A wristwatch's quiet ticking was the only sound in the car.

Dim illumination from a set of disused streetlights washed over the dashboard, the contours of the old leather seating cast in fractious shadow. The man sitting in the driver's seat was perfectly still save for his silent, measured breathing, his expression obscured in the half light.

A little ringing sound split the silence. The driver shifted to his watch, turning the alarm off and reading the face again, though he already knew what it would display.

11:40. Time to move.

He took a deep, measured breath, his suit stretching slightly, then exhaled heavily, calmly, evenly. Sliding the handle of the messenger bag on his lap over his shoulder, he opened the door with a smart click and stepped into the cool night, closing the door behind him as silently as he could.

Soft shoes muffled his footsteps as he walked slowly towards the old apartment building, a decaying edifice at the end of an old street. He looked up towards the finger of light glistening between boarded-up windows on the second floor, the only sign the block had any inhabitants bar decay. He'd watched them all go in. Marked every soul. Worked out the minutiae of a plan with a minimum of bloodshed.

The driver unlatched his messenger bag, fumbling for its contents in the dark. Something metallic and cylindrical, glinting dangerously in the gloom, went into his suit trouser pocket. With the other hand, he withdrew something leathery, fluttering in the light breeze, which he held up to his face carefully.

Reptilian eyes met the driver's, a predatory stare meeting one filled with doubt.

A moment passed.

Still time to run away.

He looked back at his car, then the building and back to his mask. He closed his eyes, let out a sigh, and finally pulled it over his head.

Jules looked back up, pushed past the warning tape covering the double doors, and entered the building with an outward facade of pure, professional confidence.

-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqw_VIGBfto-

The long corridor that greeted him was in a state of disrepair the exterior barely hinted at. Wooden floorboards languished under the rot of years, fingers of mold intertwining with shards of broken bottles and burnt-down cigarette butts. A disused vending machine, smashed open years ago, bore faded advertisements for old concerts. Murmurs of a distant phone conversation wafted around the old beams.

Jules brushed past the detritus with barely a second thought, eyes set on the finger of light poking through the bottom of a set of double doors, the lock rusted and defunct. Slowly and deliberately walking towards them, the professor pressed himself flush to the wall by, deadly quiet as he strained to listen.

"...don't worry about it, Oleg. The boss should give you another set of boys soon... yeah... yeah, I know." The voice was American, a thick Texan twang that was as comfortingly warm as it was disturbing to hear from a member of the mob. Another defector. Jules bit his lip, steadying his breathing as the mobster's footsteps freaked closer.

"I know, it's damn scary... damn scary. The Red Patron Club... that one arms deal... what happened at the health club. Feels like... yeah... okay, Oleg. Keep your wits about you." He reached the wall on his side of the door. Jules heard him sit down, his elbow bumping the wall right below his chin.

"...look, I got Wednesday off. The boss has Andrey's recital to go to, so... she's giving us the day. Want to hit up Lazer Booth? I... yes... man, I love that one. You know, they used to call that one guy Vodka...? ...yeah. Stay safe." There was a beep as he hung up his cell phone, fabric sliding over fabric as he moved to stow it in his pocket.

The door swung out towards the mobster with furious speed, cracking into his forehead with a dull thump. Before his pained cry even left his throat, Jules' fingers were around his neck and squeezing, covering his mouth and muffling his protests. The momentum carried him off his chair and onto the floor before his body could fully process the professor's charge. He slumped painfully onto the ground, disoriented.

Jules released the mobster's throat and flipped his head over, eyeing the relatively sharp corner of the wooden chair he had been sat on. He paused for a brief second, a sick feeling rising in his throat.

Underneath his hands, the mobster strained, the disorientation fading fast. His arms failed around, attempting to grab onto anything they could - one wandering hand grasping the professor's tie and jerking it down. Underneath his mask, Jules blanched. White-hot panic flooded into his veins, his eyes, his sensibilities. His hands started moving.

The mobster's temple thwacked into the chair at sickening speed. It thwacked into it again. Again. Again. Again.

The hands grasping Jules' tie loosened and fell to the floor.

Behind his mask, his eyes widened.

Jules leapt to his feet, pushing the head of the mobster away. A trickle of sticky blood momentarily linked his gloves to the Texan's battered skull before falling to the ground, a steady pool of maroon oozing from his head. His eyes, unfocused, looked in two different directions as his arms spasmed in his white suit.

Bile rose in Jules' throat, hot and acrid, drowning his desperation in a tide of nausea. He fought to tear his eyes away, ripping the base of his mask up, breathing unfiltered, cool air in panting gasps.

Deep breath. Deep breath. Deep breath.

He closed his eyes, controlling his breathing, steadily raising his head. He tightened his fists underneath his gloves.

You're better than this. Get this done, Dave.

