Accidental Surrogate

Sinclair

I growl down at the man before me, who is younger than I thought he would be, for one with

such power. He has thick black hair and a day’s worth of stubble on his thin cheeks. The man

glares up at me with dark, angry eyes and opens his mouth to speak but before he can, I slap him

– hard with an open palm.

–

The man gasps with surprise and pain, his eyes going wide as he stares down at the floor, and I

smirk. I doubt this man has been slapped anytime recently, if ever. He has the smug look of

someone used to being in charge.

But he’s in my house now.

“You’ll speak when we tell you to speak,” I growl, and then I turn to the head of my

–

reconnaissance team, who is standing against the wall, his hands on his knees, panting a little.

Craig isn’t a small man to see him so undone by the efforts suggests that this diminutive priest

is, indeed, powerful in other ways.

“How did you catch him?” I snap. Craig looks up at me and does his best to straighten up.

“We followed the leads, sir,” he replies, looking me in the eyes, “that we gleaned from the

conversation with the other priest, who wished to remain anonymous. They were…fruitful. We

found this one’s lair, for lack of a better word. It was actually in a sewer -in an abandoned

maintenance room. He was living there doing…” Craig hesitates and then shrugs. “Forgive me, Sir,

for the dramatic language, but ‘arcane magics‘ are the only words coming to my mind now. Lizard

skins…and and snail shells, in jars – he had a cauldron –”

“Thank you,” I say, interrupting and nodding towards the head of my investigative team. “You.

will give your details to Alastair, as soon as you can. For now, though I want everyone here for

the interrogation.” I lean forward towards the priest, who watches me with wary eyes and a

clenched jaw.

continue, lowering my voice and slowing my words, “will be long,

need

his teeth at me in a little snarl. But I just

him faulter. And then I

are tensed, ready to rip this man’s head off. Roger steps

crossed as he looks down at the man strapped to the chair,”

people want with my

just grins at Roger, a too–wide expression that

laughter in his voice now. Roger stares at him blandly for a

reconnaissance team standing behind the priest who

against the priest’s neck.

flies through the priest’s body, making him shriek and twist in

priest goes a little slack in his chair,

the leg of the chair to get the priest’s attention.

people want with my

narrow, though, as the priest looks up at Roger again and

“It doesn’t matter,” the priest says, shaking his head and holding his

smile growing on his face. “You

starts to laugh – really, truly laugh, as a crash of

upstairs –

I recognize

Ella

sitting here, tense, in my rocking chair by Rafe’s basinet, one hand on the

it always is – shushing him quietly as he falls asleep

–

tapping sound at the glass of his window

expecting a little bird

I saw a black–masked face calmly tapping on my window,

I froze, as he quietly

coming for

–

the man pulled back his arm, and made a fist, and crashed

the window

know how he did it – it should have broken his

body, head–first, into the room through the hole

cracking

–

half an instant later, my instincts came back

behind

chair away and back into the

to his feet at the foot of the window. As he

–

–

working their way up to the window and through it –

fast –

in the lead is on his feet now, grinning at me, starting to