The Collector

The gray November sky pressed down on Saint Volkov City like a lid on a coffin. Mikhail adjusted his tie in the reflection of a shop window, watching the blur of pedestrians behind him. They moved with hunched shoulders, eyes down, unaware of the invisible currents that truly governed their lives. The tie was silk, charcoal with a subtle herringbone pattern. A small luxury he allowed himself, despite its impracticality in his line of work.

He checked his watch—Swiss, mechanical, a knock-off that kept perfect time nonetheless. Ten minutes early. Exactly as intended.

The building before him was unremarkable: a five-story pre-war tenement with peeling paint and rusty fire escapes. The sort of place where dreams came to die slowly, one missed payment at a time. Apartment 3B had such a debt to settle.

Mikhail entered through the front door, ignoring the broken intercom. The lobby smelled of cabbage and cigarettes, the universal scent of desperation. He climbed the stairs methodically, each footfall deliberate and silent despite his polished leather shoes. His breathing remained steady, neither shallow nor deep. Just efficient, like everything else about him.

The hallway on the third floor had flickering fluorescent lights and warped floorboards that might creak if stepped on carelessly. Mikhail navigated them from memory, having studied the building's original blueprints the night before. Details mattered in his profession.

He knocked on 3B—three sharp raps that communicated authority without aggression.

"Who is it?" A man's voice, thin with tension.

"Delivery." Mikhail's voice was neutral, his accent deliberately muted.

A pause, then the sound of multiple locks disengaging. The door opened a crack, revealing a sliver of a face: bloodshot eyes, unshaven cheek, the sour smell of fear.

"Mr. Leonov." Mikhail didn't phrase it as a question. "I believe we have an appointment."

The door closed abruptly, followed by the sound of a chain being slid into place. Mikhail sighed inwardly. Always the same routine, the futile resistance. He removed a slim leather case from his inside pocket, selecting a tension wrench and hook pick. The lock was standard, offering only the illusion of security.

Fifteen seconds later, Mikhail was inside.

The apartment was cluttered but not filthy—the home of a man whose life was unraveling thread by thread rather than all at once. Dmitri Leonov stood in the center of his living room, a baseball bat hanging limply at his side. He was middle-aged, with the soft physique of a bureaucrat, wearing a stained undershirt and flannel pajama bottoms.

"You can't just come in here," Leonov said, his voice cracking. "I have rights."

Mikhail closed the door behind him. "Rights are a luxury, Mr. Leonov. Like time. Both can be purchased, but the price has gone up considerably." He straightened his cuffs. "Three missed payments. The Sokolov family has been patient."

"I need more time." Leonov's fingers flexed around the bat's handle, but there was no conviction in his grip. "Just until the end of the month. I have money coming."

"Everyone has money coming, Mr. Leonov. The Sokolovs only care about money that has arrived." Mikhail gestured to the bat. "You won't be needing that. It will only complicate matters."

Leonov's shoulders slumped. The bat lowered further. "You don't understand. If I pay now, my daughter won't—"

"Your daughter's medical treatments have already been factored into the payment schedule," Mikhail interrupted. "That was the arrangement. The interest reflects the accommodation."

Surprise flickered across Leonov's face, followed by a deeper shade of defeat. He hadn't expected Mikhail to know about his daughter. But knowing was Mikhail's job. Understanding weaknesses. Mapping pressure points.

"I don't have it all," Leonov whispered.

"How much?"

"Sixty percent."

Mikhail considered this. The standard protocol was clear—anything less than full payment required appropriate consequences. A finger, usually. Sometimes more, depending on the borrower's history. But enforcement wasn't about blind adherence to rules; it was about achieving results.

"Show me."

Leonov moved to a bookshelf, pulling down a hollowed-out copy of "Crime and Punishment." The irony wasn't lost on Mikhail, though his expression remained impassive. The man removed an envelope, hands trembling.

"Count it," Mikhail instructed.

As Leonov fumbled with the bills, Mikhail surveyed the apartment with clinical detachment. Family photos on the wall—wife deceased three years ago, daughter around ten, frail-looking. Medical textbooks stacked on a side table. Two bedrooms, one converted to a home office with outdated computer equipment. A careful inventory of leverageable assets.

"It's all here. Twenty-four thousand." Leonov held out the envelope.

Mikhail took it, verifying the amount with practiced efficiency. "And the remaining sixteen thousand?"

