Page 30 of Wraith: Lethal Impact

I lead her down the scaffolding at the back of the warehouse, descending into the labyrinth of the Bangkok undercity. The crowds are dense, the air thick with roasting meat and cheap alcohol. We blend into the shadows, a ghost and his shadow moving through purgatory.

Ten minutes later, we arrive at an unmarked steel door hidden behind a wall of humming server racks in the basement of an illegal electronics market.

The secure relay den.

I knock on the metal in a rapid, syncopated rhythm. A small slot slides open. I feed a roll of baht through the gap.

The deadbolts disengage with a mechanical clank.

Time to call a ghost. Time to bring Ivy into the war.

8

The Hunt Begins

LILY

The smell of ozone and stale sweat hits me the second the steel door groans open.

He steps through the threshold first, his frame blocking the narrow entryway. I follow close behind, stepping out of the Bangkok rain and into a subterranean labyrinth.

The illegal relay den is a graveyard of technology.

I'm a dancer. I understand the geometry of a ballet studio—polished hardwood, the scent of rosin, the predictable arc of a grand jeté. Control and discipline.

This place is the absence of control.

The air smells like burning plastic and desperation. Towers of cannibalized servers line the concrete walls, their cooling fans emitting a constant, high-pitched whine. Cables snake across the damp floor like black veins. The only light comes from the frantic blinking of router LEDs and the pale glow of a dozen monitors clustered at the far end of the room.

My heart thumps against my ribs.

Twenty-four hours ago, the most dangerous place I'd ever been was the backstage rigging of the Grand Solarium.

Now I'm standing in a black-market server farm hidden beneath a criminal district, flanked by a fugitive sniper.

Breathe. Stand straight.

Terror paralyzed me once on that stage—never again. I won't be the dead weight that gets him killed.

Andrea is out there. I need him to find her, and he needs this to do it.

"Stay close." He tracks the shadows between the server racks.

We navigate the cramped aisle. The air is suffocating, baking in the heat radiating off the overworked processors. At the end of the aisle, the monitors illuminate a scarred metal desk.

A man sits behind it, his face bathed in the blue light of the screens. He's thin, his skin carrying the pallor of someone who hasn't seen the sun in a decade. A web of tattoos climbs his neck, disappearing into his patchy hairline.

His eyes stay on his keyboard as we approach. "Relay is down." He speaks in rapid Thai, fingers flying across the keys. "Come back tomorrow."

The sniper steps to the desk, places his calloused hands flat on the metal, and leans forward.

The movement is deliberate. It brings the full weight of his frame into the pale light of the monitors. The Kevlar plate carrier over bare, scarred skin. The 9mm holstered at his hip. The fresh red line of the knife wound glued shut across his ribs.

The broker's fingers stop. He raises his head.

He takes in the gear, the pistol, the cold, flat stare. The boredom drains from his face, replaced by hardened, professional paranoia.

"No mercenaries." The broker pushes his chair back, the casters scraping against the concrete. He switches to accented English. "Too much heat. Get out."