A Bullet With Your Name...

[The Cinderella Man]

((Closed to Atzar Kellon and Kade Underbough.))

Time heals all wounds. People liked to repeat these four words, as if the repetition would somehow make them more truthful. It was the universal excuse for the lack of solution, a trump card used every time that some situation couldn’t be remedied by common means. If you suffered from heartbreak, time could mend your poor, achy heart. If you held a grudge against somebody, time would silence your dissent, make you forget about it. If you had a bad case of flu and your nose was clogged up like a public privy, time was the concoction that would get you fixed up. Time was the world’s cleric, a good angel on the shoulders of all that ironed out the creases in the plain of life.

What a load of crock that was.

Time didn’t heal Victor’s wounds. Ten years worth of this fabled “time” the boxer spent in The Furnace, the Radasanthian penitentiary, waiting for the healing to come, waiting for something to make him forget all about the reasons he wound up behind bars in the first place. He waited for Aicha to stop haunting his memories with those vibrant azure eyes of hers. He waited for Walter Jimes to stop leering at him with those dead eyes of his. He waited for time to wash away that rainy night just as it washed away Aicha’s blood from the deck of the ship with a treacherous name of Lorelei. He waited to forget all about the blood and tears and passion and hope. He waited for this righteous wrath in him to subside, dissipate, take the need for revenge out of him and leave him be. But time offered no healing. His wounds festered, the vendetta taking root so deep inside of him that it became his solitary though, his credo. His life.

He promised Aicha smoke and death. It was probably not something that the dead harlot would’ve wanted, but Victor’s lust for revenge outgrew the desires of his lover. He needed to do this for himself, to sate the beast that was born on that inauspicious night ten years ago and that he nurtured until the moment he set foot outside the prison. And now, it was time to release it.

***

Radasanth Docks were bathed in orange sunlight that gave the crude buildings almost a poetic look. The setting sun was dipping into the ocean, half of it setting the sky on fire while the other half made the water surface glitter like liquid gold. With the daily death of the illuminating orb, the heat died down a bit as well, making a hot summer day give way to a warm summer evening. Most of the ships were anchored a bit farther from the piers, their sails dropped, their crews ashore, looking for ways to spend their hard-earned gold. Fishermen were mostly done with their workday as well, their modest barques and single-sail boats rocking serenely by the docks. The warehouses were still rather busy, sailors lugging in crates of cargo and salted fish and crabs and seashells inside while there was still light. But the warehouses were farther inland; out on the wooden piers, one could almost hear the sun descending below the horizon.

At the far end of one such dock, a solitary figure sat on a stool, holding the fishing stick with as much interest as if he was trying to fish for something in a bathtub. His hair was white from age, but his back was as straight as an arrow, making him look almost too dignifying for the simple act of fishing. His clothes were rather ragged; a tunic that might’ve been white once, pants that might’ve been black once, boots that might’ve been new once. And yet there was almost an air of nobility around him, as if he was some old lord that gambled away his good name.

“Levi,” Victor spoke the man’s name once he was close enough. The old man jerked his head, revealing a wrinkled face and a well-kept, pointy beard. His eyes, still squinted from peering at the sun for too long, were blind at first. It took the graybeard several seconds for him to recognize the man that startled him.

“M... Mister Callahan?” he asked, edging his head this way and that, still doubtful whether his eyes were true or false. It took another several seconds to reassure him. “I heard you died in prison.”

The ex-convict smirked, but it wasn’t a pretty smirk. It was a sarcastic grin of a man who spent ten years shoveling coal into furnaces, waiting for the day of his vengeance. Unbuttoning his leather coat, Victor sat on one of the supporting columns that jutted out of the planks. “I almost did.” It was an inmate called Grath that made the difference between ‘almost dead’ and ‘dead as a doornail’. The rogue took a shank back in The Furnace that Walter intended for Padre, thus adding himself to the list of those whose voices cried out for retribution.

“What are you doing here, old man?” Victor asked.

Levi shrugged his shoulders and gave his fishing pole a pat as if to demonstrate his point. “Fishing.”

“You’re not working for Walter anymore?”

There was a studious look in the old man’s eyes, the kind that made it clear to you that it was one of those things he didn’t want to talk about. But Victor wasn’t a down-and-out boxer anymore that played the role of a pawn in the grater scheme. He took the inspecting look in stride, waiting for the answer.

“Mayhap I do. Mayhap I’m on a vacation. What’s it to you?”

“Humor me. I’ve been away for so long and I’m trying to catch up.”

The ex-boxer did the best to keep a straight face, but it didn’t take a telepath to see that he was lying through his teeth. The keen eyes on a wrinkled face looked at Victor, then descended down and past the hems of his coat. The holstered pistol was black, but the sun made its oily sheen obvious even to aged eyes. Levi turned away, suddenly more interested in fishing then palavering.

“You’re going after him, aren’t you?” Victor didn’t answer and the elderly geezer didn’t need an answer to continue. “I wouldn’t recommend it. A lot has changed since you’ve been gone. Walter climbed up the ranks. After Aich...” He almost said the name, but decided against it. “After that night, he started acquiring more whores, but none of them got the same treatment as she. They became just business to him and the business flourished. You know as well as I do that there are never enough harlots in this city. And he became different too. He started to drink, blame everybody around himself for the smallest of things. He let me go because somebody forgot to wash one of the windows in his office and I was the closest servant around. I think that in some strange way he actually loved...”

“Don’t go there, old man. Don’t even say it.” Victor warned the out-of-job butler.

“Well, either way, he soon overtook most whorehouses. He even managed to get the Minister or Trade on his side somehow – probably with a hefty pouch – and now the Minister is pushing the bill to legalize the whoring business. I don’t have to tell you who’ll profit most from that.”

“Does he still live in the manor?”

“No. Could you believe that he had the audacity to move into the Minister’s palace?” Victor could. Walter Jimes was the kind of a man who had a way of getting wherever he wanted. A few gold pieces here, a few favors there, a few ‘accidental’ but oddly suitable deaths and man could probably become the Steward of Corone if he wanted. But Walter wasn’t the kind of a man that liked to be at a forefront. He rather stayed in the back, the way all varlets such as him did.

“And I bet the good Minister gets a cut from the profits.”

“Undoubtedly. But he’s a Minister. You can’t go against the likes of him. Not without help.”

Victor didn’t deign that with a response. He got the information he needed out of Levi; he had no more use for the man. For the briefest of moments the aged servant thought that the ex-con would put a gun to the back of his head, but soon Victor’s boots were clicking away and he was alone. He let out a thin sigh, fitting for a man his age, shook his head and returned to his lethargic fishing pole.

Levi was right, though, Victor knew. If he were to pull this off he would need something more then a pistol, a fistful of bullets and a burning desire to introduce the two to his enemies. He would need...

[Kade Underbough]

Kade remained crouched, poised to make a run for it if the time should come. Sweat beaded out of open pores, slowly drenching his plain clothes and matting strands of hair to his face. In his left hand, held tightly, was a small purse, full of semi-lucrative trinkets and a few coins. Such was the life of the young burglar, raised as a thief by thieves, with no real knowledge of anything else. His upbringing was his boss, forcing himself to survive through the dangers of the only profession he knew, and his jobs were dangerous. Having deserted his home of thieves, he now lived in fear of those within the law and those without.

Now, he was perched on a beam in Ramos Edward’s attic, waiting for any chance to escape. The wealthy man and his family had come home from dinner earlier than expected, most likely due to the inconvenient rainfall muddying Radasanth’s streets. The teenage brigand, admiring precious jewels on the second floor, had panicked and jumped, pulling himself into the nearby dusty attic. He had forgotten about the window in the next room, which he had used to get in the building in the first place and which also had easy climbing access. It was such an amateur mistake and he was now kicking himself mentally for the stupidity.

“Kathryn, come to bed dear. You’ve had a trying day.”

Kade snorted. A trying day? Come on. All that broad’s had to deal with was a little bit of rain. There are people that have to sleep in that rain. I‘m one of them.

Kathryn stumbled into the room, the plump woman swaying to and fro in needless exaggeration of the day’s complications. Her large coat fell to the ground and she collapsed on the bed, with Ramos on the other side. He began to disrobe the luxurious fine linens shielding Kade’s eyes from an old naked man. The thief turned his head, fighting the urge to laugh at the irritating couple. He only needed to wait for them to fall asleep. Then he could escape.

“Oh… Ramos…” Kathryn let out a low moan, killing any humor Kade found in the situation. Disgusting.

He plugged his ears and averted his eyes, praying to any just god for any opportunity to get out of the room. There were small spurts of giggling, rustles of the sheets, and even more moans. The thought of what was occurring beneath him almost made him vomit. The only thing that held it back was the thought of being thrown into prison because he couldn’t hold his churning stomach in check over the affluent couple. I can’t take this.

Kade slowly started to slide down the beam, careful not to get any splinters as he progressed. The movement was slow, but he eventually reached the wall opposite from where the bed was. Husband and wife were both silent, bringing back the humor of his condition. The two were obviously already asleep, or close to it, most likely because the old man couldn’t control his excitement for more than a few minutes. He decided that it was the safest time to leave, while the two were on the verge of sleep, thoughts of pleasure or disappointment still coursing through their minds.

Stuffing the purse in a pocket, Kade lowered himself into the air. He hanged onto the beam with his hands and let his body fall the short distance as lightly as he could, bending his knees to prevent creaking of the wooden floors. With one last glance behind him to make sure that neither of his victims were aware of anything, he slinked out of the room. He crept to the next room, where his entrance and soon-to-be exit resided. The door was locked.

“I forgot their daughter,” Kade muttered to himself. “Well, I could always just walk out the front door.”

