Eldritch Guidance-Chapter 148 – Original Boogeyman

The silence that followed Kyle’s revelation was thick enough to choke on.

Then, like the slow crack of splitting stone, Ulric’s voice rumbled through the chamber. The massive buffalo mutant shifted in his seat, his horns scraping against the chandelier above as he leaned forward.

Ulric: “How high… does this betrayal go?” he asked, each word heavy with implication.

Kyle’s gaze didn’t waver. Instead, he gestured toward the two conspicuously empty seats near the far end of the table—chairs that belonged to Jay and Gaven, the Houndmasters from Loffa.

Kyle: “High enough.”

A ripple of disbelief spread through the room. Whispers slithered between Houndmasters—sharp, venomous things. Traitors? Among us? The very notion was blasphemy.

Then Kyle delivered the killing blow.

Kyle: “Loffa has been compromised. Samson was sent to investigate… and he confirmed it. Jay and Gaven have been colluding with the Cult of the Deep Ones.”

The reaction was instantaneous.

A thunderous BANG shook the table as Korel, the lion mutant, slammed his fist down hard enough to crack the obsidian surface. His golden mane bristled, his fangs bared in a snarl that was more animal than man.

Korel: “Those ungrateful wretches!” he roared, his voice shaking the glasses on the bar. “We spared them! Gave their families wealth! Let them sit at this very table! And this is how they repay us? By crawling into bed with those fish-fucking freaks?!”

The room erupted.

Korel’s fury was a spark in dry tinder. Other Houndmasters snarled their agreement, claws unsheathing, fists slamming against the table.

The loyalty the Nighthounds cultivated was similar to fanaticism. A devotion so deep it bordered on worship. The syndicate had lifted them from nothing, given them power, wealth, purpose—and now, traitors had spat on that gift.

Clavis watched, his pulse quickening. The raw, predatory energy in the room was intoxicating… and terrifying. Even he, ambitious as he was, knew better than to stoke this kind of fury. One wrong word, one misplaced glance, and the pack would turn.

Korel: "Then give me the order, Kyle! I'll take my men to Loffa and burn the Seaworth and Gallows lineages from the earth! Their homes, their businesses, their bastard children - I'll leave nothing but ashes and bones!" His claws gouged deep furrows in the obsidian table as he spoke, golden eyes burning with primal fury.

The raw bloodlust in Korel's voice sent a jolt of realization through Clavis. His fingers twitched as he mentally cursed himself. “Idiot! This was my moment!” He could practically see it - volunteering to lead the purge, returning victorious with traitors' heads, earning Yin's personal favor. Now the opportunity was slipping through his claws like sand.

Kyle's raised hand cut through the growing chorus

Kyle: "Calm down, Korel. The matter is already in Samson's... capable hands. Jay and Gaven are no longer Houndmasters - their assets frozen, their networks severed. As we speak, Samson is... cleaning up the mess." The way Kyle's tongue curled around the word 'cleaning' left little doubt what that entailed.

A murmur of dark approval rippled through the assembly. Everyone knew Samson's "cleaning" typically ended with a bloody mess.

Kyle: "Our immediate concern is ensuring this rot hasn't spread further. Yin has ordered full loyalty reviews for every member - starting with everyone in this room."

Clavis' throat went dry. His pulse hammered against his jeweled collar as icy fingers of paranoia traced his spine. “A loyalty review.”The words conjured images of windowless interrogation rooms, of Samson's surgical tools glinting under interrogation lamps.

Jazzy: "Now now, don't look so nervous, little hounds," she purred."Unless you've been naughty?" Her knowing gaze swept the room, lingering just a heartbeat too long on newer faces.

Kyle's claws tapped a slow, ominous rhythm.

Kyle: "Jay and Gaven were outsiders - crime lords who bent the knee rather than lose their heads. Clearly, we were too lenient."

Jazzy: "We should have gutted those families when we took Loffa," she interjected, snapping her fan shut with anger. "Street mutts don't learn loyalty - it must be bred into them."

