Dad once told me that misleading a Mahoon from a distance is child's play — like dangling a shiny lure before a fish in murky water. But when it comes to people of our calibre — detectives with that infuriating, almost feral sense of intuition — well… then you have to wade into the water yourself. Up close. Personal. Make them trust you. Hand them little crumbs of intrigue, clues so laughably trivial that anyone else would toss them aside, yet somehow irresistible to a detective who's been starving for a lead.
You see, their minds are like finely tuned clocks. Give them a single odd cog and they'll obsess over where it fits, ticking and tocking away precious hours… days. And in that time, you're free to weave yourself deeper into their good graces. If you're patient — and oh, patience is everything — you might even convince them to abandon their post entirely and stand beside you.
Grey taught me a code once — not just a set of rules, but a compass. Without it, I'd be nothing more than a thug in a nicer suit. That code, along with a certain… finesse, allowed me to cast a shadow over an organisation so vast it would make most men faint from the sheer thought of crossing it. Ten years in the dark, and they still don't know my name.
Sylvia? She's sharp, certainly. But as long as she doesn't draw the wrong lines before I… reshape her perspective, we'll pass through the storm without so much as a raindrop touching our coat.
The problem gnawing at me was hunger — not the sort you solve with a sandwich, but the kind that settles in your bones and whispers in your ear. It was still manageable… for now. I wasn't back at the academy yet, but I'd have to deal with it before we returned.
And then, as suddenly as a candle snuffed in the wind, it was gone. No warning, no gradual easing — simply vanished. Wally felt it too, though in his case, it meant no need for a recharge. Odd. Very odd.
"This is peculiar," I murmured, switching on my Nether Vision in front of a tall, ornate mirror inside a little shop. My reflection stared back, eyes wreathed in ghostly flame.
"Shall I pack that for you, sir?" the shopkeeper asked. Young. Far too young, even for a vampire. The sort who still believed the world could be tidy if you polished it enough.
I glanced at her, smiled faintly. "No, no. Just browsing. Dangerous habit, browsing — you never quite know what you'll walk out with."
She tilted her head. "If you're looking for sorcery artifacts, you might want the northern sectors." Her eyes flicked to my glowing irises.
"Oh, heavens, no. I'm not in the market for trinkets today." I stepped closer to the mirror, studying it like an old friend I hadn't seen in years. "Life energy… now that is a mystery worth chasing. So elusive. So… temperamental. One day it starves you, the next it smothers you in abundance. Rather like love, really."
I turned and left before she could decide whether I was joking.
When she checked her Codex, her eyes widened at the amount transferred. Then she noticed the empty space on the wall where a certain mirror had been hanging.
She hesitated, biting her lip. "…Should I tell him he overpaid?"
The mirror floated ahead of me, cradled in an invisible hand of telekinesis, bobbing slightly with each step I took. But my mind was elsewhere — fixed on a curious little anomaly. A thin white string, delicate as a spider's silk, tethering my second heart to every fiber of Wally's being.
I couldn't tell you when it first appeared. One moment, nothing. The next, this… intimate thread of existence. If I were to speculate — and speculation is one of my more dangerous hobbies — I'd say it was born from that sudden swell of life energy that's been humming through me like champagne bubbles in the blood.
Perhaps it began yesterday, after I took that necklace from the creature… freed it, really. And in return, something happened. My life energy spiked — alarmingly so. Enough, perhaps, to spin this thread between us. Or… maybe it's the start of something far less benevolent. The siphoning of a creation's lifespan. The sort of trick the 58th Shadow would've applauded.
You see, artificial souls are strange things. They regenerate life energy, endlessly, without the poison of death energy. But to take that life force, you need… intimacy. An attachment. Something forged in the heat of salvation. How does that work? I have no idea. But it does.
Which is the deliciously inconvenient part — because I didn't mean to do it. I conducted the ritual entirely by accident. Now, if I ever hope to repeat it — say, on Prototype-Pixie — I'll have to first understand it. Replicate it. Perfect it.
Let's call it… Soul Link. Has a rather romantic ring to it, don't you think?
Unlike death energy, which sorcerers can perceive through their Nether Vision, there are few who can see life energy — fewer still who can see it as clearly as I do. Yet even I hadn't realised how pure mine was. At first glance, my death energy seemed to outweigh my life energy, the way shadow outweighs light at dusk… but with each passing moment, the latter was growing denser, heavier, as though condensing into something tangible.
"I suppose we could start working on the Soul Circuitry soon enough," I murmured, watching as Wally carefully stored the floating mirror away.
This ever-thickening life energy wasn't a problem — not yet. But whether it would remain harmless was another matter entirely. It felt safer to follow the path of the 58th Shadow and build my circuits while I was still in Ravenia. Better to act now than regret later.
Still, noble preparations shouldn't be undertaken on an empty stomach. So, with a flick of my ability, I gathered a selection of delicacies, their scents briefly mingling in the cool air. Then, with Wally forming my armour, I made my way straight toward Loken's mansion.
As I slipped into Loken's mansion through the window — as casually as one might stroll through their own front door — I found him seated on the couch, his brow furrowed, the very picture of a man wrestling with unpleasant news.
"Oh, Dr. Moriaty, forgive me for not receiving you properly!" Loken exclaimed the moment my scent reached him. He collected himself, smoothing the tension from his features before offering a formal bow.
"It's fine," I said lightly, brushing the matter aside. "I was merely here to borrow your room for a few hours… But tell me, what's happened to you? You look like you've been negotiating with a demon, and losing."
"After you helped us resolve that incident in Sector 37," Loken began, voice tight, "a number of our people were 'abducted' by the Mahoons — under the guise of arresting them for crimes they never committed."
"…Seriously?" I let the word hang in the air, heavy with disapproval. "How am I supposed to leave matters in your hands if events like this become the norm? I won't always be here to untangle your messes, and neither will Eden." My sigh was deliberate, measured, the sort of exhale that carried the weight of disappointment.
"…We will resolve this soon enough. Please… don't intervene in this, sir," Loken replied, his tone wrapped in fragile confidence.
"Good." I leaned forward slightly, my gaze locking with his. "Remember this, Loken: No major organisation has arisen through the efforts of a soloditary person. Eden is no exception. If you want to remain a part of it, you must learn how to get things done yourself."
"I understand, sir," Loken replied, his voice steady but his eyes betraying curiosity. "Do I need to bring over any more…?"
"No, I have enough. Just create a sound barrier outside. I'm about to... persuade a certain someone, and it would be most unpleasant if you were distracted by their screams." My words lingered in the hall like a slow-moving draft.
"Of course." Loken clapped his hands together, and in an instant, a werewolf dressed in a pristine maid's uniform appeared before us, bowing with mechanical precision.
"Bring the mage," Loken ordered, his tone clipped.
I slipped into the same cold, metallic-scented room where my earlier corpse experiments had been conducted. The door shut behind me with a low, hollow thud, sealing in the stale air.
A single chair waited beside the scarred table, its surface still marred with stains from previous work. I lowered myself into the chair, letting the silence settle. Wally unlatched himself from my body in one fluid motion, the separation smooth yet disturbingly organic, before stepping onto the table.
I extended my arm toward him, feeling the familiar chill of anticipation crawl up my spine.
"This is going to be a painful one…" I exhaled slowly, then smiled faintly, almost to myself. "But… phew… let's begin the operation. Soul Circuitry."
Without hesitation, Wally's claws tore into my flesh, prying open my arm as if unraveling an intricate puzzle. The room filled with the soft, wet sound of sinew parting. My eyes, however, never wavered from the work ahead.