Assassin's Curse (5 page)

Jeda followed her into an alleyway and made short work of her miserable life.
 
He was a ranked member of the guild of assassins, elite killers with the skills to find and eliminate anyone they were contracted to execute.
 
Though the guild occasionally left a few purposeful witnesses alive to spread tales of their prowess and bolster their reputation, today’s work would bear no witness.
 
He left her body to rot in the alleyway with the rest of the garbage, but he did take her money.
 
He had no real need for it, but took it back from the greedy, old crone as a matter of principle.
 
When the city watch found her the next day, they would chalk her death up as yet another victim of a senseless robbery gone wrong, all too common in the slums.

“You should know it’s not healthy to be nosey around here,” Jeda spoke to the old woman’s corpse as he wiped his blade on her tattered shawl.
 

He left the alleyway and made his way to the tenement house opposite his target’s residence to continue his surveillance.
 
As he neared the front door of the ramshackle building, the familiar feeling of danger crept up his back and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
 

Interesting
, he thought,
the hunter is now the hunted.
   

He wondered briefly if the witch had somehow turned the tables on him, but soon dismissed the thought when he realized that he had come to the attention of some local thugs.
 
He wasn’t all that surprised that they had spotted him.
 
After all, anyone could dress like a local, but those that lived here would always know better.
 
Climbing the stairs to the roof, Jeda leaned against the rooftop wall and waited for the gang to confront him.
 
It took only moments before four toughs came through the door.

“There he is,” the first one said, looking back at his companions.
 
“I told you he wouldn’t run very far.
 
Too bad for him he didn’t.”

The rest of the gang, scarred and hard-looking men, snickered at the veiled threat.
 
They quickly spread out in front of Jeda, forming a semi-circle that would prevent his escape.
 
What they did not realize was they were providing Jeda with easier targets.

“You ain’t no beggar,” a second tough said, moving into position.
 
“What do you think you’re doin’ sneaking ‘round our territory?
 
No one comes in our area without our say-so and you sure didn’t ask any of us.”

Jeda didn’t reply, but continued to lean against the wall.
 
None of the toughs saw him flex his wrists, nor did they notice the two throwing knives that had dropped from hidden sheaths into his hands.
 
They were confident of their superiority in numbers and were more intent on watching whether Jeda would try to run or not.
 

“You’re quite the bastard, aren’t you?” the first thug continued, rolling his shoulder and flexing his muscles.
 
“You may think you look like one of us, but you never will be.
 
We spotted you down on the streets real quick and saw what you did to old Martha too, killin’ her for a few coppers.”

The thug was a large man and was used to intimidating his opponents with his size, but revealing they knew of the old woman’s death had sealed their doom.
 
Jeda would not leave any witnesses to tonight’s work, no matter how oblique they were to his role.
 
Jeda watched them closely under hooded eyes and, without uttering a sound, pushed off the wall and turned into a tight circle, releasing his knives as he spun around.
 
The knives found their mark as the two outside toughs went down, blood gushing from the gaping wounds in their throats.
 

The other two stopped and stared for a split second, giving Jeda time to reorient on them.
 
The slums of Constantine were a hard place that bred hard men with little compassion.
 
On these mean streets the unspoken law was to kill or be killed, and the two remaining toughs quickly recovered to launch their own attack.
 

Each man brandished a long, wicked-looking knife and they tried to attack Jeda simultaneously to take him off guard, but they were rushing head-on to their deaths.
 
Every assassin in the guild was trained in all manner of weapons and all were experts in hand-to-hand combat.
 
They were consummate killers and only one of their own could stand against them and live.

Jeda stepped toward the bigger man on his right, pivoting and ducking under the arc of his knife swing.
 
He continued to spin on his toes, and raised himself up to deliver a vicious elbow to the man’s face, breaking and splitting his nose open.
 
He continued his pivot and grabbed the man’s outstretched arm, using his momentum to throw him into the second.
 
The two men stumbled over each other for a moment before regaining their balance.
 
The second man, as yet unharmed, stepped toward Jeda and slashed his knife in a vicious reverse arc aimed at taking Jeda’s head off.
 
It was simple work for Jeda to duck under the swing and drive the stiffened fingers of his hands into both sides of the man’s throat.
 
The thug stumbled back, gasping and choking for air.

Jeda turned and faced the first man, now standing with blood streaming down his face.

“Real tough guy, huh?” the big man said.
 
“Well, your fancy dancing ain’t gonna help you no more.”
 
The big man feinted with a swing of his knife and then bull-charged Jeda to try to knock him over.
 
He intended to get his massive arms around Jeda to squeeze and crush the air out of his lungs.
 

Jeda moved back as the man rushed, grabbed onto the front of his shirt, and fell back into a roll, using the man’s momentum to send him flying over his head.
 
The big man fell with a heavy thud, smashed his head against the rooftop, and lay still, momentarily dazed.
 
Jeda rose quickly and closed on the other thug, who was still gasping for air.
 
Picking up the thug’s discarded knife, he grabbed the man’s hair and yanked his body upward.
 
As the man’s wild eyes looked at Jeda, he plunged the knife into his heart, ending the last, miserable minutes of his life.
 

