Kerra and the others looted the bear and processed its enormous corpse—slicing off white pelt, collecting claws, teeth, and even an odd assortment of organs—while I sat by the sidelines and watched. I hated the fact that Kerra was still treating me like a criminal, but not having to get elbow deep in demonic bear entrails almost made it worth the price of admission. I didn’t get any of the loot, of course—on account of the fact that I was a potential blasphemer and general scoundrel—but Kerra assured me that if the Custodians cleared me of the charges, she would personally see that I received my fair share of the bounty.

I believed her.

She was uptight and more anal retentive than a tomcat in a room full of rocking chairs, but she was also a straight shooter. She followed the rules. If the top brass cleared me of wrongdoing, which they would, then she’d pony up what I was owed.

By first light, we were in the saddle and riding along a wide dirt road, lightly dusted with snow, which cut northward.

Despite the fact that Kerra still harbored suspicions that I was secretly a powerful warlock, trying to trick my way into the heart of the Citadel, the mood in the party was much lighter. Saving the party’s collective asses had engendered me a lot of good will. Instead of clopping along in brooding silence with the howl of the wind at our backs, everyone laughed, joked, and generally bullshited around. Turned out, soldiers were soldiers no matter where they were. Eventually all the grab-ass devolved into everyone telling their most hilarious war stories.

Like the time Kol got ambushed by a pack of feral Ashcats while he was taking a dump behind a rock. Poor guy had to square off against a pack of what essentially amounted to fire-breathing lions while Donald Ducking it with his bare ass hanging in the breeze.

Or the time Telent attended a royal banquet while investigating a string of grisly murders, only to get drunk and be seduced by a countess who ended up being an Undead Spectral Lich. He had to fight her off while simultaneously having both hands tied to the bedposts.

There was a truly surprising, borderline gratuitous, amount of nudity in most of their stories.

I swapped tales right along with them, though many of mine were from back on earth. I hadn’t been doing this Vigil thing long enough to have anything to joke about. I mean, I guess there was that one “hilarious” time where I tried to fight a Hexblight, thinking it was an Elder Changeling, and it broke my spine by throwing me into a side of a building. So funny. Although the other Vigils did find it genuinely hysterical when I told them about the punishment I’d served Gustav Hultgren, the High Magistrate who was largely culpable for all the heinous shit that had happened in Ironmoor.

After seizing Gustav’s estate, I’d thrown a three-day bender but only invited the poor, and then I gave away his mansion and had it turned into an orphanage. By the time I was done talking, Jori was doubled over, clutching his sides as tears rolled down his face. As a Vigil of Justice, he really appreciated the poetic justice of the whole situation.

The next four hours passed in a blur as we chatted about the world I’d left behind while I asked questions about Wildespell and the Citadel—although Kerra put the kibosh on that real quick. Sharing intel with a potential warlock was a big no-no in her endless book of rules. Not that I could blame for being cautious. Before dying, I’d been part of Force Recon—the closest thing the Marine Corps had to Special Forces—and Operational Security was a matter of life and death. I couldn’t count the number of times that Drill Instructor Screw Y’All had screamed “Loose Lips, Sink Ships” at me.

We ate lunch in the saddle. The meal consisted of stale bread and jerky that was tougher than old boot leather. Not exactly a gourmet dining experience, but I’d eaten worse. The Veggie Omelet MRE literally tasted like refrigerated dog-vomit covered with fake cheese. This was top-notch by comparison.

What everyone really wanted to know about, though, was Cal. Apparently, Spirit Guides served most Vigils in a more ceremonial capacity. They made their own hours, showed up whenever the fuck they wanted, and occasionally imparted the odd tidbit of heavenly wisdom before disappearing back into the Etheric Realm. Basically, they were OFP—Own Fucking Program—and if you really needed to talk to them, it required days’ worth of prayer and fasting. Even then, it was a coin toss, and they might still leave you hanging high and dry.

Spirit Guides certainly didn’t just hang around and bullshit and they never, ever, under any circumstances, helped in battle. The rest of the Vigils seemed genuinely shocked that Cal even could help in battle. That’s how bizarre it was.

