Electric red reflected off of the glass. Tonight would be a long one. His client disappeared behind the double bolted doors with three women, each beautiful in their own right... though none compared to the beauty of the one waiting for him at home.
Hasan Karim shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he swept his gaze down each hallway. The room was private - the club was not - and for the next few hours, he would have to ensure that his client was not interrupted. No... "interrupted" wasn't the correct word. Prince Fahad had many enemies in Doha, and it was for that reason that Hasan Karim was hired for the night. This repeated in Hasan's mind as he once again checked that his sidearm was secure, and his knife at the ready beneath his Givenchy vest.
The neon and LED that coated the entryway of the Red Lotus Club in bright red and orange flickered briefly. There was a sudden pressure drop that made Hasan's ears pop. As he yawned to relieve the odd sensation in his head, his eyes caught a shadow, before the attached figure appeared at the end of the hallway. He knew better than to respond immediately to the presence, instead feigning indifference... but keeping the man in his peripherals, and waiting to see what he would do.
The worst of the options - he remained still.
Now, as the stark relief of electric red faded, he could see the man was wearing a white gelabiya, ammama, and cloak - not uncommon to see in Qatar, but extremely strange for one of the private room hallways of the Red Lotus. Though his eyes had adjusted to the rim lighting on the stranger's silhouette, Hasan could still not make out a face on the man. He wasn't even sure he was being watched - it felt instead as if he were being judged.
A cold feeling shot through him, and for a moment, he was back in Cairo, just off a small market street. The antique scales he'd been carrying clattered to the ground in unnervingly even cadence until they came to a settled stop, perfectly balanced. The two men who'd accosted him for it lay in twisted death throes, their bodies conjoined at the head.
Hasan Karim had killed many men before. The shock did not come from their deaths, but the manner in which their bodies behaved as he crushed them against each other. He didn't know why he grabbed the scales after the incident, but it would have seemed wrong to leave them.
With another thump of pressure against his temples, the blood red light of the club surrounded him once more... and the man in the hallway was no longer faceless. Too close. He had to react now.
Mid-step, a voice caught his ear. It wasn't Arabic, nor English... and yet he understood, somehow. A metallic glint from under the man's cloak was all Hasan afforded him before hilting his dagger through the gelabiya and into the man's sternum.
Not even the shadow of a reaction. Instead, the man's cold eyes met Hasan's, and for the first time since childhood, he felt fear.
Hasan did not have time to notice that his hilted blade drew no blood, as he felt cold metal against his temple and the sensation of copper on his tongue.
An aircraft hangar. Corinthian pillars. Paintings of beautiful women, and Adonic statues. This man had a high opinion of himself, thought Shadi. The floor was steeped in blood. He was certain it was here... ah, yes. Market stalls with Egyptian curio and a G700 Gulfstream. He had just returned from a trip. What Shadi had assumed to be misfortune was actually revealed to be the will of the Millennium Items. He'd quelled the brief rebellion in his congregation, but failed to prevent the escape of one.
Justice eventually found the would-be thief, as his brothers had found him, and returned him for his trial. But the Scales did not follow. Shadi had assumed them lost until his former disciple's dying breath divulged their location. Although too late to retrieve the Item, he had seen its power awakened, along with the impressive specimen it had chosen to receive it. And now, here, far from the life-giving abundance of the Nile, he was certain he had tracked down the same man.
It was a moonless night, a few hours before dawn. Two men calmly walked down the brightly lit streets of the city. The dry heat ensured they were often empty, hence none of Doha's residents noticed the dagger hilt prominently protruding from the one's chest, nor did the security cameras of Hasan's upscale apartment complex divulge the identity of the second man. To the guard paying scant attention to his charge, it seemed Mr. Hasan had returned home alone. Wordlessly, Karim punched in his security code, a spectator in his own mind. The man clad in white passed by his priceless vases, paintings, and assumed valuables, instead stopping directly in front of the antique Scales that he had purchased during his recent trip to Cairo.
Without understanding why, as the man turned his eyes once again to Hasan's direction, Hasan then stepped forward and grasped the artifact. There should have been a topple, a shift, any kind of motion... but instead the Scales remained unnaturally balanced within his grasp.
"Though brash, your equanimity is unparalleled. Has it always been that way?"
Karim's hand failed to clench into a fist as he willed it. Every part of him screamed to rend this man apart, but the thoughts dissolved before they could even manifest. He watched, as if through windows, this monster inspect his person as one might a vehicle... until a voice dropped ice into his stomach.
"Karim? You're home early!"
The white clad man turned to the source of the statement as Karim's mind cried out through his mute frozen body. She didn't seem to notice the man in white, running to greet Hasan as if they were the only two in the apartment. Her hair smelled of jasmine, and Hasan could feel the supple, milky sensation of her fingertips on his hand. Fatima was a clever girl, but still noticed too late his odd behavior, as she, too, fell silent. Hasan's arms shot out to catch her, his body finally freed from its vice. Hasan's expression twisted with anger as he looked to the man in white.
"I require a demonstration before my business concludes. Show me that which the Scales revealed to you, or she will never awaken."
The intruder's threat hung in the air. Hasan gazed upon the woman he'd only known for a few months, his eyes darting to and fro as thoughts raced across his mind.
Does her beauty reflect an unburdened heart? thought Hasan. The words seemed so familiar. Earthy silt hung in the mid-morning air. He had been here before, and knew - without question - that he could elicit an answer to his thoughts.
It was only now he noticed the Scales still in his hand as he cradled her seemingly lifeless body. His attention then turned to the enemy before him, his knife hilt still embedded in the creature's chest.
A flash of madness as he gently allowed Fatima to slump to the floor - his posture shifted, and with hitherto unknown confidence, struck out the Scales before him.
"Scales of Justice, weigh this mortal's heart!"
A rush of expectant adrenaline brought every muscle to rapt attention, and without knowing why, Hasan found himself shocked when the man in white cracked a wry, calm smile. The artifact clattered to the floor. Hasan did not pause to consider an explanation. Instead, he tackled and drove the man in white right through his apartment wall. Gypsum dust billowed as the two slammed into the ground. The knife was then out from Shadi's chest and secure in Hasan's grip again. Mortar flew in shards and chips of rubble as Hasan desperately drove his weapon into the white-clad intruder. It plunged over and over until Hasan froze mid-strike, Shadi's Millennium Key pressed against his stomach.
Shadi stared down at his now tattered gelabiya and crumbling, cratered torso, observing his injured body as one might a fascinating insect. His cold eyes then looked to the decimated wall just beyond Hasan's hulking form, then settled on the man himself.
"Magnificent."
Shadi's hand reached out and pressed against Hasan's chest. Hasan Karim's frozen expression of rage shifted as the man in white's hand passed through his clothes and into his flesh... his wrist, up to his elbow, before Shadi's fingers appeared through his back. Though Hasan's body and voice were frozen, his eyes conveyed mortal terror.
From the hallway, Fatima awoke to a sickening sound, like the folding and twisting of bone and sinew. She sat up, holding her head, willing away the clinging fog... vision clearing just in time to witness her beloved Hasan's twisted form disappear into that of another. Her voice finally found purchase as the stranger's two glowing eyes turned and cast their suffocating pressure upon her.
An echo of a shriek. Now, there was only a single set of footsteps upon the marble tile, and the gentle *tink* of chain on gold as Shadi retrieved the Millennium Scales and departed the now empty apartment.