“You worry too much,” Lowe said, sipping a cup of lukewarm tea.

  Pleasingly, his initial assumption had been correct. He was easily able to keep both the entrance to the park and the all important bench under observation from this position. Sure, the cafe might have seen better days—it was all faded wood, greasy tables, and a perpetually damp smell that no mana-laced cleaning rune could shift—but he’d been right when he’d argued that this would offer the perfect vantage point over the operation.

  “And, if you ask me, you don’t worry enough,” Rook replied, whispering into the Sending Stone stitched into the collar of his coat.

  “You should turn that frown upside down, Rooky. We’re all about to be heroes.”

  Across the street from where Lowe sat, Goldleaf Park stretched out behind a meticulously maintained row of hedges, all rolling green lawn, ornamental fountains, and carefully positioned wooden benches. It absolutely bustled with early spring purpose: Mothers and children played near the east fountain, joggers looped lazily along its perimeter, and a street vendor hawked suspiciously high-quality pastries from the back of a cart.

  If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was just another sunny afternoon in downtown Soar.

  But, of course, Lowe knew better.

  For example, he knew that pretty much every single one of those seemingly innocent park-goers was a member of his team. And that, in very short order indeed, some serious shit was going to go down.

  He took another sip of his tea, holding a Sending Stone lightly in the palm of one hand. It glimmered, pulsing every few seconds to confirm the secure link with the other Security Service officers.

  “Arman, status?”

  A scratchy reply came through almost instantly. “Positioned near the south gate, boss. Jogger disguise holding up fine. If anyone’s watching, they’re in for a masterclass of some fucking leisurely cardio.”

  Lowe glanced toward the south gate. Sure enough, Arman was there, dressed in sweat-stained shirt and shorts that probably were a whole catalogue of sex-crimes all on their own.. The big man jogged enthusiastically in place, earning a giggle from a couple of passing schoolgirls.

  “Looking good, mate. But don’t overdo it, though. Nobody buys a jogger who’s too committed.”

  “But boss,” Arman replied. “I’ve enchanted my nipples against chafing and everything!”

  “Nobody needs to think about your nipple right now. Coda, what you seeing?”

  From his position near the fountain, Coda’s voice chimed in. “I can heartily concur. I’m having to look at the fat fucker’s arse cheeks flapping in the wind and I absolutely do not need to think about his nipples as well.”

  “About the layout, Coda. About the layout.”

  “Ah, you should have said, boss. Plenty of sightlines. If our kidnapper’s here, they’ve certainly got options. Shadows near the hedges are prime for hiding. I’ve already flagged three spots where they could try to blend in.”

  Lowe nodded, moving slightly in his chair to improve his view of that area. “Mark them and keep your focus on the bench. We don’t need any surprises today.”

  Coda’s Sending Stone blinked in acknowledgment, and Lowe turned his attention to the next piece of the puzzle.

  “Faulks, how’s the bait looking?”

  In the heart of the park, an older man sat stiffly on a bench, his pale fingers gripping two gleaming bags of gold. He was wealthy, of course—a mining tycoon who owned half the veins beneath the Shattered Plains—but he looked anything but powerful right now. His immaculate suit was rumpled and his eyes were hollow with exhaustion.

  Faulks, posing as an overly pushy vendor, loitered near the bench, selling cheap talismans to non-existent customers.

  “He’s holding together,” the woman reported, though her tone suggested it was a fragile kind of ‘holding.’ “But barely. Keeps muttering to himself about how he’s going to ‘gut the bastard’—and, uh, let’s just say that’s not a vague, idle threat. It’s some real explicit, weirdo stuff. Knows his way around a filleting knife, if you catch my drift. To be honest, boss, we might want to dig a little deeper into his background. Some of these threats? They’ve got a little too much... let’s say practical detail for my liking. Guy’s not just imagining payback; he’s drafting blueprints.”

  “Let him mutter, Folky” Lowe said. “Just make sure he sticks to the plan. He leaves the bags and walks away. No heroics.”

  “Copy that.”

  “You see, Rook”, Lowe said, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the table,“it’s all going exactly as planned. How much did we wager on this, by the way?”

  “What, that this ridiculously convoluted idea of yours would actually work?”

  “Yeah. From memory, we bet a Skill upgrade, didn’t we?”

  “Fuck you, Lowe. We’re not all Cenorth’s Golden Boy. Some of us actually have to work for a living.”

  Lowe laughed and moved his mana about within the Sending Stone, switching channels. “Control, what’s our perimeter look like?”

