Hello all I know that it has been months since I last wrote. School, politics, rallies, and protests have been captured most of my time. However, I have managed to write another chapter. I don't own the Boondocks, or any of the characters mentioned in this story, I also do not claim any rights to Hitman. I do however own William Edward Wuncler, he is of my own creation as are the organizations known Silentiumbari, and Brotherhood of the Creed is also mine.

Chapter One Part One of Two: Memories and Masquerades

And if I only could

Make a deal with God

And get Him to swap our places

If I only could….

~Placebo/ Running Up That Hill

Night creatures calling

The dead start to walk in their masquerade

~ Michael Jackson/ Thriller

Ed Wuncler Sr. stood with back to the fires of the setting sun letting the warmth of the dying day seeping into his back soothing the healing bullet wound that had been inflicted dangerously close to his spine. An etched glass brining with aged bourbon was balanced between his fingers, the crystal capturing the final glowing breath of the day as it spun seething crimson into the pale silver of night.

Against the fading evening, Massenet's Elegie softly played, the gentle symphony swirling around Wuncler's prone form. The beauty of the music and splendor of the sunset was lost to the older man, his attention snared by a more malevolent sight. The millionaire was staring at the portrait of his predecessor, his pitiless gray eyes matching the cruel gaze of his ancestor. Set in a gilded, baroque frame, the portrait of his forefather was an imposing sight. Dressed a black suit that was form fitting he sat, reclining on an ornate cathedra with an elegantly carved back that curled around his shoulders and head like the sinister throne of a baron of death and blood.

He had eyes that were the hue of a tempests fury alight with depraved fires of malice and greed. His features were handsome in the cruel way of most aristocrats, akin to the faces carved into marble by the skilled hands of the Greeks. Long obsidian hair brushed his shoulders, framing his face and painting his high cheeks bones with shadow. His long tapered fingers were clasped over the silver head of a walking cane, an insignia ring glistening on one finger, the same ring that adorned Wuncler's own hand and had ruthlessly branded Gin's shoulder.

He had come to the Americas as Edward Jack Lothair, but as time had crept onward he had bestowed upon himself a new name, William Edward Wuncler. Along with this new title he also claimed leadership over some of the most grisly gangs that had roamed the gore spattered cobbled streets of New York in the late 1800's. With his savage nature William had ripped and torn at the delicate flesh of history making his own, distinct scar in time. His reputation was one of cruelty and ruthless blood thirst; he delighted in slitting throats, gleefully spilled blood, and had insultingly, hilariously, made a profit of it.

He soon became a skilled merchant of blood, and death. Just as he had in London under the guise of Jack the Ripper. But unlike in poverty disease riddled streets of his fog shrouded city the ones in American were indeed paved with gold. Gold cloaked in the guise of consuming greed, bloody revenge, and loathing hate. He drank in the sorrows and vices of others, twining their sins around their own throats until they choked on their own evil.

This merciless, untiring pursuit of power and control made William rise above the blood drenched empire of the Italian Mob. And while the Sicilians seemed to cling to their creed of not spilling the blood of the innocent, Williams had no testaments of restraint or mercy, no one was spared. Collateral damage meant little to him.

Officials would find entire families days after they had been slaughtered, their broken corpses draped forward in their dining room chairs. Slumped down face first in festering plates of food, their throats open in bloody smiles. This method of killing was William's favorite way of commissioning a message to his rivals. His savagery and lack of concern for human life became legend, not even children were exempt from his killing appetite.

When there was a lull in business William devised a grotesque ways to make profits. During these times entire families would disappear from the homes their bodies later sold to doctors from a modest sum saving good surgeons from the tedious task of having to dig up their own cadavers in which to practice new techniques.

By the end of a decade William had gracefully spun death into a highly profitable business and in his madness of seizing power resurrected the ancient bones of a deadly society, the Silentiumbari.** An organization that had been left shackled to rot in dark realms of history by the zealous Catholic Church, a creation that had been consigned to waste away in oblivion. William had loosened those chains, pulled the order from its fetid grave and bestowed a spark of life.

The moldering skeleton of the Silentiumbari was sculpted into William's own sadistic inception. He created a new deadly breed of hitmen, the likes of which that had been unseen since the Brotherhood of the Creed during the Crusades. These men were not scrapings and rakings of the streets, but elite assassins, who were skilled cunning killers, pitiless and yearned for blood as much as their patriarch William. With the Silentiumbari revived William Edward Wuncler became a feared and respected man, and so did his family.

Until ICA.

