Tonight, Esha Connor hunted evil.
Wet gravel crunched beneath her boots as she crept through the deserted underground streets of Edinburgh. Shivering, she pulled up the zipper of her snug leather jacket. She felt a bit like the Tomb Raider, if Lara Croft had worn jeans instead of shorts, brandished magic instead of thigh-holstered guns, and been accompanied by an irritable black cat. She rarely wore anything else, favoring the practical, and forgettable, ensemble. It allowed her to go about her business without drawing attention. Or so she told herself.
The truth—that other Mytheans could usually feel her coming and would run for it—just sucked. Their loss if they did, but why give them a heads-up? Especially the one she didn’t want to run away.
Her black cat, the familiar who was ever present at her side, nearly blended into the surrounding darkness as he strolled quietly along, slinking from one strange scent to another, ever watchful. Though she could smell only rain, dirt, and the light scent of decay, her companion would pick up on the subtler aromas. They were usually the interesting ones.
The unrelenting dark of the tunnel-like street was softened only by the small ball of cold fire she held in her palm. Its dim light glinted off the soot-black fur of Chairman Meow.
She could barely hear the bustle of the city above, though the steady drip of water through the dirt overhead echoed as it hit the ground. Drip, drip, drip. She spent so much time down here hunting rogue Mytheans that she barely noticed the annoyance anymore. The Chairman stopped abruptly near the crumbling stone wall that formed the side of the subterranean street.
“What do you smell, Chairman?” Her voice was soft; it would be inaudible to anyone but the cat, who listened for it constantly. He turned to look at her, citrine eyes glinting in the light of her carefully cradled flame. He had the strong, masculine visage of a large tomcat, his fur shiny, medium length, and constantly disheveled.
One low, deep meow reverberated in the stillness, and though reading his thoughts was beyond her powers, she understood his intention. The Chairman smelled evil, greasy and dark, a smear on the night that had been left behind by someone, or something, passing in the shadows.
Shit. It was exactly what she’d been afraid of when she’d entered the underground for a routine rogue hunt and realized that something felt very off. She’d immediately set out with the Chairman to find the source of it.
She smirked. Curiosity wouldn’t kill her cat, and it wouldn’t kill her, either. She’d made it alone this far through brains and brawn—magical brawn, at least—and she looked forward to the rest of her immortality.
Esha was a soulceress, a Mythean whose power was linked to souls. Not only did she draw her power from the immortal souls of other Mytheans, she had the ability to see the evil in a being’s soul manifested as black shadows that hovered around them.
From the feeling of the underground tonight, there were shadows here that were growing freakishly large. And from the Chairman’s meows, she’d almost found them.
Good. Once she located them, she’d dispatch them, as she had with the rest of the truly evil ones.
“It’s just too easy, Chairman,” she said to the cat. Her ability made her a natural justice dealer and even paid the bills. Every kill meant a deposit in her account by the university, who paid her to off the most evil Mytheans who might reveal their existence to mortals.
She continued down the corridor after the Chairman, sidestepping the bones of some creature she couldn’t identify.
Access to this underground world, and the large Mythean community from which she could draw her power, were the primary reasons she’d settled in Edinburgh. The city had long been a haven for the supernatural community of the British Isles. The eclectic inhabitants of London’s northern sibling had at times been composed of everyone from kings and the literary elite to the unsavory beings of the thriving underground world.
Chambers, streets, and alleys had been dug out beneath the teeming streets of Edinburgh over the centuries. In the past, the chambers and corridors had been workshops, the sites of legal commerce, dens of iniquity, and the tragic underground slums housing the poorest members of society.
Modern mortals had turned some of the old workshops and slums into pubs, dance clubs, and tourist traps. But they were the exceptions. Far more Mytheans had taken over other underground spaces for various purposes, both legitimate—at least, as legitimate as possible—and nefarious.
Underground, mortals and Mytheans managed to exist side by side relatively peacefully, primarily because mortals thought they were alone. They occupied separate sections, with a dead zone of abandoned tunnels in between. Any weak areas were blocked by magic, but all the same, it was a careful balance.
Esha skirted around a shadow hovering in a cubbyhole. The remnants of old evil attached to the ghost might have made Esha shudder, if she did that sort of thing. But it was weak, and so she continued on. It was because of such beings that Edinburgh was the most haunted city in Europe, and who was she to mess with that reputation?
“Haunt on, ghostie,” she said to the spirit, because that little one wasn’t the shadow that had been growing, pulling at her from the abandoned spaces in the dead zone. She couldn’t be sure that the evil she sensed was from past souls, but it was something, and she was determined to find out what.
The Chairman looked at her again, meowing deeply once more, but not with portents of evil.
“No, we can’t eat yet.” She glanced at him wryly. He looked and sounded like such a badass until he complained about his stomach. Then he ruined both their reputations. Thank goddess only she could understand him. “Let’s go a little farther, then we’ll get food.”
He glared at her before stalking off into the dark. She follow
ed him down the sloping corridor, constantly scanning the dimly lit tunnel. Eventually, the Chairman began to slow, not in fear, but in caution. He was never afraid, but she recognized his stance as one of wariness in the face of danger. She slowed as well, creeping along in the gloom. The smell of decay assaulted her nostrils here, and as the space widened into a larger chamber, the air became staler instead of fresher as one might expect.
She squinted into the chamber, but unable to see, focused on the fire in her palm until it glowed brighter. She looked up from the light and gasped, stumbled back, pressed herself into the stone wall. The Chairman hissed, arching his back.
A great, writhing mass of shadows pulsed in the corner of the large chamber. It was enormous, far bigger than any she’d ever seen, and the blackness at the center appeared endless.
She reached for the cat. “Chairman.”
His corporeal form vanished, and turning into shadow, he appeared at her side instantly. He twined about her legs, and when she felt nothing but the energy of his being, they disappeared.
CHAPTER FIVE