Green flame poured into the lobby. It curled at curtains shredded around the edges and traced over the tips of the thorn wall, popping where vines met fire. Living survivors held still, eyes chalk-white against the heat. Cohort moved as slow unison, bone-plate boots slapping ash-covered floors like skeletons. Chains jangled like windchimes.
Austin knew something was wrong before he saw them. Before he saw vines shudder. The hotel groaned beneath his feet before the first soldier stepped around the corner. Memory-threads of every floorboard and nail scraped tight against Austin’s senses. Copper and sulfur coated his tongue.
System hummed warning against his spine:[Hostile penetration vector: frontal assault.]
Austin knew words mattered. Not just to tactics but demon law as well; repercussions on the same level as personal reportage.
Seven stepped forwards, halberd swinging lazy in a wide arc that clipped tendrils of thorn from two men nearest the door. Bone armor cracked underneath both their weight but neither soldier flinched. Instead they stepped through the vines and green fire licked around their wrists, teasing skin without singeing. They began hacking at the vine barricade with blunt heads of their weapons. After three swings one soldier tossed a chain over their shoulders, hooking it onto a briar spire above.
Vine shuddered where metal snagged against it stem. Knot-black sigils bloomed across nodes like a spreading disease until they glowed with coiled power. Austin felt the echo through his bones; pressure but no pain, only constriction like suddenly there was hands squeezing around back of his neck. System flashed warning directly into his brain.
[Contract Tether detected: Chain Residuum. Source: Subjugation cohort.]
Assimilation increased.
[Demonic Assimilation: 5.1%.]
Number crawled beneath Austin skin like contagion.
"Chains," Seven spat. "Bring anchors."
Low laughter sifted through lobby air. Vorth appeared between ranks of soldiers and there was a silence so thick it became its own smoke. He loomed over them head and shoulders and another cloak of bleeding shadow draped over his own pauldrons drinking in light. He carried a banner woven of writhing leather straps and dragged a dozen chains behind him like rosaries.
"You will not cage us with weeds and trinkets," he drawled. Voice was like sandpaper scraped across ribcage. "Open your doors and forfeit the name. Malrec is merciful to those pathetic enough to kneel."
Austin tasted Malrec’s name like stale wood; not branding stitched across hotel’s forehead but everything beneath it. Dominion. Every life under his care turned to look at him. Elena instinctually grabbed his elbow, squeezing hard enough to bruise.
"Fall back!" she yelled towards civilians who still clustered nearest them. She sounded level. Like Elena who shoveled coal before panic poisoned the city streets. She took position next to Seven, fingers curled around battered shotgun dug from straps of her knapsack. Shotgun was nothing special but in cities built on teeth blunt weapons had merit.
The cohort advanced on foot. Soldier at front hurled a hook with chain attached; it caught edge of lobby’s hanging chandelier and whipped outward, swinging light fixture until crystals of glass shattered on floor. Twin vines curled around the ankle of a man tripping backwards on spilled debris, pinning him hard against lobby wall. Plant-fibers cinched closed until the man’s cry forked — only to release suddenly like hands relinquishing prize. He crawled sideways on hands and knees dragging himself towards lobby’s shattered reception desk.
Austin felt his throat tighten against suddenly deafening desperation. Want to shake loose from brick and root shake this entire cohort into hotel mind and claim them for his own thrummed red against skin. System chastised him for even thinking: [Dominance Aura response elevated.]
Fear tasted sweeter, stronger. He clenched teeth against urging.
Then one of the soldiers collapsed — not impaled by thorn or flame but snagged on seams of living root sidewalk. The man thrashed, jerking around as chain cinched across his chest. It pulled back against him tearing fingers weak until soldier regained footing upright in brutal fashion. Sigils blazed down full length of chain; for a split second Austin understood purpose behind tether.
Ownership. Claim right to dominate. Authority carved into skin.
Soldier’s eyes glazed and he stared up at Austin like beggar. Something vast and obscene pooled behind that dull stare, nothingness where irises should be. Greed in his cheekbones slackened to something closer understanding.
"No," Austin said.
Step forwards. Vines curled around ankles like questioning Qu’s. Austin lifted his chin, hand slicing through air to point directly at chain-link cutting soldier’s chest. "Let him go."
Chain sparked. Soldier’s eyes rolled back to void; shoulders slack against automaton purpose. Vorth laughed somewhere in street behind them. "You cannot command those made from spirit boy." His voice was slick granite. "Contracts will only obey as they’re told."
Austin did it anyways. Said nothing aloud to chain. Instead kneeled down to soldier’s ear taking hold of tether link and ripping free with bare hands while blind spots roiled beneath eyelids. Metal burned his palms like frost. Taste was there too; pitch ink-blood cocktail and sweet hammering of contract laws underneath tongue.