Wuncler unconsciously clenched his jaw, wincing as the slight movement caused the flesh of the long jagged gash that ran from the corner of his eye, across his cheek, and down his throat to painfully stretch. He tightened his grip on the glass of bourbon until he heard the crystal whine in protest.

ICA had only been a minor complication when William had been alive and even when he was piteously called to the grave by the blood stained hands of his own son ICA was still a forgettable force.

But as the threads of time spun cruelly onward the rules of the game became twisted with the evolution of better technology, guns became as silent and lethal as deaths whisper, a slit throat was exchanged for fatal, bloodless fiber wire, and syringes full of deadly poisons lined the suits of hitmen instead of cigars.

By the time Wuncler was made patriarch ICA was a near unstoppable power; a cunning adversary that had wrapped its lithe, poison fingers around the throat of his blood empire and was slowly choking the life away. His traitor son had been worthless only causing the other agency to tighten its killing grip on his beloved agency. Wuncler felt his lips draw back in a loathsome sneer disregarding the blood that began to trickle down the side of his neck as the healing wound on his throat was split open. That inferior, treasonous fuck and his whore wife had brought the Silentiumbari to its knees. ICA was slowly dragging the Silentiumbari back to its empty crypt that William had opened all those decades ago.

The death of his son had done very little to ease the tensions between the organizations. Edward the II had always been weak, lacking the rapacious fury that had surged wild and seething through the veins of his predecessors. He had been far too merciful with his hits, and lenient with clients, he was never blood thirsty, malicious or cruel. However, Wuncler had to concede that when his son did accept a contract he was thorough, swift, and deadly. But those were few and far between, Edward had been more interested in investing money, politics and economics. He had told his father that he had wanted to cut all threads with the old Wuncler name and create a business and that was not drenched in blood to earn his money without slitting throats and putting bullets through skulls.

It wasn't a great lose to Wuncler when he and his wife had tragically died, for in their death they had left him a precious gift, their untainted son Edward the III. But unfortunately the insolent whelp had grown up to be just as useless as his fucking father!

Consumed by grief over the loss over both his parents, his grandson had plunged into an abyss of alcohol, narcotics, and sex. His mild temperament, a trait that he shared with his father became twisted with hate and rage. As he grew older Edward had became the son that Wuncler had craved. If only he would allow his grandfather to sculpt him into a killer, to make him more than an heir to a vast fortune and powerful name. Wuncler yearned to make him an assassin, feared for his skills in shaking hands with death and devil, dealing in blood money instead of making deals with businessmen in expensive suits. He could have been Wuncler's saving grace, his arch angel; his messenger of death, the final bullet in ICA's accursed heart.

But he was stubborn and his malice toward the other man smothered any emotions of affection that could have sprung between the two. In a way Ed's heartless hatred toward him sparked a sort of malevolent pride. But it was more of a perpetual annoyance then a blessing, having his whims constantly disobeyed and thrown back his face, forced to deal with Edward's mischief and waste money on his escapades.

But then a small ray of light had trickled into the darkness of the pit that the Silentiumbari had been forced to take refuge and cower in. Gin….ah Gin had just been so…fucking perfect. The second pride of ICA, a young man who had been a novice to their greatest assassin. A taker of lives who bore no name and had been born from the essence of killers, created for one purpose and that was to spill blood. Wuncler knew very little about this killer, only the number which they bestowed upon him, had branded upon him, Number 47.

Many agencies believed him to be a myth, a terrible name whispered in the dark as a wanton threat. But Wuncler knew different, he had briefly seen the hitman and had even spoken to him with blood heavy words. That was before Number 47 left ICA, and disappeared into the shrouds of time, leaving nothing in his wake…except an apprentice.

Gin had been young when Number 47 had abandoned the agency, still inexperienced and awkward in the ways of killing. Which was why he fascinated Wuncler, it was always a pleasure to see mistakes made in his past killings neatly fixed and not repeated. The millionaire had tracked the young man through all his hits and had even offered him some contracts during his career.

Over time Gin had gained his own number, and had claimed his own place in the bloody history of ICA. His ruthless reputation quickly spreading through both agencies that the young hitman was following the blood spattered legacy of his antecessor.

When Ed had returned from Iraq miraculously alive and unscathed with the blonde at his side Wuncler knew that mistress fortune was smiling upon him again.

It was a shame that everything had veered so far out of control; he had been so close to infiltrating ICA with their own assassin that he had almost felt their blood running across his hands. Now Gin was gone, not even his informants knew where the blonde had went, and he was left again with a useless, wounded grandson.

