The young woman ran through a gloomy passage without stopping, until the heel of one of her shoes broke, causing her to lose her balance. Once she managed to recover, she sat down on the wet ground and took off her shoes. After doing so, the young woman remained on the ground with her bare feet resting on the wet cobblestone. Her body was trembling frantically and this was not only due to the cold night air, but also to the feeling of fear that the encounter with the man had given her.

In addition to this, she could not help but reproach herself for having accepted such a dangerous assignment, which had left her exposed as if she were a true novice. Allowing her emotions to take control of her actions was an unacceptable mistake for someone who made theft her profession. And that was why it was so difficult for her to acknowledge the fact that she had made that very beginner's mistake.

"Who was that man?" "Couldn't he be human?" "Or shouldn't he be human at all?" she thought. These questions went off in her head. But try as she might to find a logical explanation for her encounter with this fellow, she could not come up with one.

She had grown up on the streets of Nordham as a child. And as she grew up, she learned the hard way about the existence of certain hidden strata in the city's underworld, too dangerous to deal with. With whom it was best to keep a certain distance if one wished to preserve one's life or sanity. The fear that invaded her was for this reason, a part of her believed that she had transgressed the boundary, had meddled with what she shouldn't have.

"You must be wary of even the simplest looking jobs"

"You must always foresee even the worst of possible situations, because those we consider improbable, usually come true"

"There are no sums of money, luxury items or precious jewels valuable enough to put life or liberty at risk," she thought, as she repeated such principles over and over to herself. Those were the only valuable pieces of advice she had ever received from her father, and keeping them always in mind had served her well in surviving the harsh life on the streets. Or that was until one damn day, driven by her growing ego and pride, she decided to set aside that advice and ended up taking jobs that actually challenged her skills.

"I would from now on accept the kind of dangerous contracts that even the most experienced thieves in town refuse to accept, even if they were offered hefty sums of money for it," she had thought naively. With this she would get the fame she deserved. She could be crowned one of the best thieves in all of Nordham, and she would gain the respect of everyone. Hopefully in the near future she would retire on top, thus being able to buy herself the life she deserved.

Suddenly, memories that were lodged in her unconscious came to light. Those recovered memories were directly related to that man dressed in black. She now remembered having seen that type of men before on only two occasions. One of those memories was from a long time ago, when she was just a child. She lived with her father in a tenement and one of these men had passed by her when she was playing in the street with another girl of the same age. Although she was very small, she remembered the feeling of terror that had invaded her, and also the fear that the mere presence of that man caused in all the people who were there.

The second time, on the other hand, had been only two years ago in an inn in the city. Two of them were located in the darkest and farthest corner from the other tables. They wore on their faces the typical black glasses with which they hide their eyes and did not seem to talk too much between them. They only exchanged a few words every now and then while drinking. All the people who were there seemed uneasy with the presence of both of them, but they disguised it by talking loudly, laughing and making meaningless jokes.

Everything was going normally until a group of ruffians entered the bar. After a few minutes, they too became aware of their presence. Perhaps stimulated by alcohol or simple stupidity, the group of drunks began to harass them, seeking to start a fight repeatedly. This was until one of the men in black; tired of the aggression, hit three of them with the butt of his revolver, leaving them unconscious there in the blink of an eye. A fourth ruffian, seeing his comrades humiliated, rushed forward with a dagger in hand, but before he could try anything, he too was already unconscious on the ground with a broken jaw. The others who had been left standing watching everything that had happened, preferred to escape in a cowardly way rather than confront them.

After this, the two men in black paid what they owed and left without further ado, before the uneasy gaze of the people who were there without daring to say anything to them.

Very few things were known about them, since all their activities were carried out in an atmosphere of great secrecy. But the common people said that they were demons who usurped other people's bodies. Others maintained that they were black alchemists, connoisseurs of forbidden knowledge. Or they simply referred to them as crows of bad omen, warlocks or hunters of death, since they were always observed lurking in cemeteries and were accused of using corpses for terrible and inexplicable purposes.

They also seemed to be interested in performing those tasks of supernatural characteristics that most ordinary people could not perform or would not even dare to attempt. It was rumored that they were part of a secret Order of the king, and because of this, they had also been observed lending their services to the city guard in certain matters.

The common people commented that they had certain privileges or liberties. Among them, they were attributed the possibility of killing if they thought it necessary for the effective fulfillment of their missions.

Another rumor that I had heard in the streets was that you could hire their services if you had the kind of money necessary to do so.

