{WATTYS 2023 WINNER}
• Book 1 of the Daegelus series •
While hunting for his missing friend, Elijah stumbles upon a fiery journalist, who so happens to be looking for the same people as him: the doctors who experimented on him when he was a child. B...
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When he stepped into the bounty office, Elijah dropped Ridge onto a bench and headed to the window. The man who handed him Ridge's bounty left his desk and hurried over, and when he saw the unconscious man on the bench, his eyes widened in surprise.
"You actually caught the guy?"
"Evidently," Elijah said. "Where's the Venaticus representative?"
"Oh, we don't have one here. We just bag and tag the guys and let them know. It usually takes two or three days for someone to show up," he explained, reaching under the counter. Then, he started counting coronam notes. "You can just hand him in over there," he said, nodding to a door at the end of the wall.
Elijah looked at the door and watched it open. Another man stepped out and looked at Zoe expectantly.
She glanced down at Ridge and frowned nervously. "Oh...me? I can't—"
The demon sighed and left the counter. He grabbed Ridge's arm and dragged him off the bench and over to the door. He dropped him at the guy's feet and then returned to the window to wait for his payment.
"What about the knife?" Zoe asked quietly, standing beside Elijah.
Elijah took the black knife from his pocket and placed it on the counter. "Is this in your wanted records?"
The man stopped counting notes and eyed the knife. "Ridgeforth had this?"
"He did," Elijah confirmed.
"Hmm...one sec," the man said and headed to his desk. He flipped through some papers, looked at his computer, and then came back to the window. "Yep, they said this and maybe some blood vials would come with him. You find those?"
"They're in the safe in his casino...room..." Zoe said unsurely.
The man nodded. "All right, well—" he placed a stack of coronam papers on the counter— "a hundred for Ridge, and ten for the knife," he said, placing ten more notes one by one on top of the stack.
"And the blood?" Elijah questioned, taking the money.
"Well...you didn't actually bring us the blood, so—"
"But we told you where it is," Zoe argued. "I even saw him type in his pin code. The Venaticus are gonna need that to get into it."
The man sighed and flailed his hands around. "Fine. Five for the—"
"Five?" Zoe scoffed before Elijah could argue. "Fifteen."
"Are you crazy?" the man exclaimed.
"Fifteen," Elijah agreed firmly.
Shaking his head, the guy counted out ten notes. "Ten."
Zoe looked up at Elijah.
The demon sighed and snatched the notes from him. "Whatever." He tucked the money into his inside pocket and headed for the door.
