3 Anger

The endless night had taken on a hazy, otherworldly quality beneath the rain. The drops fell vertically, smashing to pieces against Nostramo's gloomy buildings.

The rain would not stop.

Karyl crouched silently atop the head of a huge gargoyle, looking down at the Church of Rest. The Wraith stood behind him, and his mere presence sent a bone-chilling cold crawling up Karyl's spine.

The Wraith meant him no harm. That innate sense of threat came from the difference between them.

Karyl knew that well. He had known it ever since he first met the Wraith six months ago.

"How is it?"

A hissing voice came from behind him. When speaking Nostraman, the Wraith's voice was softer than most people's.

Karyl didn't answer.

"How is it, Karyl? Are we going to move?"

The Wraith asked again, sounding impatient. "He's inside the church, along with his men. We've never had a better opportunity."

"He was never the target," Karyl finally replied, his tone cool. "At best, he's a dog."

He said nothing more. The Wraith fell silent and let his thoughts drift. As the unnerving silence stretched on, he closed his eyes.

A moment later, countless visions swept over him. Ominous, dark, violent. Terrifying. They were glimpses refracted from some future, like fragments of a shattered mirror.

The Wraith remained unmoved.

He knew that of all these visions, only one could come true. The rest were nothing but distractions. Yet he rarely managed to see the future clearly, free of interference.

That was one of his gifts.

He had never told Karyl about it. Of course, he had also kept something else to himself: in all the visions he had ever seen, he had never glimpsed Karyl.

Not once.

In the visions he could see, Karyl Lohars seemed not to exist.

Karyl paid no mind to the Wraith's silence. He was used to his companion, who was more of a monster than he was. The Midnight Haunt was usually more like a beast in human form than a man, and Karyl had come to understand that beast's habits completely.

Karyl knew the Wraith preferred silence.

Fortunately, so did he when he was thinking.

Karyl stared at the woman in the white robe. His eyesight was excellent, allowing him to see her attire clearly.

Gold thread edged the woman's white robe, making her look nothing like the people in the lower levels of the Hive City. Even some nobles probably weren't entitled to wear something like that.

And that metal prosthetic—

She was obviously from the upper levels, yet Razor had spoken with her without groveling.

Karyl merely smiled, calm and untroubled. What else could he say? He wasn't surprised.

The woman left the church entrance, got into a vehicle, and drove away. Its engine roared to life, fearsome in sound and even more so in size. The vehicle took up most of the street, and as it pulled away, it even ran over two children crossing the road.

But no one paid the slightest attention. A few hands reached out of the darkness, eagerly dragging the mangled corpses inside.

The vagrants, thrown out of the factory because illness had made them unable to work, needed those two children.

People always got hungry.

A sharp sound came from behind him, like two blades of metal scraping against each other.

Karyl knew a monster was grinding his teeth.

"There's no need," Karyl said. "Your anger is useless right now, Wraith. She can't die yet. Did you see what she was wearing?"

"A noble," the Wraith breathed, exhaling a cold mist.

"Yes. A noble."

Karyl bared his teeth and laughed soundlessly, nodding.

He should have been handsome, with melancholy eyes and a high nose. But when he laughed with abandon, it completely ruined that handsomeness.

Crouched atop the gargoyle at that moment, he looked like a monster lurking in the dark, ready to devour anyone who crossed his path.

"I'm going to pray in the church."

Karyl stood. Beneath him, the gargoyle silently bared its teeth at the sky. "You can track that woman first. But don't kill her."

He turned and looked up at the towering, silent Wraith, then asked patiently, "Can you do that?"

"I can't promise," the Ghost murmured. "I can't promise..."

Faced with the Wraith's ambiguous answer, Karyl only smiled.

"Just don't kill her," he said softly. "You understand what I mean."

"Fuck!"

Razor angrily kicked the priest's head. It flew through the air, slammed into a nearby pew, and rolled away.

The inside of the church looked like a slaughterhouse. The strong smell of blood made some of the eleven people there tremble.

Don't get the wrong idea. They weren't afraid. How could they be? They had done worse things with their own hands.

As for the reason—

A hallucinogen made using human blood as its raw material was very popular on Nostramo. Most gang members had injected it and become deeply addicted.

As their addiction grew, plain old blood could also affect them like a stimulant.

If you thought that was absurd, then you still didn't understand Nostramo. There was no morality here. If there was profit in it, anything could happen.

Razor stood beneath the bloodstained statue, fury surging endlessly in his heart. Much of the time, it took all his effort to keep his emotions in check.

But when he glanced up and saw the words on the statue, his anger finally erupted.

"What the fuck does he think he is?!"

Razor roared and drew the pistol at his waist, firing again and again at the statue until the head of the faceless god shattered. He had no respect for the deity. After all, Razor knew the gods didn't exist.

"Here to punish me for my sins? Fuck that! Some lunatic running around the city killing people thinks he's so noble?"

"I'm going to kill him. I'm going to skin him alive and carve something out of every one of his ribs!"

Razor shouted hysterically. His temples throbbed, veins bulging on his forehead. His anger wasn't only the result of emotions he couldn't control. It was also tied to a chemical he had been taking—a drug with a long history, once a special indulgence of the upper-class nobles.

