Two Faced Killer

Prologue: On the Streets of Paris

It was exactly twelve twenty-two that night, when the gunshot rang out through the streets of Paris, through the dank and dark, littered alleyway of what was at least on the outside a sparkling city filled with lovers.

Footsteps clacked and hushed whispers of affection and laughter passed by the alleyway where the shot was fired. A boy lay in the corner of the alley, breathing heavily and dipped in a pool of blood.

"That's what happens to careless geniuses," a voice whispered, the sound so hard and rough that it sounded as though it was being rubbed against the brick walls that surrounded the boy.

"Smart, but are you strong?" The voice chuckled, slowly walking up to the boy, one slow step after the other. The boy furrowed his brow, his face tied with an expression of despair and hopelessness.

"You may have gotten me," the boy coughed as the words spilled from his bloody lips. The man lifted him up slowly, a fistful of the young man's hair being used to stand the boy upright.

The boy staggered to his feet like a rag doll. His nostrils took in the smell of cigarettes and his heart beat with the sense of impeding doom. A streetlamp flickered on and off over the man, who grinned as he eyed the young boy murderously.

"What was that?" The man smiled, teeth glinting in the light, "You were saying?"

The boy coughed, getting his crimson fluids all over the man's white shirt.

"I may not be strong enough...," the boy whispered, a sickly smile carved into his visage as blood seeped from his forehead, splitting into two paths as it reached the bridge of his nose, "But the one who will come after you...to kill you...is like a fox. He is smart and agile, cunning and..."

The boy hacked out a few more coughs as the man landed a fist in his gut. The boy's buttery blond hair fell over his face as he laughed slowly. It was a hard-edged, rough laugh, just like the boy's wide grin.

"He will kill you," this was the last thing that was heard in the alley, the last sounds before another gunshot rang out, leaving a young soul hovering over the streets of Paris, lingering in the polluted air, just above the iron skeleton of the Eiffel Tower.

Elle est belle, non?