LotS/The Story/Playing with Fire (Part 1)/Intro

Benito Fiduccio's suit was burning.

Flames danced at the corners of his vision. They nibbled away at the blue jacket's pinstriped sleeves, blackening the expensive fabric. Flickering yellow tongues and the smell of singed hair streamed behind him as he ran.

"Boss! You're on fire!" Brasi exclaimed.

The ape-like bodyguard pulled away from his employer. A huge shoulder slammed against the wall on his left, scraped across it, and dislodged a series of valuable old Italian paintings. They crashed behind the sprinting trio.

"I know that, you goddamn moron!"

"But-"

"Shut up!"

"Benito-" Gina's voice was a husky gasp.

She moved away from him as well, her blue dress a quick splash of color on his right. Her stilettos made rapid, machinegun clicks on the hard wood floor. God, Fiduccio wondered, how could the bitch run in those things? The absurd, frivolous thought almost brought manic laughter to his lips. But it was hard to laugh, even manically, when you were on fire. Especially when you were being chased by...

"I said shut up, puttana!"

They raced down the corridor, Brasi's brawny shoulder bludgeoning the wall, Gina's sparkly shoes clicking, Fiduccio aflame. Weapons fire barked somewhere, the angry spitting-roar of bullets flying from barrels. Then there was screaming.

Brasi started to slow down. He looked towards a side passage, his big, chunky pistol clutched in his ham-like fist.

"Keep moving!" his boss said.

"But the boys-"

"Screw 'em!"

The doorway was just ahead -- a broad, tall oblong of salvation framed by gold-leaf Corinthian columns and a pediment of sculpted toga-clad gods brandishing Tommy guns. Gina darted out in front, her long legs eating up the space, leaving her male companions behind. She dashed through the entrance and disappeared.

"Minchia!" Benito meant to shout the word, but it emerged as a near breathless murmur.

Brasi, the big, dumb, loyal ape of a man, dropped behind his boss. Fiduccio plunged into the lofty chamber. His evaporating speed brought him up against the desk on the far side. He leaned there, his damp, sweat-slick hands pressed on the varnished surface. Great gasps of air filled his lungs. In front of him a glass wall looked out across the city nightscape, where a gaudy neon ocean blared beneath an ebon sky. Flames danced in the darkness, licking at his outline. But he ignored them. It was something else that drew his eye and mind, that made him shudder. The heavens were as black as...

In the murky, reflected depths, the bodyguard entered -- his burly body almost filling the doorway. Brasi slammed his palm against the security pad. A female voice trilled in recognition, and a thick metal blast door descended with a clang, shutting out the corridor.

Benito Fiduccio took a deep breath and calmed his lungs. He tried to still his mind as well, but that was harder. The blood, the screams, and the blackness flooded across his senses. So the fire remained, flickering in time with the beating of his heart.

"Benito!"

He turned. Gina was standing a few feet away, her face half-hidden behind a splash of chestnut hair. One eye and one corner of her mouth gawked at him. She had a fire extinguisher in her hands. Of course... Fiduccio hadn't done his own dirty work, used his gift, in years. These two hadn't seen his party tricks before.

"It's okay..."

"You're burning!"

The extinguisher's nozzle trembled in her hand.

"I said it's okay!"

He took another long, deep breath. Perhaps the girl's panic had lessened his own, because this time the flames began to subside. They diminished and dissipated, leaving blackened holes to mark their passage. Benito snatched the extinguisher from Gina's hands and placed it on the desk. She backpedaled, her eye still large and frightened.

"It's okay," he repeated.

Gina took another step backwards, and flinched. She kicked her shoes off, sending them bouncing across the floor, then stood on one leg like a blue flamingo and rubbed her ankle.

"What do we do now, boss?" Brasi asked.

"We sit tight. That panic button..." Benito nodded at the panel the bodyguard had activated. "...will let 'em know we're in trouble. And they'll-"

The sudden strain of orchestral music made them all jump. Brasi's arm came up, gripping the pistol. Gina's raised foot stamped against the floor just in time to stop her toppling over. A tiny lick of flame flickered on Fiduccio's arm.

Benito groped in his pocket and pulled his phone out. A jab from his thumb silenced the orchestra. He pressed the device to his ear.

"Benito Fiduccio?" a woman's voice asked.

