The rumble of a car's wheels. The squelch of churned slush. The stench of engine oil and old leather. The murmurs and chuckles of gruff voices.

When Cobalt came to, he found himself lying on his front, jammed into somewhere cold, dark and cramped. He couldn't move his hands from behind his back; something was biting hard into his wrists. A feeble attempt to cry for help was swiftly thwarted by the filthy rag that had been stuffed in his mouth.

In the darkness, his eyes widened. The Sulfur Bloods had taken them, hadn't they? Shoved him into the boot of their car in order to take him who knows where... He had read enough gangster novellas to know what happened next...

Struggling against his bonds, the Incubus tried to wriggle and squirm into a more comfortable position, but the confines of the car's boot denied him even that. With no other option, he began to violently kick and thrash, desperate to make some kind of noise in the off chance that somebody heard him.

"Oi! Shut the fuck up back there!" bellowed a voice from the front of the vehicle.

Too scared to continue, the Incubus instead tried to call out once more, only to wind up almost choking on his gag.

"This shit's giving me a headache... What does the boss want with him anyway?"

"Not for us to know. Here, I'll get you some aspirin once we get this little shit acclimated."

The car abruptly stopped, causing Cobalt to bash his head off the inside of the car boot. His right eye smarted, painfully reminding him of just how to two Oni managed to knock him unconscious in the first place. He heard two doors open, followed by the sound of heavy boots crunching against snow.

The boot clicked and swung open, almost blinding the Incubus despite the lateness of the hour. The two Oni gangsters - one scarred, one patched - bore down upon him, each grimacing unpleasantly. The one with the eyepatch took a deep breath and grabbed hold of the cloth in his captive's mouth.

"I'm gonna take this out now. If you make one fucking peep, I'm putting it back in, and breaking a few teeth besides. Understand?" he growled, narrowing his one visible eye.

Swallowing dryly, Cobalt nodded shakily. With a sigh, he tore the gag out and tossed it over his shoulder. For a second, he considered crying for help, only for a scarred hand to grab him by the tie and hoist him out of the car boot. He was unceremoniously flung into a snowdrift, whereupon his sweat-stained clothes clung to his skin and froze him to the core.

"Get off your ass."

Gasping for breath, the Incubus shook the snow off and scrambled to his feet, a task not made easy by the fact that his hands were bound behind his back. Knees knocking and wings quivering, the Incubus craned his neck and tried to take stock of his surroundings, to see if there was anyone around who could help him.

But wherever he was, he was far, far away from Brimstone proper. All he could see was rolling countryside, painted white by the perpetual December snow. The car had been parked by a set of huge wrought iron gates, on a snow-choked driveway that seemed to just go on and on into the distance.

"These're the boss' lands, y'know. So quit thinking you can run off. You don't stand chance" the scarred gangster grunted, folding his arms.

"At least not with this on," spoke the other, suddenly grabbing Cobalt's shoulder.

Producing what appeared to be a dog collar from his coat pocket, the Oni tightly clicked it around his throat. Cobalt fell forward, sputtering and gasping as he felt two prongs stick into the back of his neck, making his skin tingle. Shaking all over, he the Incubus reached up and gingerly ran his fingers along the collar. There was a rubbery box on the back of it, dimly humming with charged electricity.

"A- An electric collar...?!" he gasped, his breathing growing faster and faster as he began to panic.

"Boss' idea, not mine. Now shut the fuck up and start walking."

He shoved Cobalt forward, nearly knocking him clean over. Swallowing hard, the Incubus bit his tongue and took one shivering footstep after the other, towards the large house at the end of the driveway.

But to call it a house was an understatement. What lay before Cobalt was an enormous estate that had evidently cost no small amount of brands to construct so far from civilization. Though each individual building appeared outwardly modern, once he drew closer, the Incubus noticed that they were in fact recent renovations of much, much older constructions. Judging by the opaque windows, carved stonework and slanted rooves, this place was once an Oni village, now remodeled into the headquarters of the Sulfur Blood clan.

"Welcome to Inferno, my friend," one of the gangsters jeered unpleasantly.

