Neon Ghosts and Crimson Contracts

Lucien Blackmoore moved with the kind of caution that came from surviving too many close calls. That bone-deep stillness you didn't learn—you earned. His boots met the broken cobblestone like he was walking across glass that could remember names. Every breath was measured. Every step, a negotiation.

Above, Nyx Dynamics' surveillance drones weaved jagged patterns through the smog-choked skyline. Their red optic pulses carved across rooftops like knife slashes, scanning alleys with inhuman precision. Mechanical birds built for war, not mercy.

Lucien adjusted his collar against the sour bite of the wind. Beneath his coat, the Ledger hummed. Not a sound, not exactly. A heat that curled against his skin like something sentient, something with an opinion about where this night was heading.

"First contact detected. Fifty-three meters east. Spectral echo signature: Cassian Drayce. Proxy confirmed. Movement erratic. Integrity unstable."

The Ledger's voice was cold, clipped. Efficient the way only something without a soul could be.

Lucien's lips curled, not into a smile but something adjacent. "That close, huh."

He brought up the holo-pad from his coat. Light shimmered across the damp bricks, casting his shadow in distorted shapes. The contract displayed was a soul-bait—authentic enough to sting, tragic enough to tempt. The kind of script Cassian's proxies always took too fast.

"Trade your soul, rich in misery, for luminous debt beyond mortal reckoning."

Lucien tweaked the clauses by hand, fingers gliding through the air with deliberate, calligrapher-like precision. Glyphs bent and shimmered, curling into sharpened language that promised escape and debt in equal parts.

"Decoy strength: optimal," the Ledger murmured. "Luring potential: high. Emotional lure factor at seventy-two percent. Proxy attention probable."

Footsteps behind him—light, deliberate. Not someone trying to sneak. Someone who didn't need to.

Seraphine Veil stepped into the alley like she owned it, all sleek edges and barely-sheathed threat. Her coat was long, heavy with soot and rain. Her pistol gleamed silver at her hip, a promise disguised as fashion.

"You're looking dangerous," she said. Her voice was smooth stone wrapped in velvet. She tilted her head, flicking a raindrop off the gun barrel with her thumb. "That on purpose?"

Lucien didn't look at her. "Dangerous gets attention."

"And attention gets you dead."

He flicked the contract into projection. It hovered above the guttered pavement like a cruel little star.

"Proxy is nearing. Seventy meters. Soul-wall thinning. Trap window optimal. Deploy now."

The Ledger didn't rise in pitch, didn't warn. It didn't need to. It knew Lucien could already feel the danger threading its way toward them like poison through a vein.

He gestured to the collapsed data-vault ahead. Half-sunken into the alley, it looked like a metallic carcass half-digested by time. Its ribs—steel beams, bent into curled fingers—clutched at the alley's mouth like it wanted to pull everything in and never let go.

They stepped inside. The light dimmed. Lucien's boots slid slightly on algae-stained metal. Glyph graffiti glowed faintly along the vault's inner walls, anarchist sigils and rebel names scrawled in luminous ink that hadn't yet died.

"Backup's two streets south," Seraphine said. Her voice dropped a notch. "You sure we don't light it all up now?"

Lucien crouched near the floor. He laid the contract in the filth like a priest laying down prayer. "Let him bite first. Better to kill the message with the messenger."

"Eighty-five seconds until contact. Hostile intent confirmed. Blade-class weaponry. No ranged detection yet. Suggest: matrix deployment."

Lucien flicked his wrist. The glyphs flared up from under his skin, hot lines of red-orange crawling over his forearm. He pressed his palm to the floor and the glyphs leapt outward, forming a ring of containment sigils etched directly into the concrete.

"Circle's live," he said. "Trap's armed."

Seraphine stepped behind a collapsed rack of holo-screens, crouching low, pistol aimed. Her expression didn't change. Her breathing barely lifted the fabric of her coat.

"You sure this one's a proxy?" she asked.

Lucien nodded. "Watch the walk. They all move like they remember dying."

