The warehouse in Red Hook smelled like rust and blood.
Sebastian Moran stood over the body without expression, cataloging details with the automatic precision of a man who'd done this hundreds of times. Viktor Semyonov — former courier for the organization, current corpse — had died badly. The information extraction had taken six hours. The execution had taken three seconds.
Moran pulled out his phone and typed a single word: Complete.
The response came immediately: Acknowledged. Standard disposal. Then await further instructions.
Standard disposal meant the body would never be found. Moran had people for that — a network he'd built over fifteen years of serving Jamie Moriarty's interests across three continents. Viktor's betrayal had been minor, all things considered. A skimmed payment, a loose word to the wrong contact. But minor betrayals became major ones if left unpunished.
The disposal team would arrive in twenty minutes. Moran had time.
He walked to the warehouse window and looked out at the New York skyline, orange and gray in the pre-dawn light. Six weeks he'd been in this city, hunting a single man who'd thought he could disappear. Six weeks of patient surveillance, methodical investigation, the slow tightening of a net that Viktor had never seen coming.
Now Viktor was dead, and Moran was supposed to wait for further instructions.
But something in the local intelligence reports had caught his attention.
He pulled out a tablet and scrolled through the files his network had compiled — the usual chatter from criminal circles, the movement of money and influence that formed the underground heartbeat of any major city. Most of it was noise. But one name kept appearing with increasing frequency.
Moriarty.
Not Jamie. Someone else. A fixer operating out of Brooklyn, solving problems for small-time criminals, building a reputation through competence and discretion. The reports described him as male, late twenties, unknown origin, unsettling knowledge of matters he shouldn't understand.
Someone was using Jamie's name. Her legend. Her brand.
Moran felt something cold settle in his chest. It might be coincidence — the name had power in certain circles, and ambitious pretenders sometimes borrowed it. But the consistency troubled him. This wasn't someone claiming to be Moriarty. This was someone building a reputation as a Moriarty. A shadow of the real thing.
Jamie would want to know. But Jamie was in London, occupied with matters Moran wasn't cleared to understand, and her instructions had been explicit: complete the Semyonov hunt, then await orders.
Nothing about investigating imposters.
Moran closed the tablet and looked at Viktor's body one last time. The betrayer who'd thought he could run. The fool who'd learned that nobody escaped Jamie Moriarty's attention.
This new "Moriarty" would learn the same lesson. Eventually.
For now, Moran would gather information. Watch. Wait. Build a profile of whoever was bold enough — or stupid enough — to use that name in Jamie's territory.
---
Vex was agitated.
I noticed it in the way she moved through the boarding house hallways — quicker than usual, her green eyes scanning corners she normally ignored. Something had triggered her ancient instincts, and she couldn't identify what.
"The surveillance routes feel different," she said when I finally asked. "Someone's been watching our usual paths. Professional. I can't find the source."
"The man from the parlor?"
"Possibly. But this feels bigger. More organized." She settled on my windowsill, her posture suggesting readiness to flee. "I've been watching interesting people for millennia, Cash. I know when I'm being watched in return. Someone's paying attention to you."
The visitor from three nights ago had left me on edge. I'd spent those three days varying my routes, changing my schedule, taking counter-surveillance measures that Vex had taught me during our first weeks together. Nothing had surfaced. No more large men in my landlady's parlor. No obvious tails.
But Vex's instincts were older and sharper than mine. If she felt something wrong, something was wrong.
"What do we do?" I asked.
"Continue as normal. Don't let them know you've noticed." Her tail flicked with irritation. "But be careful. Whoever this is has resources. Organization-level tradecraft, like I said before."
Organization-level. The words triggered Memory Palace associations I'd been avoiding since that night — Jamie Moriarty's network, her infrastructure, the web of professionals who did her bidding across the world. I'd been using her name, building my reputation on the legend she'd created. Eventually, that had to attract attention.
I just hadn't expected it so soon.
"The fixer work continues," I decided. "The Sherlock positioning continues. But we double our counter-surveillance. And we stay ready to run if necessary."
"Run where?"
Good question. I'd built my identity, my reputation, my entire existence around this city. Running meant abandoning everything I'd constructed since waking in that alley.
"I'll figure that out if we need to," I said. "For now, we watch. We wait. We learn who's watching us."
The watch in my pocket had started ticking again. I pulled it out and checked the time — accurate to the second, as far as I could tell. The hands had moved from 3:47 AM to the present moment, as if the watch had decided to start keeping time again after days of being frozen.
Two mysteries now. The organization-level attention. The watch that couldn't decide whether it was broken or functional.
I put the watch back and forced myself to focus on the immediate problem. Somewhere in this city, someone with resources and patience was building a profile on me. I needed to know who before they finished.
The game was getting more dangerous. And I couldn't afford to lose.
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