System screamed firewall everything from him: [Tether severance will trigger enforcement cascade]
Assimilation spiked accordingly.
[Demonic Assimilation: 5.4%.]
That one percent felt like blasphemy under his skin.
Vorth stopped laughing. Every soldier in the ranks shifted fraction degrees like removing pin securing arcane springs of clockwork soldier. Stormers that Vorth had positioned on either side twitched in mirrored apprehension behind his back. Words Austin knew but did not register trickled off teeth too fast to comprehend.
Seven stalked forwards. His ridged helm caught stray moonlight. He swept halberd down hard against boot-tooled soldier trapping hook at their edge. Bone scraped against bone like splitting wood. Soldier crumpled underneath him, crushed beneath whip like spikes of thorn. Austin opened mouth to call vines but close in around exposed bone when solution roared hot in his mind.
Devour was always generous with her secrets.
It never came gently.
Devour had always pulled him through when life drew thin. Soldier sprawled underneath Seven had sported only sort of leash demons could carry: leash cable braided thick across broad shoulders.
Everything Vorths soldiers used as authority. Possessed contract chains hooked directly into their spines. Take back this tether and Austin gain enough influence to thin their numbers; breed dissent by attaching his own name into backbone of contracts they used to bind each other.
There would be fallout. Casualties
Austin knew. Consumed contracts screamed their injustice like badges sewn across chest. He would be made for taking them.
Wasn’t time to worry about reprocussions. He knelt down, hands trembling minutely like therapist ready to crack. Ripped the leather flack free of soldier’s belt while Seven pinned him in place. Small box was humming softly, alive with sigils and promise. He snapped box open. Smell was first thing to assault him; ancient magic. Smoke and iron ore mixed with what Austin swear was another man’s breath caught in throat. He swallowed.
Code spilled across his ribcage when System decrypted new authority folded into his domain.
[Contract Ingested: Chain Residuum.]
Strange accented voice whispered beneath his own, phantom-memory of foot-soldier conviction.
[Effect learned: Minor Chain Resonance. Cost: Assimilation spike; cortical drift risk.]
Assimilation lurched again.
[Demonic Assimilation: 5.9%.]
Needed to throw up.
Contract tasted like power. Strings Austin could pull if he knew where to tug. Instinctively understood how Vorth tethered soldier to soldier. Pull hard enough on right chain; he could infiltrate their ranks. Re-distribution where they elected to keep soldiers. Re-distribution where they drilled reserves.
Power. As poisonous as cheap whiskey.
Vorth laughed again. Stepped forwards like priest casting offering, chains dripping around ankles like liturgy. Shadows clung to him filthy as rats. "Think you can take leash like that and act like master?" Another voice barked from street beyond. "Little laws you know, human."
To his credit Seven did not smirk. But something in his posture told Austin more than enough.
Stay still.
He did. Lobby suddenly resembled blood splattered chess board scraped free of anything but twitching sinew and fear sweat. Everyone still alive cowered behind scavenged guns; grim painted every face ashen and unfamiliar. Elena tightened fingers around his arm. Seven tilted helm down towards him, eyes narrowed into cruel slits.
"What did you learn?" he said, voice low but violence dripping from syllables like venom.
"A flavor they didn’t think I could handle," Austin answered right back. Surprisingly true.
Shadow banner Vorth unfurled. Threw chain whipping into air while syllables of magic bound it into knot tipped with razor teeth. Chain hovered between them like executioners noose. He grinned, toothy and grotesque as gila monster. "Playing with contract laws is a dangerous game, little devourer."
Had something planned.
Austin should have seen it coming. Should have put together demons played chess when the game began.
Soldiers fell back into formation around Vorth. Two rows deep they formed circle around him. Vorth leaned forwards into position and air vibrated with sigils underneath tongue. "I could have this place burned down to cinder in an hour. Strip flesh from it’s bones and feed corpse to root- stalkers my lord so playfully hires." He dropped voice low into teasing. Malevolent. "Or." Voice dropped lower still and eyes turned predatory. "I could indulge my curiosity and see just what monster lurks beneath that cute little hotel facade of yours. Test you, boy."
Cell by cell the lobby exhaled. Eyes turned back to Austin hopeful enough that Austin thought they might fracture under pressure. Break like puddle shot through with boots.
"A game?" Offer taunted over quiet. "Oh very well. If you’re so eager to negotiate then let’s negotiate. We’ll duel Claims and winner claims addition to roster." Black smirk spread across his mouth. "Lose, and we’ll give you namesake something more tasty to chew on. Don’t disappoint me little buzzard."
Vorth tossed chain between them. It whipped outwards onto floorboards while everyone nervously waited their turn. Challenge screamed carnivore like threat. Higher than taunt.
Demons knew rules.
Rules Austin Veyron was quickly getting good at breaking.
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