This is bad, thought Priscilla Rowe as she stared at the television in her office. As the police chief of Buffalo, she was accustomed to dealing with disturbing news, but what she was watching now was far more alarming than anything she had encountered during her career. A senator had been killed, another prominent politician had been exposed as a corrupted human, and the public was being shown evidence of atrocities that were almost impossible to comprehend. For the first time in two years, Priscilla seriously questioned whether joining the organization that had promised her power had been the right decision.
Two years earlier, she had been approached by someone from her own department who claimed to possess valuable intelligence. The individual had insisted that the information was too sensitive to discuss in front of anyone else, so Priscilla had agreed to attend a meeting at a location chosen according to their specifications. She had expected a confidential briefing, perhaps involving a criminal investigation or a threat to the city, but instead, she had been offered an opportunity to join an organization that operated far beyond the reach of ordinary law enforcement. The offer had included the promise of power, protection, and opportunities that her career in the police department could never provide.
Priscilla had accepted without hesitation.
Looking back, she had sometimes wondered what would have happened if she had refused, especially after learning more about the people who had recruited her. She had eventually realized that the organization could not allow someone who knew its secrets to walk away freely, meaning that refusing their offer might have resulted in her death. At the time, however, that possibility had seemed less important than the opportunity being placed before her. She had wanted power for years, and the chance to obtain it had been far too tempting to reject.
Her ambition had never been entirely about professional advancement, either. Much of it came from her relationship with her father, a man who had spent her entire life convincing her that she was incapable of achieving anything significant on her own. Despite becoming the police chief of Buffalo, Priscilla had never managed to earn his genuine respect, because he refused to believe that a woman could reach such a position through ability alone. In his misogynistic worldview, her success could only have been the result of sleeping with the right people, and no achievement could persuade him otherwise.
The contrast between their careers had always been a source of bitterness for Priscilla. She had risen to become the highest-ranking police official in a major American city, while her father had only ever managed to become the principal of a public school. By any reasonable measure, she had surpassed him professionally, yet he continued to treat her accomplishments as evidence of her supposed moral failings rather than her competence. She had wanted to prove that she could become stronger and more successful than he had ever been, but every promotion seemed to bring another accusation instead of the recognition she had hoped to receive.
Eventually, Priscilla had accepted that there was a limit to how far she could climb within the government without the backing of a powerful interest group. Her position as police chief might have appeared impressive from the outside, but she knew that reaching an even higher level would require connections that her professional record alone could not provide. She had therefore begun looking for ways to increase her influence beyond the ordinary channels of public service. When the corrupted humans approached her, they offered precisely what she had been searching for, and she saw no reason to refuse them.
The benefits had quickly exceeded her expectations.
Through the organization, Priscilla had gained access to opportunities that allowed her cultivation to progress far more rapidly than it otherwise would have. Her position had become particularly useful, allowing her to eliminate criminal gangs operating in and around Buffalo while turning the resulting deaths into resources for her own advancement. What had once been ordinary police operations became opportunities to strengthen herself, and she gradually began treating the people she killed as nothing more than stepping stones toward greater power. The more successful she became, the easier it was for her to convince herself that her decisions had been justified.
The organization's interests were not entirely the same as hers, of course. Its leaders were interested in the cultural energy contained within human souls, which represented the life story and accumulated experiences of each individual. They sought to collect that energy for their own purposes, treating human lives as resources that could be exploited to further their plans. Priscilla understood the general idea, but she had never been particularly interested in the organization's larger ambitions. She cared about becoming stronger, and as long as membership continued to advance that goal, she had been willing to overlook what the other members wanted.
Over the two years since joining, she had made remarkable progress. Her cultivation had advanced far beyond what she could once have imagined, and her position within the organization had provided her with advantages unavailable to ordinary officials. She had convinced herself that she was becoming untouchable, protected by the secrecy surrounding the organization and the influence she had accumulated. Yet the footage playing on her television was forcing her to confront the possibility that those assumptions had been dangerously mistaken.
A senator had been killed in public, and another powerful politician had been exposed as a corrupted human. Their crimes had been revealed to the world, and the people responsible for hunting them had shown no hesitation about carrying out their executions. Worse still, the killings were not isolated incidents that could be dismissed as political violence or a dispute between rival factions. The people being targeted appeared to be connected by their involvement in the same hidden organization, and Priscilla had every reason to fear that the investigation would eventually reach her.
Her own record was particularly vulnerable.