Although very few people understood what the rumors were referring to. The truth is that it was very rare to see them in the city and much rarer was to run into a death hunter in broad daylight. However; when this exceptionally happened, it could be observed that they were always armed, using their typical dark clothes. Moving most of the time in small groups, and only exchanged a few words with those strangers who were related in some way or another to their business. To tell the truth, their reputation was worse than that of the king's official executioners. Most people feared them and shunned them at all costs as if they were carriers of the plague, preferring always to keep at a safe distance from them.

She, for her part, had always thought that all the stories told about death hunters were the result of people's imagination and stupidity. But, having seen right into the eyes of one of them, she was sure that they were not normal humans.

Although she considered herself a professional thief, she had not acted according to plan. Now she feared that the hunter of death was behind her steps. These thoughts only increased the fear she felt, for this reason she immediately stood up and searched inside one of the hidden pockets of her dress, where she hid the pendant she had successfully stolen from him. As her fingers came into contact with the cold metal, she felt a deep relief. In spite of everything that had happened, she had succeeded in accomplishing her goal. She brought the necklace closer to her face to see it in more detail and noticed that it was a very peculiar one, made entirely of silver. The locket in the shape of an inverted triangle had strange carved symbols, and it was also surrounded by seven snakes engraved in great detail. One of them was much larger than the others, and sealed the contents of the object by leaning with its mouth open to display its fangs. On one side of the amulet, there was a red blood stain on one of the symbols. She wanted to clean it with some of the fabric of her dress, but no matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to remove it.

Suddenly heard footsteps coming from the next street, and when she perceived that they were approaching her, she interrupted everything she was doing. Although she felt very frightened, she understood that she had at least a few minutes left and she had to act quickly. She searched for a suitable place to hide the pendant, and after a moment, decided on one of the holes in the wall facing the alley where she was. After doing so, she hid in the dark porch of an abandoned house and there she waited expectantly until the figure of a man appeared a few meters away, staggering from one side to the other as if he was struggling to stay on his feet. That man, quite drunk, threw a bottle towards the house for no reason, and the object hit one of the walls close to the place where she was hiding. Despite this, she remained motionless as the glass bounced off her, grazing her shoulder and part of her face. After a few minutes of waiting, the man continued to walk as best he could until he tripped over something that caused him to fall to the ground and lay there in a state of total unconsciousness.

The young woman waited cautiously for a few minutes until she got tired of waiting and left her hiding place. In the alley she retrieved the pendant she had hidden and once again with the necklace in her hands, she decided that the best thing to do was to take refuge in her rented room. There she would wait until daylight to deliver her assignment and claim her well-deserved reward. As she made her way to the hotel where she had rented a room for the night, she thought of demanding double the payment from that fanatical hierophant of the Golden Flame. Who, with clever trickery, had managed to seduce her into accepting such a risky job. She had accepted for a sum of money that she had considered very interesting. But now, having already fulfilled her objective, she was in a different position, in which she could take a greater advantage, that is what she would do without hesitation:

"What could be the real interest that hierophant had in the silver pendant?"

"What if its value was much greater than she thought?"

"Perhaps that unpleasant man was playing a trick on her?"

"Perhaps it had some kind of historical value that she didn't know about?" she thought. And faced with these questions, the young woman came to the conclusion that she should corroborate its value on the black market before making any hasty decisions.

When she arrived at the hotel, she quickly climbed the stairs without making any noise, managing to avoid being seen by the front desk attendant.

Once she entered her room, she took off the wet dress she was wearing and in just her underwear lay down on the bed. She still felt upset, as if something inside her had been affected. When she closed her eyes she still saw the image of that man watching her with his fierce eyes.

It was not the first time that she had seduced her victims to achieve her goals. In fact, many were those who had fallen under her deceptions and manipulations. She had always boasted of her coldness to act indifferently to men, but now, something was different. On the one hand she felt fear that this young man was actually a supernatural being who might seek a vile way to take revenge on her, making pay for her offense with her own life. But also a deep part of herself was sure that he was not entirely evil, although she was ashamed to admit it, she longed for a new encounter with him. The possibility of seeing him again dragged her into a whirlwind of images of them together as lovers, kissing passionately.

This made her hate herself and she felt utterly stupid as well.

"What if he really was a demon, and this thing she felt was not something real, but the result of a spell or some kind of enchantment?" she thought. At first it seemed somewhat absurd, but after a moment's meditation she thought it might be a possibility since she had never felt anything like this for a man, let alone someone she had only had one encounter with.

After turning over in her head a thousand possibilities, she fell into a deep sleep...