Altera Vita - Chapter 3 - Tails

Chapter 3

Felix's nightmare was interrupted with a splash of cold water.

"Wake up princess, we want our stuff."

The world around was hazy with a mind splitting headache. A hollow clank of an empty bucket painfully echoed in his skull. When he could finally focus on his surroundings, they weren't pretty.

An empty warehouse or factory surrounded him, drenched in shadows that a flickering lantern sitting on a table couldn't pierce. Crippled machinery and dusty crates lurked at the edge of darkness. In the center of the large and tall open area sat Felix, his arms tied to a metal chair. In the far back was a crowbar armed thug, pacing the area near the entrance. A similar guard was closer, leaning against a metal pillar. The last thug, a Brutish gorilla of a man in bad need of a haircut, stood over Felix.

"Nice mullet." Felix muttered a second before his face was met with a backhand. The blood in his brain surged and his headache flared.

"Cut the bullshit," the mullet thug crouched down to look Felix in the face, close enough for him to smell the stench of the man’s breath when he spoke. "I suggest the next words that come from your gullet are telling me where our ‘package’ is. And if telling me what i want to know doesn't sound appetizing, I can't wait to show you what we have planned for your next few hours."

If Felix could’ve move his hands, he'd wipe the spit all those vowels projected across his face. He considered the request, and realized there wasn’t much point in trying to hide the truth. It wasn’t fear that compelled him to tell the truth, or at least that’s what he told himself. "I'm willing to tell you everything you want. This bag you been talking so much about got sold to a guy in a suit. He had a scarred up face and a grey beard, looked chinese or somethin’, and that's all I know," Felix didn't want to seem like he was cooperating, so he added "fat mullet bitch.".

He smirked at his own insult, and so did the mullet.

“My...ah, ‘boss’ would like to have a word with you,” The mullet turned to look at a guard Felix hadn’t noticed before. “If you’d be so kind as to notify our superior.”

The guard hefted an evil looking axe over his shoulder, then turned and walked into a steel door he was guarding. A second later he emerged with two other men… one of whom seemed important.

Two guards walked on either side of a tall man who strolled with a confidence and arrogance. When he stopped to stand in front of Felix, he peeled off a pair of bloody rubber gloves, and untied an even bloodier plastic apron. Another thick spray of blood had splattered across his face, and when he removed the doctor’s mask the contrast between the halves of his face was startling. He wore a clean, tan blazer with light red slacks and blood soaked loafers. It was hard to tell that he was Hispanic from the condition of his half bloody face, and he seemed to be in his early fifties or late forties.

“Hello, there. I’ll skip the formalities because frankly, I don’t care who you are. All I know is that you, my friend, stepped in a mess that I’d like to give you the option to step away from, and spare your own sanity.”

The mullet, who’d been standing off to the side with his arms crossed, chuckled. The Hispanic man spoke the same way he walked, with an abundance of confidence and arrogance. He wiped the blood from his face with a handkerchief, then dropped his hands to his pockets.

“Me being the generous man I happen to be, I’m letting you walk away from here, tonight. It’s come to my attention that you’re in quite the pickle, seeing as you’re tied to a chair. I’ve also been familiarized with the idea that you know where a certain little something of mine may be. If you tell me where I can find it, then, presto, you’re a free man. Only harm done to little old you is my ‘associate’s’ offensive haircut.” The Mullet received a charming smile from his “boss”.

“You know what? I don’t think I like you. Maybe If you asked nicely, I’d tell you whatever it is I know about your precious bag.”

“So you’ve seen it.” A smile spread across the half bloody face. “I never said anything about a bag.”

Felix silently cursed himself for being foolish. “Maybe if you say pretty please, I’ll answer.”

The smile shrunk off of the boss man’s face. He stepped close to Felix and leaned down to whisper.

Felix felt warm breath in his ear. “You’re going to tell me where my bag is or you’ll spend the last long hours of your sorry excuse of a life screaming and crying and begging for me to take the lives of everyone you’ve ever loved instead. I’ll make you wish someone had murdered your mommy to keep you from ever entering this miserable world.”

“I’m gonna send you to hell.” Felix whispered back, then used all the strength in his thigh to swing his leg into the boss man’s shin.

