Page 62 of Vanish Into Light

Gavin and Tris trooped in, Gavin with his hand resting on the butt of his sidearm.

“Weapons won’t be necessary,” Beck said, without looking at them. He leaned forward to test one of the man’s bonds, and nodded in satisfaction.

Lance skated a glance toward Gavin, and found his hard, angry gaze pinned to Beck’s back. The gun, he realized, with a jolt of alarm, wasn’t for the prisoner.

Before he’d registered thinking it, Lance crossed the room in a few strides and gripped Gavin’s forearm – one that he found hard with tension. In a low voice, he said, “Gav, you need to chill out.”

Gavin had been trying to peer around his shoulder, keeping tabs on Beck, but his gaze snapped up to Lance’s face, now, glittering defiance. “Afraid I’m gonna shoot your fuckbuddy,Lieutenant?” The rank was said mockingly, contemptuously.

On one level, Lance could sympathize with his fear – and that’s what it was, beneath the sneering anger: it was fear. Honestly, who wouldn’t be afraid of Beck? To look at alone, but after seeing him in action, seeing his strength, and his speed, and his callous disregard for most life; his thirst – actual, literal thirst – for blood.

Man to man, Lance understood where Gavin was coming from.

But Gavin was a Knight – a Knight of Golden Company – and Lance had expected him to adapt and roll with the punches better than this.

He didn’t want to acknowledge how frightening it must be to have one’s CO fall into bed and defer to a creature brought back from hell.

Creature. Beck wasn’t a creature – not to him, not anymore.

Warring with his own thoughts, his impulses versus his logic, Lance failed to respond in time.

Beck said, “You’re welcome to try, Gavin, but I don’t think it would do much besides delay the task at hand.”

When Lance turned, he found Beck staring at both of them, unbothered, eyes bright as lamps.

“Problem?” he asked.

“No,” Lance said, and moved to stand at the side of the table.

The captive had been secured, bound tightly at wrists and ankles. Rose stood at the head of the table, naked knife in her hand. “Should I wake him?” she asked, tilting the knife so candlelight flickered and leaped down the length of the blade.

“I’ll do it.” Beck stepped up on the other side of the table, across from Lance, and reached to press a single fingertip to the man’s forehead.

A shudder rippled through his body. He gasped, and his eyes snapped open – fixed immediately upon Beck’s face. A harsh, marble mask of a face, save his glowing eyes, which were smiling.

“Now,” Beck said, “where were we?”

~*~

Rose sheathed her knife. Her clean knife. And glanced to her left, where Beck stood at the sink in their bathroom, washing the blood from his hands. He’d bypassed the kitchen, though it was nearer, out of respect for the others. They wouldn’t want him cleaning from beneath his claws in the place where they scrubbed potatoes, he’d reasoned.

She didn’t disagree.

“Are you disappointed?” he asked, working pink lather between his long, elegant fingers. He washed his hands in the same way he did everything, which was to say, beautifully.

“Hm?” She examined her own hands, spotless save the old, hard calluses shaped like the hilts of her favorite knives. When she lifted her head, his gaze captured hers in the mirror.

“You didn’t get your hands dirty,” he said, and left it at that.

She took a deep breath – and did not sigh, though it was an effort. “I didn’t need to.” She did a good job, she thought, of not sounding bitter about it.

He smiled, faintly, gaze still trained on her via their reflections, as he used the tip of one claw to clean beneath another. “I was going for expedient. Also.” His voice became delicate. He paused to rinse his hands, and then turned off the tap, rotating to face her in person as he dried his hands. “You’ve never done that before.”

“I’ve stabbed plenty of people.”

“You’ve wounded and you’ve killed,” he agreed, head tilting. “But you’ve never tortured anyone for information before.”

It had been torture. She’d known it would be. When Beck had phased his hand through the man’s chest, so he was wrist-deep in his gut, the air humming with bloodless hell-magic, she’d glanced up and searched the faces of her Company. Gavin had looked away. The others had tried, and failed, to mask their alarm – even Lance, whose throat had jerked painfully as he’d swallowed, and whose jaw had clenched tight, like a man who’d resolved himself to something unpleasant.

---