That option was even less likely. Halfway down the stairs, he saw a monstrous dog, slumbering right next to the hopeful exit. The canine lazily raised its head, and the thief quickly hid in a shadow at the top of the stairs. The animal laid back down, instantly falling asleep once more. The teenager sighed and stood in the middle of the hall, worried about what to do. Within a few moments, he took a deep breath, turned back to the locked door, and fished out a lock pick from a pocket. He would rather go up against a spoiled, rich girl than a beastly guard dog. A few meticulous minutes later, he popped the lock, breaking the pick in the process. It was nothing serious, he had more.

He quietly opened the door, noticing that he was lucky enough to be working with newly oiled hinges that wouldn’t squeak. He crept inside, closing the door behind him and turning the lock back into place. He then made his way to the window, where he paused to look at the Edward’s daughter. Looking turned to staring as he realized how strikingly attractive she was. With long, brunette hair tangled across her face, he couldn’t make out exactly what she looked like, but something stirred in his groin as he looked at her.

You idiot, get out of here before you get caught. She’d never talk to some poor commoner like you anyways. Kade nodded to himself, realizing his folly. He slid the window open, crawled onto the ledge outside, and closed it behind him.

---------------

Kade quickly walked down the sidewalk, Ramos Edward’s house no longer in sight. Behind him was a cloaked figure, following with complete disregard of stalking protocol. Whoever the figure was, it was apparent that stealth had no meaning. The bandit thought of several types of people it could be, but singled out one. Behind him was a Radasanthian guard.

The young man suddenly burst into an all out run, weaving in and out of the few unsuspecting city folk walking around so late at night. He unleashed every ounce of energy into the run, turning down street after street. Soon, his vigor was spent, and he took a moment to catch his breath, keeping an eye out for his pursuer, if the person should come around the corner. A cold hand grabbed his shoulder from behind, an even colder voice entering the night air.

“You’re a jumpy one aren’t you?” Kade’s heart stopped.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he stammered, knowing that he would soon be in jail.

“Yes you do. Don’t play games with me, boy. I watched you climb into that house back there. Interested in the reasons a young lad could possibly have for doing such a thing, I watched and waited for you to come out. When that family came home, I expected to see you leap out or to hear screaming, but neither occurred. Even more intrigued that before, I waited some more, watching the family’s nightly operations from various windows of the house.” Kade shook his head. He had no chance to get out of the situation now.

“There’s no need for that. Now, when you finally got out, unscathed and without any sort of a fuss, I knew that you had some skill. Don’t worry, I’m not here to arrest you, rob you, or cause any other sort of trouble. I’m here for the sole purpose of lending you an invitation. There is a job waiting for someone with your capabilities. From your apparent disregard for the law, I would guess that you’d be willing to accept the job, as there is quite a nice reward tagged at the end of it. If you are interested, go to the No Leaf Clover Inn with the message that the Hunter has sent you.”

Without an instant’s hesitation, the hooded figure disappeared into the night just as easily as he had come. Kade stood rooted to the ground, the cold sweat coming to a stop as he realized how lucky he was to still be free. He sat on the curb of the street, thinking about the proposition for at least an hour. Finally, he came to the conclusion that he would see what this job was about. Anything seemed safer than thievery at the moment. Besides, I could always say no if I don’t want to do it. I might as well hear the employer out.

Mind settled, he headed in the direction of the inn he was directed to go to, glad to already know where the building was.

[Atzar]

“How much?” Atzar asked the shopkeeper, waving a collection of several scrolls aloft. The scrolls looked to be very useful reads, focusing on such things as magic and lore. He didn’t come by his power, after all, through natural talent. Atzar attributed the majority of his strength to knowledge and study.

The grizzled shopkeeper looked up from where he was sharpening a set of knives. “Thousand,” he said after giving the mage a stare of appraisal.

The price was ridiculous, not to mention a considerable distance beyond the wizard’s budget. “No way,” Atzar protested. “These aren’t worth half of that!”

“They’re rare,” the man returned with a hint of a growl, his glare taking on an edge that said ‘try me.'

He knew at that point that an argument would be a futile effort. This was, after all, the seventh shop that he had entered that day, and all had been as bad or worse. Shaking his head in frustration, the mage tossed the manuscripts back onto the wooden countertop before stalking out of the store. The door protested loudly on rusty hinges before slamming shut.

Atzar was in Radasanth again. He lived in Tel’Han in the Comb Mountains, but the mage liked to make frequent trips down to Corone’s capital. The Citadel was occasionally a welcome diversion, and Radasanth was home to the largest libraries on the continent. The shopkeepers, however, were as tightfisted as dragons, watching over their hordes and growing quarrelsome if there was so much as a single piece of treasure out of place.

Thus, he came to the end of a fruitless day. Atzar headed east, away from the setting sun and toward the outskirts of the city. He would set up camp out there. He had enough money to afford a room in an inn, but why bother? It was just more money taken out of his pocket, and the mage had no aversion at all to sleeping outdoors. It had rained earlier, but it wouldn’t cause him any discomfort. It was even preferable to some of the inns he had seen during his visits. It was a lot safer than one might have thought, too; most bandits were kept at bay by the regular patrols of the Corone Rangers.

Besides, he certainly wasn’t the only one with the idea. As the mage passed through the large gate that marked the edge of the city proper, he could see numerous tents and smoky campfires that stretched all over the place. The wizard strode out among them, searching for a decent place to settle in for the night. The other campers scarcely even gave him a glance as he passed by.

Several moments later, Atzar paused and surveyed his surroundings. He was at least fifty yards from anybody else, and the ground was nice and flat. This would be a good place to stop for the night. There was even a supply of wood scattered around the area, possibly the remnants of a previous inhabitant’s supply of firewood. The mage bent to pull a few of the branches into a pile before sitting down in front of it.

There was something calming about sleeping outdoors. Even in the short minute that he sat there, Atzar could feel the day’s frustrations draining away. A smile grew on his face as he regarded the pile of wood in front of him. While it wasn’t particularly cold outside, no camping experience was complete without a good fire. What's more, it kept the bugs away.

The mage reached back and tugged the bag off of his back, setting it down between his legs so he could search through it. After a moment of fumbling through his possessions, he found what he was looking for: a bag of matches and a rough piece of sandpaper. He struck the match and was rewarded with a small lick of flame. It was then, however, that his routine veered away from that of the normal camper.

Concentrating, the wizard willed the flame away from the match and tossed the charred stub away carelessly. The fire remained, an incandescent ball with seemingly nothing to hold it in place. The fiery orb then floated down to the wood pile, coming to rest right underneath one of the smaller sticks. The dry wood caught quickly, and Atzar released his hold on the flame. It didn’t need his help anymore.

“Well now,” a voice said from behind him, catching him off guard. “There are lots of people out here every night, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody do it quite like that.”

The mage regarded him warily. Robed and hooded, the man looked quite ominous, but Atzar couldn’t see any obvious weapons. “Who are you?” he asked carefully.

“To you, I’m the Hunter,” came the response. “Tell me… How did you do that?”

“Do what?” the mage returned.

“Come on. I’m not stupid. Average men don’t control fire with their thoughts, now do they?” The voice of the cowled man was colored with amusement.

“It’s magic,” Atzar explained shortly, his former irritation quickly returning at the man’s prying. “What are you getting at?”

“I might have an offer for you, if I decide you’re good enough. Care to show me more?”

“Not interested,” the mage turned down the offer in the same flat voice.

“Oh, come on. The pay is good. Why don’t you come down to the No Leaf Clover Inn? You can always back out if you don’t like what you hear there.”

Atzar’s thoughts returned to the scrolls that he had seen not an hour beforehand. Overpriced they may have been, but the mage still would have found them incredibly useful. And didn’t the man say that he could back out if he didn’t like it?

“Fine, I’ll do it,” he gave in.

“Hold on,” the hooded figure held up one hand. “I need to know if you’re good enough. What else can you do with fire?”

Without speaking, the wizard looked back to the fire and focused once more. He repeated the same trick as before, pulling the flame away from the branches to leave a smoldering pile of half-charred wood. The ball of flame, however, was considerably bigger than the first display, easily dwarfing an average man's head.

“Very nice, very nice,” the Hunter approved. “You’ll do very well. Yes, come to the No Leaf Clover. Tell them I sent you.” Without another word, the robed man sprinted away into the growing darkness.

It was definitely a strange turn of events, but the mage didn’t see any reason not to go. He cast the fireball back into the wood. It would burn itself out overnight. Meanwhile, Atzar wasted no time. He slung his pack back over his shoulders and made his way back to the walls that loomed in the distance.

[The Cinderella Man]

No Leaf Clover Inn was such a low-profile place that it barely had a profile. Situated in the part of the Radasanth Slums where the streets were still paved with dirt and where the street-lights stopped burning decades ago, the shabby auberge was one of the few buildings that didn’t have its windows and doors boarded up. And still it barely differentiated itself from the rest. Its windows were charcoaled, letting out only a faintest hint of yellowish light, and its doors were slammed shut. The second story of the building was even less vibrant; nothing but shutters before the glass and darkness beyond it. Aided by the hushed voices of the scarce patrons that to a passerby sounded like whispers, it gave the place an almost haunted look, as if something vile was awoken inside and it was getting ready to come out of hiding.

There was nothing particularly vile inside, though, not even in the taproom that seemed like the perfect gathering place for the grime of Radasanth. The room was rather spacious in width and length, but the low ceiling made it cramped somehow, made you feel as if you’re entering a mine shaft instead of an inn. Candles flickered lethargically in their sconces, their flames as sleepy as most of the world in this dull hour of the night. A couple of tables were still occupied, but snores were rapidly becoming a more common sound then voices. A couple of winos were still persistent, leaning dangerously on the bar and counting their coins in hope to count enough for another round. They had the look of everyday customers, the kind that made a second home out of places like this and maybe even had their own favorite seat. The man that catered to their requests almost looked like one of them. The lanky tender was half-tipsy himself, spit-shining a mug only to set it aside in thin air instead of the shelf behind his back.

