"Another dead end."

Neil knew that he wasn't getting out anytime soon. After all, he had been running through the corridors for the past few hours. He stopped to catch his breath and leaned forward, sweat dripping from his forehead. Collapsing against a wall nearby, he stared at the single bulb hanging from the ceiling.

It was midnight, his wristwatch had said, and the walls were cold as ice. Water trickled down them, forming huge frozen puddles.

Neil had woken up to find himself in a corridor a few hours far from the place he was in now.

He remembered chasing the garwalf into the woods. And then, something slammed into him out of the blue, knocking him out cold.

He had realised that he had been kidnapped. Looking around in the darkness, his eyes were fixed on the bulbs that dotted the walls above. He was sure to have run a marathon by now.

Neil retraced his footsteps back into the T shaped junction. His gut instructed him to go down the path to his right this time.

He walked, looking at his cellphone, trying to contact either Firenze or Helga. Neither of them answered the phone and with no wonder, the battery lasted only for a few more minutes.

His steps slowed down as he noticed something far away, glowing red. Inching closer, he saw that it was an exit sign, dimming slowly.

Climbing up the stairs beside the exit sign, Neil thanked his forefathers for giving him gut instincts. On reaching a door at the end, he wiped his face with his handkerchief and yanked the knob.

It opened into a hall with multiple rooms, one of them had its door wide open. A gentle orange light indicated a fire, probably from a candle or a lamp.

Peeping into the room, he called,

"Hello?"

The huge room was pretty well decorated and well maintained. A roaring fireplace warmed him as he entered it. In front of it was a chair, in which sat a person busy tending the flames. The man turned around, and greeted him,

"Oh, hey there. Come on in!"

Neil grinned as he silently thanked God and strode towards the fireplace. He extended his palms towards the burning embers and said,

"Thank you, friend, you just saved me from hypothermia. Er. . . where exactly are we now?"

Surprise pervaded the stranger's face, and he turned the single log feeding the fire. A well trimmed beard and the mellow light masked his age, but he didn't look older than thirty. He ran his free hand through his tousled black hair as he said,

"You're in my house, the basement actually. You look starved, mate."

Neil sat down on the floor, tired and nodded, unable to say anything. His throat had been dry since last evening and his now roaring stomach did no good either. The man bent over to his right and began hunting for something kept on a stool nearby. He returned, with a fruit clutched in one hand and a pitcher in the other.

Cool water soothed his throat as poured the contents of the pitcher into his mouth. The man was rubbing the object in his hand with a piece of cloth. When he was done, he handed it over, his electric blue eyes shining.

It was a pomegranate, one of the local varieties. He examined it, with the man grinning at him as if he were expecting something marvelous to happen. The fruit looked ripe, but for some reason, it was huge, even for a local pomegranate. It was roughly the size of a coconut, with skin almost the same color as the exit sign. He looked at the man once, and tore open the fruit. Each seed looked like a polished ruby, blood red and with a maddening scent. Neil gaped at the fruit, wondering whether this was a costly hybrid variety and whether he could grow a fertile tree from the seeds.

As the sweet juices wet his mouth, a small doubt nagged at him from the back of his mind. The man got up, pressed a switch on the wall nearby and waited for the lights to come on. It didn't make much difference to the illumination in the room; he had just turned on a few antique electric lamps that looked costly. Oddly, on each lamp was a symbol painted on with glass paint.

Where have I seen those?

Did this guy have the same interior decorator as Miss Nathan?

Both of you have weird tastes.

The circular mat on which he sat held an intricate pattern in gold, over which the juices had fallen and had turned pink.

The man moved with ethereal grace, his feet made no sound against the floor. He stopped before one lamp and gently began to dust it with the very same rag he used to clean the fruit.

He was muttering something under his breath.

Neil fixed his eyes on the floor, "So, why did you kidnap me?"

"Well done, You're the first one who got it right! The others just babbled cliché movie lines."

"I repeat, why?"

"People watch way too many action movies, mostly James Bond. Boy, one time I had this–"

"That's not what I meant. Why did you kidnap me?"

He began to pace around in front of the fire,

"It's a long story. Don't worry; we have plenty of time to chat and I'll tell you all about it. Now, is the owner of your company a rich witch by the name of Levi Nathan?"

Okay, they definitely have the same interior decorator.

"Yeah. What about it?"

The man brushed his palms together in glee, his unnaturally bright blue eyes glinting like a cat's,

"So, my guess wasn't wrong. On that note, let me get a few things straight. I'm Bill Grey and you will be staying with me for a few days. I require a few things from you, your two friends and your bosses."

Neil knew that this was coming. He knew that there was no escape; his gut was silent, as if warning him against the idea of running. Besides, the fruit might as well be drugged.

He lifted himself into the nearby chair and picked up the poker lying on the floor. Bill smiled, flashing teeth worthy of being in a luxury toothpaste advertisement.

He proceeded to move towards a desk and began to search yet again.

From the piles of paper strewn across it, he fished out a photo, causing the mess to be thrown on the floor in front of the fire. He turned it around to look at something written on the back. In a moment, Bill had a phone to his ears, chatting away to someone,

"Oh, and wear that white suit of yours, you'll look a bit better than usual."

Neil noticed that one of the photos lying on the floor looked a bit familiar. Using the poker, he dragged it closer, to get a better look at it. He felt his skin grow hot, as he took the photo in his hands. It was their entire enquiry team, taken at the café with a fresh red circle marked around Firenze.

"So, my new friend."

He tucked the photo behind him, just in time to see Bill cut his call, place the phone on the desk and turn around.

"I've sent a friend of mine to bring a friend of yours here. Where were we now?"

Neil realized that he had to get his hands on the man's phone somehow. At least, he could give Firenze a head start. However, a newly developed cramp in his abdomen almost rendered him immobile. The only thing he could do now was to sit tight and hope that the man wouldn't notice his missing phone.

"I was wondering what sort of an underworld business you run to have so much money. This rug is real grizzly fur, right?"

"Yes it is! Actually, I've been running this business for a long time, even before you were born."

Neil laughed, slightly uncomfortable with the small burn in his stomach.

"And you don't look a day over two hundred years. What skin cream do you use?"

Bill smiled, seemingly impressed.

"Olay, Maybelline and a bunch of others. You wouldn't believe my real age if I were to tell you."

"I don't think I'm in a hurry to leave."

Neil managed, leaning towards Bill, the pain in his stomach becoming unbearable.

"Oh and is Bill Grie your real name? It sounds rather unusual."

"It's Bill Grey."

He looked at the watch on Neil's wrist.

"I'm late. . . I have to run."

Neil nodded, watching the man leave the room.

"Hellspawn," He muttered under his breath.

"Not quite yet, anyway." The man said, turning back to look at him for one last time.

The moment their eyes met, Neil doubled up on the floor, clutching his stomach and howling in pain. It was as if his gastric liquids were eating through his chest, hydrochloric acid melting his heart. He crawled to the phone left on the table, while the man laughed, laughter like none he had heard on earth.

"Go ahead, help yourself. Just be careful with it. Oh and make yourself comfortable, I couldn't bear to give him second grade meat. He's gonna help me with a lot of things, your friend is."

As Neil's hand searched the papers on the desk, he felt as if he were being roasted by hell fire. Similar cries of pain echoed from the corridors below, the pomegranate he had consumed lay still on the floor, red juice seeping from it.

The cold plastic cover of the cell phone calmed his palm as he dragged it down to the floor; the table fell on him and pinned him down.