Part Fifty-One

“Hello Kylie,” I said when her eyes fully opened.

I was in my shed in Greenville and Kylie was lying on the stainless steel table, strapped in securely. She had been easy to take, I had injected her with a wolfsbane mixture while she was asleep, picked her up and ported with her and it had taken her three hours to wake up.

“Where am I?” she asked as she pulled against the restraints.

“My name is Griffin Woods and you were the last person to see my father, Damon, alive. I want answers,” I said to her.

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” she asked.

“That depends on what you have to say,” I said to her, “we can do it the easy way or the hard way.”

“The Alpha was in the recovery room, I had just checked his vitals when council member Grant entered the room. He was still in there when I left, that was the last time I saw him alive,” she said and gulped nervously.

“His ID card doesn’t show that he entered the recovery room,” I said to her.

“The door was open, he didn’t need to swipe his ID card,” she said.

“I’m going to inject you with a mixture of benzodiazepines and water hemlock, you won’t remember this encounter, but if I find out that you lied to me, you will wake up here again and the next time I won’t be this friendly,” I said to her.

I injected more Midazolam in her system and her eyelids fluttered shut as she fought the sedative to no avail. I ported her back to her house and left her unharmed in her bed. She’d have a slight headache and a fuzzy memory but she wouldn’t recall being in my shed.

I logged into the Council’s camera system and turned the camera in the hallway to view Grant Greene’s office. His door was open and he was sitting behind his desk. I pulled a hoodie on over my t-shirt and ported to his office.

“How the…” Grant began to say as I closed the door and turned around.

“Tacitus,” I whispered as the room sealed itself off and no sound would escape from there.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked me as he stood up from behind his desk.

“Griffin Woods, I want to know what happened to my father,” I said to him.

His eyes widened slightly at that and he sat back down on his chair again. He rifled through a few files on his desk and then handed me a file labeled ‘Damon Woods – Alpha, Enforcer clowder’. I didn’t even bother opening it.

“The real story of how you covered up his murder,” I said and placed the file back on his desk.

“Murder?” he asked and swallowed nervously.

“According to Kylie Pheiffer you were the last person to see Damon alive,” I said as I took a seat in front of his desk and took the knife from the holster on my belt and played with it.

“I was just in there to check up on him,” Grant said.

“Why are you lying to me?” I asked him.

“I’m not lying!” he said loudly and looked towards the door.

“I sealed the room in a soundless bubble,” I said to him and stood up.

“I swear, I don’t know anything about Damon’s death,” he said loudly and backed his chair up against the wall as I walked towards him.

“My father trusted you and he ended up dead,” I said.

“You’re an Enforcer, you can’t do this!” he yelled suddenly.

“I’m not an Enforcer, I’m a destroyer, the more you cooperate the easier this’ll be,” I said as I pulled him to his feet and ported back to my shed in Greenville.

“Where are we?” he asked as he leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. He looked ready to vomit and I pushed him harshly against the wall.

“Since you so vehemently deny knowing anything, I’ll have to get creative to get the answers I want,” I said to him as I pulled him up again and pushed him onto the table.

I had him strapped in before he could blink. I took the knife roll out and he turned his head as he watched me. I selected my favourite skinning knife and placed it on the table. His eyes held fear now and his body was shaking.

“I’ll tell you everything you want to know!” he screamed as I proceeded to gag and tape his mouth shut.

“I know, but first I’ll remind you never to lie to me again,” I said.

Grant was being very noisy and I preferred quiet when I worked. He was trying to talk to me but all I could hear were mumbled words. His eyes seemed to bulge and he was sweating profusely now but I carried on preparing him by unbuttoning the sleeve at his wrist and folding his shirt up towards his elbow.

“I’ve heard that flaying can be quite painful. I’ll explain to you what happens as I go along. First I’ll make an incision right here,” I said as I cut into his skin just above his wrist.

“The trick is to not cut too deeply, I want to cut through the skin so I can eventually peel it back, exposing your nerve endings, that’s where the real pain gets you,” I said as I looked into his eyes.

