Cameo the Assassin (2 page)

Cameo lifted a bottle of wine from its spot on the floor and took a liberal gulp. She was exhausted, physically and mentally. She rested her face in one hand. The shades stood in her room, unmoving, watching her alone in the darkness.

As the morning rolled around, she packed lightly—her pistols and daggers—and threw on a cloak. She had to get moving in order to catch the coach out of town. Cameo had to leave Lockenwood in the light of day, witnessed by other passengers in order to make the assassination of the prince not quite so easily pinned on her. She had a large suitcase of nothing with her to keep up the ruse; it would not seem as believable otherwise. It wasn’t really packed with
nothing
; it had some blankets to give it a little weight, but she had plans to discard it once she actually got out of town. She had one such spot she had been using for a while for just this purpose.

The city was still dark and misty as she neared the coach. People were already boarding. The coachmen were loading luggage onto the roof. Cameo handed her suitcase to one of the men; he went from mindlessly laboring to pretending he was mindlessly laboring. He studied her entirely black ensemble, and the cut of her clothes; from this he gathered that she must be a hired assassin from that society of operatives called the Association. It was unusual, although not unheard of to see one of the assassins. They had to travel, buy clothing, do all the typical things anyone did, but it did always put him in an anxious state of mind when he caught a glimpse of one in a crowd.

Cameo smirked as this knowledge seemed to openly cross his mind while he took her suitcase. He must have been new, she assumed, for taking the coach was not unusual for her. Wick sent her out of town to run
errands
a lot.

“Lovely morning,” she quipped.

The horses spooked.

“Oh yes, yes. Very nice.” He nearly dropped her baggage.

Some of the other passengers turned around at the sound of her voice, as if they were going to express their personal feelings about the weather, but when they saw Cameo they decided that they had forgotten what weather was and stared dumbly ahead at the coach they would soon be boarding.

She soon found herself riding along in uncomfortable silence with what appeared to be a rather wealthy older couple. They whispered to each other silently and attempted to bury their faces in novels in the hopes that Cameo would become disinterested in them and not want to actually communicate. It worked.

There was also a young woman of perhaps seventeen. She was unfortunate enough to have a seat right beside this person in black. Her hair was piled high on her head, like that of the older woman across from her, and she wore a pale blue dress of shiny material.
Could be satin
, Cameo thought detachedly. The woman seemed so fragile and new. The assassin’s eyes wandered to the older couple, gray and delicate.

She turned away from the others, slid back into the purple cushion of the bench seat, and folded herself up into the shadow against the window. They were passing through the forest of Yetta. The forest and subsequent graveyard went on for miles. This was not the safest place to travel through, and the people sitting across from her seemed a little unnerved by this leg of their journey. Cameo watched mile after mile of wet, black tree trunks, missing most of their leaves, while the girl beside her searched for little pieces of candy in her purse. It was nice to be free of Wick’s tower for a little while, even if it felt like she was watching the same scenery roll by her window, as if painted on a scroll by the coachman himself.

Somewhere in the middle of Yetta forest, the coach stopped.

The older couple looked across the coach, into her eyes, confused, then at each other. “Why are we stopping?”

“Maybe the coach needs a repair?”

Cameo sat up and leaned to look around the young woman and out the door of the coach. There was movement outside; the coach heaved from side to side as the two coachmen climbed down. A moment later there was a loud banging on the carriage door, and then a voice that belonged to neither coachman.

“Knock, knock, my lords and ladies.” The door opened, and the step was lowered so the passengers could get out comfortably. “Please join us outside.”

“I’d-I’d really rather not,” the older gentleman said as his wife met him with a hard look. “Well, I wouldn’t.”

The old couple climbed out, followed by the young woman.

Cameo rolled her eyes in annoyance. Perhaps if she sat really still no one would notice. Outside she heard the typical catcalls being made at the pretty young woman who had been stuck sitting next to her. She searched her boot for her flask.

“Ah ha, I thought we’d forgot someone inside,” she heard as a dark haired man was beckoning her to join the party outside.

Cameo climbed out into the drizzling rain, her grim visage in stark contrast to the others who had been on board. She stepped down onto the dead leaves in the forest that she felt she knew intimately from watching that scroll of trees roll by her window repeatedly. The coachmen were standing close to the horses. The group of three other passengers was just a little closer to the coach, and Cameo moved herself to the other side of the door. It was obvious just who was most comfortable to be robbed together.

