I crouched on the gargoyle perched atop the crumbling cathedral of St. Jude's. The stone beast was missing half its face, eroded by acid rain, but it offered a perfect view of the Sector. Below, the neon-drenched streets pulsed with life. Lethal life.
A coven of witches stumbled out of a club, sparks dancing at their fingertips. I tracked the sparks the way you track a loaded weapon—distance, trajectory, threat level. Witches were territorial but lazy. They wouldn't climb three stories for a kill they couldn't eat.
The vampires in the alley across the street were a different calculation. Two of them, feeding on a stray dog. If they caught my scent—which was nothing, literally nothing, a blank spot in the magical spectrum—they'd either ignore me or get curious. Curious vampires were the dangerous kind.
But I wasn't watching the vampires either.
I was watching the half-eaten kebab someone had dropped near the dumpster three stories down.
My stomach growled. Forty feet down, three seconds of free fall, grab the kebab, and gone before the vampires finished their dog. I'd done worse for less.
Being a Null—a void, a zero on the magical spectrum—meant I couldn't light a candle or charm a lock. But it also meant I didn't register on anyone's radar. In the Sector, where the elite ate what they couldn't use, invisibility was the only superpower worth having.
I readied myself to drop—a forty-foot fall that would shatter a human's legs but only sting mine—just as the air shifted.
The smell of rain vanished, replaced by the scent of pine, blood, and something darker. Something ancient.
Shadows lengthened in the alleyway. Not the natural shadows cast by the streetlights, but living ones. They pooled and writhed, detaching themselves from the brick walls like oil spills seeking a drain.
Hunters.
I cursed, scrambling back up the gargoyle's wing. The Obsidian Marrow. They'd found me. Again.
"Come down, little Null," a voice purred. It came not from the street, but from the shadows themselves.
I didn't answer. I reached into my boot and pulled out my rusted iron shiv. It wasn't much against magic, but iron burned Fae and annoyed shifters. It was all I had.
"Fuck off!" I shouted, my voice cracking. "I paid my tithe! I'm not due for a harvest!"
"We aren't here for a harvest, Scarlett," the voice replied, closer now. A figure stepped out of the darkness on the roof, blocking my exit.
He was massive. That was my first thought. A physical threat wrapped in black leather, radiating a pressure that made the air feel heavy. His eyes were gold, glowing, vertical-slit pupils. A shifter. And not a fun one like a wererabbit.
"Then what do you want?" I snarled, backing up until my heels hung over the edge of the roof.
"To enroll you," he said.
I laughed, a jagged, hysterical sound. "The Obsidian Marrow? For me? I can't even light a candle."
The shifter took a step forward. The shadows seemed to cling to him, swirling around his boots like obedient pets. "The Headmaster disagrees. He says you're special."
"He's senile."
"He's a three-thousand-year-old Lich," the shifter corrected calmly. "Now. Come quietly, or I drag you."
I looked at the drop. Then I looked at the shifter.
"Option three," I said.
I threw myself off the roof.
The wind screamed in my ears. The ground rushed up to meet me—wet pavement, trash bags, salvation.
I twisted in the air, bracing for the impact—
SLAM.
I didn't hit the ground. I hit a chest. A hard, unyielding, granite chest.
Air exploded from my lungs. Strong arms wrapped around me, crushing my ribs. I looked up, dazed, into eyes of burning gold.
He was there. On the ground. Catching me.
"Fast," the shifter grunted, sounding mildly impressed. He didn't even look winded. Of course he didn't. I was fighting for oxygen, and he looked like he'd just finished a light warm-up jog. Shifter biology was a scam.
"Let go!" I thrashed, driving my knee up. He didn't flinch. It was like kicking a tree.
"You run well," he murmured, his face inches from mine. He smelled like ozone and pine. "But you can't outrun a distinct lack of magic."
"Watch me," I hissed. "And for the record, your cardio routine is annoying."
And then I did the only thing I could think of.
I bit him.
I sank my teeth into the junction of his neck and shoulder, grinding down until I tasted copper.
He roared—not in pain, but in shock. His grip loosened for a fraction of a second. That was all I needed. I dropped, rolled, and sprinted for the sewer grate.
"You little—"
A shadow lashed out, solid as a whip, wrapping around my ankle. It jerked me back, and I hit the wet asphalt face-first.
"Enough," the shifter growled.
He flipped me over, pinning me with his weight. He was straddling my hips, his hands pinning my wrists above my head. He was heavy, hot, and terrifyingly strong.
I glared up at him, tasting his blood still smeared on my mouth.
"I am Draven," he rumbled, the deep, guttural sound vibrating against my ribs. He dipped his head, inhaling the copper tang of his own blood from my lips. "And you just turned a recruitment pitch into a blood sport."
His eyes flared, the gold turning liquid. He stared at the blood on my lips with a terrifying, focused stillness—the look of a hunter realizing the prey bites back.
"Welcome to The Obsidian Marrow," he whispered.
And then the world went black.