Dragon wings.
Big enough to blot out the stars.
Chapter 7
Wickett
A hunter who hesitates is a hunter who bleeds. A hunter who bleeds is a hunter who feeds that which he swore to kill.
Rain began its assault on the Nexus festival crowds as I carved a path through the mass of bodies with casual efficiency. The revelers parted subconsciously, their bodies recognizing a predator even through wine-thick senses. My Sentinels flanked me. Keene on the left, Voss on the right, silent shadows who’d earned their positions through blood and obedience. The festival reeked of excess. Magic dripped from every surface like pus from an infected wound. Fire dancers conjured flames that shouldn’t exist. What the fuck were they thinking,touchingfire in a world that was known to burn? Shifters flaunted their transformations for crowns. Sprites performed aerial tricks while drunks applauded.
Sickening.
Keene’s hand moved. Two fingers extended, then curled toward the east. Heat distortion. Target acquired.
I didn’t acknowledge the signal. Didn’t need to. We’d hunted together in the Ash for years. Words were wasteful.
The shade wraith slithered between bodies twenty feet ahead, invisible to the crowd but not to the trained eye. Where it passed, laughter died. A woman stumbled, her face suddenly gray. A man dropped his wine, staring through nothing with hollow eyes. The creature was feeding, glutting itself on joy and leaving behind husks.
Perfect cover. Who’d notice a few more drunks collapsed in doorways during festival night?
Voss peeled away, circling wide through the crowd. Standard formation. Drive the prey into the kill zone. Make it clean. Make it quiet. The blessed steel at my hip thrummed against its sheath, hungry for shadow-flesh.
The wraith sensed us too late.
It bolted left into Voss’s path. Veered right, where Keene had already positioned himself. That left only forward, toward the narrow alley between a baker’s shop and a tailor’s. Exactly where I wanted it.
I followed at a measured pace. No rush. Panic made creatures foolish, and foolish creatures made mistakes.
The alley was dark. Good. No witnesses to traumatize. No stories to spread.
The wraith had pressed itself against the dead-end wall, its form writhing between states, solid, shadow, solid again. Fear rolled off it in waves that would have paralyzed a civilian. I felt nothing. Fear was inefficiency, and inefficiency was death.
“Positions.”
Keene and Voss moved without hesitation, pulling ward runes from their belts. The symbols carved into the rock would contain the creature’s death scream. Couldn’t have that echoing through the festival. Bad for morale and all that.
The wraith lunged.
My blade cleared its sheath in one motion, the blessed steel singing as it met shadow. The creature’s scream died in its throat as the ward stones activated, creating a bubble of silence around us. My strike was precise—through what passed for the creature’s core—ending with a twist to guarantee severance.
The wraith collapsed into black fluid that smelled of rotted bodies.
The damned rain intensified, washing the alley clean of most evidence. As if the city were mourning its own parasite, perhaps. Eh. I didn’t care much for symbolism.
“Disposal,” I ordered.
Keene produced a sanctified cloth, gathering the creature’s remains while Voss checked the alley’s entrance. Efficient. The way hunting should be.
A flash of silver caught my eye.
The sprite hovered at shoulder height, trembling despite the expensive courier uniform. They always trembled around me. Smart little creatures.
“Message for the Ripper, sir. Most urgent. Your father commands immediate presence. Says to come as you are, with all haste.”
My jaw tightened. Tiberius Veyne didn’t summon for trivialities.
“Location?”
