INSIDIOUS ASSASSINS

by Jack Ketchum

  Each member of the sect followed the same strict code of ethics—a code that was as legendary among those in the ubitsa underworld as the clan itself. The “Kredo Krovi” consisted of a series of secret commandments that clan members were forbidden from violating, lest they bring shame upon their entire sect and tarnish the reputation of fidelity and unfaltering success their forefathers had established centuries before. The creed itself was memorized verbatim by each Hishnik, and an inability to recite any or all of its tenets on command invariably resulted in severe punishment (which might include anything from flagellation to waterboarding). To actually break any of the commandments would automatically condemn the offending Hishnik to death. Only once in the clan’s history did a Hishnik break one of the Kredo Krovi’s commandments. An assassin named Nestor Travkin defaulted on a contract in 1897 and was subsequently castrated and forced to devour his own sautéed genitals before being drawn and quartered. A fellow Hishnik promptly completed Travkin’s unfinished contract, thus keeping the sect’s unblemished track record intact. Assassins and contractors alike from around the world knew without question that anybody the Hishniki were contracted to eliminate would die one way or another. The clan’s reputation spoke for itself.

  The end of the Hishniki clan’s dominance in the ubitsa underworld came abruptly during Ogrifina’s twenty-first year. She returned to the Hishniki hive after having successfully completed a difficult contract to eliminate a legendary assassin known as Rezchik Trup—“The Corpse Carver.” He was known to collect different body parts from each of his victims, which he would subsequently plastinate and assemble into grotesque statues of discrepant anatomy for his own personal collection of macabre art. Ogrifina approached the hive’s secret entrance hatch (which was indistinguishable from countless other strange metallic objects jutting from the area’s uninhabited landscape), eager to share with her father the harrowing details of her completion of this contract. Rezchik Trup had nearly escaped when a powerful gust of wind caused her arbalest’s arrow to strike a wall mere millimeters above her target’s forehead, alerting the doomed man, who scrambled to his feet and attempted to take flight. Her second broadhead’s aim was true, however, and he collapsed like a broken marionette. But it was immediately evident to Ogrifina, as she entered the hive, that something was horribly wrong.

  The entry hatch itself had been wrenched from its hinges, and a faint trail of smoke rose from the uncovered opening. She rushed down the ladder leading into the hive’s main entry corridor and gasped at the sight she beheld. Strewn about the floor in every direction were the smoldering remains of her Hishniki brethren, burnt to near unrecognition and stacked in blackened piles. Frantically, Ogrifina rushed to her father’s quarters. There she found the charred remains of Vasily Voronin, his still-smoldering left hand reaching for his beloved Kalashnikov RPK. She reached down to cradle his head, searing her hands against his sizzling flesh but refusing to let go. A war had indubitably been waged in the Hishniki hive—the only home Ogrifina Voronina had ever known—and not a single survivor had been left in its wake. She was now the sole remaining member of her clan.

  There was no question who, in one fell swoop, had eliminated the entire sect: Kliment Fakel (“The Torch”) Krasnomyrdin, a former Hishnik himself who’d been trained alongside Vasily Voronin. He’d gone rogue after years of clashing over what he considered to be the sect’s antiquated bureaucracy. Krasnomyrdin alone, familiar as he was with the clan’s subterranean hive, could’ve overridden its security systems and penetrated its walls. Most damning of all, he’d left behind his calling card in the form of the flames themselves, which continued to burn dimly around Ogrifina as she sat on the blackened carpet, cradling the head of her dead father in her lap.

  She’d been trained her whole life to purge herself of emotions, which only hinder one in the field when the success of any given contract—and the weight of the Hishniki legacy—is on the line. She’d learned not to smile as a child; not to speak unless necessary; not to cry when she fell and scraped her knees; not to feel anger, jealousy, or envy when a fellow Hishnik-in-training bested her in tests of skill; not to harbor love for human life; not to grow attached to worldly possessions or pleasures. All the training she’d undergone to suppress her emotions was not enough to prevent her from weeping that night as she sat there surrounded by the carbonized remains of her fallen comrades. She remembered her father’s words: “Hishniki do not cry, sol’nishka, nor are we moved by the tears of others.” And yet Ogrifina wept that night until she could weep no more.

