Layton leaned back against the cool bricked wall off the underground tunnel, a lantern at his feet. He stared at René Fontaine in the overlapping flicker of light and shadow - but his eyes seemed to also look right through the dangling wizard. They gazed into the darkness beyond, lending him an unnerving stillness that seemed invulnerable to disturbance. Indeed, his prisoner might as well have been miles away.

At the first sight of wand light, Layton stepped forward with his hands at his sides and a waiting expression. Fontaine began to struggle. The Englishman glanced at him and reached for his dark hair, gripping it at the roots abruptly. "I'll snap your neck if you don't stop that."

He spoke without inflection. That was how Fontaine knew to take the threat seriously.

"Storm." Layton announced their visitor's name without looking up, still intent on keeping a hand on the dangling wizard. "Come closer and extinguish that wand before you blind our guest... " he smiled softly and felt Fontaine's body go stiff with... ah, yes. Fear. Sometimes it was indignity but not today.

Not here, in this place that reeked of piss and rotting animal flesh - all going putrid atop unturned earth or beneath the bricks that slowly crumbled from above. This was an appropriate place for fear.

And it would be long before anyone found a body here. "We're going to take very good care of you, René."

Layton released his hair and stepped aside. The light from the lantern fell starkly on Fontaine's face. It had been bloodied - and not recently, judging by his long-broken nose and a split lip that no longer bled. One of his eyes were bulging beautifully from its socket, fresher, a red tear forming just underneath.

Layton stepped into the wandlight, eyes narrowed, and addressed Johann’s pale face in the white light. At request, he lowered his wand, the light fading out slowly like embers from a fire, until the only light between them all came from the lantern on the floor. Despite the yellow glow it spilled onto the dirty floor, it was not much comfort, much like Layton’s hand on Fontaine’s head.

Johann drew around the other side of the hanging body to Layton, wand still in his hand, and silently examined the state he was in. Coming into view of the Frenchman, he tried to school his expression into nothing, but disgust was clear. It was disgust at René for who he was, and also for the state of his face.

The German glanced to Ira’s assistant, judging how this might now play out. Good care rarely meant that. It meant good detail, but not comfort. Johann’s slender fingers turned his wand in his grip as he looked back to their prisoner. It had become collective since Johann was named and recognised. He was party to this, Layton ensured.

“René,” Johann addressed the broken face. He bent both knees and crouched, resting his right forearm atop his thigh, lowering to a level more equal to be face to face. “I thought we were friends,” he remarked with the air of someone sad to be told otherwise. Their prisoner didn't struggle, but stared with that bulging, bloodshot eye.

“Shame.” Johann narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Layton’s got some questions, see, and I know your English is pretty shit - or it can be when you’re under pressure - you get easily confused…” Johann sighed, looking away a moment, blinking as the lantern light reached his eyes, “forget our address, and correspond with the Ministry instead, not to mention forget your own name as you discuss our plans...” There was a flash of recognition on the Frenchman's face as Johann glanced up to Layton, as if asking a genuine question, “... though that can happen when you’ve got a serious head wound, can’t it, Layton?”

Storm improved in company, when his other half was not around. It almost made him tolerable.

Or so Layton thought as he watched the taller wizard fall into a crouch to address their inverted guest. Fontaine was behaving, having taken the earlier threat to apply as a general rule - quiet as a church mouse now while Johann's deep voice traversed quietly down the tunnel ahead of an even fainter echo.

            "... though that can happen when you’ve got a serious head wound, can’t it, Layton?"

He uncrossed his arms and nodded once, deadpan, before turning around to reach for something resting against the wall; just beyond the reach of lantern light. His fingers closed on the handle of a roughly hewn stick and Layton drew the weathered cricket bat into full view, grip flexing.

Nailheads stuck out at odd angles. It was a crude piece of work but, much like the man wielding it, effective.

"Very serious head wound," he agreed with Johann and stepped forward, jerking his head at nice cop to move aside, "Can't imagine how you got it."

