Chapter Nine
I do not know how much I can tell you. This”—Poole waved a hand in the direction of the crawler lying upon his dissecting table—“being far beyond my purview.” He harrumphed and bent closer to the body. “At least the other beings you’ve brought me were made of flesh and bone, not like this mechanical nightmare.” The crawler that had breathed fire was about 80 percent metal, though his eyes, glassy and staring up at the ceiling, were far too tortured for Jack’s comfort.
After a long night being beaten black and blue and having to spar with Will this morning, Jack was tired, irritable, and hungry. He moved closer to the table and the portly little surgeon. “Perhaps concentrating on the fleshy bits instead of grousing might help.”
Poole narrowed his eyes at Jack. “Very amusing, Master Talent. Worse than Ranulf, you are. Certainly more of a pain in my—” He cut himself off with a quick apologetic look at Mary Chase, who stood as far away from the table as she could without actually leaving the room.
Wan and silent Chase, who, if Jack had to guess, was trying desperately not to cast up her accounts. She was going a bit green around the mouth.
Jack quirked a brow at her, wondering if he ought to find an excuse to get her out of the room, but upon receiving a defensive frown turned back to Poole. “You can say arse in front of Chase, Mr. Poole. She’s quite familiar with the word, I can assure you.”
“You being the greatest arse,” Chase retorted blandly.
Poole snorted. “Walked into that one, my boy.”
Yes, hadn’t he? Why the devil in him wanted to provoke, he couldn’t say. He’d been twitchy since setting eyes upon her this morning. Why it pleased him that she had the wherewithal to snipe back at him was a mystery as well.
Chase stepped close, bringing the faintest scent of spice with her. The work lights caught the tiny gold earrings in the shape of the goddess Isis that she wore, and when she moved they glimmered, pulling his gaze to the delicate hollow just beneath her ear. Jack’s entire body seized up, his awareness of her humming along his veins. Which was damned annoying.
“The decomposition is quite advanced,” she remarked, and Poole, of course, beamed.
“Quite. What interests me, Mistress Chase, is that the deterioration only went so far, then halted.”
Beneath the harsh electric light of Poole’s surgery, Chase’s skin held a greenish cast, which may or not have been due to her aversion to death, but the smooth curve of her cheek and the lovely turn of her lower lip held Talent’s attention. She was whole and well. A spot on his shoulder tingled, and the memory of her mouth there, licking and sucking, lingered.
Suppressing a grunt of irritation, Jack adjusted his stance. “So he was the walking dead. Or is there another point you’re both alluding to?”
Both Poole and Chase peered back at him as if he’d said something rude, and Jack glared. “Were we to spend endless minutes getting around to the fact that these things are part zombie and part machine?”
With exaggerated patience Poole drew the thick examining spectacles he favored from his breast pocket and put them on. “Don’t know why anyone need speak, seeing as you know all,” he muttered, as he picked up a scalpel and bent very close to the crawler. Using the tip of the blade, he peeled back a flap of skin from a cut he’d previously made along the crawler’s thigh. Beside Jack, Chase swayed a bit before steadying. He resisted offering her a hand. She would hate that, and he did not want to touch her, not after last night’s exchange; that had been hard enough to walk away from.
“What I can tell you,” Poole went on in a crisp voice, “if you care to learn anything, is that this fellow was likely dead before these limbs were applied.”
“How can you tell?” Chase’s question was weak, and her gaze darted to the foot of the table.
Poole’s blue eyes were big as moons behind his glasses as he glanced up. “Well, note the way the blood has collected along—”
He broke off when Chase abruptly turned and left the room with haste. Jack watched her go and then forced his attention back to the bodies upon the table. “I’d advise simply stating the facts with Chase next go-round.”
Poole nodded grimly. “Hides it better than Inspector Lane.” There was no judgment in Poole’s voice. Rare was the soul who did not become ill after, or during, a visit to his surgery.
Jack pressed a knuckle to the underside of his chin as he studied the crawler that used to be Mr. Pierce. “And this one?”
Poole assumed his brusque stance. “I do not believe this one was dead before the change. However, look here.” He pointed with his scalpel. “He did not have artificial limbs applied. More like he was becoming metal. It’s as if the gold melded with his flesh.”