I'd slept for a few hours when I awoke drenched in sweat and screaming. After that, I didn't even bother trying to sleep again. I threw back the curtains and let the daylight in, turned on all the lights in the flat, and took a cold shower. Still, I couldn't shake the creepy feeling that something was there, something was watching me.

  I ate and ate again, stuffing my stomach full of cheap noodles and eggs, which made me feel slightly better. My body was healing surprisingly quickly, and I was starting to move like I wasn’t a 70-year-old geriatric. I marvelled at the novelty of not being in agonising pain from head to toe. After I dressed, I sat down, staring at the space under my bed. I felt it call to me. Urging me to reach under the bed, to open it, to read it. My hands quivered. I tore my eyes away and instead busied myself with restocking my armaments.

  I spent the entire morning carving more Bang Rocks and experimenting with the Zap Rock idea. But no matter how hard I concentrated, or how well I carved the Runes, the little clay balls just couldn’t hold any charge. It wasn’t like the Bang Rocks, that seemed to be filled with potential energy to explode. The Shock Rune needed a constant supply of energy to work. Plus, I don’t think clay is a particularly good conductor. I spent hours carving and crafting dozens and dozens of Bang Rocks until I finally ran out of pellets, and I had a small mountain in front of me. I put them in two separate cardboard boxes and set them to one side. The repetitive, almost mindless work, helped still the cold ache of fear in my chest. When I finished I immediately sought another task to complete, luckily I wasn’t short of things to do. I looked at my battered gloves and sighed. I began with renewing the copper plates on them, checking the Magnet Runes on the nickel discs, and then I set about sewing the wrist strap back onto the main glove. There was little I could do about the melted plastic. The glove was pretty deformed at this point but I couldn’t afford new ones.

  Once I'd done that, I still felt restless, so I turned to my leather jacket and began to sew the cuts and stab holes closed, before grabbing the overflowing laundry basket of bloodied and soiled clothes and threw them into the washing machine. I stood there in a daze, for maybe 10 or 20 minutes, just watching the machine go round and round, watching the water turning red. I snapped myself out of the trance and began feverishly cleaning the kitchen, hoovering the living room, and dusting everywhere, carefully avoiding looking up at Grandad's picture as I did. I then hoovered the rest of the flat, avoiding Grandad's room, and hung my clothes out to dry, tutting as I noticed all the slices and stab wounds in my jumpers. I set about stitching those closed again as well. I worked tirelessly, keeping my mind as empty as possible, almost disassociating completely, just letting my body go on autopilot while I disappeared.

  Before I knew it, the sun was setting again, and now it was time for my actual life to begin. I could feel the excitement building in my chest, like a dog on a leash knowing it had arrived at the park. I was beginning to dislike the daylight hours, they were just preventing me from carrying out my purpose. I suited up, loaded my pockets with Bang Rocks, pulled on my gloves, and strapped Grandad's bat to my back. Finally, I picked up my balaclava. There were specks of red all over it, and I wasn't sure if it was all my own blood. I took a deep breath, pulled it up to my head, and then pulled it down my face. It felt natural; it felt right. I pulled my black hood over my head, pushed open the window, and disappeared into the night, ready to terrorise the Syndicate dealers all over the Estate.

  I found my first group a little after 10 pm. They had set up outside a row of shops, and it was pretty amateurish. They hadn't protected their lines of sight, they had their backs to a dark alleyway, and they were dealing out in the open. I shook my head and rolled my eyes, before stealing down the fire escape. Strategy wasn't needed for these amateurs. I was on them before they knew what was happening. Zap Knucks to the neck of the first one. Grapple Cord around the legs of the bag runner, tripping him up and trapping him on the floor. A well-aimed Bang Rock to the side of the head of the other to send him sprawling to the ground. And it was all over that quickly.

  The bag runner clawed at the floor, trying to flee from me as I stalked towards him. I pinned him to the floor with my knee in his lower back. I punched him three, four, five times until he stopped moving. I tore the rucksack from his shoulder and then fished through his pockets for the cash, and then I was gone. The entire encounter lasted less than a minute. I swiftly made my way back to my own rooftop, stashed the bag in a corner behind the electric box on a rooftop, and then I was back out into the night to hunt again.