His shoulders tensed, and the tension carried through all the way down his arms and torso as he swung the bat in one rapid motion - a loud but muffled THUD punctuated it coming into contact with Fontaine's skull. A strangled scream chased after the other sounds in the abandoned underground.

Layton gave the man's head another light tap, scrapping nail heads down the back of his neck, Lingering.

"Do you need help jogging your memory, René?" he asked softly and pressed the bat in a bit deeper before pulling it back altogether. "I have fantastic remedies. You've forgotten your name before but how about the vermin you work with? Remember any of those?"

This was all clean-up. Layton needed to ensure that none of Fontaine's contacts knew about him or Storm or any of Ira's other clients. If everything went according to plan, he would have the Aurors on his trail one of these days, and it was crucial they didn't find anything.

It also felt bloody satisfying to slowly mangle the bastard who had tried to cross them.

Johann didn’t require a second prompt to understand when to move. He stood up and stepped back, gaze running up Layton’s choice of weapon, and Fontaine’s terrified expression beyond. It was already blood spattered, whether from the Frenchman or a previous recipient, Johann didn’t want to consider. As Layton drew back his arm and swung, Johann appeared to watch, but behind his eyes his mind was elsewhere, disconnecting from the situation. Blood spattered onto the dust below, and a feral, excruciated scream made Johann’s shoulders visibly flinch, as if a cold hand had planted at the back of his own neck.

“… but how about the vermin you work with? Remember any of those?” Johann blinked hard and focused on the dripping face. Fresh wounds didn’t look so bad, but swelling would quickly set in, especially with the blood all in his head. Johann hated the fact he knew, had seen this.

“Who else works with you. Who else knows about us?” Johann repeated, in René’s native language for ease of communication. His gaze didn’t flinch to Layton this time, acting in a united front rather than a second. He didn’t care so much if someone knew of Layton, but he feared someone else might know of or recognise him.

“I work with no-one, nobody-” Fontaine lisped in French, the beating to his face leaving him spitting blood.
“Don’t waste your teeth telling lies,” Johann snapped back, all teeth and bright eyes widening. “Because he doesn’t let you keep them.” He gestured with one hand to Layton in threat, allowing the other man to understand the sentiment if not the words he spoke to the bloodied wizard.
“I told nobody.”

“He told nobody.” Johann mocked in English, glancing sidelong and rolling his eyes. Layton would be bristling to swing that bat again. “The French Ministry’s pretty crap but they’re still somebody.”
“There were no names!” Fontaine cried in French, but adding pitifully in English, “Please!”

Sensing Layton would easily swing again, Johann shot his arm out in the direction of the shorter man, intervening.
“Did they offer you money? Better money?” He asked, considering motivations. René was as greedy as Layton violent.
“Please…”

Johann withdrew his arm.

Layton turned his back to the other two wizards - just for a moment - tilting his head from side to side to stretch his neck with a satisfying crack. Storm was going on in French, a language of which Layton himself had only an elementary grasp. It didn't help that Fontaine's thoughts ran about in the most despicably incomprehensible accent.

       "He told nobody."

A sharp look over his shoulder, belatedly recognising the ridicule that Johann was directing to the Frenchman. Layton snorted and returned to the flickering circle of light. He slid one hand into his pocket to retrieve his wand, rubbing impatiently at its smooth hilt as he levelled his gaze at René once more.

It wasn't even his denial that made Layton want to hit him. It was that pitiful little please. Begging. He loathed begging, even more than hysterics and outrage.

But Storm beat him to it, arm extended before he could raise the cricket bat once more. The hesitation was short-lived. Again, with the whimpering and pathetic little please, dripping off the bloodstained mouth of a man with as much balls as integrity. Johann maybe had the same instinct because he drew away.

"Hold this-" Layton trust the bat at the German and switched wand hands, stepping closer to their prisoner, "- I don't think René here understands the severity of his situation."

He touched the tip of his wand to Fontaine's nose, looking down at the frantic eyes staring back up at him. How satisfying it would be, to heal that bloodied face - to have the pleasure of breaking it apart again.

