Chapter 3
“You’re dismissed,” Elsie called over to Clairemont. “Stay away from me.”
“But you don’t know what commands to use,” Clairemont argued.
“He’s not stupid, he doesn’t need commands.
Reason will work just fine. Come on,” Elsie muttered to the hound, but it didn’t move.
Her eyes landed on the demon once more, struck with the inexplicable urge to reach out and touch the giant dog’s wiry-looking muzzle, though he’d probably bite her hand off if she tried.
He was backed into a corner, stuck between fight or flight. His choices were Clairemont, who’d beaten him into submission, and the woman who’d have killed him if she hadn’t been interrupted.
“You’d rather stay with him?” Elsie tilted her head toward the beastmaster.
She watched the conflict play through the panicked micro-expressions in his eyes, muzzle, and tense muscles. Should he stay with the monster he knew, or go with the monster he didn’t? She might be easier to deal with than Clairemont, or she might be his worst nightmare.
With a huff that landed just this side of a whine, the demon eased off his haunches and took timid, measured steps.
He moved with a pronounced limp in his foreleg, body rounded to show that he wasn’t a threat.
His ears lay flat, the whites of his eyes showing, tail tucked so far under his body it didn’t look like he had one.
The hound was the complete opposite of what she’d faced in the arena. She glared back at the beastmaster, willing to bet a week’s worth of pay that the demon was convinced he’d been fighting for his freedom, only to be handed over to a new master.
Clairemont ignored her orders and followed close behind, shrewd eyes watching her every move.
Elsie was already coming up with plans to ditch them both.
He could become a mascot-like grifter, hanging out around the mess hall waiting to perform tricks for scraps.
That sounded like a better idea than sending him back to Clairemont, or taking responsibility for him herself.
“Don’t loop the leash around your hand like that, Chantraine. If he decides to take off running, it could break the bones in your hand,” Clairemont warned.
She looked at the coiled rope in her hand and frowned. That actually made sense. The cowering hound didn’t look like an escape artist, but demons were unpredictable. She adjusted the leash into a figure-eight of loops with her hand clamped down on the middle.
Clairemont assumed this meant she was willing to listen to him.
“He should walk two steps behind you, anticipating your movements rather than walking directly beside you. This demon is not your equal, he is your subservient,” he instructed. Elsie’s brows furrowed. What a miserable existence.
“What’s his name?” she asked. Clairemont blinked, confused by the question.
“I don’t name the demons,” he said as though it should be obvious. Maybe other hunters would agree.
“He isn’t a pet, why would you have to give him a name?” she retorted. “Didn’t you ask him? His mother must have given him one.”
Clairemont looked at her like she’d grown an extra head. “It’s a dog.”
Elsie walked backward a few steps, watching the demon.
He wasn’t paying attention to her; his focus was on the leash.
She rubbed her fingers on it, noting that under the leather wrapping it was stiff, as though made from wire.
Her mind connected the dots real quick. Even the leash was a weapon used against him.
“How does the leash work?” she asked.
“It’s an improvement on my older designs.” Clairemont preened. “The hound has undergone weeks of training. I’ll teach you which commands will achieve the desired results.”
Elsie fiddled with her end of the lead. He hadn’t answered her question, but she didn’t like what she was hearing. The fear in the demon’s eyes flashed through her mind, and her stomach gave a lurch. He’d been in Clairemont’s hands for weeks.
“What does training with the leash entail?” she tried again.
“This one delivers a high-voltage electric shock when correction is needed. He’s trained to expect a shock if he ignores any given command. As demonstrated in the arena, this beauty will automatically administer a correction if he uses magic. It will incapacitate him if he tries,” Clairemont said.
Elsie chewed on the inside of her lip as he spoke. It explained why he was hyper-focused on the leash. “This one? Are there others?”
“Of course! I have gear perfectly suited for the different stimuli each demon requires. I created one that emits a high-pitched frequency to deal with a cat demon. She was a stubborn little bitch, bled from the ears before finally figuring it out. In the end, she couldn’t be trained, and all my effort was wasted.
” There was no disappointment in his voice.
He was animated, excited by her interest in his favorite topic.