"Yeah! I-"

"Listen very carefully... You're in danger. There are-"

"You frickin' moron! Why'd you think we pushed the goddamn panic button?"

"They're already there? Are you-"

"Goddamn it! Put your capo on the line! Send the enforcers! Get..."

Benito's brow furrowed as something occurred to him. He took the phone from his ear and stared at the display. Where the words 'Contella Emergency' should have been, there were two different words instead: 'Unknown Number'.

"Who the hell is this?"

"My name is Durlin-"

"I know you! You're that frickin' psycho-"

"Then you know the Consortium trusts me. Can you get somewhere safe?"

"We're behind a goddamn security door!"

"Good. Stay put until your backup arrives. How many Kalaxians are there?"

"Huh?"

"The people trying to kill you."

"One guy. There's one guy!"

"Just one?"

Images of lunging blackness and spraying blood danced before Fiduccio's eyes. 'Just' one? No...

"He's some kind of..."

A hard, heavy thud shuddered through the room. Brasi whirled round and trained his gun on the door. Gina turned this way and that, her chestnut hair whirling -- making her look like a spaced out club dancer.

"Here!" Benito said.

He scrambled behind his desk and reached underneath. His probing fingers grasped metal. It detached from the wood with a soft click. He tossed the object to Gina, who groped and fumbled before catching it against her breasts. Then she too aimed at the entrance.

"What's happening?" Durlin asked.

Fiduccio ignored her. He switched the phone to his left hand. The fingers of his right curled and uncurled.

"Benito!" Gina wailed.

"We're fine! That door was made to stop a frickin' rocket launcher! We-"

The second thud was quieter but sharper. And it left a small bulge in the middle of the shining metal, which bent the light at new angles and made Fiduccio's mind whirl with its sheer impossibility. How the hell...

Gina screamed. Brasi swore. A wave of warmth flowed across the boss' brain, down his neck, along his arm -- a strong yet not unpleasant burning sensation beneath his skin. It tingled through his hand, roasting his fingertips.

"Fiduccio!"

The voice on the phone, that link to a universe beyond this island of fear and craziness, was strangely comforting. But again Benito made no reply. For several moments there was silence. Two guns and a tingling hand were pointed at the door, three pairs of eyes stared at the little bump on its surface.

"Boss..." Brasi said. He didn't look round. The barrel of his cannon-like pistol remained trained and unwavering in his strong hands. "The cameras!"

It took a second for the bodyguard's meaning to reach Benito's inflamed mind. When it did, he cursed himself for not thinking of it first -- and Brasi for not mentioning it sooner.

Fiduccio put the phone down on the varnished wood and reached for the button hidden beneath the edge of the desk. His other hand stayed where it was, poised in the air, throbbing and trembling, fatigue and lactic acid seared away by the burning sensation which now flooded that limb from elbow to digits.

Light blossomed from a point on the dark wooden surface which seemed indistinguishable from any other. It widened and hardened into a series of holographic images, a neat grid of precise squares. Every room and passage in his home was displayed before him. His gaze homed in on the square at the bottom right corner of the arrangement. It was a bird's eye view of the space on the other side of the metal door, with the portal itself just out of sight beyond the bottom of the screen. Both of the corridor's walls and its wooden floor stretched away for several meters, their lines withdrawing towards one another like an artist's perspective study. Fiduccio exhaled.

"He ain't outside anymore!"

The sub-dermal blaze withdrew from his fingers and palm, leaving exhausted tissues in their wake. His right arm dropped from its ready position. He opened and closed his fingers, willing blood and comfort back in. Brasi's thick arms bent at the elbows, pointing his gun straight up at the ceiling, braced and ready to be aimed in any direction in an instant. Maybe he couldn't have multiplied two single-digit numbers, but when it came to fighting and shooting, the bodyguard was a professor. Gina's gun swung down by her side and shook there. Her free hand clawed at her hair, pulling it away from her face.

Benito Fiduccio scanned the rest of the images. The game room... A body sprawled on one of the pool tables, smiling up at the ceiling from a cut throat. Two more men were strewn on the floor, one's head twisted at a sickening angle -- it made Benito's own neck twinge in sympathy. The other's injuries were invisible. But the boss knew his spine was broken. He'd heard the snap...

