Chapter 21
21
F ifty-three seconds.
That’s how long JJ lasted against the Sanctum’s strike force. He actually doesn’t think it’s too bad, considering that he was hilariously outnumbered and up against some of Redwater’s best, but now??—
Now, everything hurts. Both eyes nearly swollen shut, the left worse than the right. Broken nose, sprained wrist, cracked ribs. Knuckles bruised and scabbed, lip split in two places, and one missing tooth. He can feel his bones grinding against each other whenever he moves and tastes blood whenever he breathes. Probable concussion, based on the other injuries.
Frankly, he’s impressed that he survived at all. A split second before the blow that knocked him unconscious, he distinctly remembers thinking that he was about to see his family again, but instead, he woke up in a Sanctum prison cell with a gray jumpsuit, a pounding headache, and mild to moderate difficulty breathing.
He wouldn’t exactly call his continued existence “disappointing,” but he’s sure death would be a lot less painful than this.
The accommodations would probably be better, too. These high-security cells for dissidents are eight-by-eight boxes with metal walls, no windows, and a single locked door. As far as interior design, there’s the hard cot he’s currently lying on, a toilet directly across the room, and zero other distinguishing features.
Home sweet home?—for now, at least. The interrogators are obviously going to transport JJ to another room to question him about Cass and Desi, but when he doesn’t talk?—because he won’t talk, not about them?—he doesn’t know what they’ll do with him. Will they keep torturing him in hopes that he’ll eventually break? Execute him quietly to free up his cell for another dissident?
Burn him alive as an example for the rest of the Sanctum?
He wouldn’t be surprised if they went that route. He’s just a neophyte hunter, after all. No bloodline to carry on, no family to protest his fate. No memorial or gravestone, either.
Julian Jackson will just… disappear.
For now, though, he’s here. Nothing to distract him except his myriad injuries and the occasional meager food trays pushed through the slot underneath the door. He tries counting off the seconds to keep track of time?— one one thousand, two one thousand?— but always loses count somewhere in the low seventies. After that, he tries counting his breaths, each one shaky and rattling and painful, but the highest he can get without dozing off is ninety-four.
Eventually, he just lets his likely brain injury win and drifts into a fitful sleep. The pain keeps him partially awake and his dreams?—nightmares, hallucinations, visions from capricious gods?—make him panic, imagining Desi and Roma and Chester and Bryant and Cass and??—
Those fade, too. Everything just keeps getting darker and blurrier, and his head keeps pounding in time with his pulse, and his ribs keep crackling with every breath, and??—
JJ wakes up gasping in a different location. Cold metal underneath him instead of a cot, harsh fluorescent lights blinding him from above, and biting leather straps wrapped around his forehead, chest, wrists, hips, and ankles.
With a jolt, he realizes that he’s strapped to an interrogation table. As his vision adjusts, he catches glimpses of expansive one-way mirrors, stacks of biohazard bags, and easy-to-clean tile floors.
It’s not his first time here?—that was during Chester’s final exam?—but he has the sinking suspicion that it’s going to be his last.
“Oh, good. You’re awake.”
JJ’s stomach lurches at the familiar voice. Slowly, reluctantly, he glances to his left.
Adrian Nostrand, one of the Redwater Sanctum’s lead interrogators, is currently setting up his tools on the metal table next to JJ. Knives, scalpels, torch lighters, a hammer? ? —
“You almost died,” Nostrand says casually, examining one of his blades with tactical precision. “Brain swelling from the concussion, collapsed lung from the broken ribs…” He tsks disapprovingly. “One of the infirmary’s spellcasters had to take time out of her day to come down here and heal you. But I’m sure you’re used to being an inconvenience by now.”
The words sting, but not as much as they would coming from someone else. From what Chester has said, Nostrand has always harbored a particular hatred for neophyte hunters like him and JJ. “Oh,” JJ says, and then: “Why didn’t you just let me? Die, I mean.”
Nostrand’s lips curve. “I think you already know the answer to that,” he says, and he trails the tip of his knife up the side of JJ’s neck, tracing the line of his hammering pulse.
