Þráinn walked down the line and took in the faces of the handcuffed people in front of him. Humans and huldufólk, male and female. They looked thin and haggard. Worn out. Likely drug addicts, most of them. Lárus handed him a backpack. It was filled with spray cans.
“Confiscated this from these two.” He pointed to a woman and a man who had been separated from the rest of the captives. “Magister Gapaldur has confirmed faint traces of delýsíð.”
Þráinn smirked. They must have fetched their stash before trying to get out. Amateurs. He crouched down next to them. The man’s face looked familiar. It was clear that the two cared for each other. Small, stolen glances, reassuring looks flashed in perceived secret. They were making this too easy.
Þráinn squatted next to the couple.
“Where are they?’ His voice was quiet, the lack of threat in his tone all the more dangerous. “You know who I’m looking for. I’m warning you – I won’t be asking again.”
They kept staring intently down into the mud, as if they couldn’t hear him.
He stood up and waved over the seiðskratti. Magister Gapaldur approached slowly, probably not thrilled about being called over like a dog. Whatever. The freak needed a proper reminder of whom they serve. But that would come later.
“Magister.”
He pointed to the woman, nodded to Lárus. Lárus moved in and took off her handcuffs, cuffing her hands again in the front. Experience had shown it to be a more suitable physical arrangement.
“Please, commence your work.”
This wasn’t the first time they had done this. It was a tired routine at this point, mostly performed deep within the dungeons of the Nine. Regular torture was ineffectual and risked killing or maiming the victim in an irreversible manner. This was a much neater method, mostly effective due to the psychological effects.
Suddenly Þráinn remembered where he had seen the man. He wasn’t a Hrímlander, he was a wanted Kalmar soldier who had deserted his post. For this girl, it looked like.
“You,” he said, and kicked the man hard in the side. He shouted from the pain and Þráinn thought he might have cracked a rib. It was still hard to gauge his strength since the thaumaturgical infusion. “Look up. This is for you, soldier.”
The man looked up, his face set with unmitigated hatred. The seiðskratti stretched out their arms, fingers splayed – then they moved. And the woman started to scream.
Her body twitched. She bent even deeper, her face almost to the mud, then threw herself back, arching her back with sickening sounds of cracking and breaking as bones and bristle reconfigured themselves into new forms. Her teeth fell out of her mouth like unchewed food, leaving her toothless and drooling. Her left shoulder shook and her coat tore as an ivory horn broke through the fabric, her arm in turn becoming longer, more muscular. One by one her fingers broke backwards and were folded into her hand, which became calloused and misshapen, looking almost like a hoof. The handcuffs dug deep into the new, bloated flesh. The shoulder-horn kept on growing, making her left shoulder obscenely large, causing her to lose the autonomy of her neck as the mutations of her own body started to devour her. Her vocal cords started changing, becoming almost animalic. New teeth grew in her mouth, a grotesque mismatch of fangs and large, blunt molars, filling her mouth even as her jaw and skull elongated and twisted.
The man had been screaming for them to stop, that he would tell them everything, since the moment the woman had keeled over in pain. Þráinn knew that obtaining a certain visual effect right at the beginning was more efficient when it came to extracting information. It all served to better establish the real premise of this dialogue. Taking a dramatic first step made any theoretical following steps all the more horrifying to the imagination. He held up a hand and Magister Gapaldur stopped their work, with some noticeable reluctance.
Þráinn kneeled down again next to the man and fished a cigarette case out of his jacket. He struck a match and lit it.
“You know what’s waiting for you. You are a deserter and a traitor to the Crown. But her – she might still live. Likely she has family to take her back in. It doesn’t have to end like this.”
He held up a hand to stop the man from talking. He smoked, leisurely. Established control. The couple silently wept, waiting for him to give his permission. Like good mutts, he thought, trained for serving the empire.
“Now,” he said and blew out smoke. “Speak.”
* * *
They were gone when the police broke down the doors and searched the house. They had marked the place with hidden delýsíð signs, diverting the officers from investigating it. They had just stormed right past it during the raid. It was a miserable hovel, filled with filthy mattresses and broken furniture. Already police officers were tearing up what little was in there, looking for hidden compartments in the floor and walls.
Lárus came running, Þráinn and Magister Gapaldur waiting for him on the upper floor in a ruined drawing room, facing a massive graffiti work encompassing the entire wall. It was a mess of a sigil, drawn in black paint. Streaks of red spray paint criss-crossed it, still glistening wet and leaking down the wall. The sorcerous radiation from the painting was nauseating, a mess of conflicting intent.
“Magister Gapaldur, what are we looking at?’
“Whatever it is, they’ve ruined it,” Lárus butted in. Þráinn turned around, taking a good moment to hold his gaze. “The place is deserted, sir, I’ll … uh … I’ll go and manage the search downstairs.”
“That would be