She was not keen on losing her weapons, or her flask of whiskey, but she highly doubted they were going to rob her anyway.
They must be aware of the Association
, she thought, hoping that they had no idea who she was. It was awful, she was getting too recognizable.

From the edge of the forest, a second highwayman strode toward the older man, with a bag in one hand and a black-powder pistol in the other. “Your money or your life, my lord.”

“We’re being robbed!” the girl shrieked. Apparently she had just figured it all out.

The new highwayman grinned at her and tipped his hat, which was topped with feathers.

“I never carry money when I travel,” said the man.

Both the coachmen rolled their eyes. A very unlikely story.

“Baubles, trinkets, any shiny items you might possess, put them in the bag if you don’t mind,” said the highwayman, giving the bag a little shake as if to emphasize his point.

Cameo smirked at the sound of his sing-song voice, then she took a sip from her flask.

“That silver?” The dark haired one tapped it as she drank. A trickle of whiskey ran out the corner of her mouth as she slowly lowered the flask and met him with her eyes, unappreciatively.

Looking more closely, he saw the tattoo on the palm of her right hand: the three black tears—a symbol of the hired killers in Lockenwood.

“I suppose so,” she said. Her voice sounding distinctly disinterested.

He took a step back with his pistol nearly on her.

A few steps away the triad of travelers was hastily removing earrings, necklaces, pocket-watches, and purses.

“Bel, are you finished? Come over here and keep an eye on this mob,” the blonde, more garishly dressed highwayman called to the man with the pistol trained on her chest.

“Opal, will you stop calling me that!” He swaggered over to the coachmen.

The blonde highwayman took a step up on the stair and moved into the coach. “Bel, did you see this?” Opal jumped down and moved over to Cameo with the bag jingling. “Lovely purple cushions inside. I really should get one of those.

“You’re next, my dear,” Opal said.

“What?”

Opal looked up at her with one green-hazel eye. He wore an eye patch over his left eye, and although he was probably once rather striking, his face was pox-marked, especially on the left side. “Time for your donation. You know, baubles, trinkets. Even cold, hard coin. It’s not beneath me.”

Cameo dropped her purse into the basket. It was Wick’s down payment for her next kill, but she didn’t need it for anything. She supposed she could support the livelihood of a highwayman for one day.

“The flask; that is not beneath me either.”

She dropped it in.

“The brooch, as well.”

“Brooch?” She clasped the cameo brooch at her collar, the last remembrance she had of her mother, and slowly removed it, placing it in the bag.

He took several steps back, then looked up at her, pawing through the baubles with the barrel of his pistol. “Not too bad, not too bad at all, ay Bel?”

“Stop calling me that!”

“And now, gentlemen!” he yelled at the coachmen, “luggage, if you don’t mind.”

Cameo was cursing them under her breath, her entire mission was being compromised. How unfortunate her pistols weren’t loaded.

A moment later, Bel was going through everyone’s luggage. The old man’s allegedly missing travel money was recovered. Her own luggage yielded two blankets, black powder, and bullets.

“A rather curious suitcase,” Opal mused. “I wonder who the owner is.”

The two moved back toward the forest.

“And now we must bid you all a fond farewell,” Bel winked at the young woman, and bowed with a flourish.

“Yes, it has been a wonderful time,” Opal tipped his hat at the young woman, and then looked at Cameo as if he were sharing a little joke with her. Her expression was far from amused as the men retreated into the trees.

Once the danger of the highwaymen was past, the group comforted each other as they picked up their muddy garments, which were strewn on the road, and began to repack them.

“Lady, are you all right?” asked the coachman whom she recognized from routine cross-country travel. She only nodded and waved him away. He had to ask; even if he despised her; the woman she worked for was extremely powerful.

Cameo moved into the shade of the trees, wishing she had a flask of whiskey. More than that, she wished that he hadn’t decided to take her brooch. Unfortunately for that highwayman, she had to get it back.

After a moment of calm, she began to make out a shadow among the trees. A shadow man. It broke free from the trees and moved to her.

