Chapter 29


    Mr. James Thompson


    He leaned lazily against a wall, his hat pulled low over his eyes, hiding not only where his gaze drifted, but also the red, glassy look of his eyes. Today was the day for his hunt, after all, and he’d done everything he could to prepare. That meant he’d sharpened all of his knives. That meant he’d donned his heavier clothes, the insides of which were stitched with cotton and an extra layer of leather, to blunt any blows he may receive. And, finally, that meant he’d spent as much time as he could spare in the sweet, intoxicating embrace of his opium. If he were going to work, he needed to be in the right mindset, after all.


    With his entire body tingling, a sense of floating making him feel as if he was more than weightless, he watched the building across from him. It was nondescript. But then again, all such things were. Safe houses, were supposed to be safe. They weren’t supposed to stand out. They weren’t supposed to be easy to find.


    One thing he’d learned from an early age though was nothing was truly safe. If you had enough money and power, nothing was secret, nothing was sacred, and nothing couldn’t be purchased for the right price. In a similar manner, the location of the safehouse holding Mr. Watt’s former employee, a man by the name of Thomas Cane, had been easy for the Golden Circle to acquire. As had the list of Marshal’s set to guard the man, their mana types, the level of their core, and their schedule.


    All of the information one could ever need, to try and make an attempt on Mr. Cane’s life, had been purchased and provided to him, to ensure he could do his job, and end the man’s life. With that level of information, a smart person could easily pick the right time to slip in, while the guards were changing shifts, or perhaps the less experienced guards were on shift, and handle the job.


    That wasn’t his way of doing things though. He didn’t want to sneak in and avoid conflict. He didn’t want to take advantage of their weaker shift. A devil such as he, didn’t take pleasure in killing weaklings. He’d waited, and prepared, until their strongest members were guarding their precious informant. That was today. The day when the safehouse was guarded not by their run of the mill copper core members, but instead, three silver core members, and even more exciting, a gold. It had been a while, since he’d been given the chance to kill one of those.


    He licked his lips as he pushed causally away from the wall, his hands slipping in the deep pockets of his heavy coat, as rain poured down from the skies above. The heavens were already weeping for the soon to be dead. Fitting.


    Not bothering to look as he crossed the street, he kept his eyes fixed on his target. The house had a side entrance, down an alleyway, that had probably once been used for shipments and deliveries. Currently, the alleyway was empty, and the door itself, he figured, was locked. Not that it would do them much good. Not against him. Not when there was so much sweet, sweet mana in the air.


    A smile played across his face as he reached the door. He took a deep breath and mentally released his iron grip on his hunger. Immediately he felt the pit within his stomach open, followed a split second later by the rush of power as he syphoned the mana of the world around him. He didn’t need to be subtle. Didn’t need to hide he was coming. There was no fun in that, after all. Terror made mana taste so much sweeter.


    With the rush of mana flowing into his body, he felt strength well up within his muscles. His body, honed to perfection through an intense regime of physical training and practice, drank deeply of the stolen power. His sense of the world grew sharper, as he felt his skin stretch as he grew stronger, tougher. Those who lived with the power daily, truly had no idea how blessed they were. And he took perverse joy in showing them their wasted potential, whenever he had the chance.


    Muffled calls could be heard from within the safehouse. Concern over what he knew would be a sudden feeling of fatigue and sickness. Others told him it was an extremely unpleasant experience, though he paid them little mind. Those blessed with mana, those who lived with it as their constant companion since the age of eight, didn’t know what unpleasant was. They didn’t know what life was like, to live as he did. To not have a drop of mana to call his own. To not know the constant joy of being filled with mana. To be full. All he felt, day in and day out, was hunger. And even this moment of power and euphoria, he knew, was fleeting. Which was why, he could appreciate it so much more than those blessed with it. The gifted didn’t know true suffering.


    A flash of light signaled what he was waiting for. When the thunderclap followed, his boot kicked into the door. Sure, the door had been reinforced with steel and locked multiple ways, but it didn’t matter. His boots were lined with steel as well, and with his currently enhanced state, his strength and ferocity were enough to break the door off its hinges. The door may have been reinforced, but the stone walls the door was built into hadn''t been.


    Two sets of eyes turned to look at him, and he sighed in dismay as they drew their guns. Both held silver capped canes. Neither were his true prize. Ah well, appetizers then.


    “My apologies,” he said with a sickly grin as he watched the two. To their credit, they both fired their guns even as he spoke. Shoot first, ask questions never. He could appreciate that level of professionalism and caution.


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    A blast of fire and a stone flew towards him. He yawned as he stood there. His stomach growled with hunger as the two bullets of mana approached. As they neared him, they slowed, shrank, and finally, disappeared. Neither reaching him, as the pit that existed within him where a core should have absorbed all of the mana around him. His muscles swelled with fresh power, as his tongue salivated. Everyone’s mana had a different flavor to him. The fire users had a mild spice to it and reminded him of freshly cracked pepper. The earth users tasted more akin to the starchiness of a potato. When combined, well, a baked potato was a nice meal on a stormy day.


