Carlos stood at the gates, staring with horror at the massacre in the courtyard. He had killed plenty of people in his life. He was a member of an assassin’s guild, after all. His powers weren’t exactly clean, either, often leaving a charnel house of blood, gore, and viscera in their wake. He was a killer, and not a gentle one. But Talia was clearly on a different level altogether.

He watched as she plunged her clawed hand into the chest of one of her victims, yanking a mass of red flesh free a second later. Without preamble, she bit into the flesh, a tiny spout of blood squirting out under the force of her jaws. In seconds, her ruined arm began to knit itself together. She whispered something between bites, then stood to her full height. With her pale skin covered in vivid red blood, she looked every inch the monster she obviously was. The sight sent a shiver up Carlos’s spine, and not for the first time, he considered fleeing into the desert. He could survive. He was certain of it. With his powers, he was fast enough to escape, especially given that the only one he wasn’t sure he could outrun was currently busy with other things. She bit into the flesh once again, an expression of pure ecstasy on her face.

“Quit staring like that,” came a gruff voice as Zeke pushed past him. “She’s already self-conscious enough without you gaping at her like she’s a monster.”

“Like?” Carlos breathed. “Are you sure she’s not one?”

Zeke glanced back at him, “More sure about her than you.”

Zeke continued past, approaching the pale, blood-covered Talia. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she looked back at him. The pleasure she’d shown only a moment before was gone, replaced by wide-eyed horror. She muttered something, and Zeke said something back. Carlos couldn’t hear the exchange, but he could intuit the subject of the conversation. Zeke was comforting her.

He said something else before turning to one of the still-warm corpses. Suddenly, a utility knife appeared in his hand, and he knelt beside the body. Without hesitation, he plunged the knife into the corpse’s chest and started to carve.

“W-what is he doing?” Carlos muttered.

“She doesn’t have any vitality,” said Tucker, who’d planted himself at Carlos’s shoulder. “She has a skill that lets her heal, but it requires the consumption of human hearts. Zeke is stocking some up for later.”

“That…that’s…”

“Necessary,” Tucker stated. “That girl’s been through more than you can imagine. So, if you’re going to be clutching your pearls the whole time, you might as well just leave.”

“You’d let me go?” asked Carlos, incredulity coloring his tone.

Tucker shrugged. “You’re not a prisoner,” he said. “You can leave whenever you damn well please. None of us care enough about you to chase you through the desert.”

Carlos felt his shoulders sag a little. “First person I’ve ever seen that was disappointed he wasn’t going to be hunted down like an escaped convict,” came Abby’s voice as she pushed past him. “If it makes you feel any better, we could send Pudge after you. He’d enjoy that.”

The dire bear nudged Carlos to the side, chuffing as he passed. Carlos couldn’t help but mutter, “Who are you people?”

“Just a group of friends,” Tucker said.

“I’m not your friend,” Abby pointed out. “I don’t even like you.”

“It’s more of a love-hate thing,” Tucker said without missing a beat.

“Emphasis on the hate,” Abby said before she got out of range. To Carlos’s surprise, she didn’t hesitate to help Zeke and Talia in harvesting the hearts.

Carlos just shook his head in disbelief. Everything he had seen so far told him that this group of people were insane and powerful enough to make that a problem. However, aside from the obvious, they didn’t act crazy. In fact, they were more normal than many of the people Carlos encountered on a daily basis. Certainly more so than most of the Crystal Spiders.

Still, it wasn’t as if he had much of a choice. If he turned away from what he’d seen in the keep, he knew he’d never forgive himself. Aside from the fact that he’d promised Marc that he would save his neighbor, who knew how many other innocents had been taken? It was his responsibility to save them, if he could. And if that meant allying himself with a monster, then so be it. He could make that choice.