One more breath. He pulled his mask back down, pointedly ignoring the body, and began to move down the corridor, taking in the environment. Two doors, both ajar, glowing softly with an internal light. A staircase leading to the right, flanked by an old, overflowing bin. A boarded-up window at the end. The sound of... typing?

He walked carefully, measured steps almost noiseless, focusing on the way forwards. Pressing himself flush to the wall, he span out his pistol and poked his masked head around the door as carefully as he could.

A silhouette sat at a makeshift desk, illuminated only by the light of a lamp and a laptop screen. A pair of headphones, half-off one of the shadow's ears, blared out loud synth from a Walkman whirring next to a half-eaten bag of Cheetos lay.

Jules took one slow, steady step in, foot testing one dun beam very carefully. It seemed to hold. Placing his foot flat, he raised his left foot just as the right elicited a low, moaning creak from the floorboard.

The mobster looked to the side, took a second to realise what he was seeing, before leaping up from his chair and grabbing the butterfly knife next to his laptop in one fell movement.

Jules leapt backwards, stabilising his feet as the mobster, beard covered in crumbs, rammed past the door and swung his knife in a clumsy arc. The professor landed on his back, the blade slicing the air above his head, as he hastily scrambled back.

Get to the wall. Think of something!

Jules took another deep breath, and relaxed, sinking back into the plan.

The mobster flipped his knife to the other hand as he took another step, lean muscle visible on his rolled-up sleeves. Letting out a syllable in Russian, Jules noticed his legs tense as he prepared to leap...

Calm. Beautiful aponia slipped over Jules' mind. The fear that filled his brain became grey, distant, washed away.

There. Twist to the side. Let him come. Trip with a low kick and incapacitate on the way down. Prepare for number three.

He rolled to the side, reaffirming his grip on his pistol. The mobster's lunge fouled itself as he twisted after the professor, acting against his momentum. He stumbled. Jules span around and savagely kicked at his one stable foot.

The mobster tripped, slamming into the floor with a painful thud, the sound of his nose breaking filling the air. He screamed, dropping his knife as he clutched his face, rocking his head back and forth. Jules swung up from the floor, snapping up the butterfly knife with his free hand, and stood over the wounded mobster, barely even panting.

He raised his revolver, snapping back the hammer. Below him, the Russian whimpered, curling up. Jules breathed.

Do I have the time?

The second door opened before he could answer his own question.

"Nikolai?"

Another one, dressed in pristine white, poking her head out of her door. The butt of an AK-47 in one of her hands.

Her eyes narrowed as she began to pull the rest of the weapon out. Jules was ready long before it cleared the door. There were two shots.

The first bullet went wide, shattering some of the crumbling doorframe. The second sailed true, sinking in through her forehead. She slumped back, one hand still clamped around her rifle, her skull crumpled and the back half of her head spattered all over the back wall. The sound of the shot echoed around the room, loud and clear as a bell.

"...idiot..." Jules muttered as he span his revolver up to the next cylinder. So much for the silent approach.

"I-Irina? A-are... you..." Nikolai dissolved into moaning underneath Jules' legs.

"Be quiet." There was movement upstairs. Footsteps making the wood moan. Heading towards the staircase. Focus. Where are they going? Where---

"...beast! B-beast!" Nikolai began to claw at Jules' leg with one hand, grasping the fine fabric. "F-fuckin'... beast! Y-you... Irina!" Noise. Distraction.

"...I said... be quiet." Jules stepped backwards, wrenching his leg away with some difficulty. He eyed his revolver as the mobster groped for his shoes blindly.

...no. No need to kill this one.

He breathed again, and brought his right foot towards the mobster's temple in a solid, harsh blow. The mobster reeled, moaning, and curled up tighter, his head spinning.

Footsteps on the stairs. He was out of time.

Jules span back towards the wall, revolver in his right hand, knife in his left, and pushed himself as neatly against the wall as he could. Behind the mask, he strained as he listened to the oncoming footsteps.

Two light... Two slow... four feet. Two. Talking. Russian. No idea what they're packing...

"...Irina?" A figure walked out of the entryway to the stairs, scant feet away from Jules. A large military-spec shotgun was clutched in his hands. "Holy... damnit, Irina!" He ran towards the second door, heedless of what was behind him.

"Lou, watch your damn six---" A heavyset Russian carrying a matching shotgun, clad in a finely tailored white pinstripe, followed on and looked to the left, first seeing Nikolai and then Jules. He opened his mouth to bellow a warning, raising his shotgun.

Jules had tensed for the leap long before the mobster had rounded the corner. By the time he was halfway aiming at him, he had weaved around the other man and brought the knife blade up to the Russian's throat.

"Drop it," he hissed, a quiet voice in the mobster's ear. A second passed before the shotgun clattered to the floor, thudding next to Nikolai's head.