The last man struggled to his feet, shaking off the cobwebs.
 
He looked around the rooftop and saw his companions lying in pools of blood.
 
Jeda was looking at him and it felt like death’s mistress was breathing down his neck.
 
He started edging toward the door, deciding he’d had enough of this silent killer, but Jeda shook his head as if chastising a wayward child.
 
The big man broke for the door and Jeda pulled another one of his throwing knives.
 
The knife took the last thug in the middle of his back and he went down in a heap.
 

Jeda strode over to the downed man and turned him over, watching as the life faded from his eyes.
 
Just before the thug died, Jeda finally spoke.

“Yes, I am quite the bastard.”

He didn’t bother to move the bodies from where they lay.
 
No one would discover them until the crows started to feast and he would be long gone by then.
 
He retrieved and cleaned his knives before hunching down beneath a small alcove on the roof to begin his surveillance of the witch’s room. It was a good observation point to spy on the opposite building and especially so for “the room on the second floor, in the far back corner,” as the old woman had so willingly supplied.

By early evening it began to rain and Jeda tried to edge farther back into the alcove, but the slight overhang did little to protect him from the drizzle.
 
He leaned forward to get a better view with the coming darkness and a cold drop of rain hit his neck, slowly making its way down his back.
 
He sighed as he saw the candle still burning in the small window across the alley and leaned back into his cover.
 

It was going to be a long night.

The candle continued to burn in the window, but the rain stopped shortly after midnight.
 
As the storm clouds cleared, the slums of Constantine became more distinct.
 
This place was definitely one of hell’s holes.
 
Jeda washed himself in a rainwater barrel he found on the rooftop and changed from the beggar’s clothes he had worn into his assassin’s dark clothing.
 
The air was filled with the stench of death and decay, but at least it was not coming from him any longer.
 
No amount of rain could wash away the smell from the dead bodies on the rooftop or the stench that came from the streets and alleyway below.
   

These slums were overflowing with cramped buildings, stacked closely together,
separated
by narrow, twisting alleyways filled with refuse and garbage.
 
There were no clean-up details assigned to the slums, so what was thrown into the alleyways--what the rats or stray dogs did not eat--generally stayed there.
 
The only exception was the bodies of the dead.
 
As soon as a body was discovered, the local constabulary was notified and they made arrangements to dispose of it.
 
This was not done out of some sense of duty or justice.
 
It was much more basic to the self-survival instincts of the locals and constables alike.
 
Fear of plague and its excruciating death was the underlying motivation for body cleanup.
 

Jeda surveyed the indistinct shadows of his handiwork on the rooftop and knew the constables and cleanup crews would earn their pay tomorrow.
 
He listened to the chitter and scampering of the slum rats as they found the feast he had left them, but aside from that, the night was quiet.
 

His surveillance left him the time to ponder his target and her choices.
 
His first thought was why she was not staying at a coven with her sister witches.
 
They would have been able to provide her with a measure of security and a more comfortable, congenial environment to care for her babies.
 
Not that it would have stopped Jeda, but the added security of a coven would have made his assignment more interesting.
 
The only logical answer he could come up with was she was running from them as well as the Berkshire family.
 
The desperate and destitute lived in these slums and Jeda decided she must feel at home here.
 
Her reasons and choices did not really matter to him; it was just something to pass the time as he waited for her to go to sleep.
 
Once he killed her and delivered her children to the Countess of Berkshire, he would be done with the whole affair and on to his next assignment.

The moon finally broke through the dissipating rain clouds and its light afforded Jeda a better view of her building.
 
The lone window of her room had scant protection: a threadbare cloth covering that barely held out the elements.
 
The window would provide easy access for Jeda’s entry, but the rain had made everything a slick mess.
 
He studied the outside of the dilapidated building and memorized the handholds and ledges that he would use in his climb to reach her.
 

As he surveyed the building, his sixth sense flared again and a disturbing feeling swept over him.
 
He had always thought of these feelings as his curse, his assassin’s curse: to be able to discern unknown danger before it happened.
 
It often left him second-guessing himself and the choices he made.
 
It was hard to trust these feeling when he did not understand where they came from.
 
Curse or blessing, he felt them strongly as he watched the window across the narrow alleyway and wondered what he would find when he went through it.
 
He looked around the rooftop and the surrounding area for anything unusual, but his only companions were the rats and the dead they feasted on.
 

Something’s not right
,
I can feel it
.
 

Jeda had no real choice but to complete his mission tonight.
 
He had reported locating the target to his master in the guild earlier that morning, and he would expect another report of Jeda’s success tomorrow.
 
He thought through his orders again and especially considered his master’s accompanying warning.
   

Do not hesitate.
 
She is a witch of extreme power.
 
Strike fast and strike true.
 
Hesitate and you die.
 

Jeda had no intention of dying this night: a quick in and out and he would be on his way.
 
He would strike fast and true as only an accomplished assassin of the guild could do.
 
He could think of nothing he had missed and steeled himself with his reaffirmed resolve.
 
There was only one thing left to do.
 
Jeda sat back to wait for the right moment to strike.