Not yet. "Talk. Or you won't live to talk again." Layton trailed the wand up and further down René's torso, resting at the first criss crossing of rope that bound the man. He flicked his wrist and the air around them shimmered lightly.

The flaxen hemp of the rope darkened, a metallic sheen bleeding into it. Barbed wire. Sharp and jagged edges sinking slowly into already raw skin. René made a sound, something of a strangled cry. Ira would have considered it music to her ears, to hear this piece of shit wailing.

Blood seeped and trickled through Fontaine's frayed robes. Layton glanced at Johann.

"I'll take that back now," he reached for the bat.

Johann received the bat with the fingertips of his left hand. He felt more comfortable holding a screaming baby than Layton’s implements of manual torture. He kept his own ebony wand clasped in his right, never off edge down here in the tunnel.

Layton approached René with his wand and Johann’s gaze flinched away this time, anticipating a more graphic punishment than the flailed bat. He stared behind Layton, over the glow from the lantern, into the semi darkness behind them. The cry from the older man instinctively made him look back, just in time for Layton’s arm to extend for his cricket bat. Staring at the seeping blood colouring the clothes around Fontaine’s torso, Johann reacted a beat slower, fumbling the bat back to Layton.

René cried out again, straining his neck downwards, as if trying to release the pressure. Johann swallowed down the burning sensation of bile rising in his throat.

“Do you understand the severity of your situation now?” Johann translated, through now past tense, “He says talk, or you won’t live to talk again.”
“Pl…”

Johann sank down to a crouch again, drawing closer to the bloodied face, now swelling at an alarming rate.
“Think of her, René.” He uttered in a hurried whisper. “Think of what he might do to her without you. If you don’t tell us, we will start there, find the others. I have seen him do it.”

I have helped him do it. Johann’s thoughts echoed, swallowing down on his uneasy stomach. There was a new tang to the air up close, blood and bloodied breath. René’s breathing was unsteady, rattling, interrupted by quiet sobs.
“If you stay silent, others will talk, others will suffer,” Johann warned him, “or we can use a little obliviation, easy, painless.” He swallowed again, trying not to focus too hard on the blood bubbling up René’s crusty upturned nostril. His own heartbeat was loud in his ears, this was exciting, but simultaneously terrifying.

“They offered me more,” the confession came in a quiet mutter, followed by a wince, Fontaine’s gaze fixed on Layton as the purveyor of pain.
“How much more?”
“Double.”

Still crouched, Johann shuffled one foot to keep his balance. A dark, unwelcoming expression came over his shadowed backlit face.
“Names.”
“Ple-”
“Names.” Johann snapped the repeat order in English, looming forward into Fontaine’s face.

Layton adjusted and readjusted his grip on the cricket bat but he did not move. He stood not far from the scene, rolling back his shoulders and watching Storm speak in that supercilious tongue. It was almost comical - the juxtaposition of an angular white face whispering to René's bulbous head, where blood and flushed skin were getting tricky to tell apart.

A quick glimpse into Johann's mind - and it had to be quick due to the nauseating nature of the wizard's thoughts - told Layton that his associate was taking a different approach by bringing up Fontaine's wife. And just at the tail of that thought, the prettiest hint of... guilt? Uneasiness?

Storm was so much better suited to this than to any conventional enterprise.

There was no need to read minds to guess that René was starting to talk: Layton recognised that telling tone, that guilty whisper in a mouth slowly filling with blood. He stepped forward and lifted the flat side of the bat to gently tap against the side of René's head.

            "Ple-"
"Names."

A snivelling silence followed, in which Layton's tapping continued and the skittering of quick-footed rats echoed in their direction from further down the tunnel. He read their captive's thoughts anyway... discarding what language he couldn't understand in favour of seeking an emotion instead.

The tapping stopped. "Tell me exactly what you told them."

Johann, still crouched next to the other man, translated swiftly. This time Fontaine was quicker to speak instead of beg; Layton listened to Storm interpret as they went along, but he did not look away from René. It seemed that it was likely the bastard hadn't used any sensitive names in his act of greed and cowardice.

