The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

Lady Vharra spoke through Austin Veyron’s hand that morning.

The black mark around his wrist tightened until his fingers went numb. He was standing in the repaired half of the lobby, watching volunteers board up the west-wing entrance with rootwood and reclaimed steel when the voice coiled around his thoughts.

You are learning restraint, little devourer. It makes you easier to predict.

Austin Veyron clenched his hand.

She did not leave.

Halfway across the lobby, Elena caught the motion. "What is it?"

He could have kept silent. Had everything to gain by keeping silent. Vharra was giving him an avenue for private conversation, a window into information none of them could confirm. If he did not broadcast it, he could choose what mattered, what threatened them, what they needed to know.

That was how one lord began speaking for others.

"Vharra is speaking," he said.

Silence settled over the room.

Rin’s ears flattened against his skull. Sarielle moved protectively close to the fragment cage. Seven’s head turned towards Austin Veyron, his blank eye-slit narrowing with silent consideration.

The mark on his wrist burned.

Tell them I can hear them trembling.

Austin Veyron repeated that aloud.

Elena clenched her jaw. "Can she see us?"

"I’ known’t."

"I can see all you refuse." She sounded amused.

Austin Veyron repeated that aloud as well.

No one liked that development. That was not reason enough to conceal it forever.

Maelis set ember wards around his wrist, but the magic flared harmlessly around the black sigil. "It is not exactly a curse," she explained. "It is a registered line. The equivalent of ringing a doorbell connected to a sovereign house."

"Can we cut it off?" Kaela asked.

"Not without knowing what’se connected to the other end."

Before anyone could reply, the first debt- wraith appeared.

It crashed into the lobby through the window wearing the face of one of their volunteers from the neighboring block. Three more followed behind, made from torn paper and chains like tortured vines, their limbs reforming around the root barricade.

"Defenders," Elena called. "Positions!"

The Freehold shifted.

They all had orders to follow without Austin Veyron’s command. Seven secured the front entrance. Rin scaled the wall. Kaela and Sarielle moved to cover the stairwell. Elena distributed rifles to two volunteers who had managed to learn reloading tricks during the siege.

Austin Veyron met the first debt- wraith with Root- Graft braced over his forearms.

The wraith reached for his wrist, attempting to bind him with chain. When the metal met his mark, Lady Vharra’s voice chuckled behind his eyes.

Give me the fragment. I will end this pest.

Austin Veyron shredded it to pieces.

The paper skin disintegrated into ash, but the chain writhed around his feet. It moved determinedly towards the cage holding the fragment. Behind him, Austin Veyron felt the fragment buzz against his palm, eager for whatever sovereign sigil remained entwined around his wrist.

He could open DEVOUR wide enough to consume the wraiths’ contract- ash in one bite.

He could also tether the mark deeper into himself.

A wraith charged Elena from around the root barricade.

There was no time to decide which was the lesser risk.

He opened DEVOUR.

The chain sank into his palm like cold knives. The mark seared his skin. Austin Veyron experienced for a moment the world through Vharra’s senses: corridors of black glass, spreadsheets piled into towers larger than the library roof, demons waiting their turn to line up inside smoke that vanished into hungry branches reaching for collection.

He tore himself away.

The wraith crumpled at Elena’s feet.

[Sovereign link pressure increased.]

[Unauthorized knowledge received.]

His head buzzed with additions to their privately shared song.

He still broadcast the information.

"I know where she keeps them," Austin Veyron panted. "Somewhere like this. Full of ledgers and chains."

Malrec chuckled from his appointed seat on duty. "The Ninth Dominion. Welcome. Looks like you got yourself invited without receiving the address."

Austin Veyron glared at him. "Did you know she could contact us like this?"

"I knew she had much dirtier tricks." Boom. Another debt- wraith kicked through the lobby wall and embedded itself into the floor behind Malrec’s chair. The fallen lord screamed and clawed at the black spear passing harmlessly through his skin.

The undead stopped advancing.

Every black chain in the lobby reached for Austin Veyron’s open palm.

Lady Vharra’s voice filled him now, loud enough that everyone else could hear her words.

"Grand Meridian Freehold," she began.

"A stain upon our district," someone whispered.

The voice possessed the whole room.

"You house criminals while barricading against authority. You reject payment while sheltering on stolen ground. You call yourselves free because no masters have come to ask what freedom costs." Her voice tapered to a rasp. "Your defiance is disappointing." Rin spat on the floor. "We are otherwise occupied."

Heat flooded Austin Veyron’s wrist.

"There is an old sanctuary to the east of your block. It houses refugees from three lost domains, including ember- line colonists and Beast-Queen progeny. Their wards are breaking. By now my collectors are waiting outside." She left a pregnant pause. Something about that silence chilled Austin Veyron more than the voice itself. When she spoke again, her words crawled slowly across his mind. "Those wards will fail tonight."

Sarielle turned white.

"What are you proposing?" Austin Veyron demanded.

"A negotiation. Alone."

Elena stepped towards him. "That is not happening."

Vharra silenced her with a thought.

"Approach my gates within the day. Bring the fragment. Discuss its people. I am willing to negotiate a relocation for them all. Resist-" She laughed, a sound made of corpses devouring their kin "-and I will take every indebted life inside that sanctuary."

One by one, the debt- wraiths evaporated into ash.

The lobby was left with empty glass bottles, scorched metal chains, and the oppressive silence of threats greater than fists can solve.

Austin Veyron considered everyone in the room. Elena looked furious. Sarielle visibly trembled with restrained panic. Maelis was fixated on the fragment cage. The volunteers glanced nervously between each other as if trying to decide who should break the news and spare Austin Veyron the responsibility of deciding alone.

He spared none of them that courtesy.

"We have a meeting," Austin said. "Here. Now. Anyone who will be affected by this need to be heard."

The council convened amidst glass and rubble because no one had time to spare for a pristine meeting room. Volunteers dragged chairs over from the dining hall. Elena unfolded a map of the sanctuary route onto a table. Sarielle traced the old Beast-Queen caravan routes with quivering hands. Maelis read off the ember- line survivors most likely housed behind the sanctuary wards. Rin paced near the entrance with knees racked by too much idle movement.

"We take all our weapons," Kaela volunteered. "Throw down the collectors before they catch wind of this meeting."

"And alert Vharra that we are invaders in her mind." Elena rolled her eyes.

"We are invaders on her ledger already." Rin snorted. "I vote we burn."

Sarielle turned to Austin Veyron. "We are going into a sanctuary filled with frightened people who might not know us from the collectors. If we storm in swinging blades, they will have no choice but to see her as right."

The debate raged on inefficiently and terribly loud. Austin Veyron did not call for silence. Each defender held a piece of information he lacked: Kaela’s tactical eye for fighting off ambushes, Elena’s extensive studies on civilian stress, Sarielle’s claim to leadership over those inside, Rin’s predatory reflexes.

At last, they settled on a compromise. A single group would approach the sanctuary openly with food, supplies, and word for whoever answered. A second volunteer squad would trail them down the route unseen and stand guard for collectors. No one traveled to meet Vharra without backup.

Austin Veyron would still agree to speak with her. He would merely refuse to do so as their lord.

Malrec hawked another laugh. "A council meeting while innocents are threatened. You have delicious morals."

Austin Veyron glowered at him. "Not delicious. Necessary. They’re the last thing between me and sitting on her table."

The black mark against his wrist pulsed.

Lady Vharra knocked once more at a door far beyond Grand Meridian, careful to count every second between their compliance.

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