“I thought that was funny,” Ikey said. “It struck me.”
“It’s true,” David said. “You’d have died three times over if it hadn’t been for Gavril interceding. So you owe it to him to get him out of here. Three times over.”
“You exaggerate.”
“You kid yourself.”
“What has Gavril done for you? You helped arrange the transactions that will help me get him out of here. What has he done to deserve what you are willing to sacrifice for him?”
David shook his head. “It’s not sacrifice. It’s my debt to be repaid.”
“Bollocks. Whatever debt you’ve incurred, you’ve paid in full ten scores over.”
“Leave it,” David said, and the next armload of leather he swept from the machine curled and fluttered out farther than Ikey’s. They earned a glance of contempt from the other gatherer, who crab-walked several steps to pick up the pieces.
“Your devotion to him baffles me,” Ikey said as the man scurried away with fistfuls of leather bits. “Tell me honest. What has he done for you?”
David’s face was steeled with a hard resolve. His expression said he wouldn’t be pushed an inch further. “Without him,” David said, “I never would have lived.”
Or at least that is what Ikey thought he said as the press clanged shut before them and mangled David’s final word.
A second passed as David searched Ikey’s face for a response. Another second. David’s eyes darted back and forth, between good eye and bad. His brow sank slowly, as if the foundation of his confidence was eroding and taking his face with it.
Ikey inhaled deeply as David’s face crumbled. This was the moment to put his foot down, to draw the line and demand that David leave with them, or none of them would leave at all. He parted his lips as the third second passed.
David’s face caught suddenly, hitched, and arranged itself into a precarious expression, somewhere between devastation and resolve—bland and cold while twisted in a flying agony. Every feature of David’s face had a seam, like a stone wall, and fear was the mortar that held it together even as it crumbled.
The fifth second fell into the press. It clanged.
Ikey's shoulders hitched up around his neck. He glanced at where he last saw The Alligator, and there The Alligator stood. His fingertips rested on the bottom of the mace’s handle. The slick sweat that oozed off him glistened in the gaslight. Over the expanse of his muscled chest, he stared at them.
Ikey dove down and swept the tray. The pieces were worthless. Scrap. Chewed up.
“What the devil do you two think you are doing?” The Alligator roared over the din of the machinery.
Ikey pulled back as the tray lifted and clacked into place. David hadn’t cleaned out his half. David hadn’t budged, but stood and watched The Alligator approach.
By the cart, Gavril dropped his handful of pieces into a single bin without sorting them. He hacked into his fist as the other man turned back to the cart empty handed, eager to clear the radius of the coming explosion.
Ikey’s fist clenched as the press clanged again.
David turned away, toward the press, his spell broken. Ikey stood, however, and waited. Once The Alligator closed the distance between them, Gavril wouldn’t be able to stop him. The Alligator would be on him. And Ikey would show Gavril the skill of anger, the art of rage. The clear, beautiful blow that would leap from his arm, iron knuckles cannon-balling to their target. The Alligator’s face would crunch in, crackle under his fist. The head would snap back and everything Ikey had ever feared would fall limp and harmless to his feet.
Since the moment he saw Smith’s arm, such a punch ran through his fantasies a thousand—no, a million times over. He saw it. He felt it. Nothing in his life up to that moment felt more practiced or heartfelt.
“Are you daft?” The Alligator asked as he approached with quick, purposeful strides. His hand gripped the handle of his mace and the chain shivered with each step. “Do you two think you are at tea?”
This one blow. Everything led up to it. Gavril hunched over the cart and hacked into his fist. He couldn’t interfere.
“What’s that?” The Alligator asked. “I can’t hear your piddly excuses over your god-awful face.”
Ikey pulled down a deep breath, fanned the furnace inside him that trembled and threatened to explode.
Gavril stumbled over, swinging around like a marionette on the strings of a drunken puppeteer. Hacking into his fist, he collided with The Alligator.
“Watch your—“ The Alligator started. As his hand collided with Gavril’s chest to sweep him aside, a bloody wad of phlegm leaped from Gavril’s mouth. It arced the distance between the two.
