A Debt to the Dark

The Black Neil Lounge was a place that did not exist, not in official records, not in whispered addresses, not even in the memories of those who left its doors. It was a space between realities, tucked beneath the skeletal remains of an unfinished high-rise, where the city's forgotten shadows gathered to drink, deal, and disappear.

Smoke coiled lazily through the air, thick with the scent of spiced liqueur and slow-burning spell-incense, clinging to skin and fabric like a ghost's touch. The walls, dark and damp with time, were lit only by the violet glow of magitech lanterns, pulsing in lazy sync with the jazz tune curling from a grand piano in the corner. The pianist, a man whose soul had been bartered away for talent, played with an effortless melancholy, his long fingers moving as if pulled by invisiblxe strings.

Lucian Vance sat at the bar, one gloved hand wrapped around a short glass of whiskey, the other resting idly on his knee.

Steel-blue eyes flickered under the brim of his hood, tracking the movements of the room without seeming to.

The trick to surviving places like this was simple: see without looking, listen without reacting.

He wasn't here for pleasure.

The Duskwatch Dominion had work for him.

A figure slipped onto the barstool beside him, their movements too fluid, too controlled, an assassin's grace. Lucian caught the scent of cold iron and blood magic, a telltale signature that curled at the edge of his awareness like an old wound aching in bad weather.

An Umbral Blade.

He did not turn. He never turned first.

"You're a difficult man to track," the stranger murmured, a female, her voice low and edged with amusement.

Lucian took a slow sip of whiskey, letting the burn settle in his throat before answering. "Not difficult. Just particular."

The stranger exhaled a quiet chuckle. "The Duskwatch Dominion has a contract for you, Echo."

Lucian's fingers tightened around the glass, just slightly. That name carried weight, especially when spoken by people who shouldn't know it.

"I don't work for the Dominion," he said flatly.

The stranger leaned in, voice like silk laced with something sharper. "Why deny. You have done many of these contracts with the Dominion because they pay well," the stranger smirked, "and you work for money."

A small obsidian envelope slid onto the bar between them, its wax seal embossed with a single, empty eye.

The Hollow King's sigil.

Lucian flicked his thumb over the seal, breaking it cleanly. Inside, a single strip of parchment bore three words.

Eliminate Darius Vale.

He let the name settle, turning it over in his mind. A mage. A rogue. A man running from the wrong people. His kind of job.

"And the bounty?" he asked, tone even.

The stranger's smile gleamed in the dim light, too white, too sharp. "Fifty thousand. Double if you make it look clean."

Lucian exhaled slowly. That was too much for a simple kill.

Something was off.

"And...." the assassin hesitated. "Kill whoever you see along with the target."

Lucian furrowed his brows. This was a first.

But money was money. And he had never been a man to ask why before taking a life.

He flicked the envelope shut. "Send me the details."

------------------------

The Obsidian Wastes were a graveyard of broken things.

Collapsed buildings slouched against one another like drunks leaning on barstools, their rusted fire escapes tangled in vines that had long since devoured the steel. The streets, cracked and uneven, shimmered faintly where old magic had scarred the pavement, leaving runes that pulsed under the moonlight.

Lucian's safehouse stood at the edge of this forgotten ruin, a three-story shell of what had once been an apartment complex. The windows were boarded shut, the walls riddled with water stains, and the only sign of life was the faint glow leaking from beneath the door.

Inside, the air smelled of old books, gunpowder, and rain-soaked leather.

Lucian shrugged off his coat, the fabric dusting the floor in silence, and dropped onto the worn-out chair at the center of the room.

The contract file lay open on the scarred wooden table before him, its pages yellowed, its ink scrawled in the neat, impersonal script of the Dominion's handlers.

He skimmed the details.

Darius Vale. Mage. Formerly affiliated with the Oathbound Legion. Rogue status: Unknown.

Lucian leaned back, running a gloved hand through his dark hair.

He had taken dozens of these contracts, and they all followed the same pattern. A mage steps out of line, the Dominion sends someone to erase them. Simple. Predictable.

But this one felt… different.

He traced the edge of the parchment, feeling the indentations where the pen had pressed too hard, leaving ghosts of words beneath the ink. A hesitation. A second thought.

It made no sense.

The Duskwatch Dominion did not hesitate.

He exhaled through his nose, pulling a small silver cigarette case from his pocket. It clicked open with a quiet snap, revealing a single black cigarette, laced with grounding salts to dull the static of magic in the air.

The flick of a rune-etched lighter. A small flame ghosting across his fingertips.

Smoke curled from his lips, thick and acrid.

The contract sat before him, waiting.

The weight of something unseen pressed against his ribs, a quiet whisper of instinct that he had never learned to ignore.

This job was different.

He could feel it.

The First Thread Pulled

Rain whispered against the shattered windowpane, its rhythm slow, deliberate, like the ticking of a clock counting down to something unseen.

Lucian let the cigarette burn between his fingers, watching the ink on the parchment shift subtly under the low lamplight.

A mage. A rogue. A man marked for death.

That much was true.

But the more he looked, the more he felt it in his bones.... Darius Vale wasn't running. He was already gone. And someone was making sure no one asked why.

Lucian exhaled smoke, watching it coil like a specter against the dim glow of the room.

Something about this job was pulling at the edges of reality, unraveling in ways he didn't yet understand.

And for the first time in a long time, he wondered, 

Was he hunting a ghost?

Or was something else waiting for him in the dark?