Petru’s intentions were clear. He was now fully intent on thrashing our new prisoner until he felt that his and Symeon’s honour had been satisfied. Some well placed right hooks, some disconcerting comments about what he would do to the man later; Pertu was going to spend the night enjoying his retribution.
Unfortunately the prisoner seemed to be immune to more traditional from of interrogation and corporeal punishment. And if not immune than adequately accustomed to such treatment to sit in stark defiance of it. This would not do at all. We had to deal with this rascal with an alternative method, and it was just our luck that I happened to be acquainted with one or two that the denizens of Dementlieu were likely unfamiliar with.
I remembered a series of books that I had read in my 17th year of captivity, a collection of crime serials by an obscure author named Archie Wynegrade called The Detector. In it Wynegrade’s protagonist, Camilion Church was a kind of intriguist, a pursuer and observer of the criminal element. Chruch was not a constable however, but a mild-mannered dentist who would seek out and punish criminals for their misdeeds using his own set of clever methods. His favorite trick involved befriending many of the players in the lower quarters and forging alliances with lesser criminals in order to graduate and flush out the significant ones. Camillion Church was my unofficial guide to the underworld, and through him I began to form my first tentative impressions and opinions of mankind.
The most important lesson I learned from those literary adventures was that a good hunter must become intricately familiar with his prey if he is going to pursue it. Camilion Church had to become a criminal in many ways to truly understand how to apprehend and dispose of one. The key to this method was what Wynegrade described as ”astuce” or “instinct”. Knowing when to apply pressure and when to pull away and allow your prey to entangle. This method in particular would come in handy with our troublesome captive.
I stopped Pert in his tracks. “No, leave him be Petru” I said. “Let him go, he has told us everything we want to know”. The prisoner looked at Petru and me with great confusion. “What are you talking about Samael?” Petru inquired earnestly. “Don’t you see my friend? This man has said everything with his silence. He has confirmed all of our suspicions. We have him!” I could see that even Petru’s mind was swimming. He couldn’t fathom what I was on about, but to his tremendous credit, he played along famously.
I would continue my deception and even go as far as to undo the prisoner’s restraints and open the door to let him free. I could not have imagined a more delightfully confounded look on the bastard’s face as he backed out of or room, massaging his wrists and acting positively petrified. His eyes searched for any action or words that might have betrayed his cause; he desperately wanted to know how I had discerned the “truth” from his silence? I of course hadn’t discerned a single bloody thing, but the cretin didn’t know that. As he took flight down the street, I shot out through the window and up into my element (rooftops), and pursued him like Camilion Church never could, right back to his lair somewhere in the lower-end hives of poverty and despair.
The Chuch method worked like a charm; the thug led me right back to his cohorts and with a little eavesdropping I was able to confirm some of our suspicions (and fears). These henchmen had been retained by (presumably) the members of the dark cult that had declared interest in me recently. They had been commissioned to molest Symeon and Petru that night at House Brass, probably to allow the cultists to approach me with their depraved proposals. If I interpreted things correctly, these ruffians had also been contracted to keep interlopers and the curious away from the 10 March St address, the location that now almost certainly housed the headquarters of this damned cabal of miserable defilers.
Clarity at last!
I returned to share my findings with Symeon and the others, and once Ephraim had returned from his business, we marshaled our courage and determination, and set out for our final showdown. Let us hope we do not drift off into another hallucination and lose our way again before the task is done…