He jumped back, startled, then brushed it off with a scoff. Felix could tell it hurt, even though the man tried to hide it.

“What’s your name, friend? I think I like this one.” The broad smile returned to his face.

“My name is Felix,” He said confidently after a long hesitation. “Infente.”

A long silence followed, during which the Boss Man’s face went pale. An unpleasant expression replaced his smile, but only for a second before he flashed his bright teeth again. “Well, Felix, I’d love to stay and get my hands dirty, but duty calls. I have an… important meeting. Such a shame I couldn’t keep my word.”

Before he turned and left the warehouse with his body-guards, he gave the mullet a quick nod, which clearly meant something.

Felix feared that whatever it meant, it wasn’t going to make his day any better.

The mullet got back in Felix’s face. “You really should’ve taken his advice, Felix,” he spat out the name like it was a mouthful of manure. “I’m glad you didn’t, of course. Now I get to hear you scream it.”

He held up some sort of tool that Felix hadn't ever seen before. It had thin strips of leather hanging from the handle. Metal studs embedded in the leather. "I asked you where our bag is. And you didn't answer my question."

He moved the handle above Felix's head so the the leather strips softly caressed his face. "This, my stubborn friend, is here to show you why you should answer me sooner. It's known as 'the cat o' nine tails'. I don't see much point telling you what it does," He grabbed a fistful of Felix's shirt and tore it enough to expose his bare back. Then, he cut Felix's bindings and shoved him to his knees before he could make a jab or heroic escape. "I'd rather just show you."

“I told you. I swear I told the truth. That’s all I know, man. I sold it to an asian guy with some sca-scars and a grey beard.” Felix said in a panicked rant. Wherever the tool went, his eyes followed, and every time the dim light bounced off a metal stud, his heart raced a little faster.

Then, the massive man muttered four words that terrified Felix more than any other sentence had before.

“I don’t believe you.”

Within a forceful minute, Felix's hands and knees were all bound together, and those were forcefully attached to a ring on the floor. Once used for securing boxes and equipment, Felix was attached by his hands and knees. His face was made a violent acquaintance with the dusty floor when the mullet forced his head down and tied him. Felix was helpless.

“Ready?" The mullet asked comically. "Don't answer that. You might feel a slight sting."

Felix was far more scared than he let himself show. He swallowed a lump of fear and painful anticipation. The mullet's deep, booming laugh rang through his head as he clenched his jaw, and prepared himself as best he could.

He could only see the boots of his interrogator, but he could hear. He heard of every sound. The wind whistled through the leather strips. The strong man grunted with effort. The whistling grew higher and higher until leather burst across his back with the sound of nine whips cracking.

Felix's world was filled with pain. Agony dug nine claws into the skin of his back. Nine more cracks accompanied another burning set of claws. The whistle of wind rushing through leather, a grunt of effort, nine cracks of metal and leather on skin, and a scream of pain. But Felix couldn't hear any of those sounds, now, all he heard was the bloodcurdling sound of pure agony.

Screams and cracks rang off the moldy boxes and the cracked wooden columns. Every little sliver and shard of information Felix knew was screamed into the air in a desperate attempt to halt the abundance of pain that was served out mercilessly. With each crack of the whips, the pain grew, exponentially. The repetitive contact of leather wearing away at skin dug scars into the flesh and painted jagged lines of blood across his back. The blood was whipped with the nine tails and splattered around the room, the floor, and flung into the air by the leather strips.

By the time Felix's throat was raw from screams, and his jaw was tender from clenching, and the brute’s huge arm was sore from swinging, the nine tails finally dropped on the floor in front of Felix's nose. His cheek was pressed into the ground and he could smell his own blood mixed with leather and brass.

“Can’t handle seventeen lashes?” The mullet said, as if he were telling a joke. “Come on, Jesus got 39 and still carried a wooden cross up a hill.”

His horrible laugh sent chills down Felix’s burning spine. The mullet continued to laugh like he’d told a hysterical joke. It had felt like hours had passed, but he had only been whipped seventeen times.

