The director leaned back against the desk and crossed his arms. His expression that of a cat playing with a mouse. He must've caught the flicker of interest on my face before I masked it.

"I'm sure that none of the databases available for the headhunters' use have any information on Martin Malone," he paused, "but I can give you access to the Order's databases. And those, as you know, are a gold mine of information. Any human intelligence organisation would kill to get a glimpse at them."

More than eight years of searching, and I had nothing to show for it. The reason I had gotten into headhunting in the first place was because headhunters have access to a number of databases that regular humans don't. I had briefly considered getting into human law enforcement, but I'd learned that they didn't have full access to immortal databases, and I needed those. Martin Malone and his squad were not human.

I had managed to find information about every single member of the squad. I had chased their trail for over eight years whenever I had time between missions. All those trails led to a dead end. The members of Martin Malone's unit were hired by him a few months before their death in a blood drenched forest. They left no evidence of any knowledge about the details of the operation that led to their demise.

Martin Malone, on the other hand, was the head of their group. He had definitely known all the details about the mission and the person behind it. But I could find nothing on him in any of the databases that Headhunters had access to.

"Just to be clear," I said, "you want me to work on this case in exchange for access to your databases."

"Not full access, of course. But anything related to Martin Malone? full access."

I considered my options. It was tempting. So damn tempting. I was getting frustrated with my years long fruitless search.

I would be an idiot not to take this chance. But was it really worth it? If I worked on this case, there was a chance I would be under the spotlight. A chance I would catch one of the immortals' attention.

But I already had. I was standing in the office of the Order's director, having a conversation with him. One of the most powerful immortals in the country. It was a little too late for staying under the radar. Might as well make the best of it.

Plan 'Get in, get paid and get out' was pretty much shot dead the moment I stepped into this building, anyway.

Okay, then. New plan. Work on the case, get the information then get the heck out.

Hopefully, this plan would turn out better than the last one.

*** *** ***

"So what was Anil's ability?" I asked the woman walking beside me; a shapeshifter of a whole different kind, from a land rich in legends and history.

After The director and I signed a contract detailing our agreement, I left his office to find Irene waiting for me. Kit was nowhere to be found, for which I was grateful. If I saw that smug bastard's face so soon I would bash it in. He was the reason I was in this mess to begin with. But then again, maybe this was good. Maybe I would finally find out some information about Martin Malone, like who had hired him to perform that mission eleven years ago.

"Anil might look like a harmless idiot- and he is, in a way-" Irene replied, "but he is an agent of the Order. He does have a few tricks up his sleeve."

She didn't answer. I raised my brow. She sighed, "You're not cleared for that. Agents' abilities are on a need to know basis only. Only certain people in the Order have access to all agents' information."

I shrugged, "alrighty, then. What about you? Do people know what you are?"

"Nope, only a few," Irene grinned, "Which makes you very curious, since even the director can't see my tails when I make skin contact."

Hmm. So I was more immune to magic than the director of the Order himself. No wonder uncle Robert wanted me nowhere near these people. Under different circumstances, they would have viewed me as a threat.

"How does that work, by the way? Your tails, I mean. Are they always there?" I looked behind her.

"Something like that," She said, looking straight ahead. Well, I shouldn't have expected her to answer that. It was a knowledge that would make a huge difference if I ever found myself fighting her. Having invisible tails could both be an advantage and a disadvantage.

I once read that nine-tailed foxes couldn't shift back fully to human form. They either kept their tails, their ears, or some part of their anatomy that made them recognizable.

Nine-tailed foxes were sort of a myth in our world. Although they do exist, their numbers are so small. It was rumored that, in the entire world, only a few existed at any given time. They were also known to be an extremely insular breed.

I was curious, but Irene wouldn't volunteer any information about her race. It wasn't like I could ask someone else here. She made it clear that her identity wasn't known to everyone. Even the contract I signed with the director clearly stated I was not to reveal Irene's identity to anybody, either inside or outside the Order.

Fifteenth floor. The doors opened to reveal a space so different from the director's office that I actually paused.

The floor was an open plan, lined with cubicles and crowded with immortals. Mostly vampires and witches, and smaller numbers of shapeshifters. No humans.

