A few weeks prior, Bckrazor sat beh an atop a building overlooking one of the many public lockers set up in the more tourist oriented parts of Hong Kong. The shadows bent around him, his body melding with the very surface of the building and leaving his presence all but ent. To the sensitive, he would be no more present than a bird or a mouse. Now all he had to do was wait. Merged with the shadows, he could tell that his biologieeds were suspended, his ans slowing down to a near stop as they did in a physical sense. He could wait as long as he he only obstacle being boredom.

  Fortunately, he had been traio endure boredom.

  He sat in silence for days, watg the same set of lockers as the sun came a, the shadows shifting but never leaving this fortable spot where he could keep watch. People came a, people stopped at the lockers and got their things, but none of them went for locker 137. He’d felt another presence monit the locker for about a day now and was marginally certain that this person was the one he’d been waiting for. Still, he maintained his attention, not until they went to the locker would his suspis be firmed.

  He had sent a message using the Adjunct’s phone, asking for the Professor responsible for the region to e and receive a dead drop message as a form of meeting. It was standard practi the society that the members of the anization didn’t meet directly and should only tae another in case of an emergency. The message had been carefully posed ter a sense of arm and cause for immediate a. His target would have to report it to a Tenured immediately, following a simir method.

  Every anization has a weakness, and this method of i unication is it.

  Of course, the practice wasn’t handled without caution. The person sending the message was forbidden from stig around to observe whether or not their message was received and the receiving party would iigate the area before pig it up just to make sure. Unfortunately, it didn’t take into sideration a person who could literally turn themselves into shadows. So eventually, after nearly four days of waiting, the Professor stepped out of a nearby cafe and walked over to the locker, taking out a key and opening number 137. Bckrazor moved immediately, his body liquifying and sliding through the shadows that were cast on the building, down to the street level.

  He kept his eyes oarget, patient as the sun was still beating down oreet between his perd the target. They’d move eventually, though, and that’s all he needed. As if urged to a by his thoughts, the woman whose face he’d never known turned around and made her way back to the cafe to tinue her meal as if nothing had happened. He slid across the ground like a serpent, darting through eg shadows until he slid fortably into her own cast image. The only indication of his presence being a darkening of her own silhouette. More waiting, more patiehis was only the first step in a longer journey.

  Eventually she left ao an expeel, apparently her cover was that she was a local journalist, the same as himself. He wasn’t surprised, she had been the oo give him the cover story and he had picked up photography as a result. Still, it was iing actually seeing her for the first time. A pretty woman in her forties with a nondescript fad long brown hair. She looked British, her at ent though. Professor e, a seasoned poisoner and specialist i of the quiet, time sensitive death. She could ‘kill’ someone and be miles away before their heart actually stopped. Her poisons are uable, lethal, and carefully crafted for each kill. A master of her craft and still only a Professor in the hierarchy.

  The Night Society didn’t just employ murderers like e. While she was a remarkable specialist, she was a dime a doze came to the standard fare of the Society, death. There were, in fact, other ways to assassinate people besides killing them, as strange as it souhe Night Society employed financiers, professional hackers, world-css information brokers, and even genuine journalists. They could destroy an individuals financials, spread their secrets across the globe, destroy their digital information or spread their footprint, they could engage in a smear campaign that would make an Ameri politi blush.

  Professor e answered to one of these unique specialists, Tenure Smallfoot was, acc to what he’d heard, actually a rather well known financier who had grot at using specialized tactipletely undermine a pany’s financial standing aroy their credit. In a matter of hours an anization could disappear off the face of the earth, their assets seized and the owners left penniless. This monster was who e called as soon as she finished reading the note from the adjunct that Bckrazor had left sinking to the bottom of the South a Sea.

  “We have a situation,” e said before pausing, “It’s too sensitive to eborate. We o meet, sir,” She paused again, “I uand, I will see you then.”

  What was the news? Bckrazor had used himself as bait. The note said that he had faked his death and was w towards exposing the Society and that he was fully promised.

