To Bait a Demon

Rei Mori was not born a demon. She was built into one. In the sprawling neon metropolis of New Tokyo, power belongs to corporations, gangs, and private armies locked in a constant struggle for control. Their most coveted prizes are the legendary Roots—rare weapons capable of bending cybernetic bodies to their wielder's will. For most people, they are symbols of power. For Rei Mori, one of them may be the only chance to protect the people she still calls family. Living as an assassin on the city's violent streets, Rei enters the race to claim a newly discovered Root. What begins as a desperate hunt for survival soon drags her into a conflict far larger than herself. As bodies pile up and factions close in, long-buried memories begin to surface: secret laboratories, missing years, broken siblings, and the horrific experiments that turned children into living weapons. The deeper Rei ventures into the conspiracy surrounding the Root, the more she realizes that her hunt serves more than her own ambitions. What she sees as a chance to save her family, others see as an opportunity to turn her into the face of a rebellion. As rival factions close in, Rei finds herself caught between people who want to use her victory to reshape the Empire. To the people of New Tokyo, she is becoming a symbol of rebellion. To her enemies, she is a weapon to be feared. To those moving the pieces behind the scenes, she is something far more valuable. A pawn. A lure. Bait for something bigger than a rebellion. To Bait a Demon is a dark cyberpunk novel about trauma, identity, found family, rebellion, and one young woman's struggle to reclaim her life from the people who built her to serve their ambitions.