Mercy is not an emotion I feel.

I stalk through the smoky living room of the penthouse apartment, listening to the sound of the rain pattering against the windows over the low, pained groaning on the ground.

There’s a gun in my hand, one bullet left, and the blood spilled from the other five is on my hands, literally. It’s also staining my black clothes and running in thin streams on the tile floors. I loom over the carnage in the room like the Grim Reaper himself, my dark eyes scanning the bodies on the ground for signs of life.

Two of the men never made it out of their seats and lie slumped on the table. One got up to run, and his brains are splattered on the wall-length windows. The man who was coming out of the bathroom has his throat slashed open, slumped over the corpse of the one man who had been fast enough to draw his gun and try to shoot at me before I blasted his hand off and put a second bullet in his heart.

The doorman lies behind me, his one eye open and staring as blood runs out the knife-hole I put in the other eye.

A minute ago, the apartment had been full of some of the most powerful men in my corner of New York City, enjoying a pleasant evening with drinks and probably a little chatting about work. They were men who trusted me. Men who paid me. Men who relied on me.

And I just slaughtered them like the pigs they are.

Even as I approach the one survivor who is slumped against the wall, blood running from the shot in his gut, agony on his face, I feel no remorse. No regret.

The glassy look in his eyes tells me that his vision is getting blurry. Fear comes over his face as he realizes I’m approaching him, and I can see him fighting to stay awake.

“Y... you,” he struggles to say, disbelief in his voice. “Angel of Death.”

My title.

My six and a half feet of height looms over his form, clad in a matching black turtleneck, leather jacket, leather gloves, jeans, and shoes. My eyes that these very men have called blacker than a moonless night glare down at him.

“I... please,” he croaks, trying and failing to raise a hand to me.

I look at his meaty hand covering the hole in his stomach, hearing the disgusting squelch of blood as his hand twitches and he winces. He’ll bleed out in a matter of minutes without medical attention.

“Anything,” he says in a hoarse whisper. “Money... women... power?”

I simply move my head side to side, my face still as a statue.

They should know better than to bargain with me, after everything they’ve had me do, after knowing about every soul who has begged me for mercy in the past.

And they all begged for their lives more convincingly than these people.

The only question on my mind is whether to put him down now, or let him suffer.

At my silence, his lip quivers, and he gives his head a feeble shake before managing a final sentence.

“At least... tell me why.”

I raise my pistol, aiming it at his paunchy face, right between the dull, piggish eyes. My mind is made up. Not even the satisfaction of letting these pigs feel pain is worth leaving loose ends. My reputation is well-earned.

“No,” is the only word I give him before I pull the trigger, and a final silenced shot fires. I watch his body twitch for a second when the fresh hole appears in his head, and then, all is still.

As silently as I came in, the Angel of Death sweeps out of the building, not a soul spotting me in or out.

My sleek, black car tears down the highway like a shadow over the next four hours. Soon, the great glowing lights of New York City are shrinking behind me as I head northwest, upstate.

Streetlights flash by me overhead through the windshield. I catch a glimpse of the shining blood still on my leather gloves. At a gas station halfway through my journey, I take them off along with my jacket and seal them in a bag in the back of the car. I’ll dispose of them later, with the rest of these clothes. I have several outfits identical to it in a small suitcase in the trunk. I slip on a less intimidating red hat and big fishing glasses, and I go inside to buy a coffee and a little food with cash. I don’t want to be obvious to the cameras.

I wonder how long it will be before they come looking for me—either the police or the mafia.

I won’t be going back to New York City anytime soon. Maybe not ever.

Finally, hours after midnight, I get off the highway and am soon driving through the woods and poorly lit roads.

I pass a sign for Seneca Falls, a deer with one antler standing frozen beside it as my car blazes by. It’s a small, sleepy town south of Rochester, not the kind of place people bother to stop very often.

And it’s going to be my home for a while.

After a short time, I turn off onto a dirt road, and halfway to my destination, I pull the car to the side of the road and turn it off.

This will be the only night I can’t bring the car all the way down the road.

I will need to be stealthy just one more time tonight.

Even though I’m used to smooth streets, my footsteps are silent as I stalk down the gravel road for half a mile. There’s the faintest bit of moonlight to guide my way. I move through the woodland road like I was born on it.

Sometimes, I wonder if my nickname isn’t a coincidence. Maybe I am god’s own Angel of Death, visiting this world to bring the end to people whose time has come.

I’ve done my job efficiently all these years. So efficiently that even if I were an angel, I doubt that my massacre tonight could wash away my sins.

A crack of a smile comes across my dark face. Maybe this world is my hell.

Finally, I come to my goal at the end of the winding road.

It’s a big white farmhouse that looks like it might be abandoned. It’s old, but that just proves how sturdy it is. There’s a barn in the backyard that’s even more run-down than the house, and I can only guess it was turned into a shed years ago and forgotten.

I crouch down and move up to the house, low to the ground. There’s a light on in the kitchen, but that doesn’t tell me anything: it could mean the owner is awake, or it could mean he just left the lights on.

I slip up to what I imagine is the bedroom window, and I peer inside. There’s enough light coming from the hallway to show me the bed is empty. Carefully, I put my hands on the window and push up slowly.

It slides up.

