The Curse (Belador #3)(113)
Casper exchanged a look with her that said until they knew what they were up against, he didn’t have an idea of how to overpower this guy, either.
Evalle asked Sar, “Are you a witch or something?”
Sar looked insulted. “Do you really think a mere witch could do this?” He gestured at the creature moaning behind him. “But you have piqued my curiosity. Now I want to know what you are. Your visit is timely. I’m at the point where I need to test my guardians against preternaturals. We’ll see how you fair one at a time against two of my best specimens in my basement training pit.”
This was like playing a game of chess without knowing which piece was the queen. Evalle had met some seriously strange people since accepting her destiny as a Belador warrior, but most of them had enough survival instinct to recognize her and Casper as a potential threat.
Sar didn’t. If anything, he appeared pleased.
And if he wanted an example of her powers all he had to do was try to lock her in any basement, the key word being “try.”
Thinking out loud, Casper said, “He’s got to be a wizard or a—”
“Oh, please. I’m a sorcerer,” Sar corrected as though Casper had denigrated him. “A Dalfour,” he added as if he’d just admitted being of royal descent. As if that hadn’t been enough to impress them, he spread his arms wide and bragged, “The only one left and the only one who could have accomplished all this.”
Dalfour meant nothing to Evalle, but her empathic senses picked up what she’d been missing. This guy had been too calm. If he was a sorcerer, why hadn’t he tried to attack them? She’d assumed it was because he was sizing her and Casper up to determine how big a threat they were.
But now she realized Sar didn’t see either of them as a threat at all … because he was certifiably insane.
In Sar’s private universe he was the most powerful being. Which he might actually be, especially when you added the element of insanity to a powerful sorcerer. That combination totaled up to one unpredictable badass.
He was enjoying himself right now, but what would happen the minute he stopped having a good time?
Could he just zap them out of here and into a basement pit with two of these creatures?
She gave Casper a small hand signal to keep this guy talking to give her a chance to look for controls that might open the metal panels in the parlor. If she found those, she might be able to use her kinetics to turn a lever or flip a switch that would open the shielding and allow the Beladors to escape. There was only so long the three of them could hold out against those guardians, and Sar might release more.
Evidently Casper was up on his sorcerer history when he prodded the crazy doctor by saying, “Thought the Dalfour family died off a century ago. Weak genetics. Some sickness, right?”
“No illness would have ever harmed us!” Sar said, clearly put out. “We were attacked by Svart Trolls who were supposed to deliver my father to a Noirre witch who wanted my family’s secrets. But the trolls killed him in a battle and burned our house to the ground, claiming my father burned his family rather than go with them.”
There wasn’t a place in the room that even remotely resembled a control panel to Evalle.
Casper caught the small shake of her head as Sar said, “Much as I’ve enjoyed having guests, it’s time to feed my guardians. I just have to decide who gets the woman. They like females.”
Evalle curled her fists, preparing for battle, when Casper asked Sar, “So how is it everyone else died and you lived? I’m having a hard time believing you escaped Svart Trolls—the most dangerous black ops mercenary trolls in existence—on your own. Death is their only acceptable reason for failure.”
Sar puffed up his scrawny chest, all pompous now in spite of his drawn-out sigh. “My parents hid me, my sister and brother, which saved us from the attack, but I inherited my father’s skills and managed to escape. It was fortunate that I was the sole surviving Dalfour, as I have proven to be the most gifted and carry on our legacy of making the impossible a reality. Creating new and powerful races who serve only me.”
If Evalle couldn’t find a way to open the shields in the parlor, she needed to know how to stop the monsters. Taking her lead from Casper, she played to Sar’s ego. “Your guardians are impressive. How’d you make them, and why?”
“As if I’m going to tell you any of my secrets? Why? To protect me when I make that Noirre coven pay for what they did to my family. They’ll never get through my guardians … once I figure out how you got past them. Time to put you in the pit.” Sar lifted his hands, and Evalle searched for anything to say to stop him.
“If you can control them.”
That made Sar pause. He put his hands down and said, “Of course I can.”
“How do you communicate orders to them?”
Sar smiled, not as easily tricked as she would have liked.
This was going nowhere.
Maybe if she took Sar hostage and dragged him back to the parlor she could force him to bring his monsters under control. That might have a snowball’s chance in hell of working if she was facing a demon, but she had her doubts about forcing a sorcerer to do anything.
Casper nodded at the bloody creature now lunging at Sar, bouncing off the end of its chain, with hate in its creepy human eyes, and pointed out, “Your training doesn’t seem to be working.”