Evan ran out of the apartment building with a spring in his step. Cold wind rushed down his collar and whipped his shirt.
He stood on the steps, looking out at the dim street beneath the lamps.
Gooding Street was as lively at night as ever.
Warm yellow light and the off-key strains of an accordion spilled from the tavern. On the corner, a street vendor called out, trying to sell his last few bags of roasted chestnuts.
Workers staggered out of the tavern in small groups, leaning on one another as they made their way home.
The Night Demon Potion had made his vision astonishingly clear.
He could see not only the places lit by streetlamps, but every detail in the dark corners beyond their glow.
Deep in an alley, a thief crouched behind a pile of rubbish and counted the coins he had just stolen, his lips moving soundlessly.
On the fire escape across the street, a young couple pressed close together. The wind lifted the woman's skirt, but neither of them noticed.
Farther away, at the end of a dead-end alley, a vagrant sat against a wall with a Hand-Rolled Cigarette between his fingers. After each drag, he tipped his head back and blew a cloud of sweet-smelling white smoke into the night sky.
It was as though someone had pulled a curtain from the whole street, exposing everything hidden in the folds of darkness.
"Night is my territory. In that case, let's have some fun with them."
"Better yet, I can use this chance to make them believe I'm a Beyonder too."
"That should save me a lot of trouble later."
With that thought, Evan turned toward the Shoemaker's Shop beneath his building.
Old Tom had not closed up yet. He sat on a low stool in the light of the kerosene lamp inside his shop, sewing the last few stitches into a boot.
He had clearly heard the commotion upstairs: the fighting, the screams, and Zack's curses. In this old building, where the walls might as well have been made of paper, every syllable had carried.
But the old man had not looked up or gone to see what was happening. Even the rhythm of his stitching had not changed.
Anyone who had spent a lifetime on Gooding Street knew when to pretend they had heard nothing.
"Old Tom, if Zack can't find me later, tell him I went to the old factory in the Southern Suburbs."
Evan kept his voice low.
He was worried Zack would fail to find him and smash up his apartment in a fit of helpless rage.
Evan had considered the possibility that Zack would both beat him up and wreck the place, but it seemed unlikely.
As far as Zack and Mary were concerned, the apartment was already theirs. All they had to do was wait for Evan to die before putting it in their names.
They had no reason to damage their future property just to vent their anger.
Old Tom's needle paused.
He did not raise his head. Keeping his eyes lowered, he gave a slight nod.
"All right."
One word. No questions, no further comment.
Evan turned and ran into the cold November wind.
The sound of his boots on the cobblestones quickly faded, swallowed by the wind and the din from the tavern.
A dozen or so seconds later, Zack emerged from the apartment building, his face dark.
He looked both ways. People came and went along the street, but Evan was nowhere in sight.
That sickly wretch had run faster than a rabbit and vanished into the night.
"He said he went to the old factory in the Southern Suburbs."
Old Tom's voice came from across the street, pitched just high enough for Zack to hear.
The old man still did not look up. His needle passed steadily through the leather of the boot.
Zack glanced at him but asked nothing.
He clenched his jaw, and the snake tattoo on his neck twisted slightly as the muscles bunched.
"That bag of bones has taken so many drugs he's gone mad."
The Gus Gang's influence ran deep through this neighborhood.
The filthy little clinic in the Dock District where they had sent Evan to test drugs was one of their businesses.
They knew exactly what Evan had done, what drugs he had taken, and how many times he had sold his blood.
"I'm sending you to hell tonight."
Zack called to his men, and the group headed south down the street. Their boots clattered over the stones in a hurried jumble, like vicious dogs let loose from their cages.
After they left, a brief calm settled over the street.
In the dark alley opposite the apartment building, a figure leaned motionless against the wall.
He was an ordinary-looking young man in a dark work jacket, his cap pulled low.
A faint crimson glimmer flashed in his eyes beneath the shadow of the brim, like two cigarette tips about to go out.
"What's that guy trying to do?"
His voice was soft and puzzled.
"Does he think he can take on the entire Gus Gang?"
"He gets a little stronger and thinks he can do anything. Just another stray dog from the bottom rung who doesn't know his place."
He pushed himself away from the wall, ready to follow.
His master had ordered him not to let the Test Subject die out there.
He had just taken one step.
A pale hand reached silently from behind him. Light as a falling feather, it brushed his cheek.
The fingertips were cool and smooth as silk.
"Come with me, Little Bloodthirsty Beast."
The voice was soft and gentle, as if soothing a child to sleep.
The young man's crimson eyes instantly turned vacant. His pupils widened, and the red glow in his irises went out.
His body stiffened for a second, then slowly went limp, like a rope with its core pulled free.
"Yes... Master."
The shadows in the alley swallowed them both.
Evan headed south, running easily through Gooding Street, across Hain Street, and into the Southern Suburbs.
The cobblestones beneath his feet gave way to gravel, then to weed-choked dirt.
Streetlamps grew farther apart until they disappeared entirely.
The air changed too. The smells of coal smoke and food gave way to sea wind, rust, and the mustiness of rotting vegetation.