  She knew where to go. They had drilled hive-breaching scenarios—what to do in the event of the hive being compromised or annihilated entirely—countless times before. Yet the weight of what had befallen her clan made it physically difficult for Ogrifina to move. When she finally mustered the will to rise and disembark, she moved in a detached, enervated manner. In later years, she couldn’t even recall collecting the few personal items she left the hive with that night—her arbalest, broadhead quiver, and a drag bag filled with light artillery, clothing, and other basic provisions. But she left the hive, knowing deep in her heart that she would never return, consumed with an unquenchable thirst for unbridled retribution.

  After abandoning the decimated hive, Ogrifina followed the protocols her father had established for such a scenario, and made her way to the secluded safe house of a man named Evgeny Klebakhin. Although not a Hishnik himself, Evgeny had served the clan unfalteringly for decades as both a faithful comrade and a liaison between the Hishniki themselves and their powerful contractors. Most high-level assassins rarely deal directly with the contractors who employ them (for the safety of both parties involved in the event that either is apprehended and interrogated). For a fee, provodniki, or “inbetweeners,” like Evgeny negotiate contracts on behalf of the assassins who employ them. Evgeny was more than just the Hishniki’s provodnik, however. He also performed perilous reconnaissance missions for the clan to obtain critical intel (which can often mean the difference between life and death for those in the field), and also served as their primary supplier of weapons and other specialty equipment required for any given contract.

  Devastated by the news of what had befallen the hive, and fearful for Ogrifina’s safety as the last surviving member of a clan clearly targeted for extinction, Evgeny followed his own emergency protocols. He secured safe passage for himself and Ogrifina to America, where he maintained an extensive network of underbelly contacts who could ensure their safety. Before long, the émigrés were set up in a remote cabin in the wilderness of southern Utah with expertly forged identities. Though Evgeny hoped that Ogrifina would take advantage of her opportunity to lead a less treacherous life, he knew that this would never be possible for her. She was born a Hishnik and she would die a Hishnik. Assassination was in her blood, and had been for ten generations. Evgeny also realized that he would never be able to leave his own life as a provodnik behind—it was the only line of work he’d ever been any good at—so he agreed to continue serving Ogrifina just as he’d served her clan for over thirty years.

  Taking advantage of his vast network of underworld connections, Evgeny soon began securing contracts for Ogrifina. Word had already spread throughout the ubitsa underworld that the Hishniki were no more—that Fakel and a small team of cohorts had eradicated them all. But whispers had also begun to circulate that at least one Hishnik remained, and that this solitary predator was yearning for a reckoning. There was scarcely an assassin alive who dared to even utter the name of this raptorial specter who quickly became known simply as Prizrak. Some actually believed that it was the vengeful ghost of Vasily Voronin himself, exacting his revenge upon the entire ubitsa community by executing them all—one assassin at a time.

  Ogrifina learned how to lead a double life—something she’d never been forced to do before the extinction of her clan. She learned how to blend in seamlessly with the city dwellers she encountered while walking the streets of Salt Lake City, wearing a hooded swea
tshirt and sunglasses. The pedestrians she walked amongst were utterly oblivious of the fact that a legendary assassin was in their midst. Evgeny, meanwhile, made extensive modifications to the cabin in which they lived, adding nondescript wall panels in the cellar that opened to reveal secret stashes of military-grade weapons and sophisticated surveillance equipment. An outsider looking in would’ve noticed nothing unusual about this unobtrusive cabin. Yet life was far from ordinary for its unlikely occupants.

  The extinction of the Hishniki clan had shattered Ogrifina psychologically. Her thirst for retaliatory blood became her life’s sole fixation. She would replay her father’s words on emotion over and over again in her mind—words she knew had been intended to desensitize her and enable her to remain functional as she carried on with her grisly work. “Feelings are your enemies, sol’nishka,” he used to say. “Feelings will only get you killed.” She understood what her father had meant when he uttered those words. The more one grows attached to earthly things—people, possessions, life itself—the more one stands to lose when the inevitable day arrives that the things they hold so dear are taken from them.

