Part Three

—ashes and motor oil—

The nursemaid threw Jason Magwier down onto the wooden table with bone-crushing force. He curled into a ball and groaned. When the sparks cleared from his vision and the agony in his testicles had faded to a dull ache, he cautiously examined his surroundings. Guttering candles revealed walls that were bulging and cracked. Paintings hung askew, each one ritually defaced. Stained blankets were draped over the bureaus, and atop those blankets were surgical instruments. Jason’s gaze lingered over them, these were not the sterile, keen-edged instruments of a hospital—these were blunt from overuse and encrusted with gore. Scattered among them was a selection of cruel-looking metal spikes. “What—” he asked, “—what are you going to do with me?”

Akantha patted his shoulder amiably and walked over to the other side of the room. Jason uncurled to watch her. That was when he noticed the corpses. There were seven of them, in varying states of decay, strewn about the room like a child’s abandoned toys. The top of each corpse’s skull was missing and the brain case was empty. “I’ve got a lot of hungry mouths to feed.”

“Yes.” Jason whispered, “Of course. You need to keep them fed, don’t you? Otherwise they begin to feed on each other . . . worse than Sea Monkeys.”

A long glass case on a raised dais seethed with soulwyrms—hundreds of the bloated, slime-covered parasites. The sound they made as they crawled over each other was maddening. The creatures reproduced by means of asexual division and they only reproduced if there was a steady food supply. Jason shuddered at the thought.

“Smarty-pants. You must think you’re pretty darn clever.”

“I can’t believe Sandor Perth would agree to something like this. He hasn’t cheated death, he’s just prolonged his dying.”

She examined the scalpels, retractors and spikes, searching for the appropriate tool, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

The first step to utilizing soulwyrms is to allow one to nest in the cerebrum of the intended subject. Then you let it feed, reproduce and feed until one has become a handful. Once they have become bloated and lethargic from gorging themselves on the subject’s gray matter, the information they contain are ready to be harvested. When swallowed, the still-living parasites will work their way into the space between the corpus callosum and the cerebellum and become dormant. Once this has happened, the experiences, knowledge and some would say the very soul of the subject becomes assessable to the utilizer as simple memories. Of course, that leaves the utilizer with soulwyrms in his brain and inevitably they become hungry again. The only way the utilizer can keep them dormant is to begin regularly feeding on gray matter. Certain enzymes absorbed into the bloodstream keep the parasites in their dormant state.

There are other ways to deal with the infection but there is a cost, Jason thought with a frown, such a terrible cost.

Akantha had not even bothered to fasten his manacles to the table. Apparently she did not think he had much chance of escaping or overpowering her. Was she right? He wondered how far he could hop before she caught him. 

Not far enough. He realized he had to keep her talking until he figured a way out of this mess.

“A woman’s work is never done.”

“Must not be easy though. Living in seclusion as you do lonely busy work. I’d feel sorry for you . . . if you were human.”

She paused, “What makes you say that?”

“Your breath. It smells like ashes and motor oil. Always does with a homunculus.” 

“If you say so.”

“I say so.” 

She selected a bone saw and switched it on.

Oh crap. Jason started hyperventilating at the high-pitched shriek of the spinning blade.

She strode towards him. “Now this won’t hurt a bit.”

“Wait!” he tried to roll off the table but she caught him, held him in place.

“One line, no waiting.”

“One last thing.”

“No bargains, no lies. Just death.” She smiled down at him.

“There’s something you should know.”

“Your pleas fall on deaf ears.” The breeze from the spinning blade tousled Jason’s hair.

“Lorelei has magic, powerful magic!”

“Nice try.”

“When she gets finished with your master all that will be left is a pile of fine gray powder!”

“Sorry. Try again.”

“Fine gray powder!” he shouted into the bone saw’s whine, “Do you hear me? Fine gray powder!”

“Liar, liar pants on fire.” 

“Didn’t you notice? The girl fairly radiates power.”

The bone saw wound down. “Lord Perth’s feelings about women and magic—”

“Were a widely acknowledged blind spot. Are you willing to take that chance? Not now surely, not now when things must be so very precarious for the both of you.”

“Damn you.” The bone saw slipped from her hands. She stood there for a moment, her fists pressed to her temples, “Damn you.”

“Not really up to this are you? You were built for cleaning bedpans and droolcups.”

“I’m full of surprises,” Akantha said as she strode over to one of the bureaus and grabbed a particularly long metal spike.

At the sight of it Jason tried to pitch himself off the table again only to be caught and rolled onto his back. Akantha raised the metal spike high over her head and brought it stabbing down. The sharpened point tore through flesh and muscle pinning him to the table. The pain took his breath away.

“Now just you wait here and behave yourself,” she said as she left the room.