Killing was always the fun part.
More so if we were talking about marksmen.
For the average practitioner, the process of extracting marks was complicated. It usually involved, particularly not eye-appealing scenes.
Skinning and gutting had never been my thing though,
I much preferred to use other methods.
| Inhale |
I had even learned to savor the smell.
The fine, thin essence left behind by the crimson-colored mist.
In a matter of seconds, the dead body of Gerth Davis was no more, as if it had never existed in the first place.
Gone to the last drop of flesh.
'Mostly smells like... Burnt fat.'
Now the only thing left behind in the inn was a pair of clothes and belongings, all owned by a man that had never existed.
How intriguing.
Apart from the man by the name of Tony, Gerth had been the most dangerous variable in this operation by far, and now he... wasn't.
You could say my work had been taken care of.
...
The wooden, poorly maintained doors creaked ever so subtly as they closed behind me.
My eyes narrowed as they adapted to the bleak, leaping contrast with the streets of the poorly lit dregs.
A welcome contrast at that.
'Time.'
Now dressed in a black, comfortable suit, my gaze darted at the old, silver arm clock for a second.
2:42 AM
Perhaps I had finished too early?
"Perhaps."
Even though I had originally planned to take more time playing around with the no longer existing Gerth, I had turned out to be a lot less patient than expected.
That meant I would have to wait for a while,
a couple more minutes at least...
'What a bother...'
My fingers reached down one of my pockets, picking a brown, expensive-looking cigar.
Then hesitated, since I was already smoking one...
'To honor old bastard Gerth, that is.'
I exhaled, letting the bittersweet smell of smoke fill my lungs like a putrid wave. The fumes of curated tobacco were the kind of toxin that delivered slow, debilitating death. Asphyxia. That would be a rather appropriate term to describe the essence of smoke.
"This one is good."
I muttered, subtly pulling the smoke away from my mouth as I watched the sparkles of burnt material softly escape with the silent breeze.
Strangely enough, I had never liked smoking... Not until a few months ago.
Not until Emilio pushed me to do it.
"Cinders."
I stood there silently for a few moments before squatting down, sitting on the curb of the nearby road, all the while being careful not to disturb the absolute silence that characterized the atmosphere of a moonless night.
"The one dangerous night of the month, huh?"
I leaned back as I waited.
My hand pressed against my chin in something resembling boredom.
'Tssk- I wonder how the other ones are doing. I remember having heard some gunfire in the vicinity not that long ago...'
'Luckily I made sure Gerth wouldn't hear them.'
...
I could probably check on them whenever...
But that would make things boring, wouldn't it?
There is something about the suspense of the night.
The remote possibility that something had gone completely wrong sparked something weird inside my gut.
Although I couldn't put my hand on what it was exactly,
the fact alone made everything more enticing in some kind of way.
...
The eerie silence spoke for itself.
The lack of further gunfire, shouting, talking, or even whispering was enough proof.
There was probably hardly anyone in the vicinity by this point.
The linger of death was already too thick,
so was the thin, wine-colored fog that slowly tainted the air.
"Perhaps that's what beauty is."
I muttered in boredom.
In the dead of night, what had once been heavily surveilled streets controlled by the cartels, now were nothing more than empty infrastructure.
It was an empty district occupied by no one, protected by no one, built by no one.
A weird predicament, wasn't it?
...
'Mmh?'
My eyes flickered as I sensed a movement down the corner of my eye.
My gaze aimed at a single shadow, a rather tall, slender figure cloaked in a clad grey suit, his head obscured by an old-fashioned fedora hat, which smartly covered almost his whole face.
None of those details caught my attention though. My eyebrows raised imperceivably as I discerned the suppressed pistol cunningly hidden in the inside pocket of the man's vest. The barrel still reeked of gunpowder, it had been used to kill not that long ago.
'How smart.'
As if it was a fantom walking towards me, the man's movements refused to emit a single sound. Not until he was right before me, that is.
| Grrl |
The being emitted a characteristic low growl, his shadow looming over me for a couple of seconds, ominously blocking the nearest light source from view.
...
"How nice, you do finally feel like using a firearm..."
I said in a low, soft voice, careful not to upset him with my remarks.
...
Silence.