The rooms on the second story were in tune with the ground floor; small, cramped, dusty from disuse. They were furnished with the mere basics; four walls, a roof, a bed with starchy sheets, a table, a chair, all as lifeless as the ones below. To Victor, the entire room looked like a place where you came to either shoot yourself in the face or come asking for trouble. But though he had a gun, the ex-convict wasn’t looking to do the former.

The Syndicate was more then helpful in his vengeful quest... for a price, of course. After the recently paroled boxer unloaded enough currency on their table, the infamous criminal conglomerate became his best friend. The man that introduced himself as The Hunter promised to deliver everything that was needed. Victor gave him a simple list. He promised Aicha smoke, and for that he needed somebody unafraid to play with fire. He promised himself death, and for that he needed somebody who could deliver it without creating a din. He also needed a meeting place. The mysterious Hunter person said that none of that would be a problem, especially since he’d basically been doing them a favor. The Hunter didn’t ask about the reasons Padre needed these men, Victor didn’t tell them, but Syndicate’s procurer mentioned that they weren’t happy with the fact that Walter Jimes was trying to legalize whoring. That would be money out of their pocket and into the Government’s treasury. And the Syndicate didn’t like when the money went out of their pockets. So they provided Victor with the meeting place, the date and a promise that he’d have some help in his endeavor. If he could afford it, of course.

So as the night of the supposed meeting came, Victor Callahan sat in room number four of the No Leaf Clover Inn, loading bullets into empty magazines that he bought in the Bazaar. The name of the inn was a bad omen; these kinds of descriptive names seemed to follow him everywhere. Aicha and he were supposed to flee on a boat named the Lorelei and the desire for freedom lured them into their dooms. He wound up in a prison dubbed the Furnace, and it was a the doorstep of hell when it came to heat. And now he was waiting for his accomplices in a place whose name meant naught but ill fortune.

“Superstition,” he chastised himself, his fingers pushing bullet after bullet against the spring of the clip. That was the way the human mind operated, trying to turn your feet cold by offering worst case scenarios, trying to make you fold your hand before the chips were stacked too high. But Victor wasn’t about to give up. He had been giving up on things his entire life, waving that white flag whenever the going got tough. Now, the matters were much more dire, the stakes much higher. He wasn’t doing this for himself, not even just for Aicha. He was doing this for the justice that Walter Jimes evaded for far too long.

Finally slipping one loaded magazine into his pistol, Padre chambered the cartridge and set the firearm on the table surface, waiting for those that were meant to wreak havoc with him.

[Kade Underbough]

Kade rushed back to the Edward’s home anxiously. Amidst all the fear of what came to be known as The Hunter, he had forgotten his yew long bow and quiver of arrows. He had not wanted those possessions to get in the way of his work, which required the utmost dexterity. Therefore, the weapons had been set aside. Now, they were lying in a darkened alley near the mansions of Radasanth. He had them hidden underneath trash that he had assumed even a beggar would touch. He was wrong.

Upon reaching the alley, he found a member of the homeless population laying on the trash as if it were a bed. Hearing the teenager almost run into him, the older man jolted and stared at the new arrival.

“Wach in God’sh name are ya doin’ here? Go find yer own placesh.” He was either drunk or severely uneducated. Either way it would be easy to manipulate the derelict.

Kade looked directly at the skinny bundle of negligence and starvation, appearing to be what he hoped was an authority figure. “I’m a member of the Radasanthian guard. There’s a new law stating that anyone sleeping on the streets has to move as far back against alleyways as possible.” The demanding voice he mustered was enough to make his sick with guilt.

It was evident in the defeated man’s eyes that this was one of the last crushing blows he would ever suffer. “Geez, why can’tcha peshple leave a poor man alone?” Despite the belligerent attitude, the man listened to his supposedly superior.

Once the homeless man was out of the way, Kade easily slid his items out of the moldy garbage he could now see as possibly comfortable compared to the stone streets. He stood up and turned to leave, pausing for a brief second. “I was just kidding,” he said aloud, before running away from the angrily, flustered man. The bandit, now properly attired to meet with his employer, kept running until he came to his destination.

The No Leaf Clover Inn was a dingy place, something he had long grown accustomed to by living without a real home. He walked inside, ignoring the stench of cheap ale that battered his nostrils mercilessly. The young bandit hated inns with taverns. Owners of inns with bars on the bottom floor possessed gold mines. All one had to do was throw a couple of stools here and there, hire a bar tender, and let the patrons drink until they had no chance of finding their way home. Then the innkeeper could charge for a room as well. That was how he equated things, always searching for the flaws of human nature. It came naturally to one who was taught that everyone fends for themselves or perishes.

He stepped over a knocked over stool, leaning onto the counter until the bar tender appeared out of a back curtain, holding a pitcher of liquor in each hand. The skinny server was obviously taking as much of a part in the night’s drinking as his customers, swaying back and forth, sloshing the liquid all over his arms and the counter. He looked at Kade and grinned toothily.

“Hey, why don’t ya join the party? Here, take a beer.” A glass of ale was slid in the teenager’s direction, but he let it slide right off the counter, landing with a thud and spilling the contents onto the legs of the nearest stools. The bar tender seemed to sober up a bit at the sight of wasted alcohol.

Kade glared right back, refusing to give an apology for wasting such a vile thing. “I’m here because The Hunter sent me. He said that was all I’d have to say.”

The drunken attendant revealed a hint of recognition in his eyes long before he could contemplate a full sentence. Finally, he gave a simple answer. “Go to room number… five. You shouldn’t need a key, someone’s already there.”

“Thank you,” was all Kade said before heading for the stairs. The second floor was much more pleasant for him, lacking in both the stench and noise departments. Room number five was easy enough to find, but it was locked. He knocked, but there was no reply. That fool couldn’t think straight for two seconds. He turned back with the intent to ask for a new room number, when he noticed that the next room over was slightly open. Well, he might have been close. Deciding that it couldn’t hurt to check things out for himself, he slowly pushed the door open.

The light from the hall quickly illuminated the candlelit room, revealing a man sitting at the chair near the center of the room. The sudden entrance cause him to stand up, but seeing no threat, did not draw his weapon. “The Hunter sent you?” Kade nodded. “Alright. I’m waiting for one more person. Then I’ll explain the job in full detail.”

[Atzar]

The ‘Hunter’ had instructed Atzar to go to the No Leaf Clover Inn. Once there, he was to inform them that the Hunter had sent him. The details of this supposed ‘job’ would be explained in detail soon after. That would have been great, but the Hunter forgot one key bit of information: how, exactly, to get to the blasted inn.

A half-hour after the shady man’s appearance, the mage found himself wandering aimlessly through wide, spacious boulevards and narrow, shadowy alleys alike. At each turn, his eyes scanned signs for his destination. At each sign, he sunk his head in fruitless disappointment and frustration. At each disappointment, he became more and more convinced that this wasn’t a job offer, but rather some stupid trick.

He took a couple more turns. He had given up on checking the signs now, choosing instead to meander hopelessly in the increasingly seedy alleys of nighttime Radasanth. The street was dirty, littered with myriad garbage and filth. Many doors sported lanterns, but only one was lit, some fifty yards further down the street. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

The wizard eyed the single flaming lantern with increasing unease. The lane was uncomfortably dark, and for some reason the light seemed an eerie parallel to “the light at the end of the tunnel,” the heavenly light that a person sees just before he dies. As soon as this thought hit home, the mage realized just what sort of position his random wandering had landed him in. He was in the middle of absolute nowhere, and there likely wasn’t a Radasanth patrol within a mile of his location. The alleys teemed with murderers, footpads and cutthroats, all more than willing to accept his gold as payment for a bloody death.

Nervous sweat began to bead on his forehead as Atzar quickly came up with a plan. He would simply stop at the next open store and ask for directions to the nearest inn. That would work. Then, he could simply wait until daylight to find his way out of the trashy slums. It would be a lot safer than more wandering through the night, at the very least.

The mage set a brisk pace toward the lone light, hands jammed deep in pockets and eyes trained on the lantern as if it was his only beacon of hope. After a few seconds that seemed like hours, he was close enough to read the sign on the lantern’s door: No Leaf Clover. Great. He would go in, and ask the owner where the next –

Wait. What?

A strange sensation came over Atzar at that moment, a mix of embarrassment, relief, and a tinge of irritation. That was exactly the place he was looking for. It was a cruddy building, as dirty as the rest of the nearby establishments. Former fear not yet completely banished, it was with trepidation that the mage walked up the stone steps to enter the inn.

A scent comprised of smoke, beer, and vomit hit him as soon as the door opened. Resisting the urge to gag and hold his nose, Atzar walked into the dimly-lit bar. Several patrons were drinking their way to insensibility; several more were already there. Ignoring the drinkers, the mage instead sought out the bartender, a dirty, nearly-emaciated man who was hardly any more sober than his customers.

“What can I get f’r ya?” the man shouted to him with drunken joviality. He waved a half-empty tankard, not seeming to mind as it spilled much of its contents over his head.

“Hunter sent me,” Atzar responded shortly.

“Oh! Why didn’t ya say so?! Another feller came in here just awhile ago, askin’ for the same guy! Room five’s the one ya want, upstairs on yer right!”

With a nod of acknowledgement, the mage turned and ascended the wooden steps to the second floor. The second floor, though not a pretty place in any sense of the word, was much more hospitable than the first. Quickly locating room five, Atzar raised his hand to knock at the closed door.

