Simon is drenched in sweat. Strings of saliva and blood spill out of his mouth and onto the floor between his knees. He looks up blearilythrough his hair as Hart returns the drill to the workbench, pokes around and collects two roofing nails and a portable battery charger with attached jumper cables. Simon is reminded that this man cut off all ten of Ricki Cevolatti’s fingers, one by one.
“Man, Gino, you are one nasty sumbitch,” Ray Dinkins groans. “I been shot here, by the way!”
“Shut up, Ray,” Ameche says. “Gino, is this gonna take long?”
“Not long at all,” Hart replies, and before Simon can catch his breath, Hart positions the nails and attaches the battery charger’s cable clamps and flicks the switch.
Simon smells meat charring, hears Nomi screaming, and his teeth click together as he has an out-of-body experience.
In his mind, Richard Flores is bending over him, shining a penlight in his eyes, repeating, “Who are you? Hello? Who are you, my friend ...” and Simon wants to bat the light away. It’s piercing him, stabbing into his brain, sharp and hot as a laser. Blue electricity is zapping quickly around his teeth, like the blue lightning inHellraiser, and time is moving slow as molasses, fast as a gunshot.
He is floating; he is in a river of time. The colors behind his eyelids explode into fractals and break apart. There’s a girl with white hair putting a crown of flowers on his head—he would do anything for her. Now she’s ushering him toward the river, and he goes under the water, is washed away. A torrent of images and sensations and impressions flood over him, things appearing and disappearing with such rapidity that he can’t keep up: blood, fire, smoke, metal ... death, meat, ink, sex ... the stink of incense and the taste of wine. A blade in his hand and a smile on his lips ...
And heknowsthis, he knows it—he remembers how to slice a roast, how to make a fine cut, how to make someone cry. For a moment, he’s lost in a vast ocean of memories related to a past he barely understands. The sense of loss and nostalgia is almost overwhelming, but there’s a sense of power too.
This is who he is.
This is his birthright and his legacy. He is a beast of cold blood, a snake on two legs, an alien in an ill-fitting human skin ...
Simon gasps awake when Hart throws cold water on him.
“Hi there.” Hart’s pleased with himself. Simon imagines what he’d look like with his eyelids removed. “I think we might try something a little different. What do you say?”
Hart moves aside, and behind him, Nomi is sitting in a chair with her wrists taped together. Her posture is rigid, and if you didn’t know her well, you wouldn’t realize she’s terrified. She’s white faced and stiff, silver on her cheeks.
She’s been crying for him, Simon realizes with wonder. Despite what he is, she’s been shedding tears for him, this girl made of adamantine with a heart full of glass and predatory, mink-dark eyes ...
Dinkins and Ameche stand at her shoulders. Simon wants to kill them. He wants to kill all of these men, and now he knows how to do it. He remembers asking Nomi,Do you think I’m dangerous?She’d been honest with him then, and she’s being honest with him now, because her face is clearly saying that she doesn’t recognize him, that there’s been a change in his internal chemistry, one maybe only she can read.
That chemical change has back-burnered his pain from the torture, brought different sensations and feelings to the fore. Simon remembers the long-ago incident with Malcom Forest in the hallway of the tenement—the sense of uncoiling, of being released from confinement. That feeling has returned to him now. It’s all of him.
Hart is holding the bolt cutters. “Look, you seem like a reasonably tough guy? But there’s someone who isn’t tough, and that’s your little girlfriend over here. So I’m going to take off one of her fingers, and then I’ll ask you again—”
“Who is he?” Lamonte’s deep baritone reverberates from behind Simon somewhere.
Nomi looks at Lamonte over Simon’s shoulder, her lips trembling. “He’s no one, I swear to god—”
“Tell them,” Simon rasps softly.
“Ah, no, don’t do this,” Nomi whispers as Hart approaches her. Her eyes are frantic white, fixed on the bolt cutters with a combination of horror and hypnotized fascination. “You shouldn’t do this—”
“Nomi, tell them,” Simon repeats.Warn themis what he means, because the tape on both his hands is loose now, and things are about to get interesting.
“Yeah, tell us,” Dinkins goofs, grinning despite his injury.
“See these bolt cutters?” Hart says, brandishing them in front of her. “They used to belong to my father. Do you know why they still look like new? Because I maintain my tools, that’s why. I clean off the blood and mess after every session—”
“He’s a killer,” Nomi blurts.
There’s a moment of quiet. Then Ameche and Dinkins both look at each other and burst out laughing.
“Oh, so he’s akiller,” Ameche says in a mincing voice, twisting the word like he doesn’t understand what it means.
“‘Killer’ my ass.” Dinkins sneers.
Hart is still advancing, and Nomi is babbling. “Simon Noone is a sociopathic serial murderer, you’re making a big mistake—”
“Enough!” Lamonte bellows.
