The entire place went dark. My sinuses shook like someone hit me in the nose, and when I opened my eyes there was even more dark. But this felt…real, somehow. Different than that spot with creepypasta and his forest of eyes. This felt solid.
With my hands solidly bound.
“So, you’re awake.”
I didn’t recognize the voice. It had the faintest hint of an accent. Sounded like it came from home. But warped into a Terran one, so it was both familiar and unrecognizable.
Great. More trouble from the home systems.
“I wondered when you would. Been staring at the back of your head all day.”
What?
I struggled to lift my head and found it felt weighter than before. Feeling returned enough to tell me I was splayed out and on my stomach, face-down. I worked to get up, but could only manage my head.
“No no, don’t bother trying. Your friend nearly blew an arm out of socket trying. You and he are sitting in one of my specialized rune circles, designed by me to specifically reverse and nullify the power levels of anyone put inside.”
“Whah?” I managed to get the word out despite my cheek pressed against the ground. Wood, I think. Or stone. It was hard to tell, as it felt like both.
“It matches you. The more you struggle, the more it holds you down. It’s like there’s two more of you, holding you down. I thought it was quite clever, actually.”
I let out a short, pointed growl.
“Ah yes, the growling. Intimidating if I didn’t already have an idea of who you were. Rather, who you’re trying to be. Olyvia, right? A human with extra abilities, mercenary. Hunter. Killer. One who tries to hide a tree inside a forest, am I right?”
“Goob job,” I muttered. “Leh meh uhp.”
“Hah, like that’s going to happen. You kidnapped someone important, dragged her across several states and broke into my old study. I should be within my rights to smash you right now. Or at least…let you stay there for a while. A very, very long while.” His voice grew deeper, emphasizing the last sentence.
Hm. Two could play at this game.
“But, I’ve been begged to reconsider. I told her I’d give you a chance to talk and explain yourself. And I’m usually good to my word. So. This is the part where you try and convince me you didn’t do the things I know you did.”
I managed a smile. Grinned wider than a human face had any right to. Managed to twist around a little, looking for him, and found a pair of buckles glinting in the darkness not far ahead. “If youh knowh it all, thehn I dhon’t nheed to. Buht youh played teh wrong game wiht me.”
I began to struggle, to force my elbows up. My knees down. The magic worked against me, shoving and pushing me down the more I went up. I heard him say something, warn me off of doing it. The problem was, Rod’s strength and my strength were two very different calibers.
I screamed, shoving my arms and legs free while the magic redoubled it’s efforts. My joints ached, shoulder and hips and back screaming as I writhed and twisted. One of my wrists moved, managing to flip my hand to the side, and one of my feet slid an inch. The floor beneath me buckled just slightly, but it was enough. The crack just under my knee disrupted the flow of magic there, just there, but it was enough to prove my theory. Rune circles of anything depended on an unbroken connection. A single crack under my knee wouldn’t disrupt the entire circle, but if I pushed more…
I shoved my wrist forward and the floor cracked. I swung my other leg, my other arm. The floor cracked, broke with louder and louder thunder as the pressure he tried to use backfired. Reversing my own strength would work against me, but it also works against the floor. It was too much pressure. The circle snapped under my core and I was able to lift my torso, looking him directly in the face.
Brown hair, brown eyes. Fairly dull by comparison. Slim ears with a dull point. A rectangular face, features carved in the skin like embellishment in stone, with stubble from ear to ear. His leathery face was cracked with a frown as he watched his work crack and buckle under the sheer pressure of my strength doubled.
With a final scream I managed to heave myself up, get my feet under me, and I charged directly at him.
And right through him.
His body shimmered and twitched where I ran through him, turning to look down and examine the new hole I just put into the back wall with my face. I rolled onto my back and glared at him.
“Hologram. Should have known, coward.”
“Projection,” he answered, turning to stand and face me. “And hardly. I would be stupid to put myself in the same room as you without…precautions.”
“So where am I?” I asked, glancing around. The room was bare and dark, and I could barely see anything of note. “Where’s Layla?”
“Safe.”
“Uh-huh.” I wiped a bit of blood off my nose. And forehead. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take you at your word.”
He shrugged. “I won’t, but I doubt you actually care.”
“As for where we are?”
