Turning up his jacket collar, Alex made a fist and flicked his thumb up. A small tongue of flame flashed over its tip.

[Elementary magic action. Mana used: 0.5 points/sec]

Anyone even at the lower end of the Apprentice level (0-250 mana points) was used to messages like that popping up in their peripheral vision thanks to the lenses they wore.

That was particularly true there, in Myers City, the heart of New Earth’s magical world.

But not for Alex.

Four years. The four goddamn years he’d spent in the underground prison kept him from taking the little things for granted.

Lens messages. The freedom to use magic. Unlocked doors. The joy of taking a shit any time he wanted to without having to wait for the moment when none of his roommates were eating.

“Your belongings are at the safe house already, Mr. Dunsky.”

“Dumsky,” Alex replied.

“Whatever,” Duncan responded blithely before pressing the button that controlled the limo’s windows, closing them in Alex’s face. “I hope you fuck it up.”

Any old-school dark wizard worth their salt would have cursed Duncan for his lip. And at the very least, it would have been a curse that covered his penis in boils the next time he tried to get it on with a woman.

But Doom was cut from a different cloth.

He adjusted his glasses with his middle finger, the one that had DOOM tattooed on it in the runic script of the Fae people.

He hated those bloody fairies.

Sidelights flashing, the limo vanished around a corner. Alex followed it with his eyes, bowed low and mockingly in that direction, and wheeled around, only to immediately bump into the breasts of a very tall lady. In her cashmere coat, the collar of which had been made from a two-tailed fox, she looked like just another working girl.

“You lost, boy?” she snarled.

And it wasn’t a figurative smile. No, she actually snarled. Her skin was green, and she smelled something like an animal, or maybe like a dried raisin. Her claw-like nails and fangs were yellow, all pierced with golden rings.

[Name: ??? Race: Troll Mana level: 129]

“Ma’am,” Alex said, reaching to tip his hat to her but suddenly remembering that he hadn’t gotten it back when he’d been discharged from the city’s best all-inclusive resort. Bastards.

“I’m a miss,” the troll hummed. “Want a look at the goods?”

Alex just turned the pockets of his pants inside out to show that they were empty.

“Fuck off then, beggar.” The troll gave him a shove so forceful that he almost stumbled out onto the street. “You aren’t the only one here.”

Doom glanced over at the dark alleyway behind her. There, in the glaring light of a cheap hotel’s neon sign, stood a bunch of half-naked women, all from several races. Alex could have sworn he even spotted some with the white pointed ears of Elves, but he told himself he had to be imagining it. Even the poorest Elven families were wealthier than the desert sheiks.

“Why you stickin’ ‘round ‘ere?” Someone shouldered Alex.

“What you gapin’ for?” When Alex turned around, another shoulder drove itself into him, knocking him off balance.

Tipping over the edge of the sidewalk and almost falling onto the asphalted road, Alex just missed a speeding bike that shot by a second before he’d have been run over.

“Got a spare head, moron?” The wind carried the shout over to him even despite the roar of the gasoline engine. The rider had to have been a gangster—in High Garden, Myers City’s main cesspit, only gangsters could afford the gasoline tax.

Well, that’s not quite accurate. They just didn’t pay it.

Shaking his head and popping his jacket collar again, Alex turned around and looked up at the dark sky. The clouds were dense and illuminated by searchlights flashing regularly through the darkness, not to mention the occasional magic airship or glider.

High Garden was the only place in the city where the sky didn’t look like a Christmas tree. Not far away, the night never really had the chance to take over, what with how brightly lit the sky was.

Alex was in one of the central districts in Myers City. Despite being twenty subway stations away (and that was actually including a shortcut), they were visible even from High Garden.

Think Manhattan in the 2010s. Make the island six times bigger, merge it with Hong Kong, and you’ll have downtown Myers City.

No one could count all the skyscrapers, as there were more of them popping up every year. It was a jungle of chromium and steel, metal and glass.

And there were thirty-six million sapient creatures living there, from humans to fairies.

It was an anthill that never slept, was always active and lively, and was soaked through with magic, from the sewer system where the troglodytes dwelled (Alex had personally killed three of them and would’ve killed the fourth if he hadn’t escaped, almost chopping Alex’s leg off in the process) to the spires of the highest towers the ever-wandering thunderbirds sometimes alighted on.

Alex breathed in deeply.

The fragrance of perfumes mixed oddly with the stench of mud and trash-quality dope. It stank of money and misery. Even the gleaming shop windows of the best boutiques were overshadowed by the darkness of the alleys and dens, and the roar of luxury sports cars was sometimes drowned out by the noise of diesel-powered self-propelled guns.

A city of contrasts.

A city where all the races dwelled.

The capital of Atlantis.

The city of magic.

“There’s no place like home,” Alex said with a smile. Reaching out, he snatched a black hat right off some random guy’s head.

“Hey,” came the protest, though his victim slipped into the maze of alleyways when he saw the misty lilac flash of a magic seal on Alex’s palm.

“And there’s certainly no place like High Garden.” Alex adjusted the brim of the felt hat, his favorite kind, and ripped the stripe off the crown for a more predatory look. “Well, Mr. Bromwoord, I’m coming to take what’s mine.”

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Alex started toward the lower park. Not far from the orphanage where he’d been raised, next to Seven Corner Square where he’d fought in many a gang war, and some two blocks away from the house of the crazy old man who’d taught him dark magic, there was an inconspicuous shop. The sign read Hunting & Fishing. No one but a few (that is, everyone in High Garden, including the policemen who were in it for the cash rather than the honor of the badge) knew it was one of the biggest smuggling fronts in the district.

But Alex had something more important than smuggling in mind.

He had to find out what the hell the government needed from him. Whatever it was, they needed him badly enough to yank him out of the wizard prison, knocking several centuries off his sentence in the process.

And he had to find out why the hell they wanted him to attend the First Magic University. As a professor!

Professor of Black Magic, huh? Anyone who actually had that title would’ve sold their soul, and their ass to boot, for the knowledge Alex had in his head.

As a side project, he wanted to figure out who Duncan and the narrow-eyed man really were.

And finally, while a trifle barely worth mentioning, he needed to repay his debt to one of the biggest crime syndicates in the city. They’d kept Alex from ending up a spinner around someone’s genitals while he’d been in jail. It was a debt of one hundred thousand credits, which converted to dollars at a rate of one to ten.

Neat, huh?

The clock on his debt was already ticking.

But Alex’s most pressing concern was finding some grub. He blew his nose into a dumpster and inhaled deeply before adding out loud, “and someone to fuck.”

“Oh, you made up your mind?” the female troll called out from behind him.

Alex did the exact same thing he always did when he wasn’t sure what to do.

He breathed in deeply, blew out a ring of smoke, flashed his DOOM tattoo, and trudged off down the street.

One bearded dwarf in particular, one who owed him buckets of money and a good dinner, was probably tired of waiting for him.