The western horizon was a molten fire of copper, rose-gold, and deepening indigo.
Eighty-five floors above the stone floor of Mega-City 01, on the wide stone watching terrace of the Federal Apex Spire, the Atlantic wind blew clean and cold. He carried the salt tang of the open ocean and the distant, hum of forty million people living without fear.
Arthur Wright sat on the edge of the smooth granite stone railing, his combat boots dangling into the empty air eighty stories above the streets.
He wore a simple, plain wool field sweater and dark cargo trousers, his razor-sharp gauntlet unstrapped and resting on the stone beside him. The fading sunlight bathed his tired, angular face in warm amber light, highlighting the thin white scar across his left eyebrow. A souvenir from his first emergency c-section on an injured war-rhino in the lower rings three years ago.
Beside him, lying flat on the warm paving stones, Grimm had his heavy black glass chin resting squarely across the toe of Arthur’s right boot.
The Stygian direhound’s eyes were half-closed, his dark nostrils flaring sometimes to sample the evening breeze. Every time a flock of wild gulls wheeled past the terrace low roof wall, Grimm’s single intact ear would twitch forward, his tail giving two slow, heavy thuds against the granite before settling back into luxury. Grimm didn’t care that he was the chief vanguard guardian of the Global Veterinary Corps. He only cared that his human was sitting within touching distance…
