London at night breathed differently, as if the city itself exhaled a darker, rawer air once the sun disappeared. The rain from earlier had left the streets slick, reflecting the scattered glow of lamps in fractured pools of light. Puddles rippled under the weight of unseen footsteps, and shadows stretched unnaturally long across the cobblestones. The sounds were a symphony of the unseen: the distant hum of traffic bleeding into the wail of a siren, a dog barking somewhere far off, and the sudden crash of glass shattering in a side alley. It was a city alive with secrets, and Richard slipped through it all.
He walked with unhurried precision, the kind that drew no attention while demanding the space around him. His coat, long and dark, moved with the breeze, barely whispering against his legs. To an observer, he was just another silhouette, another figure passing through the endless night. But Richard was watching everything. The way a man in a torn coat eyed a passing woman's purse. The quick exchange of a packet under a bridge. The cluster of men near a corner pub, laughter too harsh to be friendly. Each detail was filed away in his mind, a puzzle piece fitting into the map he was building of London's underbelly.
Above, Coeus and Hera soared like twin spectres, their black wings cutting through the air. The occasional flicker of moonlight caught the sheen of their feathers, making them look almost unreal. They spoke only to him, their voices threading into his mind like silk and steel.
"This place stinks of desperation," Coeus' voice came, cold and smooth, carrying the detached observation of a predator circling prey. Her gaze swept the alleys from above, calculating and sharp.
"Perfect for looking for prey," Hera added with a low chuckle that seemed to curl around Richard's thoughts like smoke. "These people already crawl in the dirt. It won't take much to make them crawl for you."
Richard's lips curved faintly, not quite a smile, not quite anything. "Exactly," he murmured under his breath, his voice swallowed by the night.
He turned down a narrow side street, the kind where the lamps barely worked and graffiti covered every brick. The smell here was different, sour, tinged with smoke and rot. A place where fear and hunger clung to the walls.
To most, it was dangerous. To Richard, it was an opportunity.
For three nights, Richard had prowled the city like a phantom, tracing the pulse of its darker veins. Each evening, he slipped from the warmth of his estate into the grit of the lower districts, where lights flickered weakly, and the streets smelled of oil and smoke. The farther he went, the more London shed its polished mask, revealing narrow alleys littered with bottles, rusted fire escapes, and the faint glow of cigarette tips in the shadows.
He listened more than he spoke.
In pubs thick with the stench of ale and sweat, he sat quietly at the corner, nursing a drink he barely touched. Around him, men with hollow eyes and nervous hands talked too loudly about shipments gone missing, debts unpaid, and who owed whom a beating. Richard absorbed every word, every tremor in their voices, and when one of them caught his gaze, he offered only a slight nod, just enough to keep suspicion low.
He drifted from pub to alley, from whispers to shouts, following threads of information others would have missed. A careless drunk mentioned "the Hats" to impress a girl. A desperate dealer cursed the Black Hats for raising their cut. A battered shopkeeper muttered their name like a curse under his breath as he swept broken glass from his doorstep. Piece by piece, the picture formed.
The Black Hats.
A gang with territory stretched thin across the docks and the poorer neighbourhoods, where the city's wealth didn't bother to reach. They smuggled contraband through the river routes, ran rackets on small businesses, and extorted protection money. They were feared, yes, but only because of their violence, not their intelligence. Their power was built on noise and blood.
Richard watched them from the edges. One night, he trailed a group of them, five men in black caps and wool jackets, after they stumbled out of a pub. They were loud, boasting about a shipment that had "slipped right past the pigs" and laughing too hard at their own jokes. They moved like hyenas, dangerous in numbers but disorganised, without the sharpness of a pack.
By the third night, Richard had seen enough.
They were sloppy. Reckless. A blunt instrument where precision was lacking in buckets.
Dangerous, yes, but not disciplined.