  The clipped, professional tone of one of the dispatchers filled his ear. “Perimeter secure, sir. We’ve got two officers stationed at every gate and a rapid response team stationed just outside the park. No unusual activity reported.”

  “Perfect. Keep me posted if they see anything hinky.”

  “Will do, sir. Good hunting.”

  He set the stone down for a moment and glanced at his notepad.

  It was mostly blank—a few cryptic sketches of various chess pieces and a list of all his people’s positions. The real plan was in his head, of course, and that was running like clockwork. A career spent working in Cuckoo House had taught him the value of improvisation, but it was also nice when a well-constructed plot actually all came together.

  Especially one with such high stakes . . .

  The Sending Stone buzzed again, but this time, he didn’t answer it. He waved a hand over it, cutting the feed, and activated Overwatch so seamlessly it might as well have been a reflex.

  The air shimmered, as the park unfolded around him in perfect clarity. Every officer, every potential hiding spot, every possible line of approach—all of it overlaid with glowing sigils and annotations visible only to him. He could see where Faulks shifted nervously by the bench, Arman’s exaggerated jog, Coda crouching near the fountain, and Mr Highberg still clutching his bags of ransom like they were his lifeline.

  The park itself lit up with magical traces.

  Shadows that were just a touch too deep, spots where the flow of mana was disrupted—potential hiding places for their suspect. He noted them all, filing the information away as he toggled through layers of analysis.

  “Two shadows near the west gate,” he murmured. “Mana signature’s weak, but worth keeping an eye on.”

  He tapped the Sending Stone again, his voice casual. “Coda, check the west gate. Two suspicious spots—could be nothing, could be something.”

  “On it.”

  As Coda moved into position, Lowe deactivated Overwatch, leaving the park looking deceptively normal again. He was hoping when he hit Level 20 he would get a threshold reward which would make that Skill’s mana demands a little more palatable. Right now - with a full slate of offensive and defensive Skills humming around him - it was too resource heavy for him to keep open.

  Not for the first time, Lowe questioned the wisdom of letting his suite of Skills sprawl quite so broadly.

  Sure, a little ‘Quality of Life’ mana usage here and there was nice—hell, it had saved his skin more times than he could count—but managing it all? That was becoming a headache. Lately, it felt less like he was commanding his arsenal and more like he was juggling it, constantly trying to keep track of cooldowns, mana regen rates, and which potions he could afford to burn through.

  Just for one day, he thought, it’d be a relief to strip it all back. No swirling calculations, no intricate balancing act—just the basics. Three Skills max. Yeah, he mused, that’d be nice.

  He returned his focus to the Sending Stone. “Alright, team, listen up. The ransom drop is in five minutes. Everyone stay sharp. No unnecessary movement. We want our guy to feel as comfortable as possible until he grabs those bags. At which stage, please feel free to kick a little arse.” A chorus of acknowledgments came through the Sending Stone.

  Cases with kids were the worst. And lowlives that kidnapped kids . . . yeah, Lowe was going to be lucky if there was anything left of this guy to present to his superiors at Cuckoo House.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Lowe leaned back, his hand brushing the hilt of his baton—a standard-issue relic enchanted with enough punch to deal with anything short of an avatar on a rampage. He doubted he’d need it today - ideally, he wouldn’t even need to leave his seat - but it was always nice to be prepared.

  Through the café’s window, he saw the tycoon take a deep breath and stand. His movements were hardly fluid, but he followed the script Lowe had written for him. With a trembling hand, he placed the two bags of gold on the bench and walked away, his shoulders hunched like a man carrying the weight of the world.

  “Faulks, tail him,” Lowe ordered. “Make sure he doesn’t double back for a bit of stabby stabby action. As soon as he’s out of the park, take him back home. Coda, eyes on the bags. Everyone else, hold position.”

  A silent weight pressed down on the park like an approaching storm. Lowe let it wash over him and triggered Clear Thought, a Skill that gave him a 10% increase on his Intelligence. For most people, that might not have been much, but with his stats . . . well, it was like bringing another mind online.

  “Alright, team,” he said, his voice steady. “Let’s catch ourselves a kidnapper.”

  ***

  The first sign that something was going wrong was when Highberg put the gold bags down and then, instead of walking away as planned, stubbornly planted himself on the bench. His face was a storm cloud of grief and fury.

  “I want to look the bastard who took my boy in the eye!” he bellowed, the sheer volume sending ripples through the park. Heads turned—some belonging to undercover officers, some belonging to innocent bystanders who weren’t supposed to be noticing anything unusual.

  “Faulks,” Lowe hissed into his Sending Stone as he stood up from his seat, his tea forgotten. “Get him the fuck out of there! But do it subtly!”

