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"Don't blink, or I'll paint this wall with your brains," the gunman hissed. The steel muzzle of the pistol pressed harder into Lucian's forehead, cold and unforgiving.
Lucian didn't blink. He couldn't even move his legs to kick the man's shins. He was trapped in a piece of expensive mahogany and leather, a broken man in a broken room. But inside, his mind was still humming with the echo of the Rift. He could still feel the phantom weight of that obsidian throne.
"Who sent you?" Lucian asked. His voice was a dry rasp, barely a whisper.
"The kind of people who don't leave witnesses," the man spat. He shifted his grip, his finger tightening on the trigger. "You're a dead man, Cross. You just haven't stopped breathing yet."
Suddenly, the door didn't just open—it exploded.
Glass shattered. A blur of black leather and chrome slammed into the gunman from the side. There was a sickening crack of a wrist snapping, a muffled grunt, and then the gunman was pinned against the wall, his arm twisted at an angle that screamed agony.
Lucian stared up. The woman was a storm of motion. Short-cropped dark hair, eyes like flint, and a combat knife buried deep in the gunman's shoulder to keep him pinned.
"Get in the chair, you idiot," she snapped, glancing at Lucian.
"Who the hell are you?" Lucian asked, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"Vesper Vance. Your new ride out of this slaughterhouse," she said. She ripped the knife out of the man's shoulder with a wet schlick and delivered a brutal knee to his temple. The gunman went limp.
She didn't waste a second. She grabbed the handles of Lucian's wheelchair and shoved him toward the door with enough force to nearly tip him over.
"Wait! I can't just—"
"Shut up and hold on," Vesper barked. "The Inquisition is three blocks away and they're not coming to give you a medal. They're coming to burn this whole block to ash with you inside it."
As they hit the hallway, the sound of heavy boots echoed from the stairwell. Steel clashing. The rhythmic, terrifying march of the High Inquisition's kill squads.
"Can you even move?" Vesper asked, her voice tight. She didn't look back, her eyes scanning the corridor for threats.
"My legs? No," Lucian said. "The rest of me? I'm doing great."
"Sarcasm. Great. Just what I need in a payload," she muttered. She pivoted the chair sharply, sending Lucian sliding across the grime-streaked floor of the back alley.
Rain started to fall—not a drizzle, but a heavy, oily downpour that smelled of sulfur and old metal. Vesper leaned over him, her face inches from his. He could smell the metallic scent of blood and the sharp, citrusy tang of her perfume. It was an intoxicating, dangerous mix.
"Listen to me, Cross," she whispered, her hand gripping the armrest of his chair so hard the leather groaned. "I'm a smuggler. I don't do charity. You're paying me five thousand credits to get you to the Undercity. If we get cornered, I'm not dying for a guy who can't even stand up. Understand?"
Lucian looked at her—really looked at her. There was a flicker of something in her eyes. Not pity. Not even greed. It was a desperate kind of hunger.
"I'll pay you ten," Lucian said. "But only if we both make it."
"Deal," she said, but her gaze lingered on his face a second too long. "Now hold your breath."
She didn't push him; she practically launched the wheelchair down a steep service ramp. They hit the bottom with a bone-jarring thud. Behind them, the alleyway erupted. A blast of white light—holy fire—vaporized the brickwork where they had been standing seconds ago.
"Holy shit!" Lucian yelled as the shockwave rattled his teeth.
"Welcome to the party!" Vesper yelled back. She spun the chair around a corner, her boots splashing through neon-lit puddles. "Keep your head down!"
They were in the mid-slums now. The architecture was a mess of gothic spires and rusted piping. Above them, the massive streetlamps flickered, casting long, distorted shadows.
"There!" Vesper pointed to a heavy iron grate. "The sewers are the only way. The Inquisition's sensors can't penetrate the lead lining in the old pipes."
But as she reached for the grate, a voice boomed from above, amplified by magic.
