Time seemed to slow. Blake felt a pin prick in his left forearm. Then it transformed into a mountain of pain as his skin ripped open, splaying apart like a tomato. His fingers numbed, but he felt his arm being thrust back. Agony shot through his body as the blade created an exit wound, severing nerve endings along its way.
There was another jolt on his arm. Blake grunted, barely able to breathe. Then the Japanese man came face to face with him, muttering something in his native tongue. Blake felt Satoshi’s hot breath on his face and dimly registered that the man wasn’t even out of breath, despite his exertion moments before. Satoshi walked away, still vocalizing his displeasure in broken snatches of sound. Blake clutched at his throbbing arm and saw that it had been firmly staked to the table top.
He was running out of options and everything hurt. He’d lost a lot of blood, and the intense throbbing in his arm threatened to put him into shock. The Asian spat out a few more incomprehensible words – probably something along the lines of, “You took Gernot’s arm, so I will take yours – then your life!”
The man bent to pick up the sword and spun it masterfully in his hand. Jesus, it seemed like a lifetime ago he’d knocked that blade from Satoshi’s grip.
Blake couldn’t move; he was easy prey. All he could think was – Maybe I haven’t failed completely. Maybe something in the future will be changed just because of this encounter. But that was a foolish notion.
In desperation, he pulled on the blade that affixed him to the table’s surface. It wouldn’t budge, and all he accomplished was sending another jolt of agony through his body. He wasn’t going anywhere.
He glanced over at Satoshi. The man was walking back for him, but taking his time like some Halloween horror movie – Michael Meyers methodically stalking his next victim. Blake turned, giving his back to the predator and gripped his left wrist with his right hand, trying to pry it free.
His fruitless efforts rewarded him with another brutal cascade of pain as his arm raked up and down the length of the exposed blade. He felt himself beginning to pass out but managed to blink away the encroaching blackness. He glanced back at Satoshi, who was now less than ten feet away. There were no options left.
It’s over; Satoshi has won.
Still, something inside wouldn’t let him give up. He’d resist death until the end. As Blake held on to his injured wrist, he pulled down as hard as he could, putting his full weight behind the movement.
The pain was white hot, immediate. Nausea washed over him, temporarily removing his fear of being skewered through the back. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to keep pulling. There was a harsh snap as the radius in his arm broke, sending new shockwaves through his pulsing nerves. In the far depths of his mind, Blake noted that it would have been easier to break the ulna, but the sharp side of the blade was facing the wall, and he didn’t have that choice. With the impediment of bone now gone, the remaining bit of flesh was sliced clean through.
Blake looked back again – he’d almost forgotten about his assailant. Satoshi’s eyes narrowed. He knew his prey was escaping, but he still held the upper hand. He covered the last few feet between them in milliseconds, the deadly point of the wakizashi aimed at Blake’s back.
It was now or die. Satoshi came crashing forward, and Blake swung out his left leg to trip the Japanese man in his forward surge. The blade flew out of his hand and hit the wall with a solid thunk as its owner face-planted on top of the table.
Blake’s head was spinning from his movement and the pain. His opportunity window was beginning to shut. He glanced around for anything to help his fight and spied the sword embedded in the table.
Satoshi was still stunned from the blow to his face. Blake leapt onto the man, grabbing his right arm and hefting it back. The arc of motion did the brunt of the work. Satoshi looked back, his eyes widening as he began to slide toward the anchored blade.
Blake heard hands scrabbling against a slick surface as the Asian lost his grip. But just before Blake’s body hit the ground, he halted. The blade had caught Satoshi just under his arm, piercing his rib cage. Satoshi gasped for air as the cut went deeper, and the room filled with the wet, sucking sound of a dying man.
But Blake wasn’t finished. Still holding firm to Satoshi’s arm, he pulled his weight up and dropped again. He did it again and again, Blake’s body dropping further with each repetition, as the blade sliced deeper into the Asian’s quivering body.
And then Blake’s reserves depleted without warning. His arm slacked, releasing his hold. He collapsed the last few inches to the ground, knocking the breath from his lungs. Blackness swarmed the edges of his vision again as he eyed his left arm.
The forearm was mangled beyond repair, with nothing but the thin bone of the ulna and the last bit of skin and muscle holding it together. He was going to lose his arm.
But not before he passed out.
