Renayo Ezraphor had officially begun his journey as a Grade One demon. The ink on his first hell contract was barely dry when he claimed his first contract points, a small but undeniable step into the vast, brutal game of damnation.
His first assignment came with a tidy little file, nothing more than the bare bones:Target: Daniel Carter, age thirty-six. Police officer. Married to Samantha Carter, thirty-four, a freelance graphic designer. They lived in a modest two-story home in the Maple Heights district of Oroshika, the most affluent part of the city, where prominent men and their families resided.
The file made no attempt to hide the strain in the Carters' marriage. Seven years together, no children. Not for lack of trying, Daniel's infertility had been confirmed long ago. The unspoken resentment between them had calcified into quiet, polite distance. Still, his career was solid, twelve years on the force, five as a homicide detective. By all outward appearances, his life was steady.
The file contained only the basics. But Renny preferred truth over paperwork. A dossier could tell you what, but the shadows told you why. To dig deeper, he decided to use the Shadow Technique, a basic stealth skill he had purchased for a mere twenty mark points, leaving him with a balance of four hundred and eighty. Cheap, but invaluable. With it, he could vanish from the human eye entirely, slipping into the shadow realm to watch without being seen.
He and Kev had practiced for days, testing their limits and sharpening control until they felt ready, or at least as ready as two fresh demons could be. Renny hadn't bothered picking up extra techniques or weapons; this was just simple research, after all. And combat was never his strength. Sick all his life on Earth, he'd never even thrown a punch. His mind was his weapon, and he intended to rely on it.
So, on a rain-slick Tuesday night, Renayo Ezraphor followed Officer Daniel Carter from a careful distance. Streetlamps threw long, wet reflections across the asphalt as the man's footsteps carried him toward his quiet suburban home. Renny was dressed in his typical demon uniform, a black suit with a red tie over a sky-blue shirt, though tonight he also carried a black umbrella, its canopy tilting just enough to hide his eyes. Tonight, he would begin his first true shadow surveillance.