Felix’s scream split the air when scalding hot water poured over his back and neck, infusing his skin with pain. It hissed against his torn skin as it mixed ran off his back onto his arms and legs, causing even more screaming.

In his daze of pain, The mullet re-adjusted Felix face down on a table. He tied each of his arms and legs to be spread out like a star on the surface. Only when Felix felt cold copper wires being coiled around his wrists and ankles did he realize where he’d been put. As soon as he did, he panicked and wondered what horrible, twisted scheme that psychopath was going to put him through.

“What do you want from me?” He screamed, and he could hear the desperation that hung heavily in his voice. “I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!”

“Why so worried, Felix,” The horrible voice spoke in a tone that mocked the way someone might comfort their little brother. “There’s nothing to be scared of, see, water is an excellent conductor of electricity.”

There was a buzz, then a charge of agony ran through Felix’s limbs. All his limbs went rigid, and every muscle in his body contracted and stung. His jaw and throat suppressed a scream of agony, and it only came out as a low grunt.

The device buzzed again. The pain ran even deeper, burning his bones and muscles, making his neck ache like someone had dropped a heavy ball of fire on his spine. His muscles slowly transitioned from rigid to weak and loose, then the buzzer rang again and they shot into a storm of burning stone.

The device buzzed and buzzed, eventually forcing a thick foam from his mouth. He tried his best to scream for mercy, but his weak body only allowed unintelligible moans that were interrupted by a buzz.

Felix had never imagined he would feel the agony he experienced during those long, endless hours in that empty warehouse.

He felt scalding hot water pour over his body again, this time, it hissed and steamed on his back, as if reacting with the leftover electricity on his back.

"Now, I think you'll be a bit more willing to tell me what we want to know." The mullet panted. He was clearly out of breath from hours of vigorous exercise. "I've got a few more methods I'd like you to see. Actually, I'd rather you not tell me so I can have a bit more...fun."

Felix stared off in the distance, towards the back of the warehouse. "I told you everything I know," he whimpered with the weak voice he had left. "I'll tell you more. I found the bag on a bloody body that I thought was dead in my bathtub. I got 20 grand for it from a guy with a briefcase-" He cut himself off because he thought he saw something. Something, in the far back, up in the rafters. His eyes scanned but didn't see anything besides darkness.

Until he did- He saw black move against black. Darkness wove through the shadows. Something was moving across the high, horizontal supports.

"I didn't tell you to stop talking, so you best keep flapping." But Felix ignored him and fixed on the dark figure. It had already blended out of vision, so he searched again for the who or what above them.

Then he saw him. Crouched like a coiled viper, on the rafter atop the far guard, sat a robed man. He wore dusty black robes that made him nearly invisible against his heavily shadowed surroundings, and a hood guarded his face of any visibility, leaving his features in a thick darkness.

Felix watched in impatience. And utter fear. The robed man had the resemblance of a hooded cobra, tension building in his lean muscles, ready to strike. He drew a curved knife with an inaudible hiss like a serpent flicking its tongue to show his fangs. Felix trembled now- from terror, rather than pain. The man struck a horrible feeling of dread deep in his chest.

Before Felix knew what was happening, the robed man struck. He fell from the rafters, using the heavy force of the fall to drive the knife into the neck of the guard below. He kept his momentum and turned it into a somersault that ended an inch in front of the second guard, who's shout of surprise was cut off- or literally cut out- as a spray of blood showered from where his throat used to be. The robed man moved with grace and intensity as he turned around, coiling up his body, then straightened his arm directly at the horrible, massive man who had just caused Felix lifetimes of pain. A silver shard shot through the air, catching the light as it flew like it knew where it was meant to go.

The mullet turned around to address the scream, just to catch the shard with his meaty neck.

Silence hung in the air as the life slowly faded. A hand reached out and pulled the silver from the flesh, and let the life flow from his neck like a waterfall. When the big man finally collapsed, life abandoned, the director of this death stood in his place.

Darkly and elegantly robed with no visible knife or weapon holsters, leather boots, and a black mask from the bridge of his nose to his torso beneath a pointed hood. Two beady eyes that stared out at him and an especially fancy cape. But the most notable feature was the leather laptop bag slung across his shoulder that bore a strange, yet familiar, symbol.