The Shade

It was the dead of night. Patrolmen walked the streets of Kasin, on the hunt for the famed killer Zella Kahindoh. She had last been seen in this area after slitting the throat of a banker in the western quarter.

As the city quieted, a man slipped out of his house and made his way down the darkened roads in the front. He was on his way to make a deal, one he knew his family would never approve of. He had been doing this for the past several months, and despite the threat of death from The Shade, he continued on. He could handle one young woman, he thought. He had already killed two. She was no concern of his.
As he turned a corner he became aware of a presence behind him. He spun around. No one was there. He relaxed his shoulders and turned back to his path.
But the presence refused to leave him alone. He kept going, turning corners and moving faster, but he couldn't shake it. Finally, he ran into an alley and spun around, looking desperately for his follower.
Where are you! he yelled. There was no answer, just the whispering of the wind.

And then, the scuff of a shoe. The slide of fabric. And with barely any warning, a figure dressed in black burst out of the shadows and knocked the man over.

He fought hard. He did. But he'd had too much to drink that night, and the killer was much better than him. Within seconds his neck was cut, his blood spilling onto the pavement, a paper lying on his chest with words written in his own handwriting.

The Shade smiled at her work and disappeared into the darkness, her victim and her message the only sign that she had ever been there.