    More shots fired in his direction, doing little to pull him from his hunger and opium induced daydreaming. Almost as an afterthought, he pulled two knives from his belt and flung them both, with inhuman speed, at the two. The blades moved faster than the two Silver-tiered Marshals, who’s cores had been getting drained by him this whole time, were able to track. Their surprised gurgles accompanied the sounds of their peacekeepers and silver-capped canes hitting the ground. Blood drenched their clothes and the floor, freed from their bodies by the knives that had lodged themselves, past their guards, in the men’s throats.


    “Whoops,” Mr. Thompson said, with childish humor, as he walked towards them. His eyes were already scanning the room, looking for the entrance to the basement. It was standard for the safe houses to keep two guards at the entrance, and the other two in a secured room, with their protected charge. “Don’t know my own strength,” he continued, to no one, as he walked past the bodies. He paused for a moment above the two, and took another deep breath. Just as he’d imagined, he could taste the steamy, baked potato flavors across his tongue. Tinged with the buttery goodness that came as the final dredges left the dead men’s cores.


    A sense of euphoria ran through him, and he nearly stumbled from the sudden joy and power that filled him. However, it was fleeting. It always was. The pit within required more. Demanded more. And already, he could feel the massive rush of power he’d just gained, beginning to wane. It was always so… fleeting.


    He picked out the entrance to the basement and quickly continued on his way. He’d just remembered there was a gold ranked Marshal down there. Already, he could feel hints of the man’s power. Cool and refreshing, like water from a fresh spring. Intermingled with another fire core, and an earth core. Shame there wasn’t a wind user in the building. He’d have loved to have a buffet of all four mana types. Oh well.


    Unlike before, he didn’t kick the door in. Instead, he simply ripped the door open, letting it clatter to the floor in a not so subtle way. A rapid round of shots accompanied the sound, as the last of the silver ranked Marshal’s fired rapidly at him. The man, obviously using the shots from earlier to prepare, fired not only twelve rounds from his peacekeepers, but then proceeded to fire a duo of larger, molten slags towards him from a shotgun he’d had waiting.


    “Not a bad plan,” Mr. Thompson said as his void consumed the attacks. “Overwhelm a target with aggression.” It was part of the standard playbook they taught when facing down against stronger individuals. A silver cored gunman was multiple times stronger than a copper cored gunman, but that didn’t mean a gang of copper’s couldn’t bring down the silver cored individual. Quantity, could, and often would, win against quality every time it came to gunfights. After all, people were still only human, no matter how strong their cores.


    Unluckily for the poor man, Mr. Thompson didn’t fit himself in the human range. Another blur, another knife, and the man was slammed into the wall, his dying corpse leaving a trail of blood as it slumped to the ground. Three down, one Marshal to go. And, he guessed, his target too. He’d have to thank the man, for giving him the chance to have such a feast.


    “I’m coming down,” he called as he walked lazily down the stairs. “I know you’re down here, Marshal,” his tone was cocky, if somewhat crazed. “And I promise you, I’ll make sure you’ve plenty of time to think of your last words, before I kill you.”


    “I don’t know who you are,” the Marshal called back, his voice filled with the confidence that Mr. Thompson had come to associate with Gold-tiered individuals. When you had such power, it was impossible not to come across as overly confident. “But I can assure you, you’ll not walk away this day.”


    Mr. Thompson cackled at the man’s statement. They were always so sure of themselves. It was part of what made their deaths so satisfying. For one who’d been kicked out on the street, and treated as filth, from a young age, there was a special kind of enjoyment in watching those who were privileged and blessed, learn they were nothing to him.


    “Allow me to formally introduce myself, then,” Mr. Thompson said, his tongue licking his lips as he consumed more of the man’s mana. It was so delicious. So sweet. And for that moment in time, it was quenching his never ending thirst.


    “The name is Mr. James Thompson,” he stepped into the room then, noting how dimly lit it was. A man huddled in the back, clutching a shotgun in his hands, but by the way he shook and coward, it was clear he wasn’t the Marshal. “But to you,” he felt a heavy thud as the base of a cane smashed into his side from his left. The man had positioned himself and waited, for that strike. His cane, which Mr. Thompson knew had soulsilver running through the entire weapon, had struck just under his armpit. The force alone, was enough to kill a normal man. And he knew, from the sudden influx of mana into the pit within him, that it wasn’t meant to kill from just the force. The man had surely intended to sprout an ice blade from the weapon, which normally, would have pierced a man clear through the heart and lungs and, well, quite frankly, kill them on the spot.


    “You may have heard tales of by another name.” He grabbed the cane, with a speed that matched, perhaps exceeded, the Marshal’s. There was a tug, a battle of strength, but he knew it wouldn’t last long. This close, to such as delectable meal, he couldn’t control himself. The man’s power flowed rapidly from him, into Mr. Thompson. And every second, the Marshal grew a tad bit weaker, while Mr. Thomspon, grew stronger.


    The man looked at him, and he saw in his eyes the terror, as realization filled him. The Marshal’s eyes were fixed on his face, fixed on his eyes. A lifetime of Opium use, combined with the hunger he could never sate had given him distinct features. A gaunt face pronounced cheek bones, and sunken, dark rimmed eyes. Mr. Thompson’s grin grew even wider, feeling as if his lips would reach all the way up to his eyes.


    “That’s right,” he said, knowing the man knew just how fucked he truly was. “The Hollow Man.”