Chapter 5 Antonio
The air in the chamber is thick with the coppery perfume of old blood and the pungent, sour reek of a body that has long since surrendered its dignity. I breathe it in deeply, letting it settle in my lungs. To me, it smells like progress. Like vindication.
The concrete walls, slick with a persistent, cold dampness throw back the hiss of the gas lantern I’ve set on a metal stool.
Its flame dances, casting long, grotesque shadows that writhe like tormented spirits across the floor.
In the centre of it all, anchored in a pool of flickering light, is Vera.
She is a sculpture of ruin, tied to a heavy wooden chair.
Her head is locked in a heavy iron brace, the cruel mechanics of it forcing her chin up, denying her even the small mercy of hiding her face.
Her eyes, those once-sharp, commanding eyes that used to look down on everyone from the lofty heights of the British Chapter are now permanently fixed ahead, glassy with pain and exhaustion.
She can’t look away. She has no choice but to see me, to absorb every word, every gesture.
Months of this have carved away at her spirit, and what’s left is raw meat and shattered pride.
Her hands, resting on her lap, are the most telling testament to my work.
The skin has been flayed from them, a meticulous, inch-by-inch process that has left them a horrifying landscape of raw, weeping crimson and shreds of parchment-white tissue.
They look like something that has been dragged behind a carriage for miles.
She has soiled herself. The stench is potent, a humiliating banner of her utter defeat. I don’t have her cleaned. The filth is part of the lesson. It’s a constant, degrading reminder of what she’s become.
I circle her slowly, the soft click of my Italian leather loafers a sharp counterpoint to her ragged breathing.
“Do you remember the soirée at the Guildhall, Vera?” I ask, my voice conversational, almost gentle. “It must have been, what, fifteen years ago? You wore that terrible burgundy gown. It did nothing for your complexion.”
She doesn’t respond. A thin line of saliva drips from the corner of her mouth, tracing a path through the grime on her chin.
“You held court,” I continue, stopping directly in front of her.
I lean down, bringing my face level with hers, though her unfocused eyes stare through me.
“All those sycophants hanging on your every word. You spoke about ‘consolidating power’. About ‘purging weak elements’. You looked right at me when you said that, didn’t you?
A little smile playing on your lips. You thought you were so untouchable. ”
I straighten up, gesturing around the dank cellar. “And now look at you. This is your throne room. This filth is your court. You are nothing. Less than nothing. You’re a sack of broken bones and piss, waiting for me to decide what to break next.”
A sound escapes her throat, a wet, guttural rattle. It takes me a moment to realise it’s an attempt at speech.
“Antonio…” she croaks.
“Yes?” I prompt, feigning interest. “Do you have something to share? Some final pearl of wisdom?”
She gathers what little strength she has left. Her body trembles with the effort. And then, with a shocking suddenness, she hacks a gob of bloody phlegm onto the pristine silk of my shirt.
It lands just below my collarbone, a wet, pinkish stain against the dark fabric. The chamber falls silent save for the hiss of the lantern and Vera’s ragged, triumphant gasps.
I look down at the mess as a profound, icy calm settles over me.
I reach into my breast pocket and pull out a monogrammed handkerchief, pure white linen. Slowly, meticulously, I dab at the stain, soaking up the moisture. I examine the spot, then fold the handkerchief to a clean corner and wipe again until only a faint, damp patch remains.
I look at Vera. A flicker of something --defiance, maybe even amusement-- lights her dull eyes. She thinks she’s scored a point. She thinks this small, animalistic rebellion matters.
I smile. It’s not a pleasant smile.
And then I strike.
It’s not a wild, angry blow. It is precise, almost clinical.
A hard, open-handed slap that connects with her cheek with a crack that echoes off the walls.
The force of it snaps her head to the side, but the brace wrenches it back into position with a sickening jerk.
Her eyes roll back into her skull, showing the whites, and her entire body goes limp.
The faint tremor of consciousness vanishes, replaced by the dead weight of oblivion.
I wait.
I flex my stinging hand and retrieve a crystal decanter of amber whiskey and a single glass from a small table in the shadows. I pour two fingers, the liquid catching the lantern light. I take a slow sip, savouring the smoky burn as it travels down my throat. I don’t look at her. I listen.
