“You’re Darien Cassel.”No shit, he thought.If the ring announcer declaring his reputation had been too subtle for her, the horned letterStattooed below his ear should be an obvious indication of who he was.
Never mind the everchanging gossip that floated about the streets. People with too much time on their hands enjoyed making up rumors about him, mainly ones that suggested he’d sold his soul to the devil to get to where he was today. He supposed he had sold his soul in a way, but in doing so had more or less become the devil himself.
“That’s the rumor.” He dug a metal lighter and a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, placed one of the smokes between his lips, and lit it. “Give me the name and the price and be on your way,” he said around a mouthful of smoke. He slid the cigarettes and lighter back into his pocket. “I’ve had a long night.”
“The boss is offering two million gold mynet.”
Well, shit. It was a lot of mynet. He couldn’t remember the last time a single target had been worth more than a million.
“The name?” he prompted.
“There is no name.”
Darien quirked an inky brow. Usually, those who hired him knew the name of who—orwhat—they wanted dead or in captivity. It was rare when he was approached with an offer to find a nameless target, though he could locate them without a problem. He was one of the only people in this city who could. “He would like you to track the target via aura only.”
He took another drag on the cigarette as he eyed up that stained and cracked mask.
Tracking auras was not only a lengthier process but a harder one. If he knew the target’s name, he could tap into his sixth sense—and the ability to remotely track someone via Sight—a lot sooner. All he would need to do was hack Angelthene’s citizen database and pull up a photograph of his target; having a clear mental image of the person he wanted to locate would make remotely tracking them a cinch.
Finding an aura without the aid of a photograph and then trailing it to its current location could take days. Maybe even weeks. And the process often required that he start at the target’s origin—either their place of birth or somewhere similar, such as their childhood home, where the aura would be the least diluted—to get a distinct read on who he was looking for. Such methods were also expensive, for he would have to use the Stygian salts for the whole process, and it would require him to tunnel deep into the limitless reserves of his magic, which was no easy feat.
He adjusted the strap on his duffel bag and tapped the ash off the cigarette. “Your boss knows what he wants but he doesn’t knowwhohe wants,” he observed. Pulling up the strap on his duffel had drawn the messenger’s attention to the tattoo peeking out from beneath his rolled-up shirtsleeve. Even through the mask, he could tell that she was staring at it—at the tattoo of Emberley Cassel’s face.
The rabbit wisely tore her attention from the tattoo and gave a nod. “The target was an orphan. You should be able to pick up on the aura at the Temple of the Scarlet Star. The boss says the target was left there as a baby and adopted soon after.”
She retrieved a vial from the pocket of her jacket. Inside the vial was bone powder—the DNA of what was likely one of the target’s ancestors. The demineralized bone was the quickest way to help him identify the aura—a field of energy that radiated from every living person or thing, invisible to anyone without a hellseher’s Sight—that he was looking for. If the target had indeed spent time at the temple as a baby, then with the help of the bone powder the aura should be easy to pinpoint. And once he became accustomed to the feel of that aura, he would be able to trail it like a wolf trailed its prey, eventually digging up the target’s current location.
How the client had retrieved the bone powder—and how they knew who the target’s ancestor was but hadn’t a clue of their actual target’s identity—wasn’t his business. He didn’t concern himself with the reasons why his elusive clients wanted to track anyone down. Asking questions was not only suspicious and unnecessary, but it was also unprofessional. He was in this line of work only for the cash, and nothing more.
The several minutes he took to consider the offer probably seemed like years to the messenger, for it wasn’t long before her pulse was thrumming in her golden neck. There was a scar below her jaw, no more than a pock in her skin. Either from a viral disease or from being held at knifepoint. If this rabbit returned to her employer after failing to negotiate a deal, the cost—if she was lucky—would be her job. If she wasn’t lucky, it would be her life.
It was an unjust world he lived in, but nobody got anywhere in life if they gave a shit about the bottom-feeders of this corrupt society.
“Dead or alive?” Darien asked.
“Alive. Preferably unharmed if you can manage it.” It went without saying that he could manage it. As leader of the Devils, there was little he couldn’t do.
So, Darien said, “I can.” He paused. “But I want three million gold mynet.”
The rabbit didn’t flinch. “Two-point-five.” Darien almost laughed. Whoever her boss was, he’d given her clear instructions on haggling.
“Three million, or I’m not playing.”
Another beat of silence. And then the rabbit stepped forward and offered him the bone powder. “It’s a deal.”
Darien’s fingers closed around the vial. “I’ll need about a week to locate the aura, but it won’t be long after that before I can track down the target. Wire me a mil by midnight tomorrow or the deal falls through.” He shoved the vial into the pocket of his jeans and then handed her a card that had nothing on it but the number for his wire transfer.
“We’ll be in touch with you soon.” When the rabbit spoke again, there was a hint of a smile in her voice. “Pleasure doing business with you, Slayer.”
His mouth quirked in answer as he tossed the cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath his boot. “Likewise.”
3
Loren stared into the two-way mirror as the peace officer that sat across from her at the dented metal table in the interrogation room shuffled his papers into a stack.
The girl in the reflection was a stranger—a ghost. Hollowed out and drifting through a world she no longer recognized.
She looked like hell. Makeup was smeared across her sticky, tear-stained face, her hair was crusted with beer and road dust, and her dark blue eyes were bloodshot and void of emotion. Even the sunburn on her cheeks did nothing to bring color to the ivory skin that had taken on a sickly pale shade these past two hours.