What he had done, the passing on of shipment details to the right people at the French Ministry, had been a vague insurrection.

"I think he might be telling the truth." Layton muttered, almost disappointed as he lowered the bat fractionally. "What do you think, Storm? Should we bleed him some more to see?" he smiled to himself and made an agreeable sound in his chest. "Maybe describe to him what it is I'd like to do to his pretty little wife."

The back and forth between languages lulled Johann into a professional routine. He switched off from the way Fontaine’s lips were going blue as he uttered information, focusing more on getting the context and phrasing as close as possible for Layton, who might read into things or berate Johann for mistakes later.

He agreed with Layton’s surmising of Fontaine’s honesty. Up close with the man’s face he couldn’t read signs of lies, just desperation. He could recognise that in his own cowardly tone on past occasions. The pleases had become just mouthings without sound to Johann, and his face had swollen so much he was almost unrecognisable.

“Is she that pretty?” Johann asked in English, having seen Mrs Fontaine at a distance but not having any particular interests in women in the way Layton liked to make his captives think he did. He got back to his feet and checked the time. His expression on doing this would give Layton all the information he might need to know about how much longer Johann was able to remain, but beneath his curls a mild resentment for his legitimate professional life interrupting remained.

“Do whatever you want with him Layton,” the German replied, frowning, “he’s no use to anyone, barely useful for us at the time on reflection.” He glanced down at the upside-down Frenchman. “How did you find him anyway, or don’t I want to know. You’ll have to wipe six months from his mind or remove a limb.” He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, his mind’s eye projecting an image of the poor soul melting in Vedir Prideaux’s rooms due to Johann’s mistranslation[1].

1.	23rd December, 2009 It is the Weight, Not Numbers

            "Is she that pretty?"

Layton lowered the bat even further, tearing his eyes away from their guest to smirk at Storm's trivial question. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say that Mrs Fontaine was nothing special in the superficial sense. "Prettier than he deserves," he added as his attention returned to Fontaine.

The man sobbed abruptly, with what Layton guessed was the most honest sound to have been heaved from the cretin's wretched lungs. Yes. Even Fontaine knew his wife was too good for him. Most married men did.

Johann was already preparing to take his leave now that the task was largely completed. His phrasing was lofty as ever but Layton chose to ignore that this time, rhythmically tapping the end of the cricket bat against some nearby rubble while he considered precisely what to do.

            "...have to wipe six months from his mind or remove a limb."

"I'm ever so grateful for your advice," he muttered in a tone so sarcastic it cut Layton's tongue to say it, "but I'm afraid this is the end of the road for Mr Fontaine. A fitting graveyard, don't you think?" Layton directed this at both the other men and then raised the bat in one swift motion before slamming it against Fontaine's head.

He wanted to do this quickly but, given where they were, it wouldn't hurt to make a mess. Layton was itching to do this, to hear the man's skull give with a crack, collapsing into the mush of his useless little brain. He had a bit of anger to work off. "You're welcome to stick around for the show."

Not that Storm would. No. This was good work for the man, Ira was right to think so, but extermination was Layton's pleasure.

There was a ragged wail as the cricket bat whistled back towards what would soon be a pulp than a head. Johann flinched at the noise, though he tried not to let it show.

“Thank you for your most tempting offer, Layton.” Johann replied with formal sarcasm, even adding a little dip of a bow, “much as I’d love to even out the score in watching you get yourself off, after you interrupted our morning fuck, I’ll leave you both to it. More intimate, hm.” Johann gestured to them both with his hands before making a move away from the hanging soon-to-be corpse before he got brains all over him.

“If you decide to send him back to her,” Johann added, looking back over his shoulder and raising his voice, “...rather than leave him for the rats, be about 75 Galleons for the head, 1,000 for the lot.[1]”

He retreated hurriedly, breathing heavily through his nose in an effort not to vomit at the noise before he got out of sight.


End

1.	The things you Google for AO - £15/£200 at a rate of 4.97G to the £