The endless night, adorned with raindrops, acquired a misty hue. They fell vertically, shattering into pieces against the ominous buildings of Nostramo.
The rain would not stop.
Kariel sat silently on the head of a massive gargoyle, looking down at the Church of Rest below. The Haunter stood behind him, and his mere presence sent a bone-chilling cold running down Kariel's spine.
The Haunter was not hostile toward him; this natural sense of threat came from their differences.
Kariel understood this perfectly—from the very moment he met the Haunter six months ago.
"Well?"
A hissing voice came from behind him. When the Haunter spoke in Nostraman, his voice was softer than most.
Kariel did not answer.
"What's there, Kariel? Are we moving?" the Haunter asked again, impatience audible in his voice. "He is in the church... and his men too... there will be no better chance..."
"He was never the target," Kariel finally said in a cold tone. "At best, merely a hound."
He said no more. The Haunter fell silent. He began to empty his mind, and along with this unsettling silence, his eyes closed.
In the next moment, countless visions crashed upon him. Ominous, dark, cruel... terrifying. These were shards of the future, reflections in a broken mirror.
But the Haunter remained unfazed.
He knew that of all these visions, only one could become reality; the rest were merely interference. However, he rarely managed to see the picture of the future without distortions.
This was another of his gifts.
He did not tell Kariel about this, just as he didn't mention another thing: the Haunter never saw even a shadow of Kariel in his visions.
Not once.
In the visions he could see, a man named Kariel Lohars seemed as if he did not exist.
Kariel paid no attention to the Haunter's silence; he had already grown accustomed to his companion, who was more like a monster than himself. The Night Haunter mostly behaved more like a beast in human form, and Kariel had already studied his habits thoroughly.
Kariel knew that the Haunter usually preferred to remain silent.
And this suited him, for he too loved silence when he thought.
Kariel watched the woman in the white cloak. His vision was superb, allowing him to clearly see her clothing.
The woman's white cloak was trimmed with gold thread at the edges, which differed strikingly from the clothing of most inhabitants of the Underhive. Even some aristocrats probably did not have the right to wear such outfits.
And that metal prosthesis...
Obviously, she was a person from the upper classes. However, Razor, talking to her, did not show the slightest servility.
At this, Kariel only chuckled calmly. What else could he say? He was not surprised.
The woman stepped away from the church doors, got into a car, and drove away. The rumbling car pulled away, making a horrific noise, and its dimensions were even more frightening. The vehicle occupied most of the street and, as it left, even hit two children crossing the road.
However, no one paid any attention to this. Only a few hands reached out of the darkness and hastily dragged away the bloodied bodies.
Those two children were needed by the vagrants who had been thrown out of the factories due to illnesses that no longer allowed them to work.
People are always hungry.
A sharp grating sound rang out behind his back, as if two sharp pieces of metal were rubbing against each other.
Kariel knew it was the monster grinding his teeth.
"Don't," Kariel said. "Your anger is useless right now, Haunter. She must not die yet. Did you see her clothes?"
"Aristocrat..." the Haunter exhaled a cold cloud of steam.
"Yes, aristocrat."
Kariel stretched his lips in a silent laugh and nodded.
He could have been handsome: with melancholic eyes and a high nose. However, his laughter completely destroyed that attractiveness.
At that moment, sitting on the gargoyle, he looked like a monster ready to sink its teeth into anyone who found themselves in the darkness.
"I am going to the church to pray."
Kariel stood up, and the gargoyle beneath his feet silently bared its teeth at the sky.
"You can watch that woman for now... but don't kill her."
He turned and, raising his head, looked at the tall and silent Haunter, asking patiently:
"Can you handle it?"
"I don't promise..." the Haunter whispered. "I cannot promise..."
At his evasive answer, Kariel only smirked.
"Mainly, don't kill her," he said quietly. "You understand what I mean."
...
"What the hell!"
In a rage, Razor kicked Father's head. It flew into the air, hit a bench nearby, and rolled further.
Inside, the church now resembled a slaughterhouse. The thick scent of blood made some of the eleven present tremble.
Don't get it wrong, they weren't afraid. How could they be afraid? They had done worse things with their own hands.
The reason was different.
A hallucinogen made from human blood was very popular on Nostramo. Most gang members had tried it and were enchanted by it.
As the addiction intensified, even ordinary blood began to act on them as a stimulant.
If this seems absurd to you, then you haven't fully understood Nostramo yet. There was no morality here; anything that brought profit could happen.
Razor stood under the bloodstained statue, and the anger in his heart boiled endlessly. Often he had to exert immense effort to restrain his emotions.
However, when his gaze slid upward and he saw the inscription on the statue, his rage finally broke free.
"Who the hell does he think he is?!"
With a roar, Razor drew his pistol and began firing at the statue, shattering its featureless face to pieces. He felt no reverence for this deity; after all, Razor knew that gods did not exist.
"'I have come for your sins'? What the hell! This madman who kills people all over the city thinks he's so noble?"
"I'll kill him! I'll skin him and carve a figurine out of every one of his ribs!"
Razor screamed insanely, his temples throbbing and the veins on his forehead bulging. His anger was caused not only by uncontrollable emotions but also by the chemical he constantly consumed. It was an old potion, a special entertainment of the aristocrats.
