"'Unfortunately for you, I don't have any evidence... yet.' Balthazar knelt down and grabbed Scar-face by his shirt. 'So I'm going to get a confession.'" - Nellies' Girls: Brute Squad (2)
18 Zi'Da 719
Now Balthazar found himself sitting in a private room in Nellies that the astute would be able to smell had been used for almost everything but an interrogation. He was sitting on a wooden chair across from the man with the forced smile carved on the side of his mouth. He hadn't done anything yet apart from some gentle wacks with a stick that Madame Nellie herself had provided and the wacks had done little to loosen Scar-face's mouth. Nellie had helped bind Scar-face to the chair he was sitting in and whatever knot she'd tied seemed to have been holding pretty well given that Scar-face was still sitting in the chair.
Torture- for lack of a cleaner word, was not something Balthazar enjoyed but it was something he'd come to see as a necessary evil in these times. It was a compromise he wouldn't have made arcs ago when he served Xanax but those days were long behind the mage who's pursuit of knowledge and power might very well be the end of him. Balthazar intended to torture Scar-face for information but with every blow he began to regret the decision more.
They'd spent the last few breaks testing the bound of Balthazar's ability to refine fire and wind into lightning. Balthazar would conjure a bolt with his ether and shoot Scar-face in the foot. Every once in a while he was forced to wait till Scar-face re-awoke but for the most part the routine continued without interruption until Balthazar finally decided to try something else. His ether had been spent trying to manage and control the lightning he was manifesting to electrocute the man.
"Why are you and your friends attacking the women who work here on their way home?" Balthazar asked as he picked up a rock that he'd seen on the floor outside of the brothel. Madame Nellie, who was currently out on the floor making sure none of her guests were disturbed by any sound that might come from Balthazar's room, had offered all manner of dull instrument to extract the truth from Scar-face but he didn't think he needed anything more than this little stone he was holding in his hands.
"Go to the beneath and fuck yourself." Scar-face spat back. His scarred face was red with anger, but there was certainly a quiver in his voice. Balthazar didn't quite detect it, but it was there.
"I don't think that is possible." Balthazar replied before beginning to run his fingers along the edge of the smooth, round stone he'd picked up. With every pass, his fingers seemed to sharpen the rock into a blade. It took such a small amount of ether that Balthazar almost didn't recognize he was using magic but the burn was there- just deep down. Balthazar held the sharpened stone out and pressed it against the man's chest, slowly applying more and more pressure until a bead of red trickled down from the tip. Then Balthazar pulled the stone blade down quickly, slicing through flesh and spilling some more blood.
"Fuck you!" Scar-face yelled through gritted teeth as Balthazar shook the blood off the stone blade that he could. He wasn't all that great at torture otherwise he might have just gone for the one target no male wanted to lose for lying and called it a trail. So instead he worked off what he imagined- in his limited imagination, hurt.
"We'll start smaller, what is your name?" Balthazar asked and when he saw the syllables forming in Scar-face's mouth for a very similar exclamation to his last one, Balthazar grabbed his face and pushed his cheeks together to keep him from talking. "Don't. Just tell me what I want to know." And then he let go of the man and took a step back from him.
"Floyd. My name is Floyd." The man who's name was apparently Floyd said more meekly than Balthazar had heard him say anything else.
"Nice to meet you Floyd. Now back to it, why did you attack Esmeralda?" Balthazar inquired and Floyd's face twisted slightly.
"Esme? What? I'd never-" A swift hook across the jaw shut Floyd up and hurt one of Balthazar's knuckles. Floyd had a hard head.
"Now I know that's a lie." Balthazar began "I've seen what you did to her face. Why? Wanted to make her more like you?"
"What happened to Esme?" Floyd asked with a look of honest concern on his face the confused Balthazar.
"You don't know?" Balthazar inquired softly, not quite believing the man but also surprised by the amount of compassion in Floyd's voice. "Esmeralda was attacked. So were the other girls. She claimed her attacker had scars like yours?"
"Scars like mine? What? Nellie-" Floyd stopped talking when Madame Nellie entered the room. His eyes shot to her then back to Balthazar and he didn't continue his sentence. Curious. Balthazar turned his head to Madame Nellie
"Something wrong?"
"Has he said anything?" Now interestingly enough, Balthazar did not see Floyd shaking his head towards Madame Nellie, but his Rupture spark told him Floyd's head was moving and in what direction. Balthazar set his stone blade down on the table next to Floyd, subconsciously placing it in a place he thought Floyd might be able to break free and grab it. This torture didn't sit well with him. It was one thing to fight a man but it was another to tie him to a chair and cut away enough parts to make him talk.
"His name if Floyd. So we've made progress but he hasn't said anything about the attacks." Balthazar relayed to Madame Nellie who narrowed her eyes slightly. Then with her decision made she gestured for Balthazar to come with her. Nellie's ever alluring presence ensured he went with her. Madame Nellie lead Balthazar a little bit away from the room he'd been working in to a corner table where the noises from the rest of the building weren't quite so disruptive. "I think with a little more time he'll tell me something."
"A common sentiment among torturers." Madame Nellie replied passively as she settled into her seat across from Balthazar. She'd positioned them so that she could see the doorway into the room with Floyd while Balthazar could only see the wall behind the madame. "Perhaps it is time to call it a trial? You can come back tomorrow once Floyd has enough strength back."
"I thought the point of torture was to wear the victim down?" Balthazar inquired with a raised brow. It didn't make sense to him to give the victim time to recover but he wasn't even a novice torturer so how would he know that doing so allowed you to inflict more pain over longer periods of time?
"All the same, the screaming isn't good for business." As the words passed out of Nellies mouth, a shrieking scream rang out from the room Floyd was in. Balthazar stood so suddenly that he knocked over his chair and ran across the brothel to discover Molly standing over Esmeralda who was trying to wring the blood from her hands and dress. A few feet away from them, Floyd sat in his chair gargling blood- the stone knife protruding from his neck. Madame Nellie swept into the room with a graceful glide as if the scene meant nothing to her and everything at the same time. She came to Esmeralda and began trying to console the wildly weeping woman while Balthazar stared at the body of Floyd in shock...
Now he had no more leads.
Balthazar approached the trio of women and Nellie met him half way. "Please, give her some space. She's hysterical. Here, take some nels and go. You've done enough." Madame Nellies urged as she pressed a bag of nels into Balthazar's hand and ushered him out the door. It didn't feel right but the mage was being given no room to argue about that. Within a few trills he was standing outside Nellies, certain the job wasn't done but paid all the same...
And he didn't know what to do now.
