Shadow Of Kingscity

The Demon Answers the Trap

A sharp groan slipped out of the man as he woke. The pain in his ribs hit him first, then the cold sting of metal around his wrists. His eyes fluttered open.

The moment he saw where he was, his breath caught in his throat.

He was tied to a heavy metal chair, the kind bolted to the floor. Wires ran from the chair into an electric circuit box on the table beside him. Right next to it lay a neat row of tools no sane person wanted anywhere near their body. Pliers. Hooks. Needles. A blowtorch. Things designed only for pain.

The room itself was small and brightly lit. Shelves lined the walls, each packed with machine guns, knives, and strange devices he could not even name. But something else in the room made his heart stop completely.

A red hoodie hung from a hook on the far wall.

A large black scorpion was drawn across the back.

His eyes widened. His skin turned pale. He had seen that hoodie. Not in person, but in a leaked clip that circulated quietly among criminals like a ghost story. The owner of that hoodie moved like something not human. People called him a Demon, because no other word made sense.

The man finally understood what he had walked into.

And that was when he broke.

A grown man began sobbing hard, tears and snot running freely down his face, shaking so violently the chair rattled.

“Oh, you are awake, tough guy,” Ethan said casually as he stepped out of the shadows. His voice had a mocking warmth, like he found the whole thing slightly amusing. “Your friends must trust you a lot to leave you behind.”

“Please, sir! I am sorry!” the man cried immediately. “I did not know it was you! I would never have touched you, I swear! Anything you want to know, I will tell you! Please!”

He kept glancing at the red hoodie and snapping his eyes away again like it might leap at him.

Ethan noticed.

“You know who 404 is?” he asked.

The man shook his head fast. He did not.

“What about the guy they call the Demon?”

The man nodded so hard his teeth clacked. Of course he knew that one. Everybody in the underground knew the Demon.

“Good,” Ethan said calmly. “So I am sure you now understand who is standing in front of you.”

The man nodded again, whimpering. His whole body trembled as memories flashed across his mind. He had seen that footage. Ethan in a mansion, walking through bullets with a curved blade in his hand, slicing through armed guards like they were slabs of meat. He remembered how the man in the clip did not look human at all. He looked like a nightmare wearing a hoodie.

“Why are you crying?” Ethan asked in a bored tone. “I have not even touched you yet.”

“I am sorry, sir! Please! I will tell you everything! Anything! Just do not kill me!”

“Too bad,” Ethan replied, his expression going cold in an instant. “I do not trust your answers yet. I want to open you up and see what makes you tick.”

The man screamed at once, raw terror ripping out of him.

Ethan flipped a switch.

Electricity shot through the chair. The man’s scream turned into a tortured howl as his whole body jerked violently. His skin twitched. His eyes rolled.

Ethan turned the switch off.

The man sagged, panting in shock and pain.

“If you cry again or make noise you should not make,” Ethan said softly, “I will pluck one of your eyes out and feed it to you.”

The man went silent immediately, forcing back his sobs, shaking but obedient.

“Good,” Ethan said. “Now talk while I am still calm.”

“Sir, I do not know much,” the man said, voice shaking badly. “We were only paid to capture the girl we saw you with. We tracked her car. We found it empty, so we waited. We wanted to see who would return to it. Then we saw her walking with you.”

Ethan watched him with an unreadable face.

“Who do you work for?”

“I do not know the boss,” the man replied quickly. “A friend told me the job was clean and the pay was good. All we needed to do was deliver the girl. That was all.”

Ethan smiled. It was the kind of smile that made grown men lose sleep.

“So where were you taking her?”

“Tombstone Reach,” the man blurted out. “It is a big mansion outside the city. Heavy guards everywhere. Now I understand why the security was tight even though the boss does not stay there. They were expecting you, sir. They were preparing.”

“I see,” Ethan murmured. His eyes narrowed.

“So what do they want from her? And are they holding my brother?”

