THE CAVE: CONTINUUM
Part Thirty
"We have captured and brought the white-haired Exorcist to the castle, Master. What would you have us do with him?" one of the kidnappers asks Rouverlier.
"Very good, take him to the sacrificial room and chain him to the stone alter. Make sure one of the monks puts a binding spell on him, but not too strong, I want to be able to speak to that boy. Tell them just strong enough so he's unable to use his Crown Clown," Rouverlier orders brusquely, turning back to the window, looking out over the country side.
'Finally I have that insufferable Walker in my hands. He will pay severely for all the afflictions and humiliation that came along with my banishment as Inspector of the Central Agency," Rouverlier thought, his dark aura of evil surrounding him, wavering in the stale air.
"Well Allen Walker, let's see if you can fight against, and survive a battle with the demons that are being conjured up—just for you," he growls, his beady eyes squinting, turning as dark and hard as ebony wood as a sinister smile curves on his lips.
Loud thuds and scraping sounds echo in the empty stone hallway as the men drag Allen to the sacrificial room. They toss him up onto the stone altar. The clangorous clamping of the shackles fills the air as they place his wrists and ankles between the two pieces of iron striking against each other, locking them in place. Old rusty chains rattle slipping through the holes in the shackles and pins in the stone floor—tightening them securely.
Allen is semi-conscious, and struggles to awaken further from the ether that still clouds his mind. His eye's sees only shadows and hazy images through the thin film of milky mucus that covers them. Fluttering his eyes several times, they begin to clear. Figures, shrouded in long, dark-brown burlap robes which drape to the floor are standing by the stone wall, hoods covering their faces.
They begin to softly chant, walking towards Allen, closing in on him as they form a circle around him. One threw some sort of dried weeds on him as the chanting got louder. Allen struggles with the chains trying to pull his hands out of the shackles only causing them to bleed. Then he feels a paralyzing sensation flow through his body until he couldn't move any longer.
The chanting had brought back the terrifying feelings he had felt when Kanda and him had been escaping from Boston. Allen's mind wanders back listening to the ghostly whispers of chanting voices resounding off the brick buildings—they had been frightening and spooky—just as these chants are.
The chanting stops and Allen is able to pull his mind away from the past and focus on the present. He figures this must be the castle Cross had been talking about, but he didn't have long to think before Rouverlier made his appearance.
He came into the room. With him is a person which looks like a third Exorcist experiment gone wrong. Allen is not sure if it's human, or part human and animal. With the robe covering him it is hard to tell what his body looks like, only the long black hair trailing out of his arm sleeves makes you think it is an animal. Could this be one of the demons Rouverlier has summoned?
Rouverlier walks over to Allen and sneers down at him, his beady black eyes scanning over his body. The way Rouverlier is looking at his body gives Allen chills, making him wonder what is going through that mad man's mind.
"Now that you have me Rouverlier, why don't you just kill me and be done with it," Allen says sharply, his silver eyes cold as ice.
"Because I have something else in mind before I kill you. I want you to suffer first," as an evil chuckle rumbles from his throat.
"Kanda will find me—"
"Yes, but by the time he does, you'll be dead and nothing left of you for him to even take home," the cynical voice rasps to him.
"You're the same cold-hearted bastard as you al—. " Allen is severely whacked across his face, leaving a bright red mark on his cheek and a split lip. Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth from the blow.
"You bastar—. " Allen is whacked again, this time harder, on the other side of his face, spewing blood from his mouth.
"Speak one more time and I will beat you until I won't need a binding spell to keep you from escaping," Rouverlier roared, saliva spitting as he speaks.
A welt is forming from the first strike where Rouverlier had struck him on the cheek and his lip and skin next to it is turning into a black and blue bruise as well.
"Get this disgusting piece of shit out of here. Chain him in the dungeon! Let that cool him off," Rouverlier orders, making his demands, then turns and marches out of the room.
After Rouverlier has left, the chanting starts again and the paralyzing sensation that had flowed through his body ebbs away returning his body back to normal. But before Allen could move, a rag is placed over his nose and mouth rendering him unconscious again.
The kidnapper came back into the room to remove the heavy chains and drags the young Exorcist down to the bowels of the castle, with one of the monks carrying two torches as they descend down the damp, moldy covered stairs.
