The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

Grand Meridian sounded different when roots were afraid.

Austin Veyron usually sensed the Freehold under the hotel as gentle, living heat. He felt the presence of everyone who had chosen its boundary. Guards posted at the doors. Families cowering in borrowed rooms. Rin patrolling the upper floors. Elena sorting medical kits. Seven standing duty when he hadn’t been told to.

One hallway on the west side was silent.

The collector fragment had blocked it.

Austin Veyron paced the lobby with the hunt teams clustered around the shattered core case. The surviving chain- core stuttered weakly behind Maelis’s ember wards. No one touched it.

”We have six paths into the west wing,” Elena said, waving at the hotel map. ”The service corridor, the ballroom suite, laundry access, roof ducts, the basement pipe run, and staff stairwell.”

”What hallway did it pick?” Rin asked.

”All of them,” Malrec said from the metal chair Seven had chained him to with root cord. He paled against the angry bruises the collectors had left beneath his skin.

Austin Veyron didn’t trust him. Not anymore.

”What do you know?” Austin Veyron asked instead.

”Vharra’s fragments hunt old promises,” Malrec replied. ”Every contract signed within this hotel. Work agreements. Rental logs. Security protocols. Each time someone gave you something they didn’t owe, that hallway leads to the fragment.”

Seven cocked his head. ”Projected solution: re-centralize combatants through damaged core.”

His voice was synthetic, but Seven had slipped up. Echoes of the first maker’s lessons still lived close to his tongue.

Austin Veyron stared at the chain-core. He could sense Seven’s suggestion. The core could forge temporary command networks through every person tied to the Freehold. They would allow him to sense every hallway simultaneously. They would keep anyone from wandering blindly into another trap.

They would also turn everyone attached to the Freehold into an extension of his will.

”No,” Austin Veyron said.

Seven narrowed his eye slit. ”Logical insult acknowledged.”

”If we accept your insult.” Austin Veyron looked at the volunteers clustered in the lobby. ”Split up. Take one person who knows this hotel and one person who knows how to fight. Check in every five minutes. If we lose you, retreat unless someone volunteers to stand their ground.”

Kaela unsheathed her spear. ”Complicating the mission.”

”I’m not letting anyone be used like cannon fodder.”

She looked him over for a long moment before speaking. ”Basement team. I’ll take pipe run.”

Rin claimed roof ducts. Sarielle took ballroom suite with two rescued prisoners. Elena claimed the staff stairwell with Maelis. Austin Veyron and Seven took the service corridor.

Two people were left.

Everyone else made their choice.

The service corridor smelled like wet carpet and ash.

Austin Veyron’s roots probed the tile floor for ten steps before refusing to budge. The collector had corrupted the next hallway with contract ash. Names etched across the baseboard in delicate black ink.

One of them was his name.

”The basement team found a trap,” Rin’s voice buzzed through the radio from the roof ducts. ”It’s disguised as a fire escape.”

”It’s asking us to check in,” Sarielle replied from the ballroom suite.

Elena sounded strained. ”Staff stairwell is lined with old employee passes. They’re moving in.”

Malrec’s voice crackled over the radio next.

”Help me.”

Austin Veyron froze.

Seven rolled his eyes. ”Noncombatant in the lobby. Audio marker is hostile.”

Austin Veyron already knew that.

”The real Austin Veyron,” Malrec hissed through static. ”It has the core fragment. Taking it to the west wing.”

The collector knew exactly what to say to be useful.

Austin Veyron took another step forward.

The service corridor curved around the hotel’s old kitchen facilities. A door ahead cracked open by itself. Past that doorway was the hotel’s employee dining room. Round tables covered half the floor in long rows. Every chair at every table held a black ledger. Every ledger contained the name of someone attached to the Freehold.

At the far end of the room sat Malrec.

Not the Malrec Austin Veyron knew. Austin Veyron could sense it from where he stood. This copy didn’t have any weight in the boundary. But he had Malrec’s eyes.

