Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 922
🕑 Added 2025-07-04 01:15:05 +0000 UTC“Hey, where do you think the brainwashing facility is?” I asked my wife sardonically as we stared up the hill at the incredibly creepy dilap
“Hey, where do you think the brainwashing facility is?” I asked my wife sardonically as we stared up the hill at the incredibly creepy dilapidated wooden building. Above us, clouds loomed large, shadowing the whole area, and there were even sparks of lightning dancing between them.
Of course, this wasn’t some kind of regional phenomena. Even the Void wasn’t sloppy enough to leave random stormclouds floating over JUST their base. No, there was a storm in the city. It hadn’t started raining yet, but apparently the storms here tended to be boiling hot, something to do with the fire cage around the planet, so we were hoping to get inside before it started. At our ranks, we wouldn’t be in any real danger, but it would be uncomfortable, so we’d hurried to meet Tilda at…well, the creepiest abandoned building in the world.
Callie rolled her eyes, giggling at my nonsense. “Yeah, I admit it’s not exactly subtle. But there are creepy buildings everywhere.”
“Yeah, and they’re probably mostly just abandoned and perfectly fine,” I admitted with a laugh.
She snorted. “What? No. Almost all creepy abandoned buildings end up haunted. You know what kind of recursion urban legends gather?”
“Huh, noted,” I said with a smile. Sadly, the time for amusement was brief. “You ready for this? We’ll probably be separated. Your Void Path gives you more options during this than I have, but I’m still not thrilled you’re coming along.”
“Well tough,” she said ruthlessly. “I get that sometimes you need to run off and do random nonsense without me, but this is Void business. I’m more important to this op than you. You’re lucky I let YOU come along. Now stop whining before I send you home and do this myself.” She was smirking at me smugly as she made that threat, and I couldn’t help but grin back.
Sighing, I shook my head. “Yes dear. Now, where is Tilda, she’s supposed to bring us in. It’d be too suspicious to show up ourselves.”
“I’m right here,” said a voice in my ear. I yelped, almost jumping out of my skin as I spun around to find a small dark haired girl with green eyes behind me. Her hair was long and curly, black ringlets down to her back with a large bow on top of her head, and she wore a frilly black and white dress that reminded me of a maid.
“What the hell?” I asked, panting. “How did you do that?” I hadn’t had Murmur up, obviously, but with Sammael and my own Perception I should be pretty hard to sneak up on.
She blinked at me innocently. “Do what, sir?” Her voice was incredibly faint, to the point where if I hadn’t had such high Perception I might not have heard her. In fact, she had shockingly little presence in general. Shifting my eyes away from her made it difficult to remember she was even there.
“You know,” Callie said in a fascinated tone. “I was wondering how they had a spy in the Void conversion building, but now I get it. Shane, we’re bringing this one with us when we leave. She’d be so useful in so many situations.”
“Thank you ma’am,” Tilda said meekly. “But I can’t be missing for too long. They overlook my small absences more than most, but if I’m gone too long they get suspicious. Are you ready to be taken in?”
I nodded. I’d taken off my mask and armor, and was wearing a set of normal civilian clothes that fit the area. A pair of tight pants and a long sleeved shirt with a thing neck tie. Before I could speak, Tilda lashed out with a spinning kick, the chunky heel of her platform boot smashing into my temple and sending starbursts of pain through my head as I dropped like a rock.
My vision went black, and when I came to, Callie and I were lying in a dark, wet, stone room. “Ow,” I groaned as I sat up, gingerly feeling my skull.
“Shane!” my wife said in relief. “You’re alright! She hit you way too hard.”
“Yeah no kidding,” I winced, touching what felt like a fucking dent in my head. “What was that about?”
Callie pulled me forward, studying my face and eyes for any signs of lingering damage. She was apparently satisfied with what she found because she released me. “She was selling it. She had me help carry you. Apparently I’m small enough that she felt comfortable claiming to have subdued me without harm, but she didn’t think beating you would be believable.”
I sighed. We were Ascendants, and we could easily throw small cars even on a planet like this. But people could be stupid about things, so maybe Tilda was right. Regardless, we were in now, and I looked around, studying the nearby area to get a lay of the land.
“So…where are we?” I asked Callie as I tried to spot any sign of…anything. This whole room was completely empty.
“Holding cell,” she sighed. “There was another person in here, but they got taken away a few minutes ago. I don’t know what they did to them, but every minute or so-” An earsplitting scream tore the air, and the single lightbulb in the swinging lamp above us flickered menacingly as it happened. “That happens.”
I frowned at the sound. “What are the chances that was a sound made by someone who is REALLY excited that they just got a new pair of shoes?”
The light flickered again, and there was another scream. “Oh god! They’re torturing me!”