It was also the payment Razor received for working for one of them.

You see, on Nostramo, anyone could find a way to entertain himself.

But at what cost?

"I'm not noble, Razor, but I am here for your sins."

A voice spoke, and the lights inside the church abruptly went out. In the past, the priest had controlled the lights. If he didn't give the word, no one could turn them on or off.

But now, he was dead.

In the darkness, a soft voice rang out, hissing urgently. Its words flowed like romantic poetry, yet made everyone who heard them shudder.

"Murder is the most common crime on Nostramo, my dear Mr. Razor. When anger kindles in the heart, anyone might commit such an evil act. But personally, I don't care for that approach."

"Killings driven by anger are inefficient. I hate inefficiency."

Razor didn't answer the voice in the darkness. He stared into the black, gripping his gun, his anger vanished without a trace.

The gang leader who, just two minutes earlier, had been roaring about torturing someone to death was now eerily calm. The ten men he had brought were the same. Without needing to be told, they formed a circle, standing back-to-back.

"Well trained, Mr. Razor."

The voice rang out again, clearly amused.

"So, which noble's private soldiers are you? Is someone planning to cleanse the lower levels again? Ah, once every twenty years, like clockwork. A natural law that brings tremendous profit—a natural law."

"Show yourself!"

Razor shouted into the darkness. "Since you've already figured it out, there's no need to make enemies of us! You can't afford the consequences!"

"The consequences."

The voice in the darkness laughed low. Its sound echoed off the stone walls of the Church of Rest, growing distorted until it resembled a monster's rumbling growl. The temperature began to drop.

Cold sweat ran down Razor's forehead. He didn't understand why he was so tense. Could it be the darkness around him? But darkness was what every Nostraman was most used to.

He was used to walking through the dark.

But he couldn't stop his hand from trembling around the gun. Then, the faint sound of something behind him plucked at his taut nerves.

Razor whipped around, and he and his companions opened fire in that direction.

Gunfire erupted.

"Wrong way, Mr. Razor."

A voice came from directly above Razor, followed by warm breath. His eyes widened. He raised his hand, about to pull the trigger, but a stabbing pain in his wrist stopped him.

Another sharp sound cut through the air, followed by the dull thud of a blade sinking into flesh.

The gang members knew that sound all too well.

Then came Razor's scream. His most horrifying wail ushered in the slaughter.

Gunfire erupted again.

The gang members, realizing what had happened, began firing wildly at the ceiling, but hit nothing.

They had trained in nobles' mansions. They knew that in a situation like this, they had to leave some men on guard instead of all emptying their magazines at once. Otherwise, the enemy would have an opening.

But they couldn't remember that anymore.

All they wanted was to keep pulling the triggers.

The fear spreading out of the darkness, utterly beyond reason or logic, had destroyed everything their training had taught them. Fear shattered the details held in their memories and the will they had thought unshakable.

Fear crushed everything.

And so death came again.

Karyl burst out from behind them with blinding speed, his blade moving neither too fast nor too slow. Every strike was precise.

The first thrust went through someone's cheek from behind. The victim screamed in pain, struggling to get free, but to no avail. As the blade pierced his flesh, it also pinned him in place.

Then Karyl rotated his right wrist. With tremendous force, the second thrust drove up through the man's jaw and came out through the top of his head.

Blood spurted everywhere. Karyl narrowed his eyes and licked his lips, satisfied.

"Behind you!"

Someone shouted in the darkness, but Karyl had no intention of giving them another chance.

He never showed mercy, and he never let an opportunity slip by.

He slipped the blade out of the flesh with ease, stepped back, then drove off hard with his right leg. The corpse, already lifeless, flew through the air and crashed into the panicked crowd, sending them tumbling to the ground.

A few lucky ones had reloaded. They tremblingly pulled their triggers. Flames burst from their muzzles, lighting up the darkness and revealing a grinning monster in their sights.

Karyl began to glide. His steps carried him lightly through the dark, and he didn't even need to focus to dodge the bullets, their shooters consumed by fear.

Too simple, too easy.

Killing. To him, it was as natural as breathing.

He lunged forward, thrusting his right hand out. The blade swept in an arc, drawing blood. Then he lunged again, kicking someone's head sharply aside. Bone cracked, and Karyl laughed aloud.

He stopped, turned his wrist, and pierced an eyeball and the brain behind it, then twisted the blade. He pulled it free and plunged it into another man's throat. Ducking beneath an attempted embrace, he slashed his attacker's soft throat with a backhanded cut.

He threw the weapon with his left hand, burying it in someone's chest. Then he turned and used his freed left hand to pull cartilage and a windpipe from the severed throat.

"Ah..."

The monster smiled and stood still, swinging the sticky flesh in his hand. He shook his head, then took a deep, satisfied breath.

"Three left."

He spoke softly, counting his enemies without even looking at the gang members who were trembling. He could already smell the sharp reek of urine mixing with the scent of blood.

A moment later, another scream rang through the church. A low laugh, echoing off the walls, accompanied their deaths.

Amid the disorderly pews, the priest's head stared silently in the darkness, impassively watching it all.

The dead had no comment.