I followed Irene. Some people paused when we passed them by. I met the gaze of the ones who stared in simple confusion, and grinned at the ones who snarled. Some immortals really did not like humans. How charming.

Across from the elevators, there were a number of hallways leading deeper into the floor. The offices we passed by all had glass walls. We reached what looked like a meeting room. I could see Kit standing at the head of the table, leaning on it with his palms and glaring at the papers scattered all over the table. A mobile glass board stood behind him, crammed with pictures and graphics.

"You're late," He grumbled, then sat down. Irene rolled her eyes. She sat on his right, I took his left.

"Elle is in," she picked up a remote laying on the table, "we're briefing her."

"Make sure she gets only the bare necessary information," he grumbled.

"The director said to make sure she has everything in order to work on the case with us."

"She's human."

"It doesn't matter. She's part of the case now, so suck it up."

"We only need her at the crime scenes," Kit snarled.

"I say we give her full clearance!" I piped in cheerfully. They looked at me with matching frowns. I grinned.

Kit shook his head as if to clear it, then leaned back in his seat with a deep sigh, "fine, go ahead."

Irene turned on the large screen on the opposite wall. It took me a moment to make sense of the pictures displayed on it. When I did, I had to swallow the bile rising in my throat.

Each picture was of a butchered female body with a scarlet halo of blood. Their faces were all screwed into an expression of horror, lifeless eyes holding the last remnants of the terror that stripped the life out of them.

But what made me grip my thigh in a bruising hold was the state of their bodies from the neck down. They were devoured. Literally. Except for the head, their bodies were basically skeletons with small chunks of muscle and tendons hanging off some spots. Their internal organs were gone as well, the intestines spilling besides their bodies, disregarded like useless trash. It was as if someone had fed on their flesh.

"How many?" I asked past the knot in my throat.

"Seven, so far," Irene replied, "all of them human females between the ages of nineteen to thirty-six. All in the city of Portland, discovered over the last few weeks.

"The first case was of a twenty year old woman," Irene said, switching the view on the screen to a wider shot of one of the crime scenes. The victim on the bed was in what looked like a hotel room. The woman had long blonde hair and pale skin. Though I couldn't tell if the pallor was there before or after her gory death.

"Tatiana Ivanov, a russian tourist," Irene continued, "she was travelling alone, and was found by the cleaning staff of the hotel on the morning after her death. Our experts put the time of death somewhere after three a.m.

"The case was taken by human law enforcement, but after the first scan of the crime scene showed heavy magic residue, we were notified and took over."

Police, I knew, were obliged to scan every crime scene for magic residue. The scanner they used was a mesh of technology and magic, developed by a witch coven in the beginning of the twentieth century, though it had progressed from a heavy, barrel sized machine to the hand-held gadget the police used nowadays.

The scanner picked up traces of magic, but it couldn't pin-point its origin.

Vampire, fae, shapeshifters and witches all have a similar kind of magic, though there are differences that only powerful people could tell.

Demon magic, on the other hand, was different. Because they were not creatures of our world.

They don't belong in our realm. Most humans don't know much about the origin of demons, about the existence of other realms.

I was not most humans. I had uncle Robert, who was a powerful immortal. He told me everything he knew about our world. Including the fact that the demons who manage to sneak into our realm are all Lesser Demons. Demons who are on the bottom of the power scale.

"Lord demons are the most powerful, but the hairline cracks in the fabric separating our realms are only significant enough to allow lesser demons to enter."

Uncle Robert's words echoed in my head.

"A rogue?" I asked, looking at the picture on the screen, trying to find some indication of the criminal mind behind such gruesome death.

"Unlikely," Kit said, passing me a datapad containing close up pictures of all the crime scenes.

"Though there were traces of bites and fangs on some of the bodies- at least whatever was left of them- the marks don't match shapeshifter or vampires."

"And fae and witches don't have fangs," I mumbled, looking through the pictures. It was heartbreaking to see young life gone, just like that. "DNA?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

"Nothing. The blood of magical beings doesn't react like human blood. Anyway, we didn't rule out any species," Irene said, her expression grim, "but there's a high chance it's a demon."