So, with renewed resolve, he strode forward, following Tucker, Abby, and Pudge to the mass of dead bodies. One and all, they were Jaguars, as evidenced by their spotted tattoos and preference for obsidian edged weaponry. He knelt beside one that seemed more or less still intact, save for a throat that had been savaged down to the spine. With an outstretched hand, he turned the head to the left and right, but he didn’t find what he was looking for.

“These weren’t like the ones below,” he announced.

Zeke, who was nearby, looked his way. He asked, “What do you mean?”

“The ones below the keep all had bleeding eyes,” Carlos said. “Just a couple of tears, but…they all had it. I think it’s…I don’t know – some kind of mind-control skill or something? But these are just normal Jaguars.”

“Jaguars?” the warrior asked, retrieving a heart from an open chest cavity. In an instant, it disappeared, leaving only blood behind. Carlos had no idea where it had gone, which only served to make him that much more uncomfortable.

He pushed his discomfort to the back of his mind and focused on his explanation. He said, “The Jaguars are one of the gangs in charge of Jariq. They have their own territory. You can recognize them by their spots. Some of them wear elaborate headdresses, too, and they almost all use weapons made from obsidian. It’s supposed to be an Aztec thing. But as far as I know, only a couple of them came from that culture. The rest just adopted it.”

“Interesting,” Zeke said, standing. In the time it had taken Carlos to move past his issue with what Talia had done, they’d finished harvesting the hearts. When Talia handed Zeke the last one, he said, “Just let me know when you need one, okay? Don’t hesitate just because you don’t want us to judge you.”

The pale girl nodded, then went to join Abby, Tucker, and Pudge at the keep’s entrance. Zeke turned to Carlos and asked, “These people with the bleeding eyes, they’re still just people, right?”

“What do you mean?” asked Carlos.

“I mean, they don’t have special powers or anything, do they?” he asked.

Carlos shrugged. “I didn’t fight them,” he said. “When I escaped my cell, I was just trying to figure out what was going on. I took a couple of wrong turns, and I saw a couple of them. The only reason I know anything was wrong was because I recognized one of them. She wouldn’t willingly participate in something like this.”

“Are you sure?” asked Zeke.

“I am,” Carlos said. “Rhoda has kids. She wouldn’t do anything to put them at risk. That, combined with the bleeding eyes…well, you do the math. They’re being controlled. Or at least manipulated. I’m sure of it.”

Zeke rolled his shoulders, then looked at the keep’s front doors. They were massive slabs of wood, the timbers bound together with iron bands, and looked heavy enough to stand up to a battering ram. They were open, though, so that wouldn’t be necessary.

“I’m putting a lot of faith in you,” Zeke said, turning back to Carlos. “If it turns out that you’re lying to us…”

“I’m not.”

“But if you are, I’ll kill you,” he said. It wasn’t a threat, but rather a statement of fact. “And after that, I’ll kill every last member of the Crystal Spiders. When I’m done, there won’t be anything left.”

“You think you can do that?” asked Carlos. The Spiders had been around for more than a century, and their membership boasted a dozen or more true elites, the upper echelon of which had reached the pinnacle decades ago.

“No, not by myself,” Zeke conceded. “But with my team? Yes. I might be forced into it anyway. I mean, they’ve already tried to kill me a couple of times. But I’m willing to bet you have some level of influence within the organization, though, so maybe it won’t come to that. If it does…”

“I get it,” Carlos said.

Zeke slapped him in the shoulder, saying, “Good. Glad we had this little talk. Now, let’s go figure this thing out.”

With that, he strode away. After only a second, Carlos followed, and when he reached the group, everyone went inside. They had to push the door a little wider – a task which Carlos would’ve expected to require the strength of a couple of men who focused on strength, but it was accomplished by Zeke alone – to allow Pudge to enter, but otherwise, their entry went off without a hitch. Once inside, Zeke said, “I think we got everyone topside, but everyone keep your heads on a swivel. There might be some stragglers.”

