Anduron bolted out of his chair. He heard Marcus hit the asphalt. He heard the echoes of the shots die out as they travelled up and down the block. He heard three men; two humans, one dwarf, speak in hurried voices.

“Yes, it’s him!” one said.

“That’s that, but he was leaving. We gotta do the elf too.”

“Well, since we’re here…”

Anduron snatched his fedora off the table and put it on as he strode over to the coat stand. His long coat was just the right shade of brown to attract no attention at all, and he now swept it around himself with a flourish. The killers afforded him an extra moment as they pulled on the downstairs door instead of pushing it, and he tied the coat belt in place.

“Right,” he said, as they made it inside.

He went over to the window, as the two humans went up the stairs, and pulled the blinds out of the way. He opened the window, then, as the killers went down the hallway with an air of knowing their destination, he swung his legs out.

The floor below his own was built oddly tall, but he had the precision and control to land on both feet without injuring anything. The dwarf was at work rolling Marcus’s body into a plastic tarp, a few steps away from the still-running car. He wore a many-pocketed jacket cut to fit his people’s proportions, as well as a slouch hat, and had his back turned.

Anduron started running. His rubber-soled shoes, Anduron’s favourite human innovation, bought him an extra moment before the dwarf noticed him. The man turned, revealing two beady eyes and the scarf that hid everything else.

“BOYS!” he shouted as he went for the gun in his belt. “HE’S HERE!”

Anduron leapt. Dwarves had notoriously sturdy skulls, but a flying knee right up into the nose was still a blast of pain that no one could ignore. The dwarf tumbled over and fell onto his back, and the pistol clattered off somewhere. Anduron didn’t give him a moment to recover, and punched straight down into his throat. That was another thing no one could ignore, and the dwarf started flopping and gasping like a fish on a riverbank.

Anduron snatched the scarf away for a quick look, then turned to the car. The driver’s side door was open, so he simply had to reach in to turn the engine off and pull the key out of the ignition. The struggling engine died with what sounded almost like a sigh of relief, and Anduron hurled the keychain off into the darkness.

Then, as the two humans hurried back down the stairs, Anduron started running again. The dwarf made a weak grab for Anduron’s ankle, staying true to his people’s stubborn spirit, but his body just wasn’t up to the task. Anduron gave Marcus’s half-wrapped body one look, then made it to the other side of the street.

The humble little office building stood by a T-intersection, and he’d done business there long enough to give thought to all the surrounding practicalities. He went down the less-illuminated side-street, running along a textile factory that was, of course, closed for the night.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Behind him the humans emerged, and one skidded to a halt. Anduron took it as his signal to shift to a quick, erratic zig-zag, and his instincts served him well. A shot rang out, sending another echo off the surrounding three and four-storeys, and Anduron half-heard, half-felt the horrid whizz of a bullet passing by.

After that, the evening darkness swallowed him up. Anduron had grown confident enough in his estimates of human eyesight to know that.

He kept going, sprinting with all his strength. Behind him the two humans spoke animatedly, and the dwarf added some croaking, choking curses. They didn’t follow further, more concerned with finding the car key, and the possibility of someone calling the police.

Anduron reached the end of the factory. It was an ugly box of red-brown bricks, but an infamous blaze in a workplace much like it some years back had led to new laws regarding fire escapes. Still, what company didn’t twist itself into knots to avoid paying more than it needed to? So the escape was a simple metal ladder on the outside of the building, tucked away in the alley between the factory and another office building.

Still, it was all Anduron needed for a rapid ascent. He managed to keep quiet, and within moments he was on the roof. Then he hurried back, as he listened to the three men look for the keys he’d thrown.

The roof stood well above the street lamps, so Anduron had no qualms about kneeling down at the edge and peering down at the scene.

They’d gotten Marcus’s body into the trunk. The only proof of the slaying was what blood had escaped the body in the meantime, and the dwarf’s heavy nosebleed actually provided a reasonable explanation for it, should a patrol car pass by. Still, there was the issue of the gunshots, and witnesses, and they knew it.

Still, they weren’t panicking, or losing themselves in blame-flinging or some other distraction. Between that and their indifference to what they’d just done, Anduron pegged them as seasoned hands.

“I’m going to kill him,” the dwarf grumbled as he searched, though speaking clearly caused him great pain. “I’m going to kill him. Found the damned thing. Slim!”

He rose, holding the keychain, and tossed it at a human Anduron now had a street-name for. He was indeed slim, and wore a felt coat that was cut to fit his figure. In place of a scarf he’d simply popped the collar to give his face some concealment. At this angle, the broad-brimmed hat gave his mug additional cover, and Anduron saw nothing of it.

“Damn job’s only half-done,” the dwarf went on as Slim got behind the wheel and the other two got into their seats.

“He’ll die tonight,” Slim assured his comrade. “The boss was going-”

The wretched engine being forced awake drowned out his next words. The other human was the last to close his door, but a half-open window allowed some sound to escape the chuddering wreck.

“We have to tell him,” the unnamed second human told the others. “Fast. First payphone we see.”

“Second or third!” the dwarf said, his voice now even more choked as he worked to pinch off his nosebleed. “Now make some distance and drive this nag, damn it.”

The nag did drive off, and picked up speed rather faster than Anduron would have expected. The car went down the street and took a turn, and soon joined the rest of the night-time traffic, like a splash of water joining a brook.

Anduron rose to his full height. He didn’t allow emotion in. Not now. He had a job to do, and a crisis to survive. Instead he worked to neatly file away all the details he’d picked up on, storing them in a mental case folder. They added up to little, but the first fistful of puzzle pieces always did.

There was a decent view up on the factory roof. He saw far and wide over this perverse forest of dead concrete and smoke. Somewhere within it, someone had given an order. He’d worried that Kenton would want him dead, but now someone needed him dead. Or at least thought they did.

He wondered if they knew they’d also given him a personal motive.

Anduron got going, and felt a cold, hard determination take root.