Lord Wynn’s armored SUV slowed to a stop at the designated checkpoint in front of the massive gatehouse.
The thick stone walls encircling the king’s sprawling estate were plated with a layer of iron.
Armed men and women stood on watch atop the 40-foot-high wall. Most wore collars.
The gate guards inspecting the vehicles waiting to enter didn’t have collars.
Cal felt the tingle of Skills, spells and mundane devices scanning the SUV and its occupants for threats.
It was a small matter to reach into the guards’ minds and enforce the thought that the droids they were looking for were definitely not inside.
They were quickly waved through.
A second search at a second gatehouse followed a few hundred yards later.
This wall was shorter than the outer one.
Built first, he knew from a cursory scan at the thousands of minds in his vicinity.
No threats.
No droids.
The guards waved them through.
A shorter drive brought them up to the entrance of the king’s castle.
It was more of a mansion. Just like many of the others in this once rich section of the city.
Multiple additions had been made to increase the place’s sprawl.
A touch on thoughts revealed that the additional structures had also been built down into the ground.
Must’ve been difficult with the type of land, he thought.
He tried to poke into these sub-levels but couldn’t see anything with his mind’s eye through the glaring orb of power radiating energy like a small star from one of the buildings.
At least he knew where to start his search for the slavery system’s central control unit.
“Wait for me. I’m an old man and I can’t stay up too late anymore,” he said to the driver and the bodyguard.
“Yes, Lord Wynn,” they echoed.
“Feel free to eat… no drinks.”
“Of course, sir,” the driver said.
An attendant opened the door.
Cal stepped out and walked up the broad steps.
To all eyes, he was the old, doughy Lord Don Wynn.
Wispy tufts of white hair on his mostly bald, liver-spotted head.
Multiple chins.
A slouched, unsteady walk.
“Don’t announce me,” he said to the doorman.
“As you wish, Lord Wynn.”
The doors opened for him to reveal an enormous space.
The entry way was the size of his first one bedroom apartment back in college.
Finely-dressed men and women mingled beyond in a living room that rivaled a deluxe-sized theater.
The far wall was a screen playing highlights of Freedom Championship events.
Scantily clad waiters and waitresses traversed the space.
Those identical smiles never left their faces as they served hors d'oeuvres and drinks while enduring grabby hands from so-called noblemen and noblewomen.
He carefully searched for the Slaver King finding him in another room sharing whisky and cigars with the slaver kingdoms most powerful noblemen.
From their demeanor, what the Slasher had done this remained unknown.
Two of those noblemen would be truly at each other’s throats by Christmas morning.
He briskly made his way through the throng of filth.
Only stopping to have quick words with those that Lord Wynn would be expected to acknowledge.
“Merry Christmas!”
“You’ve been buying up all the girls, you horny old dog! How about you leave some for me? I’ve been getting bored of my current stable.”
“I was surprised to learn that you sponsored the Heartfuries. I tried to get the Furies, but they turned me down. They turned everyone down, so it’s not me.”
“You haven’t thrown a party in awhile! You’ve got to do it soon. The last one was back in September. Still got that girl with the dazzling smile? I might have to buy her from you.”
“Lord Wynn, have you reconsidered my daughter. A man like you has to consider a proper succession. Otherwise the jackals are just going to tear everything you’ve built apart.”
“As long as I get that girl!”
Disgust roiled within him as he was forced to smile and pretend that he didn’t want to wipe the whole place out.
It had been a difficult time copying and maintaining the odious man’s mind pattern for the last several months. A necessity required by the need to take possession of the man’s slave control rod without triggering the security measures and harming the enslaved.
Lord Don Wynn made his way through the crowd and became someone to ignore as he stepped into the expansive backyard.
He pushed the sights and sounds of what was going on in the pool’s isolated grotto, in the many hidden alcoves and dead ends of the hedge maze to the recess of his mind.
He walked briskly to a large, square building down the path from the other end of the maze.
The building was an ugly, squat thing of unpainted concrete.
Heavily guarded by stationary sentries and roving patrols.