Kyle: "Perhaps," he conceded. "But now we face a more troubling development. A while ago, I personally executed one of our own - a mutt - for accessing restricted information that was meant for Yin's eyes only."

Uric's massive buffalo frame tensed.

Uric: "How in the Burning Abyss did a mere grunt access the Nightqueen's secrets?" The deep timbre of his voice vibrated through the table.

Kyle's claws flexed against the table, leaving faint scratches in the polished obsidian.

Kyle: "He exploited a critical failure in our network," he growled, his eyes darkening with restrained fury. "A backdoor left wide open, allowing him to slip through our defenses. We caught it early enough to feed him false intelligence while we observed his movements... but not before he'd already stolen some truly sensitive material."

A shadow passed over Kyle’s face—just for a second—as a forbidden thought flickered through his mind: John. Certain truths were never meant to be uncovered. But he pushed it aside, his voice hardening.

Kyle: "The traitor was dealt with. But here’s what’s interesting. Our tech division traced the breach back to its origin. Turns out, this ‘flaw’ wasn’t an simple oversight. Someone with Houndmaster-level clearance had been tampering with network permissions—fiddling with systems they had no business touching. Their meddling created the vulnerability that this mutt stumbled upon."

Kyle's gaze swept the room like a searchlight, watching for the slightest flinch among his fellow Houndmasters.

Kyle: "And that someone..." His voice dropped to a dangerous purr, "...is sitting in this very room."

The silence that followed was absolute - the kind of quiet that exists between lightning and thunder. Every breath held, every muscle frozen as the weight of Kyle's accusation settled over the assembly.

Then, with deliberate slowness, Kyle turned his massive head toward Clavis. The movement was almost ceremonial, like the turning of a guillotine's blade.

Kyle: "Clavis..." his voice was deceptively calm, the way still waters hide riptides. "Is there something you'd like to tell us?"

The effect was instantaneous. Sixteen pairs of eyes - some normal, some slitted, others glowing, all predatory - locked onto Clavis with terrifying focus. He could feel their gazes, the weight of their suspicion pressing down on his chest until his breath came in shallow gasps.

Clavis' mouth went dry as desert sand. His pulse roared in his ears, so loud he feared they might hear it. The jeweled collar around his neck suddenly felt like a noose.

Clavis: "U-um..." His voice cracked like a teenager's, the sound pathetic even to his own ears. "...no?"

The word hung in the air, flimsy as wet paper. Even as he said it, Clavis could see the disbelief hardening in their eyes - Korel's lip curling to reveal gleaming fangs, Jazzy's fan pausing mid-flutter, Uric's massive nostrils flaring as if he could smell the lie.

Clavis's gaze darted desperately around the table, searching for even a flicker of sympathy—but found none.

Dustin, who had always greeted him with that easy, sharp-toothed grin, now watched him with cold detachment, his gecko-like pupils thin with suspicion.

No allies. No escape.

Kyle’s voice cut through the silence like a blade.

Kyle: "Clavis." The Doberman mutant leaned forward, his brown eyes burning with quiet fury. "The last person who lied to me? I decapitated them. So I suggest—strongly—that you don’t play that game with me."

Clavis’s throat tightened. There was no bluffing his way out of this.

Clavis: "I… it was me," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "I accessed the network."

Kyle didn’t blink.

Kyle: "Not just any information. You went digging into files marked for Yin’s eyes only."

Clavis: "Yes," he breathed, the word tasting like ash. He was a dead man. He knew it. But if he was going down, he’d do it swinging. "But I only did it to serve our lady! If I knew what she wanted—what she needed—I could have provided it before she even had to ask!"

A beat of silence.

Then Kyle’s muzzle twisted into something between a snarl and a grin.

Kyle: "I see. And was this devotion before or after you decided to try and fuck your way onto the throne?"

The room exploded.

Gasps. Snarls. Korel actually laughed, a harsh, disbelieving bark. Jazzy’s eyes wide with scandalized delight. Even the ever-stoic Malic let out a derisive hiss, his serpentine tail flicking in amusement.

Clavis felt the blood drain from his face. How? Their intelligence network was legendary, yes—but this? This was private. Spoken only in the dark, between sheets, to women who had sworn themselves to him.