He found them on the fourth night in a crumbling warehouse near the Thames, the building sagging like an old animal clinging to life. The smell of damp wood mixed with cigarette smoke and the faint metallic tang of oil. Inside, a dozen men and women lounged under the weak light of a flickering bulb. Their laughter was harsh and hollow, echoing against the rusted beams. Weapons lay carelessly against crates, bottles littered the floor, and a card game was in progress on a battered table, the players too drunk to notice the stakes slipping through their fingers.
At the centre sat their leader, a hulking man with scars crisscrossing his bare arms, his face like a block of stone eroded by violence. A flask dangled loosely from his hand as he grinned at some crude joke.
Richard stepped through the doorway without hesitation, the click of his shoes cutting above their laughter.
The leader's eyes immediately focused on him, scrutinising him as he walked.
Nobody's heads turned. Their laughter and jokes still rang through the warehouse.
"Who the hell are you?" the leader barked, standing with a predator's stance, the scarred muscles in his arms flexing.
Richard's expression was calm, almost detached, as if the sight of snarling dogs amused him. "Billy, I would calm down if I were you. I'm here to give you an opportunity."
The words hung in the air, absurd and commanding all at once. The leader, now Billy. Still standing, shouted, "Tim, get this runt out of here."
The skinny man to the left of Billy, now identified as Tim, seemed oblivious to his leader's words, continuing to chat and laugh with his friends.
"I wouldn't bother trying to talk to them, Billy. They don't even know I'm here. Why don't you sit back down and we have a little chat?"
Billy, unable to understand what was happening, felt a chill down his spine. Everyone else in the warehouse hadn't acknowledged either of them since Richard entered.
Two glasses appeared in Richard's hands while he sat next to Billy. A bottle of rum, that was hidden away in Billy's own secret stash, floated over and uncorked itself. Billy's horrified eyes were glued to the floating bottle.
"Billy, you see. I've been watching you for a while." Richard spoke while the rum poured itself into the two glasses.
"I like what you've got going on here. I really do. Smuggling and the extortion of businesses. Why should some products be banned because of some arbitrary decision by some wanker in an office? And if the government doesn't make you feel safe, who's to say you can't be the one to do that? For a price, obviously." Richard said with a smile on his lips as he offered one glass to Billy.
Billy accepted the glass silently, still confused about the whole situation.
"Now, I get the silence. Some little runt comes waltzing in and doing some weird supernatural shit. I think I would be confused as well. Even horrified," Richard said while chuckling.
"All you have to know is that you're my bitch now. I own you, and this gang." He said with the same smile as if all of this was one big joke.
"Now, that comes with advantages and disadvantages. Advantages: One, you have me backing you. Two, you get to live a long and fruitful life. And three, this little thing you've got running here is going to get a lot bigger and you'll be at the top of it."
"Disadvantages: One, you have to listen to everything I tell you to do. Two, if you fuck up, I'll cut your dick off and feed it to you, before gutting you and killing everyone you know."
Richard said with a smile, extending his hand, "So, do we have a deal, Billy?"
"Ehhh.... Yes," Billy said, shaking Richard's gloved hand.
"What's your name?" Billy questioned.
"None of you're business, Billy. Don't ask stupid questions from now on, ok?"
"Now that's done, let's get onto the actual business. Number one, there's going to have to be some order around here from now on; we can't have any police snooping around. Number two, we're going to have to clean up this gang's image a little, meaning less violence, save it for when it matters. And last but not least, change that god awful name, who the fuck names a gang Black Hats? A five-year-old?"
Richard chuckled to himself while standing up, "Well, that's enough for now. I'll be in contact."
The surprise and confusion had rubbed off of Billy as Richard walked out. Before he could leave through the doors, Billy stood up and said, "What should the gang be named?"
"Let's go with 'The Firm'," Richard replied, not even turning around as he left.
Billy collapsed back into his seat, sweat dripping down his back. Tim's voice reached his ears, "Boss, you ok? Looks like you saw a ghost." ending with a laugh.
