Three young teens lured into Benton Court by a compulsion spell. That was bad news.
Giving the young troll a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, Saul said, “Thank you for the information. That’s very helpful. I’ll let you get on with your day now. Sorry for the interruption.”
The young troll returned Saul’s smile with an equally plastic one of his own, while the other two trolls just stared daggers into Saul’s swelling face as he walked in reverse out from under the bridge. Saul wasn’t willing to turn his back on a group of trolls—not after what happened last time—so he kept on facing them until he reached Jack and Adeline. The three of them then clambered up the steep embankment, through knee-high grass that was probably crawling with ticks, and rejoined Jill, who was leaning against their nondescript FBI-issue car.
Jill, a blue sucker pinched between her teeth, said playfully, “Your jaw is swelling up, Saul. Did you get into a fight again?”
“I wouldn’t call it a fight exactly.” Saul ran his tongue along his gums. It felt like a tooth had been shaken loose. “The asshole sucker-punched me.”
“You handled it better than last time though,” Jack said as he rounded the car, keys in hand. “That de-escalation class that Roland made you take seems to have paid off.”
“Yeah,” added Adeline, “maybe you’ll actually go a month without getting us sued.”
Saul rolled his eyes. “Oh please. You translocated a dead bird into an old lady’s birthday cake because she insulted your hair. I’m not half as bad as that.”
“Difference between you and me,” she replied, tugging at a lock of her dyed black hair, “is that I don’t get caught when I take revenge. You, on the other hand, couldn’t be more obvious if you tried. You once chucked a guy through a jewelry store display window that had six different security cameras pointed at it. If you’d just be a bit sneakier when you get back at people, then maybe you wouldn’t get stuck in so many conduct classes.”
Jack sighed and hit the button to unlock the car. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear any of that. Now will you all get your asses in the car? We need to drop in on Roland and discuss what to do about this Benton Court lead. We can’t just march into the neighborhood and tear the place apart looking for those girls. Most of the preternaturals there don’t acknowledge our authority. They’ll consider any unwanted intrusion into their business as a literal act of war, and they have no qualms fighting to the death to defend their territory. So we’re going to have to approach this very carefully.”
Jill pointed at Jack with her sucker. “Carefully but not slowly. The girls have been missing for nearly twelve hours. The possibility of finding them alive grows lower every minute.”
“I know.” Jack smacked his hand on the roof of the car. “But we’ve got to toe the line on this one, or a lot more than three people could end up dead.”
Adeline popped open the front passenger door. “I always hate it when we have to use ‘finesse.’ I miss the good old days, when I could kick the crap out of anyone who got in my way.”
“You were a criminal back then, Ade,” Saul said.
She shot him a sly look. “So were you, Reiz.”
Saul couldn’t come up with a rebuttal for that, so he ushered Jill into the back seat, hopped in beside her, and said to Jack, “Shouldn’t we be on our way? I thought we were in a hurry.”
Jack mumbled something about “unruly brats” and dropped into the driver’s seat so hard the entire car shook. Adeline plopped down in the passenger seat beside him, sniggering under her breath, and plugged her phone into the USB port on the console so she could torture them with her awful grunge music all the way back to the Castle.
Normally, Jack would’ve put a stop to it, as loud, grating music hurt his hypersensitive werewolf ears. But there was one thing that Jack Montesano hated more than Adeline’s music choices, and that was Adeline and Saul sniping at each other like snotty schoolchildren.
So the car growled to a start, the grunge growled with it, and everybody suffered save one.
I can already tell this day is going to end well, Saul thought. It’s off to such a wonderful start.
Chapter Three
Tanner
A bucketful of frigid water woke Tanner from his daze. He’d been in and out of consciousness for the duration of the bumpy ride from the campus library, so he had no idea where the heck his kidnappers had taken him, or even if he was still within the Weatherford city limits. What he did grasp now that he was fully awake and shivering, a tide of adrenaline washing through his veins, was that Big Trouble had come to meet him, and he had not been ready.
