Dripping water and a flickering light filled the hallway, grating on Noah's nerves as he walked and planned.
How many people were there in this place, and how would he kill them?
This was a new frontier for him. An entirely new world.
But his goal was the same. Disturb the mob's activities and eradicate them from this world. The first step would be killing the protectors of this boathouse and burning their stash of drugs and money.
But the boathouse was small and not the easiest place for a lone shooter to fight. He needed to pick them off one by one or with the element of surprise.
He needed to find a calf separated from the herd. And luckily one fell right into his lap.
A scruffy man with dark circles under his eyes approached, wearing an orange overall. His eyes widened as Noah' eerie form came into view.
He pulled out a gun, shooting twice, lighting up the tunnel with its flare.
Noah raised his hands to cover his face but didn't feel the bullets tear through him. Rather he heard something metallic fall to the ground.
He opened his eyes to find the thug staring at him in confusion, then he checked his body for holes and found none.
Something told him to look back and he found two bullet holes in the wall. Confused, he looked down and saw Dalton's pistol on the ground
What the hell just happened?
The thug was just as confused as he was, searching the area like Noah wasn't standing right in front of him.
"What was that?" the thug muttered, rubbing a hand over his pale sweaty face. "I need to stay off the Angel, they're making me go crazy."
Noah tilted his head. "How? I'm right here."
The thug's gun snapped up, spinning around searching for the voice, muttering and cursing under his breath. Then the man grabbed his head, shaking and whispering like he was mad.
Noah almost laughed as he realised what was happening.
He was invisible for some reason, but also intangible. If he had to guess, the intangibility made him invisible because light was passing through him.
He didn't have enough of an education, other than online videos, to come up with a reasonable explanation. But that would also explain why Dalton's pistol fell from his waistband.
Why didn't my clothes fall off too?
Hmm, I did come out of my body wearing this so maybe it's part of my ghost form?
He turned to the thug walking past him and had an odd idea.
Since I am a ghost…
He drew closer to the man and let his instincts guide him, before jumping into the man's body. The thug stumbled a bit and shook like a violent headache racked his skull.
The thug's eyes flashed green in a puddle as Noah took over.
He raised the man's hands, feeling much weaker and sicker in this body. His face felt like an oily mess.
"I'd say take care of yourself, but you die today, so…"
The voice was wrong, but he didn't have the right tone or inflection. So he ended up sounding more like a rough version of himself than the man he was possessing.
It would set off alarms if anyone heard him talking.
"Ahhh," he tested the voice a bit. "My name is… Rage. That's his nickname, I guess."
After a couple tries he got the voice right and walked towards the main room of the basement. It was sealed tight behind a bunker door that he had to roll with a lot of effort.
This door is pretty thick. I really hope they didn't hear the gunshots because of it.
The moment he opened the door he was met with three guns to his face.
They heard…
It was the other three people guarding the boathouse. He actually knew one of them.
Carl, the only one he knew by name, cursed. "What the fuck, Rage? Why are you firing your gun down there?"
Noah feigned delirium from the drugs in this body's veins. He grabbed his head and shook it multiple times.
"I swear I'm going crazy. There was something in the darkness, it had a flaming head and—"
"Gimme your fucking gun!" Carl roared, ripping the gun from Noah's hand the moment he took it out.
Carl rubbed his temples. "I thought you could handle a little buzz. No more Angel for you, just go drink a gallon of water or something."
That was fine by me, I could kill them all with my bare hands.
He walked into the concrete, bunker-like room at the center of the basement, and went for the dispenser immediately.
The room was sparse with only two other doors, one leading out of the basement and the other… he didn't know yet.
From Rage's memories he found that it was a storage space where they kept the goods. And more importantly these three were the only people in the boathouse till dawn.
An idea popped into his head as he checked Rage's memories for camera and exits; a way to make sure this wouldn't come back to him.
The single light in the room cast ominous shadows over his face. It was time to start.
Carl came over to talk to him, making things easier. "Hey, you good? Don't hold a grudge but we can't have noises like that out in the middle of fucking nowhere. Someone might—"
Noah turned, grabbing Carl's throat in one smooth move, but he didn't break it just yet. Instead, he waited till Carl pulled out his gun and snatched it from him.
The force of the snatch was so great it snapped Carl's fingers and drew the attention of the other two idiots in the room.
But Noah fired before they could even understand what was happening, shots echoing through the underground corridor.
"Are you fucking insane?" Carl rasped, gasping and punching Noah's arm without much success.
"I did warn you. Rage met something in the corridors." He let the green glow emerge from Rage's dark eyes, making Carl's heart skip a beat, eyes widening in disbelief.
"Phanta—" Carl started
But Noah crushed his throat before he could finish and let the man fall to the ground.
He looked over the room; the three corpses on the floor and the one blinking light in the tight stone room.
A job well done.
Now he needed to get his body out of the basement and set this place on fire. So he began the long journey down the hall he just left.
Rage had a pretty weak body, but it was strong enough to carry Noah's physical body out of the basement of the boathouse.
With a grunt of exertion, Noah softly laid his body in the grass and exhaled in relief as the cold air of the night washed over him.
The night sky was dotted with the occasional stars, and the moon glowed over the vast river in front of him.
He laid his body on the grass and returned to the basement.
Stepping over the bodies in the main room, he walked towards another door with a set of rooms locked behind a massive metal door.
After a grueling two minutes he pushed the door aside and found a small space with about five rooms.
Using Rage's memories, he walked into one room and grabbed a can of kerosene, puring through the room.
In one of them he found the mob's stash of drugs and money.
"There's a lot here that I haven't seen before," He murmured. "Being a junkie in this world must be heaven."
He tore free some bundles of money with a smile. "Might as well hold on to something."
He continued, pouring gasoline as he made his way upstairs. Then he chucked the container down and took out a lighter, clicking a flame to life and throwing it down the stairs.
The fire jumped, licking his arm painfully, but he ignored it. He was used to such pain after all.
And this wasn't his body.
While walking through the boathouse he took out some of the money he stole and admire it, before suddenly turning to a camera on the wall.
BANG!
That was the last part of his plan.
He watched the pieces of the camera fall to the ground and thought of what the mob would think when they watched it.
They'd see Rage taking a kid outside, then stealing some money and destroying the evidence. They'd think he either went crazy or was greedy.
Now he just needed to get rid of the last bit of evidence.
He walked out of the boathouse and onto the pier, taking in the river and the grassy hills.
The dark blue waters glittered in the moonlight. The boathouse was somberly quiet despite the massacre he had just committed, some ships bobbed over the water quietly.
A deep sense of satisfaction pulsed through him as the evening wind ran through his hair.
Or rather Rage's hair.
He studied Rage's reflection in the water, trying to recall if he had met this guy before.
Maybe he doesn't deserve this. But dead men tell no tales.
Beside all this was Ironfield Mob, it was a lot bigger in this world than his. But trash never changed its smell.
He smirked, pressing the gun under his chin. "Just means there are more of them for me to kill,"
The gun roared like thunder, blood splattering over the pier and Rage's body fell into the river with a splash.
But something was left standing on the edge of the pier. The black flames that made up its head grew stronger and a white line formed as a mouth mouth.
Noah studied the mouth for a moment in the water. It wasn't much but his powers were growing. He would need all he could get to trample his enemies.
Sighing, he turned back to his body and the smoking boathouse. "So… how do I get back into my body?"
And that was the strange beginning of the end of the Ironfield mob, and the advent of a force that would dominate the supernatural world.