Page 63 of Shadow Boxed (Shadow Warriors #2)

Chapter fifty

Not long after they left Capland, Wolf’s hand fell on Aiden’s shoulder. Aiden shook it off, already knowing the question his brother was about to ask.

“No. Benioko didn’t visit me last night.” He growled and kept walking. “And no. I have no fucking clue why your woman and O’Neill’s daughter were given animal spirits.”

He cringed as the denials came out of his mouth. How the hell could his intelligent, capable brother—the leader of an elite military compound, for Christ’s sake—believe such utter rubbish?

“Seriously, bro. I already told you I’d let you know if anything came up in my dreams. You don’t need to hound me about it,” he continued, irritation lending an extra kick to his stride.

Not that Wolf had brought the subject up—this time, anyway. But only because Aiden had nipped the discussion in the bud. His sixth sense had started screaming that Wolf was going to broach the subject the moment they left Cap’s domain.

You’d think with all the bad news rolling their way, this line of questioning would be redundant.

It sure was to him. But no, to Wolf, the Taounaha questions were every bit as essential as what Capland had told them, or what Nantz was about to tell them.

That’s what happened when someone sank into a religious cult.

They lost their goddamn mind.

“Did you not seek the Taounaha out?” Wolf’s voice hardened. “Invite him into your dreams?”

“I told you,” Aiden gritted out, “that I’d ask him your questions if he showed up again. He hasn’t. For Christ’s sake, he’s my subconscious at work. Since I don’t know the answer to your questions, of course your ghost shaman isn’t going to pop into my dreams. I’ve told you this.” Multiple times.

His nights had been blessedly peaceful over the past few days. No twisted, screaming faces. No snarky old men. He had no interest in ruining this run of good sleep by inviting his brain’s worries back into his dreams.

“You cannot ignore your calling.” Wolf’s voice had roughened to gravel.

The anvil masquerading as Wolf’s hand landed on Aiden’s shoulder. Again.

“ Watch me. ” Aiden stopped long enough to shove Wolf’s arm aside. “If you want to talk to your mouthpiece so bad, how about you invite him into your dreams?”

Fuck, the dude was like a rabid dog with a rancid bone. Just wouldn’t let it go.

“Trust me.” Wolf’s voice was sharper than Aiden had ever heard it.

Aiden started walking again. Wolf’s boots pounded the tile behind him. Louder than necessary, as though his feet were taking the brunt of his frustration.

“ Everyone at Shadow Mountain, as well as all among the brenahecee, wish the Shadow Warrior had chosen anyone but you. The Taounaha is the elder gods’ choice. Not the Hee'woo'nee ,” Wolf said, his voice dark and growly.

“Sucks to be you, then,” Aiden drawled.

He turned the last corner before the interrogation chamber to find Doctor Brickenhouse waiting outside the door, his medical cart parked along the wall. The guards Wolf had posted were gone.

“Nantz asked to use the toilet,” Brickenhouse told them. “The warriors you assigned him took him to the one down the hall.” He hesitated, an uneasy expression flickering across his aristocratic face.

Wolf studied him. “What’s wrong, Solomon?”

Brickenhouse straightened and held Wolf’s gaze. “I have a bad feeling about this, Betanee . My instincts scream it’s a mistake.”

“About the piss break?” Aiden asked. The doctor’s unease was palpable.

Brickenhouse snorted, then shook his head. “No. The Tenthrop. I had hoped that when we passed the three-day mark, and the Propofol had vacated his system, my unease wane. But it has not.”

Tenthrop. That’s what Wolf had called Shadow Mountain’s truth serum.

“You had a premonition?” Wolf asked.

What? Aiden’s jaw dropped. His doctor, the one who’d saved his ass a couple of weeks back, had premonitions?

“Not a vision.” Brickenhouse shrugged. “More like a feeling. A bad one.”

Wolf’s gaze narrowed. “You did a full medical evaluation on Nantz, did you not?” At the doctor’s nod, Wolf continued. “Did you find his condition concerning?”

“No. Indeed, he’s in excellent health.” Brickenhouse’s sigh held frustration. “I don’t know what I’m picking up on. I don’t know if I sense an actual problem. I just thought you should know.”

Wolf nodded, his face reflective. “We are past the seventy-two hours you recommended.”

“I know.” The doctor blew out an exasperated breath. “Like I said. It could be nothing.”

“I have not known you to overreact,” Wolf commented, then fell silent again.

