Tools

The merchant walked the streets with confidence. These were his streets. He had just finished ‘merchanting’ some extorsion money, and was in a very good mood. He was on his way to drop off some very expensive drugs to one of his best dealers, then head home for the night. I felt good out here on the streets of his town, virtually untouchable.

There was one very small thorn in his side though, one town guard who appeared to be snooping into his business. To make matters worse, it seemed this guard could not be paid to look the other way, as with most of the guards about town. Soon that one tiny issue would be delt with though, and it would be nothing but smooth sailing after that.

Turning down an alley, not bothering or caring to see if anyone saw him, the merchant saw his dealer at the far end. A man sitting on a box, dressed in black, with a black cloak cowl pulled over his face. His head was bobbing to the rhythm of unheard drums. The Shadow the merchant thought, What a silly nickname. He’s near giddy everytime I talk to him, not very shadowlike at all. Though, he does pull in a lot of cash, consistantly one of my top dealers. Maybe I should have all of my guys take on pesonas, I’ll send word out for them to be thinking of something, edge up proffits.

Stopping infront of the shadow, the merchant reached for the drugs that the shadow would have to sell for the next few days. “Here you go, Shadow, this should last you til…”, the merchant’s face was that of pure terror the instant he saw under the Shadow’s cowl. “By the gods, you nearly scared me half to death. Take that rediculas mask off, I thought a demon was going to jump up and eat my heart out”

In the blink of an eye the merchant was pinned up against the wall of the alley as metal claws sprank out from the Shadow’s wrist and through the shoulders of the merchant.

“Y-y-you’re n-not the s-s-sh-shadow…” the merchant stammered. “I can’t move my arms! Who the fuck are you? Do you know who I am? Do you know who you’re accosting?”

“I know exactally who you are.” The masked man said cooly, “and now you know exactally what I can do”

An expression of realization came over the merchant’s face, realization, and of horror. As the man in the mask spoke to him, the merchant knew that he would answer every question the man asked, he knew that information was power, and he would use every scrap he knew to try to keep his life. There were no power plays here, no half truths, no lies.

******

Kade watched the body sink into the cannal, and he wondered why this had all went down. It wasn’t for the money, he swore he would never kill for money, but he didn’t feel bad taking it after he was done. It wasn’t because he wanted to save this city, he could care less about this city and its underbelly. Maybe it was just what he was meant to do. He had been trained to be an assassin, a cold blooded killer. Do you use sheers to dig a garden? Do you you dig with a hammer? Maybe he would just be the killing tool that he was, or maybe there was a way to reforge and reshape himself.