Bloodmoon (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 2) (44 page)

Fever almost seemed to take that as a compliment. He bowed low again. ‘The foulest, my Lord.’

The Prime Lord pondered this for a while, toying with possibilities in his head. ‘Fine,’ he said at last, when Fever had begun to fidget. Dizali reached into his pocket and produced the black iron key. He held it in front of the torturer. ‘I want to know what this opens, nothing more. And Rowanstone?’

‘Yes, my Lord?’

‘Don’t let him die.’

‘Yes, my Lord.’

‘Now say exactly as I say …’

*

The pain is just in your mind.

Pain doesn’t exist.

Don’t let them hear you hurt.

Keep your mouth shut.

Witchazel kept his dizzy mind focused on those words as the punches rained expertly down. Not enough to break, but just enough to bruise, and to make him gasp. Relentless enough to make him want to vomit. Clever enough to keep him conscious. Half the trick, Fever had delighted in telling him over and over, is to keep the subject suspended on the cusp of a permanent sleep.

Hatred failed to describe what Witchazel felt for the man.

Slam
. Another rib squealed in agony. The lawyer grit his teeth, retreating back into that place where he imagined all sorts of horrid things befalling these men, the twins and their little master. The same place where the memory of Karrigan dwelt, who told him over and over that pain is a mirage, and to keep his mouth shut.

The door slammed, and the Nord twins stepped back. Witchazel slumped in his bonds. It felt like the ropes had finally cut to the bone. Witchazel was beyond caring.

Fever was carrying his briefcase with him. Witchazel’s heart dropped into his gut. There was no point in ignoring it. He felt the old familiar burn of fear rise in his chest, then rise to tickle his temples, flush his face. There was something new in his demeanour, like a rabid dog let loose, and anything new in a torture cell is meant to be feared. New meant a fresher pain he had not yet dulled himself to.

‘I believe I have already told you,’ Fever began, ‘of my previous employment in the morgue, have I not?’

‘I do remember being bored by such a story, yes,’ Witchazel spat, his voice nothing more than a scrape of a boot against dusty ground. He found a little solace in the bravado. He had not dropped the act once during his time in the cell. Even when his face was being tossed from fist to fist, he kept up his contemptuous sneer, kept to the higher ground. Most importantly, he kept his mouth shut as he had promised himself
. Surely not long now …

Witchazel couldn’t help but linger on the thought that his resolve was teetering on the edge. As Fever went about tutting and fiddling with the locks on the briefcase, Witchazel allowed himself an inward sob. He wanted to deflate and give in like a punctured sack of wine. Let all the blood flow out of him and finally find some peace and quiet on the floor.

Don’t let them hear you hurt
.

Karrigan was relentless in his reminders. Witchazel sneered some more. ‘What have you got there, then?’

Fever popped the locks and raised the lid, showing off a glittering array of scalpels and forceps and saws and needles and blades. Witchazel’s eyes skipped over every one, babbling internally to himself as he tried to guess what each one was for.

‘My father’s instruments. His hands could conduct music with them, write poems, paint a masterpiece. I took them from his study before I left his house. To this day he hates me for it, and other things,’ Fever whispered, full of reverence.

‘Fetch me a handkerchief, please. I must wipe my eyes.’

Fever smiled wickedly. Despising the man was no longer enough. Witchazel felt some coldness in the hatred, carving it into a deep terror of what those hands and blades were about to do to him.

‘How many times do I have to repeat myself: I will not talk.’

‘The Hark estate has been broken into, did you know that?’ Fever might as well have punched him, the news hit so hard. ‘Greedy powers from within the Emerald Benches. Somebody taking a pot shot, one might say. Awful news.’

‘You dare to …’

Fever held up a scalpel and Witchazel’s voice scraped to a halt. ‘If I were you, Mr Witchazel, I would listen carefully, and be silent.’

‘They say they found some evidence of treachery in his study. Letters to Lincoln, King of the Endless Land.’

