19 – Unpleasant Surprises

With what amounted to a friendly conversation in terms of interrogations done, it was time for some far less pleasant people.

After a few minutes to re-center myself and chat with Mia, I ordered the guards to bring one of the cultists.

Unlucky first was the fellow with the crushed hand. According to the guards, the doctor had also diagnosed him with several shattered ribs. Lars didn’t do body-guarding by half measures.

Due to the state of his chest, not to mention the hand, the man was barely a threat. His breathing was shallow and obviously painful. He entered the room being all but carried by the guard duo.

Despite the severe state of the man’s body, he was shackled just like the non-traitor. In addition, my helpers secured him to the chair so he couldn’t leave it without being untied first. Demon lackeys had to be treated with a certain level of caution.

Watching the man’s wheezing grimace, all tied up as he was, almost made me feel bad. Almost. He did still try to kill me in the name of a demon. Worst part was that I had it on good authority said demon hadn’t ordered anything of the sort. These fools had acted on their own accord, in order to please their unholy master.

In a way, these were loose ends that tied themselves up.

Looking the man in the eyes, I ignored the smoldering rage I saw buried there.

“What is your name?”

“Rot in the abyss, you scum. Our master will claim your soul, as is his right.”

“How dare you, you wretched demon’s pawn?! Maybe we ought to remove your venomous tongue if you won’t use it to answer your rightful lord.” The short, grumpy guard retorted, nearly spraying the prisoner in spittle. Both guards had remained in the room this time, for security reasons.

“Calm down now, gentlemen. There is no need for that… yet. You, why did you attempt to kill me?”

“All those who refuse our master’s touch are unworthy of life! Another will succeed where I have failed. The great archdemon Melchiadazal has countless followers all over the mortal world. You cannot resist his will forever. Scum.” The man spat in my direction, even though it made him spasm in pain. His angry tirades were also really not agreeing with his rib cage.

I trailed the droplets as they landed halfway across the table between us. There was a hint of blood in his saliva. Same with the rest of his mouth, which was starting to foam around the edges. Based on the terrible, wracking cough that gripped his frame a moment later, his health was deteriorating.

“It looks like one of your ribs might have punctured a lung. Even with medical attention, you will probably not survive. From what I understand it’ll be a slow and painful death, drowning on your own blood. Confess your part in this matter and both attempts on my life. Confess all you know about this demonic conspiracy and I will grant you a quick, painless death.”

I stared deep into those hate-filled orbs across from me.

The crazy man tried laughing, but only ended up coughing some more, increasing amounts of blood misting the table. “Demons take you and your whole damned family,” was all he managed to squeeze out in-between.

“Very well then, you’ve made your choice. This man will be handed over to the demon hunters when they arrive, to do with as they wish. Try to keep him breathing until then, but don’t expend any undue effort on the matter. Now be rid of him.”

After the man was removed from my presence, when it was just the two of us, Mia whispered, “Why didn’t you do your thing on him?”

“You mean aside from the guards? Do you think I really want a window into such a twisted mind? Not to mention he resisted my influence well enough that I suspect I wouldn’t have gotten anything useful out of him that way.”

That was mostly true, though there was an additional reason I didn’t mention. While I could have forced my way through the man’s resistance, I really didn’t need any of the information I’d learn by doing that. Mel had already dutifully revealed all his agents. Anything gathered from this cultist would at best be redundant and at worst incorrect.

The statement – threat, really – about Mel’s ‘countless followers all over the mortal world’ was, to put it simply, false. The minor demon’s influence didn’t extend beyond the local town. Aside from those already captured, there were only a handful of devotees left.

Interestingly, the demon had a good deal of information on other groups of infiltrators. Which made sense, he didn’t want his secret operations to be discovered or hindered by other people’s secret operations.

Slowly, the guards brought the second traitor in. Unlike his comrade, this man was struggling mightily against the hands holding him. With ‘only’ a broken shoulder and arm, various bruises from his Lars-assisted flight and the subsequent landing and a mild concussion from hitting his head when he was tackled by Anders, this man was fine.