Luckily, black-man was usually a coolheaded guy,
so he did not get mad, nor did he reply in any way.
Instead, it decided to sit right beside me, its attention lost somewhere in oblivion.
'He must've seen some things...'
Letting out a short chuckle, I reached into the pocket of my own suit, grabbing yet another cigar, my hand extended towards him.
"Cigar?"
I said in a monotonous tone.
Only then did the silhouette come back to its senses.
It hesitated for a couple of moments before its gloved hand moved, reaching for the tobacco. Its black leather surface is covered in a few droplets of dry blood.
He reached into his pocket for a stray bullet,
squishing it in between his fingers, lighting the smoke with a muzzled bang.
'...'
We sat in silence for a couple of minutes in complete silence.
None of us talked.
'If black-man is here, then Tony is no more.'
His corpse should have been taken care of too since he was no marksman.
'Huh?'
A faint clicking sound coming from the opposite end of the street caught our attention.
It was subtle.
Like the rustle of leaves in the autumn breeze.
Both of our faces turned to meet the new arrival with dissimulated interest.
Another tall silhouette stood motionlessly a few yards away from us, his face carefully hidden behind the thin edge of shadows.
The man too dressed in an elegant suit, only this one had a noticeable tint of blue. A dark-blue top hat firmly sitting on his head.
Blue-man's body stepped back, peaking from a nearby corner.
His hand raised to a raised index finger, signaling us both to follow after him.
My eyes narrowed and my jaw tightened for an instant.
Something was up.
There was no need to exchange gazes.
Exhaling smoke one last time and readjusting his fedora, black-man stood up from the ground and followed blue-man's lead.
I followed both, soon vanishing into the dense fog.
...
No boots clacking against the pavement.
No sound.
No friction.
Our silhouettes advanced against the few halogen lights that lit those narrow streets.
Still, I could tell we were nearing.
The smell of urine, feces, and death lingered closer with each second.
...
| Clank |
Blue-man halted before a particular rusted, steel door. His hand reached for the pommel, opening the door without making a noise.
I gave a passing glance at the stairs leading down the interior,
Black-man delicately reached for his gun, lifting the lock off his weapon before submerging into the darkness of the dungeon below.
"Tssk- Dammnation."
There were no good moods anymore.
Giving one last glance at blue-man, I descended downstairs not even bothering to take my hands out of the pockets.
With each step, my body tensed firmer.
The muffled echoes,
the moisture of pumping blood.
I could sense it, there was someone still breathing down there.
Scoffing, I killed the smoke on my cigar and tossed it back into one of my pockets.
A second, much heavier door lit the very few steps off the narrow descent.
With a single inspection, one could tell this one was in a much worse state than the one upstairs.
The steel door had been very clearly struck by several rounds of light ammunition...
The intense smell of gunpowder unburnt nitroglycerin still reeked the insides.
'What a mess...'
I said, exploring the scene with my eyes before stepping through the bullet-ridden door.
What awaited was not a pleasant scene.
A lonely corridor running parallel to the main entry point, a dozen or so cells split along the wall of the passage.
Its concrete walls wearing the gruesome scars of combat.
Brains, and blood, both splashed wildly like some kind of abstract piece of art.
Several corpses lay at the sides of the long passage,
each spotted with a clean bullet hole between the eyes.
Clear marks of blood and lead pellets extended up to the far end of the allocation.
'How disgusting.'
It was damn obvious the cover had fallen short.
The element of surprise had been lost, sparking a gunfight must have sparked.
That was exactly the problem.
I glared at the dead men, something resembling murderous spite in my eyes.
These rats specialized in kidnapping and ransom recollection, with only some secondary connection to the illegal slave trade and links to the drug market.
They were a small mafia family, they couldn't handle messing with the big fish in the inner city, so they mostly handled low to middle-value targets.
In other words.
'Since the surprise element failed, they probably took hostages.'
Gunfire had ended with undesirable casualties, and that bothered me.
I didn't move for a couple of seconds.
Neither blue-man nor black-man did dare move.
"I'll handle that thing."
I glanced back at blue-man who stood close behind me, my finger pointed towards the remains of dead filth that covered the floor.
My eyes glinted with cold, subtle menace.
"You two, erase everything."
With a calculated nod, both silhouettes complied.
