Chapter Forty #2
I’m more fascinated by the invisible force that seizes Julen and wrenches his limbs from their sockets.
The sickening snap and pop of bones shattering through flesh detonates through the chamber.
His howls remain locked in his throat as he’s pulled flat and restrained.
The same force shreds the clothes from his body, baring every flaw and fold to the room.
Maybe because they are demons, I expect them to cause the pain and torture. I wait for them to begin, to cut and saw. To tear him apart. But they never touch him. They simply stand and watch as Julen fights against his binds and screams from a throat that doesn’t work.
I’ve never tortured anyone. Quick and easy has always been my idea of cleaning up a job, not that there have been many.
Even at my peak, my focus had been the business side of things.
Sure, it could get messy and people — like Julen — would try and encroach on my territory, but torture was a bunch of work I didn’t care for.
Most of the time, I let my men handle the … problem.
But I expect something. Anything. And I’m about to ask what we’re waiting for — it’s not like we have a lot of time — when Julen seems to notice something.
The full length of him goes rigid as he stares with fresh horror into the corner of the room with his one good eye.
Into a heavy pool of shadows that seem to pulse with their own heartbeat.
I follow his gaze, trying to see what has his chest pumping wildly. But there is only the darkness … until I blink and squint. Focus at its center and the faint, blurred outline of two figures.
There is nothing left of them.
No faces.
No eyes.
They stagger into view with charred and flayed skin. Identification impossible, but unmistakable. Even with everything that once made them human gone, I know Julen recognizes them.
Augustus and Bernard reach him with the shambling stagger of two dead men walking. Hollow sockets stare into their uncle’s face. Emotionless, unlike the man splayed before them.
Julen howls. His head falls back and — even without sound — his wails would live in my head forever. His raw agony hits me square in the chest and rebounds.
He feels it, I think numbly.
That hollowing torment of seeing your children’s bodies bloody and broken. Murdered for a crime that was never theirs and taken when they shouldn’t have been. His misery should soothe my suffering. I should feel a measure of pleasure at watching him sob and fail.
I feel nothing.
Not satisfaction.
No regret.
None of it will bring my boys back.
But I don’t stop Augustus as he lifts the same dagger he used to carve open his brother’s chest and start the grueling process of carving up his uncle.
Despite the burns and patches of flayed flesh stripping the meat off his fingers, he’s meticulous in his task, balancing the tip against Julen’s hairline and following a straight path down the arch of his nose.
The line is surprisingly even, despite Julen’s muted shrieks.
At Julen’s shriveled and flaccid cock, I flinch as the blade carves, splitting the membrane in half like some grotesque flower.
Julen watches the disfigurement with a jaw unhinged with disbelief.
He doesn’t seem to be screaming anymore as the blade cuts straight down the center and continues over the testicles.
All the while, Julen doesn’t faint. He doesn’t die. He continues to thrash and wail as he’s sliced down the front. Augustus resumes his journey along his uncle’s inner thighs all the way to his feet before finally drawing back.
For a moment, nothing happens. The very room seems to hold its breath as if in anticipation.
If it weren’t for the butchered dick, I would almost believe Augustus hadn’t actually cut him, but then I see the thin, red line appear.
A perfect path from brow to big toe. Brightening.
Sharpening. Coming into vivid focus. All at once, thin crimson ribbons rise to the surface.
Each grows thicker. Flowing faster. Spilling and running.
Pooling beneath Julen. Flowing along the notches in the table to soak into the base.
Not the greatest death I’ve ever witnessed, but I accept it. I begin to rise when Bernard ambles stiffly around to my side of the altar. Tiny, black flecks of charred flesh scatter beneath his tentative steps as he takes his place.
Together, the brothers each raise their hands and sink ten fingers each into the folds.
The flesh is drawn back across Julen’s chest. It’s peeled from his face.
Where it gets stuck, Augustus carefully carves it free.
I watch them remove each inch with meticulous and careful motion with Julen never once losing consciousness.
“What are you doing?”
I nearly wet myself. The commanding boom thunders down my spine from somewhere high above me. A commanding force of rage that has me leaping to my feet and spinning to face the voice.
My heart sinks into my gut at the sight.
Veyn … and Lenora. Both stand before the hole, peering down into my horrified expression.
But it’s the red in the demon’s eyes, the curl of his lips over serrated fangs that has cold sweat breaking across my skin.
“What have you done?”