Excerpt: Splintered Edge

Leith

Leith lays on the floor, cheek pressed to the hard wood, sticky with slow drying blood from the cut beneath his eye. His hands open and close to no useful purpose behind his back, bound by thick, rough rope that chafes his wrists raw. Each breath shivers from the confines of his lungs, and the hair that clings to his temples is damp with nervous sweat and the tears he'd earlier been unable to stop. Footsteps cross the floor toward him and he fights to keep from cringing away as the hard toe of an incautious boot digs sharp into a bruise on one hip.

"You're sure, Glenn?" The manager's voice holds little emotion to give Leith relief from his fears. The tone is cold, efficient, and easily reminiscent of the unfeeling machines that cause the hum Leith can feel vibrating through the boards below him.

"Yes, sir. I saw him myself." In contrast, the lead engineer gives away everything in his voice. He is afraid, fawning and avaricious all together, hoping for some reward for having subdued the threat Leith poses. Leith wishes he could pound the man into the ground.

"Have you told anyone what you saw?" There is something now, some clawing greed, in the manager's voice that chills Leith clear through.

"No, Manager Hillard, sir," the engineer answers, seeming oblivious to the sudden weight to the air in the room. "Only you, sir."

"Very good," the manager says, and Leith struggles to turn so he can see more than the heavy, closed door to the inner office.

His view is obstructed by the hair that falls across his face, and the early swelling of a soon to be blackened eye, but he can still recognize the dangerous gleam of the thin blade in the manager's hand. His shout is trapped by the gag that fills his mouth, but the muffled sound is enough to make Glenn look toward him, and so the engineer does not see the sharp grin that pulls Manager Hillard's lips as he slices quick across Glenn's throat.

There is a bubbling, liquid gasp as Glenn tries to inhale, and then he chokes out a tearing cough that sprays drops of blood across Leith's face and torso. The fluid almost seems to burn where it hits skin, and Leith pushes frantically against the floor with his feet, but cannot move enough to escape as Glenn falls heavily; first to one knee, and then, with a thick wheeze, face down across Leith's legs. Leith whimpers, the fabric of his trousers going sodden against his skin.

"My, my," Manager Hillard says, carefully cleaning the strange, flexible blade with a handkerchief, his expression once again clear of emotion. "I'd say it's rather a shame that I came in too late to stop you from killing my lead engineer, isn't it?"

Leith is silent, his eyes fixed firmly on the whip-like metal, as though it were a snake that only his gaze could keep charmed into a state of safety. Hillard flicks it to one side, voicing a low chuckle when Leith cranes his head to follow.

"Lovely, isn't it?" Leith forces himself to meet Hillard's icy gray eyes, crinkled at the corners in the brief instant of his smile. "My alchemists designed it initially to be an extremely durable thread, but I found other uses for it."

He coils the material as Leith watches, sliding the glittering band into a leather wallet. "I have no intention of using it on you, should you cooperate. If not..."

Hillard shrugs, tucking the wallet into the pocket of his waistcoat. He walks out of Leith's line of vision then, and save for faint rustlings and the sound of the machines in the factory below, the room is silent. As the seconds tick by, the blood that has seeped into Leith's clothes cools and he begins to shiver at both the chill and the realization that it could easily be his lifeless corpse sprawled on the floor next.

I don't want to die, Leith thinks, his eyes darting back and forth across the small part of the room he can see. Each sound that comes from behind him makes him flinch and tightens the sharp anxiety that fills his chest. Sweat blurs his vision, and he breathes in shallow, labored pants. I won't die, he repeats on each inhale, and not here, with every outward breath.

"Shall we go?" Manager Hillard steps into Leith's sight again, frock coat neatly buttoned and gloves snug on his hands. He kneels, places a fingertip on Leith's cheek. "Remember, a wrong move and..."

Leith shudders all over, closing his eyes against the smiling predator that hovers above him. Hillard chuckles, low and dark, and Leith goes cold, then prickling, boiling hot. The faint laughter dies, Hillard sucks in a breath, and then he screams. Gasping, Leith opens his eyes, squinting against the bright light that strikes him momentarily blind.

The hand with which Hillard had touched him is in flames, and as Leith watches they crackle in a rapid rush up Hillard's sleeve to lick at his face.

"Put it out," Hillard howls, falling backward and beating frantically at the growing flames with his other hand.

Shoulders heaving, Leith yanks against the bonds around his wrists. Snap, snap, snap, he mentally chants at the rope with each desperate pull. All at once, the rope gives and Leith pulls himself out from beneath Glenn's body and rips the gag from his mouth. He rises unsteadily to his feet, staggering until he braces himself with a hand against the wall.

The fire is failing, but Hillard only twitches. The skin of his arm is dark and smoking where his clothes have burned through, and the right side of his face is laced with shiny, red patches. As Leith watches, Hillard moans and Leith's stomach twists. Leaning on the wall, Leith bends, vomiting nearly on top of his shoes.

"I didn't," Leith whispers, voice shaking near as hard as his hands. "Didn't. Wasn't me."

Have to get out, he thinks, pushing away from the wall. A lance of pain shoots through his chest and he hunches forward, an arm curled protectively over his ribs. Bent, shuffling, he starts across the floor. It is late, and the fact that the sounds of their struggle have brought no others gives Leith leave to hope to find the corridors empty.

Luck, Leith thinks with a desperation matching the most ardent of prayers as he opens the door.