None of them noticed Cal walk right up to the door and open it with a thought.
Inside, cameras suddenly shifted their focus to empty space.
Alarms, mundane or magical, failed to trigger.
Men and women watching from the central security room noted the strange, sudden camera movements on the bank of screens, but just as quickly forgot about them.
Cal was surprised to find what he was looking for almost immediately.
The central control unit was housed inside a room in the very center of the ground floor.
It resembled the device he had found at the various locations the slaver King kept enslaved people in comas, except much larger.
The glowing orb of… energy nestled in the gleaming metal housing was too large to encompass with his hands. He estimated that it’d take at least five people linking hands to embrace it around the circumference.
Glowing lines and script wove together into complicated patterns on the metal surface.
A marriage of technology and the arcane put to use to enslave thousands.
What a waste.
He took everything in with his eyes then switched to other senses to see deeper into the ugly, white light emanating from the orb.
The light became more distinct.
He could count thousand of thin strands flowing up and out through the small opening in the high, domed ceiling.
Connections.
A bastardized version of the threads of fate.
All of the threads looked the same to him. Felt the same.
Threads to the collars.
Threads to the control rods.
A thread to the slaver king.
He couldn’t find a distinction.
All functionally the same?
Well… it was good news.
The Archwizard had made the magical device with a hypothesis that the collars and control units functioned in this way.
Touch the device to the central control unit and sever all links.
He couldn’t do it at the moment. Not without the crystals.
She had warned that she couldn’t account for any interactions involving powerful Skills, which the Slaver King undoubtedly possessed.
There was a possibility for any number of last ditch, break through your limits bullshit that could ruin all their plans.
Sever the threads?
The king might still be able to pull off one last spiteful act to burn them all rather than see them go free.
Such was a slaver’s mind.
Cal searched for any sort of data he could find in the building.
Nothing.
What he did find was something disturbing.
Unsurprising from a nation of slavers.
He headed for the stairs.
Downward.
Through a long tunnel and into one of the sections he had noted on the drive up.
It was a prison.
A dungeon.
Fitting for a king’s castle.
Most of the prisoners had angered the king in some way, yet he had decided that imprisonment was a more fitting punishment than enslavement or participation in a feeder match.
A few of the prisoners were different.
He recognized some of them by their thoughts.
Those he would pick up on his way out.
But first, he went to a young woman imprisoned in a clear enclosure inside a large chamber behind a thick iron door and armed guards.
It was a strange sight.
It looked like a TV show set.
A nice-looking two bedroom apartment with a small home gym.
He completed a circuit around it and saw that the woman had no real privacy.
Every room’s outer wall had been replaced by the thick glass.
His thoughts darkened.
She was being treated like a zoo animal.
He went back to the living room where the woman was seated on the couch watching TV.
Dropping his psychic concealment he waved.
The woman blinked.
Stared at him for a few seconds before removing her blanket and rising with a groan.
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She was pregnant.
He hadn’t noticed because of the blanket.
He didn’t like where this was going.
“You’re not one of my jailers,” the woman said as she approached.
He touched the surface of the woman’s thoughts.
“Do you want out?”
She arced a brow. “Is the sky blue? I mean, is it still blue, I’ve been down here for almost four years.”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be blue?”
“Four years is a long time for a god demon to not turn it red.”
“Right… um… so, out?”
“Yeah… but,” her shoulders slumped, “I’ll just get captured again and I don’t think I can go through another round of punishment. Besides, unless you can cut out the GPS tracker…” she held up her arm.
“I can,” he scanned her body, “also need to take the ones in your thigh and back out… and there’s a small explosive in the back of your neck, Suicide Squad-style.”
She almost laughed. “You’re not joking… those bastards. I guess that’s it for my escape,” she sighed.
“I can disable them right now. The explosive will take a little longer, but I can do it on the move.”
“Never mind. I don’t have the time. Guards are probably on their way to kick your ass,” she looked to the thick iron door at the far end of the chamber. Eyes narrowed. “How—”
“Guards are not a concern.”
Her eyes widened and fell. “Even if you got me out of here, he’ll find me.”