"...good. Now---" Jules peered over the taller man's shoulder. The other one was coming through the door, hands sticky with blood.

"...she's dead. She's... she's... I..." Lou looked up, saw the Russian's expression, the knife, Nikolai, the shotgun, Jules. His face set into a sneer, an expression of complete, unadulterated pain. He readied his shotgun, chambering a round with a dangerous snap.

"Now. You. Drop the--" Jules began, before a meaty elbow swung into his ribs with a sickening crunch. He gasped, the grip on his knife weakening enough for the Russian to bend forwards, throwing him over his shoulders. He hadn't planned for this. The world inverted, his grip failing, the ground rushing towards him---

---spur of the moment, leaning in, reinforcing his knife grip, landing on his back, a crushing pain that seemed to be a world away---

---a snick, something warm, a rosy ambuscade of warmth drenching his gloves, a gurgle---

---and the world righted itself again. Jules reeled as his balance steadily returned, the adrenaline coursing through his veins steadying his vision and his hands.

Behind him, the Russian had collapsed, the knife blade deeply lodged in his trachea. He made little moans as he exsanguinated, the strength in his broad limbs fading.

Lou gaped, expression halfway between confused and disturbed. "T-the fuck? Pyotr? You--- you FUCK!" he snarled, readying his shotgun for Jules' new position.

Too slow.

Jules let go of the knife and rolled to the side, away from the moaning Nikolai and Pyotr, and away from the blast of buckshot which splintered the latter's prone back with a wet snap. Righting himself, the professor aimed vaguely in Lou's direction while the mobster chambered another round, and snapped off the rest of his revolver cylinder.

Two of them missed. One shattered his ankle, bones crunching like wet twigs, tendons snapping in a quiet symphony. The final round slammed into his stomach, rupturing it in a wet, filthy burst of muscle and stomach acid. He let out a loud, low cry and fell backwards, landing on Irina's tangled body as he whimpered in raw pain.

Jules moaned in tandem as he collapsed, the short-lived adrenaline burst fading as quickly as it arrived. The pain of his bruised ribs hit him full in the chest as he lay on the rotten boards, panting, catching his breath.

-https://elhuervo.bandcamp.com/track/five-

For a minute, all he could do was breathe, exhale, inhale, riding out the crest of the pain as it ebbed and flowed through his ribs. It took him a great effort to lean up, to move to a sitting posture. His head sang a white concerto as he steadily climbed to his feet, quashing the pain. One motion at a time. One leg. The other. Step up. Stay up.

Jules breathed deeply, wheeling to the moldering wall as he regained his balance. At least one of his ribs was cracked, he reckoned... but it didn't matter. There was a job to finish before he could spend time worrying about pain. One more occupant to account for. The plan to finish.

He climbed the stairs slowly, quietly, ears straining for any sort of sound. Lou thrashed below him, stubbornly clinging to life. Nothing above. Reaching the first floor landing, one door ajar, a blade of light filtering onto the wood paneling, he reloaded his revolver and kicked through the door, brandishing it in a wide arc.

"Hands up!" The sole occupant of the room took a moment to fix him with a knowing stare before complying. A pen clattered from her hand to the desk, scattering an open file.

"...I knew it would only be a matter of time before a Killer Beast patronized my operation. How can I help you this evening?" she said placidly, looking for all the world as if she were merely talking to a slightly uppity employee.

"Natalya Khusainovna Gagarin. Russian expat... deep in the mob's pocket. I hear you've been working hard to fix your little... personnel problem, hmm?" Jules took a step forwards through the door, gun still trained on her. Behind the mask, he took in the room's details with shrewd eyes. A large server tower flanked a bank of computers, a makeshift U-shaped desk covered in files the desolate room's only furniture. A set of walkie-talkie phones lay next to the chair Natalya sat in, covered in nametags.

"...You've done your research, I see, Beast."

Jules took another step forwards, keeping his mask's eyes focusing on hers, matching her stare for stare. "The personal identity of a low-ranking Mafiya recruitment officer isn't hard to find, Natalya."

Natalya smiled. "Which one was it that talked? How far did you have to push them before they gave you my name?" Her voice was even, calm, controlled.

Jules took another step.

"...Oh, my. You killed them, didn't you? All the little teenagers I gave jobs, gave friends, gave purpose to..." Her expression was mercurial.

"..."

"How did that make you feel, Beast? To watch the hope go out of their eyes?"

Jules had reached the desk. He looked above her, pistol at the ready. One twitch to shut her up. One twitch to stop her recruiting any more kids to die at the hands of his colleagues.

"...did you enjoy it, Beast? Did you smile behind the mask, a psychopa--"

He slammed his revolver into the desk, a clang resounding throughout the brick room.

"I’m not a psychopath, Gagarin!"