They also had a shitload of questions about Renholm, who was nowhere to be seen. The pixie had taken off on Sir Jacob Francis the second our scuffle against the Demonic Grizzly ended. He didn’t want to try his luck with a bunch of religious zealots with magical powers and a hardon for killing monsters, which was probably a wise choice. Considering Kerra’s general attitude toward doing things by the book, I was willing to bet she would incinerate him if given half a chance.

It seemed a Vigil partnering with a pixie was about as odd as a Spirit Guide who could turn into a monster. According to Telent, pixies were capricious, manipulative, impulsive, bloodthirsty little buttholes who would steal anything not nailed down to the floor and that was only because they couldn’t pry out the nails, since they were cold iron. Pixies also hated authority and avoided Vigils like the plague. I found myself nodding along in agreement as he spoke. I mean, none of that was news to me, nor would it be news to anyone who had spent even five minutes with Renholm.

There wasn’t any specific rule against creating a Sidhe Pact with a pixie, but it just wasn’t done because why would anyone subject themselves to such a nightmarish, toxic relationship for almost no tangible benefit? Pixies weren’t particularly strong and though they had access to a wide variety of Fae magics, they were more unreliable than a boot Marine, fresh to the Fleet.

I couldn’t believe it, but I found myself vigorously defending the pixie, trying to explain how usefully he was. And he was. He’d saved my life on more than a few occasions, he knew a lot more about magic and the world of Mortka than Cal did, and his ability to go places unseen and sniff out clues like a bloodhound was invaluable. What was a little murder compared to all that? But no matter what I said, they just wouldn’t believe it. That I was from another world where people didn’t have magic, but could fly around in giant steel dragons?

Yeah, sure. Whatever.

That a pixie could be useful? Not in a million years.

Kol even suggested in all earnestness that I was bewitched—though Telent assured everyone that he couldn’t find any indication of mental magicks being employed against me.

At around noon, Cal said his goodbyes and disappeared, heading back to the Etheric Realm for a little R and R. Like Renholm, Cal was getting stronger the more and more I fed him Affinity Scales, but sunlight was still hell on wheels against his spectral form. It took a lot of Essence for him to pierce the veil between worlds—maybe that was the reason the other Spirit Guides did it so rarely?—and even more to hang out in the Material Realm for prolonged periods of time. Even talking burned through valuable Essence that he needed in order to hold himself together.

Just like when I burned through all of my Arcana, Cal needed time to recoup Essence, and the only way to do that was either to consume Affinity Scales or loiter around in the Etheric Realm. Manifesting during the night was far easier for him and so was breaching the veil in areas that were especially dense with Essence. Like Mortka dens. Which honestly made perfect sense in my mind. Mortka dens always appeared in areas where the boundary between the material and the etheric was already as thin as cheap Porta John toilet paper.

***

It was late afternoon when our party finally crested a hill, and our destination came into view for the first time. So far, I’d spent most my time in this world puttering around rural villages and dusty backwater towns. The only proper city I’d seen so far was Ironmoor and even that had a population of ten or fifteen thousand people at the most.

Wildespell was on a whole different level.

Rolling green farmlands stretched out in the valley below, dotted by farms, storehouses, and cattle pens. The road we were on carved through those fields, eventually crossing over a broad, meandering river that was fed by a large waterfall that rained down from the jagged cliff face of a mountain range to the west. The river, in turn, spilled into a placid bay to the east with a series of large stone docks poking out into the surface like arthritic fingers. Schooners, sloops, and flatbottom trading boats were moored for the winter.

Wildespell butted up against the snow dusted mountains on one side and was hemmed in by the bay on the other. It occupied a naturally fortified position that would make sieging the city nearly impossible. An enormous gray stone wall, thirty feet high, ringed in the southern border, separating the city proper from the sprawling farmlands.

Outside the walls and running along the edge of the bay was a second city—smaller and grimier. The streets were dirt instead of cobblestone, the houses were constructed from wood more often than stone, and the roofs were covered with thick sheets of thatch. A palisade wall of sharpened logs surrounded the overflow encampment, offering it some protection from wolves or wandering Mortka.

