From his vantage, Fergus saw items that belonged in a hospital, the type used to pry apart ribs and saw open craniums.
“Can you guess my former profession?” she asked, displaying a gleaming device that might be used to trim errant hedges. The too-wide leer had returned. “I was a medical examiner. Not only do I possess all the tools and skills necessary to inflict exquisite pain, I have the pharmaceuticals required to keep my subjects from passing out and missing all the fun.”
She spun, facing the old man now. A syringe appeared in the injured fingers. She stabbed Skeeter with the needle.
“It’s a heady cocktail containing a small amount of a neural muscular blocker to keep you from squirming too much, and epinephrine. You’ll be awake and pliable while you experience the worst pain of your life. Then I’ll move on to you...Fergusss.”
He’d never heard her speak his name before. It sounded like Golem pining for his Preciousss.
A few moments later, Skeeter’s head fell back against the cinderblock wall. A slit of glacial blue remained visible between the drooping eyelids.
“Tell me, old man,” Lizzy said in a conversational tone, “besides Ray, who was with you?”
“Nobody. Just me and him,” Skeeter muttered.
“Don’t insult my intelligence.” She grabbed one of his shackled hands, extending it to the limit of the chain, then inserted a pinky finger between stainless steel blades. “Who was with you? The blond woman?”
“Answer don’t change. Don’t matter how many fingers you snip off.”
“You say that now. Experience has taught me people are more forthcoming after the first one.”
Lizzy sheared the pinky finger off at the first knuckle. Blood flowed from the stub, saturating the cot’s blanket in a rapidly expanding circle.
Skeeter watched the process, slack-faced but eyes alert. His gaze followed the severed appendage’s journey to the concrete floor without a blink. The old man’s body didn’t flinch when the finger came off. Skeeter looked like he might be watching a TV show rather than experiencing the events in the flesh.
Thankfully, Lizzy didn’t seem to notice the lack of reaction. Perhaps the combination of drugs that coursed through her own system, revealed by those tiny pupils, had rendered her less observant.
“Now, let’s try that again. Who else was with you?”
Skeeter merely chuckled in response. Fergus smiled.
“Maybe we’ll cut to the chase and go right to the thumb,” Lizzy hissed.
Fergus’s scythen pinged: Lizzy’s painkiller was wearing off. Would that make her more or less dangerous? Ironically, as long as she didn’t kill the old man, it didn’t matter. He could hold out longer than her. The torturer becomes the tortured. Fergus was picking up on Skeeter’s scythen output as well as Lizzy’s. While her pain escalated, the old man merely felt impatient.
How long is this crazy gal gonna keep going?
The problem, Fergus knew, would be blood loss. Just because he couldn’t feel pain didn’t mean he could survive exsanguination.
“Lizzy, have you considered it was just Skeeter and Ray?” Fergus said. “It’s a fact that torture is ineffective at extracting information. He’ll just tell you what you want to hear to make you stop.”
Fergus winked at Skeeter behind Lizzy’s back. A corner of the old man’s mouth twitched.
Lizzy snatched at another finger, thankfully not the thumb. Fergus noticed the narrow gold band for the first time. Since he’d been in the holler, Fergus had never heard about Skeeter’s wife...Serena Jo’s mother, grandmother to the remarkable twins.
“Married man, are you?” Lizzy said. “Wonder how your wife would feel about a husband with no fingers? It’s a rhetorical question. You won’t be getting out of here alive.”
Skeeter’s eyes opened fully. “You keep that word out of your mouth, demon.”
Uh oh. Lizzy had revealed a weakness.
She giggled; it sounded off-kilter, even for her.
“Demon? How quaint. You know, I was like you once. Ignorant, poor, superstitious. It’s amazing what leaving rural Appalachia and getting an education will do for a person.”
Skeeter merely blinked in response. He knew all about that subject. His own daughter had done it.
“You do realize demons don’t exist,” she said, then gave a small grunt when she snipped off the ring finger’s tip.
After a two-second delay, Skeeter groaned. Anyone who hadn’t spent time with the man would have heard pain in that groan. It reminded Fergus of Willadean’s sweet-innocent-child act in the basement — believable only to an audience who didn’t know the actor.
“Who was with you besides Ray?”
“Go to hell, demon.”
Lizzy let Skeeter’s shackled, bloody hand fall to the cot. She whirled, facing Fergus. “Enjoying the show? I like to make these events last as long as possible, but I fear time is critical. If you can make him talk, now would be a good time to do so.”
Fergus gazed into Lizzy’s eyes.
The color of witch poison!
He heard Willadean’s voice, but not with his scythen. It was just something the creative little girl would have said. He looked beyond Lizzy to Skeeter. The bald head moved from left to right one time.
I got this, little feller. You just keep stalling her as long as you can. Help is gonna come...eventually.
That wasn’t his imagination. Skeeter possessed remarkable control of his scythen. Not at the level of Cthor-Vangt inhabitants, but still impressive. He’d probably been practicing it his entire life, perhaps not even knowing how exceptional he was.
Lizzy turned away again. This time she wasn’t slow and methodical when she sheared off the index finger at its base.
Skeeter groaned, quicker to react this time. The genetic gift that kept him from fully experiencing pain would qualify him for a place at Cthor-Vangt, but Fergus knew Skeeter would never leave the holler.