Billy quickly snapped out of it before rage consumed him, "Yeah, Tim, a ghost, alright. Do you want to see your grandparents?"
"No, Boss, I'm sorry," Tim replied meekly.
"That's what I thought. Keep that mouth of yours shut."
As Richard left, Coeus and Hera swooped silently through the broken windows above, their violet eyes glowing faintly as they circled the warehouse.
From that night forward, the newly established gang, The Firm, were no longer the same. They had a new vision, and they would move with less recklessness.
Within a week, The Firm was unrecognisable. The stench of cheap liquor and disorder that had once clung to their warehouse faded, replaced by an atmosphere of tension and focus. Under Richard's subtle control, their chaos hardened into structure. Orders were followed without question, and the lazy swagger that once defined them was gone, replaced by sharp movements and watchful eyes. Although there were some mistakes, they were always quickly corrected.
Richard dismantled their old hierarchy with surgical precision. The loudest and most reckless members were quietly removed and repurposed into tasks where they could do no harm. Those who showed loyalty, intelligence, and adaptability were elevated, given responsibilities that better suited their skill set. Slowly, The Firm was ceasing to be a gang of rabid dogs and becoming something closer to a pack of trained wolves.
Most of the gang had no clue what had happened. It was like another day of drinking after a small job when their boss did what seemed to most as a 180. He started to dress better, and he moved with purpose, barely leaving himself time to drink.
He implemented schedules and routes that none dared to alter. Smuggling paths that had once been riddled with risks now operated with the precision of clockwork. Ships docked at the correct times, crates were moved without a trace, and every transaction was accounted for in a ledger that only Richard and a chosen few understood. Police patrols that once caught the gang off guard found nothing but empty alleys. The Firm became ghosts, moving where and when Richard allowed them to.
One evening, Richard stood in the centre of the warehouse, the scent of oil and cold metal thick in the air. Around him, men and women moved with purpose, checking weapons, counting shipments, passing quiet instructions. The noise was low, controlled, and efficient.
Coeus perched high on a beam, feathers gleaming black under the dim lights, her violet eyes glowing faintly as she surveyed the scene. "You've tamed them," she murmured, her voice a smooth purr that only Richard heard.
From the other side, Hera's sharper tone broke through, laced with mocking amusement. "No. He's made them his dogs. Collars and all."
Richard's eyes swept over the gang, reading their posture, their focus, their fear. They were tools now, sharp, honed, and not yet ready to be used, but soon they could move on to be more. His lips curved slightly, a shadow of a smile.
"Dogs bite when they're told," he said softly, his voice barely carrying above the hum of activity. "That's enough for now."
In the rafters, Coeus' wings shifted, and Hera let out a low laugh that echoed faintly like breaking glass. Down below, The Firm continued their work with quiet discipline, never realising just how deep Richard's hold on them ran.
As he stepped out of the warehouse, the heavy metal door thudded shut behind him, cutting off the low murmur of the gang's activity. The night air smelled of rain and metal, sharp against his senses. A drizzle began, fine droplets beading on his coat and dampening his hair as he walked. Each step echoed faintly in the empty dockside street, blending with the distant crash of waves against the pier.
The city around him shimmered under the drizzle. Lights flickered to life in oranges and reds, painting the wet pavement with streaks of colour. Reflections rippled in puddles, bending the lights into distorted shapes that seemed to dance under his feet. Richard moved with calm precision, hands in his coat pockets, his gaze steady on the road ahead.
From the alleys, whispers travelled, deals already being struck, plans being shifted, the underworld adjusting itself to the new voice. Word spread fast in London's shadows, and tonight, it carried a new name. Not deafening, not yet, but like the first ripple before a wave.
Every step Richard took seemed to weave those threads tighter, pulling the city's chaos slowly into his design. The rain-slicked streets gleamed under the scattered lamps.
London was waking up to a new player in its streets.
And Richard Magus, silent, deliberate, and untouchable, was the one pulling the strings.
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