Fractured Souls by Ava Marie Salinger
33
“What’syour name and who do you work for?”
The sorcerer maintained an aloof silence, his gaze on the wall ahead.
Adrianne stepped inside his line of vision, leaned across the table, and stared him in the eye. “I said, what’s your name and who do you work for?”
The sorcerer remained mute.
“Where is Eric Crawford?” Adrianne asked, relentless.
The sorcerer sneered at her.
Cassius clenched and unclenched his fists where he stood behind the mirrored window of the interrogation room. He wanted nothing more than to go in there and smash the smug look off the man’s face. The image of the two victims from the vault under the church flashed before Cassius’s eyes. He gritted his teeth so tightly his jaw ached.
It became clear after ten minutes of questioning that the sorcerer would continue to refuse to talk. Adrianne looked at the window and arched a questioning eyebrow.
Morgan stepped forward and pressed a button on the intercom.
“Do it,” he ordered in a hard voice.
Julia straightened up from the wall she’d been leaning against to the sorcerer’s right. She came up to the guy, stuck a gag in his mouth, and tied the ends behind his head.
“Bite down,” she said coldly in his ear. “This is gonna hurt like a bitch.”
She dipped her chin at Charlie and Adrianne and stepped back.
When he’d heard they would likely need an enchanter for the interrogation, Charlie had insisted on coming in despite his fever. Lucy had given him a rejuvenating potion to hold off the worst of it. Even so, the enchanter’s face remained flushed and he shivered as he crossed the room and took the seat opposite the sorcerer.
Adrianne walked up behind the prisoner, hovered her hands on either side of his head, and concentrated. The man twitched as pale globes of magic exploded on her palms.
“Last chance,” Adrianne warned.
The man spat out a garbled curse, his fingers clenching on the armrests of the chair he was shackled to.
Adrianne scowled. “It’s your funeral.”
The sorcerer screamed as the magic smashed into his skull and burned his mind, the sound muffled by the gag. He writhed and struggled violently in the chair, seeking to escape the offensive spell drilling into his brain. The metal restraints around his wrists and ankles bit into his skin, drawing blood.
Cassius narrowed his eyes. Although torture was not an interrogation tool the agencies sanctioned, Strickland had sought the agreement of the head of Argonaut to resort to it in this instance, if necessary.
Charlie waited until the man’s eyes rolled back into his head and he was convulsing uncontrollably before casting his dark-enchantment spell.
The sorcerer groaned, a sliver of blood and spit dribbling down his chin.
Sweat broke out on Charlie’s face after a minute.
“Something is resisting my magic!” the enchanter warned.
Cassius tensed.
Inky lines were spreading under the sorcerer’s skin and darkening his flesh, giving it a parchment-like consistency and lending him a cadaverous appearance.
“Bloody hellfire,” Bailey mumbled.
Morgan scowled and jammed a finger on the intercom button. “Stop!”
Charlie released his spell and sat back heavily in the chair, his chest heaving with his pants. Adrianne withdrew her magic, a muscle jumping in her jawline.
“There’s black magic in his soul core,” Cassius said in a deadly voice, his pulse racing at what he’d just sensed from the pale-faced sorcerer. “I think it’s meant to kill him if he tries to reveal his secrets.”
“Shit!” Zach muttered.
“Isn’t there anything we can use to counter it?” Bailey asked in a frustrated voice.
Cassius hesitated before looking at Morgan, his heart full of misgivings. “The black wind. It might be able to destroy what’s bound to his soul.”
Morgan frowned. “Won’t it kill him if I do that?”
Cassius swallowed. “That’s a risk we’re going to have to take.”
Morgan’s expression hardened. Cassius knew he’d registered his qualms.
“You’ll have to guide my hand. I can’t see soul cores.”
The sorcerer lifted his head weakly as they entered the interrogation room. Fear widened his eyes when he saw Cassius.
“Hold him still,” Cassius told Adrianne and Julia. “And remove the gag.” He looked at Charlie. “Get ready. We will only get a slim window of opportunity for you to cast the enchantment spell.”
Charlie swallowed and nodded.
The sorcerer’s apprehension turned to angry confusion as Julia and Adrianne moved the table out of the way and fixed his body to the chair bolted to the floor.
“What the fuck are you assholes doing?!” he snarled, panic underscoring his words. “This shit is illegal!”
Cassius felt power pulse from Morgan as they stopped in front of the man. The sorcerer blanched at the sight of the swirling black wind that burst into life around the Aerial’s fingers.
“What the hell is that?! No! Get it away from me!”
Cassius concentrated on where the man’s bellybutton was. The sorcerer’s dirt-gray soul core and the writhing, inky mass wrapped around it took shape a couple of inches behind it.
Cassius grasped Morgan’s wrist and guided it to the man’s abdomen. Heat flared inside him. “Here.”
Morgan stiffened, surprise flashing across his face as his fingers slowly sank beneath the man’s skin under the influence of Cassius’s seraphic energy.
Julia and Adrianne’s eyes rounded.
The sorcerer had gone rigid, terror painted in every line of his frozen body. “No! Get it out of me! Get it—”
He sucked in air and arched his back, his neck muscles cording.
Morgan grasped the sphere of shadows covering the sorcerer’s soul core and clenched his fist. Darkness throbbed across the room when he yanked out the black magic. The air trembled as it disintegrated between his fingers, the shockwave shattering the window and light fixtures.
“Now, Charlie!” Cassius shouted.
Charlie murmured a rapid incantation, a focused frown on his pale face.
Blood burst from the sorcerer’s mouth and dripped out of his nose and ears.
Cassius gritted his teeth. The black magic had eaten into the sorcerer’s soul core. Now that they’d removed it, the erosion was opening up like a dam.
“Don’t stop!” Cassius told Charlie as the enchanter faltered.
Crimson soaked the chair and dribbled onto the floor as the sorcerer started hemorrhaging from his lower gut. His eyes glazed over.
Charlie’s enchantment spell had finally taken hold.
“Where is Eric Crawford?!” Cassius asked urgently.
“Secret!” the sorcerer gasped in a tortured voice. “No one knows but Master!”
Cassius exchanged a stunned look with Morgan and the others.
“Who’s your master?” Morgan said grimly.
“Death,” the sorcerer spluttered, blood frothing at his lips.
Cassius frowned. Death could mean anything!
“What is your Master after?” Morgan asked in a steely voice.
The sorcerer shuddered, his skin now as white as a sheet. “The Eternity Key.”
He choked on another gush of his own blood, his eyes rolling back in his head.
Cassius knew the man was almost gone. He grabbed him by the shoulders. “What were you looking for at Joyce Almeda’s house?!”
“The Keeper of the…Key,” the sorcerer wheezed.
An ominous silence descended around them as he sagged lifelessly in the chair, the blood pouring out of him slowing as his heart stopped beating.