“Well that just seems performative,” I said uneasily. At my wife’s glare I held up my hands. “KIdding, sorry. I joke when I’m uncomfortable, you know this. Obviously we have to save whoever that is. But for now, we have to focus on finding out who this place has already converted. Dantalion should be able to dig up information even if they don’t have some kind of database, but I need access to the main…office? Lair? I don’t know, wherever the head of this operation makes decisions.”
Closing her eyes, Callie dipped a hand into a nearby shadow. “There are a lot of people here. Seems like they do this in order. They’ll come get you and take you to the torture room, then electrocute you for a while to soften you up. You’ll be left to recover in a room full of Void taint, and it’ll seep into your wounds and help you heal even as it alters you.”
I grimaced. “I want you to use Bael to hide when they come,” I said after a moment’s thought. “We can pretend you slipped out. When they take me away to work on me you slip out and do recon. You can come get me later.”
Her eyes flared, her sclera drowning in black as she glared at me. “I’m sorry,” she said in a dangerously soft voice. “Are you implying I should sneak away and hide while my husband gets TORTURED?” Her voice was a venomous purr, and cold enough to freeze a lake. “Because I’m sure the man I married wouldn’t be stupid enough to try to talk me into doing THAT, so I must be confused.”
“I am suggesting,” I said gently. “That you trust I can handle myself, like I trust you to take care of this while I’m restrained. Don’t forget, I was trained to handle pain by a religious order founded by a goddess of torment. I’m more afraid of eating spicy food than whatever these amateurs think they can do to me with the electrical grid in this busted ass house.”
Her stare didn’t abate, her blue eyes like chips of ice as they drilled into me, but I didn’t relent. After a minute or two, her shoulders slumped. “I…I don’t know if I can handle it,” she whispered. “When you were on Rackham I was distracted with training, and we only talked like once a day. I don’t know if I can sit down the hall from you and feel you suffer while I search this creepy old building like nothing is going on.”
I leaned forward, pulling her into my arms and holding her against me. “It’ll be fine, hon’, I promise. If shit gets too real I’ll escape. Between your Void powers and Double Trouble, nobody holds me anywhere I don’t want to be. I promise if anything comes up that I can’t handle, I’m gone.”
Sighing, she leaned against me. “I came here to help you, to make sure you wouldn’t be alone when you were in here, and now you’re asking me to just abandon you.”
I chuckled, tilting her chin to give her a quick kiss. “Callie, I haven’t been alone since the day I met you. Not being in the room doesn’t change that even a little bit.” I let her feel through the bond how much I meant that, and I enjoyed the slight blush as she looked away from my intense gaze.
“Lame,” she muttered as she stood up, pulling away from me. “But I love you too, you big idiot. Don’t you get hurt too bad. I will drop this fucking hellhole into the Void myself and blow the whole thing up for good measure if you die.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I laughed. “Now hurry up. Just because I’m willing to undergo torture doesn’t mean I’m psyched about it. Plus I think they’re coming.”
She shot me a wink and then vanished, concealed behind Bael. Murmur required the use of multiple different forms, so I wasn’t sure how well Callie could handle it. I beamed, then slumped over back onto the floor, pretending to be asleep as I waited for the interrogators.
I was planning to ask some questions of my own during this whole ordeal too. I could smell truth, and people were often chatty when they felt like they had power over you.
Within a few minutes, the door creaked open, and a large man with a half shaved head and a metal jaw came in. “Oi, morons,” he spat at the two men behind him as I ‘woke up’. “Wheres the girl? You said there were two.”
The two figures, both wearing thick robes, bowed low. “We do not know, sir,” they said in unison. “She was here, but now is gone. We beseech your mercy.”
Snorting, the man backhanded one of the figures, sending it flying into the wall so hard it dented the stone. Blood dripped from the prone form as it fell to the ground. “There you go,” the big man said with a sneer. “There’s your mercy. How bout you, you want any mercy from me, freak?”
“No sir,” said the still standing figure. “She will be found.” Then he turned and scuttled off.
Metal mouth turned to regard me coldly. “Oh, looks like our guest is awake. How bout’ you, boy? You see where the bitch went?”
“Yeah, he’s standing right in front of me,” I rasped like my head was still foggy.
He grinned at me. “Hey, that’s pretty funny. You’re a funny guy.” His smile vanished and his boot blurred up to smash into my teeth, slamming my head back into the ground. “I hate funny guys. You got any more jokes for me funny guy?”
It didn’t hurt. I had Mornax active, so he was basically kicking rock, I just let me head fall back on impact. Still, I made sure to bite my lip enough to show a little blood when I smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to show off in front of an expert. That little baby kick was the funniest joke I’ve heard in years.”
He snarled, then kicked me again, and this time I slumped like I was unconscious. As he was forced to pick me up and carry me out of the room to wherever he was planning to torture me, I smirked to myself over his shoulder. This guy was an idiot, I was betting I could learn a ton from him as long as I made him mad enough. I reminded myself to tell Callie I told her so. This was a GREAT plan.
