The scent of mildew mixed with the taste of aluminum and stale vomit, and Paul felt his stomach lurch as a searing pain shot through his head, centered around his brainstem and his right eye. He fought to open his eyes even a crack, scraping off the pain in order to try to focus long enough to remember where he was, what had happened. The last thing he could remember, the team was loading into the van, ready to go on a hunt. After that, everything was… hazy, just like his vision.
His left eye felt swollen and puffy. He pried it open just a slit, but his right eye stung so badly it refused to budge out of a tight squint, opening only enough for tears to pour down his cheek. Everything looked foreign. A bare light bulb flickered, swaying on a chain a good three feet in front of him, casting shadows around what appeared to be a small room made entirely of concrete. Trying to lift his arm to wipe at his eye was futile, and he realized he was chained to the wall. His biceps ached, confirming that suspicion, and once he gained enough awareness to try to move his legs, he found very little leeway there, as well. Heavy iron shackles secured him into the cement floor.
Naturally, he tested the chains again and found them unbudgeable. If only he didn’t feel like he’d been hit by a Mack truck. He strained his thoughts, trying to remember what had happened to him. Images of standing outside on a rooftop, flickers of a movie, lots of screaming—but no idea how he got here.
What appeared to be part of the wall opened, and Paul realized it was actually a door. A stirring inside of his stomach overshadowed the queasiness from the pain, and he recognized that feeling even though he couldn’t see the figure well enough to otherwise confirm his suspicions. Whomever had walked in just now was most certainly a Vampire.
Through his slitted eye, he saw a rather short man who made up for his height with his hair, which grew out of his head like a shrub desperately in need of pruning. He wore thick glasses and a lab coat. Paul couldn’t see his face well enough to tell much else about him, but he did appear to be grinning in glee, and every fiber of his being wanted to yank these chains out of the wall and tear his head from his body.
“Oh, good, Mr. Larkin, you’re awake. Or am I supposed to call you Grand Master or something? I’m sure you have a formal title don’t you, what with all the power you wield over your little Australian minions, hmmm?” His accent revealed that he was not a native Australian and was perhaps from some place in Europe—Germany, possibly?
Paul snarled at him, trying to formulate a sentence, but his throat was so dry, words didn’t want to cooperate. Without being able to use his voice, he went to his IAC, hoping to get some sort of perspective from his teammates as to what might be happening, but realization hit as soon as he attempted to access it; his IAC was gone. From the pain in his eye, he imagined it had been sliced out, indelicately, and he wasn’t sure what was more dreadful, the agonizing ache as his eyeball attempted to repair itself or knowing he was all alone now with absolutely no means of contacting his teammates. In frustration, he pulled against the chains again. They rattled a response, assuring him they were merciless, and he growled in frustration.
The cartoon character across from him began to laugh, the sound just as stereotypical as he would’ve expected considering the get up. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” the monster asked, once he brought himself under control. “Actually, they might both be bad news, depending upon how you look at it.”
Paul raised his head, willing both eyes to open so he could look this piece of shit in the face. With his voice cracking, he managed, “What do you want?”
The doctor clapped his hands together and bounced up and down. “That doesn’t answer my question, Mr. Larkin, but that’s okay. I’ll give you the good news first.” His hair flopped around on top of his head like an overgrown yucca plant. He took a step forward, though he was still probably five feet away, near the other end of the room. He rubbed his black gloved hands together, his glasses slipping to the end of his bulbous nose. “Luckily for you, we still don’t know how to kill you. So… as long as you’re here, you won’t die.”
The thought had entered Paul’s mind. Unless Rogue Hunters were somehow involved in whatever was going on here, he would survive until his team could find him, though who knew how long that might take. He didn’t even have any way of knowing how long he’d been gone or where they might’ve taken him.
“Would you like to know what the bad news is?” Dr. Jekyll’s crazier cousin asked, stepping even closer.
Paul noticed there was a red line painted on the cement floor, and he imagined that was some sort of signal to this maniac how close he could come. In order to test it, the Guardian strained against the chains, mustering every ounce of strength his aching muscles had left, and found he could almost reach that point of no return.
Satisfied that his calculations were correct, the monster began to giggle again. He leaned forward, his face a few inches away from Paul’s but out of reach. “The bad news is, by the time we’re done with you, you’ll wish you were dead.” His gray eyes danced in merriment as his face stretched into another lopsided grin and his glee reverberated off of the concrete.
“What are you planning to do to me?” Paul grunted, his muscles giving up and retracting so that he settled back against the cold concrete wall.
“Oh, you’ll see.” He took a step back, adjusted his glasses. “You’ll see, soon enough, Grand Master Guardian of the Land Down Under.”
Growling in frustration, Paul strained against the chains again but could get nowhere. His vision was still blurry, but it looked as if the mad scientist felt against the wall for a moment, as if looking for a secret doorway, and then the concrete slid open just enough for him to make his way through, leaving Paul all alone in his cage again.
The light bulb flickered, still swaying like it was being moved by invisible hands. There was certainly no current down here, no gust of wind or ventilation system to cause it to move, but it did so just the same, casting shadows Paul couldn’t distinguish as his left eye gave up and pitched him into darkness.
His chains allowed him to squat, not to sit, but for now it was the best he could do as he sank down, resting on his haunches, trying to focus on anything but the sharp pain in his eye, the ache in the back of his skull, and his burning muscles. Though the doctor, or whatever the hell he was, hadn’t been specific, Paul knew enough to realize that the good news wasn’t really good news at all. Because the bad news would mean unbearable pain, the kind that made the immortal beg for their own death. He had a feeling that the mad scientist’s prediction would be right, and soon enough he’d be pleading with them to put him out of his misery.
