“Same.”
“Me too, in case anyone’s interested,” drawled Zane. He sank into a crouch and studied the magic winding around Russ. “Looks like a Spanish Wringer.”
Grayson worked his jaw, his attention on the circle, his face dark. “It is.”
“What’s a Spanish Wringer?” Cass asked.
“Remember history class and the whole Spanish Inquisition period, when Family turned on Family?”
It rang a bell. “Sure.”
“This is what they used. A standard interrogation circle filled with all sorts of nasty horrors designed to get you to confess to anything.”
Zane pushed to his feet. “How fast can you take it down?”
A shimmer of gold lit the depths of Grayson’s dark eyes. “Let’s find out.”
Chapter 20
Grayson
As the Wringer’s layers unfurled in his mind’s eye, Grayson knew it was going to be a brutal race. The circle was a multilevel construct, twisting and turning from cursed-filled layer to curse-filled layer. Threads of interconnected triggers linked the layers and were an expected complication since the hex’s intent was to tear through mental walls at all costs. Magic pulsed through the lines, seeping into triggers and dripping into the next layer as it continued its grim march. There were only a few more layers left before it would kill Russ. Stopping it would require finding the right rune at the right layer and reversing it.
He raced ahead of the magic powering the circle to the remaining untouched layers, then he started working his way back toward the encroaching threat. Time warped and stretched as he examined what lay before him. For a Key, magical skill went hand in hand with intuition, so he followed his gut and let his magic sweep along the lines. It brushed over the intent and will of the caster, felt the change as it approached a trigger, then spiraled off to the next line, continuing to search for that elusive difference that signaled he’d found what he was looking for. The faint worry he was too late hovered in his mind as he drew closer to the sickly-orange glow rolling toward him like molten lava.
Then he felt it—at the edge of a rune, a small, jagged snag that shouldn’t exist. He zeroed in on it, taking precious time to unravel its original intent, and then moved to the one layered just beneath it. That one was the doozy.
Dammit, it’s going to be tight. If he didn’t time this right and flip both triggers in the right order at the right time, they’d lose more than Russ. For a second, he considered stepping back, but Cass needed answers.
Hell, so did he. He positioned his magic. “Zane, when I say go, grab Russ and get clear.”
“Say when.”
Grayson went to work on creating an opening for Zane to use.
“The chair,” Cass warned.
“I’ve got it,” Zane told her.
Grayson pried the circle open. “Go!”
There was a rush of movement as Zane followed his order, but Grayson was already shoring up the temporary path as he went to work on the triggers. Ugly flares of power surged forward, attacking Grayson’s magic. Grayson ignited the first trigger just as a screech of metal sounded. There was a series of guttural grunts then the ear-splitting whine of a chair being dragged across the cement. He ignored it all, concentrating on the magic that beaded down toward the next layer. Just before the first drop hit, he flipped the second trigger. The glowing construct in his mind went dark, the lines and layers flaking away like ashes in the wind.
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder. “You good?”
Grit bit into his hands and knees, and he realized he was no longer standing. Zane was crouched next to him, his face concerned.
“Yeah,” Grayson managed, shoving upward until he was sitting on his ass. “I’m good. Russ?”
Zane’s expression turned grim as he shook his head, straightened, and held a hand out. “Come on.”
Grayson took it and let the other man help him to his feet. They stepped around the now empty shackles and chair and joined Cass, who knelt next to the prone Russ.
“Come on, Russ, wake up.” When Grayson crouched next to her, she asked, “Why isn’t he waking up?”
“I don’t know.” He took in Russ’s drawn gray features. There was a bruise along one side of his face, likely where he’d been clocked when kidnapped, but there were no other physical signs of harm. Releasing him from the circle should have ended whatever metaphysical and mental torture he’d been caught in. Instead, he was too still. He carefully shook the man. “Russ. Wake up.”
When that only produced a faint groan, Grayson scanned him for any lingering spells. He found traces of a lethal hex that had been obscured by the Wringer and bit off a particularly nasty oath. They had mere minutes to get answers before Russ was a dead man.
