Eli could feel the eyes on the back of his head. Not literally of course, but when you grew up in the Outer Circle you learned to recognise when you were being followed. It was a feeling, an instinct, a raw sense lurking in the back of his skull that didn’t quite respond to the intelligence at the front of it. It also helped that he’d been working for Seraphine for some time, and in that line of work you learned to spot the people who lurked in the shadows, or followed you in broad daylight.

It only took two changes of course to confirm that he was being followed. It was a woman, and a good looking one at that. He’d had to resist the urge to check her out properly, it would have given away the fact that he’d noticed her, though he wondered why she was following him. Perhaps she had seen him leave ‘The Night House’ and was looking for employment? Though that thought was something of a turn off, Seraphine was very clear about him using the fact of his employment in order to take advantage of women. After all, he had no control over her employees, and she preferred to keep him honest. Within reason.

Eventually he stopped outside a bar, not quite a dive, it had chairs out on the pavement, but cheap and dirty enough that it was there for one purpose and one purpose only. That purpose was parlaying booze between genders, or at least that’s what it was judging by the crowd that was spilling out onto the street. He paused at the bar, and, acting as though he had just noticed her, looked her up and down, taking the opportunity to finally admire her figure, there was certainly plenty there to be admired about it.

He sounded relaxed, casual, and just a little flirtatious. “Hey, buy you a drink?”