“The king? I can keep you hidden even from him.”
“I’m not willing to bet more torture on a rando’s word. He made me swear to him. I did it cause it doesn’t matter, right? Well, I was wrong. First time I escaped, he tracked me down within ten minutes even with how fast I can glide across the ground. He’s got a Skill. Locate Subject or something like that.”
It was Cal’s turn to have wide eyes.
Good thing he was copying Lord Wynn’s thought patterns.
Although, that would’ve meant that Lord Wynn had been in two separate locations multiple times over the last several months. Just like tonight.
Lord Wynn was at his home and at the king’s castle, now standing in a place he definitely didn’t belong.
The young woman nodded. “I don’t even know if you’re for real or this is a sick game, but thanks if you are. My name’s ‘Lyta’ and I think I have to stay. Unless… say… someone kills the king…”
“I can only say that is a possibility. Why are you here, Lyta?”
“Breeding,” her face twisted, “I’m just like a dog to them. Just because I got lucky with superpowers. They want to breed superpowered people. I’ve already given…” her eyes fell.
“You don’t have to finish that thought, I can guess.”
“They say that they’ll let me go as long as I swear complete allegiance and shit. Some bullshit about a New American Republic, like the old one was any good. Five kids or ten years, whatever comes first.”
“And you believe them?”
“Fuck no!” she spat. “They already tried to collar me. Didn’t work cause I don’t have a class. I’m just hoping that once they have their kids I can pretend to go along with their sick shit and take off first good chance I get.”
“Are you sure you don’t want out right now?”
“Kill the king first.”
“Okay.”
“Seriously, just like that.”
“Yup… not right now…”
Her eyes fell. “Get my hopes up…”
“But soon, Lyta, you’ll be free, I promise. And I’m sorry but you’ll forget this entire conversation until the next time I see you. I can’t risk alerting them to my presence here.”
“Hey, listen, don’t worry, fuck them. I’m not telling them shit—” she blinked. “Huh?”
Why was she standing at the glass?
Hadn’t she just been sitting on the couch?
Cal walked past the guards as the thick, iron door shut in his wake.
They paid no attention to him or the heavy click of the door’s locking mechanism.
He ascended to the first level having gone straight down to the bottom floor first.
The guards noticed nothing.
He turned the cameras away from his passage.
He stopped at a traditional cell.
Iron bars, concrete floor several rows of purposefully uncomfortable bunk beds. Toilets and sinks stood against the back wall.
He counted nine people.
Much less than what the Magus of the Ten Eyes had brought with her from the other side of the Atlantic.
Now, he understood why the magus was participating in the tournament.
He cleared his throat.
A young man, well, not so young anymore.
The passage of time and rough treatment had aged Waleed.
The once fresh-faced healer looked rough.
Waleed’s eyes widened and he shot out of his couch to reach through the bars.
Cal grasped his arm.
“You! You’re real! I mean, you’re here! Standing in front of me!” Waleed shouted before sucking in a lungful of air as his eyes darted down both sides of the hallway.
“They can’t hear any of this, so don’t worry. I’m going to get you out of here. All of you…” he lowered his voice, “… is this everyone? Are the others being held in a different cell?”
Waleed’s eyes watered as he shook his head. “They attacked us in your Carolinas. The slaves… they knew no fear and the Magus… it hurt her to kill them when they knew not what they did. By the end we were all that remained and the Magus surrendered rather than see us all die. Now she is their slave in all but name, just so that we didn’t get the collars.”
“I’m sorry, Waleed. I had no idea,” he didn’t ask about their missing fingers. “The last time I messaged her was earlier this year when she sent the latest batch for testing. I wasn’t expecting any contact for awhile.”
“It isn’t your fault. It’s the vile slavers, but you’re here now. To take vengeance!”
“Yeah… pretty much. The collars are a complication, which gets closer to being solved every day,” he regarded the hopeful looks in the men and women’s eyes, “okay, I’m getting you out of here, but you’re going to have to trust me.”
“Anything!” Waleed nodded.
