The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

The lobby leaned away from the stairwell where below them the soul of the hotel screamed beneath a name that wasn’t its own.

Austin felt it in his boots. The roots of the Grand Meridian did not simply shake. They shuddered.

Perfectly black thorns erupted from tiles around them then retracted like they had been punched.

Vorth raised his Chain of Hostility.

"This is your last chance." The Chain-Warden gritted out between clenched teeth. "Embrace lawful stewardship."

Elena slid up beside Austin, crossbow trained. "You gonna take that law on the chin, chain-head?"

"I am restoring order." Vorth grinned sourly. "Which is just screaming in your language because you think you own the dictionary."

Low gutturals rolled up from the basement. It was not screaming. It was the sound of something colossal thrashing to wakefulness beneath dozens of feet of stone, roots and paperwork.

The System bloomed in Austin’s vision.

[ CORE-LOCK progression: 43%.]

[Host options: Devour the binding, sever the invocation, or access the core directly.]

[WARNING: Direct access will require traversal through root-mind.]

Austin looked to Seven. "You got his arse off the stairs?"

Seven’s violet eye twitched shut. "Until they pry my body apart."

"Don’ t pry." He nodded at Elena.

The enforcer bolted forward.

Links from Vorth’s chains crackled outward and multiplied until an entire lattice of green-black metal hung between them. Seven’s polearm cut through the first strand with a spark of violet flame.

The resulting concussion shattered marble tiles sending Elena flying sideways into a support column.

Austin spared neither of them a second glance.

He dropped to one knee and pressed both hands flat against the floor.

"Open." He commanded the hotel.

Nothing happened.

He pressed harder into the order. Roots knew him. Smelled him. Knew his wounds and the tainted ichor he had spilled into their lobby just moments before. Now, the Core- Lock had words it wanted stuffed down their throats, words that Malrec had chosen. The former warden had wormed his way inside of root- mind and wrapped them like wire around a child’s neck.

Austin wanted to DEVOUR so badly he could taste it. Tear his way through that damned contract and feed on the namesake already screeching inside his mind: granting major chain authority. All he had to do was swallow.

Austin would give another secret away to win this.

"Elena!" He shouted over the rumbling.

She dove under a swinging chain link and crawled to his side. "What?"

"The basement." He wiped his palms on his jeans. "You know where else the bug sings?"

She glared up at the stairs where Vorth was slamming Seven backwards with one meaty palm at a time. "Service tunnel. Freaking old laundry room. Connects to boiler hall."

"Can you get to me?" He took a lungful of air.

She pressed her jaw into a hard line. "You don’ think you can walk?"

"No." Austin pressed himself up onto hands and knees.

"Then lean on me."

He did.

Room collapsed to hallway as the lobby shuddered again. The second it let up, however, the hotel pushed back. Flexible vines slithered across ceilings with each aftershock. Green script winked beneath obsidian bark racing for basement doors in blooming waves of light.

Elena yanked open a rusted steel door and led him down narrow stairs. Warmth and humidity closed in around them as they descended. Ancient washing machines choked the low room beneath them, pale husks clawed open by giant roots. To one side of the space hung a metal service hatch, swung open askew.

Austin hovered before it.

"What now?" Elena whispered at his ear.

He listened.

Noise crawled out from behind the hatch like clumsy, wordless syllables. Underneath that something else whispered. Regular heartbeats bounced around steel piping and walls. Heartbeats that did not belong to the building.

"The core is awake." He whispered back.

She snorted. "Figured."

"No." He rapped his knuckle on the hatch. "Alive like us."

She tightened her grip on the crossbow. "That’s worse."

Together they stepped through into the boiler hall.

Rooms had given way to cavern. Roots wide enough to hide trucks curled around old pipes and writhed into the pool of black ichor at its center. Floating above it all, suspended in a cage made entirely of green chains was a crystalline cube roughly the size of a car motor. It pulsed once every few seconds, feeding red flame into the water around it.

The core of the hotel.

Chained to the cage was a woman.

Her wrists were bound behind her head with writhing chains that kept her body at arms length above the water. Dark hair fell around her shoulders, speckled with ash and dried blood. Bones extended from either temple snapped cleanly at the ends. She wore a black coat draped over broad adult shoulders. Filthy at one shoulderblade, its seams had been torn open to reveal ivory skin scarred in contractual runes.

When she tilted her head back up her eyes glowed gold.

"You are late." She addressed Austin.

Elena cocked her crossbow. "Care to explain? Who the hell are you?"

She laughed dryly. "A gift. A threat. Call me whatever you have to so you don’ stop breathing."

Predator’s Sense ripped past leather and wool to a woman underneath. Demon. Powerful, even chained. Lost. Broken. Not afraid enough to run.

Austin gripped her chains harder. "Name."