She muttered something that might've been a prayer.

The Ledger flared.

"Visual acquired."

At the mouth of the alley stood the proxy.

He wore a coat soaked through, hanging like a wet flag. Tattoos curled up his neck like chains drawn tight, and Cassian's sigil burned faintly under his collar—a spiral sharp as broken glass. His eyes were unfocused, pupils dilated too wide. Something inside him was hollowing out faster than his body could cope.

"Subject integrity falling. Emotional fracture nearing critical. Initiate containment now."

Lucien didn't move. The trick was to let the monster think it still had claws.

The proxy lunged. Blade out, fast and low, cutting the air with a kind of hunger that came from having no other purpose left. He went for Lucien's ribs, no flourish, no flourish—just intent.

Lucien sidestepped. Calm as breathing. The blade grazed his coat but missed flesh.

Seraphine fired. The first shot cracked the wall behind the proxy. The second kissed his shoulder, spinning him half around.

The Ledger whispered, "Glyph sync active."

Lucien dropped his palm to the trap.

The air screamed.

Sigils burst from the floor in blinding red arcs, wrapping around the proxy's legs, his arms, his neck. The sound wasn't human. It didn't even belong to this world. It was the scream of a soul being told no.

The proxy buckled. Fell hard.

"Decryption beginning," the Ledger rasped. "Cassian clause weak. Exploitable. Conflict clause stable. Initiating override."

Seraphine circled. Gun up. "He's not out yet."

"Not trying to knock him out," Lucien said, crouching by the thrashing figure. "Trying to erase his function."

He pressed a fresh glyph into the proxy's chest.

The light flared again. The man spasmed. The sigils carved deeper.

"Contract sealed," the Ledger confirmed. "Soul-path rerouted. Termination locked: Ebon Abyss. Probability of Cassian intervention: decreased to ten percent."

Lucien leaned in close. "Your master's a coward. And you? Just a cracked echo."

The proxy jerked once. Then stilled.

Seraphine let out a slow breath, eyes still narrowed. "He was fast."

Lucien straightened. "Would've killed me if I blinked."

She holstered her pistol. "You don't blink."

"Correct," the Ledger added, flat as truth.

Then, without pause: "Veilshade tremor recorded. Cassian signature confirmed. Regional disruption: active. Nearby assets at risk. Informant links: compromised."

Lucien rubbed the back of his neck. The glyphs were fading, but the burn lingered. The aftershock of magic, raw and loud in the bones.

"You feel that?" he asked.

Seraphine looked toward the vault opening. "Yeah. Feels like the world just changed shape."

He pulled the holo-map back up. A new signal blinked into place near Veilshade. Not Cassian. But close.

"Her trust bends," the Ledger whispered. "Seraphine loyalty index: 81%. Instability trending upward."

Lucien glanced her way. She was quiet now, watching him too long. Her fingers tapped against her thigh like they wanted to reach for something besides a weapon.

He didn't speak.

The Ledger continued, voice softer. "Her hope rises. But the Ledger remembers."

Lucien bent beside the proxy's body. Brushed a finger along the glyph still branded across the corpse's chest.

"You feel anything?" Seraphine asked.

Lucien paused.

"…Shame."

She arched a brow. "You? That's new?"

He didn't answer. Just stood.

The trap glyphs dimmed into ash marks, burned deep into the concrete. Not erased. Just dormant. Waiting to wake up for someone else.

"Veilshade's calling," Lucien said. "Cassian's pulling threads there."

"Or tying knots," Seraphine replied.

The Ledger pulsed again. "Route to Veilshade calculated. Proxy remnants tagged. Contract archived. Emotional variance: climbing. Threat of fracture: minimal but rising."

Lucien turned toward the mouth of the alley. The drones above had vanished back into smog. But they'd be back. They always were.

"Let's go," he muttered.

Seraphine fell in beside him. No more banter. Just breath and footfalls.

Behind them, the alley exhaled steam and silence.

Ahead, Veilshade Bazaar waited.

And Cassian's game kept playing. One soul at a time.