Chapter 10
Chapter 10
With each blink, flashes of last night’s passionate encounter surfaced. She had been so certain it was Isaac. But his repeated questioning forced her to reconsider. Had it really been him? The man before her smelled of fire. The scent from last night had been different. What was it? The stale odor of onions left out too long, the tang of anesthetic cream… Whoever it had been, it wasn’t this man.
Realization struck her like lightning. Drugged and delusional, she had mistaken another man for Isaac. And that anonymous man hadn’t hesitated to take advantage of her misguided affection.
In Downstream, the fool was always to blame. The nameless man had encouraged her foolish mistake.
‘Yes, that’s right. Call me Isaac. Again.’
‘Oh, Master Isaac! I love you!’ He had impersonated Isaac, embraced her, and reveled in her declarations of love.
‘But you’re not Isaac’s type.’
Why did Arietta’s words, spoken just before she fell from the window, suddenly come to mind? Arietta had known Isaac well. Unlike Gwen, who had so presumptuously condemned her…
Gwen’s trembling continued, but the heat of injustice and rage was replaced by a chilling cold. The d**g-induced haze that had brought her to this point evaporated in the face of stark terror. The touch of fear was icy.
Isaac stepped back from the now-silent Gwen. “Scalpel,” he said curtly to the attending physician. The physician produced a medical scalpel, which he kept constantly at hand, and offered it to Isaac.
Downstream was perpetually damp and chilly, so each room was equipped with a fireplace to dispel the moisture and cold. Isaac placed the scalpel in the fire. It didn’t take long for the blade to begin to glow.
“Open your mouth,” he commanded, approaching Gwen. Gwen’s face drained of color. She began to plead desperately, hands clasped as if in prayer.
“I was wrong! I was wrong! Please, have mercy! Just this once, please have mercy!” Isaac knew no mercy. He easily overpowered the thrashing Gwen, pinning her down and holding her fast. With her arms trapped beneath his weight, he forced her jaw open.
“A lying tongue must be cut out.”
The crimson blade of the scalpel shimmered with heat.
***
Drops of blood speckled Isaac’s hand. He scraped at the stains with his thumbnail, reducing them to dust that vanished without a trace, leaving only the raw, red marks on his skin.
Arietta remained still, lying as she had been. He sometimes wondered if she even breathed. Like a snowy winter night, Arietta was pale and still. Her porcelain-smooth skin had always been devoid of color. Cold to the touch. Isaac sometimes felt a chill when she held him close.
Then, at least, there had been a spark of life. Now, she was merely a shell. Isaac narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing her. His rough fingertips traced the velvet of her hair, her pearly forehead, her lashes like a stoat’s tail, the delicate curve of her cheek.
Finally, he reached her dry lips. Lips. The only place where color ever bloomed on her face. He hadn’t known quite how to describe that color before, but now he did.
Pomegranate. The fruit brought back by the 25th Hazard Investigation Team from the Sky City. When they’d split the fruit open, the ruby-like seeds had tumbled out, a cascade of jewels.
Isaac had thought of Arietta’s lips then. Now, her lips were faded, almost white. They had been so lusciously red when they first met, twenty years ago. An inexplicable urge seized him. Isaac bit down hard on his own hand.
His canine teeth pierced the thick skin, rupturing a vessel. Warm blood trickled down his wrist. On the bedside table sat a small brush, the one Arietta used to dust the intricate carvings on her figurines.
Isaac grabbed it, soaking the bristles with his blood. He pressed his bloody handprint onto the white sheet, then leaned over Arietta. He brushed the blood-soaked bristles across her lips. It wasn’t something he was accustomed to.
Violence was his domain, not delicate artistry. Instead of restoring the vibrant hue of a ripe pomegranate, the blood smeared unevenly across Arietta’s lips, a grotesque stain.
Irritation flared within him. Isaac roughly rubbed at her lips with his palm, spreading his blood across her white cheek. Still, her lips remained stubbornly closed.
“Quiet at last,” Isaac sneered. “Always so noisy.”
Arietta didn’t answer. The silence of her usually chattering, crimson lips was unsettling. He saw a fleeting image of her before him, eyes bright, a whirlwind of words. “Quiet is better,” he muttered, clenching his jaw.
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