Witchazel felt something snap. ‘You fu—’

The scalpel was pressed to his bare knee, where his suit trousers had been worn through. Witchazel barely felt it, and yet blood poured from the cut.

‘Now Karrigan Hark has been proven a traitor, some of the Emerald Lords and Ladies have apparently taken it upon themselves to take matters into their own hands. They break away from the law. Now, I imagine that would trouble you rather deeply?’

Witchazel did not dignify that with an answer.

‘Fortunately, our good Lord Dizali has stepped forwards to put an end to all this …
grabbery
. He has put Harker Sheer under his guard,’ Fever idly chatted as he examined each of the tools, showing their mechanisms or razor edges to Witchazel, or testing them on the air. Fever looked up from his tools and fixed him with a curious stare.

Witchazel looked away. The floor, ceiling, either of the stoic Norse twins—he didn’t care, anywhere but those questing pupils.

‘You’ll be pleased to hear, Mr Witchazel, that fortunately an artefact, shall we say, of the late Bulldog’s was recovered by Dizali’s men.’ Fever reached into his waistcoat and produced a black iron key. A key, Witchazel was very sorry to say, he had seen many times before. A key Karrigan should have entrusted to him, instead of insisting on his secretive shenanigans.

‘Do you recognise this?’

Witchazel was busy cursing silently, jaw muscles bunching. He hated himself for it.

Fever grinned. ‘I know that look very well!’ he exclaimed. He even went as far as to clap, as if he had just enjoyed several hours of opera. ‘You will tell me everything you know. Forget the deeds. Forget everything else. All you have to do, is tell me what lock this opens.’

Witchazel tore his eyes away, and managed a shrug. ‘No. I don’t recognise it.’

Fever rubbed the creases in his forehead, finger and thumb. He sighed dramatically. ‘I was hoping you would cooperate, Mr Witchazel, given what I’ve brought to show you.’ Eyes flicked to the briefcase, and its glittering tools of surgical precision, all wrapped up in black velvet and leather straps.

‘I have never seen that key in my life.’

Fever stared at him for a moment, testing his gaze. Then he shook his head, and nodded to Sval and Sven.

Large men should not be so fast
, thought Witchazel, as he was dragged to the stone floor.
Either be big and slow, or lithe and fast. Both is just unfair
. His skull knocked against the floor as he was pinned down, both arms and legs. From somewhere deep within him, Witchazel found the energy to struggle. Fear will make you do marvellous things on occasion.

Fever had removed a long, serrated scalpel from the case, and was now standing over him, holding it aloft. Witchazel groaned and spat whatever saliva he could dredge from his cracked mouth. This was very different indeed. It reeked of impatience, desperation, and people will do awful things to each other in such a state. The powerful. The greedy. The dying.

Fever waved the knife in a slow circle. ‘I will at least let you choose.’

‘Choose what?’ Witchazel panted.

‘What you get to lose.’

‘Lose?’

Fever grinned, a hint of madness in his tired eyes. That terrified Witchazel, and he did not mind admitting it. ‘An ear, a nose, a foot? Maybe even some teeth, or, then again, we could be more inventive. His shirt, if you please, gentlemen.’

Witchazel almost fought them off for a moment, for a teasing, flicker of a second. But they were just slightly taken aback by the man’s sudden thrashing. But down came the strong hands, and off came the shirt. Fever knelt over him, a clamp now in his other hand.

The torturer’s eyes roved over him, like an artist about to throw the first splash of colour on a blank, albeit beaten, canvas. Fever smirked, gazing at a point on his chest; it was hard to see when a thick, rough hand kept pushing Witchazel’s head down.

The clamp was cold against the skin around his nipple, deathly cold. So was the blade of the knife, as it rested against the filed teeth of the clamp. ‘You said I get to choose,’ Witchazel rasped. It was a futile complaint, more a feeble attempt at appealing to whatever gentleman Fever tried so very hard to be.

‘And so you do!’ Fever cried. ‘You can choose whether to answer my question, or to lose a nipple. You have ten seconds. One.’