An arm pulled him away from the door, and the mage whirled quickly to see a short-haired man, roughly his own height but with a much stronger figure.

“Easy,” the brawny man said, holding up both big hands to show his peaceful intent. “Hunter sent you?”

At Atzar’s nod, the man chuckled. “Glad I caught you, then. I guess the bartender’s been giving the wrong room number. Come on in here and take a seat.” He pointed toward the open doorway of a neighboring room.

The shadiness of the situation pulled at the mage’s mind, but it was too late to back out now. Atzar did as he was bidden, deciding that he would go along with the ride for now.

[The Cinderella Man]

“So young,” Victor thought as the two men – or rather boys – sat on the chairs on the opposite side of the table. He expected a pair of shady characters with itchy fingers and callous faces; the Syndicate usually had those in abundance. What he got instead were lads that looked too green to properly hold their liquor, too young to put their lives at such a risk. At thirty-six years of age, with wisps of gray at his temples and tiny wrinkles at the edge of his eyes, Victor Callahan looked old enough to be their father. And he felt like one as well, more inclined to send these two away to chase some lassies instead of chasing some villains. But he had a job to do, one that was more important then the innocence of a pair of boys that got in over their heads. Besides, no-one would put a gun to their head and make them participate in the night of terror that Padre had planned. So he started the introductions, acting as if he knew what he was doing.

“I’m going to be honest with you two,” Victor started, leaning onto the backrest of his chair and folding his arms. “The mission which we are about to partake in is a dangerous one. So much so, in fact, that chances are we won’t succeed, or at least not all three of us. Now, I’m not saying this to scare you two. I want you to know the facts before you get caught up in this.”

He gauged the reactions of the two, his eyes switching from the one that looked like a regular rogue to his unarmed companion that was bound to be the fire magician. “Walter Jimes is a plague to Radasanth. You probably haven’t heard of the man, but I reckon you heard about the bill to legalize the whoring business. He stands behind this just as he stands behind the Minister of Trade that’s pushing this bill. Frankly, I personally don’t give a rat’s ass about the politics. Whoring is a business that will flourish one way or the other. I just don’t want it to flourish for Walter. In fact, by the time we’re done, nothing will flourish for him.”

“Now, obviously a man of such... renown is going to be well guarded, especially since he resides on the Minister’s estate,” Victor continued, unfolding his arms and pushing right past the hem of his leather coat. He didn’t reach out for his gun, though; instead he presented a scroll which he unrolled on the table. A rather rough plan of Radasanth done in blue ink looked back from the parchment, together with the three red circles. “And you’re probably asking yourself why you should join such a hazardous mission. The answer is in our first target. You see, I don’t want to kill Walter Jimes. If I wanted to do that, I could’ve done it by myself. I want to bring down his filthy little world. And we start with his bankroll.”

Victor’s finger tapped on one of the crimson blots that circled around a street on the outskirts of the wealthy Government District. “Walter used to live in this manor, but now that he moved on to greater things, he turned his old home into his own personal vault. From what I could gather, his accountant lives here, together with a fine number of guards. We’ll take his money first...” The finger moved away from the Government District, passing over the labyrinth of the Bazaar streets, stopping only once it reached the Docks and the next red circle. “...and then we’ll take down the business that earned him this money.”

“There is a retired merchant barge in the docks called the Two-time Lady. Perhaps you heard of it, perhaps you visited it. It doesn’t matter. It’s the largest whorehouse in Radasanth and it’s where his Lord of the Whores lives. We’ll hit that next. Then we move onto the man himself.” The finger once again corresponded with his words, pointing at the circle at the slopes of the Nerevar Hill. “He’ll probably be locked up in the Minister’s mansion by then, and that means dealing with the City Watch. We move in, we dispose of his guards, but once we reach the man, you will leave him to me. We have some... unfinished business.”

The last was spoken with stifled rage, but it was an unintentional outburst. Even thinking about wringing Walter’s neck filled Victor with vengeful fury, made him itch for instant action. But he couldn’t do it yet, not without these two. His hands moved to the interior of his coat again, this time taking out a pair of small canvas pouches. They landed on the unfurled map with a distinct metallic jingle of gold pieces.

“This is your advance. It’s not much, but it’s your regardless of what you decide. You’ll also find a room key in there. Sleep on this, buy yourself a woman, go get tipsy, I don’t care, but if by tomorrow noon I don’t have your response, I’ll assume you don’t want to be a part of this. If that’s the case, however...” His hand moved again, into the shadow of the coat, then out again, this time pulling a black pistol from the shoulder holster. Victor didn’t point the firearm at his would-be accomplices, though. Instead he just let it rest on the smooth table surface, the silvery Aicha inscription on the side of the weapon clearly visible. “It would be best for you that you don’t tattle about this.”

“My name is Victor, by the way,” he added, trying to ease the tension at the end. “You can tell me your names now or tomorrow or not at all. Up to you.”

[Kade Underbough]

There was a clear distinction between the two men in the room with Kade. The employer was matured to a ripened age, muscular in an almost intimidating way, and with an emotionless expression on his face that told of hardship, anger, or depression. The other person in attendance seemed to be closer to the young thief’s persona. He was young and not quite as buff as one might hope for a hired cohort. This boss must be a bit short on money if we’re all he can afford. Regardless, he decided to hear the man out.

As the middle aged man explained the potential job, it became evident that he meant business. Without hiding anything that might drive the possible recruits away, he made it perfectly clear that they could very easily die. Kade squirmed where he stood, deciding to sit at the edge of the bed. The old mattress creaked and he thought he heard a few springs pop out of place. Hunching over, he allowed the speaker the chance to illustrate what needed to be done.

By the end of the description, Kade was still unclear about what he should do. “My name’s Kade. I think I’ll take the night to think about it.” With nothing but that short response, he got up from the bed, looked at his possible companions one more time, and left the room.

It was only after he closed the door behind him that he looked inside the small coin pouch. It really wasn’t much, and it was obvious that Victor was betting on a large payout by actually accomplishing the job. Still, it was enough to establish a credible trust. The room key had a small five engraved into the metal, and he stuck it into the keyhole of the adjacent room. Well that was unexpected. Guess that bartender had a good reason to be confused. He twisted the key and heard a minute click before opening the door. The room looked identical to room number four. At least he’s paying for my night’s sleep too. Closing the door behind him, he collapsed onto the bed, instantly falling asleep.

The rest of the night and early morning went by with absolutely no disturbance. Kade lay in the bed, dreamless and regaining the lost strength of such a long night. Groggily, he got out of bed when the sun started to shine directly onto his face from the window. “Naturally I get to wake up at the break of dawn. Why can’t these windows have curtains?” he muttered, slowly crawling out of bed. He looked out the window to see that it wasn’t even close to dawn. Judging by the sun, he guessed that he had little more than an hour before he had to get his answer to Victor. That would have been plenty of time to walk next door and say “yes” or “no,” if he had an answer. His rest had been so peaceful that deciding what to do hadn’t even crossed his mind.

Moaning, he shook his head, trying to drive the syrupy sleep from the distracted mind. He needed to think quickly. Going over the details of what they would attempt to do, he knew that he was being asked to do something very dangerous. The young bandit had never done anything remotely resembling what Victor wanted, but he felt almost responsible for what would happen to the other two companions. The boss obviously had intentions for the three man team and he suspected that The Hunter had sought him out for a specific reason.

The fact that they would be fighting against the prostitution business only increased his interest in the job. If they could pull everything off without making any mistakes, they would all leave significantly richer. They would also leave with the knowledge that Radasanth was a better place to live because of their actions. The fact that this Walter Jimes was in cahoots with a government official meant very little to the law breaking teenager.

He came to the conclusion that he would join Victor’s cause remarkably fast, especially for the dangers that were innately involved. Collecting the bow and quiver that he had dropped to the floor before going to bed, he walked out of the room, locking it behind him. He then went to the next room, opened the already cracked door and gave his answer.

“Ok Victor, I’m in.”

[Atzar]

The mage was so deep in thought that Victor’s request for an introduction went unnoticed. After absently fishing the aforementioned key out of the pouch and looking at it – he was in room six – Atzar bounced the pouch on his palm a few times and walked out of the room.

A moment later, the bag had been dropped on a bedside table in room six. The mage’s shirt had been tossed carelessly to the floor, and Atzar himself rested in his bed. It was obvious that he had no intention of sleeping at that time, however. Several candles helped to dispel the shadows, and the young man’s hands were clasped behind his head as he stared into the wooden ceiling in thought.

His initial decision was “no.” Well… not exactly. His initial idea was “hell no.” There were just too many things that added up against the whole prospect. For one thing, it was a shady business. Whether Victor’s intentions were morally good or not, it was very likely to involve a large number of illegal activities. While Atzar wasn’t precisely against breaking the law when it was absolutely necessary, he was certainly one to choose other methods first when possible.

Oh, and then there was the fact that he was very likely – the most likely of the three, by the look of it – to die. What reason did he have to die there? This was a foreign place to him, and these were foreign people with foreign ideals. What did he care if this Walter Jimes legalized prostitution? It didn’t affect him in the slightest.

Still, something made him keep thinking when his instinct told him not to. Something made him consider the job when he should have walked away right then and there. The mage absently reached for Victor’s bag of gold. After pulling the string tight and knotting it, Atzar began tossing it into the air and catching it as it fell. It was a nervous habit of sorts. Thinking always seemed to come easier when he had something mindless to do in the background.

Clink.

Victor obviously had some grudge against this Walter Jimes character, but he didn’t really explain why. Was his hatred alone enough to convince Atzar to participate in this?

Clink.

No.