I made another long incision up towards his elbow and he started screaming as his body shook and I pressed down on his arm and made the second incision. I dug the knife back into the first cut I had made and pried it under the skin.

I had loosened a fair amount of skin so I could grip the edge with a pair of large tweezers while prying the knife further in. His screams never stopped and by the time I reached just under his elbow, he had pissed himself.

I looked at the rectangular shaped wound on his arm where skin use to be and held the flap of skin up for him to see. His screams seemed to get worse and I pressed the knife against his open wound as his face reddened considerably.

“Once you’ve stopped screaming I’ll remove the tape and gag,” I said to him.

I waited another thirty minutes before he became quiet and I left him to go make coffee for myself. I ripped the tape off his mouth and he winced and took big gulps of air when I removed the gag. I pulled a chair closer to him and sat down as I wiped the sweat off his forehead.

“Now tell me everything or I’ll start on your other arm,” I said to him taking a sip from the mug.

“You’re fucking insane!” he yelled at me.

“No, I’m just one pissed off man,” I said to him.

“The agreement was in place and the Oracle extracted his memories. Everything he said was true, his memories showed it. Chester wasn’t too happy with the outcome and he insisted that you have to pay for all those deaths. We argued for over an hour and finally Chester brought another man into the room with us. He handed out files, blackmail files and unless we all agreed he’d send them to the Council General,” he said.

“So Chester orchestrated my father’s murder?” I asked him.

“Yes.”

“Who was the man?”

“He had a hunter’s mark on his wrist, black hair, brown eyes, Chester called him Williams, he had that glint in his eyes that all crazy men have. I don’t know his name, I swear. The hunter was the one that cut Damon’s heart out and Chester erased the footage. We had no choice in voting for execution,” he said.

“I found the original agreement in Chester’s safe, he kept it, the one saying my father was innocent. Why he would keep it goes beyond me. What does Chester have on you?” I asked him.

“I cheated on my wife,” he said and lowered his eyes.

“So instead of owning up to your infidelity to your wife you let my father die?” I asked him.

“She’ll leave me, my children will hate me!” he argued.

“Now she can bury you instead,” I said as his eyes widened and I pulled the knife across his throat and watched him bleed out on the table.

I checked the camera feed again and ported Grant back to his office. I left him in his chair, slumped over his desk and blood spilled onto the paperwork. I put the piece of skin on his table and wrote ‘TRAITOR’ on it in block letters.

Back in Greenville I washed my hands a few times and then continued to clean the room as I thought about everything Grant had told me. There would be chaos in that Council building the moment Grant’s body was discovered.

I ported back home and headed for the computer room. I ran a search for anybody named Williams in the hunter’s database that I had. It would take a while since there were thousands of hunters all around the world and I doubted if Williams was his real name.

On another hunch I reran Williams through the Council database and locked the door behind me. I hadn’t really spent any time with Sierra this week as my focus was solely on Damon. I found her in the dining room with a variety of plates in front of her and her notebook.

“Hey,” I said as I kissed the top of her head.

“Hey yourself,” she said and gave me a smile.

“What’s all this?” I asked her.

“Test plates for the ceremony,” she said and took a bite from one plate.

“I’m happy with meat,” I said and she laughed.

“There’s a drop of blood on your collar,” she said and I looked down at it.

“Cut myself shaving,” I said.

“Do you think Kane would mind wearing a bow?” she asked and Kane’s head snapped up from where he lay on the other side of her.

“What?” he asked.

“A bow?” I asked her as Kane started growling.

“To carry our rings,” she said and I looked at him.

“You’ll look so cute Kane,” I said to him.

“I think I’m going to vomit up a hairball,” he said and started gagging as I laughed.

“There’s a bigger chance that Jett will wear a bow,” I said to her.

“Jett will only wear the bow,” she said and we both laughed.

“I’ll keep the rings then,” I said to her.

“It feels like I haven’t seen you all week,” she said as she leaned towards me and I placed my arm around her shoulder.

“It’ll get better, I promise,” I said to her as she pushed a plate towards me.

“Come on help me taste,” she said.

“What the hell is that?” I asked her.

“Eggplant,” she said and gave me that evil smile only she could perfect.