Well, had been fine before Lars decided he’d lost limb privileges and broke his remaining arm and legs. How he was still energetic enough to struggle against the men literally carrying him was beyond me. Even with the splints applied by the doctor, he wouldn’t be able to effectively move by himself.

Still, the man managed a sort of half-lunge towards me before being caught tightly and shackled to the chair. What was your plan there? Bite me?

Maybe that was actually correct. The man was growling at me. I directed a querying look at the guards.

“I don’ know either, m’lord. This bugger’s been like that since yesterday. If he weren’t a human, I’d almost call him a rabid animal. Maybe ‘s that demon what messed him up.”

I nodded slowly. My influence wasn’t building properly, since the man’s eyes were erratically shifting all over the place. Also, his mind felt somewhat… slippery was the best term I could come up with. Like my influence couldn’t get a good ‘grip’ on it.

After several questions that didn’t receive anything beyond more angry grunting and growling, I had the guards remove the man again. Same sentence as the other traitor.

Only one traitor left now, though this one was of a different kind. Steward William hadn’t sold his soul to a demon. At least not as far as I was aware. Instead he sold me out to whoever his backer was.

The man was calm when he entered the room on his own two feet. He scoffed when the guards fastened his chains to the chair, but didn’t otherwise comment. Then, he turned to me.

“Good morning, young master. It is morning outside, is it not? What do you expect to gain from this ‘interrogation’? That I’ll spill some world-shaking secret to a cursed bastard like you? Ha! Hardly. The family will have your head for this, you know? Not even your father will protect you, now that you’ve done this. If he even is your father, since there’s no way to know who that wh–”

“Are you done? I was mistaken in assuming you had a chance to come to your senses after a night in a cell. Maybe I should have Lars rearrange some of your limbs? You’re the one who won’t be protected by the family, especially after you insulted my father like that! How dare you?! Everyone out!”

The guards shared an uncertain look with Mia.

“I said, everyone out. This concerns family secrets that you lot aren’t worthy to know.”

At my insistence, the three filed outside, leaving me alone with the steward.

“Now as to you, you traitorous piece of shit.”

“Me, a traitor? I’ve said it several times already, I’ve always been loyal to the family. The real traitor here is you, the cursed brat who made a deal with a demon!”

“That’s where you’re mistaken. I made no such deals. You however aided the demon by entering that tower when I’d explicitly forbidden it!”

I’d gotten out of my chair and was pacing up and down the room. Interestingly, that bastard’s heart beat faster whenever I turned my back. That’s a bit suspicious… I turned back towards him.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Enough of this prattle, you will answer my questions.”

“I will never follow your… orders…” The man’s speech slowed and cut off as the influence gained hold.

“What are you hiding?”

I almost launched myself into the ceiling in surprise when a black and gold knife popped into the steward’s hand out of nowhere.

“Picked this up in the tower… hid it away to plant in your room. Not that it’s really necessary, but the family will do an investigation after you’re killed by the agents I called. There needs to be evidence.”

Holy shit. Wow, this is good stuff. Just like that, he’d confessed to both the ‘demon hunters’ being fake and his intentions to get rid of me.

“Who do you work for? And none of this ‘the family’ shit.”

“I receive correspondence from Lady Annabelle. It was her plan to get rid of you. She promised to take me in after this household gets purged. Though I’ve also received messages from other important figures in the family.”

Lady Annabelle was the duke’s second official wife, though she’d born his first son. It made a twisted mount of sense why she’d want to get rid of me. By now I had a lot of brothers and sisters both, so her position – and, critically, her first son’s position – was less stable. Getting rid of an easy variable was a good move. Theoretically at least.

“It was my father who originally hired and sent you here though, correct?”

“Yes, that is correct. Duke Steelheart is overly attached to the young master though, so I have to step in and correct his mistake.”