Lilith set the table precisely, straightening out a dinner fork that was slightly askew. The last few rays of the sun filtered through the window, illuminating the small but smartly decorated dining room in the pale evening light. The heavy oak door creaked as it swung open, making the red haired girl spin around to see Atlas stomp the dirt off his boots, grey hair a mess from the harsh winter winds. "Welcome home father," she greeted with a smile, crossing the room to help him with his coat.

"Thank you, Lily my girl," he returned cordially, shrugging out of his jacket before immediately going to the dining room to inspect the table. The older man reached a hand out to run blunt fingers over the petal of a daphne flower that was arranged artfully in a vase, giving a hum of appreciation before sitting down at the head of the table. "Very good. You may sit."

"Thank you, father," she murmured softly, taking the seat to the left of Atlas. The freckled girl sat with her hands folded together and blue eyes downcast as she waited for him to try the food. He speared a piece of roasted goose breast and shoveled a chunk of it into his mouth with little ceremony.

"Delicious as always," he smacked loudly and Lilith relaxed visibly, reaching for her own fork and beginning to eat. "The Duke of Edessa asked for your hand in marriage," Atlas started conversationally, flicking his eyes up to look at her.

"Did he?" She answered, one corner of her mouth twitching up into a small smile. Her father did this a few times a month, telling her about all the different suitors that had asked after her and the reasons he'd turned them down. Lilith thought it was quite silly, but she played along anyways. "And what excuse did you have to refuse him?"

"I didn't give him one." Lilith had been reaching for a dinner roll but stopped just short, blinking and trying to figure out if she'd heard him correctly. Atlas took this opportunity to swat her hand away from the bread basket, giving her a pointed look. "You shouldn't eat those," her father scolded, adding, "They're bad for your figure. We can't have you getting fat before your wedding day. "

"Oh, you agreed," Lilith clarified, sitting back and bringing her hands back into her lap and clenching her apron. "Do you know what his mark is?"

"It's a mourning dove with a blue ribbon clutched in it's talons. Dreadfully effeminate thing, right on the back of his hand," he said dismissively, wiping at his beard with a napkin.

"So, not my soulmate then," Lilith answered, raising her head and looking up to meet him straight on for the first time all night. "Don't you think we should atleast look for him f--,"

"That's enough, Lilith," Atlas said lowly, his voice full of warning. "No one ever finds their match mark, you know that."

"Don't you think I should at least try though?" She pressed, her voice rising a little. "You've got such a large network of people that you do business with, I'm sure if we asked them to keep a look--"

"Enough." her father growled, throwing his napkin over his half eaten plate and pushing his chair away from the table in disgust. "Your filthy outburst has put me off my dinner. Do your chores and go up to your room. Don't eat anything else. Do you understand?"

"Yes father."

---

Later that night, after Lilith had gone up the stairs to her room in the attic, she lit a candle and carried it over to the window, running a hand down her simple white nightgown before sitting in the window seat. "I'm going to be married in the spring," she whispered, tracing a finger over the match mark on her wrist. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to find you."

"We might not be together, but I'll never not be thinking of you," the ginger said fondly, like she was talking to an old friend and not an empty room. "I'll keep the candle in the window for you, just like always. Be careful, fox," Lilith finished, setting the candle gently down in the window sill before getting up and crawling into her bed. Snuggled under a patchwork quilt here mother had made her, Lilith closed her eyes and tried her best to go to sleep.

Blue-grey eyes peered silently through the black metallic mask. The design was a simple one, light and thin, so not to slow the wearer at all, curved and pointed in the right places to easily conceal the identity hidden behind it. The man who the eyes belonged to was perched on the roof of a low building, surrounded by darkness, his dark clothes hiding him in the night as he clung to a chimney to keep himself from sliding down the sloped roof.