The hiss of David’s breath rose over the clang of the press, the thunder of Ikey’s heart, the roar of his hurt and rage.
The glob of spit splattered across The Alligator’s chest.
Gavril stumbled back a few steps. Ikey flexed his knees, ready to launch himself forward.
With his hand, The Alligator wiped the glob thick mucous that ran in dark beige and scarlet streams down the front of his chest.
“You little…” The Alligator’s hand flew out at Gavril. The man ducked, but the blow still clipped the side of his head. He stumbled into the cart.
This was it. Gavril couldn’t stop him now. Ikey’s fist clicked as the escapements flitted over a few more cogs, and Ikey drew in a scratch more breath.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw David whirl around.
Ikey glanced over. As the press yawned, David crouched and thrust his hand inside. It wasn’t the sweeping motion that carried their hands over the tray and through. It was the motion of reaching, of sticking his hand into something.
Ikey turned. His mind scrambled to unlock the series of muscle movements needed in his chest and shoulder to command his hand to reach in after David’s. His mechanical arm stalled. The muscles in his chest were tight, locked. They trembled in the confusion of signals needed to operate the mechanical arm.
“No!” Ikey shouted. His mechanical arm thrust itself forward in a jerking motion.
Bits of chewed-up leather dropped from the lip of the tray as it lifted off the bottom of its arc.
Ikey’s hand grasped David’s. Tin brushed over iron as Ikey wrapped his fingers around David’s hand. Ikey thrust his shoulder up and back, but his arm barely moved. He lifted his foot to brace it on the machine and kick off, propel himself backwards as he clutched at David’s hand.
As Ikey’s boot found purchase on the edge of the machine, the press clanged into the top of its arc. Metal crunched. Ikey’s teeth set themselves on edge at how far up the tray went despite the two hands in it.
David screamed.
The press hissed, and then the tray lowered like a jaw. Released, Ikey’s weight and balance carried him backwards, away from the machine. As he toppled over, his mind tried to make sense of what he saw. How to fix it.
David screamed. And David turned around with Ikey, yanked along by his hand, still ensnared in the grip of Ikey’s own. David’s hand was stuck on his own. Their hands had been mashed together.
Ikey fell onto his back. The breath exploded from him as he hit the floor. His mechanical arm fell onto his chest. David collapsed beside him, landing on his stomach. Immediately, David was up on his knees and his one hand. His eyes swept across the floor to Gavril and The Alligator. David’s face wrenched into agony, teeth bared. Eyes squinted.
Bones snapped somewhere behind Ikey. But a single bone. Not like the chorus of them he had heard from Philip.
David cried out. Redness flooded his face. A line of spittle dripped off his chin.
Ikey turned his attention to the hands. His eye darted from part to part and sought the bits locked together. He closed his right eye. He yanked.
David yanked back.
“Be still!” Ikey spat and grabbed David’s wrist.
“What the hell is this?” The Alligator asked.
Out of the cor
ner of his eye, Ikey saw David glance up.
“I don’t bloody believe it,” The Alligator said. He laughed. A booming laugh.
Part of Ikey’s brain wanted to laugh as well, to throw his head back and get in one last good guffaw at the utter ridiculousness of the situation.
Ikey clamped down on David’s wrist and twisted his own arm. He managed only to wrench David’s arm around.
Now Ikey wished for Gavril to come to their rescue.
“Good Lord! You’re like two dogs stuck together in heat,” The Alligator chuckled. “Stop it, you bloody fucking curs.”
A flash of boot caught David in the breastbone. He jolted backwards, jarring Ikey’s arm and sending flashes of pain through his shoulder.
The Alligator howled. “I said stop it!” Another kick glanced off Ikey’s right shoulder.
His mind began to collapse in on itself, draw itself in, and imagine itself as the cart, the wood, the iron. He hadn’t time for it. He had to figure out the puzzle before him. He pawed at the leather straps that shackled David’s hand to the stump of his arm.
A kick caught David in the throat. He collapsed.
