Obsidian's foyer was a matte black wound in the city's face, swallowing all light, all noise, then regurgitating it in calculated pulses. The bouncers tonight—three Feran, panther and boar types—let UMBRA through with nothing more than a biometric glance. Inside, the air was thick as fever. Cigarette smoke layered itself in stratums along the ceiling, filtered by the club's mana-activated climate controls but never fully erased. The blue glow of the entry hall bled into a corridor where the regulars pressed together: power-suited execs, neon-haunted junkies, and enough contract killers to fill a small war.
Jane led, the set of her jaw warning off all but the most suicidal. Owen walked at her right, eyes already tracking the silent signals: a half-raise of a glass here, a triple-tap of a spoon against a synth bone china cup there. Ellen ghosted left, angled to avoid the cameras. For a full ten meters, nobody spoke. The rhythm of their boots cut through the sludge of background noise, as effective a calling card as any.
Past the first floor's "casual" bar, Jane clocked the Wraiths immediately. Their signature: silvered temple implants, eyes like cut steel. They clustered at a round table by the railing, a perfectly circular formation, and tracked UMBRA's advance with predatory calm.
"Navarro," their leader called, a purr behind the greeting. "Didn't expect to see you slumming it after last night. Figured you'd be celebrating in Aqua."
Jane's smile was a dead thing: polite, perfectly symmetrical, but empty of heat. "I hate the water. It dilutes the taste of the whiskey."
A Wraith, third from the left, flicked a silver coin. "Or the blood," he said, voice soft as static.
Owen's gaze never wavered. "It's all currency in here," he said, just loud enough for the table to hear.
Ellen didn't even break stride. She registered the Wraiths, mapped the rest of the crowd, and catalogued potential weapons in the first three seconds. In the next three, she found the Crimson Gate. They didn't bother with subtlety: four men and two women, all in blood-red tactical jackets, the sigil of the Gate embroidered on the left breast. Their faces were angular, hard, but their eyes were soft—a trick, Ellen thought, to disarm. It never worked on her.
A Crimson Gate woman gestured at Ellen with her glass. "New face," she called, voice tuned for broadcast. "Did you get a discount on this one, Jane?"
Ellen flashed her best smile: all canines, no warmth. "First drink's on me," she said. "But the second costs extra if you want to keep your teeth."
Crimson Gate's laughter was immediate, but not quite sincere. Jane moved them on, up the main stairs, through the second floor's velvet-choked lounge and up to the third floor's private bar. Here, the air was quieter, colder, but each booth was a bunker. Only the most solvent—and most dangerous—drank here.
Aika waited at the bar's end, alone, her red fox ears flat against her skull in a rare display of tension. She wore black, as always, but had swapped her usual suit for a high-necked tunic and tailored pants. A single mana crystal on a necklace pulsed at her throat: blue-white, like a threat waiting to bloom.
She inclined her head as Jane approached. "On time, as always."
"Wouldn't miss it," Jane said. She leaned against the bar, elbows wide. Owen and Ellen flanked, Owen's right hand already resting on the bar's edge, fingers tracing an old scar in the wood.
Aika ordered three drinks: Nightfall for Jane (thick, black, topped with a raw egg yolk), Blue Static for Owen (gin, tonic, mana shards that fizzed blue when disturbed), and a glacial vodka for Ellen, poured over what looked like real Arctic ice.
"First things first," Aika said, voice a hushed register. "Is Shiori alive?"
Owen nodded, once. "She's tough. Smarter than I expected, too."
Aika's ears flicked again. "She'd have to be. You understand what you did, right?"
Jane sipped her Nightfall, let the bitterness crawl up her tongue. "Changed the rules."
"Not just the rules," Aika replied. "The board. Police patrols are running drone formations over every major artery. Nexar Dynamics has check-points at every district border. And the rumor is, UMBRA went from urban legend to public enemy one."
Ellen took her drink in a single, glacial pull. "Sounds like a promotion."