“I would be inclined to listen to your instincts and wait on administering the Tenthrop. But we cannot. Capland has accessed Nantz’s laptop files.

Our captive has labs full of the dead, yet not dead.

And two open metal tanks we believe were holding his nanobots.

We need to know where his labs are. We need to prevent the bots and infected from escaping.

” A long pause, before Wolf added softly, “We will have to risk using the truth serum.”

Brickenhouse sighed but inclined his head. “I understand. I brought everything I will need if he has an adverse reaction to the Tenthrop. But perhaps we should call for Kait as well. If my gift of knowing is at work, she may be helpful.”

Aiden grimaced. He didn’t particularly want his sister to get a look at his handiwork on Nantz’s face. Nor did he want her to heal it. Nantz deserved to suffer.

The sound of boots on tile had all three of them looking down the hall. Nantz shuffled toward them, his shoulders slumped, his head bent, defeat in every stumbling step. Two of Wolf’s warriors followed him. Two preceded him.

The billionaire looked unhappy. Had he tried to escape and failed? Aiden smothered a smirk.

Wolf opened the door to the interrogation room and waited for the doctor to wheel his cart through. The guards marched Nantz in next, forced his ass into his previous chair, and attached the handcuffs to his wrists.

Nantz didn’t struggle, didn’t argue, didn’t protest his innocence as he’d done when he first arrived. No, he just sat there, his jaw and cheeks swollen with patches of purple and blue.

Wolf waited until their prisoner was sitting and cuffed before dismissing the two extra warriors. Then he addressed the remaining men in the room.

“Aiden and I will restrain him at the shoulders.” He sent a chin nod toward Tomas Beck and Theodore Stillwater, the two warriors guarding the door. “You two hold his arms—one on each side.” His gaze shifted to the doctor. “Wait until we have him immobile before injecting him.”

He didn’t wait for acknowledgements, just moved into position behind their target. Aiden joined him. Finally... finally ...they were about to get their answers.

Nantz’s shoulders went rigid beneath Aiden’s hands.

“Remove his jacket and shirt,” Wolf ordered Beck, as he and Aiden forced their captive back in the chair.

His face flat, the warrior pulled a knife sheathed at his belt and sliced Nantz’s suit from wrist to shoulder.

The blade appeared to unnerve Nantz. He jolted, then trembled. When he tried to bolt up, the handcuffs, along with the hold on his shoulders, drove him back down. Another slice of Tomas’s knife and Nantz’s right shirt sleeve dropped to the ground.

Once Beck and Stillwater had Nantz’s arms immobile, Wolf looked at Brickenhouse. “Proceed.”

The doctor pulled a small, white square out of his cart and ripped the packet open. Instantly, the astringent smell of alcohol hit the air. After swabbing a patch of skin on Nantz’s bicep with the alcohol-soaked square, Brickenhouse returned to his cart and picked up a prefilled syringe.

Nantz’s neck craned to the side, his frantic gaze locked on the approaching syringe. “Stop this! Stop this right now. You have no right—” he half-yelled, half-shrieked as he squirmed beneath the hands holding him down.

It did Aiden’s heart good to witness his terror. Even though Nantz’s current dread wasn’t close to what the residents of Karaveht, or his own teammates, had felt as their lives ended.

“This is illegal. You can’t inject me without my permission.”

Wolf scoffed. “Your associate, the butcher of Karaveht, offered the same protest. Yet such illegalities stopped neither of you from slaughtering the villagers of Karaveht.”

“And my team brothers.” Aiden bared his teeth.

“You’re delusional.” Nantz squirmed harder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You have the wrong guy!”

“The camera footage we found on your laptop’s hard drive, along with the recordings of your secret labs with their zombie inhabitants, prove we have the right guy.” Aiden’s voice cut through the room like a battle ax—powerful and brutal.

Nantz froze beneath their hands. Rivulets of sweat streamed down his cheeks. “What secret labs? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Aiden scoffed. “Sure, you do. But keep denying it. Doesn’t matter now. We’ll get everything we need from you soon enough.” He glanced at the doctor. “Ready when you are doc.”

The doctor slid the needle into Nantz’s bicep and depressed the plunger. Once the syringe was empty, he slid the needle out, recapped it, and set it on the top tray of the rolling cart.

As they waited for the Tenthrop to take effect, Brickenhouse unwrapped the stethoscope from around his neck and plugged the earpieces into his ears. Then he leaned over Nantz from the side and pressed the diaphragm against their captive’s chest. He listened for a few seconds and straightened.

