Guns and Shadows
{Tw;Guns, Knifes, Violence.}
The click of the hammer being drawn back was unmistakable. Cold iron pressed flush beneath Nole’s jaw, forcing his head to tilt just enough for his bicolored eyes to meet the man holding the weapon.
"You’ve got sticky fingers, half-blood."
Nole’s lips curled into a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. There was a bead of sweat forming at his temple—not from fear, but excitement. The threat. The closeness. The weight of potential death thrumming against his pulse. Gods, how he loved this game.
"Funny," he drawled, voice low and slick as oil, "you caught me with my hands full, not red."
The man's grip tightened on the trigger. Shadows flickered at Nole's feet, coiling like serpents beneath the hem of his coat. He didn’t move. Not yet. He could feel the sharp edge of steel in his boot, the small charge tucked in his belt, the familiar dance of escape and violence calling to him like a lover.
"You stole from me." The voice behind the gun was trembling now—not with anger, but restraint.
"Borrowed," Nole corrected, leaning slightly into the barrel. He only stole what was his first, but it was nearly copies of his work."I always meant to give back… what I didn’t blow up."
The man snarled and shoved the gun harder into his throat, cutting off the tail end of Nole’s smirk.
"You’ve got ten seconds to tell me where the rest is," the man barked. "Or I paint this wall with your pretty blood."
"Only ten?" Nole whispered. His smile returned—wider, wicked. "Then I guess you’d better start counting."
And in the shadows behind his back, something began to move.The man holding the gun began to count. "One."
Nole’s fingers twitched.
"Two."
Shadows surged.
"Three—"
With a snap of his fingers, the entire room dropped into darkness. Not the absence of light—but the presence of something else. Thick and slithering. Like oil given form, like nightmares that forgot they were dreams. The pistol went off with a flash of fire and sound, but it was too late.
Nole was gone.
The shadow surged upward from beneath the man’s feet and wrapped around his wrist, yanking his arm down hard—snap—his scream echoed sharply off stone walls. The gun clattered to the floor, kicked swiftly aside by a booted foot that emerged from the dark like a phantom’s kiss.Nole stepped out from the gloom, crouched low and with a blade now unsheathed, its curved edge gleaming in the residual gunflash glow. He looked up slowly, that shit-eating grin still painted across his face.
"You should’ve pulled the trigger on one, sweetheart."
The man stumbled back, clutching his broken arm, trying to scramble for the exit. But Nole was faster. He pounced—knife flashing—pressing the edge just beneath the man’s eye, tilting his head back by the jaw like a butcher inspecting livestock.
"Now..." Nole whispered, breath brushing the man’s ear, "you threatened to paint the wall with my blood. You’ll understand if I return the favor."
The man sobbed out a breath, caught between a prayer and a plea.
Nole hummed in delight. His blade didn’t pierce—but hovered, dancing lightly along the man’s jaw, trailing down his throat where sweat trickled in a silver line.His shadows were coiled, writhing, ready to consume on command.
"Tell me," Nole mused, "do you like green fire?"
Outside, the faintest flickers of that cursed hue began to glow through the cracked shutters.
"You've got three seconds to answer," Nole said, knife still caressing. "But this time? I don’t count slow.”The man whimpered, trembling beneath Nole’s weight, his legs kicking weakly against the floorboards.
The scent of piss began to sting the air—a coward’s mark. Nole leaned in closer, his mismatched eyes wide with delight, lips brushing against the man’s ear now as he spoke with slow, deliberate venom.
"Oh… sweetheart. Now you’ve gone and made a mess. Do you think piss makes the shadows go away?"
The man choked on his own breath, shaking his head.
"Good." Nole licked his lips. The knife never left his neck, always feather-light, always whispering of death.
He shoved the man down hard, chest to wood, the blade now sliding down between his shoulder blades."Thought you’d rob me?" Nole asked, voice a rasp now, darker—almost feral. "You tried to steal my designs. My tech. Do you even know what you touched? You little maggot..."
The man sobbed against the floorboards. Nole’s free hand found a wrench, rusted and heavy, and pressed it slowly against the man’s broken wrist.
“You think the pain in your arm is the worst of it?” he whispered. “No, no, no… this is where it gets fun.”
He brought the knife lower again, sliding under the belt of the man’s trousers—not to maim, not yet—but to threaten. A precise dance of dominance. A performance for an audience of shadows that hissed in approval, licking the edges of the room like an oncoming storm.
“You’re going to beg, and you’re going to tell me who hired you. Who gave you my blueprints. And if I like how you say it—maybe I let you limp out of here with only your pride in pieces.”The man gasped out, “I-I don’t know her name—she wore red, she had black gloves—please—she said—she said—”
CRACK.
The wrench came down hard on the floorboards beside his head—not to kill, but to remind.
"I said names, not fashion statements," Nole growled.
And just as his hand moved to strike again—
The door slammed open.
Clink stood there. Silhouetted in lamplight, grease on his knuckles, smoke clinging to his vest. He raised a brow.