Night had descended differently on Ed, while his grandfather had been reminiscing on the far flung past of his predecessors and cursing his son and grandson in the dim light of his office. Darkness had embraced the heir, its fingers threaded with starlight that caught the bloodstained silver that rested in Ed palm. Even though the light had long faded and had been swallowed by the night, the redhead could still clearly see the numbers delicately etched into the back of the dog tag as if they were afire.

0429973546 blazed in the darkness, searing across Ed's vision. Beneath this was an ambigram of ICA the letters delicately entwined with Gins initials. Forever connecting him to the agency, binding him in not only in the blood of those he had killed but also in name.

Ed sighed bracing his hands against his knees and wearily got to his feet absentmindedly slipping the chain over his head tucking the bloody pendent into his shirt. He wandered out into the moonlit washed hallway, silently making his way down stairs to the newly repaired atrium. Intent on seeking some solace, he couldn't stand to be in this room that had been so carefully stripped of Gin's existence any longer. As he walked he unconsciously stepped with his hip pressed to the far side of the wall staying away from the deeper shadows, his eyes constantly roving the gloom making sure nothing stirred in their seemingly abysmal depths.

His breath began to quicken as he neared the main stair case and he hesitated at the head of the steps echoes of the night he had been shot vividly tore across his mind leaving in its wake sharp talons of agonizing pain that gouged into in his chest.

His legs buckled and he fell forward on his knees, a broken soul seeking redemption and relief. He curled his fingers around the ornamentation of the iron banister the flesh of his fingers digging into the jagged curves and points of the sculpted metal. Teeth clenched, he shut his eyes tightly as a wave nausea crashed against him almost sending him pitching down the stairs. He stayed that way for a long moment swaying against the pain, breathing shallowly, bile burning at the back of his throat. A low moan crawled up his throat and out his mouth and he gasped as a new memory lurched against him.

A picture of his parents lay shattered at his feet, the glass twinkling in the cold fire of the stars that trickled in from the French windows. His grandfather was standing in front of him a jeering smirk splitting across his face his voice rising with the smoke that trailed from his cigar.

"Careful Edward, or you may end up as mangled and broken as your parents, but perhaps that would blessing because then I would rid of you"

Gin had been standing at the head of the stairs, his newly braided hair pulled back from his face. His features twisted in anger and uncertainty his hand resting inside his jacket pocket. Even in the gloom of the evening Ed had seen the malicious dull gleam of a gun handle.

His own voice suddenly echoed in his skull, low and malicious.

"You fucking bastard,"

Then it was over, the vision swept away into the shadowed recessed of his consciousness finding its appropriate place in his distorted past. Slowly the pain receded leaving the heir trembling and sobbing for breath, sweat trickling down his face and into his gasping mouth.

These visions had begun in the hospital moments after he found Gin's dog tag on his bedside table. They came swiftly and without mercy jolting him into that horrid night when the air with thick with smoke and the burning stench of blood. They pitched and heaved against his dreams twisting them into nightmares full of agony and death. But as he began to heal, his memory began to shed the haze of being injured and the painful incidents would happen less and less. Now they only embraced him when he actually stood in or near the atrium.

Ed drew in a shaken breath, releasing his hold on the curve of iron wincing as the sharp edges were withdrawn from the soft flesh of his palm. The metal glistening wetly with blood in the moonlight, and the redhead could feel it trickling down his wrist. He slowly stood leaning heavily against the railing, not wanting to tumble down the stairs.

As he descended the newly hewn marble steps his eyes automatically traveled to the door of his grandfather's office. The freshly carved oaken door was adorned with a security device was slightly ajar and pale light was cascading onto the gleaming marble floor.

Ed paused momentarily halting just before his feet touched the soft glow spilling out across the atrium. He glanced inside and found the room empty, resisting the malicious urge to slam the door shut he continued across the atrium.

He slipped into the vast gloomy dining room, skillfully weaving his way around antique furniture, hardly paying attention where his feet fell. Crystal glasses and china plates dully glimmered in the darkness alight with a soft glow the spun down from the hidden lighting the arched across the frescoed ceiling. The tableware and silver were hardly ever used but kept free of dust and decay by servants who polished and swept away traces of disuse every day.

This room was one of Ed's favorites, one of the few rooms that his mother had decorated while she lived her, and one of the few that his grandfather had kept the same after she died. It had a delicate Baroque theme, elegant and beautiful threaded with hidden details that seemed to give it an ethereal aura. It looked like a room out of a Victorian mansion, dark antique floors that were polished to a mirror like sheen reflected portraits that were adorned with medieval forests cast into the magical hour of twilight and shadow, knights knelt before thrones their swords resting at the feet of their lords, majestic castles with soaring parapets dusted with snow and protected by gargoyles with mountains reining over them in the background.