Once in the dungeon, Allen's kidnappers drag him into the cell and chain his arms to the walls as well as chaining his legs. The monk chants his magical binding spell on the young Exorcist, and then they leave the chilly, damp, subterranean antechamber. The only source of light is from the one torch blazing amber fire which is far better than sitting in the darkness of his stone tomb.
Allen's eyes flutter open. Everything is hazy once again around him, and his nostrils burn from the putrid, revolting stench of decay that taints the air around him. His airless, dank cell makes him dizzy along with his body feeling stiff and achy from the cold stone which is already penetrating his skin. This is all too familiar.
He tries to move, feeling the heaviness of his body and hearing the clanging of his chains in the cavernous dungeon. Oh, what a headache, what did they give him to knock him out the second time? The young white-hair Exorcist couldn't think clearly as the ether takes its time to wear off.
The sensation of the drug, still idle in his body, causes his mind to shift in and out of reality. It reminds him of the vague awareness he had when he had been tied to the wheel on the scared grounds by the tribe that had taken Kanda and him captive. Except here, he isn't waiting for the Stone Warrior to appear, but something much more evil.
Then, from another area, far away from his cell, comes wails of deafening shrills, screeching as if an animal is being tortured. The acute, ear-piercing sound flashes through his skull as if an awl had been impaled through to the other side, leaving his head in severe pain.
He tries to bring his hands to his ears to muffle the sounds, but his chains are heavy and he has little strength left from the drug and binding spell to even bring his arms up a little. Then he hears the clicking of boot heels on the stone floor as they approach his cell.
Looking up he sees Rouverlier standing to the side of the cell door. Not again. The hooded guard's keys jingle and clang as they slip into the lock. Rust as old as time harshly grates metal against metal, creaking as the heavy, rustic door opens. The Ex-Inspector steps into his cell.
Allen's head is splitting already with pain from the shrieks only moments before and then to have this despicable man standing there with a sneer on his face is almost too much for Allen to bear. He wanted to spit at the ex-Inspector but didn't have the strength.
"I had something more to say to you, Allen Walker, but your distasteful manners interrupted me. So, did you think you could run away from me and not have me come after you? I should have had you executed right at the Black Order instead of sending you off to Boston," the vile ex-Inspector growls, his eyes ablaze with fury.
"Now, I will make sure you are dead this time, but first it will be a long, painful torture before I put you in with the beasts I have conjured up, just for you, to tear you apart. I will allow you to use your Crown Clown, if you are even able to activate it by then," Rouverlier's voice rumbles with an odious growl for a chuckle, his eyes now cold with cruelty.
"So, now you don't have anything to say you pathetic piece of shit? Well then, I will leave you for tonight, but tomorrow someone will come for you and the fun will begin," his hateful, haughtily laugh is thrown in Allen's face as the heartless man signals to the guard to open the cell door.
Allen couldn't reply to the damnable villain Rouverlier has become; or has he always been like that? Hell, his head could barely tolerate the rumble of his voice and laughter as it reverberated in his skull, let alone try to speak. Allen remains emotionless after all the threats of violence had left his cell—leaving him feeling numb, unable to assimilate what is happening to him. Is his mind refusing to allow it to sink in for the moment?
The cold is now seeping into his bones and he begins to shake uncontrollably, not only from the cold but fear. His thoughts drift to the only person who had saved him the last time he had been imprisoned—Kanda.
'Kanda must know by now I've been kidnapped and already on his way to save me. Please Kanda, come quickly. How had I calmed myself before in the Boston prison? Oh yes, Kanda's warm arms held me, cuddling me. I could smell his unique scent that belongs only to him,' Allen thought, envisioning his husband's arms holding him and feeling the warmth of his body.
'We were to make love tonight." He remembers the lustful look in his husband's eyes when he had told him that he was, basically, going to fuck the hell out of him for his frustrations in hanging that picture for him. It seems days ago that had happened and it was only this morning. 'Kanda must be frantic thinking he's lost me,' Allen's thinking sadly.
Allen curls into himself, fatigue winning over trying to stay awake, and he falls into an uncomfortable sleep of nightmares—imagining what tomorrow will bring the young Exorcist.
To be continued …
A/N: Rouverlier's being the dick he always shown us in the past just a little bit angrier. Kanda is on his way to try and save his husband and who knows what he'll do to Rouverlier when he gets there. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I haven't even started on the next one, so please bear with me.
Thank you everyone who has been reading and reviewing this story, and Happy Halloween to everyone!