Luck in the fireflies 3
Surprisingly, they only galloped for a few minutes before they arrived at a mowed meadow. Its entire area, marked by metal posts joined in an impassable fence, looked as if it really didn't welcome strangers. Shane couldn't see the whole place but their destination was a building near the gate.
It wasn't tall, but rather massive, made entirely of wood and stone, it didn't have an inviting impression. Nielle and the soldiers went through the gate and along the path they reached the entrance of the building.
Nielle literally kicked the door open and ran with the soldiers into a hall similar to those in classical churches. However, although it had all the parts that the main hall should have, it gave the impression of dungeons with its lack of light and overall dark atmosphere.
Iron brackets with lighted torches illuminated the space, while daylight entered only through small windows in the ceiling. Several people knelt with crystals in their hands by a wooden table behind which a man stood.
He was holding a book reading something.
Nobody gave attention to Nielle's soldiers, so he freely reached a group of people, who weren't bother by him and continued. Nielle had to walk up to the wooden table and kick it to the ground to make their black eyes look up at the prince.
"I didn't want us to ever come into contact, but you wanted to see me so much, I had to come," Nielle laughed and had the people surrounded by his soldiers. One of them put a blade to the neck of the guy with a book, while Nielle sat down on the table.
The guy in the robe looked at him, "Who are you? What do you want here?" he didn't seem terrified.
"My name is Nielle Owen von Rinsel and I have come because one of your members shot one of my men," he said.
With his words the gossip started within the crowd.
"It's prince Nielle," one of the people muttered, "that crazy sadist...you know..."
"Complete madman..."
"I never saw him, but an acquaintance said that he murders people whenever he wants..."
"Someone said he committed a murder in the arcade and is now investigating it..."
"It's not all...I heard that he commits crimes to put people who don't suit him as the criminals for his sins..."
"The moment you get on his black list, you'll end up in a dungeon with his executioners for something you didn't do..."
The sound of bullshits made Nielle laugh at how much of a reputation he had made in that time, "Right, right...and since your church pissed me off, you better get out before I get you involved in tonight's fun as well, " he said nodding to the soldiers who cleared their way.
The crowd hesitated for a moment, but it didn't take long before they got up and ran out one by one.
Nielle looked around the empty hall and stated, "You're the only one left…no other ears…do you want to start talking or do you want one of my man to help you?" he asked.
"I don't know what you're talking about," said the guy.
"I said... one of your men shot one of my and I want to know why. Who paid you? I know that each of you is governed by only one priest, so don't try to lie that you don't know anything. Who's your leader?"
"I don't know, our leader is chosen by world itself, he wouldn't show himself to none of us. Also, in our church we don't talk about every single movement of others, we just follow the leader's words. I don't know what you're talking about."
Nielle watched him for a moment before nodding to his men who scattered around the church in a second. Some ran up the stairs to the floor where probably some members of the church lived, some went through the side door to secure other parts where the members could be.
Nielle, Shane and a few guards who usually didn't move from Nielle until he gave them specific orders remained in the hall.
"You should know," Nielle smiled mockingly, "you're the only place near the capital that belongs to the second church. Plus the patrol saw the culpit walking in your direction."
"Coincidences, a lot of people are coming our way, we're influential, we have a lot of followers," he said, but didn't have time to continue as one of the soldiers kicked him roughly. He dropped to his knees and glared at him, "What do you think you're doing? Do you know, who am I? I'm in charge here! You want to upset the church?"
"The self-proclaimed church," Nielle laughed, sat down a little closer to him and added, "if you don't remember what you did, it's okay," he sighed, "we'll help you."
Nielle looked over at his men, at their familiar faces, and though he knew their skills were top notch, he nodded to Shane.
"Lacrisan, " he said, "I want to see you at work."
Shane glared at him, "Work?"
"Interrogate him...I want to know who hired them and why," he said.
"Just like that?" Shane asked in confusion as without any aids the interrogation was unnecessarily complicated.
"Of course not," Nielle looked at one of the soldiers, "give him the tools." he had the man hand to Shane a collapsible bag containing the tools they used for interrogations.
Shane picked it up and placed it on the table. He opened it next to Nielle and concluded that it contained everything he could need for work.
He pulled out a pair of pliers, a knife, and a thick nail, which he placed in front of the man at Nielle's feet. You looked over the guy's terrified expression and sat down next to the prince.
"My name is Shane and I will be conducting your interrogation today. In case you want to answer things right away, I'm giving you spaces to save time...if you refuse, I warn you that I do things quickly and I don't know how many body parts you'll end up with. Do you want to confess?" he asked as always.
The guy was so taken aback that he didn't answer for a while. But he ignored Shane and looked at Nielle in horror.
"I'm a member of the church...you can't do anything to me...the laws say that the church is a separate leadership...you can't do what you want!" He shouted when the hand violently grabbed his hair, twisting his head back and yanking him towards Shane, who didn't understand.
"Why do you talk with him? I hold the pincers," he stated monotonously, as if he didn't even care about the job, "all Rinselans are ill-mannered swine." he violently grabbed his hand and pressed it against the wooden table where he and Nielle sat.
