Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,26

what else, if anything, needs to be done.”

His latest subject began crying again. He was becoming accustomed to the pattern. There were different kinds of crying, he’d learned; the deep-down, utterly hopeless sobs normally started up whenever he deigned to speak to his art works. He really needed to remember not to make conversation with the canvases. They were just too sensitive.

“Now don’t start that again,” he warned, placing his hands on his hips. “You’ll stuff up your nose, and then you won’t have any air holes left to breathe through. You haven’t shown that you can keep from screaming in my ear while I’m working, so I’m afraid I can’t remove the gag.” He shook his head when the sobbing continued. “You want to breathe, don’t you?”

If anything, the crying intensified. It wasn’t a good sign. One of his past subjects had actually passed out from just such a thing, but then he guessed that was what he got for choosing canvases with small noses. He was trying so hard to recreate the original to perfection, far too focused on making it exact.

He sighed again, his shoulders drooping a little beneath the weight of his seemingly impossible task. Maybe it was impossible. Maybe he was trying to do something that simply could not be done. After all, that was why he’d fallen in love with the original… she had been perfect. She was an unfathomable design, strong and beautiful despite the odds she had faced.

He grabbed his tool from atop the box and wiped it off with a fresh towel, tossing the old and soaked towel in a half-full bucket. “Now, now,” he admonished softly. “We really do need to finish this up before you lose too much blood.” He leaned over his subject, heartily attempting to ignore the increased volume of her protests behind her gag. At least she couldn’t move while he carefully swiped his arm left and right, digging in at one point, and nicking out at another. Those end parts were the ones that would have hurt if he hadn’t given her medication to prevent it. He wasn’t interested in causing his canvases unnecessary pain.

He simply had to do what he had to do.

The girl stopped moving. Randall tilted his head to glance at her beneath a stray lock of his own stained hair. She had passed out. Whether it was from lack of oxygen or fear he was necessarily causing because she could see him work, he couldn’t be certain. But he was grateful for it. The noise had been starting to piss him off.

“Next time, perhaps we’ll give the anesthesia a try after all,” he told himself as he straightened and put aside his tool again. He’d shied away from it originally because it only increased the chances of his canvases not making it through the art process. But this was becoming insufferable. “There. That’s good for now. You’ll need to replenish yourself before we can go on anyway.” She didn’t answer because she couldn’t, and he shrugged.

“Okay, let’s drape the painting, shall we?” Randall turned and grabbed the cardboard box of supplies he’d ordered online and tried to open it. Despite the fact that it was soaked red in several areas, the tape nonetheless stuck strong. He rolled his eyes, reaching for his blade once more. “Of course,” he said with a rueful smile and shake of his head. He expertly swiped the box cutter down the tape to slice it open, at last using the tool for what it had originally been intended. Then he unflapped the box’s wings to reveal bulk bandages, cartons and tubes of antiseptic, and small brown bottles of pineapple extract pills.

He smiled to himself. “Bromelain,” he beamed, lifting the bottle to show his sleeping subject. “It’ll help you heal faster and make the scars a touch thinner.” He tossed the bottle back into the box, turning his attention inward. “That way the scars will also look older.” He rubbed his chin, uncaring of the red smudges he left behind. “The way they should look…. The way they look on her.”

He was afraid he might be starting to forget what they looked like on her, actually. It took a little longer to conjure them to his mind when he tried now. It had been too long since he’d seen her.

He wasn’t the only one keeping an eye on her, apparently. And once her make-shift guardians had discovered Randall was tracking her, they’d put a stop to it.