The door to the room shut firmly behind Liam, his hurried footsteps echoing in the distance against the wooden floor of the hallway.
Mr. Bell lifted his free hand, two fingers pointed out, and waved them gently around the room.
Then, with his foot, he rubbed along the edge of the chalked circle, disrupting the glyph. The immense force pulling Davy disappeared. His distressed face behind Bell’s hand twitched in relief as his body slackened against it.
"I have erected some privacy wards around the room. I imagine you must be in some distress," Mr. Bell said quietly to his captive before removing his hand from his face.
Davy collapsed onto the floor, shrieking in pain. He tried feebly to sit up and grab his ruined leg and foot as if rubbing it better would have solved everything. The leg was crushed and collapsed at an irreparable angle. The man would be crippled for life, even if he somehow sought out an impressive medical mage.
"My leg. My fucking leg, you fucking—" He snarled in agony, although to his tormentor it sounded like a whimper.
"Mr. Fisher is a curious alias," Bell began, tilting his head slightly as he observed the struggling man. "In the old tongue, you would be called Piscator."
He then slowly crouched down, bringing his face level with the distressed Davy’s.
"Or, in your current state, Piscis."
"Pisc-PISS OFF!" Davy snarled, drawing a predictable dagger from the side of his coat with his other hand. He thrust savagely, intending to gut Bell. But before any attack could take place, the dagger had already been dropped with an additional shriek.
As the weapon clattered to the floor, faint smoke came off it. Identical smoke came from the hand that was holding it. Davy had immediately stopped rubbing his leg with his good hand, grabbing his burnt, trembling one.
Bell glanced at the smoking dagger.
"An interesting thing of the elements. When something becomes so cold, it burns. An interesting contradiction, no?"
Davy said nothing. He just trembled, in fury and in pain. He glared at Bell with utter hatred.
Bell just gazed back with indifference.
"It is a curious business you have here." Bell continued calmly. "I understand that there are many services out there providing a release for pent-up emotions. But the concept of something to hit that cannot fight back, when you think about it, there surely should be a market for it?"
Davy continued his silence, breathing heavily under his hateful glare.
"There are the sadists. You could swing a cat in a public place and at least hit two of them." Mr. Bell began to count on his fingers.
"Then there are the emotionally suppressed. Long and grueling work days in a menial job, unhappy with their lot in life. At the end of a long week, be it a tavern, a brothel, or something like this. It is all the same thing, right? A release."
The trembling man spat on the floor, trying to clear his throat. Dots of blood floated in the spittle.
"Then I suppose there would be a third kind of clientele. Like dear Mr. Bell, a life shaped and haunted by bad memories. Ones he cannot fix, but constantly reflects on. How could he change the past? Well, he simply couldn’t change the past, but he could do something about the present. About the anger the past constantly injects into his dreams and nightmares that have shaped his existence."
Davy had let go of his trembling hand. It looked awful, the skin pink with blisters. Despite his panting, he was trying to adjust himself to sit up during whatever this lecture was.
"But when one boils it all down, what this service is..." Mr. Bell whispered. "It’s just providing someone something to take their day out on."
Davy finally sat up, his heavy breathing seeming to quicken. The hateful eyes were slowly morphing to fear.
"In the grand scheme of things, Piscis." Bell finished, his voice still infuriatingly calm.
"You are something I can take my day out on."
Something beyond fear passed through Davy. A jagged helplessness that sizzled like poison that kept pouring over his head.
Unaware of his actions, he had started to crawl backwards from the calm man with the hard eyes.
Stuttering, he didn’t know when he began to plead. "What does a mage want from me!? I’m not special. There are many houses like this! I’m not a big fish! I’m nothing!"
Mr. Bell reached out and took Davy’s good hand, attempting to reassure him. The grip was somehow tender and still like an immovable vice.
"My dear Piscis, I didn’t come here for you specifically." Mr. Bell smiled. "I just came to ask a question."
"Ask! I’ll tell you anything you want to know!" Davy screamed in pained earnest.
"Who owns this building?"
Davy’s trembling froze.
His eyes widened.
"I... I can’t. I — I don’t know." Davy spluttered in a whisper, his fear increasing.
Mr. Bell kept his indifferent gaze and small smile on Davy. But his tender hold on the man’s hand changed. Within the grip, Bell lifted his thumb, slowly pushing one of Davy’s fingers back.
All the way back.
The audible snap was as quick as Davy’s pitched scream.
"Lancen!" Davy wailed pitifully. "Eric Lancen!"
For the first time since the room was sealed, emotion bloomed on Mr. Bell’s face.
Happiness.
And it horrified Davy the most.
"Not Eric Lancen? The famed retired Royal Knight?" Bell exclaimed mockingly.
"Yes! Him!"
"Does Sir Lancen know of this business?"
"Yes!" Davy cried. "He takes the monthly rent and a monthly cut! He sends his workers all the time. I have to give them a discount!"
Mr. Bell released Davy’s hand. The crying man covered his sobbing face with both hands, wailing away in pain and misery.
"Piscis, look at me."
Davy glanced between his fingers, through the tears and snot.
And froze.
Mr. Bell’s pudgy and calm face was melting.
Melting was the wrong term.
It was like smoke, fading away downward.
Before was the calm and indifferent face of a balding middle-aged man.
Now someone else sat in his place, as if a lifelike mask was discarded.
Now crouched before Davy was a terrifying man with black hair. Younger. Fiercer.
But the eyes were the same.
"Piscis," Remus said quietly, his dark gaze boring into Davy’s very soul.
"How would you like to do something for once? Something that would benefit your fellow man in a way you couldn’t possibly imagine?"
Davy began crawling back again, the helplessness morphing into panic. But he halted, unable to move further.
Remus had placed a hand on Davy’s ruined leg, gently holding him in place. Slowly, he began to drag him back.
"I’m afraid you don’t have much say in the matter."