The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

Marcus opened his eyes to black hunger roiling beneath his boots.

No one shot first.

Austin Veyron raised one hand and stopped the wardens at the ballroom doors. "Lock down the exits. Don’t let anyone hurt Marcus."

The fragment giggled through the white route lines.

"You still believe he is there," said the voice.

"I know he is." Austin Veyron didn’t lower his hand.

The common ledger shimmered. Doors slammed throughout the hotel halls. The root network was redirecting Marcus’ access to tear through the hotel’s safeguards from the inside.

Nahlia traced the forged signature. "The fragment is not only inside his mind. It has tangled itself through every route Marcus promised to protect."

Marcus pressed his palms to his head. "Then delete me."

"No," Elena said. "You are not in control while it speaks."

The black hunger coiled tighter.

Behind him a root barrier solidified and cleaved the lobby away from the engine room. Veyra punched through it. Rin raced along the ceiling braces to keep the ballroom doors unlocked. Calder pressed his hands against the white route lines, attempting to distinguish Marcus’ immediate decisions from Marcus’ stolen ledger access.

The fragment shoved Marcus forwards.

Austin Veyron caught his wrist before he could reach the Freehold Throne.

The seed lodged in Austin Veyron’s wrist screamed.

[CONSUME ORIGIN FRAGMENT.]

If he took it the breach would end.

If he did it Austin would lose whatever shard of Marcus the fragment had wormed around his mind.

Austin held Marcus pinned against the ground harmlessly. "Marcus. Marcus, if you can hear me you need to choose."

The fragment growled.

Marcus’ eyes flicked between black and brown.

"Do you want to be here?" Austin asked.

Nothing happened for three seconds.

Then Marcus squeezed Austin Veyron’s wrist.

"I am." He panted. "I am still here."

The white route lines ignited.

The fragment recoiled from Marcus’ immediate-choice reply and Nahlia saw the lines rippling away.

"Now." She said. "Keep him bound to that answer."

Calder yanked the false ledger routes from the root network. Veyra pinned down the black tendrils as they ripped away from Marcus. Rin sliced at any fragment that attempted to weave into the ballroom routes.

Austin Veyron followed the white line winding through Marcus’ ribcage.

He didn’t consume the fragment.

He ate only the command that declared Marcus belonged to the Emperor.

The black hunger tore free in a screaming arc.

Marcus collapsed, vacant.

The fragment crashed against the floor and scrabbled towards the Freehold Throne.

Seven’s white mark ignited across the roots.

’PRESENT CHOICE REQUIRED. ACCESS DENIED.’

The throne sealed itself against it.

The fragment curled inside the glass vial, sealed shut and smiling. Smaller than before, but still smiling.

"You freed him from one name," it murmured. "The Feast will have many others."

Nahlia leaned closer. "How many?"

The black knot projected one thought: a woman standing alone outside a city. Black roots wrapped around her neck like a horned crown.

Vharra stared at it and lost her breath.

"The Hunger Emperor’s messenger."

The fragment chuckled. "She has no name. Her title is Sable. And she is already among you."

Marcus woke with Elena kneeling beside him and the shredded route clipboard still tight in his grip. Servers darted past through lobby routes. Doors were opening and shutting along the halls. His head was pounding but everything around him was steady.

They’d saved the common ledger.

More importantly they’d updated it with new present-requirement commands that protected the throne when the fragment tried to take Marcus’ place.

Nahlia rested her palm on the sealed knot. "It wasn’t just testing us. It was learning things. Sable will know where we’ll be weak."

"And we show her there is more to us than our roots," Austin Veyron said.

Citizens all over Grand Meridian began signing their routes aloud. Cooks validated kitchen routes. Wardens checked shelter routes. Patients and nurses validated the hospital network. The ledger only acknowledged voiced consent.

Everywhere they looked white lines ignited across the hotel.

Marcus propped himself up on one elbow. "I shouldn’t have had that kind of clearance."

"You had it because people allowed you too," Austin replied. "We rebuild the routes. We do not leave you behind."

Marcus eyed the sealed fragment in Elena’s grasp. "What about her? What if she attacks while we’re vulnerable?"

Vharra answered him. "She will not attack as a scout. She comes with the Emperor’s warning. She will offer them surrender and then make denial costly enough that they’ll surrender again."

The common ledger displayed a single marker outside Grand Meridian’s front gates. A lone black silhouette had appeared on the road past the city limits.

There was no army behind her.

It was worse than Marcus could imagine.

"Every able person to your routes." Austin instructed the Freehold staff. "Prepare the front gates. Clear out shelters. Verify evacuation routes."

Then he met the gaze of everyone who’d chosen to stay with him after every threat.

"We face her as one," Austin said.

Past the hotel Sable paused at the city border and raised one black gloved hand.

Every remaining Hunger Emperor mark flared up across the street.

The city shook. Down below in the subway tunnels. Along the brick walls of the river district. Through the hospital hallways. Atop the condemned tower black roots ripped from the ground and surged toward Grand Meridian’s gates. The marks weren’t waking up to swarm the Freehold anymore. They were converging on a single point where Sable could step between them.

Nahlia traced the converging routes. "If she reaches the gate she can consume every scout at once."

Veyra checked the white root chains around the gate itself. "Then we make damn sure she doesn’t touch our perimeter."

Austin turned to Marcus. The route keeper was pale but upright. "Can you trust the ledger to hold the gates?"

Marcus hesitated. "Not by itself. But if every member of every route team keeps physically verifying their positions then it can."

The Freehold began to mobilize.

The medical team gathered to sweep evacuation routes for stragglers. Kitchen staff refashioned themselves into supply routes. Former wardens manned rooftop battlements. Court refugees who had once been voiceless chose to volunteer and relay messages between shelters. There were no rosters this time. Every job was only added to the ledger after someone volunteered to take it.

Austin watched the hotel ignite with those choices.

Beside him Vharra took her position at the gate. "You are building an army without chains. The Emperor will not know what to make of you."

"I hope not." Austin smiled. "Not our friends at least."

Sable stepped forward.

Her coat was black and hugged her figure without armor. She carried no weapons. Her hair shimmered white silver and her face held the stillness of someone who treated every meeting like an appointment they intended to win. Behind her black roots dragged tendrils of the ruined city street skyward like grasping fingers.

She stopped just past the first white line encircling the gate.

"The Hunger Emperor gives you an offer," she called out. Her voice resonated in every marked citizen within hearing distance. "Turn over the Devour seeds. Turn over Vharra’s debt. Allow the First Feast to pass through this city and you will be left alone."

Whispers spread through the assembled defenders.

Simple.

Direct.

Echoes of every reason ownership had used to chain them against themselves.

Austin stepped forwards.

"And what of those that remain?" he asked.

Sable smiled toothlessly.

"They will have earned that," she said. "Those who cannot or will not defend their right to exist."

Rin’s knife blade flashed in the air next to Sable’s throat.

The black roots tearing up the street beneath her clawed apart and threw a tide of black hunger towards the gate.

The first attack against the Emperor’s envoy was beginning.

The black tide slammed into the first white perimeter line and dissipated against the common ledger’s white routes. Every volunteer within range felt it knock the wind out of them. Some went down on their knees. Some screamed in outrage. But not one single person tried to overpower the line because no single person will was exerted against it.

Austin unsheathed his sword. Calder took up position at his side. Rin and Veyra moved in front of the gate to decide where the herald’s hunger would impact those who would rather die refusing ownership than live cowed by it.

Sable smiled as Grand Meridian’s last Hunger marks surged to feed her invasion.

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