Page 82 of Hidden Sacrifice
I headed right, not sure what Justice intended on having me cut into, but right now, I needed something more than pain. I needed to let go of some of the darkness that had clung to me since the veil. Heading down the dark narrow hallway, it finally gave way to a simple wooden door. The sides of it were blackened with mold from all the years of being exposed to the moisture.
“You might want to get that replaced,” I commented to Justice, pointing to the top corner where the worst black spots were.
“Oh no, Fox, those are my creations. I grow them here.”
I hoped Justice wasn’t confusing secret lab with dungeon, or else I may have just agreed to chop up some toads’ foot for him. No turning back now, I put my hand on the door, opening it to reveal a dungeon.
There were tables with various sharp and pointy objects lined up and glistening. A giant spotlight shone on a figure chained in the middle of the room, its arms and legs spread wide. The light brightened and waned as if suffering from loss of power on a consistent cycle. Through the eerie atmosphere, I examined the creature before me. Its head was down, and long dark stands hung in its face. The skin was almost a dark purple-grey. Two long black wings sat in a bloody heap on the floor, one piled on the other.
I looked back to Justice in confusion.
“Fox, meet Fachnan,” he said with a smile.
It felt like the wind was knocked out of me as I turned back to the demon. I searched every feature. It was entirely naked but had neither breasts nor sexual organs. The skin was simply smooth.
“How?”
Justice came up beside me; his eyes fixed on the demon in front of us. “Before we left, I went back into the house. Many of the binding spells that held the fractures were still intact. I knew that Fachnan could return to move the fractures to a more secure location. So, I overlayed every one of the vessels with a contact venom. Only a demon with poison immunity would be able to stand after five minutes of dermal contact. If the fractures were moved successfully, that meant a short list of suspects, and if it worked, well, you see what happened,” he said, turning back to me with a wicked grin.
My heartbeat hammered erratically in my ears. The demon that hurt my mates was chained and helpless before me. My vampire speed propelled me to the nearest table to pick up a machete before appearing in front of the demon. My body blocked some light from the spotlight, allowing Fachnan to raise its head.
“Who are you?” My mind shuffled through the demon's features before me, comparing them against any of the other demons I had seen in Hell. This wasn’t an illusion either; this was a shifted form. Ribs were visible, and the body was skinny, almost as if they pulled from their body to create the wings quickly, rather than growing them.
Fachnan didn’t answer. Quickly, I stabbed the machete into its stomach, right where I had been stabbed as a mortal. Fachnan screeched out in pain, a sound that echoed in low and high tones, causing the house above us to shake. I pulled the blade out, letting blood ooze out of the wound. The skin didn’t heal back together as I thought it would.
I felt the heat of Justice’s body as he pressed against my back. His hand wrapped around my shaking one that still held on to the blade. Blood dripped from the tip onto the cold stone floor.
“Fachnan cannot access any power within the spell,” Justice whispered. He motioned with our hands to the cufflinks that bound our prisoner's hands and feet, using the tip of the machete as the pointer.
I watched the blood dripping from the wound I caused, remembering the pain and fear. The shocking blue eyes and smell of burning flesh returned to me. The same pair of hauntingly sick eyes flashed through me for a moment, and I felt a wave of determination.
“Were you responsible for my death? The man that killed me as a mortal had a book of spells written by angels. The same language spells you use.” My voice came out like the hiss of a snake, and at this moment, I wished for the same venom that flowed through Justice’s veins to run through mine.
Fachnan stayed quiet until I plunged the blade deep into its shoulder, producing another earth-shaking screech. Justice’s hand was still holding onto mine, and I wasn’t sure who had started the knife on the path. Justice released his grip on my hand, growling lightly in my ear before taking a step back from me. I twisted the hilt back and forth to watch the blood bubble up faster as the screeching turned into nothing more than a dull hum in my ears.
“I asked you a question,” I growled out before pulling the machete free.
“Who are you to demand answers from me?” Fachnan jeered as its face twisted into some mixture of grimace and smile.
The dull hum started in again, louder this time. Looking at Fachnan, it looked like it was laughing or talking at the very least. But all I could hear was the loud hum until suddenly it quieted yet again.
“Did I kill the vampire? I didn’t get a chance to see if he had turned to ash or not,” Fachnan laughed out in the same dual-tone it screamed in.
My blood boiled as I let the machete slip free from my grasp leaving it to fall to the floor. I called forth fire as I stepped closer to Fachnan, smelling the powerful demon blood oozing from the wounds I caused. The fire spread over my hand, webbing between my fingers. Visions of Jax’s face filled my mind, and I shoved my hand onto the side of Fachnan’s face, pushing in with my thumb until I felt the eye below my touch pop.
Screams filled my ears as the smell of burning flesh surrounded me, but this time, I smiled. Fachnan tried to struggle against my hold, but I refused to let go until half the face was marred the same way Jax’s was.
I released my hold, and Fachnan’s head flopped over. Mentally, I pulled out of my mind as I zeroed in on the shimmer of light before me, slamming into the protection spells. Even unconscious, this mind was sealed tight.
“Justice, do you have any of your other dungeon drugs? Maybe we can get into its head.” I panted, looking back at him, worried that we wouldn’t get any answers. Perhaps I had gone a bit rougher than I should have to start.
“This is more of a stabby dungeon than a poke in the head dungeon, Fox.”
“Well, did you want to help me out here a little? This is my first torture round, and I seemed to have already knocked the prisoner out.”
I looked back to the still slightly smoking side of the demon’s head.
“I thought you were doing an amazing job, Fox. Going in there with the tiny psycho vibes. I’m here for it.”
