Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Bruce Boneweather walks beside another boy, his school bag slung over one shoulder and his auburn hair bright beneath a dusting of snow. Pink-cheeked, he hops from one cracked paving stone to the next, laughing as he avoids the dark lines between them.
“I’m the shadow monster,” he says, arms stretched out for balance. “I can only jump with the shadows.”
His friend groans. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“It does if you’re magic.”
Bruce laughs again. My gloved fingers dig into the brick.
So unbelievably cute.
So very, very young.
This is what I do now.
This is what I do.
Mina presses more firmly against my leg, sensing the emotion before I can bury it.
“Love you, baby girl,” I whisper.
She whines, her warm breath misting the air, then fixes her gaze on Bruce.
“Yes,” I murmur. “That’s our target.”
His parents think they have a choice. They refused to register him for the Games despite the threat wrapped in government stationery. They want their boy safe, yet in this world, none of us are safe.
Magic leaks. Sometimes it explodes. A child whispers to shadows, melts bone or sets a house ablaze because they are frightened and cannot stop.
I almost sympathise. Refuse the Games and a bounty hunter comes instead. Controlled or culled; there was never a third option.
Bruce reaches the corner.
A flash splits the street.
For an instant, everything turns white. Then an explosion cracks across the district, punching through the ordinary afternoon. The ground jumps beneath my boots. Windows rattle; someone screams. Black smoke billows beyond the terraced roofs to the left, thick and oily against the snow-pale sky.
My pulse kicks.
A terrorist strike on the supply hub, perhaps. Nothing to do with me. It clears the street as neatly as if I had ordered it, and that is the part I do not like.
Bruce gawps at the smoke. His friend bolts towards the school, but Bruce hesitates, torn between home and safety.
I am already running.
My boots skid, then grip.
Bruce turns. His eyes widen. “Elmo,” he breathes.
I hate that he knows my name.
I clamp a hand over his mouth before panic—or a spell—can form. He is all elbows, bag straps and startled strength.
“Sorry, kid,” I murmur.
He kicks once.
Mina steps in, teeth bared. Her growl slices through the chaos.
Bruce freezes. Good boy.
I drag him into the alley, out of sight of the road. The air reeks of damp brick, smoke and old rubbish.
The mark on my wrist stirs. Magic prickles beneath my skin like pins. It is not my own power, but I can still trigger a charm charged by someone else.
This one is government issue.
I press the marked flesh of my wrist beneath his collar, against the side of his neck, skin to skin. The sleep mark takes one target at a time. No version of it drops a room.
Bruce meets my gaze. For a second, he looks less frightened than betrayed.
Then the mark claims him.
His body slackens. I catch his weight and lower him gently onto the ground.
“Sorry,” I repeat, though he cannot hear me.
Mina stands sentry at the alley mouth while I work. My hands remain steady.
They always do, even when they should not.
From my coat, I draw the kit.
The film camera first. Grainy images ask fewer questions than sharp ones, and film can’t be copied across a city by anyone with a terminal.
Then the knife.
I slit Bruce’s school shirt, exposing a too-thin torso. His ribs show faintly beneath pale skin, and I force my gaze away.
Next come four imported tripe sausages.
Mina’s ears twitch.
“Not yet,” I tell her.
She huffs and licks her lips.
This morning, I rolled the sausages in dog-safe red sauce, dark as clotted blood. The illusion charm, a gauzy magical membrane, settles over the meat. Sauce and offal become torn flesh and glistening viscera.
A dead child in a filthy alley, snow settling over the crimson mess.
Almost artistic, which makes it worse.
I wipe my hands, place the job chit beside his head with the number, name and date visible, and take the photographs.
Dead child, gutted. A dreadful shame.
My stomach folds in on itself. The government asks few questions when the images are ugly enough.
I pocket the camera and take out the last packet in my coat: a pre-charged black-market stillness charm, the most expensive thing I own. It cost more than the coat.