The two burly men had tied him to a metal folding chair with more zip ties than any YouTube tutorial could teach someone to break. The chair was situated in the center of an empty room with concrete walls and a matching floor, and every surface visible in the ambient light sneaking through the open door was stained brown. There were drains in the floor, the covers caked in dried gunk that was the same color as the stains. That particular shade of brown, Tanner realized with a rising sense of dread, just happened to be the hue of dried blood.
Was this where his abductors tortured and murdered people?
Tanner desperately racked his brain, trying to figure out what choice had landed him on the radar of these men. He watched the local news and read the digital edition of the city’s paper each morning, and he knew for certain that there’d been no recent stories about multiple people going missing, much less about serial murders. Either occurrence would be extremely high profile in a city this size.
Which could only mean that these men had abducted Tanner for a particular reason. They must’ve thought he was involved in something relevant to them. That he’d harmed them or their livelihoods or their reputations in some way.
But how? He didn’t gamble. He didn’t do drugs. He didn’t borrow money from shady people—unless you counted the federal government. And he’d only been living in Weatherford for a month. How could he have possibly pissed off somebody this badly in just four weeks? Weeks that he’d largely spent buying furniture for his apartment and a new wardrobe befitting a college professor.
This just didn’t make any sense.
Tanner lifted his heavy, aching head and eyed the two burly men. They were waiting, arms crossed, about ten feet from the chair, spaced far enough apart that they could tackle him no matter which direction he tried to go to reach the door. Not that he could go anywhere being so tightly bound to the chair.
They’d really gone overboard with the bindings. So much so that he was starting to lose feeling in his hands. If he didn’t get out of these zip ties soon, he was going to be writing on the whiteboard using his teeth.
Assuming he made it out of this creepy room alive.
A metal door screeched shut somewhere outside the room, and footsteps echoed down the hallway, coming closer and closer, until the silhouette of a person turned into the doorway and stood there for a long moment, observing Tanner. Eventually, the person stepped into the room, and the figure resolved into a middle-aged man of moderate height and build, with slick-backed brown hair, hooded eyes, and a finely trimmed mustache that would’ve been fashionable in the 1970s.
His suit was bespoke and perfectly tailored, and many men wearing that suit would’ve been imposing at first glance. But the effect was partly ruined for this man due to his uneven posture. Something was wrong with either his back or his leg. Something permanent. He walked with the aid of a sleek black cane whose polished silver grip had been carved into the shape of a curled serpent waiting to strike.
The man ambled up to Tanner’s chair, suppressing his limp with an exaggerated swagger, and stopped just three paces away. Close enough to loom over his captive. Far enough to retreat quickly if that captive attempted a daring attack. He scanned Tanner from head to toe and sniffed, unimpressed and almost disappointed. Like he’d been expecting to see something other than a soaking-wet twenty-eight-year-old man strapped to a metal
chair, woozy from a strike to the head that had swollen into a tender knot.
“Got to say,” drawled the man, “I didn’t think you’d go down so easy, Reiz. Last time we met, you had some real fight in you.”
Tanner squinted at the man. One of his contacts had fallen out at some point, the other one was smudged, and his glasses had been in his satchel, which was nowhere to be found. So his eyesight was currently somewhere between steamy bathroom mirror and Picasso painting. Even so, Tanner was certain he’d never seen this man before in his life, not even in passing. So why was the man addressing him like they were old enemies who had unresolved business?
“I’m sorry,” Tanner rasped out, his throat parched. “Have we met?”
The man frowned and looked over his shoulder at the burly men. “How hard did you idiots hit him?”
“Don’t look at me, boss,” said the shorter man. “It was Don who did the hitting.”
“Shut up, Drew,” snapped the taller man. “I didn’t hit him. I threw him, and then he hit his head on a pole.”
