Everything hurt.
Everything, from the tips of his toenails to the roots of his hair.
His left ear throbbed like a funeral drum. His right eye watered uncontrollably. Dangly bits were trying their best to crawl back inside and hide like flustered field mice. He felt as if he’d been dipped in boiling oil and staked out to dry on a medieval rack.
Which wasn’t far from the truth.
Balthazar’s eyes cracked open. He hung suspended from manacles around his wrists, his feet just brushing the floor. The fancy uniform coat was gone, ditto his shoes and the Grand Cross of the Royal Hungarian Order of Saint Stephen. He pressed up to the tips of his toes and the agonizing weight in his shoulders eased a little. Balthazar winced at the momentary relief.
He turned his head and found Gabriel staring at him from a few feet away.
“Sorry,” he managed in a hoarse croak. “I tried.”
Gabriel made no reply for a long moment. His expression was grim. “You’re sorry.”
Balthazar coughed. Spat a gelatinous gob of something dark. “I’ll admit, it wasn’t the most well thought-out plan. But you might give me some credit for trying. I could have left you to your fate—”
“That’s not the fucking point! I almost had him,” Gabriel hissed. “At the museum. I was seconds away.” He shook his head in disgust. “And then you—”
“Oh, please. With that ridiculous false nose? Bekker would have seen through it even if I hadn’t first.” Balthazar’s eyes narrowed, his own voice dangerously soft. “Do you have any idea how long it’s taken me to get close to him with a weapon? Weeks. The tedium I endured! The endless meetings and luncheons—”
“Luncheons?” Gabriel was swiftly growing apoplectic. “Nom de dieu. If you weren’t utterly incompetent—”
“I surrendered my virtue for that invitation,” Balthazar snarled. “And Bekker’s head would have been sailing through the air in another five seconds if you hadn’t come along like some ludicrous version of Cyrano de Bergerac—”
A pink flush crested Gabriel’s cheeks. “Everywhere I turn, there you are. First at the Picatrix with Alec Lawrence, then in Brussels. Like an evil little monkey—”
The chains started clanking as Gabriel tried to swing himself towards Balthazar. It was a pointless exercise trussed as he was, but his rage needed some outlet. Balthazar’s lips curved in a wintry smile.
“I’ll enjoy watching them torture you,” he announced. “In fact, I hope I get a front row seat.”
“You fils de pute….” Gabriel lapsed into a lengthy, escalating tirade that finally drew the attention of the new guards. They strolled over and exchanged an amused look. Balthazar knew them. Their names were Axel and Daan and they could have been first cousins. Blonde, beefy and not the brightest lights in Bekker’s cosmos, but then none of them with the exception of Constantin had an ounce of cunning. Bekker clearly didn’t want any free thinkers in his service.
“Trouble in paradise?” Axel inquired.
Gabriel subsided, though his chest still heaved.
“I would like to request that I be moved to a different detention area,” Balthazar said. “Maybe a nice dank cell somewhere where I can ponder my coming death in peace.”
“Why don’t you hang him up by the ankles?” Gabriel suggested.
“By all means, if it helps distract you from the fact that you’re about to be wearing your entrails like a muffler—”
“Shut up,” Axel growled, his blonde brows lowering. His forehead was so negligible, the result looked like something scrawled on a cave wall in Altamira.
“Save your breath,” Daan added helpfully. “You’ll both need it to scream soon enough.”
They had a good giggle over this. Balthazar wondered if they’d been drinking.
“You won’t be laughing so hard when my wife gets here,” Gabriel said.
The guards exchanged a solemn look.
“His wife,” Daan echoed in a quaking voice. “Well, now I’m truly terrified.”
A fresh burst of hilarity erupted.
“Will she bring her rolling pin?” Axel wondered, wiping his eyes.
“No, no, it’ll be knitting needles,” Daan put in. “She’ll poke us and tell us we’re very naughty boys.” He mimed the poking with one meaty hand as Axel made porcine squealing noises.
Gabriel waited, stone-faced, until their breathless wheezing subsided.
“You haven’t met her yet.” His smile made the hair on Balthazar’s neck rise up. “But you will.”