"Lucian Cross! By the decree of the High Inquisitor, your soul is forfeit! Surrender now and the purification will be swift!"
Lucian looked up. Perched on a rooftop was a figure in white and gold armor, a blood-red rune glowing on his forehead. An Inquisitor.
"Swift?" Lucian sneered. "I've had slower Tuesdays."
"Stop talking and help me with this damn grate!" Vesper hissed. She strained against the iron, her muscles tensing beneath her leather gear.
Suddenly, the sound of boots returned. Not one, but a dozen. The kill squad had closed in. They emerged from the fog, crossbows leveled, their eyes glowing with a sterile, artificial light.
"End of the line, smuggler," the lead soldier commanded. "Step away from the cripple and we might let you live in a cell."
Vesper glanced at Lucian. Then she looked at the soldiers. She didn't move.
"You're really not going to leave me?" Lucian asked.
"I already took the deposit," she replied, though her voice lacked its usual bite. She shifted her stance, her knife sliding into her hand. "And I hate people who tell me where to stand."
Lucian felt a surge of something. Not fear. Power. The Rift was still there, just beneath the surface of his consciousness. He couldn't summon a nightmare god in the middle of a rainy street, but he could feel the connections—the ley lines of the city, the fragile balance of the streetlamps above them.
He didn't have a weapon. He had a wheelchair and a broken spine.
But he had a mind that could rewrite the rules.
He closed his eyes for a split second. He didn't visualize a spell; he visualized a snap. A break in the circuit.
*Crack.*
He fired his intent blindly toward the massive iron streetlamp leaning precariously over the soldiers.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the metal groaned. A bolt the size of a fist sheared off with a sound like a gunshot. The entire lamp, three tons of iron and glass, buckled.
"What the—" the lead soldier started.
He never finished. The lamp collapsed in a roar of shrieking metal and shattering glass, slamming directly onto the center of the squad. The impact was seismic. The ground shook, and a cloud of dust and sparks engulfed the alley.
Silence followed, broken only by the hiss of escaping gas.
Vesper stared at the wreckage, then at Lucian. Her eyes widened. "You... you did that?"
"Lucky accident," Lucian lied, leaning back in his chair and trying to look as helpless as possible.
"Bullshit," she said. She grabbed the handles again, her grip tighter now. "You're not just a broken detective. What the hell are you?"
"A man who wants to get out of the rain," Lucian replied.
She didn't ask again. She hauled him toward the open grate, shoving him down into the darkness of the sewers. Lucian felt the cold, slimy air of the tunnels swallow them.
They slid down a concrete chute, landing in ankle-deep sludge. Vesper climbed down after him, her breathing heavy. She stood over him in the dim light, the silhouette of her body framed by the faint glow of the city above.
"We're not safe," she whispered, her voice echoing. "They'll track the residue of that... whatever that was."
"Then we keep moving," Lucian said.
Vesper reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, glowing crystal. She held it up, and as the light hit the ceiling of the sewer, Lucian froze.
There, etched into the stone above their heads, was a blood-red rune. It wasn't a marking. It was a beacon.
"Oh, no," Vesper breathed.
"What?" Lucian asked.
"That's an Inquisitor's blood-lock," she said, her voice trembling for the first time. "It doesn't just track you. It marks the target for a divine strike. They're not chasing us anymore."
"Then what are they doing?"
"They're already here," Vesper whispered.
From the darkness of the tunnel ahead, a low, guttural hum began to vibrate through the floor. A single, golden light ignited in the distance, growing larger and brighter with every second, like an eye opening in the dark.
"Lucian," Vesper said, her knife out and her body shielding him. "Tell me you have a plan, because if you don't, we're both dead in about ten seconds."
Lucian looked at the approaching light. He didn't have a plan. But he had a feeling.
"Hold on tight," he said.
Just as the golden light hit the bend in the tunnel, a voice whispered directly into Lucian's ear—not Vesper's, but a voice from the Rift.
*The hunt has only just begun, little lamb.*