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Surprisingly, this doorway wasn’t secured. A bit of luck, but Viola did not relax. She kept her wits about her as she followed Jianyu into the narrow passage that ran between the two buildings. Another moan echoed in the darkness, but it was closer now. Jianyu sent her a silent look and nodded, before picking up their pace.
Finally, they came to the place where the passageway opened into a larger chamber. It was a factory of sorts. Large machines lurked in the shadowy gloom. In the center of the factory floor, four men stood above a boy who had been tied to a chair. Bruised and bloodied, Josef Salzer was barely recognizable from the beating, but the men—cowards that they were—clearly weren’t finished with him. Three looked to be common day laborers, and were nothing more than hired muscle. But the other was dressed in an expensive-looking suit.
Because the Order doesn’t trust their hired help. There was always one of their lower-level leccapiedi present, supervising without actually dirtying his hands. The Order’s men always asked the questions, and the hired muscle delivered the answers.
“Again,” the man in the suit said, his voice filled with bored indifference.
One of the larger men stepped forward and slammed his fist into the boy’s face, and Josef’s head ricocheted backward with such force that Viola nearly gasped. The Order’s man didn’t so much as flinch.
Viola sent her affinity out, sensing the heartbeats of every person in the room. Ready.
“Not yet,” Jianyu whispered close to her ear. “It has to look as though they’ve killed him.”
She swallowed down her hatred and her impatience. Jianyu was right. The Order could not know that Josef had survived. He looked a mess, but so far, the boy’s heart was still beating. He’d lost a lot of blood, but they weren’t yet close to killing him. He had a long way to go before death would offer any relief.
Josef let out a keening moan as his head rolled forward. Blood poured from his nose, staining the front of his torn shirt.
“It’s very simple, boy. You give us a name, and we let you walk out of here tonight,” the man in the suit said. He stood a few feet away, far enough not to be splattered. “Any name will do.”
“I told you… I don’t know anything,” Josef said slowly, haltingly through broken teeth and a blood-filled mouth.
“You worked for a man named Dolph Saunders,” the suited man said. “A gang boss who was responsible for attacking the Khafre Hall. Word is, you acted as a runner for him, delivering messages. You must know something.”
“Dolph’s dead,” Josef gasped, his chest heaving with the effort. “He’s been dead for months.”
“So you say,” the suited man said. He shrugged, as though it didn’t really matter. “Give us another name, then. You must know someone who was involved with the attacks. You must know who was loyal to him, who might have helped him. You give us their names, and we let you go. It’s as easy as that.”
It was never so easy, and from their previous experience with these late-night rescues, Viola knew that there was no chance of the boy ever walking away from this without Jianyu’s and her help. But still they waited. She kept her affinity close, ready to stop the boy’s words if it became necessary.
Josef’s chest heaved with the effort to draw breath. He could have ended his misery by now. He could have given a name—any name, whether real or fake, involved or innocent. Instead, he lifted his head and glared at the man in the suit through swollen eyes. Then, every line of his broken and battered body defiant, he spit a wad of blood and phlegm at the man. But it fell short of him, landing at his feet.
Incensed, the Order’s man lifted his fist.
“Now,” Jianyu whispered.
Viola didn’t have to be told twice. Without hesitation, she let her affinity flare and found the beating of Josef’s heart, the blood thundering erratically through his veins. She slowed the rush nearly to a stop.
The boy’s head flopped forward. His body went limp in the chair.
“What the—” The man in the suit froze, his fist still raised. When he realized the boy wasn’t moving, his arm fell and he let out a curse. Then he turned on the stocky men with bloodied fists. “I told you that I needed him alive.”
One of the larger, rough men thumbed at his nose. “You told us to make him bleed, and that’s what we did.”
“It ain’t our fault if he can’t hold his blood,” another of the bruisers laughed.
The laugh set the suited man on a tear. Suddenly, they were all arguing, shouting about payment and orders, but Viola didn’t care to listen. Her concentration was on the feel of her magic and the roaring in her ears as she focused on Josef’s blood, on the beating of his heart. Slowly, she allowed it to beat once more. Twice. Enough to keep him alive. Enough to make the men believe he was dead.
“Shit,” the suited man said. “We were close to breaking him. I could feel it.”
He was wrong, of course. They hadn’t been close, not when Josef Salzer had chosen to use what little strength he had to curse the men who could kill him. Now they wouldn’t have the chance.
“Dump him out back,” the suited man ordered. He tossed a pile of bills on the floor at the other men’s feet, and then, with another disgusted string of curses, he turned and left.
The men lunged for the money. When they’d sorted out their shares, they passed around a flask and laughed about how easily they’d broken the boy. But eventually they got to work dealing with the body. There were saloons to visit and women to find waiting for them in the night.
Only when the men finally cut Josef from the chair and carried him, still unconcious, out the back of the factory did she and Jianyu move, following silently as one. Hidden in the threads of Jianyu’s affinity.
The men dumped Josef in the alleyway behind the factory. They didn’t even bother to hide the body or cover their tracks. Why should they? No one would care about another piece of the Bowery’s trash, dead in the gutter. And for those who did care? Josef’s body only served as a warning for what could come for them as well.
