Page 89 of Devil Bound
I felt the tape cutting into my bound wrists and ankles as I came to, sort of achy all over, feeling stiff because I was taped tighter than I’d ever taped that backpack.
I had a sense that I was indoors, but it smelled here, smelled so bad.I knew exactly what I was smelling from all my experience as a consultant, and it was death and decay.Someone was talking.I couldn’t quite make out the words, and my eyes wouldn’t focus.I had no idea what kind of horse tranquilizer Sexy Mitch had stuck me with, but boy, it was effective.
I probably shouldn’t call him Sexy Mitch anymore.Clearly, he was Crazy Motherfucker Mitch.Was he the one talking?I tried to turn my head toward the source of the noise.
“Wake up!”
Huh.That wasn’t Mitch.Too desperate, too…scared.I needed to be scared.Fear was good at keeping people alive.I needed adrenaline.Adrenaline would wake me up.
“Oh, fuck, just… Man, he’s going to come back any minute now.Wake up!”
I told my brain to listen to that voice.My brain deigned to inform me that I would not be in this situation—which was a pretty fucked-up situation even without knowing all the specifics—if I’d just stayed in bed with Lucy.Fuck my brain.What good was a brain if it didn’t even give you the adrenaline to be scared for your life when you really needed it?
Blinking and sort of rotating my head to help me focus, I tried to look at the speaker again.My eyes decided to cooperate, to a point.
He was the smith from earlier today—yesterday.He still had his eyes magicked purple, but cold sweat had made his makeup run and smudge.There was desperation in those purple eyes.I couldn’t quite feel the fear, but I knew I had to get him out of here, and not as a corpse.There was a pretty deep cut on his left cheek, and the blood had gotten all the way to his collar before drying there.He was bound like I was, but he’d been here longer.
Here.I looked around.There were fluorescent lights above that blinded me.I was on the ground, which was tiled and bleached clean, but I had the sense that it was filthy in so many other ways.
I focused on the tiles.They had been carved with warding runes; not amateur work but professional-grade warding.The wards were meant for containment, like something you’d see in exam rooms at the Collegium or in holding cells for magic users.Unless I could overload them, using magic to solve this mess I had gotten myself into wasn’t an option.
I huffed, straining against the duct tape and the sluggishness.There was a counter I couldn’t really see tucked against a wall, and a thick plastic curtain separated the tiled area from the rest of wherever we were.I saw wards on the curtain as well, though the waves of the plastic distorted them.
“Come on, you awake finally?”the smith asked.
“Can’t…magic,” I said.I’d meant to share my findings about all the warding with him, but that was more than I was currently capable of.My tongue felt swollen and stiff, like a lump of dried meat.
“Yeah, the place is warded.Look around.Some heavy-duty stuff.I think my old boss did some of them.”
“Boss?”
The smith looked at me.“He taught me how to run a business.Vanished a few weeks ago, but I got a text saying it was a family emergency and he was staying with his sister for a while.”He ground his teeth.“I don’t think he ever left Brunswick.Who knows you’re here?You’re with the cops, right?He pretended to be one.He wanted to know about a coin and got really interested when I mentioned I’d talked to you.Tell me the real cops are on their way to get us out of here, please.”
Shit.“We need to get out ourselves.”My words came out slurred.“No one’s coming.He really is a cop.”
The smith stared at me.“That’s a joke, right?Tell me you’re joking.That guy is one of you?”
“Not one of me, but a cop.Help me get the tape off.”I shuffled over to him as best as I could with bound arms and legs.There was a drain set in the floor right by my head.I emphatically didnotwant to think about what the drain was for.Or why it was all tiles in here.Easy-to-clean tiles, tiles you could bleach.
“You can’t,” the smith said.
As he spoke, a chain around my ankle snapped tight and stopped my glacial progress.
“Shit.”
And as if the situation weren’t bad enough already, I heard footsteps.
“No, no, no, no, no…”
The smith’s voice broke when his tears started flowing, and I couldn’t even blame him.
The footsteps grew closer, like a bomb ticking down to zero, and then the curtains rattled open.
There he was, Crazy Motherfucker Mitch, standing there outlined in his butcher’s costume, complete with boots and gloves and safety glasses.My brain, still not on board with getting survival mode going, was letting me know that he’d look great in that for a Halloween couples costume with me as a bloody corpse.Seemed like gallows humor really did die last.
What bothered me was that I had no idea how Brunswick PD had missed this.I shouldn’t be here.I didn’t want to die, oh sweet gods, I didn’t want to die, not before telling Lucifer I wouldn’t let him use me like that, damn it.I was worth more than one night of pleasure, and it had been…nice.I wanted to tell him that, even if it made me pathetic.
“Lionel,” Mitch said.“You’re awake finally.”
