Kyuhyun stares at the map on the workroom floor, right where frantic red circles are scribbled around North China. There are crisscrossing red lines running all over the world, from city to city, with all sorts of articles and papers pinned to them. Sungmin must have been up all night doing this.

“So you’re saying,” he says slowly. “That the International Conservative Coven is actually at its heart a black magic crime ring and cult that experiments illegally and brutally on demons for nefarious purposes, and is possibly clandestinely headed by Kim Heechul.”

“Exactly,” Sungmin confirms.

“And that Eunhyuk is in on it.”

“Well,” Sungmin says uncomfortably, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “He’s one of ten thousand or so coven members. I’m not sure if he’s even involved, or how much he knows.”

“Okay,” Kyuhyun says lightly, leaning back against the desk and crossing his arms. “Easy enough to find out.”

Sungmin looks at him, confused. “How?”

Kyuhyun shakes his head with a grin. Sungmin’ complete lack of guile is adorable. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He sinks through the floor and desk, and straight into Eunhyuk’s laboratory in a village near Seoul.

The intruder alarm suddenly goes off.

It’s an irritating pealing screech that’s incredibly distracting, so Kyuhyun takes care of that right away. He zeroes in on the source and tears through the circle and its sigils in one fell swoop, taking out a chunk of concrete wall in the process.

The alarm cuts off immediately, thank hell. Kyuhyun straightens up and revels in the sudden peace and quiet.

The lights flicker and there’s a scuffling, scrambling sound somewhere in the depths of the lab. It’s an enormous, cavernous place with hundreds of glass cabinets full of stored test tubes and dozens of lab tables covered in obscure magical and scientific equipment. It’s practically labyrinthine.

Not that it’ll help Eunhyuk escape.

Kyuhyun lazily stalks down the aisles of tall glass cases and lab tables with a shark-like smile. “Eunhyuk,” he calls out, scraping his sharp claws against the glass face of one of the cabinets. “Remember me? Little old Kyuhyun? Mr. Demon?”

He can hear the far-off echoes of Eunhyuk trying to sneak around quietly, little touches of squeaks and creaks, little indrawn breaths and brushes of clothing. Kyuhyun beams. It’s always so much easier to catch prey that’s scared out of its mind.

“Eunhyuuuuuuk,” he practically trills. “We both know you’re down here...”

No response, just as expected. Kyuhyun likes that Eunhyuk is following the script properly; it lets him really get into his groove.

He makes his gait heavy and loud, making sure that Eunhyuk can hear every footstep hit the floor with every other syllable.

“I just want to have a conversation...”

That does it. Eunhyuk jumps into silent action, skittering one way and another, trying to move through different aisles to avoid him. He can hear it, he can hear the frantic uptick in Eunhyuk’s breathing, the rush of his steps.

Kyuhyun grins.

Now that Eunhyuk’s on the move, he can sense the metal of Eunhyuk’s glasses, his buttons, his watch, his pens in his pocket all jangling and whipping around together.

Victory is so sweet.

Kyuhyun raises a hand, feeling the metal in the room thrum around him, and clenches his fist. Metal strips tear themselves off of pipelines and throw themselves into the ground like prison bars, completely trapping Eunhyuk in place a hundred feet away.

Kyuhyun walks over, taking his time. Checks his pocket watch.

“Fifteen seconds left,” he notes. “Good, good.”

“Fifteen seconds for what?” Eunhyuk asks with terrified eyes.

Kyuhyun glances up at him. “To get back to Seoul, of course,” he says. The metal bars wrap around Eunhyuk, immobilizing him, and they sink through the floor together.

Kyuhyun walks up to Sungmin, dragging Eunhyuk along behind him by the metal tied around him. “Back,” he says cheerfully.

He boggles “Kyuhyun,” he says sternly. “What is this?”

“A little chat,” Kyuhyun says.

Sungmin is momentarily speechless.

Kyuhyun turns to Eunhyuk. “So,” he says pleasantly. “Eunhyuk. Have you betrayed the morality of your very race and profession and committed crimes of the highest atrocities against both human and demon kind?”

Eunhyuk seems to be close to death judging by the color of his face. He also seems to have no voice.

“That’s a bit, er, heavy-handed,” Sungmin says to the side. Kyuhyun looks over at him. “Wouldn’t you say? A little... accusatory?”

Kyuhyun frowns. “Is it?”

Sungmin nods.

Kyuhyun turns back to Eunhyuk. “Right, then. Less accusatory, less accusatory... Have you, Eunhyuk, recently aided in the magical brainwashing or mind-controlling of captured individuals?”

No response.

He glances at Sungmin, who wiggles his hand and makes a non-committal sound. “Maybe a little drier? Easier? More factual?”

“Right.” Kyuhyun thinks for a moment. Factual, factual... He rubs at his chin. Yes or no questions should work. “Eunhyuk. Are you, or are you not, working on experimental projects with Kim Heechul through the International Conservative Coven?”

Eunhyuk looks startled.

“Y-yeah, I am,” he says. “I’ve been working on ICC funded genetic research for five or six years, actually.”

Kyuhyun looks at Sungmin smugly. Finally, they’re getting somewhere. “Have you now. And?”

Eunhyuk bites his lip. “And... uh... I’ve been writing papers for the ICC scientific peer-reviewed journal.”

