Chapter 12 I See The Monsters
The archer was thrown into a damp and mostly dark cell. The pair of guards had been rough but not maliciously so. His wrists were cuffed with antimagic cuffs and chains. The antimagic was unfortunate. He had some spell casting ability, not very much, but enough to get him out of a normal cell. He had only been left to stew for just over a minute. ‘That’s not how an interrogation is supposed to go.’ He thought to himself.
The guards had left the cell door open as if taunting him with freedom and he had expected to be left to rot for at least a few hours before anyone came to interrogate him. That was standard procedure, this wasn’t his first time behind bars. Hells, this wasn’t even his first time behind bars in Safeharbor. His assassination targets walked in without a care in the world. He looked up to meet the woman’s eyes and then the man’s in turn. The blood stains on his shirt were hidden behind a dark fog that seemed to eat the light it came into contact with.
—
“Who sent you?” Isaac asked calmly.
“You’re bad at this.” The archer replied.
Isaac shook his head. “I know who hired you. I want to know who the middleman is.” He clarified.
The archer shook his head. “Again, you’re bad at this.”
“Lenna, his hand please.” Isaac directed.
The archer looked up at him questioningly. “Straight to the threat of torture huh?”
Isaac shook his head as Lenna grabbed the archer’s wrist and pulled it as close to Isaac as she could. The jolt slammed the man’s other hand into the wall and twisted him into a slightly awkward position. “Not a threat.” Isaac clarified.
“That’s what they all- AAHHH!” The archer was cut off mid sentence by Isaac shrinking his pinky finger by half an inch via death flames.
“I’m in a bad mood.” Isaac told the man who was at their mercy. “I could let you go or kill you and no one would question me. Give me a name or pass out from the pain.” He burned away his pinky back another knuckle resulting in another agonized scream.
“Fine!” The archer got out once he had gotten a brief reprieve. “I’ll talk.” He got out between deep breaths once Isaac and made clear that he was willing to wait a bit before continuing his subtraction of digits. “It was a guild request. Our team’s manager was in contact with the client. I don’t know if there was another middleman or not. Our manager talked to him via magic. We never saw him. I heard his voice once. Gruff, middle aged, I think. That’s all I know. I swear.”
Isaac searched the archer’s face for a long moment. “What’s your manager’s name?” He asked.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
The archer paled even more. He swallowed hard. “Do you know what they’ll do to me if I talk about a guildie? Listen man, we’ve been following you for a while. I know you can kill me and make it hurt the whole time but those guys won’t let me die.” The archer took a deep breath to build resolve. “Do what you have to but I can’t tell you that.”
Isaac just stared silently into the other man’s eyes for a few long seconds. The man had broken like a dropped teacup. His refusal to answer the last question meant that his excuses were probably true. Isaac wasn’t a big fan of torture. For him it wasn’t worth the time nor the effort. Like most unsavory things it was a tool to be used and then put away. If short term torture wasn’t going to work then Isaac wouldn’t waste the effort trying it over long term.
Isaac turned to Lenna. “Let’s go.” He told her and then looked back at the archer. “Sit tight. If you escape I’ll burn off both your arms and leave you in the slums.”
The archer had apparently fully given in to his current situation and simply nodded resolutely. “I’ll do a job for free if you put in a good word for me with the magistrate.” He offered.
Isaac chuckled darkly. “That’s who hired you.”
—
Isaac and Lenna returned to their room, got cleaned up, had a nice filling dinner and then ended their day with some light reading at the Guild Hall before returning back to the Celestial Dawn. They made sure the rest of the day had gone as though nothing had happened. Celeste and Alice had both tried to bring up what had happened but Isaac had simply shook his head and then changed the subject.
There was a reasoning behind Isaac’s apparent madness. Silence was far, far, worse than action. The calm before the storm could be far scarier than the storm itself under the right circumstances. Isaac knew that Gio knew that Isaac knew it was him who sent the assassins after him. Gio would have set up some sort of contingency in the event that the assassination attempt failed. Only Gio knew what that contingency was but Isaac was going to make him jump at shadows for a while just because he could. If he was going to have vengeance then it was going to have a good bit of Isaac Wexler flair involved.
Lenna opened her eyes and yawned. Isaac had wanted to go before even Celeste got up so she had only gotten to meditate for four hours. She could have slept but she wasn’t going to join Isaac on the bed and falling asleep in a chair always gave her a kink in her neck. She walked over to Isaac and sat on the bed next to him. “It’s time.” She told him. No answer. She sighed and rested her hand on his back near his shoulder. “Isaac. It’s time.”
He groaned and shifted slightly. “Just five more minutes.” He replied in a whisper.
“You were the one who wanted to get going at this godsforsaken hour.” She reminded him which caused him to slowly start to open his eyes.
“Yeah.” He agreed. “It was a bad idea.” He shook his head and then rubbed his eyes. He sat up with a yawn. “Okay. Let’s go.”
—
Gio walked into his office with a morning mug of mushroom tea. The stimulant was just starting to work its way into his system. He didn’t bother closing the door as he didn’t have any classified documents out in the open. He walked past his bookshelf and around his desk. His eyes lingered on his nation’s flag that was pinned behind the desk on the back wall. He let out a long sigh. “I wonder if his majesty will see it.” He whispered to himself. He frowned and then nodded resolutely. “I should get everything in order.” He said to himself. The ‘For my replacement.’ had gone unsaid.
Gio knew that Isaac wouldn’t let him live. He also knew that Duke Arbencroft would do nothing to stop the monster in human skin. It was insulting. Insulting to the nation and the crown that they both served. Monsters like those two needed to be cut down before they could breed chaos, not given the key to the city. Gio had, of course, ignored the Duchess’s request to not notify the king unless the ‘guests’ had become a problem. The chancellor had, ignorantly, agreed with the duchess. Gio had been told to simply wait and watch. If the newcomers were against them then it would be revealed in due time but if they were not then it wasn’t worth making an enemy out of an ally.
He pulled his chair out and turned to sink into the hundred year old chair’s comfortable embrace. His eyes caught something where nothing should be a moment before he sat down. He bolted upright and sat his mug on the desk. His chair pushed back another few inches by his legs’ sudden straightening. A suit of armor stood behind his opened door. The armor was leaning against the wall with arms crossed. Black scorch marks and shallow cuts and scrapes were visible all across its surface. The armor pushed off the wall and its arms dropped to its sides, the left hand finding a resting place on the pommel of its sword.
The door closed on its own causing the only light in the room to be from a glowstone lamp on his desk. The armor took a step out from the corner in near total silence. A black haze was working its way through the armor’s plates. A silhouette of a cloaked figure appeared next to it in a blink. No fanfare, no warning, it just appeared as if it had always been there. Gio spoke a command phrase to activate a magical recording device. The command phrase had been chosen just for this moment. “I see the monsters have graced me with their presence.”