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"Someone put a hit out on you and Patty on the dark web."
Lady tapped the screen. "Some idiot actually took the job. I was in the area wrapping up my own gig, saw the alert, and figured I'd swing by to check on you two."
Soren's brow furrowed as he leaned in to look at the phone.
The blurry surveillance screenshot showed him and Patty clear as day.
He stared at the background for a second—the animatronic bears on stage—and his expression turned weird.
Wait… that's literally this exact pizza place.
Who the hell took the photo?
His first suspect was the manager or one of the employees. But with his current senses, he would've noticed anything off the second he walked in a few days ago.
Soren's eyes narrowed as the memory clicked.
A few days back, right after he finished the Creeper on the highway, old man Jack had dropped them off here. This photo had to be from when he and Patty first came in for pizza.
Was it the same organization that had been monitoring the Creeper?
He remembered pulling that high-tech camera out of the monster's heart.
But the second his eyes dropped to the bounty amounts, that theory died instantly.
Soren: $50,000
Patty: $100,000
"?"
Soren just stared at the screen in dead silence.
He felt personally attacked.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Any group advanced enough to wire a monster with that kind of tech would cheap out with only fifty grand to get him killed?
If they really wanted him dead, shouldn't they be sending cyborgs or a full spec-ops kill squad?
The part that actually hurt his pride? He'd just cleared two million dollars. He was a Sparda-blood demon hunter.
And they valued him at half what they were willing to pay for Patty—the rich girl who couldn't fight worth a damn?
These broke-ass clowns weren't just underestimating his combat ability. They were straight-up insulting his entire existence.
Soren glanced at Patty, who looked equally confused, then rubbed his temples. "We haven't run into any actual assassins this whole trip…"
His voice carried a hint of exasperation.
"That's weird," Lady said, frowning. "Every killer on those sites goes through a handler. They don't just take jobs and ghost."
"Unless something went wrong?"
Soren's eyes flicked sideways to Alessa.
The little girl had just finished her last fry. Feeling his stare, she blinked innocently, reached over, and stole a fried chicken leg from his plate like it was the most natural thing in the world. Then she started nibbling on it with a straight face.
Looking at her harmless little expression, Soren suddenly understood exactly what happened.
Some low-rent hitman probably tried to sneak into town, got sucked into the Otherworld, and Alessa's monsters turned him into red paste.
What kind of killer takes a fifty-grand job anyway?
He dropped the subject and asked instead, "So how long are you staying in Los Santos?"
Lady and Trish were both ghosts—they bounced around the world chasing jobs and rarely stayed at the office long. Patty had school and her own fancy apartment.
That usually left Soren and Dante alone in the huge building, staring at each other over stacks of pizza boxes and bills, trying to figure out how to keep the power on.
Lady saw he wasn't stressed about the bounty and let it go.
She'd known Dante long enough to understand this whole bloodline was ridiculously hard to kill.
According to dark-web rules, once a hitman failed, the job froze unless the client raised the price.
With Soren's current strength, this was nothing.
"Probably a few days," Lady said, taking her fresh ice water from the waitress and sipping it. "I'm back in Los Santos for a job. And it involves an old friend of yours."
"My old friend?"
Soren raised an eyebrow.
Lady set her glass down and smirked. "Remember that exorcist you roasted a few years ago? Told him he was definitely gonna die of lung cancer?"
Soren choked on his Coke. "Cough—cough… Constantine? That guy actually took a job?"
Back when he used to tag along with Lady to learn the ropes, they'd crossed paths with John Constantine once. The man had looked like life had already kicked his teeth in—chain-smoking, depressed, the whole package.
First thing teenage Soren said to him was, "Bro, you're making everyone breathe your secondhand smoke. You're never getting into Heaven like that."
That was how they met.
"The job didn't come from him," Lady said, voice dropping. "It's from the Los Santos PD. There's a crazy woman going around killing people. The method's… weird. Or maybe just narcissistic?"
"Before she murders them, she always forces the victim to tell her if she's pretty first. Then she kills them anyway, real ugly."
"PD's got nothing. They put out a call for outside help. Constantine and I both took it. You wanna tag along?"
Soren's eyes narrowed.
Asking victims if she's pretty before killing them?
That sounded exactly like the Slit-Mouthed Woman urban legend from the other side of the ocean.
Weren't those supposed to be solved by answering "you're average" or calling a barber or some nonsense?
Or was this just another psycho copycat trying to live out her favorite creepypasta?
There were plenty of those lunatics around—hiding on remote farms or in basements, starting their own cults, using "divine will" as an excuse for sloppy murders.
He was about to turn it down.
One reason: it sounded boring. Two: he really didn't want to get mixed up with Constantine.
The guy was a walking disaster magnet. Become his friend and congratulations—you now had one foot in the grave. It was just a matter of when he'd drag you the rest of the way.
But right as the refusal reached his lips, the familiar ding sounded in his head.
[Ding!]
[Side Quest Triggered: The Truth Behind the Urban Legend]
[Quest Description: The serial killings in Los Santos are escalating. The bizarre murder method appears to be linked to some ancient summoning ritual.]
[Quest Objective: Assist in uncovering the truth behind the murders.]
[Quest Reward: 500 points]
Soren's eye twitched. He swallowed the rejection he'd been about to give.
Cough… well, when you put it that way.
Five hundred points was still five hundred points. A mosquito leg was still meat.
Every little bit got him closer to the ten thousand needed for Alastor.
Plus it was a chance to network with the PD and the exorcist crowd. Might lead to better-paying gigs later.
The official payout? Whatever. Cops were always cheap, and this job came from Lady anyway.
She burned through ammo like it was candy. Her finances were probably in the same sad shape as his. No way he was taking a cut from her.
"Alright. When do we start?"
Lady rolled her eyes and stretched like she didn't give a damn who was watching. Her tight white shirt rode up, flashing a strip of toned stomach. Several guys at nearby tables suddenly forgot how to chew, their greasy stares locked on her.
"Relax. I just got back. I'm crashing at the office for two full days of sleep first."
As she spoke, she casually slapped a massive-caliber handgun onto the table with a loud thunk.
The staring creeps snapped their heads down so fast they nearly gave themselves whiplash and started shoveling breakfast like their lives depended on it.
PS: We're not heading into full DC territory—just standalone Constantine stuff. I personally love the Keanu version, but the TV series actually stays closer to the comics.