429: I’ll Be There
When Beatrice’s eyes returned from the street glance back to Ember, the redhead had dragged the unknown bearded vagabond deep in the shadows of the dark alley.
Though at first addled by the Ember’s swiftness, the man had finally had enough. He yanked his hand arm from Ember’s half-assed grip and demanded an explanation.
“Who the hell are you and what could you possibly know about—?” the man suddenly stopped mid-sentence when Ember took a single confident step toward him and placed her hand against his neck. But his silence lasted for barely a second. “ARGH!?”
The man recoiled as one would from a scorching kettle and instinctively jumped back, but that did not get him far as he just hit his back against an uneven brick wall. Ember pursued him, touched his neck again, and said, “Do not move again!”
The bearded man obeyed, not moving a muscle while Ember pressed his black beard into his neck. He only looked down on the redhead while sweat drops quickly multiplied across his narrow forehead.
“If you think this is hot, can you even imagine how it would feel to have burning coals lodged down your throat?” Ember asked in a way that left no doubt that she had made good on such a threat before. “If you so much as try to move or scream, you will die a silent, slow, excruciating death. Answer all of my questions like your life depends on it and you will get away with just a short nap in the garbage and a few bruises for deniability. Understood?”
The man grew paler and sweatier by the second. He dared not even nod, and only managed to blink in response.
“Good. Who are you waiting for here?”
The man looked at Ember, then at Beatrice, then back at Ember. “Apparently, you two. But the description was poor and you were supposed to be one of the Priestesses.”
“And how many of you Purple Morons have gathered here?”
“Thirty-nine.”
“How many inside the inn?”
“About twenty.”
“How did you know to wait for us here?”
“As if the captain would tell us such things!”
“A captain is here? Which one?”
“Captains Gamesh and Rivaldo were both here, but only Rivaldo stayed.”
“And what about the owners of the inn? The two sisters?”
“Captain Gamesh took them both to the Pits along with everyone else. Ekhhh!”
The man did his best not to scream when the heat from Ember’s hand suddenly jumped by ten degrees.
“E-everyone?” Beatrice’s worry doubled. ‘The Pits’ did not sound like any good place to be taken to. “When?”
The bearded man did not answer. Sweating buckets, he switched his gaze back and forth from Beatrice to Ember, waiting for instructions from the person whose questions he was supposed to answer, and hoping for relief.
“Well?” Ember let the man know to answer Beatrice’s question.
“Yesterday. Just after sunset.”
“What?” Ember gasped. “Before the Games?”
“P-probably just as it-akh-started,” the man said. “Y-your hand...”
“How did the captains find out before then?” Ember asked, thrown off balance by the new revelation.
“I don’t know! P-please!”
“Fine!” Ember said lessening the tension in her arm a bit. The relief on the man’s face was instant. “You’ll get your rest in a moment. One last question. As I understand, there’s no one but the Purple Capes inside the Wholesome inn?”
“C-correct.”
“And what about the people that come in during the day?”
“W-well, of course, they’re restrained and questioned while we wait for our targets.”
“Of course,” Ember said before the man’s beard lit on fire and his eyes bulged, blood-red.
With a face grotesquely distorted in pain and terror, the man fought out of Ember’s grasp and did so successfully, however, he did not get far. Just as he got away from Ember, his eyes momentarily boiled before they exploded in a stream of white and red. He opened his mouth to scream but a fountain of gory, foamy liquids poured out of his mouth while his beard burned brightly and spread the fire across his face. A light push into his back from Ember was all it took to knock the blind, agonizing man down.
Horrified, Beatrice turned away while the disguised Purple Cape thrashed and spasmed in pure agony, only mangled grunts and hisses escaping his melting throat while whatever was burning him alive spread further down his body, spreading the pain.
After the initial shock wore off, Beatrice remembered that she was not a simple bystander, nor was she powerless. Unable to forgive herself for standing idly even a second longer, Beatrice turned back to face what was once a man, activated her [Sharp Claws] Skill, and used [Extend Claws (+1)] to pierce the man’s blistered, bubbling head to finally put him out of his misery.