Training had begun.
Ryan stood in the centre of the chamber, sweat already dampening his palms though he hadn't moved yet. Across from him, shackled to a circle of iron sigils, waited the thing the Gentleman had called a lesser demon.
Now that Ryan got a closer view of it. It looked wrong. It wasn't monstrous in size, not some slavering beast of fire and fangs as Ryan might have imagined from myths, but a gaunt figure with a human frame. Its skin was pale, almost waxen, stretched too thin over its bones. The eyes were pits, black, hollow, and yet filled with a terrible evil. Something that had once been human and had rotted away into emptiness.
Ryan's throat tightened as he stared at it. The thing did not blink. It did not breathe. It only watched.
"This," the Gentleman said from behind him, his voice smooth as silk over steel, "was once a man. You see it now hollowed out. The soul long devoured, replaced by hunger. They were fathers, mothers, soldiers, thieves--anyone can fall, given the right corruption."
Ryan forced himself not to look away. The pallor of the creature made his stomach churn. He thought of death, but this wasn't death. This was worse.
"And this," the Gentleman continued, circling the edge of the sigils, "is one of the lowest. A stray scavenger. Barely worth a page's mention in the old texts." His eyes, sharp beneath the brim of his hat, flicked toward Ryan. "Still, you fear it."
Ryan's jaw clenched. He wanted to deny it, to speak, but the words stuck.
The Gentleman gave a small, knowing smile. "Good. Fear keeps you alive. But courage makes you act despite it. Today, you learn which you are."
The shackles fell away.
The demon moved with a suddenness that stole Ryan's breath. It wasn't as fast as he expected, but deliberate, like every twitch of its limbs carried intention. It stalked him in a half-crouch, its hands flexing, nails scraping against the floor with a faint screech.
Ryan backed up instinctively, his pulse hammering. He raised his fists the way he'd been shown earlier, clumsy and unsure. The chamber felt too small, the air too thin.
The demon lunged.
Ryan barely ducked aside, the motion unpractised and desperate. His shoulder clipped the stone wall, pain shooting down his arm. The demon's claw raked across empty air where his throat had been. Too close. Too freaking close.
"Focus!" the Gentleman barked. "Instinct is your ally. Do not fight it--use it."
Ryan swung wildly, his fist connecting with the demon's jaw. For a split second, triumph surged through him--until the creature's head snapped back into place with an unnatural crack. Its grin stretched impossibly wide, empty gums where teeth should have been.
Ryan stumbled back, terror threatening to take over.
Then something began happening to him.
A burning sensation flared across his forearm, so sudden and sharp he nearly dropped to his knees. He glanced down and saw it: a mark searing into visibility on his skin. Dark lines twisting into a sigil he didn't recognise, glowing faintly like embers beneath his flesh.
The demon froze, its black eyes narrowing.
Ryan didn't understand what was happening, but his body moved differently. Faster. When the demon struck again, his reflexes carried him sideways, his hand snapping up to block in a motion he should not have known. His counter-punch landed squarely in the creature's chest, and this time the force sent it skidding back across the chamber.
His breath came ragged, his limbs shaking, but a spark lit inside him, a sense of something ancient stirring.
The Gentleman's voice echoed through the chamber. "There it is. A flicker of your inheritance."
The demon snarled, scrambling back to its feet. Ryan wanted to collapse, to give up, but something within, maybe his blood, maybe his own stubbornness kept him upright. He dodged another swipe, countered with a strike, then another. It wasn't clean. It wasn't exactly skilful. But it was survival.
Finally, with a cry he didn't know he had in him, Ryan drove his knee into the demon's chest and shoved it back into the sigil circle. The chains of light reappeared, snapping closed around the creature. It writhed and hissed, then went still, eyes burning into him even as its form began to wither back into shadow.
Silence fell.
Ryan dropped to one knee, chest heaving, sweat pouring down his face. His whole body trembled. He'd barely survived and it had been the weakest of them.
The Gentleman stepped forward, offering no hand, only words. "You are still raw. Untrained. But alive. That, at least, is a beginning."
Ryan looked at the faintly glowing mark on his skin, horror and awe mingling in his chest. "What… what was that?"
"Your bloodline," the Gentleman said simply. "Each test will draw more of it out. Each battle, more of your inheritance will awaken. But know this--" His eyes hardened. "The more you stir what lies within, the more the higher demons will notice you. They will come. Lesser shadows are nothing compared to what waits."
Ryan swallowed hard, staring at the writhing form of the demon. If that was considered nothing...
His voice came out hoarse. "If a lesser nearly killed me… how am I supposed to fight the stronger ones?"
The Gentleman's lips curved in the faintest hint of amusement or pity. "That is the purpose of training. To turn your fear into strength. To forge you into something they fear instead."
Ryan wasn't sure if that was possible. But as he looked down at the faint, smouldering mark on his arm, he knew there was no turning back now.