The eyes stared at a window about twenty metres away, only blinking when completely necessary, as though, if he were to blink he would miss something important. A little over an hour into his watching, what he had been waiting for came. The candle in the window, and the shadow that put it there. This was the fourth night he had observed the house, and the fourth night that the girl put the candle in that same window, at nearly the same time every night.

The Black Masked Man leaned forward slightly, readjusting his position. He counted silently in his head to one thousand, then let go of the chimney, sliding down the roof on his smooth-soled boots silently. He dropped to the ground, crouching on impact to lessen both the impulse from the ground, and the sound from the fall, before running from the alleyway he'd dropped into, across the street, towards the house with the candle in the window.

Silently, he followed the planned route he had checked every night since he began his watch, up some stacked barrels behind a house two doors down from the target's home, from there, he pulls himself onto the roof, and jumps to the next roof, then onto the target's roof, before lowering himself down to hang from the edge of the roof, next to her window. He hangs there for a few seconds in silence, looking into the room to ensure he can see no shapes moving, before he closes his eyes. The latch of the window raises, and the window opens a crack. The Masked Man opens his eyes, and gently pushes the window inward with his foot, hooking his heel over the windowsill and pulling himself in silently like a cat. He turns behind him as he enters the room, to push the window to, as to prevent the room becoming too cold. He is too slow however, and a chilled breeze rolls through the room, making the candle dance and flicker, before he closes the window quietly. He freezes, dropped into a crouch, dressed all in black, not breathing, not moving, not making a sound as he prays silently that the target does not stir...

Lilith was pulled from her slumber as an icy wind filled the room. 'I didn't think I opened the window,' she thought blearily, trying to blink the sleep from her eyes but not really succeeding. With a sigh, the girl rolled over and squinted over at the window. "Thank the Gods," Lilith sighed when she realized that it was closed. She began to close her eyes and started to shift a little so she could get comfortable enough to go back to sleep, but then the candle wavered, and her gaze was caught by something on the floor...

There were eyes staring back at her from beneath the windowsill.

Lilith sat up so fast she was overcome with a wave of vertigo, her heart hammering loud enough that she couldn't hear anything over the sound of it. The creature stared back at her, unearthly still and silent. Lilith started taking small, erratic breaths that did nothing to quell her fear and left her feeling light headed and dizzy. It was still dark enough in the room that she couldn't see what exactly was lurking in the darkness, but the seamstress' daughter was certain it must have sinister intentions.

Lilith flicked her gaze over to the bedroom door and then back towards the demon. Then she bolted, covers falling to the wayside as she dashed towards the door, opening her mouth in preparation for a scream...

The Masked Man moved with the grace of a cat, springing forward as the girl moved from the bed. She had the advantage of being closer to the door, but he had speed on his side, with his starting position being more favourable to launch himself into a lightfooted sprint, throwing himself into a skidded crouch, stopping in front of the door, crouched forward, on hand on the floor to steady himself, and the other hand hovering over his belt, which held two sharp daggers.

"Make a noise, and your father dies." He hisses through the mask in a hurried whisper, the tone making the 's' on 'dies' stretched out, as though he were a snake. He slowly rises to his feet, coming to his full height as he watches her carefully for any movement, his hand hovering gently over one of the daggers, his blue-grey eyes dark an unblinking. "Do you know who I am?" Again, he whispers the words, lowering his other hand to hover over the second hilt as he speaks. His movements are slow, but deliberate, like a predator stalking his prey, not wishing to spook it.

She was close to the door when the demon cut her off, moving so quietly that he didn't make a single sound as he crouched low in front of the room's exit. "Make a noise, and your father dies," the creature hissed, and Lilith closed her mouth so fast that her teeth clicked together audibly. The beast unfurled slowly and brought itself up to it's full height, and the girl realized for the first time that it wasn't a demon, but a man. He was tall and dressed all in ebony with his face covered in a mas--Lilith stopped breathing when she realized what she was dealing with.

