The night before
Heat, sweat, confusion, and a growing and boiling anger. These were the sensations being experienced by a singular man in Gotham City. He did not know where he was. A burlap sack was pulled over his head; the sounds he heard were muffled, the light coming through was dim and brown, and the only smells were of his own musk and the sweat dripping down his face. He could tell from the strange pulling feelings that they were in an elevator, though in what building he couldn't say. Two hands were clasped tightly around his shoulders. Two separate men, as best as he could tell.
This trip had taken twenty-three minutes and forty-seven seconds so far. He'd run out of questions to ask some time ago, and his "escorts" weren't answering a single word he said. Perhaps they couldn't even hear him through the sack. So now, he counted the moments. It was all he had to ground himself in the reality he felt so detached from right now.
The elevator opened, and he was given a firm but respectful nudge to step out of the elevator. The smell of the place they were in was warm, with bits of potpourri hanging in the air. A ritzy hotel, he was certain of it. He'd stayed in places like this, when the money was good. It wasn't so good right now. But, even now he held out a bit of hope that this coming meeting would change his financial situation.
This had all started like any of his other jobs. A simple, discrete ad in the Gotham Gazette. On the surface, it looked like a personal ad. A charming young socialite looking for someone to spend a few wild evenings with. But any hitman in Gotham knew the code when he saw it: somebody wanted someone else dead. Of course, who better for the job than he? Another man might miss his mark.
But him? He never missed.
He'd sent a response to the ad, sticking to the code so as not to arouse suspicion, through the mail. He sent his own RSVP number, to a line that wouldn't be traced. From there, they would discuss the contract. He was a man with a love of discretion; no need to meet the clients if they did not wish to be met.
Apparently, however, this client wanted to meet him very badly. Badly enough that, in the middle of the night the door to his humble apartment was smashed down, and a quartet of men in pale white masks subdued him, tied him and put a bag over his head, and dragged him out to their car. They'd explained that this was their RSVP for him, and he'd instantly known what was happening.
He still had a few questions, of course. Who would go through all this trouble when he'd given them a damned number? How had they tracked him down so quickly?
His musing was cut short when he felt the man gripping his right shuffle to the right and do… something to the wall. He heard a shifting, grinding noise, like in those old mystery stories when a bookshelf would swivel around if you pulled the right book. They turned him around and pushed him through what he assumed was a hidden passage. He met stairs, and carefully navigated them. Two flights in total, only five steps each. That seemed too little to properly move up from one floor in a building like this. It was a silly notion, but… were they between floors?
Wherever he was, the floor was no longer luxuriously carpeted. His boots hit what felt like some odd kind of tile that absorbed all the sound his footfalls created. Forty paces he walked, the men behind him shifting to all fit through a doorway. He wished he could hold his hands out in front of him, but they were bound tight behind his back. It was a vain hope, as they had finally stopped.
A man pressed on his back, and forced him to his knees. A hand gripped around the bag and some of his hair, and with a yank the burlap came ripping off.
Light glare blinded him, for a moment, but he quickly began to take in the environment. And the environment was taking him in as well.
He was a man in his mid-30s, nothing special in his appearance at first glance. His hair, normally parted on the left side and kept neat was disheveled and chaotic. A patch of beard on his chin was similarly unkempt. His face, pale from a life in the shadows was glistening brightly with sweat, mixed with red in a few areas where blows to his face had broken the skin. His eyes were beady, brown things that quivered with adrenaline as they sought out a threat. What he found was a long, exquisitely carved dining table.
The room he was in was odd, and splintered in its decoration. The walls themselves were ratty, dusty, and seemingly nothing but drywall and construction materials. But they were decorated with paintings, tapestries and Eastern rugs that could only have come from the richest of the rich. The table was stocked with platters of roast duck, scalloped potatoes, and a dozen dishes the man had never been able to afford. But what caught his eyes were the people sitting at the table.
Cloaked in shadow, he could see they wore fine suits and dresses, with livery and jewelry fit for kings. Pearl necklaces hung from the women's necks, and shining gold rings adorned every finger it could be fit on. Eyes glinted off the faint hints of light in the darkness they resided in. One voice, deep and booming, called from the ranks that sat around the table as they watched him.
