Mordred spent a few minutes going through Alexi’s desk drawers but found nothing of any importance. He moved into the bedroom and almost stepped on the TV remote. He picked it up and threw it onto the bed, which caused the TV screen to come to life.
He was half expecting to see something unpleasant paused on there, ready for Alexi’s return, but instead it was much worse. The picture was of a room with a concrete floor, and what appeared to be a drain close to the center. A short distance from it was a man in a chair with a blindfold on. The picture was in color, and Mordred could easily make out the wounds that covered the man’s naked body. He was shivering, and Mordred was certain that it was as much as a by-product of the cold as of the horror he’d clearly endured.
“What did you find?” Nabu asked from the doorway.
“Torture porn,” Mordred said, pointing to the TV.
“Is that live?”
“I assume so. There’s nothing indicating otherwise.” He picked up the remote and pressed the button to fast forward, but nothing happened. “Must be live.”
“I’ve been hearing horror stories about what some of the people went through as captives here. A lot are never found again. Or at least not in their original state.”
“Alexi isn’t that strong. There’s no way he’s in charge of all this.”
“You think the woman . . . Daria is in charge?”
Mordred nodded. “The whole pack alpha thing is something weres came up with as an easy way to say ‘leader.’ I get the feeling that Alexi was the leader because he had a good look, but he’s not even on the scale of people like Tommy. If this werewolf pack is so scary, it isn’t because of Alexi or those bouncers I kicked the shit out of. They were human. Where’s the rest of the pack?”
“Waiting for us?”
“Or out hunting. Either way, Alexi is a figurehead, not the alpha, or whatever name they’re using for it today.”
“We have a werewolf pack of considerable power still active within this building.”
“And they know we’re here.”
“That’s not great news.”
“Nothing about the last few days has been great news. Viktor is still here, too. I’d really like to find him before these werewolves cut their losses and remove his head for him.”
“You think he knows where Elaine is?”
Mordred shrugged as he walked toward the door. “No idea, I just want to punch him in the face.”
He left Nabu in the bedroom as Polina, Morgan, and Remy all entered the office.
“You really did a number on Alexi,” Polina said.
“Did you know he wasn’t the man in charge?” Mordred asked.
Polina licked her lips and looked irritated at the question, but her expression soon softened. “We suspected. No one we sent in was able to get word out about how the hierarchy in the pack works.”
“You still think that Alexi created Daria?”
“Yes,” Polina said without hesitation. “The power of a werewolf has no effect on the power of those they’ll change. They’re completely separate entities. There’s every possibility that he still bit Daria and she just became more powerful than he is.”
“That wouldn’t be difficult.”
“Nice bounce, by the way,” Remy said from the hole where several windows used to be. “You got some really good air on crashing him through a reinforced window.”
“My power is a little bit more impressive than it was before I regained my faculties,” Mordred said. “We need to make sure this club is empty.”
“The others are on it,” Morgan told him. “We thought we’d best come and see how you were doing.”
“I’m fine. Annoyed that I wasted a perfectly excellent vodka by drinking it with that asshole. Who, by the way, I’d like to see stick around for a bit.”
“Why?” Polina asked. “We can take him in for questioning.”
“Or you can leave him here, and he can watch as we dismantle the rest of his pack. I’ve seen it work before. Trust me on this. He’s the type to fold when he has no option.” Mordred looked out over the nightclub. “Any idea where the entrance to this underground complex is?”
“There’s a lift in a hallway behind the level you entered on,” Polina said. “Nice job not killing those two outside, by the way.”
“I’m not an assassin,” Mordred said. “Had Alexi just given me what I’d asked for, he’d still be sitting on his nice chair, drinking excellent vodka and pretending he was important.”
“You know your demeanor changes when we do stuff like this,” Remy said to Mordred. “You’re less . . . flighty.”
“Anger focuses me. Gives me something to consider and work toward. And after seeing the footage in his bedroom, and after him trying to kill me, I’m plenty angry. Daria seems to consider herself some kind of torture genius. I intend to show her otherwise.”
Nabu left the bedroom. “There’s a lot of older stuff in there, too. A USB stick was plugged into the TV. Alexi got his excitement from watching people get hurt—at least that’s my guess.”
“Hopefully the amount of pain he’s in at the moment will have to suffice,” Mordred said. “I assume you placed a sorcerer’s band on him?”
Polina looked offended. “I know how to do my job, Mordred.”
“I know, I just like to check these things. I mean no offense by it.”
Her expression didn’t change. “Yes, we put a sorcerer’s band on him. It’s not specifically designed for him, but it’ll do. He won’t be going anywhere, or hurting anyone else. Silver-laced cuffs, too, after he changed back into his human form. He won’t be changing out of it while he’s in them.”
“Right, let’s get the rest of the pack sorted, then,” Mordred said. He left the room and jogged down the stairs, where he spotted several of Polina’s people carrying out a search of the premises.
After making his way down to the bottom floor and through a set of double doors, he found himself in the corridor with the lift at one end. Diana stood in front of it, her arms crossed, while Fiona stood beside her. Fiona had acquired a rapier at some point, and it sat sheathed against her hip. Because she was a conjurer, her ability was based on creating traps and illusions. If she found herself in a fight, it was best done with weaponry.
“What’s wrong?” Mordred asked.
“There’s silver in the lift doors,” Diana explained. “We can’t open them. I try to pry them open and it burns my fingers.”
“And we don’t know the code for the numerical pad, either,” Fiona said.
Mordred placed a hand against the lift doors and used his air magic to wedge it in between them. He slowly forced the doors apart, but the strain was too great and after only an inch the locking mechanism refused to budge and Mordred was forced to release it.
“You got any other ideas?” Fiona asked, her voice full of anxiety.
“One, yes,” Mordred said, and placed his hand over the number pad. A cone of razor-sharp ice left Mordred’s palm, smashing into the pad with incredible force, tearing it apart and causing several sparks. An alarm sounded all around him, and the lift doors remained closed.
“Good job,” Diana said. “I could have just broken it myself.”
The lights went off inside the club, bathing everyone in darkness for a short time before emergency lighting flickered on.