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.

Aurora fell asleep on the train — an unusual occurrence for her, but this day had been particularly grueling. She had spent the entire day going from one interview to another, trying to find a practical use for her newly acquired degree.
However, upon waking, she immediately collapsed once more, rendered unconscious by the effects of a mysterious gas. She awoke to find herself amidst an endless wasteland, on a shore blanketed in sand and ash.

Now, trapped on a ruined island ruled by marauder factions, cults, mercenaries, and desperate survivors, she is forced to fight for her place among the "Lost" — people torn from their former lives and cast into a brutal wasteland against their will. It is an eternal desert, encircled by a cold ocean and dominated by a strange structure at the island's center — a colossal edifice built from scrap metal and debris, known simply as Doomsday.
But survival is only the beginning.

Having awakened within herself an affinity for fierce fire, a power inextricably linked to rebellion, rage, and defiance, Aurora becomes a prime target for the island's most powerful factions. As tensions escalate between the marauder gangs and the fragile alliances barely holding Scrap City together, Aurora, a new force upon this board, must delve into the mysteries of the strange, mystical powers wielded by the inhabitants of this world.

To escape, Aurora will need something far greater than mere strength.

She must master the fire consuming her from within, survive the escalating conflict between the factions, and uncover the truth about the island before it swallows everyone trapped within its confines.

For the deeper she descends into the ash, the more the world begins to take notice of her.