‘You skinning rats again, Howey?’
Nole paused. Then, slowly, straightened. He looked back down at the shaking man, flicked the knife once more across his jaw just enough to draw blood.
"Looks like Daddy walked in before the climax,” he muttered, then grinned toward his uncle. “Want to help me make this one scream the truth?”
Clink just sighed and pulled out a smoke.
‘Only if we’re eating after.’
Clink leaned against the doorway, lighting his smoke with a match struck off the wall. The scent of sulfur drifted into the room. He exhaled and squinted at the scene before him—Nole straddling a half-conscious thief, blood pooling in small rivulets down the man’s shirt, wrench still warm from the blow.
‘Don’t make too much mess on my floorboards, kid. The stain from the last one never came out.’
Nole smirked, eyes alight. “Then it’ll be art.”
He crouched again, fingers lacing into the man’s blood-matted hair, jerking his head back to meet his mismatched stare. “You want to die pretty, or do you want to earn your death?”
The thief whimpered, lips cracked and trembling. “She—she never gave a name. Just said you’d pay—said you were a danger—”
“Everyone says I’m a danger,” Nole muttered, pressing the blade into the man’s cheek now, a slow drag that lifted a thin line of red. “Details. Voice. Height.Tattoos. Scars. Nail color. I want everything.”
“I don’t—!”
Bang!
The gunshot was deafening in the tight room. Clink didn’t flinch. The bullet hit the table just beside the man’s ear. A clean warning. The thief screamed now, openly sobbing.
“She had a burn! On her neck—looked like it ran under her collar—accent, Gilnean, maybe? She—she said you ruined something! She gave me gold, she gave me gold—!”
Nole tilted his head. Something cold flickered in his gaze.
“A burn?”
He pressed the knife into the man’s collarbone now, barely drawing blood, just letting the weight of the threat sink in. His voice dropped."She’ll come back. Or send someone else. But next time, they’ll be smarter. I need you alive, just long enough to bait her out.”
The man sobbed. “Please—I won’t tell anyone—I won’t breathe your name—”
Nole leaned in close again, his voice soft as velvet.
“Oh, darling. It’s not your lips I’m worried about. It’s hers. And I need them screaming.”
He stood, tossing the knife into the floorboard beside the thief’s head with a thunk. Clink stepped in now, kicking the man onto his back with one boot and looking down with a sneer.
‘Strip him. We’ll toss him in the pit. Let the sea rats nibble until she comes sniffing for her broken toy.’
Nole sighed as he wiped blood from his hands with a silken cloth. Bruse the hobgoblin came in, only to do as the masters command, to take the man who now freaked of urin.
“She’s going to regret not doing it herself.”
Clink raised a brow. ‘Oh?’
“Because now I get to choose what breaks first.”
Night had settled over the docks like a suffocating fog, thick and quiet, wrapping around the ships like a lover’s noose. Most of the crew had been dismissed for the night—those remaining were the loyal kind, or the kind too afraid to ask questions.
Nole stood shirtless beneath the oil lamp’s flicker in the storage hold, his shadow dancing long and tall across the walls as he carved sigils into the wooden floor with a sharpened awl. Sweat glistened on his collarbone, but his eyes were sharp—deadly focused.
The stolen gun lay disassembled beside him, its pieces rearranged with purposeful gaps, as if begging for someone unfamiliar to try and use it. Traps nestled beneath its grip. The barrel had a new surprise tucked into it—a compact charge of greenglass dust that would blind and blister anyone fool enough to pull the trigger.
He whistled as he worked, low and sweet, a tune that had no name—something his goblin uncle had hummed when building bombs meant to cripple, not kill.
“Let her think she’s clever,” Nole murmured to himself, placing the final glyph behind the crates. “Let her think I’m just another bleeding romantic with a vendetta and a fancy laugh.”
From the corner of the hold, shadows stirred. They slithered around his boots like stray cats, curling, watching.
“You'll tell me when she steps aboard, won’t you?” he asked softly. The shadows rippled as if answering.
The bait—the bleeding thief from before—lay chained near the back wall, blood smeared over his chest, wounds stitched just enough to keep him breathing. His eyes fluttered weakly open as Nole crouched beside him again, reaching into a pouch.
“Time for your close-up,” Nole whispered, carefully dabbing rouge into the man’s cheeks, false bruises painted with expert care along the jawline and collarbone. A torn shirt completed the picture.
“Wh-why…?” the man croaked.
Nole smiled with a slow, indulgent satisfaction. “You’re not a thief anymore. You’re a message. She’s coming to see the damage. Maybe finish the job. And when she steps within the circle—”
He snapped his fingers.
Shadows surged in reply, whispering against the walls in a tongue older than men.
“I’ll be watching.”
Nole stood and pulled on his coat slowly, carefully, each button closed like a ritual. His mismatched eyes gleamed in the dimness.
“Let her come with her rage, her regrets, and her fucking burn scars.”
He turned to the shadows, lips curling into a grin.
“She wanted a monster. She’ll get one. But she won’t get out.”