Myrmidon by David Wellington Page B

types all in one place, right? It makes—­”
    The kid was fast. He twirled around and fell right on top of Chapel and the knife went into Chapel’s guts.
    He had intended to get Andre to leave the room, to leave him alone so he could work on his bonds. If that didn’t work he’d figured he would taunt Andre into fighting him, certain the kid’s code of honor would mean Chapel had to be untied so it was a fair match. He had definitely not intended to be stabbed.
    The pain was incredible. He felt like he was being sawed in half. Hot blood sluiced down his side toward the floor, and his lungs seized as his chest constricted, and for a second all he could see was red light. The knife came out of his body, and it was almost worse, the serrated edge tearing open whole new parts of him, and Chapel felt dizzy and nauseous and like he was going to die.
    But then he felt something else. A strange looseness in his chest, as if he were falling to pieces. As if pieces of him were falling away. Maybe as if he were shedding his skin. His right arm, his good arm, felt sudden prickly and numb as blood coursed through its veins.
    The knife, he realized, had cut more than his flesh. It had cut the ropes holding him, too.
    Above him, Andre lifted the knife for another strike.
    If he’d been anybody else, if he hadn’t been Jim Chapel, that would have been it—­his death. He wouldn’t have been able to fend off that blow. His right arm had fallen asleep long ago, losing all feeling where it was held against his torso.
    But Chapel had a left arm that was made of servomotors and silicone and wires. That arm never went numb or got sore from being cramped in one position. That arm worked just fine.
    The ropes twisted and fell away from his arm as he shot his artificial hand upward, trying to grab Andre’s wrist. Instead, the point of the knife went right through the silicone flesh that covered the hand, grating as it slid between two metal fingers. For a nasty second, Chapel and Andre both stared at the knife impaling Chapel’s hand. There was no blood, but Chapel could clearly see the point sticking through his artificial skin, and his brain immediately processed that information just one way: He’d been impaled. That was supposed to hurt. There were no pain receptors in his artificial arm, but his brain refused to be put off so easily.
    He screamed. So did Andre.

 
    CHAPTER TWENTY-­FOUR
    A little strength was returning to his right arm as fresh blood seeped through its capillaries. Chapel reached up with clumsy fingers and grabbed the hilt of the knife away from Andre. The boy was too shocked to resist. Chapel nearly dropped the knife as he pulled it free of his left hand, but somehow he held on to it.
    â€œNo,” Andre said. “No, you’re some kind of a—­a—­”
    There was no time to waste. Chapel turned the knife around in his hand and struck out hard, catching the kid across the temple with the knife’s pommel. Andre howled in pain and threw himself to one side, off Chapel’s body. Chapel threw the knife away and grabbed for the kid’s neck with both hands. He knew exactly where to push, and soon he’d cut off the blood flow to Andre’s brain. The neo-­Nazi’s eyes rolled up in his head, and his eyelids fluttered shut as he dropped like a stone into unconsciousness.
    When it was done, when Andre was passed out and no longer a threat, Chapel let himself breathe. Just breathe, just pant for oxygen. The wound in his stomach was bad, and he was losing blood at an alarming rate.
    He had to move. He had to keep going. He couldn’t just lie there and die.
    First things first. Andre wouldn’t be out for long, he knew. He used the bloodstained rope that had bound him before and hog-­tied the kid. He pulled off Andre’s boots and socks and used one of the socks to gag him.
    The neo-­Nazi was already starting to wake