  The blonde officer, approached Highberg with the air of someone who had no idea she was interrupting a carefully laid trap. Her voice carried a cheery, sing-song quality that belied the urgency of the situation. “Can I interest you in one of these fine talismans?” she said, holding up a cheap charm as if it were a rare artifact. “Guaranteed to bring you peace of mind—or maybe just a little good luck!”

  Highberg, for a moment, appeared startled by the interruption. His eyes darted to her and then back to the bags of gold sitting on the bench as if he couldn’t decide whether to argue, shout, or ignore her entirely.

  “I don’t need your damn trinkets!” he yelled back. “Get the fuck away from me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Fauls continued, with a breezy smile. “You look like a man with a lot on his mind. This one here—blessed by the High Priest of Nerienia himself—works wonders on restless hearts. Why don’t you step over here and have a proper look?”

  As she spoke, she gestured with her free hand, signaling for one of the other officers to close in from the opposite direction.

  “Faulk, you've got about thirty seconds before this whole thing goes tits up. Move him. Now!”

  “Working on it, boss,” she whispered back, her tone tense.

  Every second he lingered on that bench increased the risk of spooking their target—or worse, drawing unwanted attention to the ransom drop. And Lowe couldn’t shake the feeling that their kidnapper was already somewhere in the park, watching, waiting for the moment to make their move.

  Then the park erupted into chaos with the horrifying suddenness of the end of the world.

  Faulks had been mid-sentence, still trying to steer Highberg away from the bench, when her head exploded in a spray of red mist and bone shards. The noise was a percussive crack that echoed off the nearby buildings, leaving a stunned silence in its wake. For one impossible moment, Highberg stood frozen, covered in the blood of the woman who had been speaking to him only a heartbeat earlier.

  Then, the screaming started.

  “Sniper!” someone yelled, but Lowe already knew better. His stomach twisted, the instinctive lurch of someone who had seen this kind of thing before. This wasn’t any mundane sniper. It was a specific Skill used by a particular felon—one designed with devastating precision and unrelenting violence in mind.

  The Black Knight.

  He was running before the second shot fired.

  Another crack split the air, and Arman, the big jogger in his sweat-stained disguise, went down in a crumpled heap. His chest cavity opened up like someone had punched a hole through him with a molten fist. His enchanted jogging gear lit up briefly before extinguishing in a futile puff of mana.

  “Coda, report!” Lowe barked into his Sending Stone as his boots hit the cobblestones of the park’s central path.

  But there was no response.

  Through the smoke and chaos, Lowe spotted him—Coda, near the fountain, crouched behind the stonework like he thought it might protect him. The air around him was a golden shell, suggesting a shield Skill, but it didn’t matter. The next attack wasn’t just physical.

  A greenish light arced through the air, passed through the shield, and struck Coda dead center. His body seized, twitching violently, before collapsing into a twisted heap. The smell of burning flesh reached Lowe before the reality of what he’d seen truly registered.

  “Faulks, Coda, Arman…” Lowe whispered to himself, trying to force his brain to process the mounting tally.

  The tycoon, Highberg, was still at the bench, screaming curses into the void. “You son of a bitch! Come out here and face me!” he roared, shaking his fist at no one in particular.

  The next strike answered him.

  A golden lance of light speared Highberg from above, descending like the wrath of some unfeeling deity. His body was obliterated in an instant, the force of the attack leaving a crater where the bench had been. The bags of gold rolled harmlessly to the side, almost mocking in their mundane finality.

  “Shit,” Lowe hissed, his feet skidding to a stop as he tried to take in the carnage. His mind raced. He toggled Overwatch in desperation, hoping for some insight, some clue as to where the attacks were coming from. “Rook? Can you see anything?”

  Silence.

  The park was a blur of overlapping layers of magical distortion. Every potential angle, every possible vantage point lit up with mana traces. The assailant—whoever they were—was either moving too fast or using something so advanced that even Overwatch couldn’t pin them down.

  A shadow shifted in his peripheral vision. Lowe had only a moment to turn before something slammed into him.

  It was like being hit by the world itself.

  The impact drove him off his feet and sent him flying through the air cobblestones. When he came to a stop, he realised he couldn’t breathe. He looked down and saw why.

  There was a hole in his chest. Or rather, what remained of his torso was around a hole.

  A massive, ragged wound had torn through him, right where his heart and lungs should have been. Blood poured out in torrents, pooling beneath him in dark, sticky rivulets. His vision blurred.

  And then Roll with the Punches kicked in.