“All good?” Wolf asked quietly.

“So far.” But Brickenhouse didn’t sound relieved.

Nantz lost consciousness shortly afterwards. The doctor strapped the blood pressure cuff around his limp bicep, inflated it, and slowly released the pressure while intently watching the attached display.

“Anything concerning?” Wolf asked quietly.

“Nothing as of yet.” Yet Brickenhouse appeared tenser than ever.

What the hell was the dude picking up on?

Three minutes later, Nantz stirred. His head lifted, then sluggishly turned to the left and right.

“Wassss haaapaning,” he asked.

Now that nobody was holding him, he slumped so far down his chair, he would have slid out if the cuffs hadn’t held him in place. Wolf dragged him upright again and kept a firm grip on his shoulder.

The doctor checked his pupils, his blood pressure, his heartrate, and his oxygen saturation level before turning to Wolf. “Best ask the urgent questions first. Get everything you need out of him now. His blood pressure and pulse are rising, which could indicate a problem.”

Wolf let go of Nantz’s shoulders and stepped around the chair. “The camera footage on your laptop is impressive,” he said, mildly. “Where are the cameras located?”

“No…no...” Nantz slurred, slumping back down in the chair. “It’s...it’s the NBNNN...uh...prototype...that’s impressive. Even...brilliant.”

“They are.” Aiden forced admiration into his voice.

They needed to get him talking. Like sodium thiopental, or scopolamine, Tenthrop weakened inhibitions and increased talkativeness.

While it was more effective than the current truth serums on the market, it still couldn’t force the truth out of its subject.

It simply allowed rambling and unfiltered thoughts.

“Where do you keep your NNB26 prototype?”

The prototype Nantz mentioned must be the nanobots.

“My itty-bitty...uh... soldiers.” Nantz gloated. “Grtest weapon, like ...evr created. Yet...they...uh...they...surpise me.”

“And where do you keep these itty-bitty soldiers?” Wolf stepped in again, nudging the conversation back on track.

“They evn...uh...bing the ...uh ded to life.” Nantz’s eyes widened. “Nevr saw that comin.”

“And where do you keep the dead your brilliant little soldiers have brought back to life?” Aiden doggedly returned to the crucial question.

“Shees...in labs ‘course!” Nantz giggled.

Finally, they were getting somewhere.

“Indeed,” Wolf’s voice was dry. “And where are these labs?”

“His heartrate and BP are spiking,” Brickenhouse said. His hands were steady as they removed the stethoscope from Nantz’s chest and let it hang. “We may not have him for much longer.

“And where are the labs you speak of.” Wolf’s voice remained mild, even as the doctor grabbed a glass vial and syringe from the cart.

“T...bst...m..twer...crs.” The words were so garbled, they were unrecognizable. A tremor swept through Nantz and his eyes rolled back in his head until only white showed.

Fuck!

“Did you catch any of that?” Aiden asked Wolf, and silently swore at the shake of his brother’s head.

Aiden watched the doctor wrap a rubber tube around Nantz’s arm just above the elbow and tighten it until the vein surfaced. Brickenhouse deftly inserted the needle into the bulging vein and injected the contents of the syringe.

“What did you give him?

“Metoprolol. It’s a beta blocker. It will lower his blood pressure and heart rate. Hopefully prevent him from having a heart attack or stroke. We need to get him to the ER,” the doctor added briskly. “And call for Kait. If this treatment doesn’t work, I’ll need her healing ability.”

“One Bird.” Wolf called the healer over.

The old healer stepped forward, his square face calm and grasped Nantz’s head between his hands. After a minute of soft chanting, he simply shook his head and stepped back.

It looked like Wolf’s decision to use One Bird, instead of Kait, had been a poor choice. But they’d both wanted to shield their sister from the more brutal aspects of a warriors’ life had been a poor choice.

“Well, fuck,” Aiden growled. “We won’t be able to question him again for a while.” If at all. “Sure wish we knew what the fuck he was saying.”

Wolf frowned. “The interrogation was recorded. We’ll go over the camera footage. See if we can decipher what he was saying before he crashed.”

Aiden simply nodded. Interpreting Nantz’s garbled words was their only hope of finding the location of those labs soon enough to make a difference. If they waited for Capland to lock down the IP addresses of those lab cameras on Nantz’s hard drive, it would probably be too late.