That being said, there was much to be inferred from the situation. Jimes was trying to legalize prostitution. It followed logically that he was involved in it already, and merely wanted to make his income lawful. Now, the mage didn’t care one bit about whoring. If a woman wanted to sell her body, that was her own affair. That, however, hardly seemed a good enough reason for Victor to have such animosity toward this man. There was something else.

Clink.

It could simply be revenge.

Clink.

But it could be something more.

Either way, Atzar realized that he wasn’t going to find a reason constructed purely of moral fiber. At the same time, the mage acknowledged something even more important: he wanted to find a reason to help Victor.

Clink.

But why?

Clink… clinkclinkcrash.

A candle flickered brightly, and the changing shadows played tricks on Atzar’s eyes. He missed the catch and his finger split a seam in the bag, showering him with gleaming gold coins.

Perhaps that was it.

The wizard didn’t like to admit it, but the money mattered a lot more to him than he thought. New books. Magic artifacts. Knowledge and power. They were appealing to everybody, whether they were willing to admit it or not. Atzar was beginning to admit it.

But there was danger! He could die.

No risk without reward. No profit without venture.

It was worth it. It was worth it. It went against all of his instincts of self-preservation, but Atzar wanted in.

***

It was morning.

The mage didn’t even remember falling asleep. He woke up amidst the mess of coins, arms aching from being clasped behind his head all night. The wizard refused to even think of last night’s quandary. He had made up his mind.

After putting his shirt back on, Atzar collected the gold into his own bag. Hefting his backpack over his shoulders, the mage left the room without another glance.

Room four’s door was already ajar, and both Kade and Victor were there. The older man looked at him expectantly, and Atzar took a deep breath before giving him a nod. Now there was no turning back.

“I’m Atzar,” he introduced himself. “I’ll do it.”

A thought occurred to him amidst a wave of nervous relief. “Can I leave this here?” he asked, indicating his pack. “I don’t want to carry it with me if it can be avoided…”

[The Cinderella Man]

“They’re in,” Victor thought, sitting behind the desk littered with gun parts, bullets, empty clips and oily rags used for maintenance. “Poor, young, reckless bastards, they’re in.” He had half a mind to reject them even now, when they consciously decided to take a plunge into a world of violence. A good person would’ve done just that and found a better way to bright forth his vengeance. A good person wouldn’t involve others in his personal crusade. But times when Victor Callahan was a virtuous, even chivalrous man were gone. What was left wanted death by any means necessary.

“That’s good to know,” he finally responded, his fingers ceasing their work on reassembling ‘Aicha’. Instead, his hand reached for the duffel bag that contained pretty much everything he owned. Within the stuffy confines of his bag there were over a dozen small, glass flasks which he started taking out. When fifteen of them were lined on the table surface, he discarded the bag.

“You can leave your possessions here, Atzar, but you might need your pack. I bought these at the Bazaar,” Victor said to Atzar, nodding towards the identical bottles. “They’re filled with kerosene. Now, I reckon you’re the one who can play with fire since I can’t see any weapons on you. I don’t know how your magic works, but I figure some help with making fire wouldn’t hurt. And we’ll need fire. Lots of it.”

With that said, his fingers returned to their duty, wiping the parts of the firing mechanism before piecing them into the deadly weapon that bore the name of his dead lover. “Get some rest,” the ex-con added. “Our work starts tonight.”

***

‘Tonight’ took its sweet time to finally arrive. Victor reassembled his pistol at least thrice, checked and rechecked the map locations, spent time gazing through the window that cast a nice view on the brick wall of the building next door, and still the sun persisted in crawling across the sky at the pace of a snail. Looking back on the past ten years that led him to this point, they seemed to have passed in a blink of an eye, and yet a single afternoon kept dragging on, as if it too thought this vigilante run of his wasn’t a smart idea. And it was probably right; gung-hoing like a damn hero from a fable was never a smart thing to do. But it was the only course of action that felt just to Victor, the only thing that would bring satiation to the hole that Walter shot right through the middle of him that night ten years ago. Walter Jimes took his world down and Victor Callahan was about to return the favor.

When day finally lost ground to the purplish hue of the twilight, the trio was on the move. They all seemed antsy and wary, like thieves about to put their hands on the biggest score ever, as they drove on a shabby brougham that Victor lent from the owner of the nearby stables. With his limited finances, the best he could get was a raggedy-looking old mare pulling just as raggedy-looking wagon that smelled as if it had been used for transportation of some spoiled goods. But that wasn’t such a bad thing, Victor thought. At least the ride was in tune with the riders and their mission. If he lent a caroche instead, he would’ve wound up turning some unnecessary heads.

By the time they wound their way through the maze of streets surrounding the Bazaar and reached the Government District, the night took full reign of the sky above and the street lamps were flickering along the main avenues. Victor clucked the chestnut mare into one of the shadowed alleys, crossed another wide street, swung around the Arden Park that looked haunting as usual with its thick darkness beneath the canopy, and finally came upon a lengthy stretch of tall hedge. It had grown quite a lot since Aicha and he snuck through its thorny branches, but it was hardly an impassable obstacle.

“This is it,” he uttered in the hushed tone, climbing down from the wagon. “Beyond is the garden and the manor. The garden is usually lit with several torches and patrolled by some guards. Aztar, I need you to snuff out those torches from a distance if you can. Kade, when the guards find the extinguished torches you need to take them down before they raise an alarm. Once we take care of the guards along the perimeter, I’ll enter through the front door while you two make your way in through the back.”

His right sought out ‘Aicha’ below his leather coat, took it out of the holster and chambered a bullet with a slow motion of the slider. “Now, this is of utmost importance. Let no-one leave the manor grounds. If someone lives to alert Walter, it will make our work much harder. Also, the accountant is bound to be a graybeard. If you cross paths with him, don’t kill him on the spot. He’s our path to the gold.”

He looked through the shadow that fell on the faces of his companions and thought he found the same uncertainty that troubled him on a night not so much unlike this one. Only back then, the ex-boxer was planning on slipping out of the manor and not in. And back then, he sought new life in the night and not death. Time certainly changed things and not for the better.

“Let’s go,” Victor ultimately whispered, before he shoved his way through the wall of green. “Time doesn’t get much riper then this.”

[Atzar]

Walter Jimes’ old manor was a vast place, easily the biggest that the mage had seen on his sporadic journeys to and from Radasanth. The great structure loomed behind a large garden, taking on a dim, eerie red tinge from a multitude of torches in the garden. A quick count revealed that there were six in all. They were placed at precise intervals, drawing an unbroken ring of torchlight in a wide arc around the front of the building. It was obvious even to Atzar’s untrained mind that Jimes’ wanted no intruders.

Leaves crashed against each other as Victor pushed his way into the brambly hedge, surprisingly loud against the silence of night. The wizard followed, not allowing himself to think about what he’d managed to get himself into. It was too late to back out now. His clothes shielded him from all but the longest of the thorns, sustaining several small rips and tears in the process. Ignoring the few cuts he gained from the brush, Atzar looked up and appraised his task.

It wasn’t really a hard job. The mage was easily competent enough to snuff out a flame from a decent distance, and these were no exception. The two lights closest to the manor would prove to be the most challenging of them, but only because they would require him to venture from his place of relative safety in order to reach them. He frowned. The front garden was dark, but not so dark that he wouldn’t be spotted by a passing guard that glanced in the right direction.

The light came from the moon. Atzar looked up at the brilliant crescent, guts writhing in anticipatory anxiety. On a normal night, the mage was fond of the moon. Back at Tel’Han, one of his favorite pastimes was to sit outside, gazing at it while breathing in the cool, fresh mountain air. It was quite relaxing. This, however, was no normal night.

At that moment, something else caught his eye. Several masses of clouds dotted the sky, their edges lit softly by the moon. One of the larger bundles plotted a direct course for the inconvenient light, slowing easing closer.

Perfect.

This was the best chance he was going to get. The clouds fell over the moon, dropping the manor into even greater darkness. Seizing the opportunity, the mage slid from the prickly cover of the hedge. He knew the job would need to be done quickly. The flasks of kerosene clinked quietly together in his backpack as Atzar hurried forward. Pausing at the mouth of the garden, the mage focused and reached out with his mind to the first of the torches that stood about fifty feet away. It fought with him briefly, flickering at the invisible disturbance before dimming and dying. The process took mere seconds.

Knowing that it would only be a matter of time before the unlit torch was noticed, the wizard didn’t wait. He moved onto the second light, snuffing it out as he had the first. The ring of light was broken now, fighting a losing battle against the pressing darkness. The mage moved on, bringing darkness to the third and then the fourth torch without difficulty. The only two that remained were dangerously close to the manor itself.

Atzar slipped further into the garden, moving as quickly as he dared without creating too much noise. The fifth torch dimmed and died. Finally, moving across the garden to the final torch, the mage sent the grounds into total darkness. Briefly, he wondered how Jimes could possibly entrust such a large part of his livelihood to such inept watchmen. They moved mindlessly through their routines, eyes always trained either on the ground in front of them or on the gate at the front of the property, oblivious to the fact that their defense had already been breached.

Still, as unaware as they appeared to be, it was only a matter of time before one happened to notice the change in the setting. Easing up against the side of the manor, Atzar chanced a glance back up to the moon. Good. There was still time left before the moon betrayed him once again. The remainder of the task was up to Kade. The mage’s muscles trembled as adrenaline coursed through his body. Quietly, he slipped around the corner of the manor to move in on the back.

If I got anything wrong in the description, let me know.

