The burnt shell of the old drug mansion still reeked of blood, ash and sulphur. Whatever had happened here, it wasn't a raid.
It was a purge.
Boots crunched over shattered glass as a man stepped through the blackened doorway. His brown hair, tied back in a rough tail, caught the last of the daylight bleeding in from the slats above. A scar curved diagonally across his eye to his cheek.
He crouched by the charred remains of a metal door, brushing aside soot to reveal a broken chain and a faint blood trail leading inward.
"Tch," he muttered, rising to his full height. "Second scene this month. Same pattern as always. They burn everything but always leave some evidence that they were here."
The man pulled out a small phone, like those brick phones that spies use to communicate. A soft hum answered.
"This is Rael Kazen, reporting in. Another site was torched this month. Unregistered prana footwork… definitely not military. But weirdly no bodies this time, but there was a struggle. A lot of blood and no bodies makes no sense. They could be a vigilante interfering again, or something more."
He paused, scanning the room again. His gaze landed on a crude sigil scratched into the wall, a crescent wrapped in flame.
"... They're getting bolder."
He cut the line and turned back toward the light, but not before his fingers brushed the hilt of his blade – a thick, black-handled weapon across his back. This was not given to him; it was for personal use.
Whoever did this wasn't just covering their tracks. They were sending a message.
And Rael Kazen had every intention of answering it as he walked past a wall.
There lay a massive mountain of bodies cut, slashed and beheaded. Rael just stood there in disbelief from the gruesome sight of it all.
There was no smell to it?