After that, a mace and shield appeared in either of the man’s hands, and he started walking down the entry hall. The keep itself bore little in the way of decorations; it was like an empty box, save for a few pieces of furniture, which Zeke made disappear with a touch. When he did, he shrugged and said, “It’s not anything special, but I’ve got a tower to furnish.”

That’s when Carlos put it together. Zeke had some sort of spatial storage. He’d heard about such skills. They were very rare, and typically, came with a host of restrictions. For instance, one of the leaders of the Crystal Spiders had one, but he could only store bladed weapons. Clearly, Zeke’s skill was a little broader than that, as evidenced when they reached a storage pantry that contained food enough to feed an army. Every last item – from sacks of rice to jars of fruits to whole slabs of meat – disappeared into his storage space. He even found some rare spices, which he greeted with a jubilant declaration of, “Jackpot!”

Finally, after two hours, they’d swept through the upper levels of the keep, finding nothing left alive. For all their faults, the Jaguars weren’t bereft of courage, and they’d charged to their deaths without hesitation. Carlos wondered if he could have done the same. It took him only a second to realize that, no, he would not; rather, he’d have found a better way than simply charging a superior opponent. Throughout their exploration of the upper levels, Tucker set the grenades intended to bring the building down. They all hoped they wouldn’t need it, but if it came down to it, none of them wanted to have to take the time to place the grenades during a retreat.

“What can we expect downstairs?” asked Zeke, glancing at Carlos.

“It starts out as a normal sub-level,” he answered. “Two levels down is the dungeon where I was kept. Below that, it gets…weird. Like a cave.”

“I really hate caves,” Zeke muttered.

Pudge huffed in agreement, and after putting her hand on Zeke’s shoulder, Abby said, “It’s okay. We’re not going to be down there for two years this time. And you’ve got us.”

Talia stood off the side, silent and unmoving. If Carlos hadn’t known better, he would have thought she was a statue, which was wholly unnerving. But even so, he couldn’t stop looking at her, wondering what had happened to leave her in such a state. His first impression was that she was a monster in human form, not unlike other undead he’d encountered over the years. However, the brief flashes of vulnerability painted a different picture. Carlos wanted to know more, but he was terrified of the answers.

“It’s fine,” Zeke said. “I survived last time, and I’ll get through this, too.”

“That’s the spirit,” Tucker said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You have to face your fears or be conquered by them.”

“I’m not afraid. Just uncomfortable,” Zeke said.

“I used to say that about spiders,” Tucker stated. “I went on and on about how I wasn’t afraid of them. That I was just uncomfortable around them. That they creeped me out. But that didn’t stop me from squealing like a little girl when I found one crawling on my leg.” He glanced at Abby. “No offense on the ‘girl’ part. Just an expression.”

“I hate you so much sometimes,” she said.

“Fair enough. Feeling’s mostly mutual,” Tucker said with a wide grin. “Except when it’s not.”

“I swear to God, if you –”

“Enough bickering,” Zeke said with a long-suffering sigh. “Let’s just get to it. Everyone good to go down a level?”

They all said that they were. Even Pudge snorted, as if to say that he was ready. So, Zeke led them down the stairs, where they repeated the pattern they’d established in the keep’s upper levels. They swept through, finding almost nothing of consequence, save for a couple of bodies that had been stashed in a closet.

“That was me,” Carlos said, looking at the pair of Jaguar guards he’d killed during his escape. “Didn’t want them to get found before I got out.”

“Smart,” said Tucker.

They left the first sub-level behind, but when they reached the second, Zeke held up a closed fist. Everyone stopped. “Someone’s up ahead,” he whispered.

Talia stepped forward, as if she wanted to take care of it. Zeke stopped her, saying, “Let me go first. We have no idea how strong they are, and we only have so many hearts.”

Talia didn’t verbalize a response. Instead, she sank back and resumed her motionless vigil. A second later, red mist erupted from Zeke’s fists, enveloping his hands and traveling up the shaft of his mace to accumulate around the weapon’s head. Then, he saw both Abby and Pudge shiver as something – probably a skill – affected them.

