Aveline (4 page)

Aveline waited for the man to position her
head and reached out, snatching the small knife from his waist and
quickly tucking it in the space between her arm and body.

When he was satisfied, he left and closed
the door.

She refrained from unleashing a cry of pure
frustration, afraid of alerting her captors before she was able to
run. Muttering curses under her breath, swearing vengeance against
the brothel and anyone associated with it, she was quickly
distracted from her anger by the pressing need to escape. Her arms
and shoulders worked well, and she had regained feeling halfway
down her back. She rotated her head another two inches but still
couldn’t lift it. She pushed her body up, lowered it down, and
stretched out to either side.

Her lower abdomen, legs and hips remained
useless. She would not get far dragging herself away, and her heavy
head and numbed neck made it next to impossible to keep an eye on
her surroundings. She would be dead in seconds in an outright
fight.

Her hope for the time needed to regain
control of her body soon vanished.

The door opened. “Your first time with a
mixed?” one of the brothel workers asked someone in a voice far too
cheerful for their surroundings.

Aveline gripped the knife. She did not hear
the response through the clamoring of her thoughts, except to
notice the low male voice. The first rays of dawn formed a line
along the top of the ceiling, and the sounds of the city awakening
drifted through the window.

The night had started as the worst she could
recall, with the death of her beloved father. By now, Rocky knew
she was not coming, but could he possibly find her here? Even if he
did, he would never reach her before the man in the hallway. It was
one thing to go down fighting and quite another to be put down when
vulnerable.

Tears stung her eyes. She hated crying and
in the span of a single night, she had cried twice, once for her
father and once for herself. What would her father think of her if
he knew she had not lasted a day after his death? That all his
training had been wasted? That she was weak?

Aveline swallowed the sob stuck in her
throat and ran half a dozen scenarios through her mind, seeking one
that allowed her to live through this unscathed.

The results of her mental exercise left her
with one terrible option – and the determination she would rather
face the punishment for her actions in the afterlife than remain
here as a whore.

Aveline steadied her breathing and closed
her eyes. She thought of her father, who was hopefully waiting for
her among the other spirits, and then of Rocky, who would mourn her
death. He would seek revenge on her behalf, once he discovered what
had happened here. She would do the same for him, and knowing
vengeance would be obtained stilled some of her fear.

Farewell, Rocky,
she told her best friend silently.
I have no choice.
Death
was not feared by assassins. At least, it was not
supposed
to be feared by
them. She could not help thinking there was too much she had not
accomplished with her life to die now. But she was too proud for
the alternative: losing all control over her body and
life.

Had her father experienced the turmoil of
his stomach and his pulse quicken with fear when he realized he was
going to die? Had he wished for one more day or one more chance at
life?

Her heart felt like it was being squeezed in
a clamp when she thought of her father. Aveline gritted her teeth.
She waited until the door closed, clenching the knife. When the man
who came to violate her took a step towards the bed, she acted.

Aveline plunged the knife towards the major
artery in her neck.

The man snatched her wrist, and her eyes
snapped open. He disarmed her and stepped back quickly, as if
sensing the blow she was in the process of flinging towards him.
Her sloppy attempt at a punch did nothing but twist her body and
nearly knock her off the bed.

Aveline righted herself with some difficulty
then pushed her torso up and glared at the stranger.

He wore a mask. “I thought I would give you
another chance to accept my offer.”

She blinked, registering his familiar voice.
“You sent me here!” she snarled.

“I did not,” he countered. “I simply enabled
your capture by the pursuer I believed would do the least amount of
harm. I thought this could be a lesson.”

“A
what
?”

“You should accept an offer from a man like
me when it comes. I am not accustomed to being turned away.”

This man’s ego had sent her to a brothel and
driven her close to suicide? She narrowed her eyes in disgust and
propped herself up against the wall.

“The assassins have an extensive set of
rules,” he continued. “I believe one of them involves a life debt.
If I save you, you owe me.”

“It doesn’t count if you’re the one who puts
someone in danger!”

“I can leave you here to take your chances
with the next man or woman who comes through the door. I was not
the only person interested in the exotic beauty your owners claimed
you to be. Or you can agree to work for me, and I’ll ensure your
safety.”

Aveline bit back the acidic retort at the
tip of her tongue. She was not in a position to offend him.
Perhaps, after her night, entertaining her strange new stalker was
not the worst idea she had ever had. “You put a lot of effort into
convincing me to work for you!” she snarled.

“That should show you how important this is
to me, should it not?”

The fixated man had to be insane. But she
was smart enough to understand his lesson and leery of what
happened if she turned him away again. “Who do you want me to
kill?” she asked reluctantly.

“No one,” he answered.

Her brow furrowed. “Then why do you need an
assassin?”

“Let me clarify. I want you to protect
someone from anyone else who tries to kill her. In the potential
circumstance where someone tries, you can kill whoever it is.”

“I’m not a guardian. I’m an assassin. Well,
almost. I’ll be an assassin soon,” she said.

“You have something the other guardians and
assassins I spoke to do not: the blood of the devil in your
veins.”

She crossed her arms, uncomfortable
discussing the curse no one else was supposed to know about. He was
not an assassin or from the inner city. Who had revealed the
closely held secret?

“I believe this will make you more effective
in protecting your charge.”

“I will never allow the Devil’s blood to
control me,” she said firmly.

“I accept this condition.”

Aveline’s mouth dropped open and then
closed. The man was not making sense.

“All will be clear soon,” he promised,
reading her confusion. “You will be rewarded above and beyond what
you can imagine.”