"Good evening, Floyd Lawton. Thank you for responding to our ad so quickly."
Floyd spat, a gob of blood he'd had swishing around longer than he'd enjoyed splattering the hardwood floor to his right. He glared up at them, and muttered, "I left a number for a reason, y'know."
"Oh, yes, I'm sure you did." Came the airy voice of a woman at the far end of the table. He still couldn't count them all. More than a dozen people, to be sure. "Just as we had our reasons for ignoring it, and bringing you here for a more… personal meeting."
"And what," Floyd growled. "was that reason?"
"To show you, absolutely and beyond the shadow of a doubt," said one man, younger than the others.
"That you are NOT working for some disgruntled pencil pusher, or for a scorned lover out for revenge." Came the elderly crackle of a woman past her prime.
The last voice came from the opposite head of the table. He made out a voice that sounded smooth and exquisite. But worst of all, familiar. He'd heard it before, somewhere…
"To show you that you are working for very important people, with a very important task for you. So that you might comprehend the gravity of your failure, should it occur."
He was feeling the gravity, to be sure. Anyone who went through this much trouble for the equivalent of flexing their pecs had a serious bone to pick with somebody. "That's great and all…" he muttered. "but I still don't know who you want me to whack."
"Oh, that's simple, Floyd Lawton." A distinguished-sounding old gent told him. "As I'm certain you know, the circus is in town."
"Yeah, Haly's Circus." Floyd replied. "Took my daughter a couple years back. What do you want with that dump?"
"We want John and Mary Grayson." Their apparent leader replied. "We do not care how. But the Flying Graysons must die."
Floyd felt an obligation to ask when a question arose in his mind. "I saw the Flying Graysons in action. Don't they have a kid, too? What about him?"
"He is irrelevant to the contract. Leave him alive." The man said, waving his hand to dismiss the notion. "But John and Mary must die."
That was an awful notion, Floyd realized. Killing two parents in cold blood, more than likely with their son watching or discovering them shortly afterwards. It broke a man's heart just to think about it.
With casual stoicism, he asked "How much pay?"
"We only pay those who have earned it." The leader said, leaning forward so that the beady eyes in the shadows might grow brighter in light, all coming from a swinging, solitary lamp above them. "Do you believe you are worthy of being hired, Floyd Lawton? What if you miss?"
"Heh." the guest of honor replied. If they were baiting him like this, then they already knew he was worth it. It was just a formality to tell them, "I never miss."
He couldn't see it, but he knew that man was smiling when he said "Very well, Floyd Lawton. Name your price."
"Oh-ho, don't let me do that." Floyd warned him. "If I'm in charge of these negotiations, I want… six digits."
He was smiling smugly, only to feel his face go numb when the man replied. "We'll give you eight."
A wide, yellow grin split from ear to ear, serving as Floyd's contract seal. "You have yourselves a hitman. But I have one question."
"Speak it."
"…I've heard your voice before. Who are you people?"
And all at once, the atmosphere in the room changed. Where once Floyd had felt a warm, if disturbing sense of regality to the place, only cold and unblinking observation remained. He felt the sweat start up anew as the hairs went up on the back of his neck. One by one the men and women at the table leaned forward, so that their faces might shine in the light.
But the faces were not of men. They were pristine, white, and the eyes were beady and black, as if soulless. No mouths, only a hooked, beak-like nose. The masks contorted and hid the features of their faces entirely, leaving only these soulless abominations as they bore a hole straight into Floyd's soul.
"N-no…" the man muttered, looking at them all. "You're the… You're real? T-that's impossible, you're just a fairy—mmph"
Floyd was cut off as the burlap sack returned, constricting tightly around his head and muffling his speech. The men that had been standing behind him returned, violently pulling him from his place and pulling him towards the door. He tried to scream in protest, but the sack stopped him. He could hear their leader call after him, saying, "Good luck, Floyd Lawton."
And then, like tiny demons whispering a song of damnation in his ear, the men and women of the table joined in a rhyme to carry the assassin out, a rhyme that haunted and taunted every child of the City of Night.
We watch you in your hearth
We watch you in your bed
Speak not a whispered word of us
Or we'll send the Talon for your head