Page 104 of Reaper's Quest

“Who I am is of no consequence to you.” He took another step forward, revealing the stiff edge of a lapel, the flow of a short cape, and hair cut, or pulled, close to the scalp. Not a single feature that would help identify the prick in a police lineup.

I stretched my back and held my demeanor in check. Calm and collected. “I happen to disagree. Given the situation…me on this side of the bars and you on the other…” I motioned to either side with a lazy wave. “Add in the little fact that you appear to have plans that somehow involve me, and I’d say who you are very much matters to me.”

He released a low chuckle. “You may think of me as your keeper. For now. Together, you and I will be looking for a solution.”

“A solution to what?” I made no effort to temper the bite of my tone as bitterness washed over my tongue. Instead, Iaddressed irritation’s physical manifestation and massaged the strain building in my neck,

“I thought it would be obvious.” He sighed. “A solution to that which has plagued me and the rule of the land for over a hundred years.”

“How can I?—”

My captor slapped his hands together. “Shall we begin?”

With the only source of light at his back, darkness covered him?nothing more than a shadow haloed by an unnatural green glow. Small movements became lost in the thick of his silhouette, but larger actions appeared quite clearly.

As was the case when the jerk reached for a lever at the edge of the gloom, the limited illumination highlighting the crank and the hand upon it.

With the lift of the lever came a loudwrippe.

Black braided restraints shot up from the floor on either side of me.

I had wrongly identified the holes in the floor. They weren’t used for drainage but for hiding misery. The leather whip-like belts blasted straight for me and, as if by magic, found my wrists, upper arms, and thighs with ease. The restraints wrapped around me, tightening and pulling. Yanking me to my knees.

Wanting to buck the touch from my skin, my struggle immediately ignited…and stopped short. The hold, firm. The give, nearly non-existent.

“That’s better,” he said. “Now no one will get hurt while we do what we must.”

I laughed a strangled, deranged song that thrust from mylungs. “No one but me, you mean to say. No one but me will get hurt.”

“You may hurt. Yes. But you can take solace in knowing that all that we do here is for a greater cause.”

Yeah, sure.

I hung my head and nodded. “Isn’t that what every villain always tells themselves?”

Another leather band shot free of the floor as if it had been waiting for me to lower into the ideal position. The strap slung around my head like a crown and dove back into the same hole through which it had exited. The restraint pulled taut, holding my head in a bowed position.

“What the hellfire?” I exclaimed through clenched teeth.

If the bastard stepped from the shadows now, I would see nothing more than his shoes. And only if the bastard moved close enough.

The cell door opened with a creak, and my captor entered my cage. “I realize this must be uncomfortable for you, but holding you this way will make it easier to extract a sample of your spinal fluid.”

I balked, my body stiffening.

“Beautiful.” He ran the tip of his finger along my backbone. “I’ll need to send a personal note to your father, thanking him for sending me such a gift from the gods. A pure soul hunter.”

“A what?”

He replied with a hum and then ripped open the back of my shirt. Something cold and sharp traced a crooked line across my skin. “This tattoo, does it serve a purpose? Is it magical in origin?”

The inked chain wrapped around my body had existedfor longer than I could remember. As had the assemblage of creatures on my back. I preferred not to talk about them on a good day, and today landed leagues away from good.

“What do you suppose will happen if I cut away a strip of the tattooed skin?” The knife sliced into my skin, and wetness ran down my back.

Fists clenched and teeth gnashed, I trapped a holler in my throat. With a tug, a thin ribbon of skin pulled away from my back.

“I sense no change,” the bastard said. “Do you feel any different?”