JJ holds his breath and tries not to flinch. Sawyer Solomon taught both JJ and Chester how to be hunters, but their specialized mentors?—external operations for JJ, interrogation for Chester?—were different. Naomi Gutierrez trained JJ, Roma, and Bryant to work together as a strike team, and Adrian Nostrand??—
Nostrand taught Chester how to torture. Unwillingly, grudgingly, and in the most abusive manner possible, of course, but Chester learned everything he knows from him.
And Chester might be a master of his craft, but at least he’s clinical about it. He once quietly confessed to JJ that he sometimes blacks out during interrogations, his hands moving on autopilot while his mind goes somewhere else entirely.
Nostrand, on the other hand, is both a master of his craft and a sadist. And JJ has a very bad feeling about the next six hours of his life. “You might as well get the gasoline,” he says. “I’m not talking about them.”
Nostrand smiles. “Oh, I was hoping you’d say that,” he says, and he picks up the hammer.
Cass leans across the kitchen table of his favorite safe house, glaring at Ez and Obie on the other side. “Let me make this very simple for you. I’m not losing JJ. I won’t. So are you going to help me break into the Sanctum or not?”
Ez grits her teeth. “Cass? ? —?”
Obie grabs her arm and squeezes. Ez turns her glare on him. “Cass, buddy,” Obie says, using the same “talk down the frightened animal” tone he’s adopted over the past two days, “it’s a suicide mission.”
“I’ve broken into the Sanctum on at least five separate occasions,” Cass snaps. “I can??—?”
“But not the Sanctum’s prison,” Ez cuts in sharply. “It’s not getting in that’s the issue. It’s getting back out.”
“And I’ve checked the Chain’s records,” Obie adds softly. “They have maps and floor plans of the Sanctum proper, but nothing of the basement prison. As far as we know, no demon has ever left there alive. You’d be going in blind.”
“We’ve gone into worse,” Cass says. “Remember Normandy?”
“Vividly,” Obie says. “But that was against humans, Cass. Human adversaries with human powers and human objectives. We’re talking about hunters, about the Sanctum. They have their enchantments, their training, their blind hatred of our kind. If they get their hands on you, they won’t kill you?—they’ll vivisect you. You can’t fight your way out of that.”
“Watch me,” Cass says, and he smiles grimly. “You know how much I like making history. I’m getting in, I’m getting JJ, and we’re getting out.”
“That’s not a plan, Cass!” Ez snaps. “That’s a wish list!”
“Then help me make it into a plan!” Cass snarls. “Help me??—?”
Obie slices a finger across his throat, a clear warning to lower his voice. Cass cuts himself off, glancing towards the couch. Desi is curled up in a ball underneath a throw blanket, Kira and Hana both hugged tightly to her chest. She’s asleep right now, her breathing deep and even, but Cass doesn’t know how long that’ll last. He’s barely been able to coax her to sleep since Monday, not since they lost JJ. Now, it’s late Wednesday night, and Cass??—
Well, Cass obviously hasn’t been sleeping, either. No time for that when he has a jailbreak to plan. After his dizzying stint of rift-hopping around the world with Desi, he brought them straight back to his safe house, stalled for just long enough to make Desi a new blanket fort for comfort purposes, and started mapping out his strategy.
His first step, of course, was figuring out who he could trust enough to help him. While he’ll storm the Sanctum alone if he needs to, he’s not too proud to admit that he works best with a team by his side, but??—
But the list of demons he trusts nowadays is depressingly short.
Maggie Khan is out, unfortunately. Much as Cass trusts her with his life in combat settings, she’s loyal to the Chain?—and, what’s more, she frequently works with neophyte demons as part of her Public Safety duties. He knows she’d disapprove of his decision to not register Desi.
And even though he would’ve considered Gregorio Ricci and Micah Devereux in the past, he’s staying far away from them until he knows what they’re up to. They might not be as loyal to the Chain as Maggie is, but the Chain does still sign their paychecks?—and, above all, they were two of the only people who knew Desi existed.