He took the knife and grabbed his ring finger. He redirected the blade under the man's fingernail and cut roughly under it. The knife cut through the flesh, slipped under the nail and separated part of it from the finger...the table was wet with blood and the hall was filled with screams. Shane ignored the man's scream until the nail was completely cut off.
As soon as he had done so, he put down the knife and took the bloody nail to his hand.
"Do you know why people are actually born with twenty of these?" he asked, wiping a bloody fingernail on the man's tear-soaked cheek, "So that you can practice each of the torture methods on them." he declared, throwing the it to the ground.
He took the pliers in his palm, placed them against the guy's middle finger and pulled the other nail without hesitation. He turned the pliers up and gradually separated the nail from the flesh of the man's finger.
"ААААААА-Ágh-áááá-ágh!" the guy screamed until the nail was completely ripped out. Shane threw it to the ground disinterestedly.
"But don't worry, I don't need to train...I'm not going to rip them all off," Shane said and took the thick metal nail in his hand. He simply placed it over the guy's middle finger at the top joint and pushed. He made a small wound in the skin and placed a pair of pliers to the top of the nail and hit it.
The nail pierced the man's finger, the joint snapped, letting his finger with an unusable layer of flesh and blood. Yet Shane didn't ask anything, he took out the nail and placed it on the joint below. He dug it roughly into the skin and again without hesitation slammed the pincers on nail.
,AAAAAAGH-stop-fuck-aaaagh! Áááá-ágh-fuck-fuck-áágh....áágh-ágh-!" the guy yelled.
"I'm starting to enjoy it," Shane's tone didn't sound like that, "even though I've only destroyed two of your fingers so far." he moved the nail to the other finger and dug it into the guy's upper joint again, he picked up the tongs and slammed them down hard on the nail destroying the knuckle in a second.
,,ААААААGH! Stop-stop! Aaaaaagh-wait...damn...please wait...ááááagh-damn!" he tried to pry his hand out of Shane's grasp, but he didn't seem to care what he was saying, just kept playing with his fingers.
He threw the nail aside, picked up the knife again and cut another of his fingernails. Disinterestedly, he threw it to the ground and cut the blade under another nail. As if he didn't even care about the man's scream, he continued. He seemed to be fully absorbed in his destruction, as if he didn't even care what the point of the interrogation was. The moment Shane grabbed one of his ruined fingers and jerked it violently upward, the guy finally realized what Shane really wanted to hear.
"I-it's not me! It's not me! AAAAH! It's not me...shit...stop...I don't know-I don't know...I lied!" he slapped his other palm on his thighs in pain crying.
Shane finally stopped and asked, "Did you?"
"I-I did...I-I did...I don't run it here...I-I'm just a member...the priest who leads this church a-asked me to stand in for him...today...and not to tell anyone that he took a day off...i-it's not me you're looking for...I-I don't know anything..." he whimpered.
Shane laughed wildly and took the pliers in his palm. As if he didn't hear him, he passed with torture to his other hand and continued his work. He tore out two of the guy's fingernails, broke two of his fingers, and listened dispassionately as he screamed that he didn't know anything. Just as he was about to cut off one of his fingers and the guy was still screaming that he wasn't lying, Shane cut the knife into the flesh and pulled the knife back.
"He doesn't know anything," he looked at Nielle and hid the tools.
Nielle, who was more focused on Shane's work, laughed lightly, "I figured," he had no doubt.
"You look pleased even though you didn't find out anything," Shane observed him.
"I found out more than I expected," Nielle said and without hesitation went out with his soldiers.
He didn't deal with the tortured guy at the table and got out of the building.
"You didn't find out anything," Sane knew.
"I noticed you don't like to talk at work," Nielle praised him, "not interested in whether they talk like you're having fun torturing them...quite a pleasant way." he was satisfied.
"I don't have fun torturing them, " Shane stated.
Nielle laughed softly, "Really?"
Shane nodded, "I don't enjoy the work itself, I'm not a sadist...but destroying each and every one of you...that I always enjoy," Shane pierced him through with his blue eyes and moved on.
Nielle laughed lightly, "So you should be grateful for this job," he laughed, "anyway, good work, Lacrisan." He was satisfied.
Shane stared at him for a moment, but said nothing more.
"Sir... we didn't find anyone... they all disappeared," the guys searching the church caught up.
"I know...they knew we were coming," Nielle stated.
"Did they?" the guys didn't understand.
"Someone is watching us..or predicting well," he declared and left.
Nielle didn't know which of these was true, but he was sure that the church member was not acting of his own free will. Although he hesitated at first, he was currently sure that they had been hired by someone who was powerful enough to control the members of the church and force them to fight him. Nielle was currently unable to find out who even fell into the category, and his list of suspects had shrunk to zero.
"I think we should find out who is at the head of the church of bad luck," he knew.
"Sir...the founder of this church is unknown." The soldiers knew.
Nielle glared at him, "Isn't it your job to find out exactly such things?"
The soldier nodded, "Yes, sir."
Nielle knew that the founder of this church was unknown and knew that it wasn't easy to find out his identity. However, he wasn't going to leave it like that, because as soon as someone challenged him to a fight, he wasn't going to back down. Like now.
Because if he ever did, he would have been dead a long time ago.