Sometimes it seemed as though Terrence's victims were inviting him to assassinate them. This one had been thoughtful enough to rent an office in a lovely little corner with no street access besides the alley Terrence was standing in and a view of nothing but the fire escape on the opposing wall. Such carelessness was particularly deplorable for a private investigator. Not that Mr. Pound's former girlfriend had led Terrence to expect any more from him. Chastity really was a fine young lady, especially for how little she had to take care of her girls with. Their father, on the other hand, was worse than useless. Time to take care of that.

Terrence unslung his Dragunov from his shoulder, setting the black case on the ground in front of him. He knelt down and drew his knives, examining their edges before he laid them on the coarse cloth of the rifle bag which served as his altar. The empty alleyway allowed him time and safety to complete a brief prayer to Cain, lord of murder, before gathering his equipment. With knives sheathed and gun strapped across his back, Terrence put his hands to the wall and lifted his feet off the concrete, beginning the climb to Mr. Pound's second floor window.

Buck Pound, private detective, was trying to decide where it all went wrong. To be fair, it was probably a bad idea to start investigating the connection between Faust Pharms and organized crime in the first place. Any job involving organized crime was probably a bad idea. But he had been careful; nobody knew he was investigating the M trade at that point. No, his critical mistake, the one which might have cost him his life, was the part where he took proof of the money trail to a member of the ruthlessly efficient M cartel, and then started demanding hush money.

Now, Buck was tied to his chair with some kind of invisible rope. Blood ran down his nose, and from several scrapes and cuts all over his upper body, thanks to the fight he’d had right before getting all tied up.

‘Tell me where the file is.’

The words, written in red ink, seemed to float in the air several feet away from him. Their author, a man in a blank white mask, stared at him expectantly. He didn’t have a scratch on him.

“Go to hell.”

The masked man pulled a wad of $1 bills out of his pocket, bound together with a white band that had the words ‘BUCK POUND’S HUSH MONEY’ written on it. He made sure Mr. Pound had time to read that before shoving it all in the detective’s mouth. Then, he hefted an invisible hammer off the ground and swung at a knee.

Buck Pound’s screams didn’t travel very far. It’s amazing what a little bit of hush money can do.

Once the crying died down, Dorian pulled the money out of Buck’s mouth, then pointed to the floating words again, staring expectantly. He was rewarded with a stream of negative comments about his mother. For that, the man became reacquainted with his hush money, and found an invisible knife in his stomach.

Sigh. The mime turned around.There were a few photographs on that bookshelf; maybe one of them included some useful people to threaten? Kids, wife, family pet…?

Dorian’s back was turned for just a few seconds too many.

Clinging to the bricks around the window, Terrence peeked in and discovered that Mr. Pound had company. A closer look revealed that it was more appropriate to say Mr. Pound’s company had him. Terrence could not actually see any restraints, but the deluge of profanity pouring from Mr. Pound’s mouth suggested that he was not remaining seated of his own accord, and that his company was keeping him there by means unknown. The floating red letters were also a good clue.

Either providence was being especially kind to Terrence today, or Buck Pound really deserved what was coming to him. Possibly both. Yes, probably both.

Terrence pulled a blade from his coat and crawled into the office. The company was still staring at photographs of some of the women that Mr. Pound had cheated on Chastity with. Drawing his other knife, Terrence stalked up behind his prey. He laid a knife’s point on each side of Mr. Pound’s neck. The detective began spluttering and gagging on something that had presumably been shoved into his mouth, further evidence that providence was not the man’s friend. Terrence leaned closer to whisper in Buck’s ear. “Chastity sends her love, or lack of it. Don’t worry, your inheritance will go to a good cause. Not that you care.” There were two wet thuds and a spray of red. Messy, of course, but so worth it.

Dorian turned around, just in time to see Buck lying in a pool of his own blood. A pale man with solid black eyes and a knife was standing over him.

It took the mime a few seconds to comprehend what had just happened. When he did, he made one of the few sounds to express discontent that he could still manage without vocal chords.

“FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!”

He took his dry-erase marker and tapped on the invisible markerboard in front of Buck’s corpse. His earlier words were still there. Adding to them, he wrote: ‘You ruined my evening. I needed to take a file from him first.'

Terrence blinked. Because he was a little too distracted to remember that he should blink with his eyelids like a normal person would, this actually consisted of flicking his tongue briefly across each eye, but Terrence thought of it as blinking. “Oh. Terribly sorry about that.”

He began wiping his blades on a clean corner of Mr. Pound’s shirt. “Oh dear, this is quite awkward, isn’t it?” The shirt wasn’t actually clean, and looked as though it hadn’t been so for about a week, but there were patches that didn’t have blood on them. Until Terrence finished wiping off his knives. Then there was blood pretty much all over it. “Perhaps I could help you look? It’s no trouble, really.”