  Satisfied that the bait had been taketled in. From what he overheard from e’s shadow, they would be meeting the day. It was a little surprising but it showed just how seriously Smallfoot took his job as upper ma, maybe it was his business background, it didn’t really matter. Bckrazor khis kind of information had to be handed off directly with the higher ups and more importantly, only a Dean could give aion order for a member of the Society. That meant the note would have to arrive at headquarters one way or another.

  So he waited, ging to her shadow for every sed. When she showered, whee, when she slept, as she dressed the m, as she left and got into a car to head to a restaurant. He observed as she sat down at a table near a window, overlooking the city below. He listeo what she ordered and he felt a bit of tension uncoil within himself as another presence approached, sitting down across from her.

  “Mister Caldwell, thanks for ing for this interview, sir,” e said.

  “Please make it quick,” Smallfoot said.

  “First, here’s a bit of an overview of the questions I’ll be asking,” She said quickly and hahe note over to him. There was a long pause and Bckrazor took a moment to shift from her shadow to his.

  “I’m afraid these questions are a bit outside my usual realm,” He felt Smallfoot check his watch, “More importantly I have a call. We’ll reschedule.”

  “I uand sir,” e said and ined her head.

  With that, Bckrazor left with Smallfoot, the Tenured’s path taking him through the hotel where the restaurant was stationed before entering a limousine aing for the airport. It only took an hour for the po get off the ground and the man to get fortable enough to make a phonecall. Bckrazor didn’t know which Dean was the ohat Smallfoot answered to, but it really didn’t matter. The Deahe primary instructors for the Society and the core leadership, there was only one pce they would be uhey were on assig. Headquarters.

  Bckrazor didn’t know where it was, but apparently it was rather out in the open which ropriate given the secretive nature of the society. Maintaining a effective cover story was essential and something that he as Park Beyol failed at repeatedly. His desire to simply front the challenge and improve himself had led to his downfall, though it wasn’t like he hadn’t takeime to learher tricks of the trade. He uood the how, more or less, of many of his peers. His craving for improvement pushing him to seek out avehat knife py simply didn’t cover.

  Did he use them? Not really. He hadn’t found a challenge he couldn’t overe with his knives. Until Sonya, until Mistress Ishtar. His overfide the time and reckless mistakes notwithstanding, he hadn’t been a match regardless.

  Today he was going to try something new.

  “It’s me,” Smallfoot said as he got on the phone. Bckrazor slipped deeper into his shadow to listen in more carefully.

  “Tenure Smallfoot, what is it?” The voice at the other end said.

  “We have a problem, I’m ing for a meeting,” Smallfoot said.

  “Eborate.”

  “Academic discharge, sir. Pgiarism.”

  “I see, I will see you soon, do not dey.”

  Bckrazor found the use of code phrases to be a bit amusing, though he supposed it made sense giving the thematiature of the society. He assumed that academic discharge meant a request to have a fellow society member eliminated while pgiarism was the threat of divulging information about the society. Good to know for the future. He packed the information away auro a more stationary position in the man’s shadow, mentally preparing himself for what was to e.

  When he had pleted his training, the society had taken him to a secret room and used various forms of brainwashing to wipe the information about where the headquarters was out of his mind. Only if he rose to the rank of Tenure would he be allowed to know and even be present at headquarters, by then, he would have been in a teag role, creating a new geion of professional killers for the society to use.

  A carefully curated, self perpetuating system trolled by the Headmaster. A man whom Bckrazor had only seen ohey hadn’t wiped the memories of his training, the torture, the endless days of misery as his spirit was broken down and rebuilt into something they could use. He remembered the man’s dispassionate eyes and wizened features. He was old, much older now, and cold as ice. He had watched Bckrazor kill a friend, ordered it, so Bckrazor could prove that he was worthy of tinuing forward.

  Now was his homeing and he had every iion of skipping a few spots on the dder.

  The pouched down and it didn’t take long for Bckrazor to figure out generally where they were. Switzernd. Secure, fortable, safe, and rgely kept at an arm's length from iional affairs. From the airport, Smallfoot got into a limousine and they drove for nearly two hours before arriving at a vilge built around the outskirts of a ke, the snowy mountains in the distaill marked with white even this time of year. There, at the edge of the vilge was a sizeable campus that pressed up against a thick forest that he reized. He’d gohrough survival training in that forest.