And the price for his service to one of them.
You see, on Nostramo, everyone could find entertainment for themselves.
But what is the cost?
"I am not noble, Razor... but I have indeed come for your sins."
A voice rang out, and in the next second, the light in the church went out. Previously, Father had controlled the lighting; without his consent, no one could turn the light on or off.
But now he was dead.
In the darkness, a quiet, hissing voice rang out. The words were melodic, like romantic poetry, but they sent a chill down the spines of those who heard them.
"Murder is the most common crime on Nostramo, my dear Mr. Razor. When the fire of anger flares in the heart, anyone can commit such a sin... but personally, I do not care for that method."
"Murder in a fit of rage is inefficient. And I hate inefficiency."
Razor did not answer the voice from the darkness. He stared into the void, gripping his pistol, his anger having vanished without a trace.
This gang leader, who two minutes ago was roaring that he would torture someone, was now surprisingly calm. And his ten men too. They didn't even need a command to instinctively stand back to back.
"Well trained, Mr. Razor."
The voice rang out again, this time with a clear smirk.
"So whose private soldiers are you? Has someone decided to purge the lower levels again? Ah, every twenty years it's the same thing, almost like a natural law... a natural law that brings huge profits..."
"Show yourself!" Razor shouted into the darkness. "Since you've guessed, there's no sense in being hostile with us! You won't be able to pay the price!"
"The price..."
The voice from the darkness laughed low, echoing off the stone walls of the Church of Rest, distorting and turning into the growl of a monster. The temperature began to drop.
Cold sweat trickled down Razor's forehead. He didn't understand why he was so nervous. Was it because of the darkness? But after all, darkness was familiar to every resident of Nostramo.
He was used to walking in the gloom.
But he could not stop the trembling in his hand gripping the pistol. And in the next second, a quiet sound behind his back stretched his nerves to the limit.
Razor turned sharply and, together with his men, opened heavy fire in that direction.
The shots thundered.
"The wrong way, Mr. Razor."
The voice rang out above Razor's head, and then he felt a warm breath. His eyes bugged out, he raised his hand to pull the trigger, but a sharp pain in his wrist stopped him.
Then again, the sharp whistle of a blade cutting through the air and the dull sound of flesh being pierced by a blade rang out.
To the bandits, this sound was all too familiar.
And, finally, Razor's scream. With his most horrific shriek in life, he opened this massacre.
Again the shots thundered.
Realizing what had happened, the bandits began to fire frantically at the ceiling, but to no avail.
They had undergone training in the estates of aristocrats and knew that in such a situation, some men needed to stay alert rather than everyone discharging their magazines at once, otherwise the enemy would take advantage of the moment.
But they forgot about this.
They just wanted to keep pulling the trigger.
An irrational, illogical fear that crawled out of the darkness completely destroyed their training. Fear erased all details from their memory, and what they thought was their firm will.
Fear crushed everything.
And death came again.
Kariel lunged rapidly from behind their backs. His blades moved unhurriedly, but every strike was perfectly precise.
The first strike pierced the cheek of one of them from behind. The victim screamed in pain, trying to break free, but in vain. The blade, sinking into the flesh, simultaneously immobilized him.
Then Kariel turned his right wrist. Immense strength allowed the second blade to enter under the jaw and exit from the top of the head.
Blood gushed. He squinted and licked his lips with satisfaction.
"Behind you!" someone shouted in the darkness.
But Kariel was no longer going to give them any chances.
He knew no mercy and missed not a single opportunity.
He easily extracted the blade from the flesh, took a step back, and with a powerful strike of his right leg sent the lifeless body flying straight into the crowd. They immediately tumbled to the floor.
A few lucky ones managed to reload their weapons. With trembling hands, they pulled the triggers. Muzzle flashes lit up the gloom, and in their field of vision appeared the smiling monster.
Kariel began to glide. His steps allowed him to move easily in the darkness. He didn't even need to be distracted to evade the bullets fired by the fear-stricken men.
Too simple, too easy.
Killing... for him it was as natural as breathing.
A lunge forward, right arm extended, the blade drawing an arc, leaving a trail of blood behind it. Another lunge, a kick breaks a neck. A snap is heard, and Kariel laughs loudly.
A stop, a turn of the wrist, the blade pierces the eyeball and the brain behind it, then a twist. Extract the blade, plunge it into the throat of another. Evade a grab, with a reverse grip slit the soft throat of the attacker.
A throw with the left hand, the weapon sinks into the chest of one. A pivot, with the free left hand rip out the cartilage and trachea from a slit throat.
"Ah..."
The monster stopped with a smile, shook the sticky flesh from his hand, shook his head and, as if with relief, took a deep breath.
"Three more."
He spoke quietly, counting the enemies, but did not even look at the trembling bandits. He had already smelled the sharp scent of urine mixed with the smell of blood.
A moment later, a scream rang out in the church again, and the low laughter echoing off the walls became the accompaniment to their deaths.
Amidst the chaos of overturned benches, Father's head in the darkness looked silently at all this, gazing indifferently at what was happening.
The dead do not judge.