Terrence pulled open a few drawers in Mr. Pound’s desk and sifted through them, probing the edges for false walls. “It isn’t as though I have anywhere I need to be.”

Well… that was considerate of him. And it wasn’t like there was a code of conduct about assassinating people, or that being considerate was very high on a hitman’s list of priorities when he was trying to knock someone off.

Dorian sighed. ‘Look for anything about Faust Pharmaceuticals or the M Cartel. thx’

Then, with the hitman’s help, he proceeded to pull apart every drawer and bookshelf in Buck’s office. None of it had what he was looking for, and when they were done the entire office was a mess. Books, folders, files, papers, and pictures all strewn about the floor with overturned tables, chairs and bookshelves. Disemboweled drawers and their entrails sat in the middle of the office; they had been the duo’s first victims, dead man notwithstanding.

Dorian’s invisible markerboard already faded from existence. He conjured another one and wrote: ‘Thanks anyway. I’m Dorian, btw.’ He extended his hand, words seeming to float behind him. It felt kind of weird, spending that much time trashing an office with somebody without knowing their name.

Terrence took the offered hand. “Most of my contacts know me as Trog.” He looked back to the floating red letters, going over an earlier part of the conversation. Going over it several times, in fact. “You know, I’m a little curious about what connection there could possibly be between Faust Pharmaceuticals and M production. That said, of course, I’ve learned the virtue of not knowing certain things. Taught the lesson a few times myself, in fact.”

His black eyes drifted back to Mr. Pound's body, slumped over the desk and firmly wedged into the office chair. "Just a moment. It has occurred to me that there's one place we haven't looked." Terrence shoved the late Mr. Pound out of his seat, then broke out in a sharp toothed grin. Pressed into the chair's cushions was a large, crumpled envelope. "Sitting on it the whole time. How quaint."

Trog. Not the strangest codename he’d ever heard, honestly. Beat the hell out of “Sin” (unless it was spelled with a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i,’ like her last name). This ‘Trog’ guy sounded like he knew how to handle himself in the criminal underworld, anyway.

Maybe he should get his own codename. It might have been incredibly stupid of him to share his real first name with a contract killer he’d never met before.

Dorian snatched up the envelope, opened it, slid its contents out halfway so he could glance at them.

Well, damn. It was the very file he was looking for. If he wasn’t wearing a mask, Trog would have seen him smirking

’Got what I came for,’ he wrote. Can I meet you outside in the alley?

"Indeed." Terrence hopped onto the windowsill, using hands and feet to stick himself to the ledge. "It's been a pleasure doing business, Dorian." Then he crawled out onto the wall and began his climb down.

Several minutes later, Dorian rounded the corner into that alley. His mask was gone, he had a backpack with him, and he held a page from his notepad out for Terrence to read:

'We should leave.'

As if on cue, a column of flame erupted from the late private detective's office. Dorian blinked. He thought he would be at least a mile away by the time that happened.

Another note: 'Care for a drink?'

Red and orange light flickered over Terrence's eyes as he looked into the inferno. He smiled. "Very dramatic."

Terrence turned on his heel and felt the fire warming his back. "Well, if you'd like to join me there's a pub just down the street where we can celebrate. Unless you had somewhere else in mind."

Dramatic, yes, but it also made investigating the murder a lot trickier. If Dorian was very, very lucky, the investigators might even rule the gas explosion out as an accident.

Dorian shrugged, then nodded, as if to say 'I don't care, sure.' Pubs tended to carry a good stout or two.

The pub really was just around the corner. Terrence pushed his way into The Third Eye, passing under a carving in the doorframe befitting the bar's title. He stalked around booths smelling of wood varnish and leather upholstery toward the bar along the side wall.

The bartender scratches his balding head with one hand while another fidgets with his suspenders and the other four pour drinks. "Care to pick some poison?"

Terrence slides onto a stool and folds his hands on the bar. "Always a pleasure, Spider."

Noticing all of the visibly mutated patrons and staff, Dorian concluded that this pub was a rabidly anti-mutant establishment. As such, it would probably be wise to keep his ‘special’ talents hidden, so to avoid the hatred and oppression that genetics often earned people like him.

Dorian pulled out his dry-erase marker and began to write on an invisible board between him and the eight-armed bartender. He wrote backwards so Spider would be able to read it without anyone having to spin any giant invisible boards around, or Dorian having to turn his back to the spider-man. The ink, which seemingly floated in the air, read: ’1 pt. guinness please.’

The spider man raised an eyebrow. “Neat trick.” He poked at the floating letters with one hand, determining that they were written on something solid, yet invisible. “Huh.” While that was happening, his extra arms managed to pour Dorian his pint. The mime nodded graciously and took a sip. He might have said something similar about Spider, if he could talk.