Inclining her head towards the shade, she hissed, “Follow him,” and pointed to where Opal had been minutes before.

Never hesitating, the shade moved forward with no staggering, stumbling footsteps, nor did it float the way one might believe a ghost might float, but rather with a gait exactly like that of a man—a silhouette of a man ambling into the wood. Cameo looked over at her group near the coach, but they did not see the shade at all.

* * * * *

“A round of drinks for everyone!” Opal’s booming voice positively rang with laughter as he burst into the Tavern Pipe Inn, the only tavern in Yetta. To this he received cheers from a devoted crowd.

“Black Opal, you’re our savior!”

Opal grinned at the old drunkard, “Your servant, sir.”

“Good lad,” he murmured as he pushed past to get his free ale.

“It’s a bad business, Opal. I’ve a bad feeling about this one,” Bellamy said as he followed the fop to an empty table.

“Hello, Bellamy,” a tavern wench climbed into his lap. “Hello, Opal,” she smiled more platonically at him.

“Charlotte,” he grinned.

Bellamy pushed her off, “get us some of that swill you call ale.”

“Well, well, well. I think that was rather top-notch,” said Opal. “How often do we end up with such a pleasing haul and get to make a fool out of one of the Association? Ha, ha!”

“Yes, well about that. Walking all the way through the forest since we couldn’t steal the coach because of that assassin was one thing, but robbing her—” Bellamy broke off as Charlotte returned with the ale.

“Cheers, Charlotte,” Opal smiled. “Why don’t you get a mug for yourself as well?”

“What? Are you trying to get me drunk?”

“I am planning on getting everyone in this tavern drunk. We had a great haul this time.”

“Opal,” Bel shushed him.

“Oh, everyone knows who I am. Did you see all those lovely wanted posters?” He pulled one from a bag, “Fair likeness. I am, of course, far prettier than this. Apparently this artist didn’t finish school.”

“Opal, you are going to be more than just a wanted man; at this rate you’re going to get us killed.”

“And, I like this
Black Opal
moniker they’ve saddled me with. Sounds so much more nasty than plain old
Opal
,” he gushed, glancing at Bel as if he had a great lockbox of
happy
and could barely contain it. “Try not to be so gloomy, Bellamy my dear. So, we didn’t get the pretty coach this time, but as I remember, that coach passes daily.”

“Perhaps we should consider moving on now,” Bel said.

Opal rolled his eye, annoyed at the idea. “Perhaps I should have a bath, good wine, if any can be procured, and a bit of rouge for these lips.... Ah, then I’ll feel fit enough to have this conversation.”

Bellamy watched Opal get up and walk toward the bar of the tavern, when another bar wench wrapped her arm around his pulling him away from the main room. Opal didn’t just get up and walk out, he did it all with a flourish, attracting too much attention.

Bel sighed in annoyance, and suggested Charlotte get her own chair now that his legs had gone completely numb.

The tavern landlord closed up the bar as soon as Opal was out of sight. Bel was not known to be as generous with his cut of the booty as was his partner in crime.

* * * * *

Opal slid into the hot, cloudy bathwater with a bottle of something—he tried to read the label—something red. He took a swig, which was terrible, but it did its job nonetheless, and he wondered what actually was going to happen to him now that he had robbed one of the assassins. As soon as Lorraine left the room, he pulled the cameo from his pack, which was lying at the foot of the large metal tub that he was in.

He held the pink-backed trinket up to his eye for a better look; squinting even at that distance. The pin in the back looked newer than the face did; the gold foil around it seemed smashed in.

He had heard of an assassin named Cameo and wondered if that was whom he had just obtained quite a large sum of money from—money he was throwing away on terrible alcohol and whores. Why would a killer have that kind of money on her person unless she was recently paid that money? She probably wouldn’t, which meant she was on her way to either kill someone or she had just killed someone. Either way, it could place her in Yetta at a specific time. This information wasn’t something he needed to know. He wasn’t a gentleman, nor was he even an innocent passerby. Oh no, Opal was expendable. He was a villain, so what Bellamy said about getting out of Yetta did make a lot of sense. He needed to get rid of all the items from that haul as quickly as possible, starting with that brooch, and sadly all the pretty sparkly items he had acquired from the gentlewomen in that hold-up too.