The Black Mask

Fear seized her completely now, her chest rising and falling quicker as she began to understand the gravity of her circumstances. Lilith would have much preferred the stranger be an actual demon rather than one of those assassins, at least the she might have had a chance to reason with him. But no one escaped an encounter with The Black Mask alive.

"Do you know who I am?" The man asked, his voice low and rumbling as his hands hovered over the daggers on his belt.

"Everyone knows who you are," Lilith replied just as quietly, taking a tentative step back even though she knew it was useless. She was a mouse caught in a viper's coils. Only one outcome that awaited her now. "Will you tell me who sent you?" Lilith asked him, a feeling of dread settling in the pit of her stomach as he watched her every movement.

The masked man took a half step forward, his cold eyes analysing every movement she made, the little step back, the rise and fall of her chest, the wild look in her eyes, he recognised it all. Yet, it never lasted this long... The memory of Israfil's voice echoed in the back of his head, almost like a warning, Kill the girl. The father lives. He blinks, slowly, not afraid to stop watching her briefly any longer, satisfied she was caught in the trap now, that she couldn't escape.

"Names are a powerful thing... Miss Fairbanks..." He whispers after a few seconds, letting her request hang in the air in silence. "But they will not save you now, so your question is futile and pointless." He stretches out the 's's at the end of his sentences, like before. A contract is a contract... Not to be broken... Israfil's training still stuck deep within him, and he moves quickly, wrapping his hands around the hilts of the blades and drawing them, taking three quick steps forward, raising the right blade, lowering the left for a quick jab... But then, he hesitates.

Lilith shudders visibly as he whispers to her, closing her eyes against the low rumbling of his voice. It may have been a lovely sound, if weren't currently filling the room with such ominous words. 'I hope it's quick,' she thought to herself, opening her eyes in time to see the assassin advancing on her. The ginger girl had meant to accept her fate and stand to face her death with dignity, but seeing the dark figure closing in so quickly, his eyes boring into hers as he pulled both daggers free caused a new wave of fear to wash over her.

"Please, don't!" She pleaded, still barely above a whisper. Even with death eminent, Lilith still thought of her father asleep downstairs and didn't want any harm to come to him. In her panic the blue eyed girl threw both of her hands up, as if that would be able to ward him off. Belatedly, she realized that the sleeve of her nightgown had rolled back so her match mark was on diaplay. She jerked her hand back as quickly as possible and fisted her hand into the fabric of her nightgown.

Lilith didn't want this man to see the tiny fox. He was going to murder her, after all, and maybe her dad was going to die as well, but the redhead at least had a chance to keep one person safe. The girl thought of her fox, wherever he was, and how in the morning when he woke up his match mark would become pale and scarred over, his body's way of showing him his mate was dead. 'I'm sorry. Be safe, fox,' she prayed, her right hand still extended to try to keep the assassin at bay.

The Man in the black mask seemed to freeze and then move in slow motion, his eyes wide behind the mask as they pass over the mark on the girl's arm. He takes a step back, the graceful ease of his movements seemingly depleted. Keeping the daggers raises, he lets his eyes pass over her face slowly, his heart pounding in his chest, fighting against his ribcage for freedom, struggling to escape from the confusion inside his mind. 'It's her...'

The girl's father has displeased our client, Samael... Kill her to teach him a lesson.

Israfil's voice still echoed around his head, it almost felt as if he were briefing Sam now, not four days ago in some dark corner of a tavern. But right now, Samael could not bring himself to make the decision. This girl was a stranger, someone he had never met before, just like all the others that Issy had asked him to kill, and yet, she wasn't a stranger, in reality. 'You can't...'

A contract is a contract...

"No..." Sam blinks after the word passes through his lips, as though he weren't expecting himself to speak. The word had come naturally, not through his whispered hiss, used to disguise his voice. His eyes quickly recover and dart side to side, surveying the room again quickly. "No." He repeats, this time sounding a little more sure of himself. "You cannot die... Not tonight..." His voice is lowered again, not a hissed whisper, but not spoken properly.