"I can't—" Leonov's voice broke. "Not until the end of month. Please."

In that moment, something shifted in the air. A subtle change in pressure, like the instant before a storm breaks. Mikhail felt it before he saw it—a prickling along his spine, a whisper of wrongness.

Leonov's eyes widened, pupils dilating. His breathing changed.

Mikhail stepped back just as Leonov lunged, the baseball bat forgotten on the floor. But the man's movements were wrong—too fluid, too precise. His hand slashed through the air where Mikhail's chest had been a moment before, fingernails suddenly elongated into claw-like protrusions.

"You think you're the only ones with power?" Leonov hissed, his voice overlaid with a grating harmonic. "The Sokolovs don't own everything."

Mikhail had been briefed about Contract users—enforcers encountered them occasionally—but had never faced one directly. The protocol was clear: disengage, report, allow specialized teams to handle the situation. Contract users were unpredictable, dangerous. Above his pay grade.

But disengagement required an exit, and Leonov now stood between Mikhail and the door.

Another slash, faster this time. Mikhail felt the air displace near his cheek as he pivoted away. This wasn't a street brawl or an intimidation beating. This was something else entirely. He reached inside his jacket, drawing a slender black baton that extended with a flick of his wrist.

"Final warning, Mr. Leonov. Stand down."

Leonov laughed, the sound like breaking glass. "My name isn't even Leonov." His skin rippled, as if something beneath it was trying to push through. "And when I'm done with you, your precious Sokolovs will understand they aren't the only predators in this city."

He attacked again, movements becoming less human with each second. Mikhail struck precisely, the baton connecting with Leonov's temple with mathematical accuracy. The blow would have incapacitated an ordinary man. Leonov merely staggered, then grinned with too many teeth.

Mikhail reassessed. The baton wouldn't suffice. He drew his pistol—a last resort for routine collections—and fired once.

The sound was deafening in the small apartment. Leonov jerked as the bullet struck his shoulder, but instead of blood, a viscous blue-black substance oozed from the wound.

"You'll have to do better," Leonov said, advancing again.

Mikhail fired twice more, center mass. Leonov stumbled but didn't fall. The thing that was no longer fully Leonov flexed its fingers, and the walls around them seemed to warp slightly, reality bending in ways that made Mikhail's eyes hurt.

Time to go. Mikhail feinted left, then dove right, rolling past his opponent toward the door. But Leonov was faster than expected, cutting off his escape with inhuman speed.

"The Sokolovs sent a lamb to the slaughter," Leonov taunted, his voice now barely recognizable as human. "How disappointing."

Mikhail's training hadn't prepared him for this. But it had taught him one universal truth: when outmatched, change the terrain. He fired his remaining rounds at the window, shattering the glass, then kicked over Leonov's cluttered side table to create momentary confusion.

In the chaos, he spotted a door—possibly a closet or bathroom—and lunged for it. Leonov's claws caught his suit jacket, tearing through expensive wool. Mikhail slipped free of the jacket and threw himself through the door, slamming it behind him.

A closet. Small, dark, and without an exit. Mikhail cursed silently as Leonov's weight crashed against the door. The wood began to splinter. Seconds remaining, at most.

As he pressed his back against the closet's rear wall, Mikhail's hand brushed against something cold and metallic. Turning, he found a small wall safe, partially concealed behind hanging clothes. An unexpected development.

The door frame cracked. No time for subtlety. Mikhail drew a small black device from his trouser pocket—an electronic lockpick reserved for higher-priority operations. Not standard equipment for a collector, but Mikhail believed in preparation.

As Leonov's claws splintered the door, Mikhail attached the device to the safe. Three seconds. Two.

The door exploded inward as the safe clicked open.

Time compressed. Mikhail registered several things simultaneously: Leonov's distorted face, no longer even attempting to appear human; the small golden card within the safe, inscribed with symbols that seemed to shift when viewed directly; and his own imminent death.

Acting on pure instinct, Mikhail grabbed the card just as Leonov's claws slashed down. Pain erupted across his chest, hot and immediate. The impact threw him back against the wall, darkness engulfing him as consciousness began to fade.

His last thought was an odd detachment—noticing how the blood spreading across his white shirt looked almost black in the dim light of the closet. Then nothing.

---

Mikhail woke to the smell of copper and dust.

He was still in the closet, slumped against the wall. No light came through the shattered door. Night had fallen.

