Miyako
Roma's Unholy Ghost
Aventino District
"RUN!"
That was the last thing Frank Albanesi's lifelong partner, Leo Tamaro, had managed to scream before being beaten down by a horrific creature. It only took one kick to hear that sickening sound of a man's skull breaking but that wasn't even the worst part. As soon as Leo fell to the floor, the thing just kept stomping on his head. Over and over again, scattering bits of brain and skull all around the room. Frank could swear he still had bits of Leo on his shirt as he turn and ran but he couldn't bring himself to check. Besides, there were bigger issues now.
"The fuck was that thing?" One of Frank's guys asked as he peaked through the wooden shutters to get a second story view of the street outside. He was holding up remarkably well despite what he had just witnessed, Frank thought. A few of the others boys were sick to the their stomachs once they found respite in a nearby safehouse. One of the men finally caught his breath and answered the first guy. "A fuckin' ghoul! .. a ghoul..." His voice trailed off, likely realizing the foreboding that came with that term.
A few of the other guys in the safehouse started to yell in a panic about that revelation but Frank put an end to that quickly by yelling the loudest. "Everyone shut up!" Now that he had the room back in control he had a moment to think of something rousing for his men. "Listen to me, we'll make sure that we get back at the fucking thing but right now we need to lay low. Think this through." Frank had no idea why they were suddenly attacked, especially by a ghoul of all things. Normally, the ghouls would just keep to themselves, outside of eating of course. And that thing was definitely not interesting in eating Leo so why did it attack? What could it want with a bunch of human thugs? Furthermore, this was one of the toughest he had ever seen. So why him? Why them? It didn't make sense.
Frank ran his aged hand through his greasy slicked back hair, sighing aloud as the continued his thoughts into the matter. "Well... Get some rest. I want a few of you on gua-..!" Before Frank had a chance to finish the wooden shutter and glass of the window suddenly exploded as a figure passed through the threshold and into the room. "Oh shi--Bluugh!" The man by the window began before a hand rocketed through his abdomen and out the other side. The other men in the room were trying to bring their guns to open up upon the figure but they were slow by comparison to their intruder.
The man by the window was flung from the figure and hit Frank dead center knocking him from his feet before crashing to the wooden floor. Gunshots rang out in this enclosed space but Frank couldn't see anything while pinned beneath his comrade. Each time the sound of a blood splattering or bone breaking, caused Frank to cringe at the sound until it became eerily silent. Then the soft thud of footsteps on the wooden floor were heard slowly approaching. Frank fought but struggled underneath of the dead weight of the other man as he desperately squirmed to get free. He stopped when he finally witnessed the assailant.
Despite being so deadly, the thing was rather short and thin, dressed in gray but the glittering in the light told Frank she was moist with blood. Of course the thing that caught his eyes were the unmistakable trademark of that thing's identity. Mostly black eyes for the red dilated pupil and iris. Frank spat in defiance as the creature stood there but it didn't react. Instead the moment of staring just went on for a moment longer before the creature finally crouched down to Frank's side. Again Frank tried to free himself but not to flee, this time he wanted to strangle the life out of that ghoul for all the death she brought upon his friends but found no room. When he gave up, the ghoul tilted her head slightly and reached up slowly to remove the bird mask disguising her face.
Once removed, Frank was shocked to see that the thing that killed a bunch of hardened criminals was no more than a lowly girl. "Wh-what... Wait. Wait!" Frank muttered before yelling as he watched the ghoul girl toss aside her mask give Frank a slight smile showing the slightest glimmer of her teeth. But Frank didn't manage to utter another word before the suddenly jumped with her mouth wide open and took a huge bite out of the man's cranium, crushing bone and scooping out brain. Frank screamed all the way until her third bite into the man's head.
With that, the last of the classic Sicilian Mafia had been snuffed out of Rome. They were too slow to embrace the changing dynamic of Rome and for that matter, the world. Ghouls were becoming the underground nowadays and while the Sicilian Mafia had just started building a rapport of contacts with other ghouls and even employing them as security, they didn't have enough.
To the victor went the spoils of their entire network. Although most of it useless to a ghoul, the Mafia was just starting up in ghoul affairs meaning there was some use to go after them.
---
Having gotten her fill, Miyako retreated to a quiet perch on a rooftop of a nearby neighborhood to watch the moon and the faint flicker activity in the city center. While it was a pretty view, she was also waiting for company. Many would call this man "Miyako's handler" and certainly the way the two have become associated one would believe that to be true. But she was in relatively good spirits now that she had a full belly as she watched and heard the chaos of her evening unfold not too far away. The entire Sicilian Mob murdered in one night. You think the police would be rejoiced to hear the news but Miyako could only imagine the distaste in the police's mouths would have seeing a number of half-eaten corpses. If there was one thing worse than organized crime, it was ghouls.