French windows rose from the floors and arched to the ceiling, their stained glass covered by thick crimson hued satin curtains. Elegantly carved furniture that had once adorned the dining room of the great Elizabethan Montacute House.

Another memory curled against his mind, gentle and pleasant, and the redhead found himself smiling. The darkness of the night dissipated and a vision unbound from the haze of agony that gripped him when he remembered the night he was wounded stole upon him. A specter of himself torn away from the dust of time slipped across sight. Ed blinked he was young again ignorant to the ruthless ways of the world and the wicked touch of death had not yet scarred his features. The satin curtains were open and tied back by thick golden cords the evening twilight awash with from a recent rain storm flooded though the windows. He parents were seated at the vast dining table gently laughing and conversing with each other as they ate their dinner.

Ed sat astride his father's lap eating from his sire's plate sometimes tilting his head back and gazing up at his father as he took a drink from his crystal glass. When he wasn't sharing his father's food he would gently run fingers along the expensive silver buttons on his father's shirt, or lean back against his father's chest and feel his strong heart beat against the back of his ribcage. But most of the time he would peer up into his father's tempest gray eyes as he softly spoke with his mother.

Like all children he had believed that his parents were immortal, they were his first memories, a soothing constant, something that had been before his time. And he knew that moments such as those would last forever.

How foolish are the thoughts of the young.

The crystal goblets and china had adorned the table then as they did now gently and had gently rung with the voices of his parents as they laughed and ate together. Now beautiful glasses were dead of all sound, even the maid that kept them clean never gently hummed or sang. Ed reached out and ran his finger around the rim of one of the elegant glasses listening to ethereal tone it created, blinking back tears as the sound hung in the air faded then died…just like his parents.

He withdrew his fingers from the edge of crystal and the memory dissolved leaving him in the dark with unshed tears and an aching chest. Hastily wiping his eyes he turned his back to the deserted dining room and walked to one of the curtained windows. Without pausing he drew back the satin to revel a concealed hallway and slipped inside.

The air was stagnant here; and the smell of dust and years of abandon was prevalent. This was the passage his old room and living quarters that his parents shared. After they died Wuncler had installed the curtains over the entrance to hallway hiding this part of the house away like some filthy secret. No one knew about this concealed wing of the house besides Ed…and Gin.

The heir had been slightly hesitant to take Gin to see where his parents had once lived, to let him look upon their belongings, and see their portrait. He was very covetous of his parent's belongings, and had learned long ago not to have anything they once owned in plain sight or in any part of the house.

They would disappear, or were destroyed left for him to find, mangled, shattered, or ripped to pieces. After these incidents he would often get scathing, pitiless taunts from his Grandfather, cursing him for his weakness, for bringing rubbish like photos of his parents wedding day, too "decent" parts of the manor. Edwards had lost many precious treasures to Wuncler's cruel hands this way and in his youth had often wept bitterly over their loss. But in a brief amount of time that grief had twisted into to a simmering hatred toward his patriarch one the brimmed on being murderous.

So he had left what there was left of his former life in the darkness on the abandoned wing of the house, only venturing there at night, away from the prying eyes of servants and the traitorous gaze of his grandfathers body guard.

Dust lay thick on the wooden floor of the passage, old foots prints he had left behind on countless visits marred the grimy breath of time. A doorway appeared on his right the scrolled doorknob tarnished and dim. He rested his hand on the filthy handle, dust drifting to floor as he turned it and went inside.

Unlike the atmosphere in the hallway the air here was fresher, free of the filth that had captured passage outside. The wooden floors were polished to sheen and reflected the star light that poured in from a curtained window. Tapestry runs covered the floors the fringe brushed free and clean of any debris. A huge four poster bed loomed to his right, the comforter and pillows immaculately straight. All the furniture in the room was oiled and polished; every small decoration from the crystal decanter to the music box on the bed side table was free of dust.

Ed toed off his shoes and left them by the door, he walked to the wall that was facing the bed. A portrait of his parents hung there along and the bottom of the gilded frame an exquisite liquor cabinet had been placed.