She had never been as careful about concealing her activities as she should have been, because she had relied too heavily on her position and the protection offered by the organization. Many of the people she had arrested had never arrived at the prisons where they were supposedly being held, and the discrepancies were recorded in official documents that investigators could eventually examine. The prisons had repeatedly reported that they had not received the prisoners, while the people themselves had either been killed or transported elsewhere according to Priscilla's orders. Those inconsistencies had once seemed manageable, but they now threatened to become the evidence that exposed her.
No. The grand plan needs to work, or we're doomed, Priscilla thought, desperately searching for a way to reassure herself.
Before she could finish considering her options, her hands shot toward her neck. A sudden, burning sensation spread across her throat as warm liquid began flowing down her skin, and she realized with horror that someone had attacked her. She tried to turn toward the assailant, but there was no one she could clearly see, leaving her unable to identify the person who had struck her. The realization that someone had reached her inside her own office, without giving her even a moment to react, filled her with a mixture of fear and disbelief.
No! This is not how I die! Priscilla screamed inside her mind.
She struggled to remain conscious, but the blood continued to flow as she collapsed onto the floor. Her expression twisted with fear and anger, because she could not accept that her life was ending before she had achieved everything she wanted. She had spent two years accumulating power and had believed that joining the organization would allow her to escape the limitations that had frustrated her for so long. Now, lying helplessly on the ground, she could do nothing to stop her own death.
Her vision gradually darkened until she could no longer remain conscious. Then her body disappeared into smoke, leaving the office silent as the evidence of her crimes was displayed on the screens for the world to see. The records of her actions, the prisoners who had vanished under her authority, and the corruption she had hidden behind her official position were brought into the open. Priscilla Rowe, the police chief of Buffalo, had been killed, and the public was given the information needed to understand why she had deserved to be hunted.
"No! No, they can't do this to me!" Joey Patel shouted as he ran for his life.
It had been two days since the public killings began, and he had barely stopped moving since the first executions were shown on the screens outside the government buildings. As the mayor of a newly established city in the American Midwest, Joey had once believed that his political position and influence would offer him a degree of protection. That confidence had disappeared when the first powerful officials were killed and their crimes were exposed for everyone to see. He had immediately understood that his own actions could make him a target, and he had chosen to flee before the hunters reached him.
Joey had used his position to help the organization by diverting reinforcements toward a secret realm and disrupting supply lines that were supposed to support the authorities dealing with it. At the time, he had considered those actions worthwhile investments in his future, believing that the organization would reward his cooperation with greater power and protection. He had only been initiated into its ranks the previous month, and he had barely begun enjoying the benefits of his new position when the killings started. Now, instead of celebrating his newfound status, he was running through the wilderness in the desperate hope that he could escape the people hunting him.
He had learned about the so-called Reapers from people he encountered while fleeing through the countryside. Several groups of hunters had been operating in the wilderness, and they had readily discussed the public executions that had become the most talked-about subject in the country. Joey had initially hoped that the stories were exaggerated, but the more he heard, the more he realized that the threat was real. The most powerful men and women on Earth were being killed without trials or lengthy confrontations, struck down by knives before their bodies disappeared into smoke.
The killings were terrifying enough, but what followed each execution was even more dangerous for the people who had survived by hiding their crimes. Lists of their victims and past misdeeds were being revealed to the public, exposing actions that many had believed would remain secret forever. These revelations included not only crimes that were already illegal, but also deeds that were morally reprehensible despite never having been formally prohibited by law. Powerful people had often prevented certain actions from being criminalized because doing so would have threatened their own interests, leaving victims without any meaningful protection.
The Reapers were therefore doing more than killing corrupted humans. They were also targeting the people who had assisted them, helped conceal their actions, or otherwise contributed to the atrocities being uncovered. As the public continued to watch the revelations unfold, many ordinary citizens had become more than willing to help identify and pursue those associated with the organization. Years of anger toward corrupt officials had finally found a target, and the people who had once relied on their influence to avoid consequences were discovering that the public could be just as relentless as the hunters pursuing them.
That was why Joey was running.
He had only recently joined the organization, but his involvement in the secret realm operation had already made him complicit in its activities. He had hoped that his position as mayor would make him useful enough to protect, yet he now understood that the people hunting him would not necessarily care about his title. His political authority could not shield him from a knife, and the organization he had trusted was unable to guarantee his safety. Every step through the wilderness carried the possibility that someone had already found his trail.
Then pain exploded through both his legs.
Two knives struck him almost simultaneously, piercing his legs and bringing his desperate flight to an abrupt end. Joey stumbled forward and collapsed onto the field, unable to keep running or even regain his footing. Before he could properly understand what had happened, another knife struck his skull, ending his life before he could call for help. His body lay sprawled across the field for a brief moment before dissolving into smoke, leaving him without even a proper burial.