Part 34 (1/2)
”Maybe there's just three,” I said hopefully.
I barely got the words out before hiss, clank, release and a fourth monstrosity whomped across the room.
That broke the spell.
Miles grabbed the doork.n.o.b behind us and twisted it frantically. Locked. He put all his weight into it. Nothing. He rammed his ma.s.sive form into the door. It didn't even buckle.
”This,” he shouted, poking a thick finger into my chest, ”is the last time I listen to you!”
Miles kept slamming his shoulder into the door. I turned to Sarah. Her eyes were locked on the colossal blades, six of them now, mesmerizing. She was paralyzed. This wasn't a room designed to kill. This was a room designed to make you lose your mind. The killing was an afterthought. Another blade dropped, and this time I really felt it--my hair blasted in the breeze.
I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. I shouted her name, but it was hard to hear over the roar. It sounded like a trash compactor closing in on thousands of gla.s.s bottles. I pulled her back. Her feet dragged like she was unconscious. She looked at me blankly. She looked at the blades and started screaming.
I had lost count of them. I yelled at Miles--he was getting nowhere with the door but probably breaking his shoulder.
I saw the image of the demon, grinning at me with those big lips.
Sarah knew something about the demon. She said so.
”Sarah!” I yelled, trying to get her to hear me over the machines. ”Sarah, you said it wasn't a totem . . .”
She blinked at me. She shook her head like she couldn't hear me.
”You said we didn't know what we were talking about . . . What is it?”
I turned her toward the mosaic.
”Please, we need to do something.”
”I don't know . . .”
”You do. I need you to focus. Come on.”
The sound roared and a blade fell so close to us that Miles had to jerk us backward with his ma.s.sive arms.
”We are going to die,” I yelled at her.
That did it. Sarah nodded. Her eyes seemed to clear.
”It's not a demon,” she said. ”It's a homunculus.”
Miles roared. ”Demon, homunculus, it's the same thing!” He looked at me. ”The alchemists made life from scratch. They called them homunculi.”
”No,” Sarah said, shaking her head vigorously. She had to shout over the machines. ”Listen to me. Not alchemy. Biology.”
”There's no time,” I said. ”Can you stop this or not?”
”I don't know,” Sarah said. ”But I know what he is.”
She pointed at the demon.
”Talk fast,” I pleaded.
”He . . . it . . . is a map. Of the nervous system. It shows where our nerves are. The more nerves, the bigger you draw the body part.”
”What?”
”From neurology . . . the hands, the lips, the genitals . . . that's where we have the most nerves. That's why they look big in the picture. It's a symbol.”
”That ugly little s.h.i.+t is us?” Miles shouted.
”So what's that?” I asked, pointing to the subway map.
”I knew I'd seen it before,” Sarah said. ”It's the brachial plexus.”
”The what?”
”A map of the nerves in our shoulders and arms. Look. The median nerve. The radial nerve. The ulnar nerve.”
We were running out of s.p.a.ce. The door was impossible to see across the room. We had feet left to go.
”Sarah, honey, this has got to get practical really fast.”
”It is practical,” she said. ”Doctors use these maps to figure out where an injury is . . .”
”Like . . .”
And then she saw it. Her eyes literally welled with joy.
”That's it!” she cried.
She pointed.
”Here. See this?”
She jabbed her finger at a missing tile in the subway map, a small hole in the mural.
”So what? It's old.”
”No. This isn't an accident. This is what doctors do. This means something.”
We heard a hiss and Miles pulled us back. His shoulder slammed against the back wall, just as another blade swung past.
”What, Sarah?”
”If someone got hurt, here--” She pointed to the gap in the mural. ”If this nerve got severed . . . you'd have a specific injury . . . I need to think . . .”