Amhurst raised one bony shoulder. “Yes, but I didn’t really know what I should do with it. Felt odd disposing of it in the trash, so I put it in the freezer.”
Something in Blake’s mind rebelled at the thought of his arm in a freezer, like a piece of meat. He suppressed a shudder. “What about your other house guests?”
“Satoshi is still nearly split in two over there, and Mikhail is upstairs. I was able to stop him before he killed himself.”
“He tried to kill himself?”
“Indeed. He had a fake molar — filled with cyanide, no doubt. I clubbed him over the head and stuffed something in his mouth so he couldn’t bite into it.”
This geezer kicks ass! Blake got a mental picture of the good doctor beating someone upside the head, and it was all rather comedic. Then he remembered what Amhurst had done to Gernot and Blake knew this man was capable of more than he appeared. He made a mental note to never get on the doctor’s bad side.
Then he decided he’d wasted enough time in this bed. He had to get back to work. The muscles in Blake’s body protested, but he slid his legs over the side and tried to stand up.
“You should rest,” Amhurst said, moving forward and bending over Blake to help him up.
The doctor’s proximity granted Blake a whiff of the man’s scent — a combination of stale sweat and musty clothing. It reminded him of how his uncle smelled in his old age; like someone who cared so little for his own life that he couldn’t even be bothered with something as simple as a bath. If Blake didn’t already know Amhurst’s sad history, the man’s scent alone would have betrayed the absence of a woman in his life. “I’d rather ask Mikhail some questions,” he said.
“At least have a drink of this first.”
Blake didn’t have a chance to decline; Amhurst was already at work preparing the beverage. He poured from the bottle into the glass, filling it almost halfway. Then he placed a silver piece of metal with tiny holes over the rim of the glass and used a pair of prongs to set a single sugar cube on top of the metal.
Blake watched all of this with fascination. It’s like a lab experiment.
Amhurst turned the spout valve on the urn and the clear liquid dribbled onto the cube of sugar. It began to erode and fall into the glass, mixing with its contents to create a cloudy, mother of pearl concoction. The smoky clouds transformed into a dull light green. When the sugar completely dissolved, Amhurst took the silver strainer off the glass and stirred the tonic before handing it to Blake.
As soon as the taste hit his mouth, Blake felt the sting, but it wasn’t unpleasant and the sip went down easy. “This is actually pretty good, what is it?” He took a second swig.
“Absinthe.”
His hand halted. Blake had thought it was merely a cure-all elixir. Any other time it might have been nice to lose himself in the power of Absinthe, but this wasn’t the time to be blazed drunk. However, he felt like he had nothing left to keep him going.
He sat the glass down and reached into a pouch on his suit, pulling out the syringe Wallace had supplied him with before his jump. It was housed in something similar to the size of a pen. He twisted the top and a needle spiraled out from the tip like a drill bit. Wallace had warned him about being smart when deciding to use it; Blake figured this qualified as a good time. He jammed the sharp point into his leg and the bite as it poked his skin and muscle was dull in comparison to everything else he’d gone through tonight. Let’s hope this miracle injection from the future does the trick.
“I need to talk with Mikhail,” Blake said. “Lead the way.”
Before he’d taken six steps after Amhurst, the throbbing in his arm ebbed away to nothing. He stared down at it, bewildered. The evidence of his missing appendage was the only clue that it had indeed been removed. The burn in his leg was gone too, and his extremities felt light and warm at the same time. It was like he was at one hundred percent, maybe even more. He stood still, reveling in the euphoric feeling of zero pain.
The doctor noticed Blake had stopped and he looked back, worried. Blake waved aside his concern. “I’m fine.”
Amhurst shrugged and began walking again. They went up the basement steps and through a doorway, moving down the hallway of the main floor and into a small room off to the left. Blake did a double take at what he saw. Mikhail was lying on top of an overturned table. His arms and legs had been tied with vicious knots, and a white gag puffed out from the sides of his mouth where another rope held it in position. Blake shot a glance at the feeble-looking doctor beside him. Damn! This wrinkled fart is not to be taken lightly.
Blake’s leg felt good enough to squat down for a better look at Mikhail, but he didn’t want to push it for fear that when the miracle drug wore off he might suffer. So he took a knee instead and leaned closer.
The material in Mikhail’s mouth matched Amhurst’s lone sock, and Blake almost laughed out loud. Although fashion was still a long way off for the old doctor, the missing sock made sense now. Blake almost felt sorry for Mikhail; if Amhurst’s body odor was what set the bar, he could only imagine the taste that saturated the captive’s tongue. He stifled a gag at the thought, cleared his throat, and said, “How about we give you some free cosmetic dentistry and pull that tooth for you?”
Grunts and huffs for breath echoed off the walls. Amhurst had told Blake that the room they were in had originally been set up as a nursery, but everything had been cleared out decades before. The room was now ill-fitted for welcoming a newborn child into this world.
A haymaker landed fiercely against ribs that were now cracked and broken. The left side of Mikhail’s body had been pulverized — not because that was the plan, but because the man who wielded the haymaker had only one arm. Through Mikhail’s good eye, everything was clear. The same could not be said of the other; it had already sealed shut from swelling and if the time to heal was granted, the result could still be blindness.
“Is all of this necessary?” The recognizable voice of Dr. Amhurst greeted Mikhail’s ears.
A different voice responded, “Probably not, but it seems like he hasn’t even come close to his breaking point.”
“There are less invasive ways to encourage someone to talk,” Amhurst said.
Mikhail’s functional right eye widened, swiveling back and forth between the two men.
“Alright, let’s try it your way.”
The old doctor walked closer to Mikhail. He appeared to be favoring one side of his body as he limped forward.
“Mikhail — I assume that’s your real name?”
The beaten man straightened the little he could against his bonds. He hadn’t spoken a word since they began hammering on him, and he’d swore he wouldn’t. Both of his kneecaps had already been busted and they ached with every movement. He moved his tongue to the void where the fake molar with cyanide used to be. He wished he could end it all and stop the torment. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before his body would beg him to tell the men not only everything he knew, but anything they wanted to hear.
Dr. Amhurst began again, “You are clearly not in a talkative mood. I do hope that changes soon; I don’t like violence. I am a man of science and that is all I know. So I will explain how this is going to work.” He rocked back a little on his heels. “You and your friends betrayed my trust, and my new friend here wants to know all of your plans — every detail.”
Mikhail fixed his gaze on the doctor, but remained mute, his teeth clenched. Again, he longed for the capsule.
Amhurst continued, “So, here is what will happen: I am going to drill into your teeth, and then …” He stopped to pull around a long tube connected to a large canister and held it up for Mikhail’s lone eye to see. “I am going to blow this cold compressed air into your mouth.”