The Speedster was parked in the back alley in a lean-to made of pilfered boards and bricks, wallpapered on the outside with peeling advertising posters. Its oblong, fluctuating bulk served no other purpose than to keep Perun's vehicles out of the sight of passing civilians and monocled National Axis officers with an unhealthy curiosity in his business.

Unhealthy for them.

Not that any curious passers-by who opened the creaking door wouldn't have let it fall closed immediately and disappeared into the night at the sight of the sleek, black automobile with the platinum lightning bolt jagging down the centre of the radiator grill.

The lightning bolt graced everything from the tablecloths and matchbooks in his nightclub to the black and silver scarf Perun had knitted for himself and wrapped around his neck every year when the chill of another Slavic winter crept into the old, spired city.

There was no one alive – nor many of the dead – who wouldn't recognise it. Even if they wouldn't recognise the man himself.

Perun's knee-high black boots splashed through puddles between the flat-headed cobblestones of the alley. He was almost soaked through by the time they reached the lean-to. Kicking open the door, he opened the wide baggage hatch of the Speedster and unceremoniously dumped Krovak inside.

Once the body was arranged, the hatch shut and locked, Perun shook off what rain he could and got behind the wheel. The start button glowed amber around his finger as he pressed it down and the car roared into life, the four chrome super-charged pipes running from the engine to the bumper vibrating like a nervous virgin.

Perun reversed out of the lean-to and down the alley. At the end, he paused to check for Golems before hitting the accelerator and shooting out onto the road in a streak of black.

A quick change of gears and the Speedster shot forward, rocketing through the backstreets of the city, the reflections of street lamps and neon sweeping over its aerodynamic form in continuous, rapid caresses.

The streets of the newer part of the city were straight shots with few curves.

The Speedster zoomed, more or less unhindered, towards the northern banks where the Vltava river curved and headed east away from the city, and where Perun had a habit of dumping his victims. The elegant parks and formal gardens made for a striking contrast to the lifeless bodies, artfully arranged in pools of clotted blood.

It was visible, crass -- and yet with unmistakable panache. There was hardly a better dumping ground anywhere if a gangster wanted to advertise his skills and glean immediate, horrified public attention at the same time.

Perun glanced down at the clock set into the mahogany dashboard of the Speedster.

Four minutes past midnight.

Perun switched off the headlights.

Thunder rumbled more closely and the sky lit up for a second as lightning jumped behind the grey, hanging clouds.

Up ahead, Perun spotted the tail-end of a Golem Patrol floating past on an intersecting street, and his foot moved to hover over the brake pedal, ready to make a hairpin turn should the Golem's retractable eye swivel in his direction.

It didn't, and he sped through the intersection without being detected. Just another brief shadow in the rain.

What had been so complicated about Krovak's case that it had taken The Women so long?

He would have to ask the old one the next time she summoned him to her elegant, silent apartment for tea and a game of chess.

A handsome, young man like you isn't afraid of playing against an old woman? she'd asked, her thin, papery lips drawn up into a cat's smile the first time they'd met.

It would be my pleasure, he'd answered gallantly and with a small bow, not guessing what dramatic effect her closeness would have on him. That had been. . .he couldn't remember the year. It was as if he'd always known her, the memory of their first meetings hazy and frayed at the edges.

What he did remember was that the National Axis had put a nightly curfew into effect two years previously to dampen crime and insurrection, but it had only caused the underbelly of the city to squirm and rearrange itself. Established gangsters had done nothing more than move their business from the late hours of the night to the early hours of the morning. And seen surprising spikes in profit and efficiency that they jokingly praised the Axis for.

Now, every goon and assassin worth his salt was out the door at six on the dot when the curfew lifted, mixing in with labourers, secretaries and old men venturing out to buy bread on the cramped, overheated trams that rattled through the city. All the curfew had achieved was making the criminals indistinguishable from the rest of the citizenry, allowing them to go about their work under the blanket of legitimacy.

The National Axis -- so said the rumours -- was painfully aware of their mistake, but unwilling to publicly admit it, or to remove the curfew. Instead, they sharpened it and introduced the Golem Patrols.

The hated metal spheres with the extendible camera eyes ran hooked onto overhead tram lines, sending up showers of sparks and flickering the lights in nearby buildings whenever they hit an inconsistency in the cable.

Which was often.

As the Speedster approached the banks of the river, Perun turned the headlights back on again. There were no tramlines here and the rain would most likely keep the human patrols on more solid surfaces. He pulled as close to the entry of a garden as possible and parked under a listing tree.

Rain drummed steadily on the roof, and began spotting the windshield as the wipers had ceased to wipe them away. Perun leaned back against the headrest for a few moments, listening.

This place was pretty in the daytime, with the trees and the small, sandy islands dotting the wide river. Now, in the darkness, the only real sight to attract the eye was the illuminated walls of Vyšehrad, the castle crowning the hill overlooking the hydra of streets on the opposite side of the river.

Not only were the walls illuminated, but searchlights mounted in the castle's open courtyards scanned the sky in shades of yellow and red-- the National Axis colours-- brightening the cloud-clogged night sky and lending an unnatural glow to the world.

Perun reached under his seat and pulled out a blunt-nosed pistol with a textured grip. There was no lightning bolt engraved into the dull-grey metal casing. The pistol was a tool meant for business, not a status symbol. 

Stuffing it into his belt, Perun opened the door and stepped out into the rain.

