake apart with the trembling, Sloane.”
“Brave man,” he said, grinning. “And funny. A god damn waste, kicking you out of the Council. Still,” he picked the leather bag up from the floor and set it on the desk. “You’ve served your purpose well.”
“Whatever you do, Sloane, leave her out of it. She doesn’t know anything.”
“Probably true.” The brass clasps snapped open, the buckle shrugging free to clang against the desk. “Wouldn’t that be interesting? Finding out what you know, girl. Finding all your secrets.”
Emily paled and shrank into the sofa. I wrestled with the straps across my chest. The leather was biting into my arms, but I thought that, with time, I’d be able to get free.
“Another time.” Sloane opened the bag and drew out a long tangle of hoses, bound in tarnished brass clasps and piped fittings. There was some central core to the machine, a complication of pumps and coiled springs. He set this on the table. It scarred the shiny veneer of the wood.
“Do you want to know about this? What it is, what it does?” Sloane held one of the rubber hoses across his thin palms like a holy relic. “Will that make it easier for you?” He looked down at me, his eyes flat, dark pits in his face.
Cold sweat broke out across my hands and face, something I couldn’t avoid. My toughest face wasn’t good enough for this.
“It helps me, sometimes. Knowing what’s going to happen. I form it in my head, smooth it out. See it.” Holding the hose in one hand, he cupped my chin, then ran a dry finger across my cheek. “In your situation, though. I understand, not wanting to know.”
He took the hose and looped it loosely around my head, gathered it up and looped it again, the coils building up beneath my
chin. Each time he gathered, the hose snuggled up against my throat. It tightened. My head filled with the sound of my hammering blood. I tried to struggle, to flop free, but my body wouldn’t respond. I felt paralyzed, caught in the strange formality of the ritual.
“Emily, dear. Your eyes.” He planted his palm flat against my forehead and grimaced. “I would close your pretty eyes.”
With a jerk he tightened the hose. Emily screamed and threw herself off the couch. He brushed her aside, kicking her as she fell. My whole head squeezed shut, my tongue lolling up out of my mouth, my eyes wide and hot. I struggled to breathe, to scream, but my body felt farther and farther away. Through the hammering blood, I heard his voice.
“This is the worst part, Jacob. The worst.” He held the hose easily in one hand, his knuckles tight against my throat, holding me up. With his other hand he loosened his collar and showed me the old scars, the shiny skin of his neck. “I know. I understand. After this, my boy, there is nothing but darkness. The worst is almost over.”
He was right. The darkness came, and silence. The last thing I heard was the machine on the desk starting up, and the pulse moving through the hose, my neck, my blood, into my heart and dreams.
I woke up to a taste, and nothing more. It was like tarnished brass filling my mouth, only I had no sense of mouth or tongue. Just a taste, hanging in emptiness.
There was nothing of my body, no feeling of pain, no sense of place or orientation. I could see nothing. Not blackness, as though I had closed my eyes or stood in a perfectly sealed room, but absolutely nothing. The idea of sight was distant, something remembered but unfamiliar.
“There, Jacob, you see? This isn’t as bad, is it? Not at first, anyway.” The voice of Sloane arrived without direction or weight. Just words I knew I was hearing, somewhere.
“Now, before we begin, there’s something I need to show you, Jacob. Pay very close attention to this. Are you ready?”
What followed was nothing like pain. Pain has limits, it has durations and intensities. It leaves scars and teaches lessons. What followed was suffering, pure and simple. It was loneliness and loss, the obsessions of spurned love and the emptiness of lifetimes spent in isolation. It was being alone forever, again and again. It stopped, leaving nothing but the taste of brass.
“There. Do you understand now, Jacob? Emily seems quite concerned. You put on quite a show. Let her know you’re okay, son. Just say yes, Jacob. Tell her you’re alright.”
Speaking without a voice is strange. I fixed it, like some talent I didn’t know I had.
“Ye-”
He hit it again. Five more times before he asked another question. I learned to scream too.
“Do you understand now?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said weakly. Could Emily really hear me, or was my body lying nerveless on the couch?
“Very good. We will start simply. Who on the Council is funding you, and what dealing have they had with the Church?”
“I…” I wasn’t sure what to say. “No one is funding me.”
It started slower, just a background tearing of emotion, an undercurrent of wasted life and depression.
“Someone must be standing with you. Emily is here. Should I evacuate her, see who she’s willing to name?”
“There’s no one, Sloane. Everyone seems to be trying to kill me or capture me. I’m running from everyone.”
The tearing continued for a while, pulsing through me like a thorned rope, then it receded.
“We’ll let that stand for now. How did you get in touch with Marcus?”
“Again, I didn’t. I was downfalls on other business. I saw him on the return trip.”
“You just happened to be aboard that specific ship, on that specific day.”
“Yes.”
Suffering, for a while.
“We know Marcus was in conversation with the city. He told someone his plans, which ship he’d be taking, and when. That he was being pursued. They promised him safety, pledged it, once he got to the city.”
“He didn’t make it.”
“No. Because you were sent to gather him up. And things got out of hand.”
“I wasn’t even supposed to be on that flight, Sloane. I got delayed on my job. It was just chance.”
The next jolt lasted longer, if eternity can last longer. I had a brief, shocking feeling of my body, drifting farther away from my floating consciousness.
