Nighthawks

---

Nighthawks

By Christopher Mitchell

Sam Hawthorne took another sip of lukewarm coffee and reminisced on a duller world. Fluorescent white lights buzzed overhead in tandem with the LED streetlamps outside, reflecting operating-room-white from every surface with a brilliance that stung the eyes and robbed the space of its vibrance. 

Sam hated those lights. He tried salvaging the coffee with a packet of sugar, hoping to make the cup of disappointment more bearable, and thought back to real diners with real warm lighting. The ones where people smoked cigarettes and waxed philosophic under 30-watt incandescence, so the nicotine stains and butter leavings remained inconspicuous as patrons smoked and ate and smoked and actually enjoyed their cup of steaming hot Joe. Real coffee, the kind served by a middle-aged waitress in glasses with rhinestones in the corners. Pouring mud that went down so hot and so smooth, it made you want to kiss her and save her from the positive pregnancy test fate had stuck her with all thee years ago. 

Sam stirred the sugar at the base of the cup, feeling its resistance against his spoon waning while listening to the kids in the booth behind him. He’d gotten a good look at them before he’d sat down and confirmed they weren’t his target. One had blue hair and the other was emaciated: not exactly the type of brutal assassins one imagines from a ruthless organization like The Faction. Sam found the scarred face of the Faction Elder further down the row as he’d sat down. He’d studied the bastard’s photo so long he could have pointed the Elder out in a lineup piss drunk, in the dark and blindfolded. Now, he sat and smiled at the conversation happening behind him.

They’d been chain smoking and talking since Sam had walked in the diner and still no food had hit their table. They just sipped their coffee and talked, so Sam did likewise and listened. They talked about the future ahead of them and what sort of difference they’d make in the world. How their band Mutant Pig was going to make it big and how thet would go platinum and then they’d tour and fuck their way across the globe with women of every shape, size, and color.

It was adorable. 

They were just two kids barely out of high school with big dreams and no future. He enjoyed their spark of youth. It reminded him of his own…

Once.

Dream big little ones, he thought and threw a twenty-dollar bill on the table, trailing his mark as they both made to exit the diner. 

Sam followed, stepping out into the cold November wind of Colorado Springs. The Village Inn sign blazed like a bright orange sun above him. It fought to ward off the brilliance of the harsh LED sterility splashing off loosely packed snow and lit the night like a second sun.

Traffic on Austin Bluffs was slowing, while it began to pick up just on the other side of Academy Boulevard. The momentum of the city was shifting, the day crowd retreating in the face of the emerging stalkers of the night.

Sam didn’t mind. He picked up a slight drag of his foot and stumbled a little, hoping the show would throw off his quarry, who currently fished around in their coat pocket for their keys. 

Sam withdrew his ten-grain and fired. 

Right into the back of the Elder’s skull.

He stowed the Primacy pistol and stood over the woman. The Faction Interrogator had tried to hide those tell-tale scars under a bad wig. Her blonde hair spilled from under fake brown like chocolate vanilla swirl. He’d never seen a woman elder before. Her scarred face made him shudder as he thought of her delicate features succumbing to the Faction’s torturous initiation rites.

“That was for Bolt, you Bitch.” He spit on the body. Blood seeped into the pristine white snow, just as Bolt’s had when this same Elder had cut her throat. 

Sam withdrew a small ring from his pocket, staring quickly at the small diamond at its center. If only he’d had two more weeks.

Ratchet, a name Sam would never be called again, dropped the ring at the Elder’s feet and evaporated into the shadows before the first scream came from rushing bystanders.

He heard his Primacy code name whispered on the wind one last time, spoken from the blood stained lips of the only woman he’d ever loved. 

THANKS FOR READING. Subscribe for more free stories from the Aether Universe!