Krovak was still unconscious, awkwardly curled up in the same position he'd been stowed in. Perun was considering how to best arrange the body on the sand when a rumbling sound attracted his attention. He slowly lowered the lid of the baggage hatch and peered into the semi-darkness. The sound came closer, now more a higher-pitched rattling than a rumbling.

Tank treads. Perun's face screwed up into a sour expression.

An all-terrain vehicle patrol.

Shit.

Perun backed away from the car, slipping behind the tree it was parked under. He watched as the patrol vehicle – a rust-red, four-door car body mounted on wide treads – appeared between the dark shapes of houses along the level of the street.

"Don't come down here," Perun whispered into the clammy bark of the tree. "Keep going. Patrol somewhere else, Tankheads."

The patrol car paid no attention to the warning, but turned slightly and rolled to a halt, shining its search beam through the spaces between houses, over chicken coops, tool sheds, and then down towards the river bank.

The beam stopped a good twenty metres away from the Speedster, and then swept back along the ground the way it came.

Perun waited, the rain beginning to soak through his shirt.

The beam returned. This time it was focused higher, and swept within only a few paces of the Speedster, before retreating again.

At that moment, a flash of lightning ripped across the sky, closely followed by a rolling clap of thunder so loud the whole city seemed to quake.

The search beam halted, then died as it was switched off. The clanking of tank treads resumed as the patrol vehicle moved on.

Perun looked up through the limbs of the tree at the sky. "Thank you, friend. Glad to know you're still with me, " he said, grinning up at the sky.

Another rumble of thunder answered. Rain came down much harder.

Storms might keep vehicle patrols with human drivers at bay, but not Golems. He had run out of time to make Krovak's murder elegant. Opening the baggage hatch, he reached in and pulled Krovak out by his jacket, ripping off a lapel and tearing the fabric of the sleeve away from the shoulder as he did.

It didn't matter.

Laying the limp body out on the sand, Perun considered his options. A bullet to the head had been recommended, but only for the sake of quick discovery. The report normally brought out neighbours, but that played no role in a storm like the one raging now. Next option: what would be the most stylish, but still quick?   

Perun looked up at the wet branches of the trees, and then down towards where the Vltava flowed past, deep and black. Up or down?

Even if he loved the rain, the river had always unsettled him. He enjoyed seeing it from afar, knowing it was there -- he even had a painting of it in his rooms -- but he never went too close to it, never strolled over the bridges and gazed down into its brown, murky depths.

The idea of wading in to drown and then artfully arrange Krovak's corpse in the shallows caused Perun's stomach to knot in distaste. He was already getting cold and the river would be even colder. Clammy, muddy and. . .

Thunder rumbled overhead.

No. A bullet was still the best option.

Perun pulled the pistol from his belt and placed it at the back of Krovak's skull.

Renewed rattling from the street, closer this time, caused Perun to hesitate. He threw a glance over his shoulder. The same patrol vehicle rolled back into view.

It turned on its search beam and began to sweep.

Too late for the bullet option. The last thing he wanted now was to attract attention to himself, or a corpse near his car, despite the noise of the storm. The patrol was too close.  

Cursing into the rain, Perun stuffed the gun back into his belt and grabbed Krovak by both the collar of his jacket and shirt below, dragging the limp body the fifteen paces down to the water's edge. Just before his own boots sunk into the shallows, he paused, a nauseating feeling of dread crawling up his back.

Throwing the feeling aside, Perun rolled Krovak over, holding his head down in the shallow water as he counted to one hundred. The body jerked and spasmed, but then quieted and lay unmoving, river water seeping into the fabric of his clothing, causing it to fan and bloat as if the escaping spirit was expanding out of the body.

Perun watched the beam from the patrol vehicle sweep the opposite side of the street, halting and swivelling, halting and swivelling.

Random, he realised. Pattern-less.

That meant: it was down to dumb luck if he or the Speedster were discovered -- or not. And dumb luck was for gamblers, for suckers like Krovak who believed it would smile on them if they only wanted it badly enough.

Perun was not a gambler. He believed in Fate. His own and the fate he dealt out in the form of his fists and dispatches like the one he'd just performed. If his fate was about to change for the worse, he didn't want to stick around and watch.

Without thinking, Perun pulled Krovak -- who was now surely dead -- farther out into the swirling, rain-pelted current until the body floated on its own. Then with a violent shove, Perun sent it as far out into the river as he could, only remembering at the last moment to rip off its shoes and throw them to the shore.

The river was now up to Perun's boot tops and lapping at his trousers. He looked back over the thin, sandy beach towards the street, but the patrol had gone. 

Or had it? You could never tell with the National Axis goons. Had he been discovered and it was merely waiting out of sight, ready to arrest him? 

An image of the old woman's enigmatic smile behind her steepled fingers flashed through his mind and he shivered.

For a second time, Perun considered his options. He looked around, first up the river at the lights of Vyšehrad and then down at the black, churning water.

A face was looking up at him, from just under the surface.

With a start, Perun jerked away from it, almost stumbling and falling into the water. Then he realised what he'd seen, and relaxed.

He looked down at the face and smiled.

The face smiled back.

He cocked his head to one side.

The face cocked itself to the same side.

It was just a trick of the darkness: a reflection of his own face, fleshed out with river debris and the distant illumination.

Perun shook his head at his own instinctual fear of the river, and looked back towards the street, attempting to spot a patrol vehicle hiding in the dripping shadows.

And that's when a pair of long, muscular arms reached up out of the water, wrapped themselves around his legs, and pulled him under.