When Shadows Bleed by Amelia J. Rivers EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Author: Amelia J. Rivers
- Language: English
- Genre: Dark Fantasy Horror
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
DEATH TINGED THE AIR. It rolled off the Soulless, sweet and
repugnant.
The dim lights reflected off the tabletops in a rainbow of colors but left
the patrons in pools of shadows. The facade had been renovated from a
crumbling brick relic into a dark, cozy neutral ground for customers, some
humans and some not. It was the some not that brought me in most nights.
My gaze bounced around the haggard faces, most sloshed and their redrimmed eyes dull with their bad choices. Many of the humans in the bar
likely had warrants out on them and didn’t know Soulless lurked around
them. Most humans thought they were urban legends. Born Vessels, the
Soulless were real, users of the death arts, and had target sheets. The
Vessels, all born with unearthly powers unrelated to the death arts, simply
enjoyed Mason’s Bar, a rare neutral spot: the only one in a hundred-mile
radius that Finders like me weren’t allowed to raid for Soulless. As I licked
my lips, my gaze swung back to the door.
As a Finder, I’d been called a bounty hunter, a prostitute, and even a
butcher. I didn’t seek the lost. I didn’t search for assholes. I didn’t prey on
the weak, and I didn’t prey on the broken or misguided. I didn’t provide
pleasure, but I did get paid.
Those who called me a bounty hunter were most accurate but still
wrong. Bounty hunters hunted humans for the police. I preyed on the
Soulless, where I wasn’t bound by civil laws. I was bound by something
more severe— the Finders’ Law.
The Finders’ Law is harsher and doesn’t permit reform or restitution. It
is finite and unyielding. Once a Vessel becomes Soulless— a harnesser of
the death arts— it is a permanent marker. Just as when a human becomes a
Choicer— a human who bargains their soul for unearthly powers to harness
the death arts— there are no amends.
My job was not to judge them or listen to their excuses. My job was to
bring them to my boss. The Finders’ Trust then paid for the Soulless
retrieved. They dealt the justice. Some Soulless met death, others faced
different repercussions. But that didn’t matter. That wasn’t my role.
Tonight, though, I sat on my normal stool at Mason’s. My body leaned
against the bar top. My fingers drummed on the surface as wisps of
conversations tickled my ears. The words blurred together into a drone of
lust, greed, and hunger.
Tugging my phone from my pocket, I frowned. We’d slipped by eleven
already and were closing in on midnight. It was well past her normal time
for showing, if she did.
Easing back onto the padded pleather barstool, I cocked my head to the
side to catch the trickle of ramblings from a Vessel about ten sheets to the
wind.
“It’s a big deal!” They pounded their fist on the table, sloshing some of
their beer on their grayed hand.
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