I pulled a small golden marble from the pouch at my belt. It thrummed with a soft but potent power. The True Form Transformation Token. I knew exactly what kind of monster Annelli was—it was time she found out what kind of monster I was.

“You fucked around,” I said, clasping the marble in my fist. “Now you’re gonna find out.” I squeezed down and consumed the token. A wild, chaotic blast of energy surged through me, racing along every inch of skin, every fiber of muscle.

My limbs lengthened and bulged, bones snapping and cracking as they morphed. My armor and weapons transformed with me, melting into my body, turning my skin into obsidian stone. Claws erupted from my fingers and talons burst from my toes while my mouth elongating into a muzzle filled with vicious cutting fangs.

I expected the process to hurt, and it did, but this pain was different somehow. It was exquisite. Pain that was pleasure. Pain that made me more. That refined me. Pain that released me from the shackles of humanity and changed me, in a flash, into something I had known without knowing. I stood on powerful legs and glanced into the fogged glass of the nearby Inn, catching a glimpse of my reflection for the first time.

I was death incarnate. Eight feet of powerful muscle, covered in rocky black obsidian hide. Fissures of yellow and orange light zigzagged across my forearms and legs, bleeding terrible heat like rivers of magma. Running along my spine was a mane made from golden flames. My claws glowed like hot coals and a plume of smoke rose from my body. I looked like a werewolf, if a werewolf was dragged straight from the pits of hell. I grinned, lips pulling back from coal-red fangs.

I was an actual Devil Dog.

I was Boyd Knight in name only. In his place was hunger. Death. Destruction. I was the purifying fires of justice wrapped in the body of a Vigilant Wolf. My eyes blazed, hot embers of reckoning, and the flames radiating from my body crackled and hissed, willing the Hexblight to reach over and try me on for size.

Driven by instinct and pure rage, I launched myself across the courtyard, powerful legs tearing up the distance in the blink of an eye. I went for Annelli’s neck, teeth bared and blood in my mouth even before I’d taken a single bite. The Hexblight brought up an oversized forearm to protect its vitals and I latched on like a pitbull. The first taste was sweeter than I’d expected; more steak than hamburger. Easy on the tongue but it also left me wanting more. The creature’s other fist pounded on my flaming back, but I barely registered a single hit, so great was my need to sink my fangs into Annelli again and again and again.

I needed to have patience, I knew. The killing blow would come, but not yet. For all the damage the Hexblight had sustained, it was still too strong. Clinging to the forearm with my teeth, I raked my red-hot claws across the dangling corpse-like body, leaving smoldering rends across Annelli’s flesh.

Her feeble arms thrashed at me while she screamed and swore and cursed my blood, but the words made little sense. Language was a faint memory. What I heard was the rush of blood under her skin and the crashing cymbals when claws met flesh and gave way to bone.

Finally I relented, releasing my jaws from around the Hexblight’s forearm. But my mercy was short lived. I swatted the limb out of my way, and drove inside the creature’s guard, clamping my jaws down over Annelli’s collarbone. The taste of oranges exploded in my mouth, quickly morphing into cloves and bay leaves, all of them layering themselves over my tongue in a glorious mash of justice and vengeance. Hers or mine, I couldn’t know.

With a final jerk on my head, I ripped Annelli away from the bulky frame of the monster. Her body toppled, leaving me face to face with his bloody maw of the Hexblight itself.

It was Grade-A nightmare fuel. The Hexblight had no eyes. No head at all, really. Instead, there was a fleshy tube-like mouth, lined with a circle of undulating, barbed teeth. It looked for all the world like a giant, bloated leech. Which, I suppose, is what it was once you stripped away the host. I glanced to the base of Annelli’s crumpled body, lying on the ground. There was a bloody ring marring the back of her neck—a connection point between her and the monster. Now that her body was no longer connected to the Hexblight, she no longer looked like a desiccated husk, but the beautiful woman I’d seen at the bathhouse that first night.

She also looked dead. Ragged wounds littered her belly. Her eyes were open—glassy and vacant. An end, but a bitter one.

The small part of me that remained human felt a brief pang of sadness, but then that feeling was carried away in a wash of raw hunger and need. This fight wasn’t finished yet.

With a howl, I advanced on the Hexblight—truly exposed and vulnerable for the first time. It moved fast, driving toward me and latching onto my forepaw with its fleshy tube mouth. Pitiful. I wrenched my arm free and slammed my obsidian fist into its open maw, obliterating the teeth that dared to touch my rocky flesh. The creature mewled in anguish—the sound of a wounded cat—and fell back a step. This son of a bitch knew it was done for and was searching for a way out.