Lilith waits, but the blow never comes.

The assassin takes a seemingly hesitant step back and remains motionless, his hands still poised to draw his weapons. "No," he says, and she draws her hand back to her chest, furrowing her eyebrows. "You cannot die... Not tonight...," the black clad man tells her, his voice's timbre changing into something much less sinister.

"Oh," Lilith breathes, taking another step back towards the window, to put even more distance between them. Was this some sort of trick? Why would he break in here if he wasn't going to kill her? "I thought that's the only sort of business your order dealt in," the ginger fretted, blue eyes darting across the room and looking for something she could use to get herself out of this situation. She didn't trust this man, not for a second.

Lilith takes a third step back and jumps when she bumps into the edge of her writing desk, the abrupt action causing the old bit of furniture to shake, liquid sloshing over the side of a forgotten teacup in the commotion. Lilith's eyes narrowed in on the tiny teacup as she snatched it up and hurled it at the intruder's face. Not waiting to see if the cup makes contact she bolts to the window, undoing the lock and throwing it open with little fumbling, despite the adrenaline now coursing through her veins.

Lilith climbs through it and hangs herself over the edge of the window, holding on to the windowsill with a white knuckle grip. The night chill is harsh and there is still about two meters between her and the brick alleyway below, but she's gone too far to give up now, so she steels herself for the impact and lets go. Her bare feet hit the ground first, but she loses her balance and falls hard on her butt. 'Get up, get up!' Lilith urges herself as she begins to scramble to her feet.

The teacup hits Samael square in the face, shattering upon impact with the metallic masks which protects him from the majority of the damage, but still dazes him. He staggers back, the dagger in his right hand dropping to the ground as he instinctively raises his dominant hand to check his face and rub his head until the daze clears. He shakes his head, clearing the blurriness around the edge of his vision with a violent snarl.

It takes him a further two seconds to realise the girl is gone. He growls low in his throat in anger, snatching up the dagger with had left a sharp groove cut out of the wooden floor. A cold breeze rolls across the room, making the candle flicker again, and his head snaps to the window, which is now wide open. He'd definitely closed it behind him.

Running to the window, Samael leans through it looking first up at the eaves of the house to makes sure she wasn't hanging there, then down at the ground, where he can see her getting to her feet. "Shit." He curses, and climbs onto the windowsill, he looks down at the candle flickering by his side and picks it up, throwing it at the bed. It lands on its side, and quickly the bedsheets catch, the flames licking across the bread, spreading like... well, like fire.

Satisfied that the fire would destroy any evidence of their struggle, he turns back to the open window and jumps through it, his arms outstretched. He feels wood under his fingertips and immediately tightens his grip, locking his hand around the windowledge of the house on the other side of the narrow road. His body follows his hands, and he crashes into the stone wall with a loud thud and a groan as all the wind is taken out of him. He hangs there for a couple of seconds to regain his breath, then drops to the ground carefully, crouching as he lands, turning in the air to face back towards the house he'd just left, smoke starting to spiral out of the open window.

Lilith finally gets to her feet and takes off towards the mouth of the alley, eyes darting around to see that no one was on the street at this time of night. ’Crap,’ she thinks, cursing her bad luck and turning in time to see her assailant leaping from her window and hitting the other wall with a hard thud. As he hangs there Lilith begins to realize that there is a small tendril of smoke escaping from her window and she has to stop herself from running over and banging on her father’s window. ’It’s just the candle. He’ll notice before the whole house catches fire.’ All she can think about is getting this man away from her father and the only sure fire way she knows how to do that is to get him to chase her.