“I don’t care about money. I
care about becoming an assassin. Unless you can sponsor me, which
you
can’t
, because
you’re not one of us, there’s nothing you can do for
me.”

“You seem to underestimate
the importance of money, assassin. I can
buy
you a sponsor. If you want the new
chief of the assassins as your sponsor, I will arrange
it.”

Aveline laughed. “The Guild leader cannot be
bought! It’d take more money than half the inner city sees in a
year to tempt him!” she exclaimed.

“I can pay it.”

“Just for me to stand at
someone’s doorway and
not
unleash the one trait behind the reason you’re
hiring me?”

“Yes.”

It was the craziest proposition she had ever
heard. Whether he could pay that much money, or if he were
concealing an additional agenda, she did not care. At the moment,
she had one convincing reason to accept, no matter how bizarre the
proposed employment sounded.

“You will get me out of here?” she asked
cautiously. Although willing, she had not felt ready to die, even
for the just cause of preventing anyone from dishonoring her
body.

“Immediately. Give me your word you will do
as I’ve asked, without question, and I will see you free,” the
masked stranger vowed.

Aveline said nothing, pensive. Her father
warned her against trusting someone who appeared to be offering her
exactly what she asked for.

“As a sign of good faith.” The stranger
pulled something from his pocket and held it out to her.

Aveline accepted it, and her breath caught.
The envelope containing her father’s treasure she had sworn to
protect. She had never seen its contents and fingered the lumpy
envelope, relieved to have it returned.

The stranger was offering
her a form of freedom and help becoming a real assassin. In the
face of the alternative, no objection held merit. “Very well. I’ll
do it, whatever
it
is. If this is a trick, I will find you and burn you
alive.”

“Excellent!” The man seemed far too excited.
“Remain here. I will send someone for you.” Without another word,
he opened the door and left.

Aveline stared after him, unable to
understand what exactly her new employer wanted.

If he were lying about being wealthy, she
would soon know. The expectation for a whore was to make money, and
no brothel owner would let her go cheap, especially when the money
she made was supposed to be split between the owner and debt
collectors. This madman would have to pay off two people in order
to free her.

The longer she waited, the less convinced
she became about the masked stranger’s ability to follow through.
Aveline returned to testing her body. She was mobile from the waist
up and leaned down to rub her legs, uncertain what else to do to
encourage them to wake up from the drug.

Eager to be away from the brothel, she
waited and prayed to the spirits of those who had come before her.
The sun was fully in the sky and lining the wall in front of her
when the door opened again. With one leg awake and the other
useless, she was at least able to stand.

Turning warily from her position leaning
against a wall, she eyed the two men in Shield clothing in the
doorway. Her nose wrinkled at the scent of metal polish, and she
sought to place the significance of the green sashes they wore
across their normal scarlet uniforms.

“We have been ordered to escort you to your
new position,” one said and looked her up and down critically.

The same enunciation and cultured lilt
shaped his tone, and she realized what the sash signified. These
men were part of the personal guard for the elite living in the
outer city.

Her benefactor, whomever he was, was as
wealthy as he claimed. She had never ventured once into the outer
city; she would not know the city’s leader from a privileged
servant or citizen, so why had he hidden his face?

The two soldiers stepped aside.

Aveline limped forward, dragging her
sleeping leg with a curse.

She trailed one of the soldiers while the
second followed her. As she walked through the brothel, she made an
effort to memorize the features of every worker who crossed her
path. When this mission was over, she was returning and driving a
bone knife through the right eye of everyone enslaving the boys and
girls. When she was done with the workers, she would track down
those making meat out of children, slaughter them all, and feed the
inner city.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she
stepped into the cold winter day. The gray sky had never been so
welcome to her.

The soldier led her to an enclosed carriage
led by four bay horses and opened the door for her.

Aveline climbed in, ready to fight anyone
who tried to attack her as she did. The inside of the carriage was
built more for practicality than luxury with bench seats and blinds
across the windows.

She sat down, uncertain what to expect. She
pitched back as the carriage jolted forward and caught herself on
the seat. Straightening, she sat back against the wall, tense and
leery of the stranger who bought her freedom in exchange for her
not being what she was. Beyond puzzled, and concerned she would be
at the mercy of his true intentions, she pulled the envelope
containing her father’s treasure out of the pocket of her gown.

Her father never offered to show her its
contents, and she had never requested to do so. In hindsight, she
wished she had asked him if she were permitted to see it, or if she
were supposed to protect it without ever knowing what the envelope
contained.

She had lost it once and had it returned by
a man she dared not trust. His offering was not lost on her,
though, either. The stranger did not have to return anything to her
after what he had to have paid to free her.

As curious as she was about what the
envelope contained, she feared dishonoring her father. Aveline
returned the treasure to her pocket and started to sink into the
memory of hearing her father’s last breath and feeling the warmth
of his skin fade away. Her night had kept her from such a thought.
But alone, uncertain and reeling from her experience at the
brothel, her emotions were far more raw than she wanted, and her
father was forefront on her mind, along with uncertainty about what
she had involved herself in a mere ten hours after his death.

The jarring ride in the carriage left her
wishing she could walk. She massaged the thigh of her numbed leg. A
tap came from one of the doors. Certain she had misheard, she
ignored the sound.

It came again, and she leaned forward to
lift the blind.

Someone was on the runner outside the door.
He wore a familiar uniform.

Thrilled by the idea Rocky had found her,
she unlocked the door and opened it.