  The limousiered the campus and drove up to the enormous administrative buildi the heart of the sprawlie. The copper-e roing back memories as Smallfoot got out of the car and hurried up the steps.

  Finally.

  It had taken some time, but he was at st where he o be. He g to Smallfoot’s shadow a little while longer as the man made his the stairs, asding to the top floor where, as Bckrazor uood it, the Dea in the main feren. When they arrived at the top floor, Bckrazor had to take a moment to appreciate the elegant marble hallway shrouded in darkness with only a few lights illuminating the treasures framing the path towards the enormous double doors that were the only barrier between him and the Headmaster.

  Smallfoot approached the other set of doors in the hall and kwice. Bckrazor took that as his signal and broke free of the man’s shadow, sliding across the ground and dartih the door of the Headmaster’s office, his pn for how he wao hahe man already in mind. He willed a little bit of blood into the shadowy void that was his body and got to work.

  –

  The Headmaster was sitting in his chair, eyes fixed on the door. He g one of the paintings on the wall and sidered it for a moment before letting out a sigh. Acc to Dean Embers, there was a rogue adjunct out there. Park Beyol had faked his death. It would have been surprising how effectively he had do, the corpse left behind had his geic material and even his dentals matched. Yet somehow the man was still alive and was scheming against the Society.

  He’d be dead eventually anyway, ohe execution order went through.

  He sighed and shook his head. The boy had so much potential, it was a bit of a shame but he couldn’t trol the young man’s decisions any more than he could trol any of the raduates. The training and brainwashing could only go so far before it interfered with an assassin’s capacity to do their work. Such was the way of things he supposed. He looked down at the dots in front of him and reached for his pen only to freeze as he felt a shift in the air behind him. He turned his head and blinked, “You.”

  –

  Bckrazor stood in the er of the room, his arms crossed. He leaned against the wall and smiled at the old man. He had really aged, his skin mottling. It was too bad he had to die, Bckrazor was sure that Ishtar could have given him his youth bad restored his vigor. Now, he was barely funal as a leader. Still, he hadn’t remained in his position for this long without reason and Bckrazor hadn’t taken any risks.

  “I greet the Headmaster,” He said, raising his hand to his heart and ining his head.

  “Park Beyol,” The Headmaster said, turning his chair around to face him, “You look good for a dead man.”

  “It’s Bckrazor now, sir,” Bckrazor said patiently, “I’ve been reborn as a supervilin.”

  The old man’s lips twitched, “I heard you had abilities, but that they had to do with metal. How did you get in here?” The old man asked, sitting ba his seat. Bckrazor watched him move and raised an eyebrow at him. A shadow brushed against a book and pushed it over a small metal pque that was embedded in his desk. He had sent his shadows throughout the desk and searched for any sort of emergency arm devices, he’d found that the pque was a button. The old man’s lips curled into a smile, “Oh, you’re quite serious.”

  “I’m afraid so, sir,” Bckrazor said.

  “Your aim?”

  “I want the Society.”

  “I see,” The old man said with a slow nod, “That doesn’t sound like you, you were ambitious but not this ambitious. What ged?”

  “I have a new master,” Bckrazor said, “The first supervilin.”

  “Ishtar, I’ve heard of her,” The old man grunted, “She has the Uates by a stranglehold and my people tell me she’s even reag overseas.”

  “You’re well informed sir,” Bckrazor firmed with a nod.

  “Well, what’s the pn, Bckrazor? How are you going to do it?” The old man asked.

  “I already have, sir,” Bckrazor said dispassionately and o the old man’s wrist. The Headmaster looked down at a miniscule drop of blood running down his wrist.

  “Ah, e’s trick. How long do I have?” He asked.

  “Enough time to talk and for you to tell the Dean’s about the ge in leadership, sir. I administered it just before I appeared to you,” Bckrazor said, holding his gaze.

  The old man smiled, “Well done.”