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It had happened years ago. Dex could imagine this inbred asshole harboring a grudge all this time, but he found it a lot harder to believe he was suddenly inspired to start his own MC and trample on Bulls’ turf to do it.
Now, Grenell eyed the hypo again. “Nothing you can do to me is as bad as what happens to me if I talk.”
“Challenge accepted, my man,” Eight said. “Challenge accepted.” With a wave of his hand, he indicated that Dex could get started.
“What is that shit?” Grenell asked as Dex sank the needle into his neck.
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Marv?” Eight asked. “More fun to find out for yourself.”
The drug worked quickly. Dex stepped back and let it do its thing. Within a minute or so, he could see the change in Grenell’s eyes—he was beginning to feel the drug. The feeling would be subtle until he tried to move, and since he was bound—ah. There it was. His face had gone slack, and he’d lost the ability to blink.
Because humans slept with their eyes closed, most people thought a paralyzed eye closed. Instead, it opened. Any soldier who’d seen combat, any survivor of a natural disaster or some kind of violent attack would tell you: people almost always died with their eyes open.
And people whose faces were paralyzed couldn’t help but see what was happening to them.
Grenell’s breathing had gotten shallow and reedy, and something like a watery mewl escaped his slack mouth.
Eight leaned close. “How’s that feel, Marv? Encouraging? Want to try to answer some questions?”
“Fuck … off,’ he said through lips that barely moved. Good. Dex had gotten the dosage right. Not totally paralyzed. Enough left to breathe and be understood.
Eight took a hunk of Grenell’s skin, the tender part of his arm, just above his pit, and gave it a ferocious pinch. A pathetic, rasping wail dribbled out of Grenell. Considering the force and effort required for him to make any sound right now, that weak whimper was the equivalent of a shriek of pain.
“Since you need some more encouragement, my man Dex here is going to help you out.”
Dex nodded at Gargo, who turned the crank on the rack. Grenell’s arms and legs pulled taut, and he let out another of those wavering moans. The stretch was about two inches, which didn’t seem like much, but it was enough to tax his connective tissues to their limit. That first crank didn’t do any real damage but took Grenell through discomfort to real pain.
“Let’s try something easier. What the fuck are you and your little Disney bikers doing setting up on Bulls’ turf? You got a plan beyond suicide?”
Grenell didn’t answer, not even to tell Eight to fuck off. Dex checked his pulse; fast and faint, but stable enough. He nodded at Gargo again, and Grenell stretched two more inches in each direction.
Everybody in the barn heard his elbows and knees dislocate.
Grenell’s whine was whispered agony.
Eight stepped close again. This time, he leaned in, got face to face with Grenell. “I’m too fuckin’ old to spend my whole day standing in this cold barn, my man. You get one more shot, and then I turn Dex loose to make an example of you and soften up your pals. Gimme the name I need. Tell me your plan. Then you get to die fast.”
“F-f-f-f-f-f offfff.”
“He was a silent fury who no torment could tame,” Gargoyle said.
Duncan said, “Huh?”
Nobody offered the kid an explanation. The other Bulls were used to Gargo randomly spitting out weirdness like that. It was probably a quote from somewhere.
Eight shrugged and turned to Dex. “Go off, brother. I’m done with him. But paint a vivid picture.”
Dex went to his tool kit. With his back to the others, he took a deep breath and got himself in the right frame of mind.
He was calm, and his head was clear. He’d never lost time in the middle of a job; he’d never had to struggle to keep steady. That wasn’t how whatever wire was crossed in his head fired. It was in the hours afterward that old memories and traumas woke up and started to dance.
During a job, he was nothing but the job.
He picked the blade he wanted to start with. “Gargo. Lay me out a lingchi tray.”
“On it,” Gargoyle said.
Lingchi was the Chinese term for what people knew as ‘death by a thousand cuts.’ He’d just asked Gargoyle to provide him a specific set of extremely sharp blades, made for precision cuts.