“Don’t know if I’ll ever get used that,” Abby muttered, barely loud enough for Carlos to hear.

Then, finally, Carlos felt something press against his awareness, waiting for his consent. At first, he panicked, thinking that whatever had taken over the minds of the people below the keep was attacking him, but then, Zeke said, “Just accept it. It’ll help.”

“What is it?” Carlos asked.

“Called [Mark of Companionship],” Zeke stated, still whispering. “It allows us to share experience and gives you access to weaker versions of some of my skills. If you want to stay alive, I suggest you take it, because we’re not wasting potions on you, so it’s the only healing you’re going to get. But do what you want.”

Carlos almost refused outright, but then he thought better of it. After all, if they’d wanted to hurt him, they’d already had ample opportunities to do so. If they were going to work together, he needed to trust them. So, with a mental shift, he accepted the skill’s influence. In addition to a runic brand at the base of his skill, he felt wisp-like tendrils of power wrap themselves around his hands, giving him access to a temporary skill. With a thought, he activated it, enveloping his hands in a thin, red mist.

“When you hit something, it’ll do a little extra damage to them,” Zeke said. “But it’s mostly negligible. The real benefit is that it snatches a bit of vitality or life energy from whatever you hit, transferring it to you. One hit won’t do a lot for you, but it adds up.”

“Interesting,” Carlos mumbled to himself, flexing his fingers. It wouldn’t help him much; his skills were hands-off. But he could see just how useful such an ability could be.

“Stay back,” Zeke said. “If I need help, I’ll let Pudge know. If the bear charges in, everyone follow. If not, stay back.”

After saying that, Zeke strode forward and disappeared around a corner. Carlos intended to follow Zeke’s orders, but when a screech echoed through the halls, he reacted on instinct. In an instant, he activated [Umbral Phantom], which enveloped him in protective shadows. Then, he used [Umbral Steps], stepping into a nearby shadow and teleporting around the corner. He was already summoning a series of shadowy spears the moment he arrived at his destination, but he cut the skill off before it got started. It was unneeded, as Zeke had already taken care of his opponents, splattering them against the wall so hard that their bodies had burst into liquified organs, meat, and blood.

Zeke glanced back and fixed his gaze on Carlos, who was still enveloped in concealing shadows. He said, “They were a little stronger than I expected. I think the mind control – or whatever it is – gives them extra power. I won’t know for sure until we see a few more, though.”

Almost as if in response to his statement, another screech erupted from further down the hall, and it was soon followed by another. And another. Soon, the telltale sound of thudding footsteps filled the corridor.

Zeke sighed. “So much for stealth, huh?” he said. “Probably for the best. I’ve never been much of a sneaky type.”

Even as he spoke, the others joined them from around the corner, led by the dire bear. Tucker said, “Guess we’re fighting them all, then.”

“Try to keep some alive,” Abby said, clutching a bow that had appeared out of nowhere. “We need to know what we’re stepping into.”

“I do not do…alive,” Talia stated, striding forward to join Zeke.

“I…I think I can take a couple,” Carlos said.

“Don’t bother,” Abby said, conjuring a silvery arrow and aiming down the hall. “I’ll take care of it. You just…just try not to die, new guy.”

Carlos swallowed hard. Since being reborn, he’d found himself in a host of harrowing situations. He’d killed quite a few people, too. But he’d almost always fought on his terms. He was an ambush predator, and that was how he preferred it. Straight-up fights were for people who weren’t smart enough to avoid them. Still, that didn’t mean that he was without means. Quite the contrary. And he intended to show his new companions just how dangerous he could be.

With a thought, he embraced his various skills, bringing them to the brink of activation. And the moment he saw one of the mind-controlled Jaguar warriors step around the corner, he started to weave shadowy destruction. The other were strong, but so was he. It was time they realized it.