Needless to say, after graduating from college, Eddie considered a number of careers that would allow him to use his talents to the fullest. And despite promising offers from a number of corporations, law firms, government agencies, and even crime organizations, young Eddie decided it was best to work as an independent contractor. He became a freelance corporate negotiator, and within a couple of years had cultivated a clientele list that included more than a quarter of the Fortune 500, dozens of politicians, a couple of handfuls of crime bosses, and much more. He was so good at what he did that in some instances two opposing entities would both hire him to negotiate against one another in the same case. And of course, he would always get the job done.

This is who he was, so it’s no surprise that once Eddie became phantom-fused with a ghost orphan, nothing changed. In fact, he only became that much more of a dealmaker. Ghost orphans are ancient lost souls , who have wandered the Earth for centuries. In order to avoid capture, the spirits learned how to hide inside of the bodies of humans. There are two groups that have been sent to capture them: The Veil, a group of noble swordsmen and swordswomen, who desire to release the ghost orphans into a heavenly afterlife, and the reapers, a group of vicious hellspawns, who’ve come to Earth and taken natural forms, in order to hunt down and send ghost orphans to a hellish afterlife.

Virginia Ice – who, at present, just happens to be the most dangerous of all ghost orphans – quickly recruited Eddie to become a part of her squad of ghost orphan marauders. She used his deal-making abilities to increase the power and wealth of her own underground empire, which in turn made her war against the Veil and the reapers that much more effective.

Toward the beginning of the 22nd century, the war between the three factions had taken an extraordinary turn, with the leader of the Veil, Disa Philadelphia, and the other elder hunters attempting to navigate the events of the Age of Serpents, as well as the Seven Week Walk. With Platinum City University serving as Ground Zero, and an ominous prophecy first given to Disa Philadelphia by Derek Loman, a college-aged ghost orphan, and then confirmed in a message to the powerful holy warrior, Seraph Solomon by the angel Bath Kohl, the Veil was possibly on the verge of being wiped out. The potential annihilation would come at the end of the Seven Week Walk. At this point, they were already deep into the seventh week.

Furthermore, Virginia Ice had made a deal with the leader of a renegade reaper squad, Alva Devine, putting the Veil at even more of a disadvantage. But while Virginia was content to combine resources and intel with the hellspawns, Eddie saw another potentially beneficial opportunity. And so he put in a call, and arranged a meeting with high-ranking Veil elder, Caesar Laodicea.

It was only two days before the end of the Seven Week Walk, when Eddie and Caesar met at an underground chamber beneath a mausoleum in the Lebanon Street Cemetery. Eddie explained the details of the deal between the reapers and the ghost orphans – that the two groups would combine forces to wipe out the Veil, and in turn, the reapers would allow ghost orphans to roam free, without fear of being hunted. However, Eddie had managed to successfully interrogate one of Alva Devine’s most trusted cohorts, Ravana, and learned that a double-cross was indeed inevitable.

Eddie was determined to reach a deal, which would allow both the ghost orphans and the Veil to be preserved, while destroying the threat of reapers, or at least substantially weaken the hellspawns’ effectiveness. Caesar, a sly negotiator himself, was more than willing to figure out a mutually beneficial compromise. And what he wanted more than anything in the world, was immortality – the same earthly immortality that ghost-orphans possessed (unless, of course, they were slain by the living-blade of a hunter, or a ghost-blade of a reaper).

Caesar had spent a number of decades attempting to discover how to obtain eternal life on Earth, and had taken some pretty drastic measures, such as conducting a series of experiments on Davette Potiphar, a ghost orphan he had kidnapped, and held captive. Eddie told him that it was indeed possible for a human to obtain immortality, and that he could definitely help. But Caesar would have to agree to form a secret alliance which would work to defeat the reapers – as well as anyone else who stood in their way.

The two men shook hands – Eddie had successfully closed yet another deal. Now, they needed to gather the materials and ingredients it would take to make Caesar’s dream of immortality come true. Eddie informed Caesar that his previous experiments conducted on Davette had failed, because he was missing a pair of key elements – a reaper, and a ghost-blade.

Eddie decided it was time to bring in his friend, Ravana again. But neither he, nor his new secret business partner would be able to go hunt her down, and bring her in without raising suspicion. Caesar, however, had the perfect person for the job… his teenage niece, Xylia.

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