The heavy metal door clicked shut, severing the screams from the silence of the corridor. The Masked Man didn't look back. He adjusted the hem of his T-shirt, a simple, mechanical motion that betrayed no adrenaline, no remorse, and no fatigue. The air in the hallway was cooler, stripping away the copper tang of blood and replacing it with the smell of damp earth and old dust.
Abhur remained inside. The timing was absolute.
He moved toward the exit, his boots making no sound on the cracked concrete. He had calculated the arrival of local police to be twelve minutes out, giving him a window so wide he could have walked the entire perimeter twice. But efficiency was a discipline, not a luxury.
He stepped 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 surrounding the basement 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 eyes narrowing slightly behind the mask. The calculation in his mind shifted 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, wearing a long, charcoal coat that seemed too heavy for the humid night. His hair was messy, windblown, and he was toying with a silver lighter, flipping the lid open and shut with a rhythmic clink, clink, clink.
"You left a mess in there," the stranger said. His voice was raspy, carrying a strange resonance, like the sound of dry leaves skittering over pavement.
The Masked Man stared at him, unmoving. "You're early, Silas."
Silas chuckled, a low sound that didn't quite reach 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 light. "The spirits were loud tonight. Hard to sleep when the ether is screaming about nerve poison and pliers. I thought I'd come see the artistry myself."
"We have the same business, don't we?" Silas pushed himself off the car. He moved with a deceptive lethargy, loose-limbed and relaxed, but the air around him felt pressurized, heavy with static. "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, flipping the lighter one last time before pocketing it, "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 sound of an engine cut through the night.
High beams swept across the scrapyard, blindingly bright. A heavy-duty tactical truck, tires crunching over gravel, roared around the corner of a debris pile. It was Abhur's backup—a private militia unit, late, desperate, and heavily armed.
The truck screeched to a halt thirty feet away. Doors flew open. Six men spilled out, rifles raised, shouting commands in Urdu.
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. 1.8 seconds to draw. 2.4 seconds to neutralize.
"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 gunmen.
"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. Lead rounds hit an invisible barrier a foot from his chest and disintegrated into gray dust, pattering harmlessly against his coat.
The gunmen froze. The silence that followed was heavier than the gunfire.
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 intent. They wrapped around the vehicle's chassis like constrictor snakes.
"Up," Silas muttered.
The veins in his neck bulged, turning 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.
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 as the vehicle hovered six feet in the air, held by nothing but the invisible, terrifying grip of Silas's spectral strength. The metal groaned, the chassis twisting as if a giant, invisible hand were wringing it out like a wet rag.
"Sleep," Silas commanded.
He brought his fist down.
The truck slammed into the earth hard enough to crack metal and concrete alike. 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, their weapons clattering away. They didn't get up. They scrambled on hands and knees, terror overriding their training, fleeing into the darkness away from the man 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 gray. He rolled his shoulders, a wet crack echoing from his joints.
"Cardio," Silas muttered, wiping a trickle of blood from his nose. "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 smiled, though it looked painful. "We make a good team. My connection to the Veil, your... terrifying precision. Think of what we could dismantle."
The Masked Man walked past him.
As he passed, the air grew colder. The Masked Man stopped, shoulder to shoulder with the occultist, but looking straight ahead into the dark road leading back to the city.
"You rely on a tenant in your own body," the Masked Man said quietly. "You borrow power. I build mine. When that thing inside you decides it wants more rent, you'll be the one in the chair."
Silas's smile faltered slightly. "I have it under control. The binding is absolute."
"Nothing is absolute," the Masked Man replied. "Except death."
He began to walk away, his silhouette merging with the shadows of the scrapyard.
"Wait!" Silas called out, pushing off the car. "The Syndicate is moving shipments through the port tomorrow. Artifacts. Cursed ones. You can't shoot a curse, friend. 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.
"Stay out of my way, Silas," his voice drifted back, calm and final. "Or I'll exorcise you myself."
Silas watched him vanish into the night. 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.
"Shut up," Silas murmured to himself, lighting a cigarette. He looked at the crushed truck, then at the empty road. "He definitely likes us."