Ben turned his torchlight over the floor, where the instruments of the man’s torture had been thrown like children’s toys. Not tidied away but left out so that they may be returned to again. There were stone hammers of different sizes. Some lay flat, whilst the largest one stood erect, its head big as a brick. There were secateurs, too, and a handsaw with brown, blunted teeth. A tangled nest of fishing line had been cast under the table. Beside it, a needle was stabbed into the floor. These tools all had one trait in common – blood.

‘My God.’ Ben gagged, backing into Chloe.

It was uncertain whether the man was aware of their presence. The only sense not denied to him was that of touch. And judging by his wounds he feared that above all others.

Chloe was by his side immediately, trying to slide her fingers under the wire binding him in place. But even this contact – however well intended – drew from the man a violent hysteria. He forced his neck upward, choking himself, trenching the wire into the cartilage. Bloody spittle oozed from his mouth, clinging sticky to the cloth. His moans were deafening, amplified all the more by the cottage’s stone shell.

‘It’s okay,’ Chloe said to him, ‘I’m going to get you out of here.’

Ben was hesitant to help. The tortured couldn’t stand. And they were in no position to carry him to safety. They couldn’t even save themselves.

It was possible that the poor man was another of Sparling’s recruits. But what if he wasn’t? For all they knew, the bound was deranged. A vile product of a vile bloodline. Kindness would guide their hands to free him and that kindness could be met with malice. Was it for their own safety that the Tír Mallachts had disabled the man?

They were a weak-minded, reticent people, but they had isolated themselves for the sake of others. Could they possibly be capable of this?

Chloe dropped to her knees and searched under the table. The man was still frantically writhing above her. His arms, however, remained inert. It was then Ben noticed the iron hoops fixed into the walls and realised their function. It was a torture rack. The ropes attached to his limbs had been fed through the fixtures and pulled hard, stretching and popping bones apart.

‘We have to cut this wire,’ Chloe shouted over the man’s bawling.

The bound couldn’t lift a hand to hurt them. His body was broken. Ben passed her the secateurs and trained his light under the table as Chloe went about freeing him. She cut the wire and pulled it through the aperture. The man screamed as it drew across his neck, slicing red through greyed skin.