“I—” Carmichael turned his face away from me. “I only met him once.”

“And when was that?”

“I don’t know. Monday of last week? Tuesday, maybe? It was before they infected him.”

“Why?” I narrowed my eyes. “Why is that important?”

“Because I—when we . . . I didn’t want to get infected too,” Carmichael said through a moan. His shoulders were hunched, and his body shook with the force of his sobs.

“When you what?” My hand shot out, and I gripped Carmichael’s throat with clawlike fingers, bringing my face centimeters from his. “What did you do to Sammy?” I recalled the headlines about the human trafficking allegations, about the women and children purportedly sold into slavery, and my grip tightened. “Tell me!”

“If—if I do, you—you’ll kill me.”

Oh, dear gods, no . . .

I clenched my jaw, fingernails digging into his throat. I could feel the tendons and muscles in his neck tensing, the hard tube that was his windpipe straining against my hold. It would be all too easy to crush. Blood oozed from the cuts caused by my nails, and I only squeezed harder. “You deserve to die,” I said, tearing up with the force of my rage. “I wish there was a hell, so you could burn in it for the rest of eternity.” I sucked in a shaky breath. “But there’s not.”

I released him and straightened, raising my boot to the seat of the chair between his thighs. I moved his flaccid penis out of the way with the toe of my boot and slammed the sword blade home.

Carmichael howled in pain. He didn’t stop howling until I was finished and his family jewels lay in a bloody mess on the hardwood floor. He’d never touch another kid again.

“Enjoy your hell, you ball-less sack of shit,” I said, then spat on him. I turned away and stalked into the kitchen, where I started to pace. “Dom, can you let the Bainbridge folks know to expect a prisoner? I’m going to send him to the dungeon.” It was under the massive garage in the Heru compound, a separate building from the main house where Lex, Heru, and some of the others lived, and it was about as stereotypical as a dungeon could get with all the stone and iron and generally dank atmosphere. I didn’t want to risk the possibility that this sick fucker might cross paths with Reni, Lex and Heru’s three-year-old girl. “And let them know everything we learned about him, will you? I’m sure they can get more useful info out of him.”

“Of course,” Dom said. “But are certain you’ll be able to create a gateway?”

I heaved a breath, then another. I could practically feel the magical energy gathering strength within my sheut. “Oh, yeah.” I shook out my hands and cracked my neck. “I got this.”

“Very well. When should they expect him?”

I was quiet for a moment, estimating how long it would take me to draw the dungeon. “About an hour,” I said finally. I grabbed a canister of chalk from the counter beside the fridge—seriously, who the fuck has a chalkboard for a fridge door, anyway—and stalked back into the living room area. I shoved the coffee table and ridiculous zebra-striped bearskin rug out of the way and knelt on the hardwood floor to get to work.