She looked pointedly at Kit. His jaw granite hard under his beard, Kit stared at the screen for a long moment before speaking.

"The last murder," the vampire said, "we were able to reach the scene before he finished the kill."

"How?" I asked, leaning forward on the table.

"Pure luck. The last victim was a woman who lived alone in an apartment building. The neighbor heard something unusual next door and called the police. Since we were monitoring police calls after we took the case, we intercepted the call and got there-"

The pieces started falling into place before Kit continued.

"Agent Kim here, three other agents and I went in. We don't remember anything after the moment we broke the door and went inside the apartment. My last memories were of sensing a demonic presence, then everything went blank. When I came to we were standing in the middle of the apartment, the culprit was gone and the victim dead."

"How much time did you lose?"

It was Irene who replied, "Almost an hour."

I tapped my finger on the table, "that's why you want me on this. You think the demon did something to take that time away from you. You think whatever he did won't work on me."

Kit rolled his chair until he was inches from me, then leaned in, his ever present scowl darker than ever. My hand moved under the table. "I know whatever he did to our minds won't work on you. I was there in that alley yesterday, and the demon who possessed that human was one of the strongest I've met in the last century of my existence. I don't know what you are or how you're immune to magic, but quit playing the harmless little human. You're not."

"Alright," I smiled at him, "now get out of my face before I castrate you."

I pressed the dagger in my hand to his crotch. His scowly facade splintered for a second, and I could see I had really taken him by surprise. I'd had the dagger in my hand since I sat down. I wasn't going to be complacent about my safety when I was considered prey by half- if not all- of the people in this building.

Kit settled back in his chair. I blew out a breath.

"This happened five days ago. Considering the time gap between the previous deaths, it means we have from two to three days before the killer strikes again." Irene said in a calm tone that was so at odds with the rage shimmering in her eyes.

"What do we know about the victims? How does the culprit choose them?" I asked.

"You'll find files on all the victims in the datapad," Irene said, "but there was no common point other than the fact they're all human females."

"We've put in patrols in neighborhoods where the human population is concentrated," Kit added, "but the city is too big, we can only cover so much."

I looked through the files of the victims, a quick glance showed me that other than their gender and humanity, the victims shared nothing in particular. Two of the victims worked as bankers, one was a college student, another a bartender, a doctor, a teacher, a prostitute. Their ethnicity was also quite varied, european, asian, african... nothing stood up to me. They didn't share the same religious beliefs, they didn't frequent the same spots, nothing linked them.

"Did you get a warning out to the humans?" I asked the two immortals, "we should make sure female humans are aware of the danger."

Irene's lips thinned out. It was Kit who replied, "human police are aware, they're spreading the information."

I frowned, "it's not enough, this should be on every communication channel for humans, T.V. news, social media-"

"That's not your job," Kit cut me off sharply, "we'll take care of it."

I glared at him. "You don't want news of this to get out," I realized, "why?"

Kit pushed up from his seat, walked to the glass board, his back to me, "it'll only cause unnecessary panic."

"Unnecessary panic?"

"Drop it," Kit ordered, not turning around, "agent Kim, show Ms. Sanders to her quarters, we'll meet tomorrow morning."

I opened my mouth to tell him where he could shove his orders when Irene caught my gaze. She shook her head slightly, picked up the datapad Kit had handed me earlier, then we left immediately.

"This has all the data on the case," Irene handed me the datapad when we were inside the elevator, "it's linked to the Order's data center, everytime there's a new development in the case, It'll update automatically."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"So why are you keeping this case so quiet?" I asked, "or is that none of my business, too."

Irene sighed, then turned to look at me. Her skin was almost translucent under the elevator's bright lights, "look, I actually like you. You're smart, you don't take shit from Kit and you can hold your own. So I'm gonna cut straight to the chase.

"Kit is the Agent responsible for the case. If he says to not make a broadcast about the murders, then there's nothing we can do about it. And, keep in mind, he doesn't do anything without the director's approval, and The director doesn't like advertising anything that could tarnish the Order's omnipotent image."

