Masquerade, Prologue

Prologue

         Ethan ran, shoving his way through a crowd of warmly dressed people, clutching the strap of his gym bag thrown over one shoulder.  His breath came in ragged gasps.  His eyes were wide and stricken with the fear that was coursing through his veins.  Those he pushed aside cursed and protested, but remained heedless of his plight, oblivious to the fact that he was being chased.
  Pushing his way through the crowd of people, Ethan barreled out into a Chinese street parade and ran past performers dressed in colorful garb and samurai armor.  The crowd gathered on the other side of the street saw him coming and cleared a path, allowing him to slip through to the storefronts behind.
  If he could just get into one of the old, rock buildings that lined the street, perhaps he would be safe.
  Ethan rushed for the door that his path through the crowd had led him to and rebounded off its locked front.  Looking around with frantic eyes, he tried to see what his options were and felt like he did not have many left.  His brain did not want to operate properly and refused to grant him access to its higher functions, reducing him to fight or flight as his only course of action.
  Chased from his apartment and three city blocks, Ethan had never been more thankful to be in shape.  His entire body was shaking, but he felt primed to run further.  When he saw the skull face in the crowd approaching, he was only too happy to oblige his body’s unspoken desire.
  Biting back a cry, he ran back into the crowd, knocking people off their feet.
  A long Chinese dragon, manned by a dozen people, had snaked its way up the street.  Its large, shaggy red head was at the edge of the crowd and the man inside it staggered and cursed when Ethan threw himself atop it.  He used the dragonhead as a springboard and leapt to the awning over the storefront from which he had come.  People in the crowd cried out in dismay, not knowing if what they were seeing was a part of the parade or not.
  Ethan scrambled along the cloth awning to the buildings rock face where he began to climb up to the roof.  His fingers and the toes of his booted feet found easy purchase, propelling him up the rock face and over the roof’s edge.
  Feeling triumphant, he shot a quick glance down into the street as he felt a cocky grin begin to split his sharp birdlike features.  The handful of people in the crowd below who had taken notice of him were looking up and pointing.  Only, they were not pointing at him.
  With dread tickling its way up his spine, his eyes went from the people below to the tree in front of him.  Lining either side of Olympus Street were giant elms trees that had stood for over fifty years.  Their highest branches dwarfed the old, rock buildings and climbing up the nearest elm was the skull-faced thing Ethan was running from.
  Unable to stifle the cry that tore its way out of his mouth, Ethan turned from the sight of the black and red clad thing that was clawing its way up.  As he ran the length of the rooftop, he heard the rustle of branches as the creature leapt out of the tree after him.  Ethan’s pulse hammered loudly in his ears.  His arms and legs pumped like pistons trying to carry him as far as able from the creature that pursued him, but he realized too late that he was coming to the roof’s edge.
  Where would he go from there?  He could not stop, if he did, that thing would get him.
  No, he had to keep going.
  With renewed vigor, he ran for all he was worth to the roof’s edge and threw himself out into open air.  The wind rushed past his face as he soared over the street below in a graceful arc that brought him down onto the next building.  He landed in a roll and came up crouched on his knees with his gym bag clutched to his chest.
  Euphoric at having made the leap fanned the fire of courage and he twisted to look back the way he had come.  His eyes widened at the sight and he felt the warmth of his courage trickle down his leg.
  Skulking slowly across the rooftop as if it knew it would eventually catch up to Ethan, the skull-faced thing asked aloud, “Do you plan on running all night?”
  Its voice was low and carried a growl of repressed rage.  Ethan knew the reasons for the creature’s ire; he just did not want to face them.  As his brain struggled to rationalize the events taking place, he thought perhaps it was a vengeful spirit summoned by someone he had recently wronged.  With the long line of people who would have motive to pull off such a stunt, the theory was entirely plausible.
  Ethan’s hands worked furiously at the zipper of his gym bag, his very nerves worked against him.
  He needed to give himself time to get into the bag.  If he could just get to the gun within, he could stop running.  All he needed was a moment’s time.
  In a shaking voice that cracked when he first tried to use it, Ethan asked of the creature, “Who are you supposed to be?  An angel of death?”
  Unable to look directly at it, Ethan continued to fumble with his gym bag, while out of the corner of his eye he followed the creature’s movement.
  It moved like a man, swaggering forward on two legs.  The intense dark eyes that floated in the sockets of its exposed skull shone with malicious intent as it replied.
  “You can call me Masquerade.”
  The name made him look.  His eyes rocketed in their sockets, forcing his head to swivel.  He made it no further than the creature’s face.  For the split second he was able to look past the creature’s hate-filled eyes, he was able to add definition to the skull that had chased him.  The sockets in which the eyes floated were deep and black.  The nose, though bone white, was fully formed.  The jaw was the only remaining part of the skull that retained any flesh and there was even a day’s worth of stubble on it.  Trailing behind the skull was a mane of long black hair that snapped in the autumn breeze.
  It was so absurd he wished he had not looked.
  With the gym bag finally open, he found what he was looking for.  The black, thick cotton fabric he extracted revealed an antique pistol.  The sight of it bolstered his courage anew and he ground his teeth together as he pulled the black fabric over his head.
  “Hm,” he said, tugging the ski mask into place.  Having his gun within reach brought with it a touch of his normal, cocky demeanor.  Most people, when having viewed a gun like it, would feel anything but cocky.  Its sight normally drew sneers and contempt, upturned noses, due to the imagery it invoked.  The common weapon for the Nazis in World War Two slid easily into Ethan’s practiced hand when he reached for it.  Extracting it, he leveled it in the air at Masquerade and sighted down his arm.
  “Then you can call me Luger.”
  He squeezed off two shots and what he saw dive for cover made anger and unforgivable embarrassment wash over him.  It was no demonic creature, clawed its way here on some mission of vengeance.
  It was a man.
  A man in a costume had chased him a mile and a half from his home.  Ethan had nearly killed himself trying to get away from someone in an elaborate black and red costume, the costume’s very nature taking Ethan’s fears in it’s teeth and twisting them to make him think it was punishment come due in person.  The embarrassment he felt at realizing all of this overtook him and he glared at the heating and cooling unit the elaborately clad man had taken cover behind.
  Unbelievable.  He had run from a man in a costume.  All of the terrible things, Ethan had done, things he had been arrested for, things he had gotten away with and he ran from a man in a costume.
  The embarrassment borne berating of himself came to an abrupt end when Masquerade posed a question that floated on the breeze and snapped Ethan to attention.
  “Is that the gun you used to kill Rose Robbins?”
  His mouth falling open behind his ski mask, Ethan slowly lowered his weapon.
  Of all the things he had done, including murder, he had run from a man in a costume.  The one man that could pin him for the murder of Rose Robbins.
  “Nijel?”