[Kade Underbough]

The trio’s trip into the richest part of Radasanth sent chilling memories down his spine. He had only been near the affluent area one other time, during a foolish burglary that had caused his brother’s arrest. Ramis had sacrificed his freedom to give his younger brother the chance to escape the city guards. Now, Kade was putting that freedom to use by stealing petty things and remaining homeless. He shamefully stared at the ground, feeling as though someone might recognize the thieving young lad and take him away as well, though he doubted anyone would remember such an unimportant person.

They finally made it to the estate of Mr. Jimes, a truly magnificent place. Though it was too dark to see any details, the sheer size of the complex made his knees quake. How can one man own all this? Victor wasn’t kidding when he said that this guy is at the top of the business. He had no interest in partaking in a business that sold women for money, but the vast wealth this man had was almost unconceivable. It only seemed fit for a king.

After passing through the thorny bushes with much more racket than he supposed was necessary, Victor explained the first step to get inside. The middle aged man’s assumption that he was a trained assassin startled Kade. When the hunter had praised the young thief’s abilities, he had thought the frightening man was talking about his capability to stealthily steal things. He had interpreted his job as being the one to sneak around, scout, and maybe steal a few things of importance. The dangers were supposed to come from getting caught, not from fighting and killing hired guards. For all he knew, the men didn’t even know the full extent of the evilness of Walter Jimes, possibly patrolling the mansion as a means to provide for their families.

No, I can’t just kill them for such a weak reason. The promised reward floated back into his consciousness. But maybe I could knock them out.

He waited for the obviously apprehensive Atzar to complete his job, something the fire manipulator did without any unsuspected notice by the guards. Realizing that he was out of time to think of any strategy, Kade crept into the garden, keeping absolutely quiet. Still pretty far away, two guards were walking down the now darkened walkway, heads bowed. Bowed? No guard bows his head. This doesn’t feel right.

He quickly started thinking of ways to knock the odd men out before getting himself into trouble. There was no room for error. All that was needed was for one of the two to yell for reinforcements, and he would be stampeded by more muscular men armed with pistols. His eyes wandered and focused on the metal torch posts lining the walkway. Metal! Without thought, he grabbed the nearest post and lifted it easily off the ground. The owner of the house apparently wanted torches that could be moved if a time called for it. The next moment, one of the guards was upon him, head still bowed and marching as if in a trance. Too easy… He didn’t have time to worry about the unproblematic situation though, and slowly lifted the metal post above his head.

Just before he sent it into the man’s head, the guard turned and faced him with a triumphant face. The expression quickly changed into one of astonishment. “You’re not the one Walter told us to look out f-…” His sentence was ended by a sickening thud that the darkness itself seemed to absorb.

They were ready? Fear suddenly took a hold of him and he spun on his heel, dropping the post and replacing it with his bow. The other guard was running toward the mansion’s front doors. An arrow found its place, was pulled back, released with a twang, and soared through the air on a straight and accurate path. The sentry crumpled to the floor a mere foot away from the door, an arrow sticking out of the back of his neck. Kade dashed toward the body and looked down at fear stricken eyes. The man was paralyzed. Knowing that his life was over, they young man took out his dagger and ended the man’s life as mercifully as possible.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the now dead body.

Remembering the unconscious man’s odd exclamation, he rushed back to Victor. “They were expecting intruders, but someone in particular. As soon as one of them saw me, he said Walter told them to look out for someone.” He breathed heavily, hoping his employer would have a good answer.

((If you don’t want them knowing anything, I can rewrite the post. The idea that Walter Jimes might have Victor’s release date from prison came to me.))

[The Cinderella Man]

Victor should’ve expected that Walter would be on full alert now that the boxer was out of the pokey. He should’ve, but he didn’t. As belligerent as his intentions were, the ex-con was still new in this seek-and-destroy business. Prior to a decade spent in the Radasanth penitentiary, Victor Callahan was a vagrant and a rather mediocre prizefighter that sometimes did odd jobs at the docks and could still count the people he killed on the digits of one hand. Conspiracies and cloak-and-dagger plans and murderous intentions, they were all a recent development. In a way, he was little different then the pair of his youthful comrades. Perhaps he had some twenty years on both of them, but they were all rookies tonight. The only difference was that Victor was a rookie with nothing to lose.

“You shouldn’t have allowed them to get near you in the first place,” the gunfighter reprimanded the youth that just took out the pair of sentinels. Atzar did his job without a hitch, but Aztar had to extinguish a bunch of torches and not a pair of human lives. Kade did, and like most people with a working conscience, he didn’t found it easy to do in cold blood. At any given day, Victor would’ve understood the young man’s sentiments. But tonight wasn’t just any night and conscience was a ball chained to their ankle, out to slow their progress.

“Hesitation is bound to get us nothing but trouble,” Victor added, eyeing the garden that was now enveloped in complete darkness. The lax security surprised him a bit; if Walter truly knew of his plan, then he would’ve posted more men. But then again, Walter was miles away, safe in the Minister’s palace on the Nerevar Hill. Most of his men were probably securing his sorry ass. “Now, I’m going around to the front door. You and Atzar break in through the back once I’m in.”

Not waiting for the response that the young man probably had, Victor slunk away from the hedge and made towards the manor. He hugged the wall and ducked below the row of windows of the ground floor, slipping around the corner and doing his best not to make noise. The soft grass underfoot helped a lot; the gardeners kept it so lush that it was almost a carpet made of green threads. It allowed even a grunt such as him to make a stealthy approach to the front door. The two torches that had kept the main entryway to the manor illuminated now billowed sedately, courtesy of Atzar and his fire-controlling magics. Victor took one last look over the garden and the gravel-covered driveway, but even if there was somebody looking back, his eyes couldn’t see them. It was as quiet as quiet got, with only a nightingale here or a wandering rider there making a sound in the darkness. It was time to do what he set out to do.

For a moment, though, the gunman did the same thing that Kade did a minute ago; he hesitated. And in that moment a swarm of reasons not to do this passed through his head. There were voices in his head, telling him that most of this people had nothing to do with Walter, ensuring him that this wasn’t what Aicha would’ve wanted, shouting that it wasn’t too late to back out. But then an image flashed in front of his eyes, depicting a malicious sneer of a man with a smoking gun, and the vacant expression of a woman he loved, and the blood that poured over his fingers. Warm. Sticky. Screaming for vengeance. Taking out the sawed-off shotgun, Victor ended the prologue of the vengeful story and started the first gory chapter.

He knocked on the door.

“What’re you knockin’ about? It’s not time yet!” a disgruntled voice mumbled from beyond the rosewood doors. A square peephole opened up to introduce the beardless face of the sentry, still half asleep. When his squinted, crusty eyes took a gander at the black death that stared at them from the depths of the shotgun’s barrels, all sleep was evicted from his system. And when the man behind the gun spoke, so was his life.

“It’s time alright. Time for justice.”

The first buckshot thundered like a cannon in the silence of the night, blasting off an eye, a cheek and half a brain of the young guard on the other side of the door. The second one blew the knob out, replacing it with a gaping hole and gunpowder smoke. When he kicked in the doors, a party of three was on their feet on the other side, swords and shields in their hands. Poor, unprepared bastards. ‘Aicha’ sung her deadly tune before they even managed to take a swing at the intruder. Seven times the pistol played its drumming crescendo and when the slider was back and Victor ejected the clip, there were three corpses before him, staring at the tacky, unlit chandelier made of crystals.

It was so easy to kill them, so easy it almost felt unreal, like pointing the finger of death at someone in a morbid dream and seeing them drop. So easy that it made Victor smirk, reload and recommence the dance of smoke and gunfire.

[Atzar]

There were two more torches around the back of the house, flickering slowly in boredom.

The wizard move closer and extinguished one of them. There were no guards patrolling back here, but it didn’t hurt to be sure. He reached out to the other torch some twenty feet away, but an idea made him hesitate. There would likely be people inside, and those people probably didn’t want him there. A means to defend himself would be undeniably helpful. Instead of putting the flame out, he lifted the burning torch from its hole in the ground. The weight was somehow comforting in his hands. He felt as if he had a barrier between himself and the hell that was almost sure to break loose on the other side of that small, wooden back door. Armed with the protesting torch, Atzar moved in on the door. He reached out to try the handle when a loud sound rocked the air.

Boom! Boom!

That could only mean one thing. Victor was inside.

Getting back to the business at hand, the mage jiggled the handle. No luck. Nobody was dumb enough to leave the door unlocked without any guards, but it didn’t hurt to try.

Taking a few steps back, Atzar surveyed the back of the house. The side of the house was dark, lit only by the mage’s torch. Several windows were spaced at intervals in the heavy stone.

Good enough.

Atzar moved to the nearest window when a latch behind him clicked, followed by the squeak of rusty, infrequently-used hinges. Two shadowy men stepped out and made for the edge of the property.

“Screw this, man. When they start pointing shotguns at me, I’m done! Jimes doesn’t pay us that well…” one said to the other, receiving a fearful laugh in response. Neither of the deserters looked in Atzar’s direction. The door gaped into the night, wide open.

Even better.

Moving quietly to the now-open portal and glancing frequently at the scared men just in case, the mage entered the house. A long hallway stretched both left and right, interrupted occasionally by doors. Nobody was in sight. Probably off to fight Victor, the wizard surmised. All the better for him. Turning left, the fire-bearing man walked quietly down the hall, passing a couple of doors. Suddenly, a foreign sound made him pause and look back at the door. It was a rustling sound. Atzar reached out with his free hand and slowly eased the door open.

A suitcase-carrying man burst through the door, knocking the mage off-balance into the wall. The short, gray-haired man turned, pointing a knife at the wizard.

“Stupid guard, why don’t you get out… Wait a minute!” The man paused. It slowly dawned on him that Atzar wasn't a guard. Without another word, the man took off back down the hall for the back door.