“I’ve read those articles,” Sungmin pipes up. “All of your experiments were very well-designed, I must say.”

Kyuhyun crosses his arms and wonders if and how that’s relevant.

“Thank you,” Eunhyuk whispers with a starry look of wonder in his eyes, gazing at Sungmin like he’d never seen another professional, well-read magician in his life. The metal bars may or may not squeeze a little tighter for a moment. “I based them on your methods, the ones you presented on in Vienna at the – ”

“Moving on,” Kyuhyun interrupts in a bored voice, checking his nails. Eunhyuk’s mouth snaps shut. “The ICC’s genetic experiments. Summarize.”

Eunhyuk nods vigorously. “I mainly studied the differences between magical and non-magical genetic code, looked at various generational progressions, demonic samples, that sort of thing. Tried to figure out where the magic comes from, how it works, why it works differently for people – ”

“Why did Heechul want it?” Kyuhyun demands. “How did he use it?”

Eunhyuk’s gaze darts around the room. “Well, he wrote a couple of papers based on some of my findings on molecular and genetic demonic containment a few years back.”

Kyuhyun turns to Sungmin with one eyebrow raised.

“It’s a field dealing with magician-demon spells and interactions,” Sungmin hastily explains. “Mostly to do with the science of warding off, calling up, and signing contracts with demons.”

“Right.” Kyuhyun leans forward, weaving his fingers together behind his back. “So, given that he knew about specific demonic molecular reactions from your thorough experiments... Could Heechul have used your findings to help facilitate the torture and mind-control of, say, our mutual acquaintance Donghae?”

Eunhyuk stares at Kyuhyun in abject horror. His face slowly drains of any color and his eyes begin to bug out the longer he thinks it over.

Kyuhyun waits a beat to let it all sink in properly. The shock, the guilt, the self-disgust... Ah, so satisfying to see those all rise to the surface like this, curling around Eunhyuk’s eyes and mouth. Kyuhyun likes being reminded of how good he is at this kind of thing. It’s been a couple decades, but it looks like he’s still got it.

He glances at Sungmin, who’s sat down in the desk chair behind him and is paying rapt attention to Eunhyuk’s every facial tic. Kyuhyun eyes Eunhyuk’s bloodless face himself – it seems to have frozen in an expression eerily similar to that of a degenerate circus clown – and decides he seems horrified enough. He most definitely looks pathetic enough.

“Well?” Kyuhyun snaps at him.

Eunhyuk’s mouth is gaping and gulping like a goldfish, but no words come out. Sweat drips down his temple and his eyes are darting around the room like they’re trying to make a break for it.

“Out with it.”

Again, nothing.

Kyuhyun grits his jaw. His patience is all dried up, and he’s got no pity for this naïve greenhorn magician and his ill-timed disorientation right now.

“Are you, or are you not,” Kyuhyun barks, shoving himself into Eunhyuk’s space and spitting the words in his face, “an accessory to the crime?”

“I didn’t know!” Eunhyuk cries out desperately, ducking his head to the side and shying away from Kyuhyun’s angry lunge. “I didn’t know he would use it like that! Not when I published it!”

Kyuhyun’s gaze hardens, zeroing in on the words left unsaid. “So when did you know?”

Eunhyuk squeezes his eyes shut. “I – I didn’t – ”

“When did you know?!” Kyuhyun bursts out. “When exactly did you figure out your coven was making demons into mindless, obedient slaves on the side?”

Eunhyuk is shaking, hot tears are leaking through his tightly shut eyes, his teeth are gritting and clacking with grief and fear.

“When?” Kyuhyun roars. He tightens a fist, and the metal bands constrict around Eunhyuk like an angry snake. “When did you find out about it and decide to do nothing?”

The bands dig sharply into Eunhyuk’s ribs. Kyuhyun knows that if he just twisted his fingers another two inches, they would slice through his skin, slither through the ribs, and thread right towards his heart. It would be so easy.

Some of that must show in Kyuhyun’s eyes, because after a few seconds of glaring daggers with that thought tumbling around in his head, Eunhyuk cracks.

“Okay, okay!” he cries out with a desperate look in his wide eyes.

Kyuhyun blinks in surprise. He didn’t actually think Eunhyuk would fold that fast – most magicians with illicit, murky backgrounds take a great deal more convincing before they finally crack and spill everything that their dirty little lives depend on – but he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“ – It was at the last coven conference,” Eunhyuk forces out with the last breath of his crushed lungs.

Kyuhyun hides a smirk. Easiest interrogation ever.

The fetters loosen a bit. Eunhyuk starts to get his breath back, huffing out painful wheezes through his raw throat.

All part of the art – Kyuhyun’s rewarding his good behavior. It’s like training a stubborn pet. Though, of course, Kyuhyun has raised a pet dragon once, and he can say with some certainty that training an angry, fire-breathing dragon is much easier than training a run-of-the-mill, conceited magician to act civil, so his comparison is probably a bit off the mark.

Eunhyuk is staring at the floor in mortification, seemingly unable to meet anyone’s eyes. “I knew something bad was happening when he, uh, presented some of his new theses this past winter.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Kyuhyun can see Sungmin rear back when that information hits him. That was less than six months ago, before Sungmin had ever even met Eunhyuk.

Sungmin is silent for a moment. “Which ones?” he asks.

Eunhyuk looks down at his shoes, his shoulders slumping. It’s a pretty pit