The dark haired man pulled an antique straight razor out from an inside pocket of his jacket and stared at his reflection in its highly polished surface.

The rain splatted against the blade, hiding his face from him in a watery blur. “Things are going to get messy,” he mumbled to himself. No one would believe him when he told them why he had to kill. If he told them.

His quarry was a block and a half away now, hunkered down against the cold September rain beneath a decaying brownstone. The dark haired man felt sorry for him. In his stalking he had seen the man’s family. A wife and two daughters, a mistress that he clearly loved as much as he loved his wife and his Corvette.

The voices have never lied to him before, and they told him that this man at this time and this place must die to prevent the deaths of thousands.

The dark haired man saw himself as a warrior, an assassin doing work that others had no stomach for. He smiled as he approached the doomed man.

It was quick, and the man never saw him.