"Sam!"

Dr. Archer DeVille had been resting his stubbled cheek against his palm, while his other hand hung loose upon the handle of a nearly empty stein. With the sinfully sweet sound of his friend's voice cutting through the din of the bar, he cringed and hunched, digging his fingers further into his unkempt hair and drawing the mug of beer closer to his lips.

"It's too late to hide," said Zeni with a ruthless smirk, twisting her lush lips. "They've already seen you."

"Let me have just a few more seconds of silence." His words rolled with a groan as he withered beneath his other friend's malicious gaze. "I came here to unwind and..."

"Sam, where have you been all week?"

A thin hand fell upon Archer's shoulder and he shivered as the newly arrived Vaden used their long, manicured nails to scratch his back.

"Samot has been a busy little demon this week," replied Zeni, who wiggled with delight as she sipped her margarita.

He shared an unamused glare with his fellow soul eater across the table before straightening his back and turning his attention to the cubus that stood beside him.

"Just been busy," answered Samot with a roll of his shoulders. "I tried to bite off more than I could chew and I had to spend all week cleaning up my mess."

"I'm so glad to hear that," said Vaden with a dramatic sigh of relief before drawing up a nearby stool and taking a seat. "You can't worry me like that. I thought you might be fading."

"Give me some credit," growled Samot, his fist tightening around his now empty mug. "I wouldn't take on the risk of snagging a virtuous soul without some backup."

Vaden raised their elegant hands up in surrender before waving down a waitress to grab themselves a vodka cranberry.

The exhausted professor used the moment of distraction to check the slight tinge of black rimming his nails. He wasn't sure if he was more angry with Vaden's assuming he had drawn to heavily on his reserves or the fact that he did, in fact, reach his limits while cleaning up his mess with Sophia Miller. He wanted to believe the discoloration was from stress and his inattention to his glamor spell over the week, but doubt still niggled at the back of his mind.

"Want another beer, Samot?"

He tightened his hand to hide his nails and shot his gaze up to Zeni, who watched him with heavy-lidded eyes and a knowing gaze.

"I, uh, yes, please."

He released his stein and crossed his arms over the sticky high top so his hands were buried in the warmth of his pits.

"Now don't be angry with me, Sam," continued Vaden with a lilting tone to their bright voice. "You have come to the Nexus every evening without fail since you finished your persona conversion, like six, maybe five years ago."

"Six."

He huffed at the memory. His previous persona had been Dr. Damien Voss, the revered political science professor at Grimaldi University. He took a more philosophical air under that guise, beguiling his students while pontificating on lofty theories of justice.

It worked for the 60 years he taught as Damien, but a new brand of aspirational elitism had enticed the next generation and so Dr. Damien Voss succumbed to cancer. Samot then spent the next four years deconstructing that persona while forging a new identity as Dr. Archer DeVille. As DeVille, he tapped into the alpha male fad to entice young men and galvanize young women into aspiring beyond their abilities.

It was an effective persona, however, these types of transfers took a lot of energy. Even after six years as DeVille, he still hadn't refilled his reserves to what they should be. Usually, his method of maintaining a slow and steady stream of harvested souls worked to his advantage. It didn't raise questions and allowed for longer spans between personas—which was a luxury some of his contemporaries didn't have given their preference for harvesting whole towns with plans of living without want for a few decades. However, in this case, a hefty buffer of souls would have been a welcome resource.

"So six years straight of sharing a drink with you after I finish a night of lust harvesting, and then you drop off the map. Of course, I worried about you."

Vaden pouted and reached out to give Samot's shoulder a rub. The rugged soul eater long ago gave up on fighting the cubus' natural inclination for physical contact. So he simply sighed and scanned the bar, hoping to spot the waitress with his next beer.

"I think you should still be worried," said Zeni with concern barely noticeable in her alluring voice. "From what Samot was telling me, he failed to wipe the memory of this virtuous soul."

"What?!"

Vaden snapped their hand back and stole their drink off the waitress' tray before she even reached the table. They took several long chugs of the vodka cranberry before placing the nearly empty glass onto the table and turning their wide eyes back to Samot.

"You've been playing this game longer than Zeni and I combined, and you couldn't wipe a human's memory?"

"Rub it in, why don't you?" Samot growled at Vaden before turning to the waitress and thanking her for his drink.

"I've only had to wipe a couple of minds in my lifetime—benefit of feeding off one-night stands that I never see again—but isn't that part of your daily routine as soul eaters?"

Samot looked over at his concerned friend from the side of his eye. He considered answering, but since he still didn't have an explanation for what happened, he didn't trust himself to soothe Vaden's concerns. Unfortunately, it didn't matter, since he wasn't the only soul eater at the table.