Unless—

A horrible thought struck him. Null magic. And not just any null magic, but the rarest of gifts, the ability to pluck secrets straight from a man’s mind. Did the Nighthounds have a mind-reader in their employ he didn’t know about?

Clavis: "How…" he choked out.

Kyle’s grin widened, revealing too many teeth.

Kyle: "Turns out your wives are more faithful to the Nighthounds than they are to you. Or maybe—" He tilted his head, mock-thoughtful. "—you’re just not as charismatic as you thought. But Yin? Really, Clavis? Did you truly believe a pissant like you could seduce the Nightqueen?"

The words hit like a sledgehammer.

His wives. The women he’d whispered his ambitions to in the dead of night. The ones who had moaned their devotion into his ear. They had betrayed him.

Kyle: "Needless to say, Yin was... unimpressed to learn you viewed her as some conquest to be won rather than your leader." His claws tapped a slow, deliberate rhythm against the table. "Tampering with classified information and your pathetic attempt at sedition? That should have earned you a slow death."

The room had gone deathly still. Even Korel's restless aggression had frozen, the lion mutant watching with predatory fascination as Kyle delivered the verdict.

Kyle: "However." his lips peeled back, revealing just a hint of fang. "Against my strong recommendation, Yin has decided to be... merciful. Your contributions to the organization have been noted. So instead of handing you to Samson, you'll merely be stripped of your Houndmaster title and demoted."

The reaction was immediate. A wave of murmurs rippled through the chamber - some surprised, others disdainful. Clavis caught fragments:

"Lucky bastard..."

"...should've been flayed alive..."

"...Yin's still too soft..."

But to Clavis, the words might as well have been spoken in another language. The world had narrowed to a single, searing truth: This was the end.

His fingers dug into the arms of his chair hard enough to splinter the wood. The Houndmaster position wasn't just a title - it was his identity, his purpose, the culmination of every backstabbed ally and bloodstained favor that had brought him this far. Without it, he was nothing. Worse than nothing - a laughingstock, a cautionary tale for ambitious upstarts.

The collar around his neck suddenly felt like a noose. That symbol of pride, now to be torn away like a dog being put down. He could already see it - the sneers from former subordinates, the pitying glances, the slow erosion of every hard-won scrap of respect.

He would be reduced to a glorified guard dog. A footsoldier's position.

The dark thoughts in Clavis’s mind festered like an open wound, twisting into something venomous. His eyes burned with barely restrained fury as they locked onto Kyle.

“This is all your fault.”

The accusation seared through his mind, irrational and all-consuming. “If you weren’t here, it could have been me standing beside Yin. If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t be losing everything.”

His pulse roared in his ears, drowning out reason. The humiliation, the disgrace—it wasn’t just a demotion. It was obliteration. And in his mind, there was only one person to blame.

“If I’m going down… you’re coming with me.”

The room had fallen into a tense silence, every Houndmaster watching, waiting to see how he would react. Would he beg? Would he grovel? Would he accept his fate like a beaten dog?

Clavis stood.

For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then—

BAM.

Clavis launched himself onto the obsidian table with a snarl, his shoes slamming against the polished surface hard enough to send glasses toppling. The sudden movement sent shockwaves through the assembled Houndmasters—some recoiled, others tensed, a few even bared their fangs in instinctive response, many of the senior members didn’t even flinch.

The panther mutant was a blur of motion, sprinting down the obsidian table with his claws bared, the chandelier light glinting off their razor edges. The younger Houndmasters near his end of the table lunged to stop him—hands grasping, voices shouting—but he twisted past them with feline agility, his shoes skidding across the polished surface as he closed the distance to Kyle.

The older Houndmasters closer to the throne didn’t even flinch. They merely watched, some with amusement, others with detached curiosity, as if this were nothing more than a mildly interesting spectacle.

Kyle, for his part, remained utterly calm.

As Clavis charged, the Doberman mutant rose from Yin’s throne with deliberate slowness. He reached into his suit pocket and withdrew a pair of black leather gloves, pulling the first one taut over his knuckles with a practiced tug.

