“I saw you all walk in here like you matter.Like you’re special.What, because the Guild is willing to suck your cocks, you think that means anything?”
“The Guild sucks cocks now?I must have missed that because I’m pretty sure no one’s done that for me yet.”I walked forward, closing the distance, Ingram remaining slightly behind me.I could take far more damage, after all, so it made sense to keep the asshole’s focus on me.“So who are you?”
“Daniel,” the man said, though he twitched at the name, as though it hurt.Then again, the exact connection between the person someone was before they corrupted and after was hardly studied or understood.Even if they were the same person, the cracks that occurred in their psyche ran so deep that their old self was all but gone.Whoever they had been disappeared beneath the anger and hunger and madness of the corruption.
Which was exactly why guides mattered so much, to keep us from turning intothat.
I didn’t recognize his name, but why would I?Unless I’d dealt with him personally, I tended to avoid espers—or anything that might complicate my life.Still, they didn’t usually have espers walking around who might go corrupt like this, were careful to keep an eye on levels of those using their powers.
It meant this sort of thing—an esper corrupting out of the blue, in public—tended to only happen with espers who had hidden what they really were.I had to guess that meant him, that he’d wanted to use those skills for whatever the fuck he wanted without the complication of the Guild, or their oversight.
That didn’t tend to go so well for people, a point he proved pretty damn well.
“How old are you?”I asked, trying to keep him distracted and off guard.If he had to think about those answers, if he had to focus on his disjointed memories, we stood a much better chance.
I was pretty sure we could take him on, but I would prefer no one get hurt—including us.
“Twenty-five,” the man said, again jerking as though the answers didn’t come easily.
“So what are you doing here, huh?What are you hoping out of this?”
He went still, a sign that didn’t bode well.When anything stopped moving, it was a threat, a preparation.“I want you to pay foreverythingthe Guild takes from us.”
The last word left his lips as he came forward, faster than the items he’d thrown, and slammed into mefarharder.Judging an opponent was one of the most important things I could do, to determine how powerful, to figure out the best way to counter, and it took only one strike from this corrupted to know one thing for sure.
We were in a lot of fucking trouble…
Chapter Forty-Eight
Shear
The overwhelming anger struck me before I stepped into the dining room, before I knew what had happened.It was how I lived my life, how I moved through the world.I saw things, sure, but I felt them more.That was how I experienced everything, through the minds and feelings of others.
So when I moved past those running away, through the lobby, when the chaos appeared in the dining space, I was already prepared for something bad.Few things got Carter’s mind moving this fast, and Ingram didn’t seem much calmer.
Worse, there was something else in that room, something dark and swimming with corruption, like a void threatening to pull me below if I ventured too close.I knew the cause without seeing the corrupted, since few things could create an energy pattern like this.
And one look at the room gave me a pretty good idea of the danger.
Carter had blood leaking down his face, and he hardly had the time to spit before reengaging with the corrupted.Ingram drifted in and out of shadows, but neither man could gain an upper hand on the corrupted.
He had to be an S-Rank, and a powerful one at that.Carter and Ingram together could easily take on about anything.It meant that their struggle went to show just how much of a problem this corrupted was.
Worse, there wasn’t much I could do.My powers were useless against corrupted espers.Their minds were too twisted, and trying to interact would only draw me in, burying me beneath their madness.It meant I stayed close, but without physical prowess, I couldn’t exactly jump in.
When the corrupted struck Carter hard enough to send him across the room, throwing his body against a table, I cursed my lack of other skills.One hit like that to me and it was possible I wouldn’t get up.
“This is not good.”Kenyon’s voice from beside me went to show how focused on the fight I’d been—I hadn’t even noticed him arriving.Usually his idiotic thoughts always annoyed me.
Right then, Ingram caught his fingers around the man’s throat from behind.I’d watched Ingram end enough people through that little move, watching him strip the life from them, but that didn’t happen this time.Just when I thought it was over, a blast of power sent Ingram sailing backward, flung as though he weighed nothing, as though his attempt had meant nothing.
Which went to showexactlyhow bad this was.
The man turned his attention toward Kenyon and me, stalking forward.
Well, it had been a pretty good life.
I paused, nearly releasing a rough laugh.