The so-called boss huffed in annoyance. “Well, our vengeance isn’t going to be very satisfying if Reiz doesn’t even remember why he’s being punished.”
“We could wait for his concussion to clear?” offered Drew.
“That’ll take too long,” snapped Don. “We could try a stimulant. I got a bottle in the truck.”
“But that might energize him enough to let him break his bindings,” Drew said. “We should—”
“Enough!” yelled the boss, and the burly goons shut up. “We’re on borrowed time as it is—his team is bound to have noticed him missing by now—so we’ll just have to press on. As much as I’d like to see Reiz in top form break down in front of me, this concussed husk will have to do. We screw this up, we won’t get a second shot. So let’s get on with it. Where’s the wight?”
“In the boiler room,” said Don. “Still bound in the circle. Want us to go down there and start the release sequence?”
The boss nodded. “Give it a five-minute delay. I want to speak to Reiz first.”
“Will do,” the men said in unison.
Then they lumbered out of the room and vanished down the hall. Left alone with his captive, the boss shed a few layers of pride.
His posture slouched. His mouth curled into a grimace. His eyes scrunched at the corners, a sign of creeping weariness from living every day in discomfort. Whatever injury had caused this man’s limp had left him with chronic pain, and that suffering constantly stewed underneath his insouciant veneer.
For a second, Tanner almost felt sorry for the man, as he was sure that this enduring pain had driven him to make some very bad choices. Like abducting a college professor and spiriting him off to some sort of slaughterhouse in order to torture and murder him for something the hapless professor had not done.
But then Tanner remembered that he hadn’t been the only person kidnapped.
“Where’s my student?” Tanner said firmly, trying to exude more confidence than he felt.
The boss cocked an eyebrow. “You mean that shrieking brat we picked up with you? We’ve done away with her already.”
Tanner’s heart sank. “You…killed her?”
“Collateral damage,” he said, tone cold as ice. “That’s what happens when you stroll around town, acting like you own the place, breaking whatever you want to break, trashing whatever you want to trash, and can’t be bothered to clean up after yourself. Eventually, something you damage starts sparking, catches fire, and burns down everything around you before it finally burns you.
“The short of it is you brought this on yourself. You should’ve known I’d come back swinging as soon as I had the chance. If you didn’t want anybody else to get hurt, you should’ve stayed that sad little loner you were when we first met.”
“I’ve never met you before!” Tanner yelled, his words rebounding off the walls. “You killed a teenager because of some imaginary vendetta against me, and you actually think you have a right to pin her death on me? Are you fucking crazy?” He threw his head back and scoffed. “No, don’t answer that. Of course you’re crazy. You actually think we know each other, for one.”
The boss’s brows furrowed, but he was otherwise unaffected by Tanner’s outburst. “Look, Reiz, I don’t know what game you’re playing here—”
“I’m not playing games. I don’t know you. You don’t know me,” he sputtered. “Seriously. Who are you?”
“Do you really not remember, or are you just bullshitting me to try and stall for time?” He poked the swollen knot on Tanner’s head with the end of his cane and chuckled when Tanner hissed. “Because that’s not going to work. The sable wight will be out of its pen in just a few minutes, and by the time your team manages to track you down, you’ll have long been drained dry.”
Tanner stifled a chuckle of disbelief. “Oh, I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this is happening. My first week at my brand-new job, and I’ve been kidnapped by a murderous maniac who believes in…what did you call it, a wight? Isn’t that some type of ghost? You’re going to kill me with a ghost?”
The man’s expression flattened. “Well, now I know you’re screwing with me. Pretending to be a mundane? What are you trying to do? Maintain your ludicrous cover?”
He dug around in the pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a faded leather wallet. Tanner’s wallet. “Honestly, when I saw the college ID card, I thought it was the world’s biggest gag. I mean, a college professor? You? And what kind of preternatural crimes could the good students of Weatherford College be getting up to in those cramped, smelly dorms? Certainly nothing that would necessitate intervention from the PTAD. Got to admit, I’m almost as baffled as you’re pretending to be.”
