TheBroker

  Adrien Moreau hadn’t wao bee a vilin. It wasn’t a matter of principles, however, it was more a matter of practicality. The fsh had e with the kind of trouble that Adrien believed was better left avoided. Monsters were terrifying even if he was acutely aware that he could hahem himself if he wao. He was not a man built for bat but oo spend his time rexing whenever he could. Selling homes was a rexing business as far as he was ed, meeting people, having dinners, iating simple deals. When the fsh came and his powers awakened, his agency had pushed him out without a sed thought.

  He didn’t begrudge them to the point that he wished vengean the individuals of the group. He uood their perspective, his abilities were frightening even pared to ht-touched. He would have fired himself if he had been in that position. Even so, the fact that they had fired him because of something so involuntary had pnted a seed of reseowards the agency as a whole. He wished the people in it no ill will, but he reveled in the idea of crippling the group.

  Was it tenuous logic? Perhaps. Did he care? Not in the least.

  His first feers had taken the form of thefts of goods and valuables from a variety of homes across Paris. He kheir interiors like the back of his hand and khe people he had sold them to. It was not a challeo figure out where they would likely keep their most precious valuables as. Those capers had iably led to him entering a strange bck taxi-cab parked along a pnned escape route. It was in that cab that he went from a petty criminal to a vilin. It was there that he met one of the tless avatars of Charon and learned he had more support than he had initially thought. Support that he used, raising his status in the vilin underworld one successful scheme at a time.

  He took a drag on his cigarette and narrowed his eyes at the building across from him, exhaling as two men walked up behind him. “Is it done?” Adrien asked, not turning to look at them.

  “Yes sir, Mister Perch,” one of the men said, “The boys are ready.”

  Adrien flicked the remains of the cigarette to the ground and hunched his shoulders. His body tensed as his muscles grew dense and hard. His skin turned gray before being thid craggy. With a sound somewhere between ripping flesh and grating rock wied from his shoulderbdes that spread out over him. A luminous gleam burned in his eyes turning from his natural hazel to a deep crimson. His fingers grew long and cw-like as he flexed his wings. “The's go,” he growled, stepping off the side of the building aing his heavy body fall. His wings spread out and arrested his dest, his body pivoting up before shooting into the air and towards his target.

  Down below, lights went out dowreet. Vans filled with men swarmed the building, doors opening and disg armed footsoldiers. Tonight was the night he ruihe agency that had spurned him permaly. Their reputation had colpsed as people began to suspect their e to his capers and they were holding on for dear life. The building before him had been one of their single rgest deals and one of his proudest achievements. Now he fully inteo despoil it ahe agency suffer the blowback.

  People need someoo bme, even if it's the wrong persohought wryly, alighting atop the building as his men breached the rear doors and poured inside.

  “Adrien Moreau,” a gruff voice called out.

  Adrien spun, surprised, but he didn’t let it show on his malformed face. He bore his graeeth at the intruder, a man in a tan coat with his hands in his pockets. The man was grizzled and had the look of an Ameri about him, something out of a bad cop drama. His hair was a disheveled mess and his eyes bore dark rings. “That was a mistake, stranger,” Adrien snarled and unched himself forward. He had no i in talking to this man, whoever he was, any amount of time he was alive portunity for someone else to overhear what he had just said. He stretched out his cws, aiming for the man’s heart as he crossed the distaween them ihan a sed.

  That was when something very hard and very heavy collided with the side of Adrien’s head. Adrien was sent tumbling, cttering across the ground as his stony skin absorbed most of the impact. His head swam as he staggered to his feet, turning to face his attacker. He froze, taking in the old man at a ghe elderly gentleman before him wore a simple bowler cap and a suit tailored to fit just right. His eyes sparkled with a dark mirth that would have fit in well at the Styx. Even so, Adrien knew better than to think of this man as a proper vilin. He khat face. The others iyx had talked about him when telling stories of the time before the fsh.

  “Maximilian the Man-Hunter,” Adrien snarled, “What are you doing here?”

  With the sound of a steel cord retrag a e that y on the ground near where Adrien had been standing leaped from the ground to nd in Maximilian’s outstretched hand. He raised it up to tip his hat slightly, “Just doing some ing, sir, seems there is a vermin iion at this location.”

  Adrien g the rough looking man who hadn’t moved a muscle sihe enter began, “I heard you worked alone.”

  “I’m an old man now, boy,” Maximilian said, “Bounty hunting is difficult when you get to my age.”

  “Still up for hire?” Adrien asked.

  Maximilian’s eerily perfect white teeth shone a bit when he grinned a predatrin, “Afraid not. This is volunteer work.”

  “You’re no hero,” Adrien chuckled, “You might break a hip if you-” He was cut off as that e collided with the bridge of his nose. Ihaime it took Adrien to think Maximilian was already in his face. He seemed to float for a heartbeat even as the on in his ha like it weighed as much as a truck. Adrien was thrown bace again, tumbling across the ground. He reached up and cupped his face, groaning as the old man alighted above him.

  “That’s right, boy, I’m not a hero,” Maximilian said with a tohat sent a frantic chill snaking up Adrien’s spine. His eyes shot open in time to see the e desding towards his head once again. He rolled out of the way and fpped his wings, pulling himself into the air just in time to see the e leave a small crater in the roof of the building where his head had been. Maximilian stared at the spot for a moment before looking up at him with a zy expression, “Looks like I am getting old,” he grumbled, “e on down boy and take your beating like a man.”

  Adrien flicked his gaze between the old man and the silent cop just as something rumbled dowh him. Adrien fpped his wings again to get a bit more distance, gunfire was starting to sound ihe building as he brought a talon to his ear, “What’s happening down there?”

  “No idea! These things just started showing up and then some chick with green- AAH!”

  The li dead. Adrien frowned, “I won’t fet this, Maximilian,” he snarled, “You as well stranger-” It was Adriens turn to be id sentence as something heavy collided with his bad threw him onto the roof of the building. He gasped as his head bounced against crete surface, his vision going foggy.

  “Mimir!” Maximilian shouted somewhere nearby.

  “I know!” The silent one called back. Adrien heard a gunsh out followed by several more. Adrien tried to shift himself out from under whatever it was that had pinned him, only to manage rolling over and looking up into a pair of glowing red eyes, not unlike his own. The body attached to them, however, filled him with dread. He saine head with no fur, rows of teeth, and a forked tohen he saw nothing ever again.

  –

  The ch of the demon biting down around the vilin’s head sent Martin’s stomach ing. Even so, he kept himself calm as he took slow steps to the left, firing his on at the creature in order to get its attention. The post-pandora ammunition was suffit to pierce its skin but seemed to have little more effect than a bee-sting. It released its prey and looked up at him, showing off those razor sharp teeth as it assessed him. It’s head twitched, tilting to the right at a disturbing angle before its eyes grew brighter.

  “The viginte I’ve heard about,” it croaked, a gutteral sound that barely came across as words.

  “Astaroth,” Martin snarled.

  “You know me?” it gurgled, its head tilting again with a bone g snap.

  “Let’s meet face to fad I’ll tell you all about it,” Martin said ftly.

  The creature narrowed its eyes, its shoulders hunched and ready t into a, “I don’t think I will.”