I turned around and advanced oppositely. Parting in two a large puddle of blood before stepping forwards.
Not bothering to pay any attention to the work done at any of the nearby cells,
I advanced along the corridor, reaching the very last door.
The metal entrance lay split open, letting a muffled, agonizing, ragged breathing escape from the inside. Even within the relative darkness of that inhuman cage, the source of the sound was not difficult to locate.
Still, I delayed contact.
My gaze glided along those bloodied concrete walls.
Brutalized on the left wall lay the corpse of a thin, malnourished naked 16-year-old girl. Her gray eyes gazed dead at the ceiling. A barrage of numerous bullet holes pierced her chest, draining most of her blood through the floor.
Right beside her lay another one of them.
A slightly overweight adult male, pitch black tattoos covering his hands, extending through his arms and back...
'So a fire mark... That's a surprise.'
The man burned.
First his face and upper torso, then, slowly his whole body. A pinkish, slow-burning fire was progressively consuming the cadaver like a macabre candle.
My eyes narrowed dangerously as they examined the tattoos carved on the man's body.
Or what remained of it.
'Another marksman..? Unlikely, far too rare for these nobodies... It's a fake.'
Not willing to pay any more attention to the dead bodies, my gaze finally slid, aiming at the only living human on that floor.
She sat on the wall right opposite the entrance,
her back pressed against the concrete.
Covered in sweat, blood, tears... a woman. No, most likely a girl.
She limited herself to stare right into the floor, her hands, although shackled loosely to the walls, managed to shake in rapid compulsion.
"Please, please. Sto-"
Right... Those stories were all the same.
It sometimes felt like I had seen it hundreds of times already. I could almost imagine what must have happened.
My gaze veered left.
On the brink of malnourishment, uncertainty, and plain abuse, her little cell friend over there was probably used as a hostage during the gunfire.
So she was given a choice.
As all marksmen did, at some point.
So she gritted her teeth and bore, both the scorching heat building up within her, and the mighty pain that accompanied each branding.
The girl before me had just lived through her own hell and somehow survived it. She had become a marksman, and reapt the life of the man who had most likely killed her friend.
"Please, don't , I don't-."
She said, hardly unable to muster any more words. Her arms attempted to cover herself in vain.
'Ahh, this...'
If not for the pink tint of her flames, I wouldn't have noticed;
Most of her body laid bare, the little clothes she wore had been mostly reduced to cinders, letting her skin be seen. Her torso and left arms had been mostly consumed.
Her body was covered in complex but thin markings,
depicting what resembled a pack of rose-glowing fire vortexes...
All slowly dancing along her skin.
'That's her fire mark, quite a unique one.'
Born out of desire,
yet another fire mark.
The most common human trait was always destined to be the most abundant amongst the marksmen. Whatever it may have been in her case...
Desire to hurt, avenge, ravage, destroy, obliterate, conquer, control, restrain, or love...
In exchange for unnerving bodily might and a deep connection with the flames, the fire mark pulsed within the human heart, burning everything before it.
The flame stood for the steady, passionate pursuit of impulses.
I had seen them time and time again.
When the human spirit was pressed to its limit... On the very brink of destruction.
They were few, but there existed people capable of coming back.
There were very few people capable of finding something.
'An ember that would make the human heart burst into flames.'
It was those people who were branded a flaming brand across their bodies.
Those, they called fire marks.
'Shall I?'
...
Letting myself be noticed with a long sigh, I gave a step forward. My shadow eclipsed the faint flickering light coming from the hallway and in an instant the girl halted her wailing.
'Hmmm?'
Her weak facade vanished in the blink of an eye, and the gluttonous rose fire slowly consuming the corpse was no more.
Allowing a lone pair of burning rose irises to shine in the darkness.
"Who are you..?"
She uttered. Her voice turned rough like a cornered feral beast.
An initially dull glow formed on her palms, as her chaotic fire mark revolted freely through her skin. Her breathing became burdened, but she didn't seem to flinch.
...
My teeth clenched together tightly, my hand raising in the air.
A brilliant purplish spark lit my irises.
"No one."
| Clap |
The ground shook to a thunderous finger snap.
With a violent flicker, the flame in the girl's eyes died down.
In an instant, her blood flow had halted.
Her body fell limp to the side.