Henry was crouching in the shadows. He was positioned to the side of the building, perfectly covered by some shrubs. His eyes were glued to one particular window, watching silhouettes move across the light. The window was one of the last ones in the building with lights still on, but that soon would change.
The man looked at his watch and then back at the building. The following 30 minutes were spent in complete silence and stillness. Anyone looking toward his vantage point, even directly at the man, would not see any movement. A motionless figure dressed in black was hard to spot at night. So he would not move, not until it was time to pounce.
When he was just starting, this was the time when his conscience would question his actions, reminding him that his targets didn't deserve what would happen to them. But those days were long gone. The questions were silenced by money, a lot of money. And he started to enjoy the reward and forget about the consequences.
The cold night air was crisp, and the last light in the building went out, as if inviting the man into the darkness. He moved towards the back entrance. Just as planned, the service entrance would not be closed tonight.
Every movement spoke of the training and preparation, silent, purposeful, with no wasted movements, years of experience speaking through the silhouette slowly making its way from the shadows, until…
"What are we watching?"
Said a weird, distorted voice right behind Henry. He could feel his blood run cold as he almost screamed and jumped into a combat roll forward, pulling out a pistol and a knife from his belt, ready for action.
He turned, pointing the weapons at… A chilling sensation gripped his heart, and he did not know why exactly.
There was nothing particularly unusual about the man standing before him. He had a sturdy, strong build, around six feet tall, with no outstanding features. The only thing that stood out was a particularly creepy mask resembling wooden branches layered over his face. To add to the weirdness, he did not seem to be armed.
But the problem lay elsewhere. Henry could not see the eyes in the darkness, but he knew the man was looking at him, and that thought was followed by instinctive feelings of fear and disgust. Even in his line of work, where he'd seen many disturbing things, the fear that was gone for so many years now returned, making itself known, tightening muscles in his abdomen.
"Who are you?" He asked, still pointing the gun at the intruder. His thoughts were racing, discerning the threat level.
'Approached me without making a sound. Either I've gotten sloppy, or he's just that good. Eliminate and abandon the mission or try to incapacitate silently, he weighed his options, not taking his eyes off the new target for a second.
"I'm a worried passerby. You were so creepy, peeping into the apartments in the middle of the night. I thought you were a pervert, and I got worried. Of course, as a good citizen, I came to check." Came back a cheerful reply.
"Wearing a mask," He said through gritted teeth.
"I'm getting ready for Halloween. Never too early for a good party preparation, you know," The man answered like he was having a conversation in a store rather than one with a gun pointed at him.
"Fuck you, you think I won't shoot you just because we are in public?" He switched the safety off. "I can put a bullet in you and be in another town by the time any police makes it here, and you know that no one saw me here, so better stop screwing around and answer the question."
He raised the gun a bit, mostly to remind the man about it.
"Who are you, and who sent you?" Henry growled threateningly, but the person in the mask just chuckled.
"Are you going to shoot me? But how would you do that without an index finger?" The man asked as if genuinely concerned.
With that, Henry could see some movement to the side and then something like a distortion in the air, and the next thing he could feel was a sharp pain in his right hand.
The instincts sharpened over the years told the hand to squeeze the trigger, but nothing happened. The appendage did not answer. Not thinking much, the assassin threw the knife held in his left hand at the silhouette's face, clearly surprising him.
A creepy smile made its way to Henry's face as the man put up his hand on instinct to protect himself from the knife.
It was a mistake, a rookie mistake. Never focus on the distraction.
He jumped forward into a tackle, pulling a small knife from his belt. The fight was over, and he knew that. The masked man raised both his hands, leaving his front open. He managed to block the knife with his arms, but now he was easy to tackle.
Looks like the stranger was not that good, at least not in hand-to-hand combat, the assassin thought.
In the last second, Henry angled the stab for the abdomen rather than the heart, as some questioning would follow this meeting. With a triumphant smile, he reached the man… only to fly straight through him.
The silhouette dissipated like disturbed smoke, and he landed on his stomach on the cold ground. Next came a tingling sensation at the back of his head.
Move!
His instincts screamed, but his opponent was faster and in too advantageous a position. He felt one hand control his wrist and another tighten around his throat. Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Henry swore in his head, the opponent knew what he was doing.
Any attempt to make sense of what had just happened was discarded. Now, he needed to fight for his life. Trying to get from under the man, he could feel the attacker's legs lock in a triangle around his waist.
Next, the hand from his throat was gone, but before he could celebrate, he felt a pinch on the side of his neck, and the world went black.
The last thing he saw was the man's mask, wearing a creepy smile. To his horror, the branches moved alongside the skin like a layer of exposed muscle.
***
Henry woke up with a headache. As far as awakenings go, that was one of the worst.
He saw leather bindings strapping him to a sturdy chair. Next, he looked around to see the insides of what looked like a basement, and finally, the man in the creepy mask stood there, looking at him calmly.
"Help!!!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Not gonna work, no one will hear you," came a calm voice.
"Heeeelp." He tried again, but when he saw the man make no move to stop him, he ceased the attempt.
"Who are you? Do you know who my employer is?"
"First, check if there is a chance someone hears you, then straight to threats with the employer, wow, they really trained you well, huh?" The man in the mask chuckled. "Not even 'hey, how are you', or 'how's health?' You almost stabbed me, you know."
"Do you think you can get away with this? Even if your job was perfect, my employer can't let themselves be disrespected. Sooner or later, you will slip up, and they will realize that you were the worm that got in their way. And once that happens, you will die slowly alongside-"
"My family," the man finished, clearly not impressed. "That's nice. And to answer your other questions, yes, I know who your employers are—the Doeing corporation, Evil Inc., etc. I get that. And while I appreciate the threat, I'm afraid that it won't do you much good."
"You think the company will disappear because of one saved whistleblower?" The assassin laughed, looking as if he tried to tilt forward with laughter, but actually tried to pull on the bindings with his body weight.
"Good one, but don't bother, they're designed to hold. Those bindings are for exorcisms, and they can stop a demonized human, let alone a normal one. And that's not what I meant. Well, let's stop talking about the nasty things and get to the part where I threaten you with painful death for some information, shall we?"
The stranger said happily and approached Henry, holding a tray. He could not see what was on it. The assassin's head worked on full power to find a solution to this situation. But the more he analyzed the more certain he became that he was royally screwed.
He hoped the man would start by hitting him, screaming about where his father or mother was, or something along those lines. Then he could find an opening, if not in the bindings, then in the psyche. You could just get them with the good old 'you shouldn't do that, your father wouldn't want that, he sacrificed himself for a better world, blah blah blah', but here it was the worst-case scenario.
The man holding him was calm and collected. He did not react to his employer's name and had a clear modus operandi. He was well-trained. But the worst part was the humor.
It was not used to hide nervousness or to relax shaking hands. No, the man genuinely found that funny in this situation. And that really did not bode well for him.
'A psycho or some sadist,' he thought. He knew people like that, they worked as interrogators for some of his bosses, and he did not like them, not one bit.
His worst fears were confirmed as he saw what was on the tray as the man sat before him. There was something that looked like an ice pick with a strange handle, a syringe with a really long needle, and two vials of some liquid with no label.
"Fuck you," Henry swore and let go of any stealthiness as he fought against the bindings with his full strength, but to no effect.
"Okay, okay, stop struggling, and let's talk," the man put the tray on a stool beside himself and shook the bottles like a doctor preparing medicine.
After that, with a clunk of the metal, he put down the bottles and asked a question that sent chills down Henry's spine.
"Now, have you heard about lobotomy?"