The South Suburban Old Factory.
The abandoned factory complex stood on open ground beneath a cliff near the sea.
Two years ago, a serious Chemical Spill Incident had reportedly killed several workers, and the factory had been ordered to shut down.
It had been left to rot ever since. The owners would not pay to clean it up, and the government pretended the place did not exist.
Now it served as a secret base for gangs around Gooding Street.
Stolen goods changed hands here. Traitors were punished here. Problems were disposed of amid ruins with no lights and no witnesses.
Evan ran almost a mile without stopping. His cheeks were flushed, but his breathing remained steady.
He stood at the factory gate and looked out.
Pitch-black.
Three enormous factory buildings crouched in the darkness like giant beasts. The sea wind had peeled up the edges of their sheet-metal roofs, which groaned fitfully in the gusts.
Most of the perimeter wall had collapsed, leaving broken bricks scattered among the weeds.
In the distance, waves struck the cliff with dull thuds. Now and then came a stray dog's bark or the howl of a wolf from the hills farther away.
"Dark enough, and plenty of room. Let's see how you handle this."
With a Physique of 1.9 and the heightened Perception granted by the Night Demon Potion, he felt at home in ruins where an ordinary person could barely see a hand before their face.
He could make out every broken wall, every shattered door, and every corner where someone might hide.
"And I can use this chance to see whether Pulis sent anyone to follow me."
He entered the complex and stopped in the open space between the three buildings to wait.
About ten minutes later, a clamor rose to the north.
Bicycle tires hissed over gravel. Chains clicked. Young men shouted, jeered, and laughed. The sounds drew steadily closer.
Then a crowd appeared at the entrance to the complex.
There were about twenty young men, eighteen or nineteen years old, riding battered bicycles of every sort. Flashlights hung from their handlebars, their beams sweeping wildly through the dark.
They wore cheap work jackets and filthy boots and carried steel pipes, machetes, and chains. Their faces held the feverish, bloodthirsty excitement of young thugs.
Zack threw his bicycle to the ground, setting its chain rattling.
He looked up and saw Evan at the factory gate, standing with his arms crossed and his back against the rusted iron doorframe. Evan looked so smug and relaxed that he might have been waiting for an appointment.
"Come on! Fight me one-on-one if you've got the guts!"
Evan's voice echoed through the empty complex, carried near and far by the sea wind.
Zack's face darkened like the sky before a storm.
"Get him! Block both exits!"
He drew a snub-nosed revolver from behind his waist and waved its muzzle at the sky.
"I'm breaking all four of his limbs tonight!"
The armed youths surged toward the factory gate.
Evan did not meet them.
He turned and slipped into the nearest building, moving as lightly as a cat.
Inside was a vast space divided by partition walls and the remains of machinery into dozens of rooms and passageways.
Knee-high weeds covered the floor. Moonlight leaked through broken skylights, casting a few pallid patches on the ground.
Graffiti and mold covered the walls, while the air reeked of rust, machine oil, and rotting vegetation.
Holes had been knocked through the bottoms of some partitions, just large enough for a person to duck through, like tunnels dug by rats.
To thugs who had only flashlights to see by, the place was a dark maze.
To Evan, whose Night Demon Potion had doubled his Night Vision, it was his hunting ground.
The thugs poured inside, their flashlight beams darting through the darkness like a swarm of startled fireflies.
Their footsteps, breathing, and shouted exchanges echoed through the empty building until even they could not tell where the sounds came from.
Evan crouched on a rusted crossbeam, looking down.
Two thugs passed directly beneath him. Their flashlights pointed ahead, and neither thought to look up.
He leaped.
His boot landed squarely on the first man's shoulder. The impact smashed him face-first into the concrete floor, and he lay still after a muffled grunt.
Evan rolled with the momentum of his landing, snatched up the iron bar the man had dropped, and swung it backhanded into the second thug's knee.
The joint gave an ominous crack. Screaming, the thug dropped to one knee.
Evan was about to turn and leave when his terrible luck struck.
As he started forward, the crossbeam he had stepped on—solid only moments before—suddenly fell from overhead.
"Damn this luck!"
Evan instinctively stopped to dodge it...
The two thugs behind him reacted fast. One rushed in, and two blows from their clubs slammed into Evan's back.
Agony flushed Evan's face bright red. At the same moment, both thugs lunged at him!
Evan hastily stepped back and kicked one thug away. He turned to run, but the other grabbed his arm.
The man clung to it like a lunatic and refused to let go.
"I've got him!"
Evan shook his arm with all his strength, but he could not throw him off.
His face fell. He realized he had grown overconfident.
He had overestimated the practical difference between a Physique of 1.9 and one of 1.
The numbers suggested almost double the strength, but various factors meant his overall improvement was only around thirty percent in practice.
He could not simply crush these men.
At the critical moment, he swung the iron bar and cracked the thug over the head!
The thug's mind went blank, and his grip loosened instinctively.
Seizing the chance, Evan used his powerful Night Vision and Perception to plunge back into the darkness.