  The next group was a bit more organised. There were four of them running the typical strategy I'd seen before: one lookout, one bag man, one to take the cash, and one to hold the weapon. The weapon holder was the one I needed to take down first. They were posted up by the stream that ran through the Mulberry Estate, which was little more than a turgid puddle of water at this time of year. It was brown and slow-flowing, with upturned shopping trolleys and dead vermin floating in it. While their setup was more professional, their execution was lacking, as if they had been instructed on what to do but not actually shown how to do it. They still messed around and bothered members of the public as they walked by. One of them was even sitting there playing on a handheld game console. They didn't stand a chance.

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  I took the weapon carrier down from across the riverbank, shooting him between the shoulder blades with a Bang Rock. He was blown off his feet, his face ending up buried in the mud of the riverbank. His companion leapt in fright and I took him down with a Bang Rock to the chest. Man I was getting good with the Wrist Rocket. I ghosted through the shadows of the river bank towards the others. The one playing the games console saw me, his eyes widened, and he took off running. I let him go, it was the cash handler I wanted.

  He thought he was a bit of a tough guy. He was taller than me but skinny and pale, as if he had never had a proper meal in his entire life. He pulled a flick knife out and waved it in front of him, trying to ward me off. I advanced steadily on him, watching the motion of the knife, but he just kept slashing it backwards and forwards with no real skill or determination to do harm. I snapped out one of my palms, activating the Magnet Rune and stuck the blade to my palm, yanking it from his hand. As I pulled the blade, he stumbled forward, and I caught him with an uppercut with my free fist, frying him as I did, and dropping him to the floor.

  I unstuck the blade and threw it in the river before quickly patting down his pockets while he groaned and weakly fought against me. I found two wads of cash on him and stuffed them into my own pockets. Then I stepped over him to the bag man, who was coughing and spluttering on the floor, holding his chest as rolled in the mud. I yanked the bag off of him and gave him a kick for good measure. I threw the bag over my shoulder, and I was off into the night again. This was getting too easy.

  I hit up two more street crews before I ran into any real trouble. Those two crews, again, were amateurs. They were nothing more than teenagers, and they gave up pretty quickly. The first crew tried to put up a fight while the second dropped their bag and ran as soon as they saw me. But the fifth gang of the night was the same gang I had seen in the playground when I'd followed the car back to the organisation's headquarters in the industrial estate. These four definitely weren't runners; they were older and hardened and had probably been on the streets for over a decade at this point. They weren't about to be run off their patch by anybody.

  I watched them carefully. There were two more members with them today. One was a gaunt man who kept spitting on the floor and had his hand buried in his jacket the entire time, his paranoid eyes flicking around him. I assumed he was also one of the enforcers. Today, they also had a young woman with them. She had a shaved head that seemed to have been dyed pink at some point, as I could see flecks of the colour still on her scalp. She had a nose ring and a particularly nasty leer. I didn't think she'd offer much physical harm, but she could definitely be a nuisance. I didn't know how I felt about beating up a girl, even if she was a Syndicate member.

  If I could scare them off, I would, but I had a feeling that wouldn't work. They were still in the same playground I'd seen them in the night before, and I watched them carefully, understanding the pattern of their movements and their eye lines until I was confident that I could take down at least two of them before engaging the rest.

  The first to go down was the cash handler. He was the furthest away, and experience had taught me he was the most vulnerable of the group. I took him down from across the street, hitting him in the back of the neck with a Bang Rock, blowing him off his feet, and then stealing across the street to zap him into silence. I quickly tapped down his pockets and took the cash out, stuffing it into my overloaded pockets. Then I made my way around the park, sticking to the shadows, trying to get behind the main enforcer. He had a shaved head, two gold hoop earrings, and wore a long, camel-coloured jacket. He was big and looked like he was all muscle and menace. I definitely needed to take him out without engaging.

  I stood in the darkness on the other side of the railings to the play park, loaded up my Wrist Rocket with a Bang Rock, pulled it back, and aimed carefully. It was going to be a tough shot; the jungle gym stood between us, and there was a lattice of metal work in front of him. I took a deep, steadying breath and then fired. I thought my shot was true, but my angle was slightly off, and I clipped one of the bars behind him. The Bang Rock went off, and the goon threw himself to one side.

  "What was that?" the gaunt one said, turning around, a small sword appearing in his hand.

  The main goon with the bald head jumped back to his feet, and he too had a machete in his hand. Now they both looked into the darkness, and I ducked down, but it was too late.

  "It's him! It's him! It's that fucking mage!" the bald-headed leader cried out, pointing his sword at me. "Kill him!"

  Well, I guess we’re done being subtle…