Except there was no way out.

Commander Arendu’s men were on their feet, wooden shields and sharpened pikes at the ready, hemming the bastard in.

I could smell its fear, hear its blood calling to me.

I advanced, an avenging angel summoned from another world. The Hexblight attacked with a huge fist, but the blow was slow and sloppy. I easily sidestepped and clamped my fangs around what passed for a neck. I locked my jaw, tearing at its feeble muscles until I hit paydirt. Rancid blood arced through the night.

The Hexblight shuddered and crumpled, its huge hands batting weakly at the paving stones one last time. I didn’t relent, and instead drove my ember claws into its vulnerable belly, tearing through flesh until I found its pulsing heart. I wrapped one hand around the frantically beating organ—thump-thump-thump—and squeezed, slow and steady. Just like the trigger of a rifle. Its heart ruptured like a water balloon, soaking my hand. Dirty work done, I withdrew my clawed appendage, tossed back my head, and howled at the moon as a cloud of golden light rushed into me like a roaring twister.

I stood and stared down at my vanquished foe, reveling in my strength and power and victory. I was Boyd Knight, Marine, Vigil, and Beast.

Words swam before my lupine eyes:

[You have killed a Bound Hexblight! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 6,183 Essence!]

>>

Bounty Fulfilled

Terror of Ironmoor: You have discerned the identity of the deadly Mortka prowling the streets of Ironmoor and brought it to a bloody but necessary end. As a reward for a job well done, you have been granted +15,000 Essence, 1 x Seraphic Affinity Scale (Sage, Gold), 1 x Chaos Affinity Scale (Sage, Gold), 1 x True Form Transformation Token, and Annelli’s Visage (Helm, Master, Gold Ranked).

Optional Bounty: Although the Hexblight has been slain and Annelli brought to justice for her misdeeds, there are still other guilty parties who yet walk the streets of Ironmoor… Perhaps they shouldn’t.

Reward: Sometimes Justice for Justices’ sake is its own reward…

>>

The abrupt influx of energy was a potent rush, swirling around me and lifting me into the air as heavenly chimes rang out, announcing my advancement. My wounds faded and vanished, my core replenished with intoxicating vitality.

I’d never felt more alive… or hungrier.

Arturo lay sprawled out a few feet away, his Essence clearer to me now than it had ever been. A kill like that would set me apart. Level me up again. Make me a Vigil like no one had ever seen.

I padded over to his side and tasted the air. The blood of a Steelborn Mage. That would be richer, wilder, more pleasing than anything I’d ever tasted before. And who was he but a failed knight? I could kill him without missing a beat and then turn my eyes on the men surrounding me. They weren’t powerful—certainly not like the Hexblight or the Padre—but as I often said, quantity had its own quality.

Beside me, a tiny creature, barely taller than my first joint, headbutted my leg. On his back was Renholm. The pixie had a small flute out, pressed against his lips. An enchanting melody whispered from its end, dancing through my ears and into my soul. Some dim, dusty part of my mind knew he was bewitching me with a modified version of the Calm Emotions spell. The rest of my primal mind didn’t care. It just liked the pretty music. My brain slowly shifted, my thoughts transforming from animal to man, flooding me with images of the people who loved me. People who I loved.

In the carousel of happiness that flashed before my eyes, Cal gave way to my folks, who in turn pointed me in the direction of my Marines, then Arturo. Death coiled itself back into my chest and the bloodlust ebbed away from me like water circling the drain.

My claws became fingers.

Fangs turned back to teeth.

Bones shortened and clicked back into their old, more familiar formation.

This time, the pain brought no euphoria. Only hellish agony, a metallic taste at the back of my mouth, and the knowledge that I’d been a single hair away from killing the people who’d gone into battle with me. I felt sick. Woozy. The heady sensation of all that power was nowhere to be found and in its wake was a profound weariness, etched into my bones. I vaguely recalled the words I’d seen back in the Soul Vault when reading about the Totem Transformation.

The Vigil Bound must transform with care, for shifting takes a grueling toll on the body and leaves the Vigil weak and often powerless once the transformation wares off.

Several guardsmen rushed forward, carefully peeling Arturo from the street and ferrying him into the Three Chimneys, where the bathhouse attendants were already waiting with warm water, medicated tinctures, and fresh bandages for his wounds. None of the guards came for me, even though I was wobbling around, a heartbeat away from tumbling onto my ass. They’d witnessed firsthand the monster I’d become. They’d seen the violence in my eyes. None of them wanted to be near me and I couldn’t blame ’em.

There was a grunt and the awkward shuffle of bodies as the soldiers’ parted ranks and Maggie pushed toward me, not scared in the least by me or the carnage all around the town square.

