Abraham Ancestor

Abraham Ancestor
Nikolias stumbled back, swallowing the rushing bile, hoping that Eason wasn't as much of a monster as the vision made him seem, and Nikolias just hadn't noticed. His mind leaped back through his memories, searching for something that would excuse missing the vein of malice that had to run through Eason, but he pulled himself back and out of the spiral. He could deal with his own guilt later. 
He would deal with whatever signs he hadn't seen and use them going forward to make sure Eason and his brother paid for whatever crimes they'd committed.
"You found something?" The enforcer asked, tugging his mind back to the present. Nikolias held up a hand, straining against the walls of his mind to hear what Eason had whispered through the panel.
The day turned to night in the kitchen as the memory surfaced around him, and he could make out Tyler's voice from within the panel in the wall.
"Eason, please... I..."
"We're going out tomorrow. No questions. Do what you're told, and maybe I'll ask Mom to feed you."
A soft whimper followed; the beginnings of words were cut off when Eason shut the panel and turned away, brushing past Nikolias, leaving a pricking, burning sensation in his skin.
Malice, hatred, and cruelty boiled and fizzed like poison and acid at the edges of his mind. Eason had never felt like that when he was in Nikolias' presence. What kind of compartmentalization made it possible to hide such malice from an empath?
Had he had help? A mental shield medallion or something? Hunters had them. It allowed them to move among supernaturals without drawing attention, hid the injuries and marks of all the supernaturals they'd harmed.
Nikolias had been going through training in high school. Now that he'd completed more of it, enough to operate legally, could Eason still fool him? He'd have to find out, if only for his own peace of mind and to devise a path forward.
Eason might not have put Tyler down there, but he damn sure didn't help him get out.
Nikolias pointed at the panel. "That panel slides up from the floor. There's a vent or something."
Nikolias turned to follow the shade of Eason back through the house. The phantom led him upstairs past a pair of rooms to Eason's bedroom. Nikolias opened the door and lifted the walls of his mind up. He didn't need to see anything more. The space upstairs was empty, hollow, mostly because the house above was made of materials that weren't good at holding mental or magical impressions from humans. 
But the room felt uncanny. He stepped inside, dragging his gaze around until it led him to the dresser, the closet, the adjoining bathroom. Nothing was still there, but something had been there. His journal had been in this room for a long time. Weeks maybe. He left the room, reaching, searching for a better impression. The room next to it was blank and empty. 
The next was full of multiple signatures, pulsing and burning, still alive and screaming.
"I need an enforcer with an evidence chest!" Nikolias called back to yell, backing out of the room before the walls of his mind could crumble.
An older woman came bounding up the stairs with a chest. "You okay, kid? You're Mil's boy, aren't you?"
Nikolias nodded. "This room. Too many signatures. Take a scan first, I think. Whoever's room this is needs to be questioned. Don't seal the chest yet."
"Why?"
"I think... some of the original owners are still here and alive." Nikolias shut his eyes. "I-I'll wait."
He stumbled across the hall, resting against the wall and shutting his eyes. His veins ached, and his head pounded. He shuddered and opened his eyes to see Gavin hovering above him. Nikolias froze as Gavin smiled. 
"Ready? I think it's time you start answering questions."
Nikolias grimaced and swallowed the bile before nodding, though he wasn't. It wouldn't matter. If Gavin had decided that it was time for riddles, then he had to answer, or he and the other spirits of the Army left would be eating his soul. 
"I allow a few to control the many. I am seen but cannot be touched. You may find me on the belt of knight or in the hand of tyrant. I can be taken or earned; rarely am I given. What am I?"
Nikolias swallowed, glancing back to the open door of the room where the enforcer worked. "Authority."
Gavin grinned. "Very good." He faded away, and the fire and ice weight of the suppressors erupted, dropping Nikolias' mind through the floorboards beneath him until the house of the Williams faded and he stood in a hallway of old pine boards, cracked, stained, and knotted.
The air smelled of copper and a strange weightlessness held him aloft. 
"How much longer?" A gruff voice came from down the hallway. A gleaming rope of glowing jewels swung from his belt, each of them filled with spellwork that tugged at Nikolias' mind.
Nikolias went still as a man with Samuel's stubborn jaw and a hairline dusted in gray marched toward him. 
"Not much longer," a younger man laughed, walking alongside him. "Soon. We've caught more than a few. We think one of them is a vampyr."
He smiled. "Perfect."
"A woman."
He smirked. "Even better. They tend to last longer, and there's nothing wrong with getting a crop going."
Nikolias followed him down the hallway, down the stairs until they reached the ground floor, but before they did, he knew the young man had been wrong. The woman they'd caught wasn't a vampyr; she was a siren, half-dazed, beaten bloody, gagged, with her arms bound behind her back. Her throat didn't glow, but her eyes flashed that terrible gold.
"Fool... This is a muse." He crouched in front of her. "What a pretty monster you are." 
Her eyes narrowed, pulling away from her as he stroked her hair, then down her neck until he took a firm hold of her breast, squeezing as he licked his lip. Nikolias swiped at him, catching nothing but air.
"Keep her gagged. Tell the men if they have a desperate need to use of another hole, pick someone else unless they want to die." He stood. "And make her cry. A war isn't won without treasure."
She glared at him, struggling as a pair of men dragged her back. 
"If you can get her to transform, that would be even better---"
"Sir Abraham, we have a problem."
He scoffed. "What?"
"One of the breeders... she's turned the captain to stone."
Nikolias pulled out of the vision, shuddering before swooning in place. What was he supposed to do with that?
Unless the man who had been turned to stone was still in the building and it could be reversed?
He had questions for the fucker if so.
"...Abraham?" He lifted his head to the older woman, holding the evidence chest up. "The scanner picked these up, but none of them are in the registry or the I.D. system."
Nikolias leaned away from the box, stomach churning at the phantom screaming reaching out to him.