”You’re learning,” Malrec said. ”Refusing easy answers. Good. But do you know what that gets you?”

”No.”

”A long night for your people.”

Books flung open.

Chains sprang from beneath tables.

Seven struck first, snagging three hooks across his back. Austin Veyron dropped to his knees, sinking roots through the tile. His fingers curled around chain anchors, not around Seven or anyone else. He shredded the first ledger in two, but ink splattered across his palm.

[Debt mark acknowledged: Protection granted. Reimbursement expected.]

The hunger gnawed at him again.

Austin Veyron hit DEVOUR on the mark. The ink burned away to exposed paper, but what was left tasted cold with resignation. The collector wasn’t making new debts. It was feeding old ones into strength until they turned violent.

The fake Malrec charged Seven.

Seven snagged it by the throat and slammed its body through one of the tables. The impostor’s flesh shattered into crumpled paper, but one black tendril slipped into the wall behind.

”Confirmed route to fragment.” Seven held up the thread.

Before Austin Veyron could react, another scream blasted through their radio.

Kaela.

There was a surge of water from the basement channel. Engines screaming.

”The pipe run collapsed,” Kaela shouted. ”We’ve got one person trapped.”

Austin Veyron wanted to order everyone to her aid. Pull out the core. Drag them wherever he needed them to go.

Someone else was already doing that.

”I hear Ballroom team has another way out,” Sarielle said. ”They can make the basement in fewer corridors than Austin Veyron can.”

”Austin Veyron agrees.” He heard Rin’s surprised inhale through their speaker.

Better than he expected, Austin Veyron thought as he ran.

They didn’t need enforced loyalty. They needed trust.

Austin Veyron and Seven followed the black thread through the west wing. Past empty rooms littered with overturned furniture. Vintage hotel portraits nailed to every wall, eyes scooped out and replaced with Malrec’s twisted grin.

Thread led them to the laundry room.

Rows upon rows of drying racks hung from the ceiling. Pipes snaked along the walls, disappearing into new levels of the hotel. In the center of the room hung the collector’s prize. The stolen core fragment pulsed against the wall like a second heart.

Malrec sat at one of the tables opposite them, shoved up against the wall by chains through his shoulders.

”You found it,” Malrec wheezed.

”We did.” The collector pushed out through him. ”We finally found you.”

Rooms nearby trembled.

Roots around the laundry room shifted. Entire sections of the west wing cried out.

[FREEHOLD wing infection: 31%.]

A black void bloomed in Austin Veyron’s sight.

[SOVEREIGN OFFER: Submit single compliant name to collection. Infection will cease. Decline, and the west wing will be collapsed upon all subjects inside.]

Names scrolled across the screen. Every hunter team member Austin Veyron could see in the room. Friends he hadn’t realized were standing nearby.

Austin Veyron stared at the offer.

It had only done one thing right.

Understand that no one gives their name because they’re afraid.

”I have something to ask you,” Austin Veyron said, calling open the team channel. ”The collector wants a trade. One person’s name for the west wing. We’re not answering until everyone consents to the decision.”

There was a long pause.

”I decline,” Elena finally said.

”So do I.”

Kaela’s voice came after. ”No way in fucking hell.”

”The hell you are not,” Seven deadpanned. ”It keeps confusing compliance for capitulation.”

Seven met Austin Veyron’s eyes. ”My name is mine alone.”

Something screamed through Malrec’s mouth.

The screen cracked.

Austin Veyron forced both hands into the corrupted roots beneath them, flinging DEVOUR wide open. Not to drain every person connected to the Freehold, but to consume the contract ash between them.

It hurt more than he remembered.

Every agreement ever signed within the west wing ripped free at once. The hotel shuddered violently. The collector fragment keened as infected roots were ripped out from beneath it, restored to blank, living wood.

Malrec slumped from where the chains had held him to the wall.

The fragment fell with him.

Austin Veyron caught it.

Its final act of violence came in trying to chain once more.

He could hear the west wing breaking beneath them.