Walter’s accountant, the thought flashed through Atzar’s head. Quickly getting to his feet, the mage gave chase, footsteps pounding on the stone floor. He brandished his torch like a club. Victor had wanted the accountant alive, right? A shot to the head with a torch would keep him alive. He wouldn’t be happy when he woke up, but the mage got the strong impression that the man’s happiness wasn’t an important part of the mission.

It was only a matter of time before Atzar caught him. Short legs rarely made for fast runners, and the man didn’t seem like the athletic type anyway. Gamely, the mage charged on.

He’s all yours, Kade. Clothesline him or something. :p

[Kade Underbough]

Kade hid his mingled feeling of anger and shame from Victor. The man was, after all, in charge of a very serious mission and could not afford any mistakes. The thief felt very small at that moment, as if he couldn’t accomplish anything without some sort of hitch. He opened his mouth to apologized for the hesitation, but the gunslinger was already heading toward the front of the house. Shrugging, he made his way to the back of the mansion, fighting more thorn bushes as he tried to stay hidden.

“I shouldn’t have joined these guys. I’m gonna get one, or all of us killed,” He mumbled.

He finally got to the back of the building, covered in tiny scrapes from the brawl with the bushes. Atzar was already near the back door, searching the area. He was about to run up to his accomplice when he saw the two men ditch their posts in an oddly calm manner for those being assaulted by a shotgun.

Pulling an arrow and putting it in place on his bow, he prepared to defend Atzar’s back if the men decided to return, but they didn’t. I guess its time to go in.

He made his way to the back door, but as soon as he turned to face the narrow hall, he found himself face to face with a bewildered old man. The bodies collided at the doorway, heads banging against elbows, knees against groins. The suitcase was sent flying into the air, breaking open on impact and sending hundreds of papers and folders all over the grassy yard. Kade moaned and rolled in pain for a few seconds before remembering where he was.

Jumping up out of realization of what kind of danger he could be in, he whipped his dagger out at the other oncoming figure, but quickly recognized the mage. He turned back to the man who was now on his knees, but obviously with the breath knocked out of him. He brought his dagger to the older man, but refrained from any real acts of violence, remembering Victor’s orders and obeying his own conscience. The thought of Victor blowing the elderly man away with his powerful weaponry made the brigand shudder, but he forced himself to believe that the man wouldn’t die.

“Well Atzar, I guess now we take him to the boss so we can have a chat. You grab up those documents on the grounds and I’ll bring the guy to Victor.”

Hoping that his companion wouldn’t think he was trying to take all the credit for the job, he shoved his prisoner back inside the building. He had no real idea of where to go until he found a bloodied body, crumpled up against the side of a wall. From there, it was easy to track the middle aged man down, following his breadcrumb trail of corpses. The accountant whimpered at the sight of each body and the sound of each gunshot. He reached a beautifully designed room, with a curved staircase lined with golden railings. Kade was beginning to get annoyed with the overt riches, showcased to make anyone but the owner feel inferior.

Finally, after climbing up the stairs, he found Victor storming out of a room he had just assaulted, blood splattered a bit on his clothing and exposed skin. “Um, I found the accountant. You-” He was about to say “You don’t have to kill him, do you?” but didn’t. If Victor wanted the man dead, there would be no stopping it.

[The Cinderella Man]

Killing people shouldn’t have been so damn easy. Before tonight, Victor took the lives of but a few people, and each and every time it was a wrangle, a strenuous fight where each side went all out, tooth and nail. There was blood, and there was sweat, and there was struggle and desperation and clinging for last threads of life. Sometimes luck decided the victor, sometimes endurance, and sometimes you simply won because you were better, more deft. But it had never been this easy.

Victor Callahan stood in the midst of carnage he brought upon the manor and its inhabitants, both of the fire-spewing doommakers smoking in his hands. There was blood on his hands, blood on his face, blood dripping down the cracked leather of his coat. He didn’t know a human could bleed so much until tonight. Or maybe there were just so many that soaked the marble floors and fancy carpets? He lost count after the first dozen; the fighting had been too frantic for him to keep counting. But they were all patsies, all charging at him with their blades and shields and grunts as if they could make a difference. He shot them all dead. There was no panache, no real strain involved, no significant skill needed. All he had to do is put his back against a wall and point a gun in the right direction. The hot lead closed the business an eye-blink afterwards. He felt stronger then ever just then, untouchable. By taking the lives of so many with so little difficulty, Victor felt a bit like god.

This moment of deifying reverie lasted for just a second, though. Kade and Atzar advanced through the aftermath, bringing with them the loot for the night. The graybeard accountant himself wasn’t worth a fig, but he held the key to the world of Walter’s finances. And that currently made him one of the most valuable persons in the city of Radasanth.

“Ah, you found the old man. Good,” Victor responded, his tone not nearly grim enough for the scene of bloody massacre that stood around him. The old geezer was quite aware of it all, his wide eyes staring at the smears and pools and splotches, all in the same hue of bloody red. When his eyes went to the corpse at his feet and found that there was a gaping hole where the stomach of a soldier used to be and that intestines hanged out of the body cavity like dark snakes, the elderly coin-counter crumbled to his knees and vomited. There were times when such a scene would reach out and grab the very heart of Victor Callahan. But there were walls around his heart nowadays; he built them tall and thick, to guard him against what he had to do.

“Get him up,” the gunslinger responded, holstering the shotgun and ejecting the spent clip from his pistol. One filled with bullets replaced it with what was slowly becoming an automatic motion to Victor. The click of the slider returning to its rightful place was as loud as a church bell to the man below, making him believe it announced his funeral.

“Please, don’t! Don’t... don’t kill me. I... I don’t even know you,” the aged man wept, trying to wipe the slime from his cracked lips as a pair of hands grabbed him below the arms and lifted him up.

“Where’s the money, old man?” Victor asked, and when the accountant made an incomprehensive face, the gunman clarified his inquiry with words and a pointed gun. “Walter’s vault. Where is it? I know it’s in this manor somewhere and I haven’t got the time to look for it.”

“D-down... down in the armory.” The man obviously treasured his life more then the stash of his boss. Walter could certainly be a terrifying individual, but he wasn’t here holding a gun to his face.

“The key?”

“I don’t have it.” Victor didn’t like this. He cocked the hammer. It made the scrawny old fart speak faster. “There is no key! The door is locked from the other side. T-there are two guards in there. No, three! Three guards. Three guards. And they only open up if Walter or I speak the password.”

The stalemate lasted for several moments, Victor’s ice-cold eyes questioning the truthfulness in the beady ones of the accountant. Once he was satisfied with the lack of deception and the dominion of fear in them, the ex-con lowered his weapon. “Then we’re going for a walk,” he said to the man, ushering him forward with a shove. “Lead the way.”

The old man walked as fast as he could, leading the way back to the entrance that Victor blasted open and flinching at the four fresh corpses gazing at him with their dead eyes. Down the main hall they went, past the enameled decorations, detailed sculptures of some long dead heroes, ornate bejeweled platters that never seen a crumb of food. Knowing the outline of the manor from the time he worked for Walter Jimes, Victor knew that the gray-haired accountant led them down the right path. They went through a vacant kitchen, a stuffy dinning room dominated by a long polished table and two rows of ladder-back chairs and ultimately down the set of stairs. At the end of a short hallway that doubled as a pantry, where once only a simple wooden door stood, there was now a massive piece of gray iron with no latches or bolts.

“Go ahead. Speak the magic word,” Victor gestured to the shivering geezer with his pistol. There was some reluctance at first, but soon enough the bony joints of a wrinkled hand rapped against the smooth metal. The gunfighter moved out of sight behind a barrel of grain and motioned to his companions to do the same.

“The password?” came from the other side, the voice muffled by the thickness of the iron door.

“Aicha,” the accountant said in a shaky voice. The name almost gave Victor a startle. The bastard would use her of all names as a password. He would make Walter pay for that. He was unworthy of ever uttering the name of Aicha. Victor’s hand tightened on the grip of his pistol.

“What’s going on out there, Dom?” the voice from beyond again. A narrow hole opened up in a door, barely large enough to reveal a set of eyes that examined the hallway filled with groceries and the man that stood in the middle of it. “We thought we heard quite a lot of noise coming from up there.”

Dominic the Accountant stuttered, too afraid to come up with a plausible reason on the fly. “There’s... some burglars. Yes... Some burglars broke in, made a mess. The guards caught them. I just... I need to check Walter’s stash.” The pair of blue eyes below arcs of brown eyebrows weren’t too persuaded by the explanation, but after scouring the hallways once again, they disappeared. In their stead, the sound of clanking latch came, followed by an almost animalistic wail of the hinges. It was the trigger that made Victor spring from his cover, gun in hand. By the time the heavyset piece of metal swung fully inwards, he was striding onwards and making another corpse out of a corpulent guard. Again, too easy. And then he stepped into the vault.

Before him was a spacious room, lit by a number of magical crystals whose xanthous illumination made the entire scene look like an old painting. Stacks of chests and crates were lined up against the walls, all closed, sealed and padlocked, stacks of paper were neatly arranged on the shelves like books. There were even showcases with velvety padding and pieces of jewelry of such resplendence that they seemed to emanate tiny sparks of light. And in front of this world of wealth, a pair of guards stood behind nests made of sandbags. And their shotguns sung just as loudly as Victor’s.

An uncontrolled roll to the side and behind the third, now unoccupied gun nest was all that saved Victor from a pair of buckshots that crashed against the door behind his back, exploding like tiny fireworks. Padre tried to lift his pistol above the sacks that protected him and unload a couple of rounds overhead, but two more blasts echoed in the underground vault and the sand came down upon him like a gray veil. There was no gung-hoing his way through this one, the solitary gunman realized. He would need some help to solve this little conundrum.

