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AS EDEN HAD REQUESTED, the skeleton stopped at an address a couple of streets away from where her target lived. She waited for the vehicle to rumble away before briskly walking the rest of the way to the ten-story brick building. Judging by the neighborhood her prey lived in, it was obvious he wasn’t a wealthy man. It was close to the dozens of factories that had sprung up after the Drain. Shifters toiled away inside the industrial areas, using labor to create the items they’d once taken for granted.
Nox was called the City of Night because few businesses operated during the day. The magic that ran the city was far stronger once the sun went down. The Night Cursed couldn’t function during daylight hours. When dawn neared, they all returned to their homes in their District to the south. Once the sun rose, they fell into a strange coma that lasted until nightfall.
Most shifters over the age of fifteen had jobs, but they took turns having one night off a week. Eden assumed her mark was having his night off, or she would have been given his work address to hunt him down. It was a challenge to lure her prey away when they were surrounded by others, but it wasn’t impossible. Still, she preferred to hunt them in seclusion where she had far less chance of being seen.
Once she was within a hundred yards of her target, Eden could feel him. The niggling sensation in the back of her head became stronger with each step she took. She found the fire escape at the back of the building right where she’d expected it to be. Thanks to the fire elementals that occasionally escaped from captivity, the ugly metal fire escapes were a necessity. The creatures delighted in running amok and inflicting as much damage as possible before the Night Cursed firefighters could contain them again. The magic of Nox would have been able to reverse even the worst damage once, but those days were also in the past.
The ladder was several feet above Eden’s head and was out of her reach. She could have closed her umbrella and used the hooked end to reach up and pull it down, but she didn’t want to get soaked. Instead, she looked around to make sure no one was watching her, then she bent her knees and leaped into the air. She grabbed hold of the bottom rung of the ladder and it slid downwards. It made a slight screeching noise as it descended and she stopped it before it could clang against the ground.
She listened intently for the sounds of windows being raised to see what the noise was. A couple of minutes passed and no one came to investigate, so she began climbing upwards. Years of practice made climbing in stilettos easy. Eden was strong, fast and agile and she could climb with one hand without any problems.
When she reached the sixth floor, she moved into a crouch and approached the window. The drapes had been left open a crack and she peered into a living room. It was small and the furniture was shabby. Her target sat on an armchair. He was talking to a female shifter who was probably his wife. Both wore the coarse, homemade outfits that were so common among the factory workers. They were werewolves and had the brown hair and amber eyes that were predominate among their species.
Now that her target was so close, the niggling in her mind became an insistent prodding. It would drive her crazy if she didn’t finish the task she’d been given. Eden ignored it as best she could and waited for her chance to act.
The wife looked agitated and leaned over to put her hand on the target’s arm. “You need to be careful, honey,” she cautioned him. “If Lord Graham learns you’ve been speaking out against him, he’ll send Xiara Evora to reap your soul with her horrible staff.”
“You know that’s just a myth,” her husband said with a weary grin. “I’m sure her staff isn’t really infused with the soul of a Grim Reaper.”
Eden knew for a fact that it was. Wrath was the deadliest weapon in the city. She’d heard it directly from Lord Dallinar that it could kill anything, whether it was alive, dead or undead. He was a full blood fairy, which meant he couldn’t lie. The staff could even permanently kill the Night Cursed creatures so they wouldn’t be resurrected the following night, which proved how dangerous it was. The assassin wished she had a weapon as cool as that, but she’d have to settle for her own talents instead.
“I’m going to visit my sister for a while,” the wife said. “Do you want to come with me?”
Her husband wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “I’m just going to stay home and relax.”
“I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” she said.
Eden watched dispassionately as the pair shared what would be their last kiss. It had become easy for her to switch off her emotions so she could do her job. If she didn’t, the weight of guilt would have driven her to madness years ago. Controlling her emotions was one of the things her trainer had made sure she was proficient at.
The wife left the apartment and the succubus waited until the werewolf had enough time to leave the building before she went to work. Her innate seductive magic rose as she concentrated on the shifter. He’d closed his eyes and was attempting to nap, but his shoulders were tense. Too many of his kind had either turned up dead, or had vanished for him to be able to relax. Speaking out against Lord Graham was almost guaranteed to result in a death sentence. The alpha werewolf didn’t tolerate dissent. He was almost pathological about destroying anyone who dared to defy him. This worker drone clearly wasn’t important, but he’d been marked for execution anyway.
Succubus magic oozed through the cracks in the window and drifted over to the target. It settled around him and invaded his mind. His eyes snapped open and his head turned until he was looking directly at Eden. A dreamy smile appeared on his mouth as her spell ensnared him. He stood up and shambled over to the window, then opened it and gave her his hand to help her inside.
The assassin climbed through the window and collapsed her umbrella. She leaned it against the wall while her prey just stood there with a smile on his weathered face. Twenty-four years of having his lifeforce sapped on Halloween had left him perpetually exhausted. Shapeshifters used to be strong, fierce and highly territorial, or so she’d heard. Their aggression was still there, but they no longer had enough energy to waste it on fighting their rivals.
Eden couldn’t hear any sounds from within the small apartment. The walls and floors were thin enough for her to make out a small child crying on the floor below. Someone else was asleep in the apartment above. The snoring sounds were deep and masculine.
“Have you been trying to incite rebellion against Lord Graham?” she asked. It wasn’t her job to question her marks, but curiosity about why she had to kill these men usually made her ask what they’d done wrong.
“The alpha, fairy and vampire are slowly killing us all,” the target said in a dazed tone. “If someone doesn’t stop them, Nox will become the City of Death.”
“It kind of has a catchy ring to it,” she said philosophically. He’d just voiced the concern that was widespread throughout the entire city. Now that he’d satisfied her curiosity, it was time to finish this. She had a book to get back to and a storm was coming. The rain was already picking up in intensity.
Eden’s target didn’t protest when she got him to kneel in front of her. She bent down and he obediently raised his face to hers, wearing a blissful smile and unaware that doom was about to descend on him. Her lips touched his and her magic struck. It sank into him and began drawing his essence out. Unlike Malachi, Eden didn’t just siphon her targets’ lifeforce from them and leave their bodies intact. Her magic was far stronger than that. It sucked everything out of them.
Right before her eyes, the werewolf’s skin became wrinkled, his hair turned white and his body became shriveled. Her magic worked like acid, melting his insides and converting his tissues and organs into energy. In the end, he looked like a mummified husk. It would be impossible to determine the victim’s gender, species, age, or anything else that could have identified him, except for his clothes. None of the hospitals in Nox possessed equipment to run tests on tissue samples like they apparently could in the outside world.
