I grimaced, remembering the glimpses of past-lives flashbacks during my own time in the tank, much less with Mong’s whacks to my belly, and I didn’t doubt that what Blest was saying was real. Each scenario a new alternate reality in some dimension somewhere. Blest’s tragic tale was as close as I’d ever get to the real Blest and any clear understanding of his haunted past.
When Blest slipped off into unconsciousness, I heard the recurring moans and cries of a woman in a chamber somewhere down the line, possibly through an upper air vent. Perhaps they were Volia’s or perhaps other pleasure victims of the Orpheum.
Chapter 25
Mong had gotten a tad more creative lately and rigged an interesting variation of the hook and hang punishment. This one had me hanging from my toes, with my back to a pole, strapped at the waist. He claimed it would make me smarter, in a crude way, all that blood flowing to my head, plus seeing the world upside down. Did a man a world of good, he said. A party bag of laughs, Mong was. Hadruk had done the tying, not Balk who was the designated rope man. One of the rawhide knots ultimately slipped while Mong was out on errands, the one on my big toe, which allowed me to thrash with one freed-up foot against the knots of the first.
A significant breakthrough. With that foot I scraped a hell of a lot of skin off the other toes in the process, but after a painful amount of cursing and grinding, I managed to get the other foot free.
So, I was swinging ass over end, trying to worm my way free with waist still tied to the post while Zan was cheering me on in his hoarse way, practically dying up there in his hangman’s noose. While I was practically choking from being bent over double at the middle, my hips like a pivot with my spine still stuck to the pole. I did manage to squirm out of that hold with the extra leeway I had with my legs free.
I was squatting on the ground now like a pinched toad, panting, with only my arms bound behind my back. Not too bad for an old timer. I staggered up painfully, pushed my back to the post, rubbed the leather cords against the corner of the wood, all drenched in a feverish sweat, knowing that this would be the only chance I’d get to get the fuck out of this mess. Snap, snap. Enough friction to cut one of the cords then the other. Freedom!
Not too shabby. Some torn flesh, scraped toes and wrists, nothing I couldn’t handle. My ears perked to a fumbling at the door. I ducked, swearing as the iron frame groaned inwards. I hobbled the best I could behind the nearest Mentera tank, dreading the proximity to that vampirish creature and hoped whoever was coming hadn’t seen me.
It was Balt and his eyes flicked to the vacant post. Up came his rifle. “Rusco? Where are you? Come out, wherever you are.” The torturer grinned, aimed his rifle at the posts, peering crosswise.
I clenched my prosthetic fist, trying to stay hidden behind the hunched form of the locust suspended in the tank. Whether I got shot up or I didn’t, old Balt was in for a bit of rough and tumble.
This Redemption Hall went back quite a ways into darkness. I didn’t know what was back there. Didn’t want to find out either. That was Balt’s business and his first guess as to where I’d fled. He probed the silence, squinting into the dim shadows with a bulldog’s scowl on his face. “The more games we play here, Mr. Rusco, the more painful it gets for you. Big Mong’s not here to protect your silly ass. He gave me full license to use excessive force should there be civil disobedience.”
Good for you, Balt, you smug fucker. You can call ‘civil disobedience’ on me all you want. It ain’t over until the fat lady sings. I came scuttling back like a land crab from behind Blest’s tank, hoping to get closer to Zan who hung like a bug on flypaper.
Balt must have heard that scuffle of movement because he came beetling back like a scarab, clutching the end of his gun and using it as a club to take a big whack at me. He missed. I ducked the butt end of the rifle that came smashing full into Blest’s tank.
The glass splintered and water spilled out in a tidal rush. A whole side of the tank fell outward and Blest came sloshing out on his knees, gasping, choking and spewing putrid green water out of his gullet.
Balt charged me with a deep-throated roar. His full weight caught me head on, and I grunted, bowled over, croaking, smacking my metal fist in his face, jamming fingers in his nose, his eyes. The man was not human to have a grappling force like that. Any other strike would have split a man’s skull. I struggled with him. The man’s ape strength was enough to make me crumple and I could feel my backbone starting to give. I saw Blest out of the corner of my eye, staggering woozily to his feet while I fought on with less and
