Chapter 1
Rushed breaths rang in Mera’s ears and sweat beaded on her forehead as she sprinted down the sidewalk, dodging passersby and pushing people aside.
“We never catch a damn break, do we?” she shouted without looking up to the faerie flying ten feet above her, but she followed his shadow on the concrete.
“Hard to say,” Bast replied in her head, using their mind link. “Given our history, it seems we’re magnets for trouble.”
“Yes, we are.”
Huffing, she tried to catch the culprit darting through the crowds ahead. The asshole was fast, and Clifftown’s packed streets certainly didn’t help.
Mera had spent years in the academy training to be a detective. Years. Every investigator in the city went through the same arduous, pain-in-the-neck process, and yet, there they were, chasing a lunatic who’d just bitten off a woman’s face.
Not a detective’s job.
They’d barely gotten off the train to Clifftown when they’d seen it happen. Since they were the only police officers around, they had to go after him. Just their luck; not even five minutes back home, and already they were chasing a random criminal.
They should have arrived at the precinct by now to start their new investigation. In fact, they had been assigned to their latest case specifically at Mera’s request, because one, she missed the human borough, and two…
Julian.
She hadn’t spoken with her former partner since leaving for Lunor Insul.
When Mera returned to the mainland, she and Bast were swamped with work, courtesy of both Ruth and Captain Asherath. A serial wolf-killer in Lycannie, a vamp gang’s murder streak in Kazania, a mad sprite in Tir Na Nog, and just recently, a missing witch in Evanora.
They had been sent out throughout Hollowcliff to solve the hardest of crimes, and they’d cracked their cases, each and every one.
Sure, solving the Summer King’s murder—their first case together—had kickstarted the Interborough Cooperation Program, but Mera and Bast’s latest achievements had catapulted them into the spotlight. The police force marketed them as the greatest example of borough unity and collaboration. Yet, Mera wasn’t in this to be famous, and neither was Bast, so they refused to do any publicity.
Still, many began comparing them to Mera’s favorite fictional detectives, Shehan Rolmes and John Quatson. Their stories might have been gruesome for a fourteen-year-old, but Ruth didn’t care. She would always read them to Mera late at night. Actually, those books had sparked her interest in solving crimes. That, and the fact her mo… Ruth, was a police captain herself.
In any case, Mera had been so busy these past few weeks that she barely had time to call Julian. She’d tried a couple of times, but he never answered.
Okay, she deserved the silent treatment.
She’d completely forgotten about him during the shitshow with Bast’s family, and all the cases that followed, but how could he blame her for that? Mera had been jumping from borough to borough. It was part of her new job description.
Bast cleared his throat from above.
Shit!
Had he listened to her thoughts?
“We better hurry, kitten,” he said out loud, no inch of a reaction in his tone—thankfully. Mera must be getting better at blocking him from her mind. “That suket is fast.”
Bast’s gray wings blew gusts atop her as he lowered, and his strong arms quickly hooked beneath hers. With one swoop, he lifted Mera off the ground.
Her feet dangled in the air, while down below, the culprit ran with inhuman speed. Concealed by a black hoodie and ragged pants, he pushed people out of his way so hard they landed several feet away from him.
“Probably a junkie high on fae crystal,” Mera guessed.
“That would explain the strength, but not the speed. My bet is a rogue warlock.”
“Either way, we should have called a local patrol to deal with this.” She clicked her tongue. “We’re already late for the meeting with the Cap.”
“Perhaps, but we are Hollowcliff’s finest, aren’t we?” He turned her slightly to the side, showing her a billboard that featured a werewolf and a witch wearing clothes similar to theirs—the witch with a white shirt, black leather jacket and jeans, and the wolf with a white shirt, black vest and pants—which wasn’t even the uniform Lycannien detectives used, but whatever.
The billboard’s big, bold text read ‘Apply today and become one of Hollowcliff’s finest.’ Followed by, ‘Tagradian Police. We’re stronger together.’
Pride swelled in Mera’s core. It didn’t mix well with the need to roll her eyes.
She was glad that interborough cooperation had an all-time high, but the unwanted attention could be a pain. Even then, as they dashed through the sky, some people pulled out their phones and took pictures of them, a mix of awe and curiosity on their faces.
The memory of Professor Currenter’s voice rang in her mind. “Small actions can have enormous consequences, little fry.”
Grim tentacles slithered around her chest, squeezing it. How she wished she could speak to him again…
“It hurts how much you miss him,” Bast stated quietly.
Apparently, she wasn’t that good at keeping her feelings from him.
Looking up, and fully intending to tell her partner to mind his own business, she lost a breath to the beauty of Sebastian Dhay. Moon-white strands of hair fluttered wildly in the wind, whipping around the sharp lines of his cheekbones and squared jaw. His blue gaze matched the sky above, his attention fixed on the culprit. But there was more to Bast than just a pretty—scratch that—gorgeous semblance. He always stood by her side, no matter what, and he understood her in ways Mera herself sometimes couldn’t. After everything they’d been through, the faerie was finally cracking her tough skin, and soon…
Focus on the running maniac! she chided herself.
‘Nah, view’s much better from here,’ her siren replied.
Forcing herself to glance down, Mera spotted the hooded man turning into a small street that led toward the tenth district.
“Great,” she grumbled under her breath.
Also known as the Scraps, the tenth district consisted of abandoned warehouses from the industrial age. It lined the river Tigris, a mighty waterway that cut through Clifftown only to debouch at the ocean miles away.
The densely packed warehouses, and the river, posed their own problems for catching criminals, but the real danger of the tenth district was the old underground. Its vast network of forsaken tunnels turned the Scraps into a perfect getaway for fugitives.
Bast’s wingspan didn’t fit into the narrow street, so he went higher, chasing the offender from above the buildings.
Mera caught brief glimpses of the hooded man. Each time he passed under a concrete ledge, she couldn’t tell if he would enter a building or keep going. The closer the constructions got to the line of water at the end of the street, the higher the chances that they harbored entrances to the old underground.
“We’ll lose him!”
“Halle. You’re going to throw up.”
“Wha—?”
A sharp force yanked her from behind, enveloping her in endless darkness.
Mera floated amidst the night sky, drifting past stars that blinked in the distance. She couldn’t tell up from down, and her stomach lurched at the sudden weightlessness. Her russet locks floated around her, as a gripping cold bit at her fingers.