Elsie watched the hound’s expression as he listened to what his fate might have been if he’d fought against the pain stimuli. She wanted to soothe him, which triggered a violent mental recoil. If she pitied him, she’d make poor decisions, like protecting him from other hunters.
“Another sprays a pungent stench into the nostrils of a wolf demon with an exceptionally sensitive sense of smell. You should see how he drops, like turning his brain off with a switch.” Clairemont snapped his fingers and cackled, staring her in the face to catch her reaction.
Rumors of Clairemont’s work were among the biggest reasons she avoided him. Having those rumors confirmed by the man himself gave her the jeebs. She watched the demon as the beast master watched her, but the hound never once looked her way.
“How many have you trained this way? What happens to them when their training is complete?” she asked. There must be a reasonable purpose behind Clairemont’s disgusting hobby, but she’d never seen a weaponized demon used on the field, or as a companion.
“I’ve lost count. I’m given the training demons when they’re too broken-spirited to be of use in the arena.
Once in a while I get a true gem, but I euthanize the vast majority when I’m finished with them.
Unfortunately, they’re usually too broken to last long,” he lamented, but perked up in seconds.
“But the results of my research go to Mr. Cornick himself! He’s taken quite an interest in my little experiments. Sometimes he’ll send feedback or instructions on changes to implement. He’s even given me a small budget to work on the tech. Training these demons has become my life’s work.”
Elsie’s blood ran cold. The long reach of Cornick’s oily hands had grasped more of the compound than she’d known.
“This guy was a whole new experience. He arrived completely feral. He challenged me, but I fixed him.” Clairemont grinned at the demon approvingly.
The fervent light in his eyes made Elsie sick. She didn’t want this man anywhere near her. What other depravities was a man who took pleasure from inflicting pain capable of?
“You’ve had him for weeks…” she muttered.
“Their only requirement was to have him ready by today. Cornick and Mordane gave me leave to do whatever I deemed necessary to meet the deadline.”
That took Elsie by surprise. The work involved in ensuring her entire squad was in the compound alone must have damn near given Roz an aneurysm. Throw in the hound’s secretive arrival and training, along with Cornick’s visit, and this event had to have been the administrator’s worst nightmare.
“He’s never shifted while you’ve had him?” she asked. He obviously had enough power to shift. She didn’t think he was the level of a lord, but he was clearly in the upper class category. This demon definitely had a human form.
“The collar will not stop a shift, but he’s incapable. As I said, Captain, it’s just a dog,” Clairemont sniffed. “I’m sure you’ve seen some crazy things out in the field, but they only send you after the worst. Some demons don’t have enough power to shift.”
That was true, but this hound wasn’t among them. Other demons had too much power to shift. Thankfully, she hadn’t run across any of those. Yet.
“Do you leave his restraints on all the time?” She continued, wondering how a man insensitive to magic was in charge of training them. How was he unable to feel how much power this demon’s body contained?
“Only the collar when he’s in his stall, but it still works remotely. I’ve also got the prod if he refuses a command,” he answered. “He’s practically tamed now, though. The prod is a reminder of what will happen if he forgets his place.”
“I doubt he’d cause trouble without good reason.” Elsie groaned to herself inwardly. Now she was defending the damned thing?
“Not usually,” Clairemont agreed readily. “The initial process is admittedly a little hard on them, but once they’re broken and understand what you want, it gets easier. The leash is there as a tool to keep them in line. Mark my words, Chantraine, demons can never be trusted.”
“I will,” she said, though she’d started to speculate that Clairemont was part demon himself. Elsie took a turn around the training field with the demon, shame welling up as she thought about Clairemont’s words.
He’d made her question how many demons she’d worn down to the point of being turned over to his experimentation. For the first time in her years as a hunter, she pondered where they’d gotten their regular supply of demons from.
Surely not all of them had been caught attacking a nest. A fairly large percentage must have been taken from the wilderness, doing no harm at all.
Elsie chewed on her lip, the realizations stirring up a discontent that crept under her skin to fester. She shook the thoughts away, because thinking any deeper into the subject would have her questioning her part in their freedom to torture victim pipeline.