After a few minutes, a low moan filters through the silence. It’s the sound of a soul being dragged back into a body it no longer wants. Her breathing hitches, becomes a pained gasp. Her eyes flutter open, swimming with disorientation before focusing, with dawning horror, back on me.
The defiance is gone. Replaced by the primal, grinding reality of pain.
I set my glass down and approach her again. I don’t mention the spit, I don’t mention the slap. They are footnotes. The main text of our conversation remains.
“Vera,” I say, my voice soft but carrying an undeniable edge of steel. “Let’s return to the only thing that matters. I want names. I want locations. I want details.”
Vera’s lips part. A dry, clicking sound emerges. I think she’s trying to form words, and I lean closer. Anticipating a whisper, a confession, a name.
Instead, she laughs.
It starts as a low, wheezing chuckle, a sound like gravel grinding in a broken gearbox.
It grows, gaining strength and a horrifying, manic energy.
It’s not the laugh of someone finding humour in the situation.
It’s the laugh of someone who has seen the abyss and found a terrible, final joke at its bottom.
She throws her head back as much as the brace will allow, and the laughter erupts from her, raw and screeching, echoing off the concrete in a cacophony of madness.
It’s the most unnerving sound I’ve heard in months.
My composure cracks. The icy calm shatters. “What is so funny?” I snarl, gripping the arms of her chair, my face inches from hers.
The laughter subsides into wet, choking coughs. Tears mingled with blood and sweat stream down her face. She finally manages to speak, her voice a ragged shred.
“You, you arrogant fucking fool,” she gasps. “All this… all this time… you’ve been asking the wrong bloody question.”
I freeze. The wrong question? Every intelligence report, every intercepted communiqué, pointed to the Esau. Pointed to her. She was the mastermind. She had to be.
“Don’t play games with me, Vera,” I warn, my voice dangerously low.
“It’s no game,” she wheezes, a fresh wave of that terrible mirth bubbling up. “You think you’re so clever. Torturing me for the secrets of some big, bad Esau plot. You think we’re a monolith? A single, unified beast?”
She struggles for breath, her body convulsing. “The attack on Ines… it wasn’t an Esau directive. If it was us, then it was a faction. A splinter group. We… I… condemned it.”
The world tilts on its axis. It can’t be true.
It’s a lie. A desperate, last-ditch lie to sow confusion.
But then, how the fuck did she even know anything has happened to Ines?
She’s been locked away, far from any whispering words, or secrets.
“You expect me to believe that? You, who has advocated for the purge of our kind for decades?”
“Believe what you want,” she spits, a flicker of her old fire returning.
“But while you’ve been down here, peeling the skin from my hands, the real threat has been growing.
The ones who attacked Ines, they call themselves the ‘Unbound’.
They think we’re too cautious. Too stuffy.
Too… political. They want a war, Antonio.
A real, bloody, burn-it-all-down war. And you, you’ve handed it to them. ”
A cold knot tightens in my stomach. The Unbound. The name means nothing to me but the conviction in her ravaged voice, it has the ring of truth. It feels like a door I never knew existed has just been flung open, revealing a deeper, darker labyrinth behind the one I thought I was navigating.
“Who leads them?” I demand, my mind racing, reassembling the puzzle with this new, terrifying piece.
She laughs again, a hollow, broken sound. “You think they have a leader like me? They’re a hydra. You cut off one head, two more grow. They’re young. Zealous. They think our century-old conflict is a quaint parlour game. They want to see the world burn for their new god.”
Her eyes lock with mine, and for the first time, I see something other than pain or hatred in them. I see a shred of pity, and that is infinitely worse.
“You’ve been thrashing the wrong snake, Antonio. The one you should be watching is already in your garden.”
Has it all been for nothing?
Has my vengeance been directed at a shadow while the real enemy moved freely in the light?
No, no. I don’t believe it. I don’t…
I spring forward, wrapping my hands around her bony neck. “Tell me,” I snarl. “Fucking tell me. Give me the name…”
She kicks out, she jerks as I start squeezing out the air from her lungs and just as her eyes start to roll back her mouth moves, her lips respond and she whispers something so quietly I almost miss it.
“Ezekial Sewell.”