Damon actually caught himself turning down the offer the gun made him. He wasn't about to burn his remaining days tied to a weapon he wasn't even sure he could use.
The next day, he got a call from Inquisitor HQ. He didn't know if he should go or not, but he didn't really have a choice.
He wanted the truth about Zero. And he had this feeling the Inquisitors were way more involved than they acted.
He didn't even know what to wear, so Aiwass didn't give him options.
He ended up in black clothes, topped off with a dark leather jacket.
Damon looked at himself in the mirror and felt weird wearing something that wasn't his, because yeah. That was the truth. It wasn't his.
Still, the joke was that Zero's clothes fit him perfectly.
When they got to Inquisitor Headquarters, Damon felt tiny in front of it.
It was a massive skyscraper. Pure modern luxury.
"Totally not what the Inquisitors claim to be."
"They're supposed to work for the people, but they live in a glass palace, looking down on everyone."
Damon swallowed.
Honestly, he had vertigo.
He never got used to heights, because he never got used to going up these towers.
His life as an orphan had always been down on the ground at street level.
Surviving far away from the clouds where the powerful people lived.
As he went up, the final challenge showed up.
A glass bridge.
The floor was see-through, and through it he could see all the lower levels dropping into nothing.
To anyone else, it probably looked modern and sleek.
To Damon, it was just torture.
He could see people around him walking like it was nothing. Some of them even looked like they expected him, the great Zero, to float over it or something.
Yeah. Not happening.
Damon walked stiff as a robot, eyes locked straight ahead, refusing to look down because of the panic screaming in his chest.
He was, literally, scared shitless.
But somehow the spectators got the opposite message.
"What discipline…" the employees whispered as he passed. "His step is so steady, it's like a military march."
Damon wanted to yell that he was just trying not to faint, but he kept the cold mask on.
Finally he reached the elevator, hoping for one second of peace.
The doors opened.
And there was someone else inside.
Lieutenant Miller.
A big deal in the organization.
Miller stopped.
The tension between them exploded in silence.
The only thing Damon knew about him was that he was second-in-command after Iris. Lower rank than her, sure, but still high. Maybe that's why he looked at Damon like that, all ice. Like he hated that his boss had to take orders from some lone hunter…
***
Damon walked into the Guild Master's office.
It was minimalist, with a huge panoramic window showing the whole city under a gray drizzle.
With her back to him, a woman watched the skyline. Tall. Heavy presence. Wrapped in a suit that looked like it was stitched from shadows and power.
She turned.
The pressure in the room jumped up like someone flipped a switch. Her violet eyes were blades.
[STATUS: MAX PREDATOR ALERT]
[WARNING: Critical heart rate]
"Calm down or she kills you," Damon told himself.
Ophelia broke into his personal space in a blink. She got so close Damon could smell her perfume.
"Zero…" Her voice was silk over steel. "You're back."
Damon went statue-still.
She raised her hand and pressed a gloved finger right against his heart.
SHE FEELS IT! SHE KNOWS I'M SCARED SHITLESS!
Ophelia smiled, enjoying the panic.
"You look… delicious when you're vulnerable," she whispered, taking up all his space. "You used to be boring. I like this shake."
Her finger traced a line up to his throat. Damon swallowed hard.
"Vulnerability is armor," he said, praying he sounded badass.
"How poetic," she mocked. "My daughter says you became… human." She dug a little nail into his neck.
"If you fail your recertification, I'll open you up, layer by layer, until I find what part broke."
Damon was about to throw up from stress when…
DING!
The elevator opened and snapped the killing tension in half.
Iris walked in, glowing.
"Mother! Master Zero!" she shouted. "I planned a dinner for all of us!"
Ophelia switched from Psycho Mode to Calm Mom in one frame.
"A dinner…" She looked at Damon like he was the menu. "Wonderful."
'I'm dead,' Damon thought. 'She's gonna eat me for dessert.'
But his stupid suicidal instinct won. He needed to see what he was dealing with.
He activated the [Legislator's Eye].
CRACK!
The system window wasn't blue.
It was a violent glitch of red static, bleeding data.
[NAME: OPHELIA VALEN]
[RANK: SSS]
[PASSIVE SKILL: "Devourer of Lies"]
Damon froze.
Ophelia smiled at him, but it wasn't kind.
It was the face of a monster that just smelled a lie in the air and loved it…