The assassin falls into a crouch just as Lilith grabs a rock and pelts him with it, the pebble bouncing off his mask with a metallic clang. The blue eyed girl waits for him to turn and look at her before she rounds the corner and begins to flee down the main street, turning down another alley almost instantly. The girl had been living in Murkwell since she was ten years old and knew the streets like the back of her hand, so she thought she had a fairly decent shot at losing him in the labyrinth of alleys that ran throughout most of the city. The ginger had been at it for almost five minutes and was panting heavily, when she stepped on the remnants of a broken bottle and sliced her foot open. Wincing, Lilith stopped and fished it out before jogging slowly and turning down a backstreet with a dead-end. As the girl crouched down behind some empty crates and tried to silence her shuddering gasps, she hoped that she had been successful in her attempt to shake him and settled in to wait this whole thing out.

As the girl ran, Samael sighed and sprinted after her. When she turned down the first alleyway, he kept running straight, and jumped up onto the back of a stationary cart, before using it as a platform to jump onto the stack of crates beside it, then quickly pulling himself up onto the roof of the one storey building that the crates were stacked next to.

Samael ran along the roof's edge, watching her progress down the alleyway below him, his strides growing longer with each step, picking up pace until he threw himself onto the next roof, following her from rooftop to rooftop, using her stop to pull glass out of her foot as a chance to climb up onto the second storey of a building and follow her further.

When she stopped, he slowly leaned over the edge of the building he'd come to stop on, looking down into the dark alley below. He could make out her figure, pale against the dark and grime. And there, he waited in silence for her to make a move.

As Lilith waited, trying to catch her breath and listening for any sound of her purser, she lifted her foot and ran her fingers over the wound to try and better access the damage. The ginger hissed lowly, but ultimately decided that it wasn't really that bad. 'That's what I get for running through these backstreets barefoot. And in just my nightgown, no less. Father will be scandalized,' Lilith thought, huffing out a little chuckle, despite her questionable circumstances.

The chill of the winter night was almost unbearable now that she wasn't running and the young girl hand to bite the inside of her cheek hard to keep her teeth from clattering together. She began to shiver violently, running her hands up and down her upper arms to try and create her own heat. 'I'll catch my death out here if I stay like this much longer,' Lilith decides, so she pulls herself to her feet and hesitantly creeps out. It feels like it's at least a few minutes have gone by and she can hear a faint commotion from the other side of town where her house is located.

"Surely he's gone back, there are too many people out now," Lilith says quietly to reassure herself before walking back the way she came. Her step is slightly uneven, clearly favoring her left foot over her right one as she starts back towards her home and hopefully safety.

Swinging his legs over the edge of the building, then sliding over it, twisting his body to hang onto the rooftop by his fingertips, Samael carefully positioned himself above a set of windows, one on the first floor and one on the ground floor. He drops, his feet landing on the windowledge of the second storey window, his fingertips gripping the edge, before he leans back again, dropping to the first storey window, then onto the ground silently.

Samael walked quickly, his soft-soled boots making no sound on the ground with each step, the rustle of his clothes covered by the shouting voices in the distance over the commotion the fire was causing. He waits until he is behind the girl before drawing one of his blades with a soft creak of metal scratching over metal, and touching the tip to her back. "Do not move. Do not try to run again. I promise you, I can throw this blade with more accuracy than you could imagine, and faster than you could blink. I do not care if you do not believe me, I expect you to not be stupid enough to give me the chance to prove it." He twists the knife slightly, using it to poke her as if to prove a point. "There is a warehouse four streets west and a little south of here. You will walk there, in front of me. You will not feel the knife, and you will not see the knife, but know that I have it. If we see anyone, you will walk normally, keep your head down, and say nothing. Am I understood?"

Lilith hears the blade a millisecond before she feels the sharp tip of it pressed against her lower back and she knows she has lost again. She closes her eyes and swallows hard, trying to keep the first feelings of panic at bay, before raising her hands and holding them palm up in a classic, 'I surrender' gesture. The assassin snarls out threats, punctuating the warning with a twist of his blade and adding just a shade more pressure to show he means business. Lilith flinches at the sensation and tries her best not to shiver against the chilly night air.