“Stay with me here, Jacob. I don’t believe you. This can go on for a long time. It can go on forever. All I need is your body, remember. You don’t need to be in it.”
“Go to hell,” I whispered.
“Of course. But first, I need to understand. You say that you just happened to be on the Glory. Of the thousands of people in the city, the hundreds of thugs who could have been on Valentine’s business, by pure chance, it just happened to be you that he sent.”
“Pure chance,” I repeated.
“Wrong.” Jolt. “Wrong, Jacob.” Shattering jolt, my soul falling apart, my body leaving. “I don’t believe in chance. Not in these matters.” Jolt, less memory and more severing of my body. I was leaving, I could tell, leaving the world for an eternity of brass and suffering. “You will tell me, Jacob, and you will…”
The pain ended. The taste left my mouth, and time passed in darkness. I have no idea how long it was. When I woke up the street outside was bright, sunlight pouring in around the shutters of the front window. Sloane was sitting at the desk, thumbing through a sheaf of papers.
“Ah, good.” He looked up at me, nodded. “Sorry about the delay, Mr. Burn. There has been, well. A development. An interruption to our little discussion. Sorry.”
“Don’t mention it.” I spat and looked around. Emily was gone.
“Yes, your friend has been moved.”
“Where is she?”
“Elsewhere. Not here. That’s all I think you need to know. You’ll be moving soon as well.”
I struggled to sit up. He hit me again, and the jagged line of pain in my cheek put me on my ass. As I fell, a loop of belt fell off my shoulder. My arms loosened. I curled up on the couch to cover it.
He stood up and came over, peering at me curiously. “What happened to her, by the way? That surgery for her wound, it was very… intuitive. Primitive, but still elegantly done. You didn’t do that, obviously.”
“Fuck off.”
“This again. You should try harder to offend me, Jacob. It would at least make our conversations more interesting.”
I pulled myself up, best I could. The belts loosened just a little more. It was going to be okay, I thought. It’s going to work out.
“You aren’t worth the effort, Sloane.”
“Ah, well. You tried at least.” He pulled up my chin to look at my eyes. “Yes, I suppose that’s the most I can expect of a child like-”
I swung my arm up and grabbed his wrist. His bones felt like stone.
“Ah, yes,” he said anxiously. “Yes, yes, yes.”
I punched my elbow at his waist, but he pulled back. I stood. He took my arm in both hands and threw me against the wall. It was a well-built house, and I crumpled to the floor.
“This is much better, I suppose. At a different level. Still. Invigorating.”
I struggled out of the bonds, letting them slip over my legs. I wasn’t quite free when he got to me. His fists were steel, and precise. I yelped.
“Okay. I can’t let this go much longer.” He was barely breathing heavily. “Perhaps another few rounds, and then-”
I kicked both heels into his knee. He went down, his face carefully disappointed. I rolled over him and crawled towards the desk. He came at me from behind, cracking my head with both fists. My nose jammed into the floor. I breathed in blood.
“Gods… fuck.” Sloane struggled up, leaning against the desk chair. “You’re making this difficult, Jacob.”
“Fuck off,” I hissed, then slapped the desk over. The papers scattered, but the pistol rolled next to my hand
. I took it up in both hands and fired two quick shots through the room. Sloane stopped talking and jumped. I rolled behind the couch.
“This isn’t going to go well for you, Jacob. We have the girl. If you don’t come out, right damn now, we’re going to ruin her.”
I stood and crossed the room. He stood.
“Good call, Jacob. Hand over the pistol.”
I knuckled the revolver and punched him with the chamber tight in my palm. His lip split, and he went down.
“Where is she?”
“Elsewhere, Jacob.” He smiled through bloody teeth. “Elsewhere.”
“I don’t give warnings, Sloane. Where is she?”
He shrugged. The Badge broke in the door. The wood splintered, and I stepped back. Sloane punched me on the inner thigh and I staggered all the way to the couch. Sloane ducked out. I fired another shot, catching him in the shoulder. He lurched into the street, yelling. The Badge looked back at their boss, just long enough for me to put holes in them.
I went to the door. The cold iron carriage was there, the one I had seen earlier at Emily’s apartment. Marcus’s carriage, I realized. I looked back at his crumpled form. The Badge was forming up outside. There had to be a back door.
As I left the room, I paused by Marcus’ metal form. I thought of the timeless suffering, the taste of brass and the tearing of my soul. There was a valve, sealed shut. I got a length of pipe out of the kitchen and tore it off. He rushed out like an exhausted wave on the beach, his spirit washing through the room in horror and relief. When he was gone, I took another shot out the open door, scattering the Badge, then went upstairs. There was a back balcony off the child’s room. I jumped to the next roof and ran.
I knew it was wrong before I got there. The sounds, the light. None of it was right. I almost turned back before I got there. I stood at the last corner, my hands and face resting on the cold stone for ten minutes. I kept hoping to hear something; Wilson complaining to himself, or working on some experiment. Anything.
The cistern was torn up. This is what had happened, what had interrupted Sloane’s questioning. They didn’t need me to tell them where the Cog was. They had it. They came in here and got it. They had come in with guns, explosives. Stone fell from the ceiling, choking the water. Whatever secret outflow had swallowed the spring was blocked, and the cistern was rising. Dark water was pooling up over the rocky pier, flooding the floor of our hideaway.