The heavy iron door clicked shut, hermetically sealing the screams inside the concrete throat of the basement.
The Masked Man didn't look back. He adjusted the hem of his black t-shirt—a single, mechanical motion that betrayed no adrenaline, no remorse, and no fatigue. The air in the hallway was cooler here, stripping away the copper tang of spilled blood and replacing it with the scent of damp earth and rot.
Abhur was inside. The timing was absolute. The poison was already working its way through the nervous system, turning seconds into hours.
The Masked Man moved toward the exit, his boots silent on the cracked floor. He had calculated the arrival of local police at twelve minutes out. A window so wide he could have walked the perimeter twice. But efficiency was a discipline, not a luxury.
He pushed out into the night.
The outskirts of the city were drowning in a suffocating gloom. The moon was choked by thick, industrial smog, casting the scrapyard in a sickly, bruised purple hue. Piles of rusted metal skeletons—cars, beams, machinery—loomed like dead giants in the dark.
The Masked Man stopped.
He didn't reach for his weapon. He didn't shift his stance. He simply ceased movement, his muscles locking into a state of relaxed readiness. The calculation in his mind shifted instantly from extraction to assessment.
Ten yards away, leaning casually against the hood of a rusted-out sedan, stood a figure.
He was younger, perhaps late twenties, wrapped in a charcoal trench coat that seemed too heavy for the humid night. His hair was a windblown mess, framing a face that looked like it hadn't slept in a decade. He was toying with a silver Zippo lighter, flipping the lid open and shut.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
"You left a mess in there," the stranger said. His voice was raspy, carrying a strange, vibrating resonance, like dry leaves skittering over pavement.
The Masked Man stared at him, unmoving. "You're early, Silas."
Silas chuckled, a low sound that didn't touch his eyes. His eyes were the disturbing part—irises so pale they looked like fractured glass, shifting with a turbulence that had nothing to do with the available light.
"The spirits were loud tonight," Silas said, flipping the lighter again. "Hard to sleep when the ether is screaming about nerve poison and pliers. I thought I'd come see the artistry myself."
He pushed himself off the car, moving with a deceptive lethargy. He looked loose-limbed, almost drunk, but the air around him felt pressurized, heavy with static electricity.
"We have the same business, don't we?" Silas smiled. "The Hierarchy. The cleanup. The crusade."
"I work alone." The Masked Man's voice was a flat line. "I told you in Istanbul. I told you in Jakarta."
"And yet," Silas grinned, pocketing the lighter, "you keep leaving bodies that attract the wrong kind of attention. Not the police. The things that feed on the trauma."
Before the Masked Man could respond, the night was torn apart.
ROAR.
High beams swept across the scrapyard, blindingly bright. A heavy-duty tactical truck, tires crunching violently over the gravel, drifted around the corner of a debris pile. Abhur's backup. A private militia unit—late, desperate, and heavily armed.
The truck screeched to a halt thirty feet away. Dust billowed. Doors flew open. Six men spilled out, rifles raised, shouting commands in Urdu, fingers tightening on triggers.
The Masked Man didn't flinch. His hand hovered near his waist, his mind already dissecting the geometry of the engagement.
Two targets left. Three center. One driver. Distances: Close. Draw time: 0.8 seconds.
"Allow me," Silas whispered.
He didn't shout. He didn't run for cover. He simply stepped forward, placing himself between the Masked Man and the firing squad.
"Fire!" one of the militia leaders screamed.
The night erupted in muzzle flashes.
Silas raised his right hand, palm open, fingers splayed.
The air in front of him shimmered, distorting like heat rising from asphalt. The bullets didn't stop—they dissolved. High-velocity lead rounds hit an invisible barrier a foot from his chest and disintegrated into gray dust, pattering harmlessly against the leather of his coat.
The gunfire ceased. The gunmen froze. The silence that followed was heavier than the noise.
Silas sighed, dropping his hand. "Rude."
He clenched his fist.
Suddenly, the shadows beneath the tactical truck surged upward. They weren't natural shadows; they were viscous, oily, moving with predatory intent. They wrapped around the vehicle's chassis like constrictor snakes made of pure darkness.
"Up," Silas muttered.
The veins in his neck bulged, turning ink-black. A guttural growl layered over his voice—a sound that came from two throats at once. The entity bound within him, the spectral anchor tethered to his soul, surged forward to answer the call.
With a motion as casual as tossing a coin, Silas jerked his arm upward.
The three-ton tactical truck was ripped off the ground.
The gunmen screamed, scrambling back in primal terror as the vehicle hovered six feet in the air, held by nothing but the terrifying grip of Silas's will. The metal groaned, the chassis twisting as if a giant, invisible hand were wringing it out like a wet rag. Glass shattered. Axles snapped.
"Sleep," Silas commanded.
He brought his fist down.
BOOM.
The truck slammed into the earth hard enough to crack the concrete foundation. The impact shattered the suspension, flattened the tires, and sent a shockwave of dust rolling outward. The gunmen were knocked off their feet by the tremor. They didn't get up to fight. They scrambled on hands and knees, terror overriding their training, fleeing into the darkness away from the demon in the coat.
Silas exhaled, a long, shuddering breath. The black veins on his neck faded. The pale light in his eyes dimmed back to a normal, exhausted gray. He rolled his shoulders, a wet crack echoing from his joints.
"Cardio," Silas muttered, wiping a trickle of blood from his nose. "God, I hate cardio."
He looked back at the Masked Man.
The Masked Man hadn't moved. He hadn't drawn his weapon. He stood with his arms loose at his sides, watching the display with the same clinical detachment he had shown the dying man in the basement. He was unimpressed by the spectacle, only interested in the result.
"Showy," the Masked Man said.
"Effective," Silas countered, leaning back against the rusted sedan, though he looked paler now. "That was the heavy cavalry. You would have wasted ammunition."
"I would have used six bullets."
"And I used none." Silas grinned, though his hand trembled slightly as he reached for his lighter. "We make a good team, friend. My connection to the Veil, your... terrifying precision. Think of what we could dismantle together."
The Masked Man walked past him.
He didn't slow down. He didn't hesitate. As he brushed past the occultist, he didn't look at the crushed truck or the dissipating shadows. He looked at Silas's shaking hand.
"You're unstable," the Masked Man said. His voice was flat, cutting through Silas's grin like a razor. "You're a bomb waiting to go off. I don't work with explosives I didn't set."
He continued walking, his silhouette merging with the shadows of the scrapyard.
Silas's smile faltered. He pushed himself off the car, desperation creeping into his voice.
"Wait! The Syndicate is moving shipments through the port tomorrow. 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 dismissive wave that was both an acknowledgment and a rejection.
Silas stood alone in the dark, watching him vanish.
He pulled the silver lighter from his pocket, flicking it open. The flame danced, turning blue for a split second before settling into orange.
"He likes us," a raspy voice whispered from the back of Silas's mind—a voice that sounded like grinding stones.
"Shut up," Silas murmured to himself, lighting a cigarette with trembling hands. He looked at the crushed truck, then at the empty road where the Masked Man had disappeared.
He exhaled a cloud of smoke into the purple night.
"He definitely likes us."