Nick Vandran - Lord of Monsters

Keaton drew in a breath, his eyes closing. He had been very good. One of the best, operating in the shadows without anyone ever knowing his true identity. It’d been easy money, granting him clout with certain organizations and a clear path to progress in life.

At the expense of others.

Years ago, he’d weighed out the cost and decided it wasn’t worth it. He’d gone back to a life spent scrimping and scraping just to get by, inspired in part by his love for Elena.

And what did it get you? Your morals are about to leave you swinging at the end of a hangman’s noose.

“Your kind are notorious for finding the loopholes in any arrangement and exploiting them. How do I know you won’t just send someone after me once I do what you want? How do I even know you have the power to help me now ?”

“If my kind exploit loopholes it is only because your kind are terrible at making verbal contracts.” She flashed him a grin, her mouth full of small, pointy teeth. Keaton shuddered again. “As to the last question…”

She disappeared from his view, suddenly reappearing in the hall. When she spoke again, her voice was meek; the perfect approximation of a serving girl.

“Guardsman Donnelly?” she called in a simpering tone. “I… I was hoping we could speak.”

Keaton’s eyes widened as the sound of footsteps grew closer. To know that man by name and to draw him over had to mean something significant, a fact he only confirmed soon after.

“Ana? What are you doing down here? It’ll be taken out of my hide if someone catches y—”

His words were cut off in a wet “hrk” sound, everything happening in the blink of an eye. The daemon had suddenly reappeared behind his bars, grabbed the guard as he walked past, pulled him against the cell door, and began choking him with an iron grip.

What is happening ?!

The world was spinning around him, threatening to spin right out of control, but Keaton hadn’t made it this far in life without knowing how to seize opportunities as they came his way. While she kept the man in a choke hold, Keaton looked for the telltale flash of metal. A ring of keys danged from his belt and he lunged for it—

Just as another guard came upon them.

“Hey! You sack of shit; I’ll end you right now.”

The guard who’d been held against the bars fell to the ground in a coughing heap, clutching at his throat. The daemon was nowhere to be found, leaving Keaton alone with a guard who had drawn a long, curved dagger from his belt. The man moved to wrench the cell open, murder in his eyes.

“Time to make a choice, darling,” the daemon said, her voice suddenly at his ear, sweeping around him. “Die here like a worthless wretch, or do one, simple job for me and become more powerful than you’ve ever imagined.”

Even discounting that last bit — an offer she hadn’t even mentioned before now — Keaton knew he had no choice. That was the way of daemons. No matter how aware you are, by their very nature they found a way to reach you at your worst and either trick you into complying or leave you no other choice but to comply.

In the end, she’d chosen to force his hand.

And Keaton complied.

“I’ll do it,” he growled, a pulse of self-hatred seeming to infect his very soul.

He scrambled backward to avoid the lunging guard, his back pressed against the cold stone wall. Keaton had the brief thought that she might just have been fucking with him for her own amusement, but just as the dagger threatened to slice open an artery, the guard disappeared.

And so did everything else, as Keaton lost track of his conscious surroundings.

When Keaton became aware of his own existence again — of his body taking up space on the physical plane, his breathing quiet but rushed, his heart still pounding — a sudden fear struck him.

He couldn’t see. There was only darkness around him, with nothing to distinguish it from anywhere else. Thrusting a hand out into it, he connected with a hard wall, ice flooding his veins. Had she taken his sight from him? Was this another cruel way to twist the knife and watch him squirm?

But no. As time passed and his senses caught up to his new location — his stomach still protesting what had obviously been some kind of teleportation — he realized he could see, the light was just practically non-existent. The slightest, distant glow turned black to gray, making him aware of the fact that he was in a passage, surrounded on either side by thick, solid walls, a low ceiling above him. The smell of earth and distant water made him realize he was underground, and his mind began to fill in other details. Lichen growing on the cave wall, the grooves from centuries of erosion, the slightest glint of some precious mineral that hadn’t been extracted yet.

And the sound of someone coming.

Clumsy, pattering footsteps on natural flooring. Two figures, one of them skinny, one much larger. As they grew closer, the stench that filled the cave was nearly unbearable, the scent of rotten meat, stale piss, and rancid ale a potent cocktail that nearly made him retch.

Goblins.

As a lifelong city dweller, he thankfully hadn’t had many run-ins with goblins, but one trip out into the woods with his friends had been enough to tell him that was a good thing. They’d been forced to flee from the sheer numbers alone, and to this day Keaton remembered that awful smell — so terrible and so thick he could taste it.

He remembered thinking at the time that it seemed impossible there should be so many goblins. What kind of creature could ever stand to be close to that long enough for the cycle of reproduction to happen?

It was a thought he didn’t linger on, now or then. They were coming close, reaching a junction in the cave’s pathways. Keaton moved in the other direction, his eyes having adjusted enough that he was able to find a chamber that had been carved out of the passageway. He ducked inside, pressing flat against the wall as the two passed.

“He puny for dungeon lord,” one of them said in a high, scratchy voice.

The other’s was deeper, booming against the cave walls. “Humans know magic. Idiot. Don’t need to be strong.”

Dissent in the ranks? Maybe just the dumb ones, because the other had a point. He who had the magic had control of basically everything. It might not have been as powerful as currency itself, but it was a surefire way to get currency, and usually by force. Keaton had always envied those with any sort of magical ability — he’d never been able to pick it up, and so even when he was at his best, he’d been less than some of the other assassins.

If the guy they were talking about was his target, he needed to be careful. Most spells had either a verbal component, or one that required signing certain symbols into the air. If he could figure out which, he could make a plan of attack, and—

Gods, it was eerie just how quickly he fell back into the pattern of killing. It made his skin crawl, and again Keaton felt the prickle of gooseflesh ripple across his arms. A signal he was beginning to associate with the daemon.

If she was around, she didn’t make herself known. Keaton just continued to feel on edge, making the most of his restless energy by searching the chamber he’d found himself in. It seemed like nothing had been done with it yet, aside from turning it into some sort of storage room. There were crates and sacks piled in one corner, with a single chest tilted against a rock.

Silently, Keaton made his way to that chest and lifted the lid, wincing when it creaked. He held his breath and listened, but no one came, giving him the chance to look down at the bounty he’d uncovered.