He should be dead. The realization arrived with clinical clarity. Leonov's attack had been lethal—he remembered the sensation of claws tearing through muscle, the warmth of blood flowing freely. Yet as he cautiously explored his chest with careful fingers, he found only torn fabric. The skin beneath was intact, unmarked.

Impossible.

Mikhail's mind, methodical even in crisis, cataloged the facts. He'd been attacked. He'd been wounded. Now he wasn't. Hours had passed, judging by the darkness. And Leonov...

He peered through the broken door. The apartment was silent and still. No sign of his attacker. 

With practiced quietness, Mikhail extracted himself from the closet, eyes adjusting to the gloom. The apartment showed clear signs of struggle—overturned furniture, bullet holes in the walls, streaks of that strange blue-black substance on the floor. But no body. No Leonov.

His gun lay on the floor where he'd dropped it. Empty, but still valuable. Mikhail retrieved it, then noticed something else in his other hand. The card from the safe. He hadn't realized he was still clutching it.

In the dim light filtering through the windows from the street lamps outside, the card seemed ordinary at first glance—the size of a playing card, but made of some thin, rigid gold material. As he tilted it, symbols became visible on its surface, elegant script in no language Mikhail recognized. The longer he looked, the more the symbols seemed to move, rearranging themselves just beyond the edge of perception.

Something about the card felt wrong in a way Mikhail couldn't articulate—a heaviness beyond its physical weight, a subtle vibration against his skin. Protocol dictated that any unusual items encountered during collection should be reported and surrendered immediately.

Mikhail hesitated, an uncommon occurrence in his carefully ordered life.

The card might explain what had happened with Leonov. It might explain how Mikhail had survived what should have been a fatal injury. It might be valuable—not just monetarily, but as information. Knowledge was its own currency in the Sokolov organization, often worth more than cash.

But there was another consideration, one that surprised Mikhail with its intensity. The card felt... his. Not in the sense of ownership, but of belonging. As if it had been waiting for him.

An absurd notion. Mikhail didn't indulge in magical thinking. Everything had a logical explanation.

Yet he slipped the card into his trouser pocket instead of logging it as recovered property.

He conducted a quick but thorough search of the apartment. No sign of Leonov. The envelope with the twenty-four thousand was gone—either taken by Leonov or lost in the chaos. A significant problem. Collectors who returned empty-handed faced harsh consequences, regardless of circumstances.

As Mikhail prepared to leave, he noticed a framed photograph fallen on the floor, its glass cracked. It showed a smiling family—Leonov, a woman presumably his wife, and a young girl. They looked happy, normal. Nothing like the creature that had attacked him.

Mikhail placed the photo on a side table, an uncharacteristic gesture of... what? Respect? Acknowledgment of a life unraveled? He didn't examine the impulse too closely.

He straightened his torn shirt as best he could, wiped away blood—his own or Leonov's, he wasn't sure—and prepared his explanation for returning without payment. It would be a difficult conversation. Viktor Sokolov did not tolerate failure, even justified failure.

Stepping into the hallway, Mikhail noticed how the shadows seemed deeper than before, more substantial somehow. A trick of the poor lighting, nothing more. Yet as he walked toward the stairwell, he couldn't shake the feeling that the darkness was watching him, evaluating him. That it had expectations.

The card in his pocket felt heavier with each step, a small weight that somehow contained enormous gravity. Whatever had happened in that apartment had changed something fundamental, shifted some balance. Mikhail had entered as one person and was leaving as... someone slightly different. The contours of that difference remained to be discovered.

Outside, the night air was cold and clarifying. Saint Volkov City continued its business, indifferent to the aberrations in reality that had occurred in apartment 3B. Lights glowed in windows. Cars passed on wet streets. Life proceeded in its orderly chaos.

Mikhail walked toward the gleaming towers of the financial district, where the Sokolov headquarters awaited his report. With each step, the card pulsed gently against his leg, like a second heartbeat.

A small, unfamiliar thought formed in his mind: perhaps there were forces in the world beyond the control of even the Sokolovs. Perhaps there were powers that cared nothing for hierarchies and protocols and the careful order Mikhail had built his life upon.

He dismissed the thought. Such speculation was dangerous and unproductive. He was a collector. He had a job to do, explanations to make, consequences to face.

Yet as he walked through pools of streetlight and shadow, Mikhail couldn't help noticing how the darkness seemed to reach for him, how it felt almost welcoming. As if recognizing one of its own.