If the details of this case got out, the mighty agents of the Order would lose that reputation. That was why there was no announcement about the case in the news.

"Even if it costs lives?" I asked. Because when the director forbade giving out a public warning about the case in fear of ruining the Order's bad boy image, he put the lives of innocent women in danger.

Irene shook her head, "you're thinking from a human perspective. The director is hundreds of years old, and he has hundreds more ahead of him. Human lives are laughably short, and they mean nothing to people like him. For them, a few short human lives are an acceptable collateral damage."

My hands fisted. How self-centered one would have to be to disregard lives as an accepted loss in his desire to keep his power. At that moment, I really wished I had taken my chances back in the director's office and kicked the crap out of him. Arrogant prick.

"Also, and it's just what I think," Irene said, lowering her voice, "but if the man at the top of the food chain finds out about the time it's taking to solve this case, the director will be in trouble."

"Arthur, you mean," I said.

"Of course! who else would I mean?" she whispered.

"Have you ever met him?" I asked, genuinely curious about one of the most powerful individuals in the world.

"Of course not! And stop talking about him out loud," She hissed.

I looked around, we were still in the elevator, then scoffed, "what? He has the place bugged?"

"Who knows?" she whispered, "and if he wanted to listen, he wouldn't do something as mundane as bugging the place. That's such a human thing to say. That man is...is power itself."

Well, someone was a hardcore fangirl. I held up my hands and took a small step away from her, "okay, okay."

The elevator opened to the basement. The parking lot. Irene led me to her car; a small, compact, white vehicle. Its lights flashed when Irene put her thumb on the scanner of the driver door's handle.

The inside was as adorable as the outside of the car. The leather on the seats was a light blush color, the steering wheel covered in a fluffy pink material, and a tiny, white fox hung from the rearview mirror.

"Cute," I said, biting my cheek to keep from grinning. It was so adorable and so inconsistent with her all black clothes. She rolled her eyes.

"Laugh if you want. I like adorable things."

"I can see that. I'm surprised you're not wearing fluffy, pink clothes."

"You're very funny," she said with a straight face. Then added, "we have a color code for dressing."

I laughed, "let me guess, black, black and black."

"Actually, it's black, gray and black," she replied, her lips twitching up. The car's electric motor hummed to life. Silently, we glided out of the parking lot into the night outside. I had thought the area surrounding the Order's building was entirely forested. But Irene drove the car on the road through the trees for less than five minutes before we reached a cluster of buildings.

Three wide apartment buildings surrounded a square parking lot. The lampposts scattered throughout the place reflected off the metal of the few cars parked near the buildings. The place looked peaceful, surrounded as it was with nature.

"What's this place?" I asked.

"Where you'll be staying for the duration of the contract," Irene stepped out of the car. I did the same, getting my backpack from where I'd stashed it by my feet, and looked at the many windows lit from within.

"Who lives here?"

"Order agents," Irene replied as we started walking toward the building in the middle, "well, some Order agents. Mostly the single ones. The Order provides housing and groceries for its agents," she nodded to the shop I'd spotted earlier in one of the buildings' ground floors. "You can pick up whatever you want, for free, but you'll need an Order I.D. Your temporary one will be issued tomorrow. We'll use mine right now."

"Convenient."

"Yep, very."

We went into the convenience store. It was stocked with everything I could possibly need. I picked up some food and toiletry items, then we went inside.

The clerk of the building was a vampire who gave me the stink eye while scanning my fingerprint into the system. We didn't stay in his company any longer than necessary.

"Don't mind him, he's like that with everyone," Irene said when we hopped in the elevator.

"I'm getting used to it," I shrugged. The few immortals I'd met before getting tangled in this mess weren't so bad, but they were ones used to working with humans. The Order was different. The more I spent with the Order's officials, the more I started to realize that some treated humans as insignificant, disposable tools.

My unit was on the third floor. The hallways were carpeted with a thick gray material, the walls a nondescript white. Irene's door was right across the hallway from mine.

I opened my door using the fingerprint scanner above the knob.

"If you need anything, knock," she said opening her door, "we should be in the Order around eight. We can go in my car, I'll give you a ride."