The distraction was enough. There was a blur of motion behind him and something razor-sharp, something not in the plan, plunging into his right shoulder, ripping through the fabric, bright and keen and electric. Pain flooded back into him, his tendons splitting, his suit growing hot--

--and adrenaline was back in his brain, time slowing to a crawl as he shoved the knife blade into a distant world and spun around, planting the revolver in his attacker's chest and firing.

A cry, a high cry, and a body fell back, hands abandoning the knife edge, collapsing to the floor. A wet gurgle filled the room as Jules leapt back, his revolver spinning to the next cylinder as he thrust the gun between Natalya and the mobster. The knife shifted slightly in the blade of his shoulder, icy-hot.

"A-andrey!"

He spun to face Natalya. That veneer of calm had broken, her face splitting into a momentary grimace that he knew all too well, that he had worn when he left the bodies of his students in the fire. He moved carefully towards the white-suited figure groaning on the floor, noting with distaste the hole in his chest. He must have hit a lung.

His eyes travelled up the figure's body and alighted on his face. Jules bit his lip again to stop himself from groaning.

The mobster on the ground could hardly have been sixteen, his face lightly covered by the beginnings of a beard. He coughed up wet lumps of bloody phlegm as he writhed on the ground, eyes screwed shut.

"W-what... I..." His mouth started moving on its own. "H-he... you... you aren't supposed to be here. You..." He rounded on Natalya, who was desperately trying to regain her demeanor. "Why is he here?"

"...He is bratva," she replied simply.

"Like hell is he bratva! He isn't even... college age!"

"...He wished to join. Following his mother's example." Jules raised his pistol and took a step forwards. His face behind the mask was a tangled, breathless snarl.

"...you... you... your d-damn child?" Natalya smiled, and shook her head. Something in her eyes seemed to have died.

"My nephew. But I suppose it doesn't matter. Go on, then. Let the aunt join her sister's child, Beast. I know you want to. Save some more children. I suppose it doesn't matter if a few die along the way, hmm?" She closed her eyes, her smile broad, toadlike. Jules met them with his own, thankful beyond belief that his expression was hidden.

A moment passed in turgid silence.

"...you don't have long." Jules walked towards Natalya, raising his revolver. "The moment he can move... you and him are gone. Ghosts. Somewhere quiet, like Canada. Do you understand?"

Natalya stared for a few seconds before bursting into mocking laughter.

"A Killer B-Beast that cannot... cannot bring himself to kill? Now that is r-rare!" Jules' expression turned black behind the gecko facade.

"...I said... you don't have long. I'll make sure he receives treatment."

"L-like William’s team did? You amuse me, Beast. So happy to kill the innocent... so reluctant to kill the guilty!"

"..."

"Are the rest of you this soft? So much for the---"

The butt of Jules' pistol hit her temple at blistering speed. Almost as if welcoming the blow, Natalya smiled wider as she crumpled to the floor, soundly unconscious.

Jules took a moment to catch his breath, then turned to face Andrey. Unwrapping his tie, Jules bound the wound as best he could, noticing with relief the steady beat of his heart despite the wound.

Satisfied with his temporary stability, he walked over to the desk, hurriedly chose a laptop and a stash of papers and shoved them into his bag. He gave Natalya's repose form a wan look as he turned to her nephew, leaning down to check his pulse again. It must have only clipped the lung, thank God, he mused to himself as he strained to pick the boy up, slinging one arm over his shoulder, and made a difficult, slow amble towards the foyer.

The sickening smell of Lou's ruptured stomach hit him before he reached the bottom of the flight of steps. He had stopped thrashing. Over the bodies sat a silent pall, undignified corpses in undignified positions. He closed his eyes, tried not to imagine Irina's broken face, at the weeping spinal fluid from Pyotr's shattered back, to wonder if Nikolai was unconscious or dead.

Step after step through blood and stomach acid.

The rosy-sweet smell of raw flesh filling his nostrils, mixing with the stench of bile and dissolving flesh.

The silence, cavernous, echoing.

Forcing his way through the double doors, Jules barged past the tape over the entrance, pulled Andrey through, ripped off his mask and faced the night air. It was over. It was over.

The air outside was icy, sharp, stinging the back of his throat as he took great gulps of it, trying to clear his throat of the stench. He limped forwards towards his car, the pain of the blade in his shoulder, his ribs, his back, redoubling their efforts to lay him low. One swift motion ripped the door open, finally allowing him to sit Andrey down. His light blue tie was flooded with glistening red. The mobster moaned as he slumped down, coughing up another rivulet of blood.

Jules lay back against his car, panting, and pulled out the cell phone in his suit pocket. He looked at the keys with weary eyes.

I can't call the Red Mole. I can't call Bianca. I can't call anyone in the organization.

Jules sighed. Time for a bit of acting practice.