“I swear I do not know,” the man said, trembling. “But I overheard someone say she has something valuable. They want to retrieve it from her. And I heard someone is being kept in the mansion too. I do not know if it is your brother. Sir, please, that is all I know. And it is a trap. I cannot believe they used me as bait.”

Ethan chuckled once, soft and cold.

“I know it is a trap. And whoever your boss is, he knows who I am. He knows how I move. I also know exactly who designed the trackers I found in her car.”

He stepped closer until the man froze up like ice.

“You have been very cooperative,” Ethan said. “So I will not torture you anymore. But we are going to that mansion together.”

The man’s eyes widened. “But it is a trap.”

“I know,” Ethan replied calmly. “Your boss wants to see the Demon I keep buried inside me. I will gladly bring it out for him. He went too far by touching my blood.”

Ethan turned away and reached for the red hoodie. He slipped it on without hurry, the scorpion on the back catching the light. He then picked up two double-edged axes from the shelf, hooking them securely at his sides. The air around him shifted, heavier, darker.

Just then his phone rang.

He checked the caller. His uncle.

“Where are you?” his uncle asked the moment the call connected. “You have not returned since you went to deliver the car. Someone is here to see you.”

“Who is that?” Ethan asked.

“I do not know him. He says he is a friend of the Vancroft family. And he brought back Liam’s ring.”

“Keep it for me,” Ethan said. “Tell him I am busy. He can come some other time.”

“Alright,” his uncle replied before Ethan ended the call.

He turned back to the shaking man.

“Now where were we?”

The man had just finished giving every piece of information he had. Ethan untied him and pointed at the door.

“Lead the way.”

The man nodded fast and took a shaky step forward. He barely made it halfway to the exit before Ethan moved. One clean strike to the back of the head.

The man dropped like a stone.

The man woke up with a sharp gasp, blinking fast as his eyes adjusted. He was slumped in the driver’s seat, hands tied to the steering wheel, while Ethan sat calmly in the back seat like he owned the whole car. The man swallowed hard, chest rising and falling too quickly.

“Listen,” Ethan said. His voice was steady, cold, and sharp enough to make the man sit up straighter. It was the kind of voice a commander used when giving orders before a war. “The mansion is just ahead. Take the sunglasses on the dashboard and wear them. Do not remove them for any reason.”

The man’s shaky hand reached for the glasses. “Y… yes sir.”

“When you enter the mansion, if they do not kill you on sight, ask to see whoever is in charge. Tell them you have a message from me. And if they choose to listen, tell the one calling himself Boss that he signed his death the moment he made a move against me.”

The man nodded so fast his head almost came off. “I will not disappoint you, sir. I swear.”

Ethan leaned forward a little, his tone flat. “If you do, I will not show mercy again.”

The man believed him. His whole body said so.

Ethan pushed the door open and stepped out. The warm evening wind cut across his face as he shut the door with a quiet thud. The man wasted no time. He hit the ignition and sped off toward the mountain road, the car rattling like it was also scared.

Ethan touched the earpiece in his ear. “Tony.”

“Yes, boss,” Tony’s voice came in fast, loud, and very awake. “Camera is live. Once he steps inside, I will jam their communication and open the blueprint of the mansion. The tracker on him will lead us straight to whoever is in charge.”

“Good.” Ethan covered his head with the hoodie and started moving toward the forest path that wound up toward the mansion. Branches cracked softly under his boots.

Back at the safe house, Tony let out a low whistle as he watched the screens flicker. He was in the same place Ethan had tortured the man earlier, but Tony was in a different room filled with monitors, wires, and machines humming like angry bees. He rubbed his hands together and grinned.

“The boss is really back,” he thought.

He had been angry when Ethan retired. A man like Ethan was not built for quiet living, and Tony knew it. Now that Ethan had called him again, Tony felt alive. And he would do anything to help him get Liam and Mara back.