The latch clicked. A small, sharp sound, but it severed the screaming from the hallway like a guillotine blade. The silence didn't just return; it collapsed back into the space, heavy and immediate.
The Masked Man didn't look back. He tugged at his black t-shirt, a quick, jerky motion to unstick the fabric from his skin. Sweat and humidity. The basement air had been thick with it—the smell of old copper and panicked sweat. Out here, the air was cooler, carrying the damp rot of wet silt.
Abhur was done. The chemistry was doing the work now. The neurotoxin would be unspooling the man's nervous system, stretching every microsecond of agony into a lifetime. It was a nasty way to go. Slow.
The Masked Man checked his wrist. No watch. Just a patch of pale skin where his pulse hammered a steady, slowing rhythm. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Local response units: twelve minutes, give or take. An eternity.
He shouldered the door open.
The city outskirts were drowning. Industrial smog choked the moon, filtering the light down to a bruised, sickly purple that slicked the scrapyard in oil. Mountains of refuse—crushed sedans, rusted I-beams—loomed like broken teeth against the dark.
He took three steps and stopped.
He didn't reach for the polymer frame at his waist. He didn't drop into a stance. He just… deleted his momentum. The calculus in his head shifted.
Ten yards out, a figure was leaning against the hood of a sedan that had dissolved into rust lace.
The stranger was young, buried in a charcoal trench coat that looked heavy enough to drown in. He looked wrecked. Hair a disaster of wind and neglect, face grey and drawn tight against the bone. He was toying with a silver Zippo.
Clink. Snap. Clink.
"Loud," the stranger said. His voice was rough, like he'd been gargling gravel. "Messy in there."
The Masked Man stood perfectly still. "You're early, Silas."
Silas let out a breath that might have been a laugh. It sounded wet. He looked up, and his eyes were the problem—irises like fractured glass… shifting with a grey turbulence that had nothing to do with the light.
"Hard to sleep," Silas murmured, snapping the lighter shut. "The ether is screaming. Pliers and nerve agents tend to vibrate the frequency. Thought I'd come check the work."
He pushed off the car. The movement was fluid but heavy, like he was wading through waist-deep water. The air around him felt pressurized, buzzing with a static that made the hair on the Masked Man's arms stand up.
"We have the same business," Silas said, offering a smile that looked like it hurt his face. "The Hierarchy. The cleanup."
"I work alone." The Masked Man's voice was flat. "Istanbul. Jakarta. Answer hasn't changed."
"And yet," Silas pocketed the lighter, hands shaking slightly, "you keep leaving bodies that act like beacons. Not for the cops. For the things that feed on bad vibes."
Gravel popped.
The sound tore the moment in half. High beams slashed through the purple dark, blinding and hot. A tactical truck drifted around a tower of crushed compacts, tires tearing into the dirt.
Abhur's backup. Late. Sloppy.
The truck skidded to a halt thirty feet out. Dust bloomed. Doors flew open. Six men spilled onto the yard, rifles shouldered, shouting commands in Urdu that cracked with panic.
The Masked Man didn't flinch. His hand hovered near his waist. His mind stripped the scene down to geometry. Two left. Three center. Driver behind the block. Close range.
"Allow me," Silas whispered.
He didn't shout. He didn't scramble for cover. He stepped forward, placing that oversized coat between the Masked Man and the firing line.
"Fire!" someone screamed.
The night strobed white. Muzzle flashes bloomed.
Silas raised his right hand, palm open.
The air in front of him didn't shimmer; it buckled. Like bad glass. The lead hit the distortion and just… gave up. Bullets dissolved into grey powder, raining harmlessly against the leather of his coat like dry rice.
The gunfire sputtered and died. The men froze.
Silas sighed. A heavy, weary sound. "Rude."
He clenched his fist.
Shadows beneath the truck detached themselves from the ground. They weren't just absences of light; they were thick, oily things, sliding up the tires like black syrup.
"Up," Silas grunted.
The veins in his neck turned ink-black. A growl ripped from his throat—a double-tone, one human, one sounding like grinding tectonic plates.
He jerked his arm upward. A casual toss.
The three-ton truck left the earth.
The gunmen screamed, scrambling backward on hands and knees, terror overriding training. The vehicle hung six feet in the air, suspended by nothing but the terrifying grip of Silas's will. The chassis groaned. Metal shrieked as the invisible force twisted it. Glass exploded outward. Axles snapped with the sound of gunshots.
"Sleep," Silas commanded.
He brought his fist down.
CRUNCH.
The impact rattled the Masked Man's teeth. The truck flattened, tires bursting, suspension disintegrating into shrapnel. A shockwave of dust rolled outward. The gunmen didn't get up. They crawled, weeping, vanishing into the labyrinth of junk, desperate to escape the demon in the coat.
Silas exhaled. A long, rattling rattle. The black veins on his neck retreated, leaving his skin grey and clammy. The light in his eyes dimmed to a dull, exhausted slate. He rolled his shoulders. Pop.
"Cardio," Silas muttered, thumbing a trickle of blood from his nose. "God, I hate cardio."
He looked back.
The Masked Man hadn't moved. He hadn't drawn. He stood with arms loose, observing the wreckage with the same detached interest a mechanic might show a blown gasket.
"Showy," the Masked Man said.
"Effective," Silas countered, leaning heavily against the rusted sedan again. His hands were trembling violently now. Adrenaline crash. "That was the heavy cavalry. You would have wasted ammunition."
"I would have used six bullets."
"And I used none." Silas grinned, though sweat beaded on his forehead. He reached for his lighter, fumbling. "We make a good team. My connection to the Veil, your… precision. Think of what we could break."
The Masked Man walked past him.
He didn't slow down. As he brushed by the occultist, he didn't look at the crushed truck. He looked at Silas's shaking hand.
"You're unstable," the Masked Man said. The words were flat, cutting through Silas's grin like a scalpel. "You're a bomb waiting to go off. I don't work with explosives I didn't set."
He continued walking, his silhouette bleeding into the shadows of the scrapyard.
Silas's smile faltered. He pushed himself off the car, desperation sharpening his rasp.
"Wait! The Syndicate moves shipments through the port tommorrow. Artifacts! Cursed ones! You can't shoot a curse with a gun! You need me!"
The Masked Man didn't stop. He didn't turn. He simply raised a hand—a wave. Not a greeting. A dismissal.
Silas stood alone in the dark.
He pulled the silver lighter from his pocket. It took three tries to spark the flint. His thumb was numb. The flame finally danced, flashing blue for a heartbeat before settling into a mundane orange.
He likes us, a voice whispered from the back of Silas's mind—a sound like stones grinding together in a deep well.
"Shut up," Silas murmured. He lit a cigarette, fingers twitching. He looked at the crushed truck, then at the empty road where the Masked Man had vanished.
He exhaled a cloud of smoke into the purple night.
"He definitely likes us."