  This is why the Hishniki believed it was so critical to cultivate a sense of total detachment from their emotions. All it may take at times is a moment’s hesitation—or an emotional jumping of the gun—for a target to get the drop on you. Ogrifina ruminated deeply on this principle of emotional detachment. Yet, as much as she wished to believe that her emotions were held in check, she could never soothe the burning desire for vengeance that surged within her heart, threatening to consume her and everything in her path. She knew that, as a Hishnik, her sole purpose was to take the lives of others remorselessly, and that every life she took represented a tragic loss in the heart of someone somewhere. Every contract she’d ever completed left behind grieving widows and fatherless children. Realizing the dichotomous hypocrisy of her emotions, however—being hell-bent on revenge against Fakel for causing her the same sorrow she caused countless others—did little to alleviate her retaliatory bloodlust. And, as the years progressed, she only grew increasingly volatile and sadistic when it came to the elimination of her targets.

  Before the extinction of her clan, she had remained calm and detached in the field. But, over the years that have subsequently elapsed, she became utterly merciless. No longer would a simple broadhead through the forehead or strychnine in a bowl of kasha suffice. She began making it a habit to eliminate the bodies of her targets entirely so that, once her work was done, there no longer remained even a trace of the person she’d just clipped. The simple utensils of her trade grew increasingly complex as she began to add power tools and sophisticated surgical implements to her lethiferous arsenal.

  Twelve years have now elapsed since the extermination of Ogrifina’s sect. For the past six years, Evgeny has brokered most of her contracts through Kacper “The Polack” Kozłowski, a powerful Polish mafioso headquartered on the south side of Chicago but with a reach that stretches across the country and even overseas. The Polack usually functions as somewhat of an inbetweener himself, contracting Prizrak—via Evgeny—to eliminate targets on behalf of other high-ranking Polish mafiosi and associates from around the world. Ogrifina has amassed a considerable fortune during her career and established Prizrak as a legendary figure in the ubitsa underworld along the way. Yet she remains humble and true to her Hishniki roots, living by the Kredo Krovi and prepared to die by it at any moment. The money she makes is ultimately inconsequential to her. She kills because that is what she was bred to do.

  Although she never shies away from eliminating targets who aren’t assassins themselves, hunting the hunters is still Prizrak’s bread and butter. Ogrifina continues to derive her greatest kicks from exterminating her peers, many of whom have enjoyed long, legendary careers themselves before their names wind up—for one reason or another—on Prizrak’s hit list. Lately, it seems like assassins have been slipping up left and right, rubbing the wrong people the wrong way by defaulting on or otherwise botching contracts. Within the past year alone, Ogrifina has eliminated twelve of the world’s deadliest assassins, including Vern “The Vulture” Gottlieb (who, perched upon his toilet in Reno, found himself staring down the business end of Prizrak’s arbalest before having his body dissolved to oblivion in a vat of sodium hydroxide); Silvio “The Suppressor” Pesaro (who met his demise in an abandoned stone quarry in the small town of Garnetsville where he was holed up after assassinating a local politician before being tracked down by Prizrak, who derived sadistic gratification from crushing him beneath a forty-ton block of granite dropped from an overhead crane); and Percy “The Mortician” Pendergrass, an assassin who’d amassed nearly two-hundred kills during his illustrious forty-year career before falling prey to Prizrak (who eviscerated him on his own private yacht off the coast of Tahiti and used his intestines to chum the water, which was quickly swarming with voracious mako sharks that tore his body to shreds).

  Evgeny continues to trawl his extensive network of contacts on Ogrifina’s behalf for any intel that might lead to the whereabouts of Fakel and his associates. Ogrifina knows that Fakel would’ve been unable to eliminate her entire clan single-handedly, and she’s determined to uncover the identities of his accomplices. Intel over the years has been spotty. Vague, mostly unsubstantiated reports have occasionally surfaced that Fakel was headquartered in one continent or another, but nothing concrete. Nevertheless, she continues to harbor hope that she will ultimately be able to pinpoint her archenemy’s precise location. If anybody knows, they are unwilling to sing, fearful of the retribution they’d face from ratting out an alpha-assassin like Krasnomyrdin. Tracking him down will take as long as it takes. Every predator has its day.

