Greetings Ҁ
My voice echoed in the musty, brick hall of the temple’s lower depths. Performing my job of utmost care and responsibility, I waved a hand at the young man who I had tied to a chair, a chuckle escaping my lips.
“Are you going to answer my question, or will you keep silent?”
The light of the single bulb hanging overhead illuminated the young man’s mask (as well as a bloodstain on the wall from my first session a few weeks ago).
“You’re a fool if you think saying nothing will lead me to spare your life.”
Behind the mask, he must have been smiling, probably thinking that he had outsmarted us. I wanted to pulverize his treacherous little face, but I couldn’t rush this.
The Brotherhood taught me to have patience.
“You don’t get it, even now, after all this time,” he said with a nearly blissful tone. “We’re hardly playing the same game, bad guy.”
Did he think this was a joke? I already felt tempted to show him the weapon I was eager to use on him. This fool was playing with hellfire. “Shall I remove your mask, Cryptic One?”
“As soon as you see my face, I will see you, and you won’t last long after that.”
Before strapping him down, I had thwarted his sight with a black blindfold over the mask. I thought that blinding him would add to the general atmosphere of his doom. The more I reminded him of his coming death, the more he may panic and talk.
Yet, I couldn’t tell if it was working. Admittedly, this man was good at keeping his mouth shut about anything important. He would answer why he was here, but his responses were teasing and confident.
Maybe I should have left the blindfold off, so he could see the bloodstain on the wall? I’d asked our janitor to keep it there for intimidation purposes specifically.
“If you don’t explain why you’re here in the next minute,” I started, grabbing my prisoner by the shoulders, “I’ll have to hurt you, and you don’t want that.”
I leaned him forward. The chair creaked, a sound that I associated with everything dirty (much dirtier than the sewage spilled-on floor beneath me, for that matter). Like the mold in this place, I felt a sudden urge to investigate every corner of him, to push him over the edge.
“Not everyone breaks from the initial ropes when they’re all fettered up,” I continued, enjoying the feeling of his lean, muscular shoulders caving in from my fingers. “I’ve heard banter before, and I don’t find yours any more impressive than the last,” I warned him.
To my surprise, a laugh escaped him. “You’d be surprised,” he said, “I like bondage.”
My face suddenly burned. Despite being entirely immersed in the interrogation, I was reminded of an incident from my youth, back when I was a teen. Back when I had a close friend with a similarly dark sense of humor.
No. I couldn’t reminisce now. That would ruin the mood.
I punched him in the gut, making him cough up a lung. Landing a second punch, I felt satisfied at how he began to struggle against the restraints.
The sight of his pain put a strain on my pants. Oh, if I lacked a moral compass …
“Well, haven’t you gotten lucky?” I mocked him with the full intention of shaming him. “It has always been my pleasure to restrain those who talk back.”
“In that case”—he took a deep breath—“hold me down yourself, wimp.”
There was something about his almost musical voice and unabashed boldness …
He wasn’t like the others I had interrogated: he had a depth to himself that I had scarcely managed to scratch the surface.
“Are you suggesting that I undo the restraints?” I trailed my fingers along his arms, wanting to remove his dark sweater. If I ripped it clean off and tossed it way back into the hall, it would be much too dark for him to retrieve it. He would have to get on his hands and knees to find it, ass in the air.
I drooled at that fantasy.
What would he look like shirtless? Better yet, pinned face-down.
He tilted his head to the side, maybe alerted by my lack of speech. The mask looked humanoid and expressionless, with a plain white background detailed with swirls and foreign lettering in orange, blue, and green.
It didn’t conceal his auburn hair. I reached around and yanked it. “Didn’t you enter our domain to assassinate the prince? You don’t understand this position that you’re in.”
“I know my position. It’s you who doesn’t realize how precarious your position is.” He snorted. “By the way, you seem to have a lot of fun role-playing as an interrogator, pal.”
“I am an interrogator.”
I hissed, baring my fangs. The black markings on my abs and chest transformed, from straight lines, which formed three pyramids connecting at a point below my ribs, to those same pyramids being overlapped by circles, overlain by the alphabet of Nero, our God.
Whenever these markings would change, my flesh crawled, but it was a good kind of crawling as if someone was gently rubbing their hands over me.
That feeling reminded me of the night I joined the Brotherhood.
“Cryptic One,” I said in the formal manner I was trained to use, “speak only the truth: did you intend to kill Prince Feral? Is that why you were found near his chambers and brought here for interrogation?”
Shifting in the metal seat, he breathed in sharply. “Yes, I came to kill your prince and still plan to do so. Bite me all you want, you wannabe vampire-cultist—you won’t like what happens next.”
I snickered. “Not at all: I’m sure I’ll like what comes next.”
Pulling the young man’s head sharply to the side, revealing creamy, freckled skin, I opened my mouth and tasted his neck with my tongue.
“Sweet.”
Hunger gnawed at my gut, especially when he tensed, his breath faltering.
“You taste fine to me, you rotten filth.”
This interrogation was only my third time serving in the role of interrogator. Maybe I could make my job more enjoyable by toying with this cockweed?
I let go of him and stepped back. “I’ll let you see the man who overpowers you.” Reaching forward, I pulled the blindfold with the mask up off his head.
Every muscle felt tight inside me.
He smiled. One golden eye swelled so much it would hardly open, but his freckled cheeks were high and mighty, nose pointed in a fashion far too familiar to me.
His lips were red, seemingly from dehydration and not makeup.
“Remember me, Wendell?” he asked, voice sweet, striking me as his taste had. “Because, speaking truthfully, I remember you well.”
My arms fell limp at my sides.
How didn’t I realize this sooner? How did I overlook the similarities of this sly man to the person I used to know?
I reached for my belt, which held up my black jeans, and withdrew my sickle. Listening for a new presence in the room, I heard nothing and decided it was safe. I moved close to the chair and raised the weapon’s blunt end to his neck. “I thought you were dead, Aaron.”
“I’m going by Aurum now.” He fussed in the chair, sustaining his cursed smile. To think I would ever see it again. “For a while, I thought I was dead, too.”