Ikey’s fingers slipped under the strap and pulled it free of the buckle. His hand closed around the strap. He yanked it up and back until the buckle’s tongue fell away.
One down. Two to go.
A large, meaty hand grasped Ikey’s right arm and yanked him up until he stood on his feet.
“I’ve had it with your ugly, fucking face,” The Alligator said as he whipped Ikey around.
Behind The Alligator, Gavril lay beside the cart, scarlet and blue, propped on an elbow. His right arm lay on the floor, bent at an angle that made Ikey’s mind stutter. Gavril’s face, torn and shredded into a mask of agony, still held a steel resolve as he pushed at the floor with his left hand, and his right leg drew itself under him. He was trying to stand up.
But Gavril couldn’t help them. At the moment when David needed Gavril most, he wasn’t there.
The Alligator drew his fist back. His eyes popped wide. His chin wrinkled with the effort of his wind-up.
In the end, everyone stands alone. And that was what Rose knew.
Ikey turned his head to shield his glass eye.
The fist exploded forward. Ikey flew backwards, plummeted into black.
But David's hand held fast.
Chapter Nineteen
Hands jostled Ikey. Taking something. Lifting. The world above swung into focus, and he saw familiar rafters and the face of Nurse Luca bent in concentration as she undid the straps of his canvas yoke.
“Gavril,” Ikey rasped.
Nurse Luca’s eyes flitted over to Ikey’s, and then back to her work.
“Lie still a moment,” Rolfe said off to the left.
He turned his head. Rolfe held the mechanical arm in place. Leather straps dangled off the end of it. David’s hand was there, mashed to Ikey’s own, but David was gone.
“Where’s David? Gavril?”
Nurse Luca peeled the canvas away from Ikey’s chest. Rolfe popped the arm free and placed it on the next bed.
“All three of you have taken quite the beating,” Rolfe said.
At the mention of it, pain flared in Ikey’s head, as well as along his right cheek and shoulder.
“Gavril’s arm?”
Rolfe looked up past Ikey. “I’m afraid it is broken.”
“No!” Ikey said. “You can’t send him to The Old Chopper.”
Rolfe turned his attention to the floor, like there might be something there that he had lost. “There is little that can be done for it, I’m afraid.”
Nurse Luca struggled to get the yoke off Ikey. He slid his arm and head out. “He’s not in Marlhewn because he owes anything,” Ikey said. “Don’t do this to him.”
Nurse Luca folded up the yoke and carried it off, holding it away from her as if it had offended her.
“What can be done?” Rolfe said. “The rules are the rules. Any laborer who cannot perform his duties will be augmented at his own expense in order to allow him to meet his duties. Those who don’t agree with such rules shouldn’t consent to work in here.”
Ikey seethed. “I was forced in here against my will. Whether you choose to believe it or not, it is the truth. No one sought my consent before giving me this. And who sought Gavril’s consent before bringing him here? Did he really consent, or was he sentenced to this prison against his will?”
Rolfe crossed his arms over his chest. “Is that any concern of mine?”
Ikey puffed out a breath and stared at the infirmary ceiling for a moment. “Please. Do not send him on to The Old Chopper. I might be able to make it worth your while.”
“Oh?” Rolfe asked. He lifted an eyebrow. “How so?”
Ikey glanced at the end of the hall. Nurse Luca had yet to reappear. “I can fix things,” he told Rolfe. “I’m good with mechanical items. I can repair anything. You see the augments that come through here. If you sent someone my way, I’d fix him up. You can charge whatever you want, keep the money for yourself. All of it.”
Rolfe’s mustache twitched in a smirk. “Fleecing paupers isn’t exactly a lucrative proposition.”
Ikey closed his one eye and brought Rolfe into sharper focus. “Can I pay for his augmentation? Can I take the cost of it on myself?”
“And why would you ask for such an arrangement, pray tell?”
“It’s my fault,” Ikey said. “I’m to blame for what happened.”
“What did happen?”
Ikey cleared his throat. “I got distracted. The Alligator went after me. Gavril tried to stop him.”