"Yes, alright," she tells him, lowering her head and giving him a curt nod, still not able to see him from where he is behind her. "I understand," Lilith finishes, letting her hands drop and taking the first tentative step forward. She half expects the blow to come now but it never does, so she takes another step forward, leading them back to the main street. The pale girl turns toward the old textile warehouse, her arms crossed over her chest and chin tucked down to try and fight away the cold. They only pass one person on their tense journey and the man is too preoccupied with running towards her burning house to even give her a second glance.

Soon they've arrived and brick road has turned into a dirt one, so Lilith flexes her feet against it uneasily, small pebbles digging into the cut on the sole of her foot. The buzzing feeling of dread is back and she bites her lip to stop herself from whimpering, kicking herself for letting herself be led to her doom, like a lamb for slaughter. "Now what?" She asks the black figure, still unable to see him.

Looking side to side quickly, Samael twists the dagger around in his grip, so it's still pointed at the girl as he moves in front of her, raising his other hand to the door handle and holding it there for a few seconds. Nothing happens, then there's a click, and the door swings open. "In." He instructs, gesturing into the warehouse with the knife.

With a dark glare through the mask, the assassin leads the girl through the old warehouse. Dust hangs heavy in the air, and lines the surfaces and walls with a thick grime where it mixes with the damp. He leads her up some stairs to where the warehouse overseer's office would have been when the establishment was still in operation. In this room, there is no furniture that would suggest an office, or even a warehouse. There is a huddle of seven mattresses in one corner of the room, some old stools, and a few other assorted broken bits of furniture around the room. This room seems less dusty, though it is clear no one has been here in a long time.

Near the mattresses, there are a few sacks. Samael knows that within these sacks is an assortment of children's clothing in many different sizes. He remembered hiding out in this warehouse a few times in his youth, when he was still working for Mikhail. If he and some of the other boys were working in this part of the city, they'd stay here overnight rather than walk all the way back to their camp.

Sam picks up one of the few chairs that is still solid and turns it the right way up from its position lying on the floor. He puts it in the centre of the room, and points the knife from his captive to the chair, then levels it back at her, his muscles tensed, ready to spring like a coil held for too long. He already knew he could outrun this girl, and with the state her bare feet must be in by now, she'd be an idiot to try to run.

Lilith watches as the door unlocks without a key, which is curious, but she’s got other things to worry about at the moment. Like being led into a creepy old warehouse where she will almost certainly meet her demise at the hands of this black mask assassin. “In,” the stranger commands, his voice hard as he gestures towards the door with his dagger, the blade gleaming angrily in the moonlight. The pale girl doesn’t want to but she has little choice in the matter, so she gives him a brisk nod before crossing the threshold into the building. It’s so dark that Lilith can’t make out much at all and stumbles some as the man shepherds her up the stairs and into what looks like an office from the outside.

When they get there though, it looks more like a mass bedroom, the floor littered with ancient looking mattresses and other decrepit furniture. It reminds her a little of her home back in Semarta, where her and her mother share a mattress in the corner of the livening room. The masked man cuts her musings short when he rights a fallen chair and drags it to the middle of the room, before jerking his knife between her and the chair to signal that he wants her to sit. His movements are sudden and violent, all the grace from earlier in the evening nowhere to be found. ’I’ve made him mad,’ Lilith realizes as she walks over to the chair and sits down, the corners of her mouth quirking up a little despite her dire circumstances. ’Good. Serves him right for murdering people.’

“Why have you brought me all the way out here, Black Mask?” Lilith asks him, frustrated when she realizes that she has been avoiding looking directly at him. It was hard to ignore years of lectures that told her that it was inappropriate for a lady to look directly at a man unless directed, but the redhead forces herself to turn her gaze back towards him. “Why not just kill me back in my room, or in that alleyway?” she asks, her head tilting slightly as genuine curiosity colors her voice.