The picture of his parents has been painted with will the skill that only a master artist can accomplish and set in a scrolled Baroquean frame. His mother and father gazed solely out of the canvas at him their expression soft and pure. His father had been bestowed the name Edward like his sire before him, an ancestral name which he had honored giving to his son. His mother had been name Siena because of her fiery red hair. A woman who had been truly beautiful in that frighteningly alluring way which made men forget their names and how to speak properly.

In the portrait she was sitting on a piano bench he feet tucked behind the scrolled legs. Her hair been portrayed as seething Irish flame and spilled in ringlets of fire down her neck and shoulders its burgundy hue giving accent to her pale skin. The deep blue dress she had been wearing brought out the silver threaded sapphire hue of her eyes which seemed to hold within them a gentleness and bright intelligence. Ed shared her hair color, high cheek bones and fiery temperament.

Beside her stood his father, elegantly handsome, his features sharper, crueler and more aristocratic then his mothers. His eyes were an elixir green, and held within their emerald depths a cunning spark that seemed to bleed away into amusement. Edward had inherited those laughing eyes, and his father's humor which made his tongue razor sharp when riled.

An empty crystal decanter glimmered on the marble top of the liquor cabinet sharing the light of the stars with an etched stopper, fastened to this top was a rounded small length of silver that tapered down to a sharp silver point.

When Ed had been a child this stopper would often go missing. He would steal into his parent's room, brace his chest against the liquor cabinet and standing on his tiptoes would reach forward his little hands seeking the pretty trinket.

Once his small fingers would curl around the crystal treasure he would take it and stand in the middle of the room, sunlight spilling around his body and with both hands grasping the silver end thrust it up to light, a child prophet addicted to the magic of the sun. As the golden light hit the etched crystal it would spill colors ranging from molten crimson to twilight blues across the floor and walls.

His mother would always scold him if she caught him doing this, fearing that her son would hurt himself on the potentially lethal point. But he never did, he handled the beloved object with extreme care his hands and fingers always careful. Many years marred with grief and darkness had passed since sun had kissed the silver and shone though the crystal. It now twinkled brightly beneath the portrait of his parents, an old key distant delightful memory.

A sigh escaped his mouth and fell heavy upon the still air. So much had been lost from him, torn from him, leaving gaping bleeding wounds that never seemed to heal. Everything he loved lay in abandoned desolate ruin, and all he had were traces of the past, the crystal top to a decanter, a music box that played moonlight sonata, a worn wedding photo, a pair of blood stained dog tags, and scars from two bullets that had ripped though his body.

He reached out and ran his fingers along the stopper the silver becoming smeared with his finger prints and as the tips of his fingers reached the tapered end he picked it up. It was heavy against his palm and he thoughtfully rolled it back and forth. Then held it up to the starlight, the silver reflected his weary features and the slight movement in the darkness behind him.

Ed remained relaxed using the silver as a mirror, idly watching the figure slink along the wall using the night and shadows to conceal its self. After a few moments he lowered the decanter stopper, letting the point slip between his lose fingers.

He heard the deadly sound of silk sliding across metal as a gun was drawn and he clenched his fingers. He skillfully spun to one side with all the natural grace of an assassin, silver danced wickedly in the moonlight before it slammed into the side of his assailant's neck and dragged the stopper downward. Blood arched against the night, stained with the argent glimmer of the stars as he drew his weapon back ignoring the grotesque gargled scream that shattered the night.

Tearing the stopper from the side of the assassin's neck he stepped forward his fingers wrapping around the back of the hitman blood slick neck. His fingers sank into the ugly gash placed the flat of his palm against the man skin and viciously wretched his neck to one side.

There was a sickening crack and the body shuddered against him before going limp. Rage reared against Edward then, howling through his blood making him clench his teeth.

He needlessly struck out at the dead body driving the stopper into the man neck until blood dripped from his face and ran down his arms and rivulets.

Ed savagely shoved the mangled corpse from him, his mind reeling from adrenaline and the smell of blood. He didn't even flinch when the bedroom door slammed open and Wuncler stepped in flanked by two guards, their guns were drawn. The older man looked relatively calm as the sight of his gore spattered grandson.

He idly glanced at the butchered hitman that lay sprawled in the stained floor and made a small sound of disgust. He turned to the two men beside him,

"I don't give a fuck how you dispose of this filth but I want it out of my house,"

He attention then settled of Ed,

"I see that killing your parents wasn't enough to satisfy ICA's appetite."

(Finally it is done praise the muses and gods on high, it's been what? Three, four months? I'm sorry that it has been so long since I have written on this, but as I promised I haven't let it die. I know there haven't been any intimate scenes in these chapters, but promise in this second there will be. Thanks again for all the reviews)

~K~