I recognized a slum when I saw one.

We skirted well away from the run-down overflow camp and headed into the city through a set of enormous gates, large enough to accommodate an army of war elephants.

Inside, the buildings were built from gray stone, likely mined from the nearby mountains, and were covered with wooden slat roofs and red ceramic tiles. Many of the houses and shops were painted in a variety of eye-searing color-combos that made me wince. The other thing that made me wince was the reek of unwashed bodies, which mercilessly assailed my heightened senses. Based on the gutters which ran with sludgy fluids, I was gathering that Wildespell still hadn’t figured out indoor plumbing yet.

The streets bustled with activity. The clop of hooves on cobblestone roads. The echoing clang of hammers on steel and the distant cry of street vendors announcing their wares. It was chaos waltzing with civilization. What stood out above all else was the dirty-faced people who parted for us as we passed, staring up in worshipful adoration. In every town and city I’d visited so far, Vigils were regarded with a wide degree of both veneration and fear, which occasionally bordered on hostility.

Vigils were monster hunters, but they could just as easily strike down men and women as a rogue mortka. Vigils sniffed out the truth and punished evil assholes no matter who they were or where they lived. What I’d done to Gustav Hultgren was a prime example. Thing was, everyone had secrets to hide and skeletons lurking in their closets. Even though Raguel was mostly concerned with monsters, murderers, and systematic greed, everybody and their brother seemed to think he cared about that one time they banged the maid or that other time when they sold their neighbor a lame goat.

Most people believed their petty misdeeds were worthy of a goddamned axe to the neck, which explained why everyone was so cagey whenever a Vigil rolled into town.

But not here. Not in Wildespell.

Nope. The fine folk of this city loved them some Vigil Bound.

They treated us like rockstars or maybe priests. Or maybe the legendary rock band, Judas Priest. It was fucking nuts. Some outright cried as we passed. Others dropped to their knees and prayed openly in the street. A few begged for blessings on them or their household or their businesses or their children. The list of supplications was endless and the sheer number of random ass babies that were thrust toward us was astounding. Sometimes two or three babies at once. Who the hell even had that many babies? Life before birth control was wild.

Kerra and the others were only too happy to oblige. They blasted off holy invocations like they were .50 Cal rounds and, at a nod from Kerra, Telent showered the masses with handfuls of copper and silver coins. That elicited even more cheers from the onlookers.

And if these people loved Vigils in general, they lost their goddamned minds over Kerra. Everyone knew her name and more than a few rounds of “Kerra the Valorous” and “All Hail the Justiciar” followed in our wake as we wound our way through the warren of streets and toward the fortified Citadel that looked down from its lofty perch among the mountains.

My main takeaway was that Kerra was a big fucking deal ’round these parts.

The crowds thinned out and eventually died away completely as we approached the pearly white walls and the shining gates that separated the Citadel from the rest of Wildespell. Guards decked out in scale mail with bleached bone tabards proudly bearing the five sigils of Raguel patrolled the ramparts above. I’d seen a spattering of caravan guards and city soldiers since winding up in this world and nine times out of ten they were old, out of shape, and using gear that had seen its best years a decade or more ago.

These guys were different. They were professionals.

Their armor gleamed, their tabards were spotless, and they looked like they knew their way around the halberds in their hands. More than a few also carried crossbows, many of which were fixed on me as we rode past. Knowing there were so many people ready to shoot me down if I so much as looked at someone wrong made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.

The outer gates were made from gleaming bronze and they were thrown wide open in reception. A pair of steely eyed guards snapped to attention and thumped gauntleted fists to chests as we passed. The gates fed into a mustering yard big enough to hold a battalion of troops. The yard was enclosed by more walls and a second, interior gate that led deeper into the complex. I glanced up. The walls were crawling with more armored soldiers. A pair of enclosed towers were also perfectly positioned to rain down arrow fire on any enemy unlucky enough to make it past the first set of gates.

