“I would rather not have anyone see me like this,” said Saul, returning to his former dryness. “Specifically, covered with blood alongside Phelps’s corpse.”
Ah. Quite. “I take it the Kentsdon’tknow, then.”
“Rose knows that there is something odd about me, but not the exact shape of it. I prefer that as few… err… of your people know as possible. It is safer for everyone that way. If you can get me free now, that would be best.”
(It occurred to me much later that what Saul actually feared was that I would leave and not come back. But that was later, and my capacity for clearheaded thought was not high at the moment.)
Saul looked down at the manacles. “I can probably rip them out, if you remove the nails.”
“Nails?” I looked blankly at his overgrown fingernails.
“There are nails in my forearms,” he said patiently. “Also my shoulders and both shins. They prevent me from pulling my hands and feet out of the manacles.”
I had to brace my forearms against the table for a minute to hold myself up. “Oh.”
Completely logical, of course. You’d need something like that if you were imprisoning someone who knew they’d heal up even if they managed to pulp their own hand yanking it free. Halder had clearly thought things through with monstrous thoroughness.
The nails were placed just behind the wrist bones. Skin had actually grown over the top of the left one, which was probably why I had missed seeing it before. They had been hammered into the wooden cross beams on the table in a horrible parody of crucifixion.
Calm Me took over again, because otherwise I was going to begin screaming and not stop until my lungs gave out. “Right,” I said again. I set my fingers on the right nail, pulled, got exactly nowhere. Saul’s skin was still too cool. Squirrel botflies disliked human hosts because we were too cold. I wondered if these had adapted to a wider range of hosts.
“I can’t get it out,” I said. “Give me a minute.” I prowled the room, trying to find something that I could use as pliers. My eyes fell on the rusted forceps. If they didn’t fall apart when I tried to use them, perhaps that would work.
“I hope I don’t give you tetanus,” I muttered.
“I don’t believe I can get it.”
“Lucky you.” The forceps didn’t want to open at first, but eventually yielded, though not before leaving red handleprints in my fingers. I hooked them under the head of the nail, pulled, got nowhere, started to wiggle them back and forth, then stopped. “Oh god, I’m sorry. That must hurt.”
“Yes, but having you cut my arm off will hurt a lot more.” I froze. Saul’s smile was ghastly. “You don’t want to know what I’ll do to be free of this place.”
I set back to work. After a few seconds, the nail actually slid a little way out of the board and I redoubled my efforts. “Thank god this was here,” I muttered.
“That’s what Halder used to dig the screwworms out,” Saul said pleasantly. And then, “If you keep stopping every time you’re horrified, we’ll never get out of here. My peoplecandie of old age.”
“How… fascinating…” I said through gritted teeth as I worked. A moment later, it came loose from the wood. I could actually feel the—texture? viscosity?—of the flesh change as the nail slid out through gristle and flesh. It was incredibly nauseating, but I told myself thatIwasn’t the one with a nail in my arm soIwasn’t allowed to be sick. I leaned on the table and breathed heavily through my nose, then gave a final tug and pulled it free.
Clear fluid seeped through the hole. Saul lifted his forearm as far as he could, flexed it, and nodded. “If we both pull on the manacle now…”
I wrapped more burlap over my hands, grabbed the rusted metal, and pulled with all my strength, while Saul shoved upward.
The metal bolts held. The wood did not. Months of damp took their toll with a splintery crunch. Saul’s arm jerked up, the manacle and a chunk of wood clinging to his wrist like a bracelet.
“Oh god,” he said, with a moan that might have been pleasure or pain or both. “You have no idea how it feels to bend your elbow for the first time in a year.”
I shook my head, moving to the other manacle, but Saul waved me off, reached over, and plucked the nail out of his left wrist as if it were a splinter. The second manacle yielded immediately to his two-handed assault.
It began to occur to me that, manatee or mermaid, Saul was substantially stronger than an ordinary human being.
He flexed both arms, then began calmly snapping the overgrown nails off each hand. I didn’t want to watch, but I did anyway.
Saul had barely finished when he suddenly slapped a hand down against his chest, once, twice, then again. At first I couldn’t tell what he was doing, then I saw the dark smears left behind.
“You littlebastards,” Saul said, his voice thick with feeling, and began swatting at the flies on his face. Some buzzed out of range, then began to settle again, and were immediately crushed.
I slid my hands into my sleeves and simply waited. If any man on earth had ever deserved to swat a fly, it was Saul Gregor.
With the flies dead, he lay quiet for a moment. I assumed that he was recovering from the pain. The underside of both arms was a ragged mass of torn skin, and I couldn’t imagine how his joints felt, moving after so long.
