The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

Nine nights until the First Feast.

The words hung over Grand Meridian like smoke.

Austin Veyron returned to the Freehold through the common ledger’ consciousness new route with Calder, Vharra, and the reluctant inner-court coalition. The old hotel had changed while they’d been away. White root lines now spread through the lobby floor in place of Vharra’ bright red- gold network, connecting evacuee shelters, kitchen stations, watch posts, and the engine room through voluntary signatures people keyed into the ledger to maintain.

It was messier than a sovereign system. It was slower. It also belonged to everyone and no one at once.

Marcus met them at the front desk with a clipboard and a chain spear across his back.

”Three transit routes still need volunteers,” he said. ”The east hall is full of refugees from the court evacuation. And the black roots are spreading under the city.”

No one cheered. No one cried. No one offered congratulations.

Austin Veyron appreciated that.

”Show us the roots,” he said.

Seven projected the Hunger Emperor’ mark across the Freehold Throne. The horned crown and jagged open mouth glowed above a layered map of the city. Thin black lines had already begun creeping from the abandoned sewer tunnels outward toward Grand Meridian.

”Advance agent,” Seven said. ”Single carrier. It is already sending reconnaissance back to the Emperor.”

Vharra stood apart from the crowd, no longer adorned in red-gold lines of authority. The common ledger had noted her releases but had forgiven her nothing.

”The Emperor doesn’ send scouts alone,” she said. ”The carrier will be inside a hunger viable enough to withstand detection.”

Calder’ eyes darkened. ”A fragment bearer.”

Austin Veyron felt the Devour seed tremble.

[ORIGIN HUNGER DETECTED.]

The response was not an order. Austin knew better than to demand his signature work without speaking to it. It was a pull toward the upper floors.

The hotel kitchen.

Austin Veyron moved first.

The kitchen was full of evacuees, shelter cooks, former Freehold wardens, and volunteers trying to ration meals to too many mouths with too little food. Broth stewed on the line, and burned- toast smoke wafted through the room. At the far counter, a demon man with dark skin held perfectly still, a ladle hovering above an empty bowl.

Everyone around him looked exhausted.

He looked hungry.

Austin Veyron met his gaze.

Blackness flooded through the man’ pupils.

The Hunger Emperor had marked its first vessel into the Freehold.

The ladle dropped.

Black hunger poured out of the demon’ mouth in silence, ribboning out around the counter and sucking the air clean. Wood blackened. Broth in every bowl evaporated into ash.

”Everyone out,” Austin Veyron said.

People began to move not because Austin owned any piece of their fear but because the volunteers had drilled escape routes since the common ledger’ establishment. Cooks ushered children and injured court refugees toward the west stairwell. Two former wardens sprang for the stairwell. Marcus secured the door while Elena swept the kitchen to ensure no one had been left behind.

The fragment bearer smiled beneath black hunger.

”You built yourselves a little haven,” the Emperor whispered through the vessel. ”How many mouths will it take to watch it burn?”

Austin struck first. He used Root-Drive to propel the bearer through the counter and caught the black ribbon with his hands before it could reach the pantry supplies. The seed thrummed in his wrist, recognizing what it had already learned.

[CONSUME ORIGIN FRAGMENT.]

Austin knew what would happen if he obeyed. The hunger would consume him, devour the bearer, and the immediate threat would end.

But the fragment was anchored to the bearer’ core magic.

”Seven, project the split,” Austin said.

White light exploded across the kitchen wall. The black mass was growing stronger, branching from the bearer’ vessel. A thin thread connected it through the bearer’ ribcage and into a terrified human-sized shard of core magic.

”Don’ don’ consume the core,” Seven said.

Rin burst through the side door, knives drawn. Veyra was right behind him with a length of white root-chain harvested directly from the Freehold Throne.

”Anchor it,” Austin Veyron said.

Veyra tossed the chain at Austin’ feet. It caught around the black ribbon instead of the bearer, fibrous roots flaring from its end. White roots flared along its length, entangling the fragment and anchoring it to the ground. Rin slit the magical thread tethering it to the bearer’ core.

The bearer crumpled, sobbing.

The black fragment screamed.

It shattered apart into dozens of hungry mouths and surged toward the evacuees in the lobby.

Austin used Root-Graft to contain the doorway and close off escape routes to the kitchen. Calder arrived through the engine room doorway and punched the largest fragment through the wall with dark seed- force. The two sigils repelled each other instead of merging, trapping the hungry mass between white roots and dark seed-glass.

Vharra took the last steps into the kitchen herself.

She paused at the sight of the fragment and went stone still. ”It is not a scout vessel,” she said. ”It is a feeder. The Emperor will take note of how we respond.”

The fragment spoke again. A small girl’ voice screamed from somewhere in the lobby.

”You can’t save everyone.”

Austin looked at it steadily.

”No,” he said. ”But no one eats tonight.”

Austin didn’ devour the fragment. Instead, he trapped it in a glass vessel Nahlia had sterilized for unstable claim artifacts before sealing it shut. The white root-chain cinched around the glass, white roots marking it with a permanent containment seal.

’ORIGIN FRAGMENT CONTAINED.’

Outside the kitchen, Austin found the rest of the Freehold gathered silently around the lobby. Some were scared. Some were angry. More than a few glared at Vharra like they wanted to drag her back to a cell by her hair.

Austin didn’ speak for them.

Marcus did.

”We have nine nights,” he told everyone. ”We need hunters, route runners, cooks, scouts, healers. Anyone willing to help sign their intent into the common ledger. Anyone who isn’ capable of fighting should rest.”

The glass fragment pulsed once.

A map of the city bloomed across its dark surface.

Nine black dots peppered among the twisting alleyways.

The first scout vessel hadn’ acted alone after all.

The First Feast had already begun moving through Grand Meridian.

The black dots pulsed at varying heights. One several stories beneath the abandoned subway system. One nestled in the apartments of the river- district. One tucked away inside an evacuated apartment complex. Two more prowled near primary routes into the hospital districts. One was barely half a block from the hotel itself.

Nahlia keyed their locations into the common ledger. ”Not everyone will make it to nine nights. We cannot send teams to each dot.”

”We don’ have teams,” Marcus said. ”We have people.”

The lobby started organizing then, panic fading into action. Former wardens volunteered to stand guard over evacuation routes. Kitchen staff portioned dry goods into travel rations. Scout teams chose routes. The people who didn’ want to hunt found places to shelter evacuees, run safe rooms, or deliver messages between groups. Those who didn’ want to do anything waited in safe rooms while the ledger monitored their vitals.

Austin watched the crowd organize without a throne to command them.

Vharra stood watch over the glass fragment containment vessel. ”The Emperor will know our effort is weak.”

”But he won’ know how weak until we say so,” Austin Veyron replied.

He stared at the closest hunger dot pulsing against the black glass.

”Rin. Veyra. Calder with me. Marcus, keep the ledger here. Anyone who enters an active claim does so alone. We eliminate the scouts before the Emperor decides it’ time for a Feast.”

The common ledger made no record of the first counter- hunt.

Nine nights had begun and the Freehold was moving through them with terrified refugees instead of a sovereign at their head, instead of chains or fear they had purpose, and it was enough to set them against the endless hunger waiting quietly beneath every demon kingdom’ corpse and oldest whispered hungry secret for an eternity of silent observation.