Unlike the polished bronze gate that separated the Citadel from Wildespell, the second gate was heavy steel, covered with thick spikes and glimmering runes that burned with Arcana. This entryway was presided over by a pair Vigils, though neither had a brand, which I thought was weird as hell. I’d gotten the distinct impression that all Vigils had a brand of one kind or another. There was no mistaking those red eyes, though. One of the guards caught sight of the mark on my forehead and instantly I could feel malice radiating off him in palpable waves.

If looks could kill, I was convinced he would’ve set me on fire in the saddle. He nudged his partner then nodded toward me. The second Vigil openly glowered then leaned over and spit onto the cobblestones.

They didn’t try to stop me, though, not with Kerra by my side. She was my golden ticket.

We plodded on through into another courtyard, even bigger than the first.

More guards in white tabards milled about here, some practicing with swords, spears, and halberds, while others tended horses or trickled in and out of an enormous circular building, topped by a golden dome. Based on the layout, I was guessing that was the enlisted barracks and likely housed all of the non-Vigil soldiers I’d seen patrolling the premise. I’d half-expected the Vigils themselves to do that, but it made way more sense that they would have their own private army to handle the day-to-day security bullshit.

They had mortka to hunt down and evildoers to beat the shit out of.

This courtyard also had a set of gates, though these were reinforced wood, not steel or bronze. There was line of plain-dressed townsfolk and merchants with carts, all waiting to be searched or questioned. The Citadel took security very seriously, which I could respect the hell out of. There wasn’t a single point of failure, and there were a ton of fallbacks and fighting positions on the off chance that the fortress city was ever overrun.

The guards at the inner wooden gate were of the regular variety and waved us through without a word, even going so far as to bow deeply as we trotted past. On the other side of the doors was… well, a sizeable village in its own. There were stables, shops—everything from seamstresses and apothecaries to blacksmiths and restaurants. Not to mention a three-story Inn, with a wooden sign that read the Blessed Nugget. This little town was nowhere near as big as Ironmoor but still, there still had to be close to a thousand people.

We threaded our way through an open-air market and across a literal moat with its own drawbridge that ushered us through a final section of wall, fifty feet tall and twenty feet thick. A handful of Citadel soldiers patrolled the ramparts, but most of those looking down on me in judgment were more of the red-eyed Vigils, none of whom had a brand to call their own. That was an interesting tidbit, which I stored away for later. After passing through a long tunnel, riddled with murder holes, we found ourselves in a third courtyard, hemmed in on the left by the rocky cliff face and the right by the outer curtain wall. Beyond the wall was the bay.

No one would be trying to take the walls here. Not unless they could fly.

The Citadel Fortress, carved from slabs of gray granite and white marble, dominated the northwestern section of the skyline. Jutting up from the fortress like a hitch hikers’ thumb was a looming tower that depicted the five faces of Raguel, all looking out over the city with stony eyes that saw every wrong, every injustice. The monolith cast a slender shadow down onto the courtyard—a constant reminder of its presence.

Brandless Vigils sparred in the yard. Drilling various weapons forms. Practicing hand-to-hand fighting techniques. Trying their skill at the archery range or scrambling and flipping along the agility course with preternatural grace and dexterity. The age range ran from as young as eight or nine all the way up to the late teens and early twenties. There were a couple of older Vigils, branded and decked out in badass armor, overseeing what I assumed were Citadel trainees.

As we clopped across the pavers and past a hulking fountain with a statue of Raguel at its center, the would-be Vigils stopped cold. They turned as one, barked out a formal greeting to Kerra, then slammed fists against their chests in perfect unison. She saluted them in return, before guiding our party away from the training yard and into the stables.

“Good luck with your trial, Boyd!” Telent said as he dismounted.

“Indeed, you seem like a fine fellow!” Kol boomed. He gave me a broad smile and handed off the reins of his horse to a young boy of maybe ten with red eyes and a dirt-smudged face. “For what it’s worth, I hope the Custodians don’t execute you.”

“You and me both,” I said as Kerra clamped her hand over my elbow and dragged me unceremoniously toward a servant’s entrance.