“Who are you?” the man asked, absently picking at the dirt under one of his filthy fingernails. A moment passed and the man looked again at the dark-clothed stranger wearing a hat in front of him. “Well?”
With a vicious quickness, the stranger lashed out, severing the man’s life-giving blood vessels and tearing open his neck. The man fell, blood splattering and pooling around him. The pavement became wet where it approached the wall and the door. The man coughed, gurgled, coughed again. His death was violent and lasted several minutes. The stranger in the hat waited, stepping back to avoid the blood. His eyes remained trained on the door despite the chances of being seen. It was daylight, late afternoon. People all over the city were leaving work, running errands, going for their dinners. Still, the stranger in the hat waited, unconcerned.
Finally, the man died, all life and seemingly all blood leaving his body, and at last he was still, silent. A state he may have been in before, but would never evolve from again in all the ages of the universe.
“Dom Luis de Lagos is my name, and no man shall ever hear it alive.” The stranger took off his hat and gently placed it over the dead man’s face. With a silent nod, he stepped over the body and entered the door.
# # #