It wasn't the only chamber tenanted by the newly dead. Here and there lifeless forms lay alone or with others. God... One man? One frickin' guy? Remembered slaughter splattered across his thoughts. Angelo had gone at the intruder with that laser-edged switchblade of his. The man in black had snatched it from his hand and put it in his heart. Then he'd slashed the others' throats.

The man in black...

Fiduccio's eyes darted from screen to screen. Then he exhaled again, stronger this time.

"He's gone!" A peal of crazed laughter tumbled out with the words. "The bastard's gone!"

Brasi's huge muscles seemed to deflate, and a dumb, happy grin opened his big ugly face. Moisture glistened at the corners of Gina's eyes. Her mouth softened into an expression of relieved disbelief that made her look like a schoolgirl. She crossed herself and started murmuring the words to a Hail Mary.

Benito snatched the phone up.

"We're safe. Now start talking! Who the hell was that guy? Who ordered the hit? Tell me, and I'll make 'em wish their whore mothers'd flushed 'em down the goddamn toilet!"

"They're-"

Her voice was lost amid the crash.

Shards of plate glass erupted from the armored window and rained into the room like gore from a wound. There was blackness amongst the sparkling storm. A shadowy shape hit the floor, rolled, and unfolded.

Gina opened her mouth to scream. But the hellish crack came first and silenced her. The man in black stood there -- eyes twin azure fires within a featureless mask, umbral hands on Gina's jaw and the back of her head. Her body dangled lifeless in his grasp.

Brasi's weapon barked. A chunk exploded from the wall behind where the man's head had been. Gina's corpse was on the floor now, blackness crouched over her blue dress like a horrific vulture. Something glinted in her killer's hand.

The bodyguard fired again. So did Benito Fiduccio. A yellow-orange column blazed from his hand in a long, raging stream -- flooding the air with roaring warmth. But both flame and bullet passed through empty space when the man in black rolled.

He pulled the trigger of Gina's gun as he rose. Brasi's splattered brains flew out of a gaping hole in the back of his head.

The black mask turned to Benito. Blue eyes flashed.

Fiduccio screamed. Flames gushed from both his hands now, a burning torrent. It swept across the room in a wide arc, devouring the air, rolling towards the man like an incendiary tsunami.

There was a blur of blackness. Pain exploded in Benito's left arm an instant before the snapping of bone reached his ear. A cry rose in his throat, but was crushed by a powerful grasp. Another seized his right wrist.

He stared into a smooth black mask and two terrible blue eyes. That visage filled his senses, driving away even the agony of the arm which dangled broken at his side. The man in black made a noise halfway between a sniff and a growl. His head twitched, like a dog sampling a scent.

"The connection is weak," he said. His voice... It echoed. Soft, strange, well-spoken tones were accompanied by something so fierce it made Fiduccio's stomach tremble. "You are of no consequence."

"Who... who'd you work for?" Benito rasped the words through his constricted throat. "We... we can..."

The grip on his wrist disappeared, as the man reached inside the boss' jacket.

Fiduccio's eyes widened. His arm was free... Warmth raced across his brain, an undulating wave of fire that surged down his uninjured limb, into his hand. It erupted in flame when he pressed it against the man's chest.

Black fabric charred and melted. An oily stench tingled in Benito's nose. But the man in black didn't even flinch. And pain ripped through Fiduccio's innards. He looked down, as his own knife, lifted from his pocket, tore fresh agony across his abdomen. The fire died around his arm.

His throat was released. Benito collapsed, and hit the floor hard. Blood poured from his ruined gut, seeping into his torn blue waistcoat and carrying his life away inch by inch. He stared up at the black terror, the creature of shadowy body and burning eye. The man's top was knitting itself back together where the fire had damaged it. The fabric was rebuilding itself thread by thread, like a spider's web coming to fruition. Before the gap sealed, the boss had a glimpse of what lay beneath. More blackness, but it was...

"Fiduccio..."

His phone lay beside him, its display veiled with blood.

The man in black picked it up. And if Benito Fiduccio could have spoken, he would have screamed a warning -- told Durlin to hang up. Don't talk to him... This man's the devil. And if you talk to the devil... But he could only manage a groan.

"Durlin, I think."

"Who is this?" the voice on the phone demanded. It reached Fiduccio as a faint, surreal whisper.

"My name is Noir. And soon I will come for you."

The phone clattered on the floor as Noir walked away. Benito Fiduccio's blood and life flowed around it.