"Maelis." She eyed the violet cascade on his wrist. "Former ambassador of Lady Malrec. Current pet project of her oh-so-kind Chain- Warden."

Windows exploded overhead. Dust exploded in the stagnant air.

"You sent him after me?" Austin snarled.

"I was with him." She twisted at the chains across her wrists. Neon green light crawling over pale skin. "Your lord wanted the Meridian’ s core. Vorth wanted the commendation. I voiced my objection on both." She whispered through clenched teeth. "Because neither had considered where I could take it."

"You always were good with words." Elena crossed her arms.

"I?" She waved a hand absently. "You’ d better ask your father that."

The building shuddered.

"The core will die." Austin said flatly.

"And you’ll let me heal it?" Acid dripped from her tongue. "Don’ t you see, Enforcer? You already have."

Something clenched tight in Austin’s chest. Flesh against iron. Authority against magic.

"The heart?" Elena swallowed thickly.

Maelis nodded aggressively once. "It has plans for you both. Pleasurable plans, once I show you how easy it is to obey."

"And if we don’ t?" Elena asked.

She shrugged, face blank. " Then I leave."

The reminder flashed across his mind again.

[ CORE-LOCK progression: 71%.]

[Core stamina diminishing.]

[External individual Maelis has authority signature: Ember Covenant.]

"You didn’ t answer me." He stepped towards the pool.

Elena tugged his sleeve. "Easy."

"There’ s something we can use here." Maelis voice was soft. Like ash slipping between raw nerve endings.

"If she doesn’ stop us both." Elena squeezed until his knuckles went white.

She chuckled. "You sound like my old lord." She turned away, focusing on the writhing mass. "Don’ worry, Enforcer. I won’ t kill you."

Austin took another step closer to the ichor.

"No deal." Elena gritted out through clenched teeth.

The human girl inhaled deeply. " Then I deal with her."

He didn’t see Elena roll out of the way when she squeezed the trigger.

Maelis lurched sideways into him with unnatural strength, ripping the crossbow from her training partner’ s hands. Her eyes bulged as the chains across her wrists flared green-hot.

Elena placed her hands on her hips and watched upward.

And from somewhere deep inside the boiler hall came the sickening sound of metal cracking against itself.

"You should’ve brought Malrec." She gasped. Hands grasping at his shirt. "The Protector of Nobles sure does love you."

Austin’ s fingers curled around her chains. Nothing should sound this good.

"You know nothing of my lord." He replied coolly. Despite Ember Covenant bleeding free from her coat and straight into his veins.

"You want to know who I am?" Maelis laughed, sounding almost human for the first time since he laid eyes on her balcony. "Ask yourself why he left me."

Predator flooded his mind with knowledge.

Rank. Age. Blood Lost. Scroll after scroll of information pasted through his mind at insane speeds.

She was older than Austin was. Smarter, undoubtedly stronger.

"You think you’ re strong enough to hate the game?" He growled.

She shrugged, uncaring. "I was birthed into it." She pressed both palms into his chest. Warmth bloomed across his skin. "Isn’ that enough?"

Something wriggled past Ember Covenant authority in his mind.

NO.

Older. Smarter. Stronger.

Her voice dipped into a menacing growl as claws scraped at his throat. "Die human. Fall before your betters."

Predator returned the sentiment with its own message.

DEMON: Ember Covenant.

She dropped her hands and spun away from him in a spray of fire. All traces of the dream_state he felt pulsing tight in his chest evaporated as if burned clean away.

"Congratulations Hunter." She called back over her shoulder. "You learned weakness when you saw it."

She disappeared in rippling waves of flame. Liquid metal reflecting around them brighter than the car engines of Austin’ s childhood.

Ember Covenant was ascending.

He felt her subtle use of the pact wrapped around his own mind like weeds beneath concrete.

Feeding. Learning.

He didn’ t look away as she crawled behind him to his side.

Speak. "You will’ nt kill me."

Warmth blossomed in his palms. "Why?’nt?

She shrugged. "Don’ t wanna."

He turned to see her sitting against the opposite wall, knees tucked to chest. Black hair spilling around her shoulders. Those golden eyes boring into him, wary but unbroken. Human.

"Wouldja just listen to the girl?" Elena snapped.

Anger bubbled low in his belly but he swallowed it down. " We’ re gonna save this city." Austin pressed a finger against Maelis’ spine. " Even if it kills us. So why don’ t we just be quiet."

Footsteps crashed in the stairwell.

Gunfire echoed behind them.

And all around them Vorth’ voice rumbled from somewhere far, far away.

"Run!"

Elena yanked on his arm. " Where?"

He met her eyes. Elena still clung to his left side, beaten but unbowed. Behind him Maelis lounged against the steel grate, liberated but anything but peaceful. Warmth spread through his body in time with the Core’ s pulse beneath the Meridian.

Enemies were coming for them. For the hotel. For everything they just took.

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