‘You’re a torturer.’ ‘Someone has to be,’ he said, offended. ‘In a culture that admits the need for torture, there must perforce be a torturer. A culture, Samar Dev, that values the acquisition of truths more than it does any single human life. Do you see? Oh,’ he added, edging closer to frown down at the demon’s corpse, ‘the justifications are always the same. To save many more lives, this one must be surrendered. Sacrificed. Even the words used disguise the brutality. Why are torture chambers in the crypts? To mask the screams? True enough, but there’s more. This,’ he said, waving one
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