Myrmidon

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Chapel could see the doubt in Andre’s eyes. The kid with the Hitler-mustache tattoo wanted so badly to skin Chapel alive, but he knew he shouldn’t. He had his orders. Belcher must have really gotten through to him, to give a violent punk like this some sense of discipline—but then, Belcher had been trained in leadership by the army, and Chapel knew how effective their lessons could be.

Andre pulled the knife away from Chapel’s face and started to get back on his feet. If Chapel didn’t push him again, the kid was just going to go back to guard duty, and Chapel would have achieved nothing but getting himself punched in the stomach.

Of course, if he pushed the kid too hard, Andre would just kill him.

When the Rangers had taught him this kind of psychological manipulation, they’d been very clear that it would backfire sometimes. But Chapel didn’t see any other way to move forward.

“Huh,” Chapel said. “I see it, now.”

Andre squinted at him.

“It’s subtle. I guess maybe just half.”

“What the hell are you jawing about?” the kid demanded.

“Your nose. I didn’t really notice it before, but yeah, definitely. You’re a little bit Jewish, aren’t you?”

“Shut up.”

Chapel laughed. “Wow. Talk about overcompensating. Was it your mother or your father? If you tell me it was one of your grandparents, I’ll believe you, but—”

“Shut up!” Andre howled. “It just looks that way because it’s been broken so many times!”

Ah. Chapel had hit a nerve. It had been a wild guess—the kid’s nose was a little bent, and for all Chapel knew, the explanation was correct. But in a group like Belcher’s, such minor differences would always be observed and commented on. “If it was your mother, that technically makes you a Jew,” Chapel said. “If it was your father, then—”

“I swear to God I will cut you open if you say one more word,” the kid shouted.

Chapel nodded. “I get it. You’re no berserker after all. No wonder Belcher put you in here with me. Keep the untrustworthy types all in one place, right? It makes—”

The kid was fast. He twirled around and fell right on top of Chapel and the knife went into Chapel’s guts.

He had intended to get Andre to leave the room, to leave him alone so he could work on his bonds. If that didn’t work he’d figured he would taunt Andre into fighting him, certain the kid’s code of honor would mean Chapel had to be untied so it was a fair match. He had definitely not intended to be stabbed.

The pain was incredible. He felt like he was being sawed in half. Hot blood sluiced down his side toward the floor, and his lungs seized as his chest constricted, and for a second all he could see was red light. The knife came out of his body, and it was almost worse, the serrated edge tearing open whole new parts of him, and Chapel felt dizzy and nauseous and like he was going to die.

But then he felt something else. A strange looseness in his chest, as if he were falling to pieces. As if pieces of him were falling away. Maybe as if he were shedding his skin. His right arm, his good arm, felt sudden prickly and numb as blood coursed through its veins.

The knife, he realized, had cut more than his flesh. It had cut the ropes holding him, too.

Above him, Andre lifted the knife for another strike.

If he’d been anybody else, if he hadn’t been Jim Chapel, that would have been it—his death. He wouldn’t have been able to fend off that blow. His right arm had fallen asleep long ago, losing all feeling where it was held against his torso.

But Chapel had a left arm that was made of servomotors and silicone and wires. That arm never went numb or got sore from being cramped in one position. That arm worked just fine.

The ropes twisted and fell away from his arm as he shot his artificial hand upward, trying to grab Andre’s wrist. Instead, the point of the knife went right through the silicone flesh that covered the hand, grating as it slid between two metal fingers. For a nasty second, Chapel and Andre both stared at the knife impaling Chapel’s hand. There was no blood, but Chapel could clearly see the point sticking through his artificial skin, and his brain immediately processed that information just one way: He’d been impaled. That was supposed to hurt. There were no pain receptors in his artificial arm, but his brain refused to be put off so easily.

He screamed. So did Andre.