Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 1063: Terrorized Man

Kaiden stayed on the sofa in his mother’s bedroom until Yunohana finished her tea, enjoying the weight of both women against him while dawn began to lighten the window.

He could have spent the morning there. Every time Vespera adjusted her head against his shoulder, he wanted to hold her a little longer.

Yet his thoughts kept returning to the people strapped to those beds.

His mother had brought them out. She had taken one of the vampires alive, and Kaiden wanted to know what they had learned before someone silenced this one too.

”Mom?”

”Hm?”

”The vampire you captured. Where is he?”

Vespera lifted her head. Beside him, Yunohana stopped turning her empty cup between her hands.

”What remains of him is downstairs.”

Kaiden’s arm stopped moving against her back.

”Someone killed him?”

”During questioning. His body collapsed, then everything was pulled out of his clothes. I was there.”

Mizuno’s empty raincoat came back to him, with Alice telling him she couldn’t feel the spell anymore. He had watched someone take that vampire away while his family tried to stop it.

Now they had done it in his own headquarters.

”The same as in Japan,” Yunohana murmured.

”I’d like to see it.”

Vespera put down her cup.

”I’ll take you.”

...

After leaving Vespera to dress, Kaiden waited in the hallway with Yunohana. She kept her hand in his while they listened to a door close farther along the floor.

”Would you prefer that I wait here?” she asked.

He looked down at her.

”No, of course not. If you’re comfortable coming, I’d like you with us.”

”I’ll manage.” The Japanese beauty smiled.

When Vespera emerged, her hair was tied back and a dark coat covered the clothes she had put on. She glanced at their joined hands before leading them toward the stairs.

They descended past the operations floor and continued into the sublevel beneath headquarters. At a door off the lower corridor, a guard rose to greet her. Vespera asked him to open it, then entered ahead of them.

A chair had been fixed to the concrete floor beneath a ceiling light. Its wrist restraints were still closed, with empty sleeves hanging through them. Trousers lay collapsed over the seat, their legs trailing toward the cuffs at its base.

Kaiden released Yunohana’s hand and approached it.

He had known what he would find. His mother had told him upstairs, and he had seen it happen to Mizuno, yet the sight of those clothes made him so angry that he had to stop before he reached the chair.

Someone had decided they were finished asking questions. From somewhere beyond his reach, they had taken the prisoner out of his mother’s hands and left her this.

”Did you feel where it came from?”

”No.”

Vespera came beside him while Yunohana remained near the door, looking at the empty restraints.

”I tried to hold what was left of him,” his mother continued. ”It was drawn out of my shadows. I couldn’t follow it.”

”Were you hurt?”

”No. Neither was Irena.”

He looked back at the chair, grateful for that much and furious that he had to be. They were hunting the people who had attacked his family, and somehow those people could reach into a locked room beneath his headquarters to dispose of someone they had captured.

”What did he tell you?”

”Very little. He described the collections at the facility. We had begun asking about the people who took the blood when it happened.”

”When you asked him to identify them?” Yunohana asked.

”Yes.”

”Mizuno died when Luna mentioned the Pact,” Kaiden said. ”Before she could answer.”

Kaiden bent to examine the cuffs without touching them. Even the restraints were intact. Whatever spell had killed the vampire had left the room untouched, with nothing he could use to understand how it had reached its victim.

”Can they hear the questions? Is that how they know?”

”I don’t know.”

”Haaah.”

Yunohana came to his side, planting a hand on his back.

”Were the records at the facility recovered?”

”Yes. Our people are examining them. We also have the worker who was packing the blood, and the people we brought out of those beds. They saw who came and went.”

Kaiden turned toward his mother.

”The worker’s human?”

”As far as we can establish. We are keeping him under observation.”

After Mizuno, Kaiden knew how little a human registration could promise. At least his mother was treating the danger seriously.

”Could I see him?”

Vespera led them back into the corridor and asked the guard to open the next room. Yunohana’s hand slipped from Kaiden’s back as he followed his mother through the doorway.

The man inside was strapped to another chair, his bare feet resting on a folded towel. A bowl and spoon stood on a tray near the door.