Over the years, I’ve found “house call” jobs relatively easy. I’m amazed by how often people leave windows unlocked, forget to set alarms, or even forget to lock the front door at night. I’m surprised that this particular man has slipped up like that, but out here in the middle of nowhere, I can see how it’s easy to let your guard down.

My toned arms push me up through the window with ease, and I enter the room without a sound.

I look around and see a simple room with little decor. There is trash on the dresser, and I frown in disgust at the wads of tissue littering the floor. Apparently, this man has been living alone so long he doesn’t care to even clean up after jerking off. My brow knits in anger as I see pictures on the bed of girls far too young.

The sound of bubbling water down the hall gets my attention, and I hear the sound of someone moving in the kitchen.

I take out my gun.

Every step I take down the hall is silent, despite the old wooden floors. I stick close to the wall, where I’m less likely to make noise, and I know how to watch floorboards for signs that they might creak. Every step is measured, every move of my muscles is perfectly honed from years of experience.

I am a contract killer, a hunter of men, and I’m damn good at my job.

I take out a mirror from my pocket and use it to look around the corner into the kitchen. I see an old man with shoulder-length white hair around a massive bald patch hunched over the stove. A kettle is steaming in front of him, and he picks it up to start carefully pouring the hot water into a mug.

He looks frail enough that I wonder if the sight of me will just give him a heart attack.

Two steps into the kitchen, and I’m standing behind him, my gun aimed at his head. I open my mouth to tell him calmly to turn around.

Before I can get the first word out, the hot kettle flashes toward me as he slings it over his head.

My reflexes kick in.

I dodge the hot metal, sliding to the right, but the old man grunts and tries again on the upswing. I dodge backward. His brow his knit, and his eyes are cold and unfeeling. He knew I was there.

“You fucked up big time, you cock-sucker,” he growls, and he seizes a knife from the counter to lunge at me.

My hand is faster.

I seize him by the wrist, and I squeeze it until I hear the snapping of bone. He gives a cry of pain, but he brings his other fist up and catches me across the face.

There’s a lot more muscle behind the swing than I’d expect from someone his age.

I twist his wrist and wrench it behind his back, tired of toying with him. I kick the back of his knee and force him down over the stove, and I smell searing flesh through his scream as I press his face into the hot stovetop.

I pull him up and push him against a wall, pinning him, gun to the back of his head.

“You’re no fucking fed,” he growls.

“No, Geoffrey Mink,” I say, my deep voice even as if my heart rate hasn’t even picked up. “I am not.”

“Fuck,” he grunts. “You’re with the mob, then? They finally come to tie off loose ends? I was like you, you know.” He squirms in my grip, but he isn’t going anywhere. “A hitman. One day, it’ll be your ass on the chopping block.”

“Strike two,” I say with a smug smile. “I handed in my resignation to the mafia about four hours ago with the blood of the underboss and his capos in his penthouse. I’ll admit, you put up a little more fight than them.”

“Jesus Christ,” he gasped. “I’m not a big fish, kid, I don’t know why you’re fucking with me. Bosses didn’t tell you I’m retired?”

“Semi-retired,” I corrected him, twisting his broken wrist and making him croak in pain. I feel no remorse for the monster in my grip. He was a hitman for years, but his record is blotched with innocent blood. Murdered prostitutes, sexual assault on young women who came looking for shelter, senseless violence... this man’s long life is a crime against nature. “It’s not you I’m interested in, Mink. It’s your house.”

“The fuck?”

“You’ve been slipping up on payments,” I say. “This farmhouse was in foreclosure until I bought it three days ago. You’re standing in my new safe house.”

“When they find you,” he says, managing a dark chuckle, “they’re gonna skin you alive and feed you your own dick, kid.”

I squeeze his wrist and haul him around, pushing him toward the front door. “Move. I don’t want blood on my new floors.”

I march him out into the cold night, out the front door and into the yard of half-frozen grass.

Snow has started to fall gently over the house. It’ll be coating the ground by morning.

I force Mink to his knees, and he puts his hands behind his head as he looks down. There’s a world of bitterness in this horrible old man, but even I can tell by the way his hands are shaking that he’s afraid to face death after all he’s done.

“How the fuck did you even find me?” he asks, his voice starting to shake.

“Did my homework,” I grunt. “One of the dead men in New York was one of your last contacts. He was thinking about offering you a loan to save this house and keep you out of the way, quietly.

He lets out a rueful laugh at that. “Too little, too late. Figures.” He pauses for a moment. “I think I’ve heard of you. Some young killer who’s been making waves, and you fit the bill.”

I don’t answer, just staring at the back of his head down the barrel of my pistol.

“You’re the one they call the Angel of Death, aren’t you?” he asks, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper. I can tell by the movement of his ears that he’s grinning. “I’ll tell the devil you’re not far behind me.”

“Not without a jaw to say it,” I say, and I fire the silenced shot into the back of his head, sending the bullet through the base of his skull and out his jaw. Bloody teeth hit the grass before his lifeless body follows.

The snow will have covered the blood by morning.

Slipping my gloves back on, I pick up the pieces and the corpse itself, and I start dragging it around back.

His flesh is too foul for any animals that might come sniffing at him.

I wrap him up in a tarp and find a freezer to store him in within the house for now.

My refuge.

My safe house.

I pull the car up to the place, and look it over again in a new light—not as a hunter, but as a refugee.

If I’m going to survive this winter, with the mob and cops after me, I’ve got a lot of work to do.