“We’re going to walk out of here. All you need to do is avoid bumping into any of the guards.”
They nodded.
He scanned the other cells.
The occupants didn’t merit his help.
Although… he eyed one man.
The man was short and muscular, perhaps an inch or two shorter than Cal. The light brown skin of his bare torso was covered by coarse black hair. The hair on his head hung long and lank over his face as he sat with his back to the wall and head down. Until he looked up and sniffed the air.
Cal scanned the surface of the man’s thoughts.
Violence.
Violence under a thin veneer of a pseudo-code.
Hurt those that try to hurt me.
The man was strong, slightly into the superhuman territory. He was tough with a high tolerance for pain, which came in handy with how he fought.
The man healed quickly which meant that he threw himself into fights without regard for defense only stopping when his enemy was dead.
The man had superior senses, stronger than an animal’s.
Ah…
A feral-type.
Eron had installed one such woman as one of the protectors of Davao in the Southern Philippines.
Cal had never interacted with the woman or her team, but he hadn’t heard anything bad about them in the intervening years.
However, just because one feral-type worked out didn’t mean that all of them would.
The man was an unpredictable variable at best.
At worst?
He could blow everything up by going on a rampage in the party above them.
Cal opened the cell door with a thought, ushering Waleed and the others out. “Follow me, don’t talk, try not to touch anyone.”
The journey out of the prisoner was more nerve-wracking for them than it was for him.
He took them topside and then flew them up into the sky all while keeping anyone else from noticing.
He dropped them off at Lord Wynn’s mansion with a quick explanation for the Furies, Fin and Bitterman before heading back to the king’s castle to complete his charade.
Lord Don Wynn, due to his age and terrible physical shape, had to depart earlier than expected, which was a disappointment for the Slaver King because he had wanted to chat about a few things.
----------------------------------------
Cambion pointed at the round pit dug into the front lawn of his mansion.
“You all know what this is.”
The pit was about the size of an old mixed martial arts cage.
“This represents rebirth.”
It was deep enough that one had to jump to reach the top edge.
“Your rebirth… from weak nothing into wrath made flesh.”
The small group of young men and boys stood with bare torsos to the cold night air.
Scars adorned their bodies.
Some old, some new.
“Today is a special day,” Cambion intoned. “For the winners… a present to celebrate the birth of a weak god. A reminder of what we strive to become more than. For the losers… a few days with one of my fellow inner council members. Perhaps, Elder Shax? Or Elder Gremory? Or any of the others willing to house the wretched wastes. Survive them and you may gain one last chance to prove yourself to me. To be worthy of my wrath.”
“You… and you…” he gestured.
The two boys jumped into the pit and circled each other.
“Begin.”
They roared at each other and collided with the thud of flesh and hard muscle.
Cambion felt the rage flowing through and from them, but rage wasn’t enough.
He wanted their wrath.
And so, he carefully pushed a little bit of his own into each boy.
He saw their spirits flare red and angry.
They punched, kicked and gouged without regard for Skills or skills.
It was a clash between two animals, all human reason driven from their minds by the Wrath Mage’s magic.
And how sweet was the harvest.
Cambion took a deep breath savoring the energy flowing up from the pit.
He took it in, harnessed it, converted into his own and made himself a little bit more powerful.
A thimbleful didn’t sound like much, but it added up over time.
He spent less than he gained through this method, which was why he employed it.
The second benefit was the addition of wrath-capable fighters to his personal force.
Only a handful to date, but he had only started a few months ago and growth took time.
The two boys hadn’t advanced to the point that they could generate the wrath on their own.
They only had rage, which was dangerous in its own right, if a lesser power.
One boy sunk his teeth into the other’s neck.
Death was wasteful.
Cambion drained the two boys of their rage with a gesture.
The boys slumped against each other, punching and grabbing feebly.
He signaled for Chance to pull the boys out of the pit.
They staggered to him.
He gazed down at the loser. “Elder Gremory for you.”
The boy simply stared ahead with dead eyes.
