Faust

Proxy

          Mask on, I can taste the sweat sliding down the nose bridge and the last wearers' too. Sweat and blood with its sickening taste of acid after weeks on cheap wool.

         "Don't take too long boys. Поднимай шум. Сжигай его. Убирайся." Igor warns before getting off his seat and taking a knee behind the front seat.

Lights and lanterns are flashing to the far distant end of this road slower and slower through the back window on the door, until Alek made a left turn.

Fucking balaclava.....

I scratch my chin that's already sticking to the hair ball at the mask's torn edge before I pull the handle back to the end, lock the bolt tight before sticking in my pinkie to check the one in the chamber's resting right. Hell, this shit's probably cheaper than the colt 45 in holster.
I wouldn't be surprise if it doesn't shoot straight. But like he said, big motherfucks are good for first impressions.

Budimir passes a grenade to everyone including Igor. The canisters look suspiciously like the No.73 antiques Vel uses. If it's anything alike, the place would be cinders within two minutes. I thought while stuffing it in my pocket.
     
       The 10th Street lad switch off the safety of his piece, Har locks the first round in the carbine, Igor squints his eyes as the driver slows the car down.

       I lean the rifle by the bench and put my hands behind the driver's seat's headrest. Har snorts as me and Igor inevitably block out their view. The sound of the first slug getting pushed in rings by my ear but as I look back, the mute's still in a half-asleep posture hugging the sawed-off pump by his arm.

       Scouring the street on both sides of this narrow terrain with the combination of fire escape letters and concretes integrating with plastic canopy from trolleys resting in smaller branches of dead ends, used as garages by residents. And the second-floor windows are all barded and caged, even the tubes have padlocks on their lid. This place is the perfect presentation of the other side of Chinatown. Behind the stone lions climbing up the pillars of temples painted red like scabbed wounds and hundreds of them running circles around the inner rims. The unlucky ones hide in the alley, scrapping off what their grandparents survived on a different continent.

        Even then I bet they're still under the monthly subscription of the Qin's 'protection'. And on top of all, there's a bloody Opium den in the neighborhood. That joint pumps out scrawny junkies at a speed never seen before. The addicts won't be able to get their nerves up by anything else in this world. Ask me, I'd take an eight-part heroin hostel over a stroll in these places, least the residents are willing to have a conversation with you.

Another left turn, a lane disappears by the sidewalks as the path crooks into two vaguely drawn red lines and four-seaters and scooters parked loosely across the view. Squeezing the already confined path till its barely accessible but also made the three-story high grey apartment building stand out as it's the only place with lights still on, another reason is the black SUV in front of it is free of any obstacles within a three-meter radius. The lights were killed off, but the hand sticking out the driver's seat with a lit cigarette is telltale that the engine's still running.
***

"Igor."
"I'm not blind."
Head hinging forward in anticipation like everyone else, the Opium joint is in sight. Sitting on the right side of an alley of no light, but it's the autos which draw our attention.

"Don't kill the lights, we're already out. Keep the pace, take a spin around the block." Alek hums and complies. Igor hinges his chin down for the span of a thought and turns to me.
"Take position, your sight's better." Igor retreats to the bench full of wondering eyes and the driver snakes his hand down to pull the lever of passenger seat which falls back like a folding bed.