"Wasn't always called that. Boss' been mad keen on Italian since he got with the wife," the other responded, shoving Cobalt across the driveway.

"Heh. Don't let him hear you say that. You know what he's like."

Step by frigid step, the Incubus was forced around the side of the first building, into the courtyard that lay behind it. All around him, other Sulfur Bloods loitered around the frozen garden fixtures, clearly interested in the estate's newest arrival. They laughed and snickered as Cobalt stumbled along the path, towards a large, central building. If this place were still an antiquated village, then it would have been the chieftain's dwelling.

Cobalt swallowed hard. This didn't bode well.

Shoving him into the entrance hall, the eyepatch-wearing gangster produced a switchblade and cut through the cable ties around his wrists. Slapping his cheek, he gave the Incubus a one-eyed wink.

"Stay alive, yeah? This is the most fun we've had around here since the war with the Embertongues," he laughed, grinning cruelly.

With that the two Oni left the beaten-up Incubus on the floor, slamming the door behind them. Shaking all over, he rubbed the red marks on his wrists and uneasily clambered back to his feet. Before him was a large sliding door, carved from a single piece of direoak. A type of wood notorious for being harder than stone, traditionally felled by Oni with their bare hands.

He could feel some kind of intense pressure exuding from behind it. Though whether that was true or whether his nerves were playing up on him, Cobalt didn't know...

Terrified, he placed his hands against the door and slowly slid it open, heart pounding hard in his mouth.

"H- Hello...?" he choked, holding his hand to his face as he was assaulted by a wave of acrid red smoke.

The chamber within - an audience chamber, if his history knowledge served him - was absolutely filled with the stuff, making the entire room stink of burnt cayenne and gunpowder. Braziers blazed in each corner of the room, and reed mats covered the stony floor below. The walls were covered in carvings, but between the smoke and his watering eyes, Cobalt couldn't make any of them out. There were a number of screens before each of the reed mats, most of which were raised, save one at the far end of the room. He could see the silhouette of a burly man sitting cross-legged, smoking a large pipe that seemed to be the source of most of the chamber's smoke.

"Trayer, eh? I was beginning to wonder when you'd finally show up," boomed a deep, commanding voice.

It was loud, enough to rattle Cobalt's very bones and force him onto his knees. He knew who it was immediately. A man often spoken of, and barely ever seen. The very source of every gun, narcotic and bottle of moonshine in the city-state.

"P- Parricidio..." the Incubus breathed, quivering like a leaf in the wind.

The man behind the screen gave a booming laugh.

"I see our reputations precede us both!" he chortled, taking a deep drag of his pipe.

"Wh- What?"

"I've heard a lot about you, you know. Interestin' stuff..."

He expelled another cloud of red smoke as his silhouette leaned forward.

"Aye, I'm the man they call Parricidio. But you...?"

The screen rose, revealing the man himself in all his terrifying glory.

"... you can just call me Lorenzo."

A crossed chestwrap embroidered with scenes of historical battles. Buckled twinbelts lined with countless knives and other assorted blades. Banded leather ceastus, covered in sharp spikes. Exposed abdominals, displaying countless grievous battle scars. The traditional garb of an Oni chieftain was enough to terrify Cobalt, but it was his face that truly petrified him.

Lorenzo's eyes were a deep and violent shade of blue, and the weight of his gaze seemed to almost crush Cobalt where he sat. He had a wild man of red hair that spread all the way down his back, whilst his beard had been trimmed into a pair of fearsome muttonchops. A huge scar spanned the entire length of the Oni's face, starting near his chin, cutting across his nose, through his eye and ending near the rocklike horn in the centre of his forehead.

He grinned.

"Good to finally meet you face to face," he stated, reaching forth with one huge leatherbound hand.

Swallowing hard, Cobalt did his best to avoid the spiked studs and nervously shook it.

"Y- You too..." he stuttered, too terrified to even breathe.

Nodding, Lorenzo's lip curled as he noticed the bruise covering Cobalt's eye.

"Nngh. I told them to bring you here in one piece. Can't count on good help these days," he growled, taking another drag of his pipe.

