Page 89 of The Firebrand
Once the bull-necked gaffer, tall even for a demon, picked the shifter up by his ankles, he dunked him headfirst into the tub. Ulfur came up screaming, thrashing, arms pinwheeling.
“You ready to talk?” the gaffer asked, still gripping ankles.
“My face! My face! You sadistic, swinging dick bastards,” he yelled.
Sabine glanced up from grooming her nails to look at Ulfur.Ooh. His face was red, swollen, fang-holed, and oozing gunk.
The bull-necked guard dunked Ulfur two more times before he passed out.
When he came around, the older gaffer had Ulfur tied to a chair and was waving rusty pliers in front of his blistered face. The shifter looked at his interrogators through puffy eyelids, yelping.
Sabine put her hands over her ears. “Shut him the fuck up. Nymphs have sensitive hearing.”
The yelps turned to hysterical pleas for help when the gaffer yanked a nail from one of his fingers, showing it around for everyone to admire. “Nineteen more to go. Anything you want to say, dogface?”
“No… No.” Ulfur gulped, blood dripping onto the floor from his nail bed.
“How about a canine? Hard to catch or eat your prey without claws or teeth. You’re gonna be mighty hungry,” taunted the older guard.
Ulfur whimpered, his crazed eyes spinning like a pinwheel. A tooth bounced onto the cement.
Sabine glanced up to find the shifter bent forward, gagging, hacking up blood and bile. Her Firebrand partner whispered in her ear and then told the gaffers to string Ulfur up in the middle of the interrogation room by the iron wrist manacles.
With only his toes touching the floor, the shifter’s chin bobbed on his chest. An acrid odor drifted toward Sabine when he wet himself. He was a sight. His long, sandy hair matted to his skull. Broken bones popping out of his skin. His face puffy. Nobody sane could take this treatment. Maybe a spell had compelled his silence, but Ram’s idea might penetrate it.
“Gaffers, come back in thirty. We got this.” Rubbing a hand across his jaw while studying Ulfur’s condition, the satyr Firebrand circled the shifter. “You look like shit, dude. I thought you were an ugly tweaking mutt the other day, but you were almost handsome then. Hey, Sabine, do you know what a wolf hates more than anything?”
“No. What, Ram?”
“I’ve shared drinks with a few nasty dog shifters in my life. After a few bottles of whiskey, they talk about everything and everybody. With the right boozy incentives, they’d give up Grandma. Anyway, they told me they hate being skinned alive. Yep! Scares the bejeezus out of them. Shrivels their balls.”
Sabine returned to cleaning under her nails, not looking up. “I just moved into a new place. It could use a fur rug. If you skinned wolfie, he’d make a nice floor covering.” Angling her neck, she sized up the potential room decor. “I have the perfect spot in front of my fireplace.”
Despite the swelling, Ulfur’s eyes flashed open in terror. He thrashed his dangling feet helplessly, the noise from the chain grating against the iron hook in the ceiling. He rasped, “I won’t shift.”
“Here’s the thing, Ulfur. Brak’s about to arrive. He’s a carnal demon. They can force a shifter’s change. Once he does that, Sabine gets her fur rug. I sympathize, dude. I do, but you know females love to decorate. It’s in their genes.”
“You think you scare me, you sperm-shooting satyr bastard?”
“Who, me? Hell no. Skinning a wolf is way too sick for me. I have my limits. But she’ll scare you. Shit, she scares me most of the time.” Ram pointed to Sabine, who was busy concentrating on her manicure.
Boots sounded on the concrete when Brak and Dax thundered into the Cubes. With his soulless stare on the bloody, nearly rabid shifter suspended by iron manacles on a chain from the ceiling, Dax twisted the side of his mouth into a sneer. “Good. We didn’t want you to start without us.”
Ram gestured to Brak, “Dude, come here. We need you. Here’s the situation. Sabine is jonesing for a fur rug. For us to get one, this a-hole has to shift so she can skin him. Do her a solid.”
“Hmm. Let’s see the sitch.” Brak ambled over to Ulfur.
Sabine peeked up, tapping her chin with a polished nail. She sussed Brak was in Ulfur’s mind, eyes snapped shut, imagining him changing to his wolf.
Ulfur shifted, screams growing to howls. Then, just as suddenly, he flipped back to his two-legged version.
“Damn, Sabine. Sorry.” Scrubbing a hand over his thick black hair, Brak shook his head. “I’ve been having a little problem with this whole shifter thing lately. Sometimes I can’t keep it up.” The carnal demon chortled. “What? No snark? Okay, let me try again. Come close, nymph, ’cause you might have to skin him fast.”
Ram laughed while Dax’s upper lip curled to reveal fangs. Brak’s poor imitation of incompetence would not earn an academy award.
Sabine jolted from her seat to wait alongside Ulfur. “Ready.” Unsheathing her blade, she poked Ulfur’s nose with the tip. “Feel this, wolfie? It’s sharp.”
“Let me think. Slow down.” The shifter licked his cracked lips. “Get me a drink of water. I can’t think. I’m so thirsty.”