“I’m not pretending—”
“Enough.” He tossed Tanner’s wallet across the room. It landed with a puff of dried blood. “I’ve run afoul of your tricks too many times, Reiz, and I won’t stand for another. I don’t care what preternatural drug or sex ritual scandal you’re trying to bust on a college campus. I don’t care how you think you’re saving the world today, one crime at a time.
“I don’t care about that stupid girl who wouldn’t shut her mouth and got burned for her trouble, all because she had the misfortune of standing too close to you. I don’t care about anything except giving you what you deserve for what you did to me last December. And what you deserve is suffering, pure and absolute.
“So what I’m going to do is return to my nice, cozy condo, secure in the knowledge that the wight will have its way with you and leave a cold corpse for your friends to find.” His mustache twitched. “And by the way, don’t bother trying to break your bonds. I outsourced those charms. They’re the work of a binding master. So no unrefined explosive spells for you today. Or ever again, for that matter.”
Oh god, thought Tanner. I’ve been kidnapped by a madman who believes in ghosts and magic spells, and who’s deluded himself into thinking a first-year literature professor is his archnemesis. And now he’s going to leave me alone to die from dehydration in an abandoned building where no one can hear me scream.
If it wasn’t so horrifying, Tanner would’ve cackled at the absurdity of it all.
Tanner opened his mouth to make a vain plea for this nutcase to understand that he’d kidnapped a totally innocent man. But before he got two words out, a strange electric hum began vibrating through the entire building. The hairs on the back of Tanner’s neck rose, and a rash of goose bumps sprang up on his arms. He’d never heard a sound, or felt a sensation, quite as eerie as this hum. He couldn’t imagine what was producing it. Perhaps a specialized piece of industrial equipment?
It certainly wasn’t anything alive. It couldn’t be. Animals didn’t produce sounds like that.
“And that’s my cue to leave,” said the boss. “Farewell, Reiz. I’d say it’s been good knowing you, except it hasn’t. You’ve been a massive pain in my ass since the moment I first set eyes on you. I hope y
our death is twice as painful as the blow you dealt me. And from the bottom of my cold, dead heart, I pray to every god in the heavens that you stay in the afterlife, where you belong. Because the last thing the world needs is a wizard like you coming back to screw things up for the umpteenth time.”
“W-Wait,” Tanner stammered out as the man hobbled off toward the door. “You can’t leave me. You can’t! I’m not your enemy. I’ve never done anything to you. Jesus Christ, I don’t even know your name.”
The man halted in the doorway and slowly peered over his shoulder. “I’m Ed Muntz, the man who finally freed the world from the plague that was Saul Reiz.”
With that, he stepped into the hall, caught the knob of the door with the head of his cane, and yanked the door shut with an earsplitting bang.
Veiled in total darkness, it took everything Tanner had not to descend into a full-blown panic attack. All he could hear was his own ragged breathing and the heavy beating of his heart. All he could feel was the plastic zip ties digging into his tingling flesh. All he could smell was the faint tang of copper, the scent of long-dried blood. And all he could see was his own impending demise, playing over and over again in his head, his morbid imagination replacing his vision because his eyes couldn’t penetrate the gloom.
Thanks to his descent into unadulterated fear, it took him the better part of a minute to process exactly what the man called Muntz had said.
Saul Reiz. Not Tanner Reiz.
Oh hell, Tanner thought as comprehension hit him like a brick to the face, this is a case of mistaken identity.
He laughed then. Laughed in the way that prisoners on death row laughed the night before their final walk. Because the reason Tanner was bound to this chair, trapped in a dark, empty room, and waiting for death to creep up on him…was because a crazy coot he’d never met had mistaken him for a brother he had not seen in twelve years.
A Knight of Cold Graves (The Revenant Reign Book 1) Page 4
