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"Damn you, Vilne," hethought, his mind seething with resentment. To be so close to the culminationof his work, only to have this meddler dictate terms—it was infuriating. Yet,he couldn't deny the thrill it added to the chase. The killer understood thestakes; the machine was the key, the nexus of past and future, where hisbrilliance would finally be recognized.
His fingers danced over the phone’skeypad with deceptive calmness, replying in curt agreement to the demand.Securing the device back into his pocket, he stepped forward from the shadows,the giddiness replaced by a cold resolve. Henry Walsh turned at the sound offootsteps, his face a mixture of excitement and caution—a moth blissfullyunaware of the flame it courted.
"Evening, Henry," thekiller greeted, voice smooth like gravel underfoot. "I trust you haven'tbeen waiting long."
"Long enough," Walshreplied, eyes darting around the deserted street. "This was your idea.”
Walsh nodded, seemingly satisfiedwith the answer.
Silence reclaimed the alleyway ashe stepped toward Henry Walsh, whose presence seemed almost trivial under theweight of the message just received.
"Risky business, meeting outhere where prying eyes could spot us," Henry said, scanning the gloomyexpanse of the backstreets.
"Risk is part of theallure," the killer replied, his voice a low hum in the cool air. "Doyou have it?" Henry's question came like the soft tick of aclock—innocuous yet laced with anticipation.
"Hidden, where only theshadows can whisper its secrets," was the enigmatic response. Henry seemedto accept this, nodding with an eagerness that bordered on impatience.
"Let's not linger then,"the killer suggested, leading the way. They moved together, two silhouettesagainst the dark tapestry of the London night.
The building loomed ahead, an oldpost office forsaken by time and progress. Its windows were soulless eyes,opaque with the grime of years neglected. Brickwork crumbled at the slightesttouch, like dry bones turning to dust. As they stepped through the threshold,the silence deepened—a void punctuated only by the faint scuttle of vermin inthe walls.
"Charming place," Henrycommented, his voice betraying a hint of unease as he took in the decay.
"Charm is in the eye of thebeholder," the killer mused, guiding Henry further into the bowels of theforsaken structure. The musty air hung thick with the scent of mildew andabandonment, embracing them with invisible, clammy fingers.
A broken counter loomed up ahead,once the heart of bustling transactions, now nothing more than a carcass ofwood and faded paint. Tattered posters clung to the walls, their messagesobscured by the relentless march of mildew and decay. Letters and packages laystrewn across the floor, undelivered missives that whispered of livesinterrupted, connections severed.
"Quite the spot forprivacy," Henry remarked, a nervous chuckle escaping his lips as hesurveyed the desolate interior.
"Privacy," the killerechoed softly, his gaze lingering on the fractured glass that littered theground, reflecting the scant light like fallen stars. "An increasinglyrare commodity."
They ventured deeper, the airgrowing colder, as if the very spirit of the building disapproved of theirintrusion. Shadows danced along the peripheries of their vision, cast by thefeeble illumination of the moon spilling through the breaches in the architecture.
"Almost there," thekiller assured Henry, his voice barely above a whisper. The sense of isolationwas palpable, a living entity within these walls that had seen too much andspoken too little. Here, amid the forgotten remnants of the past, the killerfelt a kinship—a shared understanding of being unseen, unappreciated,disconnected in the modern world.
Henry's voice quivered with a mixof anticipation and trepidation. "Where is the Tempus Engine?" herasped, his eyes scanning the dilapidated corners of the old post office, as ifexpecting the relic to emerge from the shadows.
The killer, cloaked in the darknessthat clung to the walls like a second skin, offered no response. Instead, aslight tilt of the head—a predator acknowledging the final plea of itsprey—preceded action. In one fluid motion that belied a chilling grace, thekiller turned on Henry, the glint of a blade catching the moonlight for a mereheartbeat before it sliced through the air.
There was a soft, wet sound,scarcely louder than a sigh. Henry's eyes widened, shock and realizationdawning together in a silent scream as his hands flew instinctively to histhroat. Crimson bloomed across his fingers, a stark contrast against the pallorof his flesh. His knees buckled. He crumpled to the floor, a puppet severedfrom its strings.
The killer watched dispassionatelyas the life ebbed from Henry's body, the pool of blood seeping into the cracksof the worn floorboards. There was neither satisfaction nor remorse in thosecold, calculating eyes—only the acknowledgment of a task completed.
Swiftly, the killer stooped to dragthe body, the sound of it scraping against the ground a harsh lullaby echoingthrough the hollow space. The corpse was positioned with an almost reverentcare at an old postage weighing machine, the antique iron creaking under theunexpected burden.
A note was produced, its edgescrisp in the killer's gloved hand. It was placed deliberately on the scales, amacabre balance between life's worth and words meant for another. The messagefor Finn Wright was simple, yet it carried the weight of a challenge, one thatwould draw him deeper into this deadly game.
"Like a nocturnal spy, returnback home to the FBI," it beckoned, though ink and paper could not conveythe taunting lilt that colored the killer's thoughts.
Retreating from the scene, thekiller melted back into the night. With each step away from the old postoffice, the hope grew: hope that this kill, this message, would be the lastrequired performance before Max Vilne upheld his end of the bargain. The killervanished into the labyrinthine heart of London, leaving behind a fresh riddleetched in blood and shadow for Finn to unravel.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Finn's sleep was a restless theaterof shadows, the elusive figure of Max Vilne flitting through the crowd in hisdreams, always just beyond reach. His head throbbed with the echo of the recentblow, and the line between reality and illusion had been smudged.
The sharp rapping at his doorstartled him into wakefulness, his heart lurching in his chest as if trying toescape the unease that clung to his subconscious. Groggy, he peeled himselffrom the tangled sheets, limbs heavy with a reluctance born from the disquietof his dream.
Stumbling across the coldfloorboards, Finn reached the window and thrust it open. The brisk night airstung his cheeks, pulling him further from the remnants of sleep. Below, Ameliastood, her silhouette etched by the silver glow of the moon, her eyes reflectingan urgency that knotted Finn’s stomach.
