A boy hides behind a birthday cake. There's distrust in his eyes.
"Hello, little boy." Iko greets the boy without a smile. Her golden eyes almost seem to glow in the shadow of the entryway. She wipes her sneakers on the door mat as she steps into the brightly lit apartment.
"Mama?! There's a scary lady!" Iko notices his eyes drifting from her to the bloody mess behind. She closes the door, cutting him off from seeing anything.
"Who… who are you?"
Iko moves with unearthly speed, instantaneously closing the gap between her and the boy. A gust of wind follows her, kicking up motes of dust in her path. The child flinches away. He's on the verge of tears.
"..." He looks into her eyes.
"..." She looks into his eyes.
"Is it your birthday?"
The boy nods his head slowly.
She moves her hands behind her back and pulls a ribbon-wrapped birthday gift out of nowhere. She sets the birthday gift down on the table beside the birthday cake.
The child begins to lower his guard, his eyes entranced by the mystery of the birthday gift.
"Open it."
He doesn't move.
"Open it." Iko pushes the gift closer.
"..."
"Open it." She moves her head closer to his.
"..."
"What's wrong? Are you scared? Open it."
"..."
"Here." Taking her eyes off of the boy, she lifts the lid off of the box and retrieves a flower from its interior. "This is for you."
"..." The boy gingerly holds out a small hand. One that Iko passes the flower to.
Iko places her hand on his head. "Grow up big and strong so you can have more birthday parties."
"..."
"As many birthdays as you want."
"..."
With that, she stands back up to her full height and turns to leave.
"Did you finish the cleanup?" Klara folds her arms behind her head and leans against the wall outside of Hanabi's apartment.
"I got rid of the evidence. Burner phones destroyed, dossiers burned, connections terminated. All we need to do now is phone the cleaners to get rid of the body." Iko talks about erasing someone's entire life as if she was talking about doing chores. "As far as anyone's concerned, Deadeye Hanabi never existed."
"That's not what I'm talking about." Klara scratches the back of her head. "Did you take care of him?"
"It's his birthday."
"I'll clean him up if you don't want to." Klara raises her hand but Iko grabs her wrist.
"He's just a boy."
"I know that." Klara purses her lips, almost crushing her cigarette in the process. "He's still a loose end."
"Mercy. We've taken enough from him."
Klara sighs. "Always the angel on my shoulder, aren't you, Kolya?"
"God forgot to give you a conscience so He sent me instead."
"Only in His infinite wisdom would He choose an assassin to be my conscience." Klara takes out a small envelope filled with money and shoves it at Iko. "Here."
"What is this?"
"Your bonus for being such a good conscience."
"I thought we agreed on–"
"Yeah yeah, I clean up Kokoro, you clean up Hanabi, yadda yadda whatever. I say that one share is plenty for me."
"...I see." Iko hesitates as she puts the money into her pocket. "Thank you, sister."
"You're welcome." Klara takes a long drag before exhaling the smoke through her nose. "Anyway, let's go home. There should still be some of the good cakes leftover from last week."
Just as Iko and Klara turn to leave, Klara suddenly gets a call from an unknown number.
"Is this the Splinter Wolf?"
"Klara is fine. Wassup?"
"I need your expertise on something important."
Iko steps into a dimly lit room. There are four lights on the ceiling but the back-alley clinic can only afford to keep one of them on. At the center of the room is something barely even human.
It hangs from the ceiling, suspended by a complex system of tubes and machinery, its arms splayed out to its side. Its skin is young but the facade is shallow. Its veins visibly pulsate as blood is pumped through them. It reeks with the stench of something that should have died long, long ago but was instead transformed into a horrible product of mechanical unlife.
Iko caresses the thing's face as she speaks in Russian. "You look wonderful today, mama."
"Va…le…ri…ya." The woman's voice is mechanical and static-filled as it speaks in broken Russian. "My… child…"
"Mama, it's Nikola." Iko lowers her face so that the thing might see her.
"Ni…ko…la…?" There isn't an ounce of recognition in the creature's eyes. "Where… is… Va… le… ri… ya? Where… is… my… child?"
"Mama!" Panic grips her. Iko kneels so that she can show the creature her whole face. "It's me! It's Nikola! Don't you remember me?"
"..." Silence is the only answer she receives.
"Nikola…" A gruff voice comes from the doorway. Turning around, Iko sees a humongous bear of a man with a solemn expression on his face. "It's no use…"
"Papa." Iko runs up to him and wraps him in as big of a hug as she can muster. In spite of his size, his age shows in the fragility of his bones. She has to be careful not to break him. Time has not been kind. "It's mama, she–"
"I know, my sweet, I know." The man hugs her back. "She can't remember me either."
"I'm sorry." Iko has to clench her teeth to keep the tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry I can't do anything."
"I wish I could do more as well."
"What do we do?"
"We're going to have to be more invasive to keep her alive. But even then, we're only buying ourselves more time. The partial incubation is failing. It needs to be completed but... I just… I just need more time."
"I'll buy us that time." Iko reaches into her pocket and takes out the money she took from Hanabi's corpse as well as the money Klara gave her. "Here."
"Where… did you get this?"
"This is from Klara. Her agar business had a merger recently so profits are high." Iko lies.
"Thank goodness. This should buy us a little more time." He kisses Iko on the head. "Tell Klara I said thank you."
"I will…" Iko can't meet his eyes. He doesn't know about her line of work. He's too immersed in his research to notice that his daughter's hands are stained in red. If he ever found out about what they've had to do… she doesn't want to think about what would happen. "I promise… I promise we'll be a real family again. Someday"
"Nikola…"