She slipped an arm around my waist, supporting my weight.

“Thanks,” I whispered, trying my damnedest not to faceplant. Talk about embarrassing.

“Think nothing of it, oh mighty Vigil. Now let’s get you inside. I’ll take a look at your wounds myself.” She gave me a suggestive smile and cocked an eyebrow.

Even battered, broken, and half dead, that perked me up.

“No.” I shook my head. “Much as I would love too, there’s still one thing left to do.” I raised my head and called out into the night, “Gustav Hultgren and Sigge Wikstrum, get your asses out here, and I mean yesterday.”

There was a bit of a commotion as the two men were frog marched into the square by weary-eyed guardsmen. Neither man came peacefully—they cried and pleaded and begged the whole way. But come they did, with every eye in the town glued to them with a mixture of scorn, contempt, and pity. These people were expecting to witness an execution, and they weren’t far from wrong. I was certainly angry enough to kill them both on the spot and they deserved no less.

Annelli had been a monster, but she’d also been a victim. Their victim.

Her parents had been taken away, falsely accused, and killed by these two men—even if they hadn’t been the ones to set the rope or start the fire. They were responsible for those deaths and they were also at least partially responsible for the Hexblight and everything that had transpired in Ironmoor. Their mining operation had freed the creature and their greed had forced them to keep their mouths shut. Had they told someone—anyone—the truth from the get go, maybe all the bloodshed over the past few months could’ve been prevented.

But they hadn’t.

They were as guilty as Annelli in their own way and justice wouldn’t be truly served until they got a piece of the action as well.

“I could kill you right now,” I said coldly, looking at each of them in turn. “I could strike you down and no one would bat an eye. Hell, I’ve half considered tying you up in the square and raining fire down on your heads—burning you alive just the same way you burned that girl’s mother alive.”

Both blanched cowered, folding in on themselves.

“Please,” Gustav pleaded. “It doesn’t need to go that way. I… I can pay—”

“Not another goddamn word out of you.” I cut him off with a frosty glare. “I could kill you,” I said, “but I won’t.”

Visible relief washed through their bodies. They thought they were getting off the hook for their crimes. Just like always.

“Good man,” Gustav said, standing a little taller and straightening his jacket. “Whatever you want. Whatever you need—”

I strutted forward and socked him right in the face, his nose crunching from the impact. He let out a muffled groan and dropped to his knees, clutching his face as blood poured from between his fingers.

“I warned you,” I said. “The only reason I’m not going to end your miserable lives right here and now because death is too easy for you two. It would painful, but only for a few minutes. You need to suffer the way Annelli suffered. The way the people of Ironmoor have suffered.” I turned toward a clump of guards milling about nearby. “I want these men taken into custody and thrown into jail. They are traitors to humanity and to the crown. I also want royal tax collectors alerted about their illegal mining operation.”

“No, no,” Sigge said, fear undercutting every word, “you can’t. They’ll hang us… That or worse.”

“Yeah, no shit. That’s the idea,” I replied. “But hopefully you’ll live long enough to see everything taken from you. I want their estates seized and sold off. Use the funds to pay the families of the fallen. Every holding except for Gustav’s Manor House.” I paused and rubbed my hands together, thinking about what Renholm had said down in the mines. I was a Fae Noble and by Fae Law I could claim any territory conquered in battle or given through friendship. I figured this counted. “That I’m taking as my own personal reward. It’ll be part of my holdings in Ironmoor, along with the mines—captured and claimed by right of bloodshed.”

“You’re a dirty thug and nothing more,” Gustav spat. His voice nasally and high pitched as he tried to stem the flow of blood. “You’ll never get away with this. And even if you do, stealing a house will not earn you the respect of your betters. You’ll always be a brute. A monster.”

“Maybe you’re right.” I shrugged. “Maybe I always will be a brute and a monster, but I’m going to be a brute and a monster with one fancy ass house. And, for what it’s worth, I don’t plan on living there. The mines belong to me, fair and square. Your manor, though? I’m going to turn it into an orphanage for Rjuhella children who have fallen on hard times.” I leaned in close. “I’m going to turn your ballroom into a school, you shriveled nutsack.”

Raguel was right. Sometimes justice for justice’s sake was its own reward. The cold fury on his face was better than all the gold in the world.

I turned to the guards. “Get them outta here. I’ve got better shit to do then consort with penniless criminals.”

I let Maggie help me to the Inn as the guards escorted a hollering Gustav and Sigge away, bound for jail and eventually trial. Killing Annelli had been a necessary tragedy. Watching those two get what was coming was sweet justice.