Duskbound-Chapter 43Book 2,

“Black rot and damnation,” Nelspir swore. “How deep do you think this contamination goes?”

“You’d have a better idea than me,” Torwin told him. “You’ve been working with these people for years. How many of them have changed from how you remember them?”

“People change, Torwin! We get old. Our priorities shift.”

The new gold, Velik, dragged Orlesia to her feet and shoved him at Nelspir. “It’s pointless to argue about this when there’s an easy way to show you the truth. Cook the monster.”

“What about the host?” Torwin cut in before they could do whatever ‘cooking the monster’ was. “We don’t know if it’s safe for them.”

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“Have a healing potion ready then,” Velik said. “If this one is anything like the one that tried to get in Sildra, it’ll try to run.”

“What… what are you going to do?” Nelspir asked as he held his personal assistant steady. She was looking at him, fear in her eyes and still whimpering through her gag. He didn’t want to believe that she’d betrayed him, but part of him couldn’t help but recall her grabbing his arm. It had merely seemed strange at the time, but now that he looked back on it, he recognized the action for what it was.

Nelspir was no stranger to tactics. Orlesia had one side of him, with a grip on his arm to prevent him from running when Reldin and Talimar approached. Talimar had moved to the other side, and Nelspir had a suspicion that if he’d refused to go along willingly, they’d have dragged him instead. It would probably have been loud when he fought back, but maybe they had something prepared for that.

And if he was right about all of that, it meant that regardless of Torwin and Aria’s wild story, Orlesia had aligned herself with Pevril’s faction. Firming his resolve, he helped hold his assistant upright. She tried to turn herself away from the strange girl who’d accompanied the hunter trio into the house, but Velik reached out and forced her to turn back.

“You going to be able to get out with that gag in place?” he asked seriously.

The hell kind of question is that?

But Orlesia just glared at him hatefully, an expression Nelspir had never seen on her face before. Velik didn’t appear bothered by it. He exchanged a shrug with Torwin, then produced a wicked-looking knife from his belt and said, “I’ll cut it off if we need to. Don’t let go when she starts thrashing. This is going to be painful.”

Pale silver light welled up from Orlesia and she started screaming into her gag again. Seconds ticked by with no change. “This is torture,” Nelspir gasped out finally as he struggled to hold Orlesia upright. “Just stop. You’re wrong about her.”

“We’re not,” the unknown girl said. “Morgus himself showed me the truth.”

And then suddenly, unexpectedly, Velik was there with his knife, slicing through the gag. Nelspir distractedly noticed he did it without so much as scratching Orlesia’s skin, but his attention was mostly taken up by the thick red vomit spewing from her mouth. It arched through the air like a living creature, flying for the shattered window, only to be intercepted by Aria. She produced a leather sack out of her mother’s pendant and caught the vomit in it.

“Gotcha, you little bastard,” she crowed in triumph.

Orlesia slumped down, unconscious and with blood dribbling down her face. Nelspir held her upright and Torwin tipped a potion into her mouth, one of the powerful system-bought ones. At least they’re not sparing any expense after what they did to her. Small mercy, that.

“That’s the monster that’s possessing people,” Torwin explained. “The last one we found was an elite agent of corruption. This one looks similar, though a bit smaller. It probably isn’t as powerful, but we’re going to kill it. You need to help, Bertrim. You need to see the notification.”

A spear unraveled from Velik’s arm and shifted into a more traditional form. He glanced over at Nelspir, then handed him the weapon. “Here,” was all he said before stepping away.

Strength suddenly flooded Nelspir’s limbs, so much that he took a moment to look at his status. 15 physical and 5 mystic on this thing? And it’s so heavily enchanted that it’s making my hand tingle. Where did that kid get such a powerful weapon?

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Then he was back in the moment. Nelspir was retired now, but he’d been an excellent front-liner back in his day, trained in all sorts of weapons. Muscle memory took over, and, still holding Orlesia upright in one hand, he spun the spear deftly to bring its point down. He stabbed it into the bag, once, twice, and a third time, and then pale silver light erupted through the holes.

