"Doctor, this..."
"It's a self-protection mechanism. We entered a secret area of his heart that he refused to reveal, so he's preventing us from leaving. Hmm, that isn't too surprising."
The doctor made his judgment with considerable familiarity.
Blazing flames licked at their faces and arms. For the moment, they did not continue deeper inside, instead standing at the doorway and examining the Accounting Office.
This was still a sea of fire. The room was quite large, with toppled filing cabinets and document cabinets piled atop one another amid the flames. Every cabinet door had been opened, and burning paper documents were scattered across the floor, desk, and cabinets, as though someone had ransacked the place before the fire.
"Over there."
The doctor pointed to the imposing desk at the very back of the Accounting Office.
Neither of them paid attention to the black wisps in the air. They circled around the cabinets and found a man curled up beside a safe behind the desk. Banknotes were scattered around him, but strangely, none of them were burning.
The man did not react at all to the footsteps behind him. The doctor raised an eyebrow and signaled Shade to speak, so Shade cleared his throat.
"Luther Kinwise?"
The moment the words left his mouth, the trembling figure finally moved. He turned around, and Shade saw the face of a man crying bitterly. There were no burn marks on that face; it could even be called rather handsome. Shade was not certain they had found the right target.
This was it.
"This is it."
The doctor said, then frowned slightly. The crying man was actually crawling slowly across the ground toward them, as though he wanted to hug Shade's leg. He was not fast, so Shade simply took a step back and