I break it over Bruce’s chest. The charm sinks through the ruined shirt and settles, and the small rise and fall of his breathing goes quiet.
He looks dead. He looks exactly like a dead child.
I draw out the confirmation device. It is old government technology, heavily modified, half spellwork and half circuitry. I built the shielding myself.
I peel back Bruce’s eyelid and scan his retina.
The device hums.
For ten seconds, the stillness charm flattens every sign of life. No pulse. No breath. No heat signature.
Dead to every sensor that matters.
A soft ping confirms the kill. Somewhere in the city, the bounty clears.
The system will not ask for more. Not for a child bounty.
His parents will never see him again. That is the way. Easier, they think. Cleaner. The bounty closes, the case vanishes, and Bruce Boneweather becomes another tragedy in a district already drowning in them.
Mina whines.
I glance at the sausages. “All right. Go on.”
She lunges and wolfs them down with alarming relish. Her nom-nom noise would be adorable were she not eating fake intestines off an unconscious child.
“Classy,” I mutter.
She licks Bruce’s torso clean of ‘blood’.
I groan, swab his skin with an alcohol wipe and add, “I’m not leaving the poor kid covered in dog spit.”
Mina looks entirely unrepentant.
Once the scene is cleared, everything goes into an evidence bag. Wrappers. Wipes. The scraps of his shirt. Anything that could point to the truth. Nothing must remain.
I tap the recall stud on my wrist. Minutes later, a black, humming body bag glides around the corner from the direction of my car, snow hissing against its warmed casing.
The cradle sinks until it is level with the ground. I roll Bruce carefully inside, supporting his head until the lining takes his weight.
A body bag is no place for a child, but necessity has never cared about dignity. An oxygen mask follows, then a hydration monitor that I clip to his finger. Vital signs glow beneath the shielded glass: pulse steady, oxygen good, blood sugar low, hydration poor.
I adjust the support charm to compensate. Its low hum vibrates beneath my fingertips.
He should sleep for around eight hours.
It is bad enough that people believe he is dead. If anyone discovers he is not, we are both finished.
I zip the bag shut.
The Bone District fills with sirens that always arrive too late. Distant screams linger beneath them.
A man sees me leave the alley with Mina on one side and the hovering body bag on the other. His face twists. “Murderer!” he shouts.
Another voice mutters, “Evil.”
Let them.
A shot cracks past my ear.
My coat ward catches it. Purple light blooms across my shoulder, then fades.
The whole street seems to stop.
Behind a parked van, a man trembles, a cheap pistol clenched in his hand. He is ghost-pale now that his bravery has fled.
I stare at him, cold and blank. He bolts. Idiot. Ignoring him unnerves the people around me more.
I will remember his face. If he has lost someone he believes I killed, I will let it go. People become reactive when their loved ones are involved.
If he has not, I want to know who sent him.
My car waits two streets away, shabby enough to be invisible. The boot is no boot at all—padded, warded and modified for work like this. I slide the body bag inside, lock it into place and add a stabilising charm so Bruce will not lurch when the road grows rough.
I check his pulse. Steady. He will be all right.
Official records will show one Class-Four child confirmed dead. Case closed.
To the government, the Bone District and his parents, Bruce Boneweather no longer exists.
In reality, he is bound for the academy: hidden, illegal and far safer than here. He will not die in the Immortal Games, that glittering slaughterhouse where children are weaponised for the powerful.
Mina leaps onto her seat, and I clip her harness into place. “Good girl.”
She licks her lips, smug.
“Disgusting.”
Her tail thumps against the seat.
I pull away from the kerb.
Bruce will face hard months when he wakes in quarantine. His parents will endure worse. I wish I could tell them their boy is frightened but breathing, that he still has a future.
I cannot.
Silence keeps the children alive and the academy hidden. Tomorrow, or next week, another chit will bear another name.
I am almost out of the Bone District when I meet trouble.