"Thanks."

She waved and went into her apartment. I did the same. The lights automatically turned on when I walked in.

The unit was an open plan, the only door was that of a single bedroom. The kitchen on the left was white and pristine, well equipped from what I could see. The living room area had a gray L shaped couch pushed into one corner under a window, a lush beige area rug, a glass coffee table, and a T.V. screen hanging on the opposite wall. The walls were all an off white that made the place feel roomier.

I put the grocery bags on the small dining table along with my backpack, slipped out two of my daggers and went into the bedroom.

A queen sized bed with a fluffy white comforter was set against one wall, a night stand on either side of it. A window on the right with creamy curtains. On the left of the bed were two doors. A closet which was empty when I carefully checked it, and a bathroom that made me suddenly aware of the heaviness in my bones after such a long day.

After checking the locks on the door and the windows, I checked the place for any hidden surveillance technology.

Uncle Robert wasn't a fan of technology. He was an old vampire, set in his old ways. It was Kenji who taught me all about surveillance equipment and spying technologies. He had taught me the basics and I made it a mission to constantly be aware of all new developments.

I stacked the groceries into the refrigerator and cupboards, ate a ham sandwich, left my backpack packed on the bed in case I had to hightail it out of there for some reason, then jumped into the shower with my weapons close by on the counter.

The hot water felt divine on my skin, the fruity shampoo smelt delicious and the white tiles under my feet smooth and clean.

I wondered what were the possibilities of confirming the existence of two high level demons in the span of twenty-four hours. The one Kit and I met the night before was most certainly a powerful one. His magic was simply too strong. Along with the demon responsible for those women's murder, that meant the existence of two high level demons. Unless they were one and the same.

I remembered Kit and my encounter with the demon. We were lucky he only possessed a human and didn't materialize in front of us. Otherwise, it would have been a lot more difficult to deal with him.

Demons usually possess humans in two cases.

In the first case, the demon is too strong to materialize in our world. So, they possess a human and live in this realm through their host.

In the second case, the demon is able to materialize in our world, but they possess humans in order to be in multiple places at once. So, they send the human host to do their bidding someplace while they remain in a different location. The host's death only affects the demon to a certain extent, it doesn't cause his death. Quite convenient.

In both cases, the human has to be willing to play host to a demon. Unfortunately, there are many humans who volunteer nowadays, even initiating the process by summoning demons through a specific ritual and making deals with them.

The problem is, once a demon gets hold of a human, it would be almost impossible to get rid of him. The demon may leave the body, but once he's invited for the first time, he can slip in whenever he wants, even if the human changes their mind later.

That was why I had to kill that man in the alley last night. I still felt bad about it, but I couldn't risk letting him loose.

I rinsed off one last time then stepped out of the shower. Drying out my body, I considered the question I didn't ask Kit and Irene. If the culprit was really a demon killing in his original form, it meant that a high level demon had managed to materialize in our realm.

The two realms were separated by a fabric. The fabric had cracks and chasms in it, insignificant ones that only allowed lesser demons to walk through.

If a high level demon was here in the flesh, it meant that there was a deep chasm somewhere in the fabric separating the realms.

That didn't bode well for anyone.

I exited the shower after running a comb loosely over my short strands. I had cut my hair military short only a couple of weeks ago, now it was in a length where I could grab it. It had always grown out too fast. A few years ago, I was on a mission to hunt down a shapeshifter rogue. The leopard shifter had grabbed me by my braid during the fight. Ever since then, I've kept my hair short. It felt good at the start, It was lighter and less a hassle to wash and dry. But I was beginning to miss running my hand through its length. Maybe I'd grow it again.

I put on a shirt and sweatpants, checked the apartment and the locks once more before turning in to sleep.

It was surreal, how fast everything happened, how I ended up here. Meeting an agent of the Order, exposing part of my secret to him to save our lives, travelling all the way to the city of immortals, getting blackmailed by the director of the Order himself, and working with a vampire and a nine-tailed fox on a case in which the culprit was likely a high level demon.

Uncle Robert would have had a stroke if he'd been alive.



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