Iron Cast (31 page)

When she tried to imagine what it would feel like to have the iron inside her, she couldn't help but think that she would rather die.

In the corner, Agent Wilkey was chuckling. “We had a slagger once try to claw open his own chest. What a mess.”

Dr. Knox cleared his throat. “Yes, well, he brought it on himself.” He eyed Corinne and Ada. “And if you have any ideas of escaping, you should know that Agent Pierce is on the other side of the door, wearing earplugs, and he does have a gun.”

Corinne wanted to look at Ada, but she was afraid of what she would see in her best friend's eyes. If Ada had given up, then Corinne wasn't sure that she could go on.

Dr. Knox nodded to himself, seemingly satisfied that they had grasped the gravity of the situation.

“Now that we have that nasty business out of the way, we can begin.” He waved Agent Wilkey over. “You can take your seat.”

Wilkey moved from the corner to sit next to the doctor. His expression was benign, almost bored.

“Some of the methods for conducting our research are unfortunately crude,” Dr. Knox said, taking up his pencil. “But I assure you it's for the greater good.”

“That's what they said when they mutilated slaves in the name of science,” Ada said. Her voice was low and trembling.

Dr. Knox ignored her and continued. “Tonight will be a very straightforward experiment. You'll simply be using your hemopathy on Agent Wilkey here, who is one of our best natural-born resisters. We'll determine exactly how long he is able to resist each of you. Once we have a workable measure of the hemopathic pathogens in your blood, we'll be able to move into the next phase of experimentation.”

“Is that what you're calling your torture chamber out there?” Corinne asked, concentrating on keeping the tremor out of her voice. She almost succeeded.

Dr. Knox waved his pencil dismissively. “We're winding down that phase. None of the subjects have survived the process, and I don't have high hopes for this latest round either. There's a cerebral component we're missing that interacts with the pathogen somehow. A full transfusion is not a viable cure. We need to isolate the lobe of the brain that is accelerated by the pathogen. I believe that is what gives you the power to manipulate others and to resist manipulation yourselves.”

“God, you're boring,” Corinne said, but inside she was reeling.

What she'd seen outside was starting to make more sense. The lunatic had been trying to replace hemopaths' blood completely, which meant there were regs being used too. Drifters, probably. People with no families to miss them. She turned her head slightly, trying to catch Ada's eye, but Ada was staring straight ahead, her shoulders squared, her jaw locked.

Dr. Knox sighed like a professor disappointed in his students.

“I wouldn't expect you to grasp the full importance of what we're doing here,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “If we can isolate a cure for hemopathy or an antidote to make non-hemopaths immune, then the scientific benefits will be immeasurable.”

“Don't you mean the paycheck will be immeasurable?” Ada asked. She was still staring straight past him, her chin raised slightly in residual defiance. In that moment she looked so much like her mother that Corinne's heart ached.

Dr. Knox actually reddened at her words. He tugged his collar.

“Well, of course there are certain monetary considerations,” he mumbled. “This has become my life's work. I've had my eye on you two since that incident on the Harvard Bridge, and I suspect that your skill may be more potent than our other subjects'. That, coupled with your youth, makes you prime candidates for my new study.”

“And what does this study entail exactly?” Ada asked.

Agent Wilkey bared his teeth in a gesture that only vaguely resembled a smile. “You'll find out soon enough.”

Ada flinched, and Corinne swallowed hard, her mind still echoing with the woman's screams. They had quieted now. Maybe she had run out of strength. Maybe she was dead.

Dr. Knox cleared his throat again.

“There's no need to concern ourselves with that at this juncture. First we need to ensure that you both are up to par, so to speak. Shall we begin?”

The longer Dr. Knox's test dragged on, the more outside herself Ada felt. There was something surreal about sitting in this chair, staring at an HPA agent as he sweat in intense concentration. Beside her Corinne was quoting her way through Christina Rossetti's “Goblin Market,” her pace lagging only slightly as she glared at Agent Wilkey in equal concentration. They had been at it for almost an hour now, by Ada's estimation. Thankfully, their cuffs had been removed earlier, at Corinne's insistence that she couldn't concentrate with the steel against her skin.