“And the hands?” Rolfe asked.
“I told you, I was distracted. David tried to pull my hand out before it got crushed. I take full responsibility for what happened.”
Rolfe shook his head. “I hope you’re a better friend than you are a liar. Your hand was over the top of the other man’s.”
Color flushed Ikey’s cheeks as he averted his eyes. “It still wasn’t his fault.”
“How was Gavril’s arm broken?”
“As I told you. He tried to stop The Alligator, and he got a broken arm for his trouble.”
“You don’t select the brightest for friends, do you?”
Ikey peered up at Rolfe again. “They’ve done whatever they could to save me. I wish to do the same. Whatever I can do to save Gavril from this. David, too. I can fix his hand. Both our hands.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Ikey stared blankly at Rolfe, unsure of where to go with his statement.
“You have gained a reputation among the inmates,” Rolfe said. “I’ve heard you can indeed fix anything. The inmates think highly of you, and I dare say you’ve had a remarkable impact on their morale.”
Ikey’s hand gripped the sheets beneath him. Where was Rolfe going?
“What would you indeed do to save Gavril and David a trip to the chopper?”
Ikey’s heart fluttered in his throat. “Whatever I have to do.”
Rolfe’s eyes flicked up to the end of the hall. He then glanced behind himself.
“For starters,” Rolfe said as he folded his arms before himself, “let me say that if word of this escapes the bond between us, then I will not hesitate to send Gavril on to The Old Chopper for a new arm, and whatever else that old devil feels like giving him.”
Ikey dipped his chin once. His head throbbed.
“Are we in agreement?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, if you wish to modify the terms of our earlier agreement, then I will need to modify the compensation.”
Ikey furrowed his brows. “What? What agreement?”
“You fix something for me, and I provide your friend with a dram of consumption tonic.”
Ikey’s jaw dropped.
“Instead, I will splint Gavril’s arm and keep him in the infirmary as long as possible. In turn, I need something else repaired, something that is, you might say, a beast of another
nature.”
“You’re the saboteur?”
Rolfe flushed red and scrunched his eyebrows. “I will have you watch your tongue! Such wild accusations are bound to create difficulties.”
Ikey glanced around the room, though he couldn’t see much beyond the privacy screens huddled around him.
“Suffice it to say that I am a man who wishes for a repair job done with both discretion and alacrity,” Rolfe said.
“What is it?” Ikey asked as Nurse Luca came back into the room.
Rolfe glanced at the nurse. “You are dismissed for the evening, my dear.”
Nurse Luca halted. She glanced from Rolfe to Ikey and back again. “But doctor, I meant—“
“I will see you bright and early tomorrow morning, my dear. Until then.”
Nurse Luca gave a half-bow of her head, then turned and left.
Rolfe looked back to Ikey. “She is quite the nosy lady. Watch your tongue around her most of all.”
Ikey nodded.
“Can you stand?”
Ikey nodded again. He pulled the sheets aside and swept his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. The world swayed and bucked, but remained under him.
“What of the David and Gavril?”
“They’ll be fine. I’ve administered laudanum to them both. Gavril will require some time to heal, and I’m afraid little can be done for the consumption. But David will be right as rain after a good night’s sleep.”
Ikey smirked. “No laudanum for me?” He touched his cheek with cautious fingertips.
“I need you awake. Come.”
Ikey followed the doctor into hall at the end of the infirmary. They proceeded to the last door where Rolfe slipped a key from a waistcoat pocket. After he opened the door, he entered and lit a candle on a desk. As Ikey entered the room, Rolfe proceeded to a bookshelf.
“Can you read?” Rolfe asked as he scanned the book spines. None of them bore titles, and the spines were identical, each with the same olive green leather and two gold lines running near the top edge.
“Yes,” Ikey said. “My uncle taught me.”
“Excellent,” Rolfe replied. He plucked a book from the shelf and drew it out. “That makes things much easier.”
Tin Fingers: Book 2 in the Arachnodactyl Series Page 20