“And you,” he raised the other boy’s arm, “the winner! Your prize is healing so that you can get back into the pool.” He sought his next pair and found them. “You…” he pointed to a young man, muscular thick-necked, “and… you,” he pointed to a scrawny boy.
A mismatch on the surface if you simply went by their physical shape.
However, the boy had recently returned from time with Zepar and Cambion wanted to see if that elder’s attentions had broken the boy or lit the potential fires of wrath in his belly.
If Cambion looked closely, he could almost see a faint, flickering flame.
----------------------------------------
Christmas Morning.
Jackson Stephens walked with a purpose through the crowd gathered on the street in front of a lord’s mansion.
“I don’t have that information yet, my lord,” he fended off a self-important lord, “the army will be here soon to make sure nothing like this happens again. Please, direct questions about your protection to the commander when he arrives,” he slid around a hysterical lady.
Several questions and demands later he finally reached the yellow caution tape tied around traffic cones to create a wide perimeter around the mansion’s front gate.
Slave officers stood as still as statues facing the crowd.
Each smiled that same empty smile.
He stepped over the tape and directed his own slave officers to follow.
“Bout time you get here, Captain Stephens.”
“Sir, I came as soon as possible. I was opening presents with my wife and kids,” he saluted.
His boss spat. “Now that you’re here you can take over so I can get back to opening presents with my family.”
“What are we looking at?”
“A dead lord and a mansion full of dead V.I.P.s… a lot of nobles aren’t going to be happy once they find out,” he gestured to the Lamborghini, “Lord Jeb Stuart…”
Jackson kept his distance.
“Who called it in?”
“A Creamland slavemaster, she was coming to pick up a few of her girls. Lord Stuart here hired them for his Christmas Eve orgy,” his boss said.
The stench of decay mixed with piss and shit lingered heavily in the air.
“I’ve heard about those.”
“Everyone has,” his boss snorted.
The lord had a dagger planted in his eye. A torn piece of cloth was tied around the grip making it look like a little flag. His remaining eye was wide open, just like his mouth. This was a man that died in terror.
“Stuart? As in—”
“Youngest son,” his boss whistled. “Notice the little flag?”
Jackson was forced to move in for a closer look. He pulled his small pocket knife out and used it to reveal the logo obscured by the folds.
“This looks like—”
“Lord Lee’s crest…”
“That doesn’t make sense?”
“Yeah, found more of them scattered around the house. A lot of dead hands were holding something similar.”
“It’s too obvious, sir,” he pointed at the dagger flag, “whoever did this left it like this for us to find.”
“I ain’t stupid, Stephens. Did you think that didn’t occur to me? There’s an orgy of evidence in that orgy and you don’t get an orgy of evidence unless it’s on purpose.”
“We can’t handle this,” Jackson said. “We don’t have any detectives. We’ve never had to investigate anything like this.”
“Here’s what I want you to do,” Jackson’s boss said. “Have some of your essential officers take over for mine out front. Have the rest secure the mansion’s perimeter. I don’t want anyone thinking they can sneak in for a look. Keep the scene clean. I already called the king’s office and they’ve got one of their investigators or detectives coming.”
Jackson repeated the orders to his slaves.
The control rod in his pocket warmed slightly.
“What about the essential employees inside?”
“Mostly, fine. They defaulted to whatever their masters set as an idle… which is what’s bothering me.”
“Then they’ve already contaminated the scene?”
“Can’t be helped,” his boss shrugged, “I took over as emergency master and sent them all to their quarters. I figure the king’s people will come collect them before sending them to next of kin.”
“What do I report to them?”
“Nothing, just do what he says and don’t make us guardians look bad. Consider yourself lucky that you won’t have to go in there,” his boss gestured toward the mansion. It’s all cut up bodies, blood, piss and shit all over the place… even on the walls and ceilings. Just what I wanted to have stuck in my head for Christmas,” he grimaced. “Keep up the good work, Captain Stephens, send me your report when you’ve got time. With luck the king’s man won’t keep you around too long, so you can get back to your wife and kids,” his boss patted him on the back, “I’m going back to my family. Had to postpone opening presents for this bullshit…” he muttered as he headed out the front gate.