My mouth was full of knives. I managed to choke out a sound of pain and confusion just before something solid hit me across the back of my skull and pitched me down into darkness.
Chapter 8
“Wakey wakey, princess.” A cold voice rang out from overhead.
I was naked. That was the first thing I realized, as my bare skin stuck and squeaked against a cold, rounded metal surface. I was in agony, and I couldn’t feel my hands. My arms were pulled back strangely, and every motion brought a lance of bright pain from elbows, wrists, and shoulders. Every sound was too loud: the rustle of cloth, the sharp jangle of change in a pocket. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Get yourself together.
I had to focus. Had to. My pulse beat a bright tattoo against the backs of my eyes. Past the dancing lights and stabbing pain, I made out a shrewd, hawkish face with a mouth full of big white teeth. Early thirties, with short dark hair and three days of stubble. He reached over my head, and seconds later, my head and shoulders were hit with a spray of cold water that struck my nerves with a slap.
“We can do this the nice way or the way that gets you fucked up the ass with a baton.” My tormentor caught my hair in his fist and pulled, and I realized my hands were cuffed to a sturdy assistance rail behind my back. “What the fuck did you guys do to Frank? Why?”
I wheezed with pain, unable to speak. The man held his other hand up threateningly when I couldn’t find the words to reply. He wore a thick gold ring embossed with an eye within a pentacle, and I fixed on it in confusion. That earned me a hard slap across the face, and then a much more solid backhand in the other direction.
Black lightning crackled around the edges of my vision. Oh look, I thought blurrily. He has no idea what the fuck he’s doing.
He leaned in, fixing me with wolfish intensity. “You think I’m joking, you son of a bitch?”
“No,” I slurred, my voice thick with blood. “Didn’t do it.”
“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” His eyes narrowed. They were amber, more orange than brown, like the dog’s eyes. The dogs. Hell, what the… where the fuck were those dogs?
The water was turned on again, and I jerked back to cold reality, gasping shower spray and harsh, clinical air. “Didn’t do it! I didn’t do the hit on your guy.”
“Bullshit,” my interrogator said. “Fucking bullshit.”
“Didn’t.”
Do something, or he’s going to kill you. He cocked his fist. I swallowed a mouthful of water and blood and mucus and pressed my tongue behind my teeth to protect them in the split second before he punched me again.
“Like fuck you didn’t. I know what happened to him, you piece of shit. Someone set a fetch on him. Your side, punk, not ours! None of us did it. Who? Laguetta?”
It took a moment for the word he’d used to sink in. Fetch. The pause earned me another slap across the face and then another dose of water. The spray left me shivering. It hurt. Pain was all I had to center on. “Fetch… fetch what?”
The man snarled in my face. “Come on! You fuckin’ stink of magic! What was it? Demon? Elemental?”
Magic. He was talking about magic. I struggled against the inertia, tried to gather my wits. He was acting like a Hollywood action movie villain. You can’t beat the shit out of people you want information from, because baby can’t talk with a broken jaw—but even if he was a shitty interrogator, Jersey-Shore here was as powerful a mage as any of the old masters. Merlin. Dee. Crowley.
“Wait,” I gasped out. “Wait. Can’t speak.”
He trembled in rage but held off for a moment, chest heaving. It was enough to give me space to see just how hyped up and unsure he really was.
I rolled my eyes up to look at him, flinching at the light. It stabbed all the way to the back of my skull. “You are so much… more powerful. Than him.”
He clearly hadn’t expected me to say that. Jersey-Shore obviously didn’t play poker, either. “More powerful? More powerful than who?”
“Guy that… did the job.” I forced myself to think past the teeth-drilling agony of my hands. “Gave me… a thing. Ball… caster. He engraved it… with the cross, some other things. Said it would keep me safe. He wanted…” What? I groped for something, anything. “The diary. Diary in V-Vincent’s bedroom.”
“Why the fuck would he want…” Jersey trailed off, scowling, and then some kind of realization seemed to dawn and he bounced back in agitation. Somehow, I’d nailed it. He hadn’t even looked at the diary, he’d been so worked up over finding me. “Shit. That lying sorca, cazzo! Piece of shit!”
Get him talking, Alexi. “You…” I tried to speak and ended up mumbling as a tooth wobbled. It shifted around every time my tongue moved. “How’d you… do that? Your dogs?”
“None of your fucking business. You don’t get to ask questions. What’s in the diary?”
“Don’t know.” I leaned towards him, as far as the handcuffs allowed, and licked at the blood running over my lips. “Italian. Couldn’t read it.”
“Was it a grimoire? Big book of magic?”
I stared at him blankly.
The man jerked his face to one side, looking down at me imperiously, and jogged a little on his feet. He was evaluating me with a touch of uncertainty, and I realized something. He’d been expecting the Russian spook, sure, but he’d been expecting a mage like himself. Someone powerful, someone brassy. He maybe had a secondhand description of what I looked like, but it must have been tentative. He didn’t recognize me. Was he from out of town?
Finally, he scowled. “Fuck. You don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, do ya?”
“Pick-up job,” I mumbled, sinking down. “That’s it. Pick-up job. Collection.”
“Jesus Christ. Okay, fine.” He ran his fingers back through his hair. Hyperaware, I read a hundred tiny signs of stress. He thought he’d picked up the errand boy, and that suited me just fine. “What’s the spook’s name? The one you talkin’ ’bout?”
This time, I looked away and said nothing. My interrogator’s mouth turned down as the seconds ticked on, and then he struck again. And again. A fist connected with my ribs, with my stomach, my neck. My vision blacked. When the light reappeared, it was hazy, fizzing at the edges with a black halo.
“Give me his fucking name!”
“Dunno,” I managed to say. “They call him… call him Molotchik.”
“Molotchik. Jesus, was that so fucking hard?” He stalked back, pacing an anxious circle.
I watched him blearily. If he bent down that close to my face again, I was going to go for his throat.
“Fine. So you don’t know anything about the spook. Well, this is your last chance to be useful, Russkie. If you don’t know who did Frankie in, who’s this Vincent? You know, Vincent ‘Manelli’?”
Hang on… what?
My reward for my real confusion was another punch to the gut.
“Don’t… know.” I spat and tasted blood, lots of blood. “A-aren’t you…”
“Carmine.” He pronounced it the proper Italian way, Carr-mi-nay, and sneered. “I work for John, shithead, and I want to know who is going around using his Family name on the street without his knowing.”
I remembered Vassily talking in the car. John Manelli only had three sons? It was getting harder to focus over the hot pain. It felt like I had a belly full of broken glass. “Isn’t he… isn’t he a M-Manelli?”
Something invisible wrapped around my throat and squeezed. I could smell ozone. My skin crawled as the air bent, gathering around me, and lifted me back up to my knees on the hard, wet metal. It was the same force that had torn my gun from my hand. This guy was incredible. He was also out of control. He threw his magic around like a toddler with his toys.