At the beginning, Corinne had attacked the task with vicious precision, using Poe to conjure a creature so hideously fierce that even Ada was taken aback. Wilkey had resisted for almost two minutes before frowning and informing Dr. Knox that he could see the illusion. When Corinne knew that he was seeing it, she had it jump at him, claws outstretched and fanged mouth gaping. Despite his attempts to remain unruffled, Wilkey had jerked back in his chair.

Beneath the table, Ada had turned her hand palm up, so that Corinne could tap her fingertips twice. Dr. Knox had barely glanced up from his notes. He checked the time, then told Corinne to do it again.

That was sixteen poems ago. Ada knew that Corinne was running out of steam. She was slurring the words to “Goblin Market,” and though Ada was just passingly familiar with the text, she was fairly sure that Corinne had skipped a few stanzas. Under normal circumstances, she needed only a few lines before she could conjure
an illusion for someone, and she could keep creating the illusions for several minutes after—as long as the poem was still swimming in the hearer's brain. Wilkey proved tougher to crack, and Corinne had to quote continuously in order to break through his concentration. Her voice was starting to give out.

“A goblin?” Wilkey asked when he finally saw the illusion. “That's the best you can do?”

Corinne sat back heavily in her chair and didn't reply.

“She can't do another,” Ada said. “She's too tired.”

She half expected Corinne to protest the insinuation that she had any such limitations, but she was silent, which meant she was even more exhausted than Ada thought. Dr. Knox looked up from his data and frowned. The gleam from the lightbulb flashed in his spectacles.

“I'll decide when we're finished here,” he said. He reached out and slid the iron coin half an inch closer, as a reminder.

Ada bit her lip and clenched her fists in her lap. Dr. Knox tapped his pencil against his chin in absent thought, studying Corinne.

“Fine,” he said. “I think the data is sufficient for an accurate average. Do you need a break before we move on to the songsmith,

Agent Wilkey?”

Wilkey shook his head and smiled leisurely at Ada. “I'm ready,” he said.

“I play the violin,” Ada told them.

“I've been told that your voice serves you just as well,” Dr. Knox said with a dismissive wave. “Agent, if you'll be so kind as to nudge me when you start to feel something. I need these in order to focus fully on the data.”

He fished some earplugs out of his pocket and pushed them
firmly into his ears. Ada guessed that he had been able to disregard Corinne's illusions because he knew they weren't real, but Ada's talent wasn't so easily ignored. Agent Wilkey leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. Ada glared at him and took stock of her own emotions, which were dwarfed by a single, overwhelming feeling. Hate.

She started to hum a funeral dirge, directing the full force of it at Wilkey. It took more effort to angle emotions at one person rather than let them blanket the room, but she doubted Corinne would have enough focus right now to block it out. This particular emotion was something she wanted only Wilkey to feel.

Utter, impossible, complete desolation.

In less than a minute his expression began to change. It was subtle at first. He was still trying to block her out. She didn't increase her volume. The song's quality was more important than anything else. Ada pushed the desolation into every single note. Wilkey would find himself spiraling through every hurt and heartache and loss that he had ever experienced. She played loss for the patrons at the Cast Iron sometimes, in order to sweeten the joy that would come later. This was different, though.

She didn't want to manipulate Wilkey's emotions. She wanted to use them to annihilate him.

When he felt the first wave of it, Wilkey smacked Dr. Knox's arm with a reflexive jerk. The doctor nodded and wrote down the time, but Ada didn't stop. She layered on the grief and despair, twisting them together with every ounce of guilt and shame she had ever felt. She had never purposefully used her own emotions in a song, but tonight it came naturally to her.

“That's enough,” Agent Wilkey said through gritted teeth.

Ada still didn't stop. Her voice was the only weapon she had in
this hell they'd created. She would inflict as much damage as she could before it was over.

“I said that's enough,” Wilkey shouted.

He jumped to his feet, chair skittering backward. In one fluid motion, he snatched up the iron coin, rounded the table, and grabbed Ada around the neck. Her vision exploded red as he lifted her and thrust her against the wall. He wasn't a big man, but he was deceptively strong. She clawed at his wrist but couldn't find purchase. Her lungs screamed for air, racking her head with pain. With his left hand, Wilkey shoved the iron coin into her mouth. She didn't think it was possible, but the pain expanded, filling her completely, pouring out of her in waves.

