Page 21 of Kazimir

She said it so casually, as if I hadn’t spent half the night reconstructing my sense of reality after seeing her. I kept my face blank.

“She’s important,” I said. “I want you to personally oversee all magical surveillance. No one else. Not even Bohdan.”

Amelia grinned, teeth white and sharp. “You got it. She feels…” She trailed off, searching for words.

“Familiar,” I supplied.

She shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe she’s new. Sometimes the universe throws a weird one at you.”

I motioned for her to follow as I stood. “Come. Walk with me.”

The shift from my office to the Basement Casino was like diving through ice into volcanic water. Upstairs, the club was all polished indulgence, purple and gold and sex. Down here, beneath the ground, the air grew cool, and the light faded to a haze of green felt and shadow. The ceilings were low; the walls padded in velvet, and everything—cards, dice, chips—looked older than any of the men running the tables. No clocks. No windows. Just the friction of risk, the scent of old money and new fear.

Amelia’s eyes widened. She loved it down here because the rules never changed.

Tonight was busy. Vampires with veins lit blue by recent feeding lounged at roulette tables; chips in various sized stacks. Witch covens in leather and lace argued in tight, tense clusters over cards. A handful of demons—never more than three in a room, by unspoken law—smoked clove cigarettes and watched the action with predatory patience. The noise was muffled, as if everything was happening underwater.

We’d barely made it two steps in before a shout cut the static.

“Bullshit!” The voice belonged to a demon in a white suit, horns lacquered black, eyes burning sulfur yellow. Vaelreth Korr. He stood, knocking his chair back, fists clenched at his sides. The crowd around his table pulled back instinctively, an animal response to sudden violence.

Amelia stopped beside me, tensed for the blast.

I strode forward. “Korr. Is there a problem?”

He sneered. “Your dealers cheat.”

“They have no need to,” I said, voice low. “You lose enough without their help.”

He bared his teeth. “I am owed time. I have the marker.”

“You have the marker, and you are in default. House rules, Vaelreth.”

The demon’s gaze flicked to Amelia, then to the crowd, searching for support. He found none.

I raised my voice just enough to silence the room. “You cannot pay me the money I am due; therefore I will take the hellhound.”

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then the demon shrieked—an inhuman sound, scraped from bone and hellfire. “You can’t—he is my property—!”

“He was your property, but you owe me a debt,” I replied. “You knew the rules. You signed the contract in your own blood.”

The hellhound arrived before the demon could reply. I’d seen them before, but never one like this: its head nearly reached my chest, coal-black fur rippling like liquid glass. Its eyes glowed molten copper, and every muscle under its hide flexed with barely restrained violence. The scent of brimstone hit first, then something older, sharper: hunger, loss.

The crowd backed up to the walls. Even the witches went quiet.

I met the hellhound’s eyes and waited for the show of dominance. It didn’t come. Instead, the creature stood perfectly still, a slow, deliberate breath raising and lowering its barrel chest.

“What is its name?” I asked.

The demon spat. “Hound.”

My disgust was instant, reflexive. “You are so disrespectful that you dishonor the creature by giving it no name?”

“Why waste a name on something bred to be broken?” The demon sneered, but his confidence was leaking away.

I crouched until I was eye to eye with the hound. Its eyes held mine, unreadable. “What is your name?” I asked, voice as soft as I could make it.