42 The Musty Professor
December 1, 1948, 1:09 AM
Blake’s eyes opened reluctantly, like they’d been glued together. His surroundings were dimly lit by a lone lantern on a table by the small, low bed he was in. Also on the table sat an empty wine glass, a bowl filled with sugar cubes, a bottle with a label he couldn’t read, and a taller, spout-valve urn filled with a clear liquid.
The smell of smoke lurked in the room, bringing back the fragmented memory of a fire, a swordfight, and …
It all felt like a blur, but two things were certain: he was alive – barely – and his entire body was electrified with pain he could have never imagined in his previous life. But something wasn’t right. There was an enormity of sensation throughout the whole of him, except for his left arm. He must’ve passed out with the weight of his body on his arm, which accounted for the indescribable numb-yet-there feeling just below the elbow.
Blake shifted, waiting for the numbness to fade and the familiar tingling in his arm to rush in. What he received was a hot burning throb that seared near his elbow. He lifted his head from the pillow and tried to push himself up so that his back was against the headboard. He lost his balance and fell to his side, crying out as another blazing pang shot into his arm.
But this made no sense because his hand was still without feeling. Blake grimaced as he pulled his arm closer to his face, struggling to see its outline in the lantern’s soft glow. His breath caught in his throat. From the middle of his forearm down to where the tips of his fingers should have been, everything was gone. In its place was a bandage wrapped around his lower arm and elbow.
The scraping of wood against concrete brought Blake out of his horrified trance. He rolled his head toward the sound and by now his vision had accustomed enough to discern that he was still in the basement lab. There was a clothes locker at the foot of the bed and behind that he saw a figure rising from a chair in the corner. The form shuffled in his direction. Blake glanced around for a weapon, but there was nothing. Even the lantern and bottle were beyond reach.
Two legs stepped into the haze of light around the bed. The pants sat high as though in preparation of The Flood, and one of the shoed feet was missing a sock. Fashion was not the bearer’s strong suit.
The shape moved closer, and the face of Doctor William Amhurst emerged in Blake’s line of sight. “I had to remove your arm, young man. I’m sorry, it couldn’t be helped. I bandaged your leg as well; the bleeding was fierce, but the damage was minimal.”
If Blake’s mind had the ability and time to think coherently, it would have pondered how his life would be forever changed by this loss. But strangely, the first thing that came to him was Gernot. “Where’s the Russian?”
“He’s still alive. Upstairs.”
Blake’s brain still felt fuzzy. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. “No, not him. The other one. The one that disappeared.”
“I’m not sure where he went.”
Frustrated, Blake let his arms drop against the mattress, and then grimaced at the instant, unforgiving shock that trailed into his shoulder. The d
octor took a step forward in concern. Blake gritted through the sensation. “Dammit. It’s not where. It’s when.”
One of the old man’s grey brows arched. “Well, wherever he was off to, he won’t make it far.”
A glimmer of hope returned to Blake. “How so?”
“He was in the same shape as you,” Amhurst said, indicating Blake’s missing appendage. A wicked gleam flashed in his eyes. “And I gave that bastard quite a nasty gut wound,” he cackled with a wheeze that ended in a wet cough.
Blake considered where Gernot might have gone, and the pieces started to come together. If the Russian did manage to travel back into the past, nothing had been changed. For Blake, this meant that whatever he did or wherever he went, he was not capable of altering what had happened just now. The time arc continued on its uninterrupted path, with Blake lying here, missing an arm.
He still had trouble processing what had occurred, and that his only option would be traveling a course he couldn’t change. “How did you remove my arm?”
“With one of Satoshi’s swords.”
“It’s called a wakizashi. Do you still have it?”
The old man bobbed his head. “Yes. I sterilized it, if you must know, and put it –”
Blake made a face of irritation. “Not the sword, the –”
“I believe you said it was a wakizashi,” the old man interrupted.
“This isn’t the time to be a smartass,” Blake snapped.
“It’s better than being a dumbass, young man,” Amhurst said primly with a sniff.
Blake paused in his retort, taking in the old doctor, who seemed to possess the sort of quick wit and sharp tongue he had to admire; after all, it was so much like his own. “Touché.”
Amhurst beamed, giving Blake an eyeful of yellowed teeth.
Despite himself, Blake grinned back, then sobered quickly. “I apologize for my attitude; it’s not every day I lose part of my body, but it is the arm I was referring to.”
The thin skin on the old man’s forehead creased. “Why would you want the arm?”
“I just want to know if you have it,” Blake said, forcing himself to keep from sniping at the old man again.
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.”