“You want to know what the new study entails, slagger?” he hissed in her ear. She could barely make out his words. “The good doctor is going to ram metal spikes into your head and pump you full of electricity. And when your body finally does give out, he'll drain every drop of your diseased blood. I'll make sure we ship your corpse back to your mother.”

He might have had more to say, but he didn't get the chance. Corinne chose that moment to smash her chair into his back. There was a crack—Ada couldn't tell if it was Wilkey or the wood. He howled, and his grip loosened. Ada fell to the floor, spitting out the coin and gasping for breath. She dove out of his reach, but not before aiming a kick at his kneecap.

“Stop!” Dr. Knox was shouting.

Wilkey didn't seem inclined to listen. He had rounded on Corinne, and she backed away until she was against the wall. Ada managed to drag herself to her knees, but her legs wouldn't cooperate. Spotty vision. Splitting headache. But she had to get up. She had to help Corinne.

The door opened, and Pierce came in. He took in the scene with a stony expression, gun in hand. The sight of his partner seemed to bring Wilkey back to himself.

“Get the cuffs,” Pierce said.

“This is unacceptable,” Dr. Knox said, waving his notebook with fervor. “The agency promised me the highest degree of professionalism.”

Pierce ignored him and crossed the room. He yanked Ada up by her arm and deposited her back in her chair. She tried to struggle, but her failing strength ended the attempt quickly. He righted Corinne's chair and gestured at her wordlessly with the gun. She looked at him with undisguised fury and cast a glance toward Ada.

Ada shook her head fiercely. She would never forgive Corinne if she got herself shot right in front of her. Corinne set her jaw, but she sat down without protest. Ada saw that one of the chair legs wobbled now, and she felt the strangest urge to smile. The urge was fleeting.

Wilkey handcuffed their hands behind their backs again, just as a buzz of static made Ada jump in her seat. She looked toward the source to see a beige loudspeaker mounted in the corner of the room.

“Dr. Knox,” came the voice of the desk nurse, “we need you upstairs.”

Dr. Knox muttered something to himself and gathered his notebook and pencil.

“You two come with me,” he said to the agents. “I don't trust either of you with my test subjects.”

Neither Wilkey nor Pierce objected, though Wilkey cast a deathly glance over his shoulder on the way out. They left the metal gags where they were on the table, and Ada could still feel the
angry pulse of the iron coin somewhere on the floor behind her. Dr. Knox shut the door behind them. The lock clicked into place.

She and Corinne were both silent for a while, readjusting to the sting of the steel on their wrists. Ada's head pounded with Wilkey's words, but she fought them back. She wouldn't give him what he wanted. He could hurt her, but he wasn't stronger than her. She'd watched him crumple beneath the weight of her music.

When she finally gathered herself enough to speak, her voice came out scratchy and soft. “I'm sorry if you felt any of that song,” she said. “I tried to aim it at Wilkey.”

Corinne shook her head slowly. She was staring hard at the tabletop. Ada could see her hands were shaking behind her back.

“I've never heard you play anything like that before,” she said. “I didn't—I didn't know you could.”

Ada hadn't known she could either. She'd had no idea that she even had the capacity to hate someone as much as she'd hated Wilkey in that moment. It wasn't really Wilkey she hated, though. It was everything he stood for. It was the atrocities they were committing in the next room. It was this world that these men were forging in their underground lair. A world where she was just a test subject, where she had no choices, no recourse, no power.

Johnny had given her those things when he'd given her the Cast Iron. She wasn't willing to surrender it, not to Haversham Asylum or to the Hemopath Protection Agency or to anyone else.

Corinne had felt only a sliver of the emotions that Ada had unleashed on Agent Wilkey, and even that was enough to make her heart clench and her head swim. She didn't pity the man in the least. After the sight of him with his hand around Ada's neck, she wished that Ada had given him much worse. She was worried,
though. Ada felt guilty about using her skill to con even the most corrupt, cruel, deceitful john out of his money. What kind of pain was she feeling if she was willing to wreak such devastation now?