“Leander,” he replied in an amused voice.“Druwolf ordered you killed, but whether that is painful or easy is up to me.You’ve always had a healthy strand of self-interest, so don’t disappoint me.Where is the child?”
Fear crawled through Leander’s soul.He knew how much pain a human being could endure.He had inflicted it when he had thought torturing someone else would save him.He’d left some part of himself in Druwolf’s basement, but he was desperate to hold onto the life that remained him.The thought of dying inspired such terror Leander couldn’t breathe.What was Salem compared to that?
Leander jerked.No.He would not betray Shanlin.He was Leander’s son now.Leander’s to protect.Leander’s to care for.He would destroy the world before letting Cadell touch him.His emotions warred with each other.
Xi lunged forward, launching himself from the floor in an attempt to tackle Cadell.Before he had covered half the distance, he collapsed to the ground with a cry of fear .For a moment, the terror eased from Leander’s mind and his determination to protect Shanlin roared to the front of his mind.
“Emotions!He’s controlling emotions!”Leander shouted.
Cadell laughed.“I am far beyond mere manipulations of emotions.I can make you choose one option over another.I can pull on memories, force you to relive your worst fears.I can lock your soul into a memory that will shred your sanity.The mind is my playground.”Xi writhed on the ground, trapped in Cadell’s powers, and Leander’s legs were trembling with weakness.
“Luckily, I am trained to control emotions,” Heng said, and he leaped at Cadell.Xi fell silent as Cadell turned his powers toward Heng.Heng hesitated, but he didn’t pause.Unfortunately, he had been thrown so far back that he had a lot of ground to cover.Cadell pulled out a gun and fired.
The shot echoed through the empty warehouse, and Leander stumbled back.A second later, he realized Heng was sinking to the floor, and he darted forward.“Heng!”
Leander was on his knees at Heng’s side, a hand pressed over the hole in his T-shirt, the green fabric turning red from the blood.
“I didn’t think you cared about anyone,” Cadell said, a sneer in his voice.Leander ignored him, reaching for the wisps of magic in the air for anything that could help with healing, but he had let go of most of his magic when he’d attacked Vaughn.He wasn’t like Heng who could pull magic from within or even like Xi who was always surrounded by shadows.
Leander looked over, and Xi was crouched on the floor—huddled like a child and shivering in fear.
“Where is the child?”
Leander sat back on his heels.“Why do you care?He’s a child.”
“I am not a cartoon villain.I don’t plan to monologue before shooting you.”
“Usually the villain monologues before the hero defeats him.”
Cadell chuckled.“Tecca said something very similar.Then Druwolf shredded her mind while she screamed.Heroes are lies told to an audience who wants to believe in a fair world.But you and I live in this world, Leander.Give me the boy and your death will be fast.I’ll even give your lover a quick end.”
Heng caught Leander’s wrist, but he had no words of advice as he lay bleeding out on a dirty floor.
Cadell stepped forward, his gun pointed at Leander.“I can rip it from your mind.”
Fear grew like a bubble in Leander’s chest that pushed out all the air, but he clung to logic.“You thought I was working with Tecca when I wasn’t.If you could take answers from a mind, you would have taken them out of her.”
“Druwolf was a little too angry for patience.After all, that one had corrupted his most profitable blood mage.”He gestured toward Xi as he cowered on the floor.“But you will tell me the truth.”
“Fuck off,” Leander snarled.“He’s safe and you’re never going to be able to get to him.”
“We’ll see about that.”Cadell reached for Leander, and by instinct, he put up his hand as if to protect his face.It was a futile gesture since flesh wouldn’t stop a bullet, but instinct didn’t follow logic.Cadell grabbed Leander’s wrist and hauled him to his feet.Leander scrambled to keep up as Cadell dragged him to the wall.He pinned Leander by his throat and pressed the gun to his head.“Who is Officer Masur working for?”
“Creek?The police.”The question didn’t make sense and Leander glanced over to where Creek, or Xi as he was known as now, was still huddled.However, his shaking had lessened some.Leander needed to distract Cadell to let him recover.And he needed to do it fast.Heng was dying.
“You are delightfully stupid,” Cadell said.“But assuming you are an idiot, you can earn an easy death by telling me where the boy is.”
“Why do you care?He’s a child.Even if he saw something, he’s too traumatized to say anything.He won’t even talk about his birth parents.”
Leander’s fear transformed into raw, bitter terror that made his legs shake and he felt the warmth as his bladder lost control.The emotion wasn’t real.He knew it.This was Cadell’s power, and Leander had to hang on to logic, but he couldn’t with every fiber of his being screaming with horror.Then the emotion eased.
“That,” Cadell said as he took a step back and rubbed his left hand against his pants, “is a mere fraction of what I can do.I can make you suffer in ways no mundane could.I can keep you alive for days.Weeks.”He kept rubbing his hand.The motion caught Leander’s attention and instinct made him reach out with his magic.He felt the peanut’s magic clinging to Cadell’s hand, but it moved sluggishly, as if his skin were molasses that the magic was trying to push through.
Maybe it was the fear or the lingering touch of Cadell’s magic, but it took Leander several seconds to realize what he was feeling.
“Are you so afraid of death that you would rather linger here, even if survival can only lead to pain?”Cadell sounded amused.
Leander gathered all his control and tried to push aside the fear that still held him in its teeth.Heng’s life hung in the balance.Xi was shivering on the ground.But he could do this.He pulled the magic from the peanut shells around his wrist.The shells crumbled as Leander pulled every atom of life remaining in the roughly made bracelet.The peanut aura was rich with life and promise, offering to enhance the power of any elixir, but Leander would use it for a much more nefarious purpose.
