Page 28 of Found In Destruction

They may be assholes, but they were the best for a reason. Their ingenuity in torture and extraction methods were world renowned. Most people would rip their right arm off to sit in on their sessions…but most people haven’t had their heart shattered and stomped on by them.

I stopped in the hallway, letting the music flow through me as I debated whether or not I wanted to subject myself to being around them. Even if it was for training purposes, their company was as appealing as having teeth pulled at the dentist. Even being in the same room during breakfast today had been tough, and we didn’t even sit together. Despite eating with Judas, Angela, Charlie, and a few members of Costa Coven, Bash’s glaring and Ares’ aggressive attention from across the room had made it awkward. And Desmond’s smug face irked the fuck out of me.

Fuck him, douche bag.

I was already fifteen minutes late… I could just say something came up. Pained screams rang through the hallway, piquing my curiosity. Ihadto know what they were up to. And Lucifer would be there, so I wouldn’t be alone with them. I kept walking toward the music, until I reached a heavy wooden door. As I opened it, I heard Ares’ familiar, maniacal laugh. Seems like they kicked off the party without me.

Desmond sat in the corner, glancing up at me as he read something on his tablet. His ability to block out the world around him to work was second to none. Ares and Judas were wearing soccer uniforms with bright red socks, dancing on the table. Judas sang along in perfect Korean while Ares held a severed head in his hands for a dancing partner. I’m not sure what magic they used to keep their target alive, but the detached head still screamed as he shook it up and down. His body thrashed on a table nearby.

“Kick it over!” Mal screamed over the music. He wore athletic shorts without a shirt and held a wooden bat. His blond hair was tied in a bun on top of his head.

Ares punted it Mal’s way. He swung, lobbing the head over to Desmond, who caught it one-handed with an unimpressed scoff at the last minute.

“Instead of playing around, why don’t you show Diana some new tricks.” He tossed it to me, and my fingers accidentally poked the head somewhere squishy when I caught it.

“Ah! My eye!” he screamed. “HELP ME!”

Holding the head at eye level, I looked it right in his bloodshot eyes and gave it a saccharine smile. “Sorry buddy, I can’t. Nor do I want to.”

I shuffled the head to one hand and snapped my fingers, changing into a pair of spandex shorts and a long-lined sports bra, as it seemed like today would be a more physical day. I smiled at Judas. “What’s our goal? Any particular reason we’re playing Head-Ball?”

“This is Girsham, one of Costa Coven’s blood-sourcers. His girlfriend gave us solid proof that he told Red a way to get into the compound undetected,” he answered. “Bash combed through her mind and confirmed it.”

You look ravishing in active wear, LG. I wouldn’t mind getting active to test it out later,Ares mindlinked me, sending me a devastating wink. Ugh, I forgot to shut my mindlink down when I woke up this morning.

His corny wink reminded me of how he ambushed me in my room last night…or as Charlie had said this morning, how I took what I wanted.

Di, babe, you’re more powerful than them. You could have kicked Ares’ ass if you wanted him to leave. Just admit you wanted your cookie crumbled. Be the badass bitch you’re meant to be. Take what you want from these men and stop overthinking it.

He was right. Ares wasn’t doing anything against my wishes. But being around them when so many things were up in the air didn’t sit right with me. Ignoring my thoughts, I put the head down on the far end of the table, near the body’s feet. “How did you all pull this off?” I gestured toward the body.

“I did it!” Ares answered, his smile beaming from ear to ear. “First, I cast a spell that would repair bodily damages. Then I severed his head from his neck, and fixed the bottom so it didn’t leak blood all over us while we worked. The magic isn’t permanent for an injury this traumatic, but it will give us a couple hours to interrogate him.”

“We haven’t done something this fun in centuries. Remember that embezzler we tracked down in Budapest who wore the weird cravat and hat? I still get chills thinking about his screams,” Judas reminisced. “The way you tied him up with his own intestines. Scared the locals for decades.” He mimed a chef’s kiss.

“If you’re not scaring the locals, what kind of tourist are you?” Ares scoffed. “Not a good one, that’s for sure. That has nothing on the goblin we met in Roanoke back in the colonial days.”

Desmond shook his head, his exasperated expression making me giggle. He seemed to be tired of having to corral these two already.Tough shit, dude, it’s only 10am.

“Back on topic, gentlemen. We’re shaping a fresh mind and divulging all of our trade secrets.” He smiled at me, gesturing for me to sit in the chair next to him.

I pulled the chair away from him for some personal space. “How do you actually get the information out of him? Is the Head-Ball for fun, or an actual technique?”

“Well, both–we enjoy tossing a head around on occasion, but this is very disorienting for a live head. It depends on the target. You have to assess what their weakness is, and then press on it until they talk,” Mal explained. “You did very well with the wolf shifter when we rescued Desmond. You found his weakness and took advantage of it.”

Desmond’s shadows curled around me, enveloping me in a cold embrace. I shook them off, much to his displeasure. “Torture is a process. You need to prepare for the long haul.”

“Yes. This one has been in holding for days and we roughed him up periodically before starting our game,” Judas said, gesturing toward his body. “But you’re going to get us the goods, Diana.”

Barely knowing the man, I wasn’t sure how to extract information from him. I sat back in my chair, thinking of what I knew about vampires, particularly the Costa Coven. They employed a selective hive mind. Angie and Judas had both explained it to me as them having access to a broadcast channel, where Judas or another higher ranking member controlled it to disseminate information or contact others. Somehow it was connected to the tattoo they all shared, but I didn’t know exactly how it worked.

“Judas, your hive mind thing…how do you make it work?”

“Hmmm, it’s a vampire thing. I’m the oldest and the strongest–” he puffed his chest out, smirking at me, “So I can think of my coven at large, and tap into their consciousness. Sometimes I can tell if one of them is hiding something, but unfortunately this got past me.”

I held the severed head’s hair with one hand and Judas’ with the other, focusing my energy on mingling our magic together. His magic felt ancient, downright spooky. It had a foreboding edge to it that dissipated once he realized what I was doing and opened up to me. I weaved Judas’ magic with my own so I could borrow it, then I started the process of tapping into our hostage’s consciousness, probing the hive mind thing they all shared. It was…a lot. Multiple conversations happened at once, like a chat room. My brain itched after a few seconds, and I had no clue how Judas could keep up with it, let alone interact with us at the same time.

Once I sifted through it all to find our hostage, I barreled through his mind, and that’s when the fun began. I sent pulsating shocks of magic through his mind, like live electrical currents. They hit him in a steady pattern, the intensity ramping up after each one. He screamed, cried, and babbled about how he wasn’t involved. Snot ran down his face, then blood leaked from his ears. I kept going, speeding up my attack so he was consecutively barraged with bursts of pain, but this time I threw the pattern out the window. He’d have no clue when they were coming or how long they’d last.

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