“Would ‘secret lab’ suffice?”
“Not really.”
“Well it’s all your getting,” the projection answered. “So, let’s try this again. Why did you kidnap the girl?”
I laughed. “She tell you that? Because it’s a lie.”
He shook his head. “No. But she disappeared from her family with a marwolaeth, a wolf of similar nature to you. I was keeping tabs on them when he was taken by a Keeper group, but he was alone. She wasn’t with him. Next thing I know, she reappears in security tapes of a shady business with you at her side. She wouldn’t have gone with a stranger willingly, not when she had Darius. So it’s not a far leap to kidnapping from there.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t kidnapping, oinar. Darius asked me to take her so she wouldn’t get caught. I was to deliver the girl to him as soon as we could reconnect.” Which was starting to think would be never. “We ended up at your haunted house because she insisted on it. Darius told her the sword would lead her to the truth, and it led us to you.” I stared at him for a moment, eyebrow raised. “Which brings us to the question of what you know about her father’s murder.”
For the first time a small smile cracked at the edges of his mouth. “See, that’s the thing. You may have broken out of my circle. But you still can’t go anywhere. I’m not under your authority.”
“Oh?” He smirked. I smirked back. “Then whose authority are you under?”
“Someone of whose magnitude you couldn’t even imagine.”
“Is it Layla’s father?”
He hesitated. Long enough for me to know I hit the nail on the head. I let out a laugh and leaned forward. “Lucky guess for me, then. So does she know? Because if you work for her father, you must be one of those that know exactly why he was murdered and you didn’t bother to tell her.”
“That’s…quite a leap in logic.”
I shrugged and leaned back against the wall. “It’s been one of those days. Plus it’s not my theory, it’s working off a theory of…well, Layla herself. So I guess she does know something.”
He studied me for a moment, then dismissed it with a shrug. “Regardless, she is no longer in your charge. I will deal with her and her mission from now on. Your services, babysitter, are no longer required.”
I smiled and saluted him. His projection disappeared.
I stood. Brushed my hands on my legs. Studied the dent my headbutt had made with a little more attention. It had been an accident, sure. But it was an interesting one. The dent was smaller than what I thought the impact would have been. And there were cracks in a large circle around the point of impact.
I glanced behind me. The circle was still there, carved into the floor. Now that I had a slightly better view, I could see that the floor – the whole room, really – looked like stone carved to look like wood. Planks made out of a stone tree, if you like. Kind of like Layla’s sword.
I leaned down and ran my fingers along the edge of the circle. It had been carved into the wood and carefully maintained. Some bits were newer than others, added as he made adjustments I’d bet. I stood and walked the length of the room, studied the edges. He brought me here somehow, but I found no seams, no door. If there truly was no door, he could have used teleportation magic. In which case, I didn’t know where I was or where the others were.
But the plan, from the tiny box to knock us all out to the inscribed runes on the floor designed to hold us down with our own power, to the use of magical projection to ensure no real damage to himself, spoke of someone articulated and detailed. Ready for several different kinds of threats. Action for uncertain problems.
Paranoid.
So no, he wouldn’t try and put someone or something like me or Rod into a room with a door. Too easy to escape. If it was teleportation, Rod would be able to reverse-engineer the magic…if he could find it. Most of his tricks would be dead in the water too, if our captor was smart enough to remove his jacket and hat.
I checked my belt out of reflex, thinking about escape, and found with very little surprise that I had been stripped of my weapons as well. Hm. Not that they would have been of much use at the moment. No seams to pry open, and I wasn’t even sure if there was this was a room or a hole in the ground.
Well, it likely had something. I double-checked the scent, noting a lack of stale air. This wasn’t a closed-off stone room, then, designed to make us suffocate. So, this was a holding cell, then. Likely a judgment room. So he could place us here while he decided what to do with us. And a room, by nature, had some sort of building around it. Or at the very least, it had an outside that could be got to.
As a tester, I reared back and punched at the wall with the dent. The wall thudded back at me with the same level of power, tossing me back a few steps. It was like I had punched at myself. So, my guess was right. He was using the same kind of rune circle, betting on the fact that creatures like me wouldn’t exist.
He was going to lose this bet.
If nothing else, I was one of my word. I would deliver the kid to Darius.
