The lights of the night sky would not betray him this evening as Luna had decided to form herself in the dark places of the night sky. Much like Grits himself, she was in hiding tonight, and that would make his job all the easier.

Dyson's man Tony had give to Grits his instruction and his target. A man in his mid-thirties, graying hair at his greasy black temples like many men had at his age. Grits had only known of the man's last whereabouts, but it was enough. He did his work in the darkness, slowly tracing steps, and came out during the day to assault the world with his ugliness only when necessary. He would be forced to do so tomorrow, to this unknowing barber. Everyone did need a haircut now and again, but Grits would let his grow to keep from the scathing eyes of the public. It was unbearable to see the eyes of strangers well with fear, and defiance at the cursed creature who wandered the world as he did. For this reason and this reason alone Grits found his way to the dark places of the world.

Tonight he would rest, and tomorrow then, would he endeavor to be the scourge of the landscape once again. A devil walking among the angels. From his threadbare, tweed overcoat he pulled a small trinket then. It was a hair pin, something left behind by a woman, a stranger at the time. She did not know she left it. She did not miss it. She did not know Grits had found it, but it was his tether to her in this life. The night he had found her, she had dropped it and in his unwitting mission to rid her of her nightmares, he was rewarded by some benevolence with this trinket. There would come a day when he would return it, and she would not scream at the sight of him when he did so, just as he did not scream that night that she saw the daemon in the darkness, come to consume the life she had taken.

The sound of his boots echoed along the cobblestone, ringing his ears, broken only by the occasional suck of mud and water from a too deep divot. His stride never wavered, his feet too large to be unbalanced by the likes of small holes. As he rounded the corner to his hovel of a home, a place he managed to mangle together under the overpass of a motorway fashioned of boxes procured from the nearby dock, he took in a deep breath. The moisture in the air was not that of the sea, not tonight, tonight it would rain. In light of this new evidence, he removed his coat, and placed it to cover the small holes he knew were on the roof of his self-adorned shack of the monster. It would keep the rain out, and the monster within dry.

He opened the ramshackle and knotted door to reveal a single room no larger than five feet in any direction. In one corner the wall opened to reveal bricks, stacked in such a way as to keep the ashes and fire contained within them, and not burning all around them. He walked to his stove, and he knelt to light the fire that would keep him warm before the rains began. It was not a proper chimney. If the rain began, water would pool there and no fire would be had. He crumpled newspaper, and grabbed a few logs venturing outside once again for them. He heard a rustle in the brush nearby and looked. A mutt, mangy, with matted furs and a look of hunger stared back at him in the dark. He gingerly placed the wood on the ground, taking out a small morsel of food. The four-legged creature warily made it's way toward it's new master, toward sustenance. Instinct and survival would govern all else. Grits knew this, it was how he had lived for many years.

As the dog came within distance and began to sniff, Grits reached out and began to pet it slowly, to reassure it of it's safety and survival. The growl it let out was halfhearted, and instead it began to lick at the food in Grit's palm. Swiftly, and without thought or remorse, Grits struck then, a single snap, like that of a thick tree branch, echoed through the air that night and salt stung at Grits' eyes. He had broken another small piece of whatever remained of his heart, but he would eat tonight, provided he started that fire.

Sustenance would avail him to the task ahead, as the remnants of last night's meager feast made their way from the broken table into Grits' gullet. It was common knowledge in the world that dogs liked to chase bones, and sticks. It did not dawn on Grits for a second the irony of picking the bones clean of this one.

As he rose to his full height outside of his hovel he could all but hear the sinews strain and his own bones stretch and crack. it was not unlike any other day when he emerged, save for the fact that the sun did not hang low in the evening sky. Today he would walk the streets during the day with his fellow bipedal creatures. Grits took in a long breath and tipped his hat forward to cover as much of his face as he could, that which was not covered by the hat, was shielded from a stray glance by an upturned collar on his tweed overcoat. It was not a particularly cold or blustery day, but he endeavored to spare those around him as often as he could. His countenance was not one to behold, for it was the thing of nightmares and the source of the call to terrors in the night.

Only a few blocks worth of dodged glances, by delving into and through alleyways did he finally find the edifice which he sought. The barber inside, bare of head himself, and shaved of cheek, was attending only a single customer. Grits made his way into the place, and he sat quietly in the corner. The bald man nodded his attention and the signal for Grits to wait was acknowledged. The man in the chair, to his credit, did not sneer through the mirror, nor was he the man Grits searched for.

"Thanks Doc, see you in two weeks." The man stood and leaned into the mirror. He patted his face with aftershave provided by the barber, the blue liquid smell permeating the air as he made the sounds of the bell twinkle above the door. The barber smiled to Grits and gestured to the chair. The larger man hesitantly sat and allowed the bald one to get to work.

A few minutes later, the almost silences of the snipping of hair, and the whirl of a scissor through the air, was cut through with Grit's rough gravel of a voice. "Doc?" the barber looked into the mirror, but said nothing in response. "You know Dyson's man Tony?" The nod of response was a knowing one, one that told a story of misery behind the face that tried to be a mask, but failed at it's concealment. "He might forgive you soon." The scissors stopped abruptly and the barber stood back, spinning the chair with one foot so that Grits faced him...

"Alright big man. Talk."

Grits' turn to nod singularly in acknowledgement. "I search for a man in his thirties. You cut his hair yesterday, he is greying at the temples, and his hair is full of grease. He too knows Tony, and I am his lesson."

The barber gulped at that and nodded. "Dick. He lives on 5th, I won't tell him your comin' if you put in a good word for Tony, and if you let me finish the cut, it's on the house." The man's face was still, but his voice was pleading. Grits nodded. It was rare for him to wish to be seen at all, but this man Dick needed to know the face of death when it looked at him, and for that, death would need to cut his hair from his eyes.