  Evgeny sits fidgeting impatiently in the back room of a dingy sausage shop in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. He stares expressionlessly at two Polish brutes, both wearing matching pinstriped suits and mirrored aviator sunglasses, while fiddling with his bushy mustache. It’s difficult to fathom a hard-ass like Evgeny feeling intimidated by the presence of others, but he can’t help but feel small with two of The Polack’s most gargantuan goons staring him down. He glances down at his pocket watch nervously, awaiting his scheduled meeting with The Polack to collect the second half of Prizrak’s payment for eliminating the Kazakhstani, and also to discuss a new contract The Polack has assured him is tailor-made for his client.

  When he’s finally ushered through the doorway by The Polack’s goons, he breathes a sigh of relief at no longer having to see his own uncharacteristically sheepish reflection in their mirrored lenses. He finds The Polack himself seated at a small table in a room that was clearly once used as a meat locker but has subsequently been converted into a makeshift office. The Polack is a corpulent middle-aged man with thinning black hair slicked back with brilliantine and a bulbous nose from which wiry little gray hairs protrude wildly. It’s suppertime and The Polack is in the midst of stuffing his face with pierogi and sausages, his stubby fingers lousy with gaudy rings and coated with kiełbasa grease.

  “Evgeny Klebakhin, just the kacap bastard I was looking to see,” the Polack mumbles, his cheeks stuffed with partially masticated bits of sausage. “Have a seat.”

  Evgeny seats himself at the opposite end of the table as the Polack licks the grease from his fingertips. “Evgeny, my friend,” the Polack says, “my associates and I are very pleased with the bang-up job Prizrak did on this one. Exemplary service, as always.” He reaches beneath the table and retrieves a briefcase. “If I had to gripe with something, I’d say it’s a shame Prizrak didn’t wait to clip the Kazakhstani off ‘til after he’d clipped off the President.”

  “You know that Prizrak is utterly unconcerned with matters of politics,” Evgeny retorts. “But if the President is a target you’d like my client to eliminate, that can, of course, be arranged for a fee.”

  The Polack erupts in a fit of laughter and slides the briefcase across the table. “This is why I love this guy,” he says
to one of his goons, “A real mądrala!” The goon forces an affected chuckle, but quickly resumes looking dour. “So let’s get back down to business,” the Polack continues. “That briefcase squares us up for that Kazakhstani job. Since my associates and I were so pleased with Prizrak’s performance, we’ve included a little bonus loot for you both. Now on to our next transaction. Does the name Marcin Kalinowski mean anything to you?”

  Drawing a blank, Evgeny shakes his head. “I can’t say it rings a bell.”

  “Good,” the Polack says, “it shouldn’t. Marcin is the nephew of an associate of mine. Was, I should say—his body turned up in a dumpster near Altgeld Gardens a few weeks ago. Turns out the people who wanted him dead wanted him real dead. The man was gassed, mauled by a tiger—I shit you not!—and burnt to a crisp.”

  Evgeny screws up his eyes with hesitant recognition.

  “Does the name Warrington Linwood ring a bell?” the Polack asks.

  Evgeny nods. “Yes … the so-called ‘Mad Gasser.’ A living legend whose actual deeds are far grislier than the urban lore that surrounds him suggests. Used to work the freelance circuit in the ’40s and ’50s—creeping into people’s bedrooms at night and gassing them with a modified Flit gun as they slept. Last I heard, the Gasser had retired due to age and infirmity—he must be in his nineties by now—and disappeared from the map.”

  “Very good, Evgeny. Get this man a Bozo button, will ya’?” the Poloack says jokingly to his goons. “The only bit you were off on there was the bit about his retirement. The bastard’s ancient but he’s definitely still in the game, as Marcin Kalinowski would attest if—if he could. How about this one: Finbar Freiling. Mean anything to you?”