Hostage Souls

When the two home invaders woke up from the cold water splash that landed on them, they instantly scanned their surroundings, noticing that they couldn't move their bodies from the solid plastic band that held them in place.

Without saying a word, the two of them closed their mouths tightly, making Dante wonder what they were trying to do, as he could see them moving their tongue around their mouths frantically.

Suddenly, the two thugs widened their eyes with perplexity.

"What's wrong?" Camille asked the men with a sinister smile.

"Looking for something…?" she continued, making the thugs sweat nervously.

Dante, Megan, and Zac were confused about the handler's words, and Paige, who was still preparing her tools, told them that the prisoners had a cyanide pill hidden in the back of one of their molar teeth.

However, she had inspected their bodies and removed them beforehand, knowing that they would've used them to kill themselves before they could divulge any information.

As the two prisoners started nervously sweating, Dante noticed something strange from the flow of umbra coming from their bodies and asked Camille's permission to approach them.

"What do you see?" the handler asked the warlock curiously.

"It seems like a curse, but I don't think I've ever seen this type…" Dante replied, gazing at the men up and down.

Camille was afraid for a moment that it was a hunter's curse, which told the location of the prey to the caster. However, the warlock refuted her worries by saying that it was much worse than that.

"I'm not sure what the effects are, but it looks pretty advanced… Give me a moment to analyze it," the warlock said.

Covering one of his hands with a thick mantle of umbra, Dante grabbed one of the men by the shoulder. However, as soon as he made contact, the man had a seizure that caused him to grunt loudly while rolling back his eyes.

Still, Dante didn't let go of his grip as he was analyzing the curse that was placed on the man, and he didn't have any other non-painful way of doing it.

While the thug kept moving frantically, shaking his head and splashing his saliva around like a wild animal, Dante calmly maintained his firm grasp on him.

"Huh, so it is what I suspected…" Dante muttered, prompting Camille and Paige to ask him to elaborate.

At that moment, Dante let go of the man's shoulder, and his seizure instantly stopped, leaving him unconscious with his head hanging down.

"Looks like these guys had their souls taken hostage…" the warlock said.

"What?" Paige asked with a raised eyebrow.

"If I had to guess, the curse gives them a condition. If they break it, then their souls belong to the demon," Dante replied.

"So, that's why they kill themselves…?" muttered Camille.

The warlock explained that if a demon held a person's soul when they died, they would be sent to hell for eternity—making the alternative of killing themselves while keeping their souls much more appealing.

The one thug who was still conscious was listening to everything, and his nervousness was more apparent when he understood that Dante wasn't a normal person.

"I can probably break their curse, but it's my first time seeing it, so I'll need some time…" said the warlock.

"Seriously?" Camille inquired, not because she was in a rush but because Dante seemed confident.

"We need the information from these guys, right? —If their souls are freed, I'm sure they'll talk quickly," he replied.

Paige chuckled a bit maniacally, interrupting their conversation, saying that Dante had been piquing her interest for the first time in years.

It took two hours for Dante to break the curse from the men, and during that time, Paige kept asking him questions about magic, which he didn't mind answering.

Dante explained that controlling umbra to cast spells that could damage the soul were some of the most advanced that warlocks could learn, and it was rare for demons to cast similar spells.

Destroying a demon's soul was the best way to erase them from existence entirely, and very few demons were able to protect themselves against those types of attacks.

At one point, Paige wondered what umbra looked like, as she couldn't picture it in her head, making the warlock stop his analysis of the curse for a moment.

"I can show you…" Dante replied, approaching the scientist and placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Umbral sight," he muttered, using his other hand to cover his left eye.

Paige blinked, and when she opened her eyes, Camille noticed that her left eye was ruby red—just like Dante's.

'Did Dante lend his eye!?' she thought.

Nevertheless, it was the first time that the warlock saw the scientist being genuinely surprised about something, and Paige couldn't find words to describe what she was seeing.

"It's almost like some sort of red smoke is coming from their bodies…" said the scientist, scanning her surroundings and looking at everyone's energy flow.

Dante told her that, after seeing people's energy flow for a long time, he was able to differentiate a person's state of mind purely by the amount of umbra or positive energy they extruded.

"I see—but why does Camille's energy look more blueish?" Paige asked, gazing at her friend on the side.

"That's positive energy, which tells you that Camille has no ill intentions towards you—it's also the source used by priests to cast blessings," he replied.

While the group was slightly distracted by Dante's magic lesson, he was still working on the curse analysis, wondering what demon was trying to fetch their souls.

When Dante finished his analysis of the curse placed on the two thugs, he used a spell that allowed his hand to phase through a person's body.

After inserting his hand into their chests, he could feel an ethereal chain inside, which he grabbed and forcefully destroyed with his grip.

The two men instantly passed out, so Camille ordered her lackeys to dump another bucket of cold water on them, saying that she had no time to wait for their nap.

"Now we get our answers…" the handler muttered.