Clockwork

          The mystical figure, who moved with an exeptionally jagged and uncomfortable roughness in his joints, jumped over the rooftops with odd mechanical grace, large black brass-rimmed goggles blazing in the sun and a red silk scarf twisting in the wind behind him. The man increased his speed and some of the red tiles on the roofs of London cracked under his brass-buckled boots and shattered into pieces. People on the streets stopped to stare at the weird agile figure rapidly moving through the sunriddled sky. The running man in long leather jacket had reached the Thames faster than any steampowered locomotive could, but he didn't make any efforts to stop or slow down. All throughout the mechanical man started echoing sounds of small gears grinding and springs winding themselves up. At the very edge of the last roof he propelled himself high above the murky water. Time seemed to stop for a while as an old fisherman glanced heavenwards at the gentleman soaring over his boat. The mechanical man didn't worry about not reaching the other side, he knew exactly how far he was going to jump. A loud crash sounded over the whole city-block before the young-looking man swiftly escaped the cascade of shattering bricks from a riverside wall he had broken with his less than perfect landing. He stopped in the middle of an alleyway behind "The Devil's Tavern" and listened... he could hear nearly everything going around in the city and yet not the sound he was looking for. It had stopped. Why had it stopped?
         That voice, that ticking couldn't belong to any other timepiece- it had to be Griffin's. Although the timepiece sounded normal to everyone else the robotic human could hear a distinct difference in every clock. Griffin was a scientist, a genius and yet a psychopath. He was a thief, an arsonist and a murderer, who was easily trackable, but no matter how hard one would look, Griffin would remain unseen... The clockwork-man knew that the criminal was perfectly invisible, but not completely imperceptible. A few years ago the mechanical man had sensed Griffin's ghastly presense in a South England pub- he could hear a fainth breathing and heartbeat coming from an empty seat and on the table was a barely visible crystal pocketwatch that ticked in the most abnormal way... and later all became clear with the help of an anonymous law enforcer, who traded confidential information for gold.
        The man with brass-rimmed goggles had no other clues, thus giving up became his only option. He decided to take the streets this time around- humans had always amazed him as they made him wonder... What makes them tick? The evening had arrived almost inconspicuously and a slight dribble of rain made it seem even darker. The gear-gutted man slowly made his way through the town and that's when he heard it- The glass timepiece. In a split-second the ticking gentleman had disappeared from the streets. He made his way staright through the city over the roofs and under bridges and soon he stopped... There he was- The invisible man in a trenchcoat, face wrapped in gauze and eyes covered with dark glasses. Every streetlight he passed by seemed to flicker as if they were trying to hide the monstrous criminal in shadows. In a blink of an eye the mechanical man had silently pinned psycopath to the ground. He was trying to struggle out of his coat, but it was already too late. "Your time has run out, Griffin..." The man said with a metallic voice as Griffin shoved his hand in his coat. "Think again..." Chuckled the man covered in bandages and fired a shot. Hundreds of small gears and bolts spewed out of the humanoid machine and the ticking stopped... Griffin stood up and laughed. "You can't catch the wind, dear friend..." The hollow rattle of tiny metal pieces filled the empty street. Although one ticking had stopped, the other still remained. The figure in bandages faced away and took several long steps on the cobblestone road before realising, that he was walking of tiny shards of glass. His eyes widened as he grabbed for the pocketwatch- It was gone. The man turned to look back at the robotic corpse, but all he felt were two cold hands grasping his neck... A garish crackling split the night and the invisible man appeared once again: First the bones, then the nerves, muscles and bloodvessels and finally his pale-dead skin. 

And it all worked out like clockwork.