Birds of Prey (prologue)

by Nick Rolynd

They say that money makes the world go round.

“You can’t run forever, you know?”

And with some degree of confidence, I can attest to that.

“I can run for as long as I live, and that will be long enough.”

I have stood atop a hill and watched an empire rise on the back of money. I have also stood atop that same hill and watched that same empire fall, crushed under the weight of the money it so trusted.

“So you think you can escape then? Escape us?”

For most of my life, money has been the object of my desire. Not money for money’s sake–God forbid I ever become a real capitalist–but money to exchange for the little things. The little important things. The distractions. The ones that allow me to function in whatever semblance of a normal life I have in my spare time.

“I don’t need to think. I know.”

I kill people for a living.

“You really believe you’re that good, don’t you?”

And I’ll continue to do so until there is no evil left in the world.

“I don’t need beliefs. I have facts.”

It’s a vicious cycle, really. An evil man hires me to kill a worse man. A slightly less evil man hires me to kill the original evil man. And so on and so forth until I reach the desperate good guy who can’t conceive a better way to “kill off” his competition than to do so literally.

“God, you’re arrogant.”

But that’s the way world works when it’s run by money. My world, anyway.

“Not God, honey. And thank yours for that.”

But even this state of being is heaven compared to what used to be. Killing for profit is infinitely better than killing for nothing at all. Than killing by force. Without choice. Without a voice. Without free will. I kill for profit because people make money from doing what they do best.

“You’re not getting away from me again.”

And the profit I make from the thing I do best goes to funding the destruction of that which I hate most in the world.

“Well, you got one thing right. Too bad you have absolutely no idea why.”

That which taught me how to do what I do best.

“What?”

That which taught me how to kill.

“I’m not getting away from you again, Car, because you die today.”

That which made me what I am.

“Night–!”

I am the Nightingale.

And I am a Bird of Prey.