Sean woke up on a bare mattress in a dim room. His hands were cuffed behind his back. A sliver of light broke past the dingy curtain covering the only window. He groaned and turned over, aching and sore. As his eyes adjusted he could see the room was empty besides the mattress he currently occupied, and a man standing guard in front of the door. The man loosely held some sort of semiautomatic gun at the ready. Seeing that he was awake, the man wordlessly knocked on the door behind him three times.
Immediately two more guards came into the room and half-dragged him out. They took him through a maze of corridors. Sean tried to be alert, look for any escape avenue. All three guards had guns, and when he looked more closely at them, the guns had the telltale shimmer of magic on them too.
He was brought into a large office. A stately wooden desk sat in the middle, with two chairs facing it. Sean's blood ran cold. Sitting at the desk was Victor Vahlen, the leader of the infamous gang known for being anti-magic. Sean didn't get to sit on one of the chairs. Instead, the guards escorting him kicked the back of his legs, making him fall forward onto his knees in front of the desk. Two of them stationed themselves on either side of the door, and the third left to stand outside the door.
Victor was typing on a laptop, and didn't even look up for several long minutes. Sean was afraid to move. The man sitting before him was wearing a dark red suit and reading glasses. He had long black hair, and as he worked he would occasionally tuck an errant strand behind his ear. Somehow, this was the man responsible for his friend's death. The man responsible for so many illegal activities in the city, for the deaths of several of the people he'd graduated college with. His friend had refused to pay this man protection money, and a week later he was killed inside when his little potion shop caught fire.
As afraid as he was, Sean sat up straight and set his jaw as he waited.
***
Victor sighed, sending a final email. It wasn't even noon yet and he was already so tired of dealing with stupid people. One of his dealers had gotten caught, and now the local police would need to be paid off. Again. And he still had the mage to deal with. He looked over to the man, kneeling on the floor in front of his desk. He looked to be in his mid twenties, with blond hair. He pulled up the information they had found about the man. His name was Sean Case, graduated from Plumspire University about three years ago, currently working at the archive translating magical scripts. There was other information on his friends, relatives, past jobs, and more, but Victor closed the laptop. He took off his reading glasses and carefully folded them, setting them on top.
"So, you're the one who killed six of my men and injured another five. You're smaller than I expected."
The mage remained silent. Victor stood up and walked to the front of his desk, leaning against the front and crossing his arms. He towered over the kneeling figure, standing in his personal space. The man stared resolutely at a spot behind him.
"I expect you to respond to me when I speak to you, or I can make this unpleasant experience a lot worse for you," Victor said, "Is that what you want?"
After a long moment, the man responded.
"No."
Victor waited, an eyebrow raised.
"No, what?"
"No... sir?" The man guessed. Victor saw his jaw twitch; he was clearly angry. Victor would enjoy messing with him.
"Good boy. Now what exactly were you looking for in my warehouse?"
"...Drugs," was his answer.
"Wrong. A strong magic user like you clearly doesn't use the kind of drugs we sell. They would only limit and degrade your energy. Don't lie to me, what were you looking for?"
"It was drugs.... I was going to sell them for the money-" Victor cut him off with a smack and grabbed his chin, forcing the mage to look up at him.
"I said, don't lie to me," He growled through gritted teeth.
He straightened back up, letting go of the man's chin. Even in the lions den, the mage sat straight, scowling up at him. Victor wanted to wipe that look right off his face. He should be afraid. Begging for mercy. Lifting his leg, he planted a foot in the middle of the man's chest and pushed him roughly down to the floor, enjoying his grunt of surprise. Maybe his day didn't have to be all bad. He could always find time to force a strong mage like this to submit to him... Victor motioned to the guards.
"Take him to the interrogation room." He said, walking out of the office.
***
Sean was left alone in the room, which looked exactly like he imagined an interrogation room to look. A blank, slightly dingy white room with gross overhead fluorescent lights, a table, and two chairs. There was a large mirror on one wall which he assumed had a viewing room on the other side that he could be monitored from. They had removed the cuffs, and Sean kept flexing his sore wrists. The cuffs has been magic suppressors, and clearly this room was too somehow, because even without the cuffs Sean couldn't seem to mentally grab onto that taut line of magical energy running through him. Not that he had his wand, or staff, or anything to channel it with anyway.
He paced around for a while, working out some of his nervous energy. He had no idea how he was going to make it out of this alive. He had been pretty badly injured during the fight. They had bandaged the worst of his wounds- just enough to keep him from dying, but he was still in bad shape. Pacing probably wasn't helping that, he figured, so he sat down in one of the chairs to examine his wounds.