Witchazel wheezed, in and out, his breath rapid in his throat. He was panicked.

‘Two.’

Surely he can’t be serious
, Witchazel inwardly cried.

‘Three.’

‘You wouldn’t.’

‘Wouldn’t I? Four.’

Witchazel look to Sven, then to Sval, but both wore their faces like a mask, devoid of emotion.

‘Five.’

The lawyer’s mind was a tiny hall full of screaming.

‘Six.’

‘This is madness!’ Witchazel roared.

‘Seven. Getting close, Mr Witchazel.’

He had to tell them, let the Seed confound them, buy more time …

‘Eight.’

‘Please!’ It was the first time he had begged.

‘Nine’

Witchazel screwed up his face as the words fought to burst from his lips. Those treacherous, foolish words.
Think of the boy!

‘Ten.’

The knife was so sharp the cut barely registered, and for the briefest of moments, Witchazel thought it had been a trick all along. But then came the pain, swelling up and spreading across his chest like a poison. It was excruciating. Witchazel howled and he bellowed, fighting to look down at the bloody circle of raw flesh that had replaced his left nipple.

Fever was kind enough to place it atop the table that held the briefcase. He tutted to himself as he picked out a large, wickedly curved blade.

‘Please …’ Witchazel moaned.

Not a second was spared to let him wallow in pain. Fever stood over him again and nodded to the twins. ‘Let’s move on, shall we, Mr Witchazel?’ he asked. ‘Gentlemen, his trousers.’

‘No!’ Witchazel yelled, but the pain had weakened him. The twins turned him into a naked, bloody thing in seconds.

Once again came the clamp, clutching him in his most private of places, the metal cold and painfully tight. Witchazel thrashed as hard as he could, but he was like an infant in their hands, mewling and defenceless.

Fever raised his curved knife, no doubt forged specifically for this sick purpose. ‘What does the key unlock?’

Witchazel just seethed, foaming at the mouth now, his eyes locked on the blank ceiling, praying it would just crush him.

‘One …’

‘ALRIGHT!’ Witchazel roared. ‘I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you.’

Fever withdrew the clamp and leant closer. The fervour in his eyes was nothing short of alarming. Witchazel could almost hear his thoughts. They seemed to seep out of his mad gaze.
An answer, the first in days. Dizali will be pleased
. ‘What does the key unlock?’ he repeated.

‘Hold it up,’ Witchazel whispered. ‘With the teeth held in your hand. Match it to the window.’ The bastard words slipped out of him. He bared his teeth and scrunched up his eyes in pain and despondency. Death, all of a sudden, did not seem so alluring and peaceful. His carnal heart had spoken up, and demanded to be heard. He felt the cold fear flush him.

‘Well, well!’ Fever announced, getting to his feet. He placed his tools back in his briefcase, all the while shaking his head in wonder. ‘We finally have you cooperating, at last. Twelve long days it’s been, but we have got there. Dizali will be most pleased.’

Witchazel said nothing, only groaning.

Fever was already making for the door. ‘Patch that wound up, gentlemen, and fetch him something to eat. He’s earned it.’

Slam, went the door, and Sven and Sval went about their tasks. Bandages were brought, some stinging alcohol too that burnt and bubbled and set him writhing on the cold floor, as naked as he had been when he first entered the world. Food came next, when they had finished: a mealy slop and a stunted apple, teetering on a cardboard tray. No cutlery. Fever had learnt that lesson. Witchazel watched it all through half-closed eyes, his face still wrinkled in pain.

Only when the door closed with a muffled thud, and the bolts were shoved into place, did Witchazel move. More slowly than a corpse, admittedly, but he moved all the same, propping himself up against the cold wall.

‘Twelve days,’ he whispered to the silence.
Enough time to cross an ocean, surely
.

Witchazel just hoped he had held out long enough to give Gunderton a chance of finding the boy. This whole play of his hinged mightily upon it.

That, and the Orange Seed.

*