Taking a deep breath, the Oni warlord fixed Cobalt with his petrifying gaze.

"So. To business. You're probably wonderin' why I brought you here."

That was an understatement, but the Incubus just kept his mouth shut and shook his head.

"Simply put, I got a job for you."

"F- For me?"

"Aye. Somethin' only a man of Trayer blood can do."

What the Hell was he talking about? Cobalt was the only male Trayer anyone was aware of, and he was hardly the sort to involve himself with hardened criminals!

"What is it?"

Lorenzo shook his head.

"Ah, that would be tellin'. Please excuse the secrecy, but in my line of work, things tend to run smoothest when everyone is operatin' on a need-to-know basis. Don't worry, though; I ain't gonna ask you to do anything strenuous," he explained, fiddling with one of the knives on his belt.

Cobalt didn't like this. Getting sold out by the headmistress, kidnapped by mobsters and dragged out to the middle of nowhere was playing havoc with his nerves, and for a brief moment, he forgot his fear.

"And what if I don't want to? Wh- What if I want to go home?!" he whined, voice cracking.

Lorenzo's amenable expression darkened.

"You don't got a choice, Trayer. Havin' you here was a part of the deal, in exchange for the money to keep your school afloat. Nah, while you're a guest in my home..."

He pulled a small plastic remote from his sarouel and raised it to the light.

"... you ain't leavin' until I say so."

He pressed a button.

Painful electric shocks suddenly surged through the Incubus body. He screamed and collapsed onto the floor, shaking violently as his muscles tensed involuntarily. The agony lasted only for a brief moment, and by the time it stopped, Lorenzo had already put the remote away.

"Understand?"

Cobalt slowly crawled back into a seated position, twitching all over. He hadn't felt pain like that since Alison's nanobots went haywire, and he certainly wasn't willing to go through it again. Wiping his mouth, he nodded sheepishly.

"Good. Now, as much as I'd love to chat more, I'm a busy man. Until I have need of you again, should you need anythin', I want you to ask my advisor, Corris," the Oni warlord explained.

Raising his hands, he clapped them sharply. From outside, Cobalt heard the sounds of footsteps.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming. Not deaf yet, you know..." grumbled a gravelly voice as the door was slid open.

A hunched Oni shuffled into the audience chamber, muttering beneath her breath as she stepped into the light of the braziers. She was in her third stage, but the white streaks in her tied-back hair and the wizened look in her eyes told Cobalt that she was in fact rather old.

"This him? Pssh. Seen more meat on rabbits," she remarked, prodding the back of the Incubus' head.

"Cobalt, this is-"

"Corris Alderi. Been schlepping hither and thither for this blasted clan for most of me life now, not that I get enough appreciation for it," Corris interrupted, folding her arms.

Lorenzo sighed and scratched the back of his head.

"Aye. Been my advisor since I took up the mantle as the Sulfur Blood clan head," he explained.

She scoffed.

"I've been here since your grandpappy, Lory, and your pappy besides. 'Til you cut his reign short, I mean."

The Oni warlord suddenly cleared his throat, more to drown out his advisors gripes than anything else. With a sigh, he gestured to the Incubus.

"Corris, are we prepared to receive our guest?" he asked, raising a thick eyebrow.

"Yeah, yeah, all's sorted. I'm not senile yet, no matter how hard you insinuate it."

"Well, in that case, take him to the mess to ingratiate himself with the boys. He's gonna be around for a while; they may as well get used to him."

Corris rolled her eyes, but nodded regardless. Turning to Cobalt, she looked him up and down and frowned.

"Got a staring problem, kid?" she asked sharply, startling him.

"Erm, n- no ma'am," the Incubus replied, gluing his eyes to the floor.

"Tch. Ma'am. At least you've got manners, if nothing else. Unlike some people," the grouchy Oni chided, narrowing her eyes at Lorenzo.

Hoisting Cobalt off the floor, she gestured for him to follow her out of the chamber. He did as he was told, but not before taking one last look at the Sulfur Blood clan leader.

He was staring right at Cobalt, with expectant eyes.

Just what the Hell did he want from him...?