Owen glanced back at the stairs. The Wraiths hadn't followed, but their aura lingered. "How many teams do you think were waiting for us to trip?"
Aika looked at him with genuine pity. "All of them. And most of them would be happy to finish what Lancaster couldn't."
Jane gestured for the next round. The bartender—a synth construct with a cobra's patience—refilled without a word.
"We're not here for a eulogy," Jane said. "What's the play?"
Aika hesitated, then reached under the bar. She pulled a slate—the old kind, dense and heavy, still illegal in six provinces. She set it down, the impact barely audible. "This is the contract log for every hit in the last three months. Sombra's been a warzone, but last night... all sides went quiet. Even Golden Dawn cells went dark."
"Waiting," Owen muttered.
"Or planning," Ellen added.
Jane ran her finger down the log. "You said 'public enemy one'—but for who?"
Aika's lips curled. "That's the question. City government issued a hush order. Taira USA is making calls to every fixer in the district, but Tokyo hasn't sent so much as a warning. The real action is in the financial district—foreign capital, off-books mercs, and now international buyers for whatever you pulled out of the Bridge."
Owen's hand stilled. "Who?"
Aika's eyes narrowed. "Four names. All of them old money, all of them with WMO ties."
Jane exhaled, a plume of air like a curse. "So this isn't about the job."
"No," Aika said. "It's about the demo. The thing Shiori stole? They think it's an equalizer. A way to make magic universal. If it gets out, the power structure collapses. Or evolves."
Ellen's laugh was soft. "So we're revolutionaries now."
Owen raised his glass. "Always were."
They drank, silence thickening as the world recalibrated itself around them.
The next interruption came sharp, surgical: a hand on Jane's shoulder. She didn't flinch, but the bar's background chatter dipped as the Crimson Gate lieutenant appeared at their flank. He was tall, pale, with a black mane slicked back and eyes the color of a late-night overdose.
"You made quite a splash," the man said, voice lacquered with amusement. "Some of us prefer the shadows stay... shadowy."
Jane didn't move. "I hear you're hiring out now. Can't afford the overhead?"
He grinned. "All the more reason to keep things stable." His gaze found Aika. "Word is you're the only one who knows how to find UMBRA when it counts."
Aika shrugged. "Maybe I like living dangerously."
He leaned in, breath sharp with imported whiskey. "Or maybe you like to watch things break."
Owen slid half off his stool. "Is this a threat or a date?"
The man laughed, but the sound was hollow. "Neither. Just a reminder: this city is held together by very old, very expensive contracts. You start tearing those, eventually you tear yourselves."
He tapped Jane's glass with his own, the clink loud as a gunshot. "To survival," he said, then vanished back into the velvet shadows.
Owen watched him go. "He's scared."
Ellen nodded. "Means we did something right."
Aika finished her drink. "He's not wrong, though. You need to decide what to do with the Bridge. If you run, you die. If you sell, you might die slower. But if you keep it—" she let the words dangle.
Jane set her glass down, considered the blue-lit world outside the window. "We're keeping it. For now."
Owen glanced at Ellen, who gave a fractional nod.
Aika relaxed. "Then get ready. The next move is theirs."
They lingered a minute more, then left the table, boots echoing in unison as they descended through the club. On the second floor, the Wraiths had dispersed, replaced by a crowd of journalists, execs, and street-level sharks. The air felt heavier, the smoke now tinged with something chemical and almost sweet.
On the way out, Jane paused at the entry. She stared at the neon city, its lights guttering in the rain. She felt, for the first time in years, the shiver of the future waiting to eat her alive.
Ellen broke the spell. "You okay?"
Jane flexed her left hand, watched the bones ripple beneath the skin. "Just thinking."
Owen joined them. "About what?"
Jane's smile was jagged. "How much worse it can get."
They left together, fading into the city's roar, knowing the next round was already loaded and aimed.
Obsidian closed behind them, and for a moment, Nueva Arcadia held its breath.