At first, Kaiden thought the prisoner was asleep. His head hung forward over a hospital gown, and a line of saliva trailed from his swollen lower lip to his chest.

Then the guard stepped aside, letting him see who had come.

”No.”

The word escaped as a breath. As he lifted his head, the man pulled at the dressing on his neck and cried out, but he kept trying to sit upright while Vespera entered.

”No, please. Please, I told you. I told you.”

Kaiden stopped beside the tray.

Both of the prisoner’s hands were secured palm-down to the chair. Where his fingernails should have been, raw red beds glistened with ointment. Several fingers had swollen crookedly around their joints. Beneath the gown’s loose collar, narrow wounds crossed his chest, their stitched edges disappearing under the fabric.

His bare feet were worse. Blood had soaked through the dressings around his toes, and the towel beneath them bore the marks of every attempt to shift his weight.

”Lady Ashborn, please...”

The man couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was so terrified that every effort to explain himself dissolved into another plea, his mouth struggling around words he had already said. When Vespera approached him, he tried to push the chair backward with his ruined feet.

Pain tore a scream out of him. The chair stayed fixed to the floor.

”I can’t. Please, I can’t do it again.”

A wet patter struck the concrete.

Urine ran down his legs, soaking the towel beneath his feet. His bowels emptied a moment later, the stink reaching Kaiden as the prisoner began sobbing over the mess spreading across the concrete.

”I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t... Please, don’t...”

Vespera looked down, then glanced at the empty bowl by the door.

”I see you were fed.”

The man made a strangled sound. He seemed to be trying to apologize again, but his breath kept catching before he could form the words.

”There was nothing left in you when we finished yesterday,” she added.

”I ate what they gave me,” the worker managed. ”They said... They said I should eat.”

”That is correct. Attaching feeding tubes is a hassle.”

”Ugh... Mercy...”

Yunohana stood beside Kaiden. Her folded fan rested against her dress, forgotten while she examined the man’s hands.

”Has he been treated?” she asked.

”Enough to keep him alive and in a speaking condition.”

At the answer, the prisoner turned toward Yunohana with such desperate hope that Kaiden could see a plea forming on his lips. Vespera moved to his other side, and his attention snapped back to her before he could get it out.

”Did you remember anything else after I left?”

”The van. I told the woman about the van. The writing on the side, I remembered... I told her. She wrote it down. Please ask her.”

”I have read it.”

”It’s true. I swear it’s true.”

Vespera returned to Kaiden, leaving the prisoner following her with his eyes.

”We’re checking what he told us.”

”And you’ve learned something useful?”

”Enough to begin checking the facility’s deliveries. I won’t call them leads until we know what the addresses were used for.”

Behind his mother, the worker was still trying to stifle his sobs. Kaiden wanted to be there when following those deliveries brought them to the people buying the blood.

”Could I read what you have?”

”Of course.”

”And go with whoever’s checking those addresses.”

The flat response he received shocked Kaiden.

”You have better things to do.”

Kaiden glanced toward the doorway, remembering the empty clothes in the next room.

”Someone reached that vampire in here. In our headquarters.”

”I know,” Vespera replied, then looked Kaiden in the eyes. ”Would you come outside with me?”

Yunohana moved toward the doorway, giving them room to follow. Kaiden went with his mother, and the guard closed the door behind them before returning to his post.

Farther along the corridor, beyond easy hearing of the guard, Vespera stopped beneath a wall light. Yunohana remained beside Kaiden while he faced his mother.

”They came after us in Japan,” he said. ”They hurt my family. They’re terrorizing Luna and that loser David is involved too. You’ve seen what they’re doing here. I can’t just go back to enjoying myself on a sandy beach while you deal with all of it.”

”I know you’re angry.”

”Then you understand why I want to be involved.”

”I understand why losing that vampire makes you want to find whoever killed him and put your hands around their throat.”

He looked toward the closed door.

”Would that bother you?”

”It would bother me if you spent days chasing delivery vans because someone made you angry enough to forget what needs your attention.”

Kaiden’s mouth tightened. She had spoken so plainly that his next objection felt childish before he could make it.

”That’s unfair.”

”Is it? You heard that we were checking the facility’s deliveries, and your first thought was to follow us. What were you planning to do at those addresses?”