Nocturne | ONC 2024

Nineteen: Puzzles

The building where the second murder had taken place looked cosy compared to the room he now walked into. Glittering eyes in shades of red and black watched him from every corner, none of them friendly. In between the pale, still faces, there were humans; thin, dishevelled, littered with scars and open wounds, eyes downturned, ankles chained. There were hooks lining the walls.

Their bleeder trading took place underground, Aaron realised. The police had never found the markets where the Nocturnes did most of their business, because their storage units were on unmapped underground territory. Combined with their amulets for scrambling CCTV, they were untraceable by all conventional means.

A loud rumble echoed through the floor. The lights rattled in their brackets. No one else seemed bothered by the noise, even as it rose in volume, even as the floor began to vibrate beneath their feet.

The tube, Aaron realised. They've been building above and around the damn tube lines.

But he didn't have time to dwell on that revelation. His eyes had landed on someone tied to a chair in the centre of the room, head hanging low. At a glance, it wasn't anyone he recognised.

He kept his mouth shut anyway.

"Here he is," Tana trilled. "Our guest from human law enforcement."

There was no response from anyone around the room, though a couple of red gazes seemed to sharpen at the blood on Aaron's neck.

Aaron tried to do a headcount of the humans in here so he could tell Bill. He doubted any of these were professional bleeders with contracts; the Nocturnes were known for abducting people and forging the paperwork, which went onto the black market and disappeared without trace. Anger flared in Aaron's chest, along with a cold knot of helplessness. He was supposed to be the one standing between humans and this kind of fate, and yet here he was, just as trapped as any of them.

With a grunt, the man in the chair raised his head.

Aaron had to catch his breath before surprise gave the game away. Through the curtain of hair hanging in his eyes, Coran Simms' Veilwalker warned him to shut up with his eyes – only he didn't look anything like he usually did. He looked alive, for one – his skin flushed and healthy, hair no longer straggling and limp – but it was the eyes that gave him away, pale irises slightly too faded to be a natural blue. He'd made himself taller and bulkier, and Aaron wondered how many people actually got to meet Simms' sorcerer for themselves, because none of the Nocturnes in the room seemed at all aware that they had something far worse than a spy in the room with them.

He had no idea what Coran Simm's business was here, but he had more to worry about than interfering with it, and he was far too suspicious to let himself hope that when the Veilwalker inevitably got himself out, he would take Aaron with him.

Tana marched him to another chair, which one of the Nocturnes had so thoughtfully dragged out into the centre of the room for him. He didn't resist as he was tied to it; there was no hope of getting out of this room alive if he struggled. He did wish, fervently, that he could wipe the blood off his neck so that they would all stop staring at it.

"Isn't this a sorry sight?" Tana said, watching on impassively. "Bet neither of you planned on this tonight."

She began to pace, heels barely echoing off the concrete walls. Someone coughed pitifully behind Aaron. A girl in one corner of the room, huddled with her knees under her chin with a vampire male standing possessively over her, visibly shivered.

"Speaking of sorry sights," he muttered. "Is this what you do with your time? Collect humans and hide underground with them? Not very impressive, is it?" He pretended to think. "Bit sad, actually, considering your reputation."