The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

The glass train had no windows on the outside.

Once it left the drowned rail vaults, the black water disappeared behind walls of mirrored glass. The delegation sat in separate compartments linked by narrow doors etched with names in silver script.

Austin Veyron’ s door displayed no name.

It displayed a sentence instead.

WHAT YOU GAVE IS WAITING AHEAD.

He pressed his fingers to the letters. His wrist mark flared.

Elena materialized at the end of the car with a first-aid kit. "How bad?"

"Vharra is being dramatic."

"She is a sovereign demon who built a train out of contracts. Dramatic may be the least worrying part."

The train lurched.

Every door in the car popped open simultaneously.

Inside the first compartment, Rin faced an empty seat. Her lips had turned pale.

"What did you give the train?" Austin Veyron asked.

"The face of a hunter," Rin said. "The one who sold my pack."

Someone sat in the empty seat.

He wore a hunter’s coat and grinned at Rin with her old face. The forgetting had made it worse; she didn’t know him anymore. It was as if someone rebuilt her boyfriend out of foreign parts and left him at her doorstep to destroy whatever remained.

"Do you want me again?" he asked.

Rin raised a knife.

"I can give you the memory back," the man said. "All you have to do is choose someone you’re willing to sacrifice when the train reaches its end."

Her knife shook.

Austin Veyron stepped inside the compartment, but she raised one hand.

"No," Rin said.

The man grinned. "You don’ t want your memory?"

"No." Rin drove her knife through his throat.

"No?" he echoed. "Not even mine?"

She said nothing, cutting the seat in half.

The compartment filled with black paper birds. They screamed and flew at the ceiling, vanishing through the air vents.

The train sped up.

In the next car, Kaela confronted a drill instructor whose voice she relinquished to the train. The woman shouted silent insults, her mouth opening and closing like a broken doll. Kaela listened to the language for a moment before slamming the door in her face.

"I don’ t need words to know they were garbage," she said.

The train tested them one by one.

Elena’ s compartment smelled of baking bread and old tile. The kitchen she sacrificed still lived inside, recreated down to the smallest detail by the train, along with a silent woman gesturing for Elena to return should she ever choose safety over rebellion. Elena stood in the doorway until the illusion disappeared, tears wetting her cheeks but no regret in her voice.

Tessa’ s compartment revealed Lord Arctos calling her his property. She had forgotten his voice, but the train reconstructed it through what was left of her mental scar. Orena gripped her hand as they watched that mistake turn back into ash.

Then the train came to a stop.

The station outside was shrouded in darkness.

A sign swung above the platform.

LAST SERVICE — MEMORY EXCHANGE

Austin Veyron crossed the threshold first.

Only one person sat at the station besides the delegation. He sat on a bench beneath the sign. He looked like Austin Veyron.

Except he wasn’t.

His hair was shorter. His face gaunter. His eyes shone with that cruel satisfaction Austin Veyron remembered feeling when taking came easy.

The lost version of Austin Veyron smiled at his counterpart.

"You gave me away," it said.

Austin Veyron’ s fingers moved to his wrist mark instinctively.

"You were worthless." He said it as if it meant anything.

"I am the part of you that got it." The memory leaned onto the bench. "You liked hurting people who assumed they were your superiors. You liked intimidation. You liked watching them realize how much you could take from them."

A crowd of silent eyes watched from behind Austin Veyron. None of them spoke.

"I know the facts," Austin Veyron said. "I don’ t need to feel them again."

His past self laughed. "You will. Vharra knows she will. Arctos knows he will. Every lord you encounter will give you a reason to become what I remember." The train waiting outside groaned in agreement.

Another glass figure emerged from the platform’ s far end. It donned a conductor’ s hat and carried a large ledger book.

"Exchange condition," it said. "Return a memory you have sacrificed. Restore: instinct and authority." Its voice was flat and emotionless, like programming devoid of chaos. "Payment: one passenger’ s future choice."

Elena pinched the bridge of her nose. "Meaning?"

"The devourer may take one future action for any traveler aboard this train." The figure said it like it was a guarantee.

The train wanted Austin Veyron to choose for someone else. It wanted him to reclaim the joy of control by proving he would exercise it.

His lost self stood from the bench and took two steps forward.

"Take it," it whispered. "You need me."

Austin Veyron stared into the darkness of the train’ s entrance. He stared at the conductor. He stared at every member of their delegation who sacrificed a memory to ride upon it.

Then he stared at himself.

"I need to know what I’ ve done," he said. "But I don’ t need to like it."

He opened DEVOUR.

The memories lunged for him, eager. His lost self smiled.

Austin Veyron consumed the contract binding it to the conductor’ s deal instead.

The platform trembled. The conductor’ s ledger exploded open. Every memory fragment Austin Veyron sacrificed glowed like hot embers: kitchens, voices, faces, laughter, pain.

His other self stared through hollow eyes. "You can’ t leave me this way."

"I will not," Austin promised.

He held a hand out to his past.

Together.

Austin consumed his own mistake.

Bit by terrible bit.

When he finished reading, his lost self didn’t explode into hunger. Instead, it melded into Austin as understanding devoid of gratification. He remembered that first malicious urge. He remembered everything he almost did. He remembered why he was afraid of what he could become.

The pleasure was gone.

In its place, there was empathy.

The platform rocked again. The glass train screamed through every compartment. The conductor crumpled into shards. Memory fragments flew from its ledger and back through every door. They were reluctant to force themselves upon their givers this time. They simply hovered in the air before each person who’d sacrificed them, waiting.

Rin touched her fragment of a man’ s face and shook her head. "Not yet."

Elena breathed in the lingering image of her kitchen and sighed it out again. "Not today."

The train moved on.

The lights went out on the platform.

The glass doors slid open.

Beyond the station, a black staircase spiraled up towards a city made of hanging chains.

The heart-road had arrived.

Lady Vharra whispered into Austin Veyron’ s wrist mark.

Welcome home, devourer.

Her voice vibrated through his skin but no one moved to approach the stairs immediately.

Orena glanced back at the train. "Can it take us home now?"

Seven stared at the cars’ blank windows. "Route status unknown. No return service available."

"Obviously it isn’ t," Rin muttered under her breath.

Tessa clenched a small light in her palm: Arctos’ voice transformed into physical form, still hovering expectantly. She squeezed her fingers tighter, then relaxed her grasp.

"I don’ t want that memory," she said. "I want to know that I can move forward without it."

The light floated away and joined the pieces of the train’ s broken ledger.

One of the sanctuary volunteers asked whether they should reclaim their memories before ascending. Elena shot a glance at Austin Veyron but he made no suggestions for anyone else.

"Do what you want," she said. "We already paid to have someone else choose for us."

Some took their memories back. Others refused. The station judged neither decision.

Austin watched as they did what they wanted, every decision coloring their faces with something new. Anger. Resolve. Joy. He could feel the memories of his past cruelty pressing behind his ribs. It wasn’t the first part of him he needed to forget. It was the part he needed to notice early enough to say no its price.

The black staircase stared back.

Above it, chains clanked against each other in a red sky.

The heart-road was not Vharra’ s final destination.

It was the path she’ d made every other lord too afraid to walk.

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