"Depends on how good you are at selecting a mark." Zeni shrugged her shoulders and pulled the lime slice from her empty glass. "However, it is a necessity in our line of work and I'll admit, I'm concerned Samot failed to do so, no matter how virtuous this girl supposedly is."

"Concerned? You sure look it."

Zeni's heavy eyes, flat smile, and long face provided Samot with an apathetic answer. She then tossed the entire slice of lime into her mouth, devouring the rind and all with not so much as a pucker of her lips.

"I'm insulted. I can't believe you don't see the worry on my face after all these years."

"And I can't believe you work in hospitality."

"My clientele like a professional appearance." She raised one eyebrow in challenge, but Samot didn't take the bait. Zeni preyed on the aging elite, who were desperate to hold on to their beauty, money, and fame. She ran a notoriously exclusive five star spa and resort in Aspen, Colorado, and was never short on targets. He didn't doubt for a minute that her stoic and subtly pretentious facade fed right into that atmosphere.

"I feel like neither of you is taking this as seriously as you should be."

"What about you, Vaden," asked Samot, "you still trawling Copenhagen for marks?"

"Don't change the subject," demanded the cubus with a stab of their finger. "You're an old man, and I worry about your power fading."

"I'm not a human," replied the professor with a growl. "Demons get better with age, not worse."

"I know, it's just..."

"He doesn't know, Vaden."

"Doesn't know what?" Samot eyed his two companions from over the rim of his beer. They shared a glance between them before Vaden continued with a soft voice.

"About Zaile. I forgot. With you being away from the Nexus for the past week, you wouldn't have heard the news."

Samot's brows bent and he braced himself for the inevitable news about the elder cubus.

"There was a terrorist attack in Kraków this week," answered Zeni. "The why and who isn't particularly clear, but we know that was the last place Zaile was."

"Word in the cubus circles was that Zaile was tiring of the game. They couldn't take anymore 'meaningless' sex, as they said." Vaden shook their head and studied the empty glass between their hands.

"Hard to harvest lust while being celibate." Zeni slid her finger around the rim of her glass, collecting the salt before swiping it across her tongue. "Not impossible, but not enough to keep the demon at bay."

"We're all sure Zaile faded and succumbed to the void. That would explain the sudden burst of malice in Kraków."

Samot heaved a sigh and assessed the bubbles swimming up to the top of his drink. His thumb swept across the condensation collecting on the glass and his eyes caught the blackened cuticles surrounding his nail.

"I'm... I'm not fading. Okay, Vaden?" Despite his assertion, he balled his fingers into fists and hid his own fears from view. "There wasn't, like, a fizzle of power, you know? I remember early on—when I was still learning under Palma—that when I failed to connect with a target, it felt like static snapping in the air when it should have been a lightning bolt jumping from one rod to another. I don't know if that's how it feels for you as a cubus."

"Not exactly," said Vaden with their fingers massaging their chin, "but I think I can relate."

"Well, that's not what I felt. It wasn't a failure to connect. It was more like an active push against me. Or really a solid wall."

"Because of her virtue?" posed Zeni.

"Look, I mean, she wants to work for the betterment of others and not to lift herself over her peers, but she's not like a paragon of light. She's just, you know, a good person. I've attempted to snag good people before and I have been able to wipe their mind after. This was different."

"Do you think," started Zeni, whose eyes now twinkled with intrigue, "someone is on your turf and already claimed her soul?"

"No double dipping for soul eaters?" asked Vaden with wide-eyed innocence.

"Sometimes I wonder if I should have sought the cubus route. It sounds so much easier." The female soul eater sighed and sent a longing look towards the bar as if she hoped another margarita might manifest if she stared hard enough.

"Lust refills, souls do not," answered Samot. "Which is why we can get by on a couple of souls a year and you all have to feast constantly."

"I'm not complaining," said Vaden with a waggle of their eyebrows.

"I can't believe someone would step on your turf," said Zeni with a mischievous smile. "Who do you think it is?" She then looked over her shoulder, scanning the crowd to see if anyone might be spying on Samot at that very moment.

"I don't know," he growled, "but I'm going to find out who it was."

"How?" asked the cubus.

"We all leave marks on our victims. If I get close enough to her, I should be able to trace who's been in contact with her."

"And how do you plan to get close after what she saw?" Zeni's wide smile failed to hide her delight in Samot's struggles.

"I've charmed enough people at the school this week to plant a seed of doubt in her head. As far as anyone's told her, stress plus a gas leak in the ventilation system caused her to hallucinate. I just need to keep feeding that doubt. I'll play the professor who's just concerned about how his promising young student is coping after an episode like that. She's failing after all, so I could offer to work with her one on one and..."

"Use some cubus tactics," said Vaden with a clap of their hands.

"Only if I have to." Samot rolled his eyes and took a drink of his beer. Conversation shifted after that, but he couldn't get Sophia Miller out of his head. Someone had touched his things, and he really did not like sharing.