[You have helped slay an agent of corruption (level 22).]

“Oh, Gods. It’s true. Orlesia, you were under a monster’s control?”

She still wasn’t fully awake, but the healing potion seemed to be doing some sort of work. “Boss?” she croaked. “Where…”

“Don’t push yourself,” Nelspir interrupted. “Just rest. We’ll talk later.”

He handed his assistant off to Aria, who pulled her over to a chair and sat her down. Nelspir spared her a single glance, then his face hardened, and he looked down at the other two monsters hiding in human bodies. “What about them?” he asked.

“We’ll do the same,” Torwin said.

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“These fuckers invaded my home. They’re trying to take my guild from me. We need more people on our side, and they need to see the proof. Leave the monsters in there for now. A live demonstration will do more to convince everyone we need to talk into joining us than words ever could.”

Nelspir had to remind himself that Talimar and Reldin weren’t the enemies. The monsters living inside their bodies were. He wasn’t angry at those two men. They were the victims. The things they’d done over the past few years, trapped in their own bodies and helpless to control their actions, were not their fault. As sorry as he was to keep them waiting for even another minute, he needed them to serve as proof.

“Let’s go,” he said, gesturing to his three golds. “We’ve got a long night of work ahead of us if we’re going to purge this corruption from our ranks, and the more time we waste, the longer our people suffer.”

He started to stride off, only to come up short when Velik reached out to grab the spear Nelspir was holding. “I’d like this back.”

“Oh,” Nelspir said, blinking. “Right, sorry. I got caught up in things.”

Feeling a bit sheepish now, he took a moment to slow down and think. It wasn’t as simple as striding out the door and waging war on his enemies. He needed a way to transport two unconscious bodies across town, and to make sure they stayed unconscious the whole time. That was easily solved with one of Aria’s portals, though. He also needed someone to take care of Orlesia while she recovered, someone he could trust.

But he wasn’t a guild master for nothing. Logistics was a field of study he was well-acquainted with. “Here’s what I need,” he began. His gold hunters watched in silence as Nelspir laid out his plan.

* * *

It was far more complicated than Velik felt was necessary, but he was more than willing to admit that planning wasn’t his strong suite. If it had been him, they would have just scouted out people one at a time, killed the monsters where they found them, and called it quits once they ran out of targets. Torwin and Aria were the ones who were convinced that would just send the rest into hiding when they realized what was happening.

To be fair, they were probably right. But after months and months of tedium, he needed to do something. Hunting down Gorlath had been a good start, and it had led directly to them discovering this whole plot to take over the Monster Hunters Guild. That was just proof that direct action meant good things.

No. Don’t talk yourself into doing something stupid just because you’re not out in the deep wood anymore. You’re smarter than this—smart enough to know better than to ruin a good plan just because you’re impatient.

At least the plan didn’t require Velik to do anything more than be there. Truthfully, they didn’t even need him. They needed Sildra. She was their monster detector and the only one with a skill that could attack the monster directly while it was inside the host. Velik was only going along because Sildra wanted him there. She’d said it was intimidating meeting so many powerful people so quickly, which was ridiculous, but if it helped get them closer to killing the source of the corruption, he was willing to indulge her.

After the second showing, they had another eight senior guild members on their side. He recognized one of them as one of the instructors he’d been more favorably disposed to, if only because the guy was fair and impartial. An honest shake was all Velik had wanted to begin with, so he’d preferred it that way.

Now they were all gathered in the mansion Giller had commandeered as their base of operations and scheming on who they thought were likely targets and how best to get to them, a job better left to them. The only thing he cared about was finding out if Pevil was a monster, too, or if the man was just a massive asshole.

Sadly, the general consensus seemed to be that not only was he likely a monster, he was at the very least high up in their hierarchy. He might even be the monster in charge. It was going to be hard not to hate the man after they saved him, but Velik would survive. Of course, if it turned out he actually wasn’t a monster, Velik was fully planning on punching him in the face.

Smiling to himself, he found a chair in an out-of-the-way room and sat down to relax. The others could plot and scheme. He was happy to just ride along until the end.