Petro the Lackey

"Tonight, even the footsteps are asleep."

Enduring the pain, the young Petro cast a sound-dampening spell and silently sprang into the night streets.

It was a quiet night with no moon in sight.

With the collar of his black coat turned up to hide his mouth, Petro became one with the shadows and raced silently toward his destination along the rooftops.

With neither sound nor light to give him away, Petro would be difficult to spot even if the people reveling in Christmas cheer happened to look up at the roofs.

More than a year had passed since the declaration that the Shade Syndrome crisis that had plunged the world into chaos and despair was over. People still feared the night and the shadows.

Rather than expose themselves to the cold, terrifying darkness, they preferred to warm their hands by the fire in a brightly lit home and chat with those close to them over a hot meal.

Petro, who deliberately avoided people's eyes to race across the rooftops on such a Christmas night, was of course no normal person.

Petro was a runner for the local mafia, the "Rodriguez Family."

His father, a widower and hopeless drunk who had drowned himself in Nectar, owed money to the Rodriguez Family. That was where Petro's luck ran out...