  The Skill’s familiar hum surged to life, flooding his body with mana and forcing the torn flesh to knit itself back together. Bones realigned. Muscles reformed. Within seconds, the catastrophic injury was gone, leaving only a faint ache where the wound had been.

  Lowe groaned, staggering to his feet. His Sending Stone buzzed weakly at his side, but he didn’t answer it. There was no point. It seemed there was no one was left to talk to.

  The screaming had stopped.

  He looked around the park, now a carmel house of shattered cobblestones and smoldering debris. Bodies lay where his team had been stationed, their lives snuffed out.

  The bags of gold were gone.

  ***

  The rest of the day passed in a blur—a grotesque collage of questions, disbelief, and a suffocating sense of failure.

  They’d found the boy’s body in a warehouse on the edge of the district.

  Or, more accurately, they were led there.

  The laughter had been with them every step of the way, a mocking, hollow sound that echoed through the Sending Stones like a malevolent hymn. It guided them, taunting and cajoling, to a place that stank of mildew and despair. Lowe recognized it the moment he stepped inside: the kind of place where things were hidden, forgotten, discarded.

  And there, amidst a pile of broken crates and damp refuse, was the boy.

  Small. Still. His body looked impossibly fragile, as if a single breath might shatter him completely. The ropes around his tiny wrists were crude, almost insultingly so, as if whoever had tied them hadn’t considered him worth the effort of doing it properly. His wide, unseeing eyes stared up at the rotting beams above, his face frozen in the faintest shadow of terror.

  Lowe felt like he was drowning, his lungs pulling in something thick and acrid instead of air. He wanted to look away, but his eyes refused to move, as if they were paying penance for their failure by etching the sight into his memory forever.

  “Moments,” Lant said, his voice sharp enough to cut through the thick silence. The Deathcaller’s instruments hovered around the boy, faintly glowing as they read the echoes of life still clinging to the space. “He’s been dead for mere moments.”

  Moments.

  Lowe’s head swam. That single word gutted him more than anything else Lant could have said. He replayed the park in his mind: Faulks’s head exploding, the sniper-like precision of the attacks, the chaos, the screaming. If we’d been faster. If we hadn’t wasted time. If Highberg hadn’t—

  No. None of it mattered. What mattered was that they were too late. By moments.

  He forced himself to kneel beside the boy. His hand trembled as he reached out, hovering just above the small, pale shoulder. He didn’t touch him. Couldn’t. The thought of his own hand—the hand that had signed off on this entire operation—touching that lifeless body was too much. It felt like an insult.

  Lowe became dimly aware of his boss standing beside him, speaking. He forced himself to his feet, his movements slow and mechanical, and turned to face the man.

  “Lowe,” the boss began, his voice low and even, but carrying the weight of a thousand judgments. His face wasn’t angry. It wasn’t even furious, which would have been easier to take. No, it was worse. Disappointment radiated from him in waves, like heat off scorched metal. It settled in Lowe’s chest, heavy and sharp, more painful than any punch.

  “I don’t know what to say,” his boss continued, his words measured and deliberate, like blows from a hammer. “Your team. The boy. The gold... this is a clusterfuck. A catastrophic clusterfuck. Heads are going to have to roll for this. You know that, don’t you?”

  Lowe didn’t respond. Couldn’t. The words bounced off him, meaningless and hollow.

  The world around him felt distant, the sounds muffled, the light too dim. His team was gone. Good people. Smart people. People who’d trusted him to lead them, and he’d led them straight into their deaths.

  And the boy.

  Gods, the boy.

  That tiny, broken body would haunt him for the rest of his life. Every time he closed his eyes, he’d see it. Every time he tried to sleep, he’d feel the phantom weight of his failure pressing down on his chest.

  He thought of Faulks’s laugh, Arman’s jokes, Coda’s sharp wit. Snuffed out like candles in a storm, their voices now joining the cacophony of guilt screaming in his head.

  The worst part was that Lowe didn’t care about the consequences. He didn’t care about his boss’s disappointment, or the bureaucratic hammer that would come crashing down on him. He didn’t care about the reports, the hearings, or the inevitable stripping of his badge.

  What could they do to him that he hadn’t already done to himself?

  Lowe turned back to the boy’s body, his vision blurring with something he refused to acknowledge as tears. This was his failure. His fault. Every single step had led to this moment, and he’d been the one guiding the way.

  The laughter rang out again, faint and far away, echoing through the warehouse like a taunt from the abyss. It crawled under his skin, a sound so sharp and cutting it felt like it was carving his soul into pieces.

  And that was when Lowe knew, with cold, sinking certainty, that things weren’t over.

  They were just beginning.