Clavis was upon him in seconds, his claws slashing downward in a vicious arc.

Kyle moved like lightning.

His gloved fist snapped upward in a brutal uppercut, connecting with Clavis’s jaw with a sickening CRACK. The force of the blow shattered bone, teeth splintering as Clavis’s head snapped back violently. The impact lifted him clean off his feet, sending him flying backward until he crashed onto the table, skidding to a stop near the center.

Dazed, Clavis tried to push himself up—only to realize with mounting horror that he couldn’t. His limbs refused to respond. The whiplash from Kyle’s punch had been so severe that his spine had momentarily locked, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down.

But Kyle wasn’t done.

With the same eerie calm, he pulled the second glove onto his other hand, flexing his fingers as he stepped onto the table. The obsidian surface groaned under his weight as he stalked toward Clavis, his eyes burning with cold indifference.

Clavis could only watch, helpless, as Kyle loomed over him.

Then, without ceremony, the Doberman grabbed him by the collar of his suit and hauled him up—only to slam his fist directly into Clavis’s face.

THUD.

Blood sprayed.

THUD.

Nose shattered.

THUD.

Vision swimming.

Kyle didn’t stop. Didn’t hesitate. The sound of flesh striking flesh echoed through the chamber, punctuated only by the wet, ragged gasps escaping Clavis’s ruined mouth.

The chamber was deathly silent, save for the wet, meaty impacts of Kyle's fists and Clavis's weakening gurgles. The senior Houndmasters watched with detached indifference - Jazzy inspecting her nails, Malic's serpentine tail flicking idly, Uric chewing slowly on an unlit cigar. This was nothing new to them.

The younger Houndmasters sat frozen in their seats, their expressions a mix of shock and dawning terror.

Dustin’s normally vibrant green scales had drained to a sickly pallor, his clawed fingers digging into the table’s edge as if it were the only thing keeping him upright. His sharp, reptilian eyes—usually alight with mischief—were now wide and unblinking, fixed on the gruesome remains of what had once been Clavis.

Beside him, Veyra swallowed hard, the sound audible in the heavy silence. Her hands trembled faintly in her lap, her usual composed demeanor shattered. She had trained under Kyle, had even shared drinks with him—he had always been stern but fair, a mentor rather than a monster.

This Kyle was something else entirely.

Others among the younger generation fared no better. A jackal mutant near the end of the table had gone completely rigid, his ears flattened against his skull. A hawk-eyed woman—normally unflappable—was gripping her own arms hard enough to draw blood, her talons leaving crescent marks in her skin.

They had all interacted with Kyle before. Shared jokes. Exchanged favors. Some had even believed him reasonable compared to the likes of Samson.

But, a history the veterans already knew and personally experienced: before Samson became the Nighthounds' bogeyman, there was Kyle. The original cleaner. The Doberman who had personally drowned Graheel's canals in blood during the syndicate's rise to power. The one who could make entire crime families disappear before breakfast.

And now, the next generation of Houndmaster would also know this.

With one final, thunderous blow, Kyle drove Clavis's ruined skull into the table with a sickening crunch. The puma mutant's body spasmed once, then went still, his face reduced to a pulpy, unrecognizable mess. Blood pooled across the obsidian surface, dripping steadily onto the floor in thick, crimson droplets.

Kyle rose, his breathing barely elevated, and peeled off his blood-soaked gloves. They landed on Clavis's corpse with a wet slap as he strode back to Yin's throne, his polished shoes leaving faint red footprints in his wake.

Kyle settled into the throne, crossing one leg over the other. A single drop of blood dripped from his cuff onto the armrest.

Kyle: "Now then," he said, as if they'd merely paused for tea, "let's get back to the meeting."

His gaze swept the room, lingering just a moment too long on each of the shaken junior members. The message was clear:

This could be you.

This will be you, if you betray us.

And as the discussion resumed, as if nothing had happened, Clavis's corpse remained where it lay - a visceral reminder that in the Nighthounds, loyalty wasn't just expected.

It was the only thing that mattered.