Chapter 1 - The Silver Token
“Go,” the man breathed, his voice barely a rasp against the cold air of the station.
Annie leaned closer, her small hands gripping the lapels of his heavy wool coat.
“What?” she asked, her voice shaking but stubborn.
“Leave,” he whispered, his dark eyes losing their focus.
“They are coming. It isn’t safe.”
Annie shook her head fiercely, her wet hair clinging to her cheeks.
“I don’t leave people when they are hurting,” she said.
“My grandma said that makes you a monster, and I am not a monster.”
Daniel Moretti tried to laugh, but it turned into a wet, agonizing cough that shook his massive frame.
He had lived in a world of monsters for forty years.
He had commanded them, fought them, and buried them.
Yet, as the venom in his veins pulled him toward the dark, the only angel of mercy to arrive was a seven-year-old girl in a cheap blue coat.
The phone was still pressed to Annie’s ear.
“He is dying!” she screamed into the receiver, her voice finally breaking the indifference of the massive station.
“Platform four! If you don’t come, I will tell God you let him die!”
The operator on the other end fell silent, finally shocked into action by the sheer, desperate terror of a child.
“Paramedics are on the way, sweetheart,” the voice finally replied. “Stay with him.”
Daniel’s hand, heavy and freezing, suddenly reached up and grabbed Annie’s wrist.
He didn't have much time left.
His vision was fading to black, but he saw the innocent, fierce determination in the little girl's eyes.
With his last ounce of strength, he reached into his inner pocket.
He pulled out a heavy, solid silver coin bearing the crest of a roaring lion.
It was his personal seal.
In the underworld of Chicago, that coin was a guarantee of life, a marker of absolute protection, and a blank check to the Moretti empire.
He pressed it into Annie’s small, dirty palm and folded her tiny fingers over it.
“Keep it hidden,” he choked out, blood speckling his lips.
“Give it... to Silas.”
“Who is Silas?” Annie cried, tears finally spilling down her face.
But Daniel’s eyes rolled back, and his massive body went completely limp against the concrete.
Sirens wailed in the distance, cutting through the rainy Chicago night.
Annie shoved the heavy silver coin deep into her pocket, right next to her grandmother’s pharmacy receipt.
She did not let go of Daniel’s hand, even when the paramedics rushed the platform and pushed her away.
She had missed her train.
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She had broken her grandmother’s rule about coming straight home.
But as she watched them lift the dying king onto a stretcher, she knew she had done the right thing.