For all Cass knows, they could’ve been the ones who tipped off the Sanctum. He desperately hopes not, of course, hopes that the hunters just figured out how to track Desi’s high-energy soul like JJ warned him they might, but??—
But he’s not reaching out until he’s sure.
On the other hand, Cass thought Ez and Obie would be on board without hesitation. Apparently, he was wrong. He lowers his voice, leaning forward. “Two months ago, you two practically invited yourselves along when I broke into the Sanctum to rescue Desi. We’ve been following each other into danger for two hundred years. What’s so different this time?”
For a long moment, the three of them stare each other down.
And then, in the quietest voice Cass has ever heard, Obie says, “Are you really about to risk everything for a Sanctum lackey?”
White-hot fury blazes through Cass. “The lackey has a name, Obadiah,” he snarls. “A name and a daughter?— the same one I have, in case you forgot. The lackey stayed behind so he wouldn’t put us in danger. And I begged him to come with us, okay? I begged him, but he just??—?”
Cassius. Please.
Cass swallows hard past the sudden tightness in his throat. “You’re not going to help me, are you?” he asks, and his voice cracks on the last few words.
Ez’s expression shifts. “We didn’t say that,” she says. “But??—?”
Out of nowhere, there’s a knock on Cass’s front door. He almost jumps out of his skin at the sound, whirling around to face it. “What the hell?”
Obie shifts his stance. Bracing for a fight. “You expecting someone?”
Cass’s pulse is roaring in his ears. “No.”
Ez’s eyes narrow. Unexpectedly, she snaps open a rift, steps through it, and waves it shut behind her.
A split second later, there’s a strangled shout and the sound of a fist hitting flesh. Cass’s blood runs cold. “Ez? Ez!” he yells, and he and Obie bolt for the door in unison, wrenching it open and scrambling outside.
Cass skids to a stop on the front porch, eyes widening. Ez is pinning an unfamiliar woman to the house’s outer wall, one arm pressed across her throat and her teeth bared in a snarl. The woman is holding her empty hands at shoulder height and her chin is tucked to try and breathe past Ez’s choke, but she’s glaring straight back at Ez like she’s more annoyed than threatened.
“For Nostringvadha’s sake, Ez,” Obie snaps, and he waves an impatient hand. Cass feels soundproofing and invisibility spells wash over the porch, obscuring the confrontation from his neighbors’ wandering eyes. “Is this how you always greet guests?”
Ez ignores him. “Who are you?” she hisses, leaning right into the woman’s space.
She doesn’t answer. “That’s gotta hurt,” she grunts instead, glancing down at Ez’s bare forearm, and with a jolt, Cass sees angry burns and blisters already festering across Ez’s skin.
“Ez?— Ez!” He jumps forward and yanks Ez away from the hunter, glaring at both of them. The woman sucks in a few quick breaths, rubbing her neck and wincing, but doesn’t make any move to attack.
Cass glances over at Obie. Obie frowns back, eyebrows furrowed, before fixing his eyes on the hunter. “You’re out past your bedtime. Don’t good little lackeys like you have a curfew?”
The hunter flinches, but stands her ground. “Well, the Sanctum doesn’t exactly know I’m here right now,” she says, and her cautious eyes shift to Cass. “You must be the boy with the hay that JJ’s been spending all his money on. I’ve been looking for you.”
“Why?” Ez snaps, eyes narrowed.
“Hay?” Obie repeats, confused.
Cass’s heart stutters at the mention of JJ’s name. Quickly, he looks the woman up and down, cataloging her stiff hunter’s posture, the corrosion spell on her skin??—
The way her feet are set and her fingers are twitching like she’s ready to cast a spell, not pull out a weapon. “Roma Gutierrez,” he says, and her eyes widen. “From Strike Team Kappa. JJ’s team.”
Roma’s expression turns wary. “He’s mentioned me?”
“Yeah,” Cass says evenly. “Your demonic soul-tracking spell is the entire reason we’re in this mess.” He leans forward. “Why are you looking for me?”
“Well,” she says, “I was kind of hoping for some help with a jailbreak.”