You hear stories in this line of work: tales of ghouls and curses, vengeful ghosts and backwoods witches. They always seem to come from a friend of a friend who may or may not exist at all. It’s all a load of superstitious nonsense, right? Well, that’s what I used to think, too. But I’m getting ahead of myself, best to start from the beginning.
I broke my teeth in this business at the Pinkerton Agency. I had no family to speak of and no real prospects outside the agency, I was just a young rookie with nothing to lose and everything to prove. Now, as you might imagine, that youthful ambition led to an unfortunate difference in opinion with the veteran agents—one that nearly earned me a spot in the hangman’s ledger—so I left the Pinkertons for… less lethal prospects.
Of course, after falling out with the biggest name in the business, you’re not left with many prospects except freelance work, so freelance I did. It’s better that way, really. I only take the cases I want to take and I don’t have any bosses to answer to… or end up in shootouts with. I’m not exactly famous in my own right but I make a decent enough living, and that anonymity means I’m less likely to be made by a mark. Anyway, by the time I had a firm footing in my independent practice, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the world and its inner workings. But there comes a time in every man’s life when he is forced to question his beliefs and confront just how little he actually knows. For me, that all started with a name: Elijah Blackthorne.