“Damn it! Atzar!” he shouted just before another pair of shells was unloaded at his position. “Atzar! Kade! A little help here!”

[The Cinderella Man]

((Atzar and Kade have abandoned my cause! I shall continue on my own.))

The only reply his outcry for help received was smoke and sand and gunfire. Of course that was the only reply. What was he thinking hiring these two younglings at any rate? At their green age, Victor still felt queasy sleeping in total darkness and feared of something as trivial as speaking to a girl. Asking Atzar and Kade to play the game of death with him at that same age was irrational, borderline idiotic, especially now when they were forced on the defensive by the two gunners. The ex-con didn’t blame the two for abandoning his plight. He didn’t like that a whole lot right then and there, as bullets kept whistling and the shotguns kept thundering, but he didn’t blame them. Perhaps it was better that way. This was his vendetta, his own personal crusade that was supposed to right some of his wrongs. It was his duty and his alone to see it through.

The pair of sentries weren’t making it easy for him, though. They seemed to have quite a stack of ammo and the eagerness to unload as much of it in as little time as possible. Every time Victor tried to take a gander, a shot or three were there to dissuade him, to tell him that another inch or two would make a difference between sand in your eyes and a bullet between them. He couldn’t take them, not from here, not like this. He heard stories about people walking through a shower of arrows and came out unscathed, tales of courage and heroism that defied reason. All of that went from ‘impressive’ to ‘crock’ in a hurry once you actually found yourself in such a pickle. No, if he tried something like that, he was a dead man. There was no good luck fairy sitting on his shoulder, no angel protecting him. There was no divinity to be found when you’re fighting in the gutters.

Flipping his shotgun open, Victor tried to knuckle the sand out of his eyes while he checked the shells. The sand made his eyeballs feel as if they were made of jagged glass, but there was enough light for him to see that his... Light. Yes, that was the problem here, and one that could be easily remedied. Walter probably didn’t want to take a risk of having flames near his goods, so he installed crystals instead, the kind that Victor sometimes saw in pricey, fancy inn rooms where they substituted wax candles. Here there were four of them, sharp-edged and translucent, two at his end of the room and two somewhere beyond the wall of muzzle flashes and booming guns that roared at him from the other side of the vault.

He fired at the closest two first, made them shatter like ice by a couple of bullets from his pistol. The illumination of the room didn’t die enough to provide enough darkness for him to stand up, but it allowed him and his shotgun that peek over the edge of the sandbags. The left barrel took out the left magical lamp, the right one disposed of the other and suddenly the only light in the room was the fiery lightning of the gunfire. The gunmen on the other side of the room kept firing in his general direction, but they were losing their bearing slowly, spraying their shots all over the room. When they stopped to reload, Victor made his move, crawling to the right wall of the room and behind a metal trunk laden with gold pieces. The firing recommenced less than a second after he found some safe cover. He reloaded his shotgun in the darkness and holstered it, as the gunfire kept casting momentary shadows on the room walls.

It was the constant firing that gave their position away, betrayed the gunners as they kept firing blindly. It was simple math really, lining up the sparks of the ricocheting bullet with the muzzle flash that sent it on its way and extending the trajectory back to the shooter. It allowed Victor to line up his gun with the invisible face of his invisible attacker and blow it away with a couple of shots. And immediately there was only one gun flashing in the blackness.

“Wyatt? Wyatt, you alright?” the other sentry spoke as he reloaded, panic now heavy in his voice. His ears were tensed to their utmost, his fingers black and burned from ejecting the spent cartridges. But the constant noise and flash made his ears deaf and his eyes blind. By the time he fired another shot, a corner of his eye noticed something on his left, enlightened by the blast of his rifle. He never got another shot off. Victor unloaded the rest of his clip at the man from point blank range. It was almost a piece of macabre art, that execution, depicted by the flashes of the anti-hero standing tall and laying down the punishment on something that was becoming less of a man with each shot fired. And at the end, there was only darkness.

[The Cinderella Man]

“Hello?” Sound and light entered the room reluctantly, both originating from the hunched figure of the elderly accountant. The gray man entered the vault on his toes, the torch in his wrinkled hands shaking just as much as his voice. Smoke and dust prevented him from seeing more than a foot or two at the time, slowing down his already diligent approach. “Morgan? Wyatt? Are you there?”

Out of the gray blackness, a face of a murderer emerged. “They are currently indisposed.”

Victor Callahan was a mess, a character from some nightmare that came to life by some eldritch magic. His face was sprayed with blood; he could taste the gut-wrenching rustiness of it in his mouth. His hair was the offset of what it was, turned almost completely gray by the sand grains. His coat looked as if it went through a world war, turned almost to leathery tatters by all the near misses of the night. And finally, in his blood-stained hand, Aicha was staring hollowly at the bulging eyes of the graybeard, erasing all hopes with its stoic coldness.

“Is this all of it?” Victor asked, gesturing towards the stash with the barrel of the gun. When the man at the far side of his sidearm didn’t respond, he repeated, showing the man forward with his free hand. “The money. Is this all of it?”

“Yes, yes, it’s all of it!”

Victor could afford to take his eyes off the accountant for the moment; the man looked far too decrepit and far too scared to try anything. The shimmering light of the stifled flames revealed but the portion of Walter riches, but even that was enough for the ex-con to realize that the bastard wasn’t sitting on his hands for the last ten years. Heavy metal trunks were arranged next to the walls like boxes in a merchants pantry, sealed with red wax and a distinctive ‘WJ’. Judging by the way they refused to move when Victor nudged them with the tip of his boot, they were either laden with coin or scrap metal and he somehow doubted it was the latter. Farther into the vault, the trunks gave way to shelves with stacks upon stacks of paper. The gun-totting prizefighter picked one of the tied stacks up, but failed to read the lettering under the faint light of the torch.

“What are these?” he asked.

“N-Notes.” The blank look in Victor’s eyes and the lack of patience in the mouth of his gun made the old geezer to elaborate in a hurry. “Notes, you know? Bank bills. T-They can be used instead of coins. These... These are worth fifty gold pieces each, those are a hundred.”

“But it’s just paper.”

“Y-yes. But it carries the seal of the Corone Government, see?” The dry twig of a finger pointed out something silvery that reflected the light from the surface of the note. “That means...”

“I don’t care what it means,” Victor cut the man short. He picked up one of the canvas sacks that used to protect the vault sentries and threw it at the feet of the accountant. “Untie it, take the sand out and stuff it with some of those bills.” And then, after a brief pause. “Burn the rest.”

At gunpoint, the elderly man worked as fast as he could. Reluctance and fear of Walter’s wrath was gone from him, chased away by a much more immediate threat. He fumbled a bit with the knot that kept that sack tied, then struggled with overturning it and pouring the sand out. Once that was done, though, he was quick to fill it with paper bills. By the time he was done, his flat chest was rising up and down at a frantic pace, and there was an odd, piercing pain at the side of his ribs. His heart was giving up on him. Luckily, he wouldn’t need it for much longer.

“You... You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” the old man asked once they started to make their way back through the house and the vault was slowly being consumed by the crackling flames. With the sack on his back, the man was barely able to climb the flight of stairs, but once again, the gun and the gunner provided plenty incentive to keep going. The silence he got as an answer wasn’t a good sign, but then again, it wasn’t a definite yes either which provided some hope. As they went through the deadly calm rooms, Victor picked up a petroleum lamp and let the fuel drool from it as they went for the back exit. The old man kept making his case. “I didn’t do anything. I-I-I didn’t work with Walter. I never meddled in his business. You know what he says: ‘My business is none of your business’? You know?”

“You knew where the money is coming from,” the rough voice from behind him stated. To the aged accountant, it sounded a bit like a death sentence being spoken in a court of law.

“Yes, but... But I only ever counted his money. Nothing more.” They arrived to the back door that yawned widely at the garden beyond. The click of the cocked hammer made it clear to the accountant that his time has just ran out and that he failed to impress the judge and the jury. “Please,” he begged, turning around and falling on his knees. Tears were streaming down his leathery face, his bloody eyes closed almost as if he was praying. “I only...”

There were moments that defined a man, that shaped his life, intersections that set the path which man would walk from that point on. Victor knew this was one of them. On one side there was the hardness, the toughness, the immunity brought by the years of hatred towards Walter Jimes and the loss of Aicha. The blood of his love screamed from beyond the grave, an outcry for merciless vengeance, for eradication of everything that had led to this point. But on the other side, there was that one portion of humanity that still remained in a man, that last waning beam of light that separated men from beasts. Without it a person was not a person at all, but a machine, performing the task he was meant to do. And looking into the streaming eyes of the pleading accountant, Victor wasn’t ready to let go of that last thread. He lowered the gun and closed his eyes. Aicha wouldn’t want this. Aicha...

He could remember her clearly even now, even with all the years that had come and gone, bringing the winds and sands of forgetfulness. He remembered her lips, carefully outlined and perfect and blood-red, and how soft they were. He remembered her body, svelte and light and nimble, and how she leant it against his own. And he remembered her scent, the perfume of her skin and the smoke of her thin cigarettes. And he remembered her eyes, hiding the warmth at first, but then offering it exclusively to him.

And then he remembered the other side of the coin.

The lips that were once carefully outlined and perfect and blood-red grew smeared and pale and stretched in one last grimace. The body that he cradled against his own grew cold and limp as he carried her to her grave. And the perfume of her was replaced by the reek of death and gun smoke. And her eyes held no warmth anymore. All because of Walter Jimes.

“You counted the money of a wrong man,” he growled as he chose his path, sealing it with a gunshot. There was no room for humanity tonight, no room for mercy. Death was in the air and Victor Callahan was its loyal servant.