My Heroes Have Always Been Hitmen (Humorous Romantic Shorts) (Greatest Hits Mysteries) (11 page)

"
I am sorry to disturb you." Carter Livingstone Sperry stepped out of the shadows. "I thought no one would be here, and I'd have a few moments to myself before the wedding."

"
You should've announced yourself!" I pulled out of my defensive stance.

"
What happened to you, Miss Abby?" he asked with a leer. "A bit of a tussle with some young man in the woods?"

My face flushed hotly.
"How dare you imply such a thing! I was not compromised in any such manner!" What a bastard. How did Wini think she could marry such an oaf?

He raised his hands in a mock attempt to fend me off.
"I meant no disrespect. I was just curious. After all, you are supposed to be helping my betrothed prepare for her nuptials."

I looked at him for a long moment and decided to dispense with the southern belle niceties.

"I'd personally rather she didn't marry a man like you. I don't really care for your sort."

Sperry
's face grew dark. He grabbed my wrist roughly. "I don't care what you think of me. You'd better not come between me and my bride."

I yanked my wrist from his grasp. Did you know that the thumb is the weakest of the fingers? If someone grabs your arm, pull in the direction of their thumb. You
'll get free every time. We are taught that as toddlers. Bombays start early.

"
Winifred deserves far better than you," I said quietly. "She deserves a man who really loves her and wants her. You, I suspect, are more interested in her inheritance."

Sperry lunged at me
, but I dodged out of the way. I wanted to bring my knee up and force his balls into his throat. But that would be very silly in a hoop skirt considering you couldn't see what the legs were doing at all under there. So instead, I punched him in the throat. Hard. I heard his trachea splinter.

Sperry stumbled backward, clutching his throat in surprise as he gasped for the air that would not come. He dropped to his knees, his body shaking
as it struggled to get oxygen. Within seconds, the man fell dead at my feet.

That happened faster than I thought it would. I
'd thought it would take a while to lure my vic to someplace where we could be alone. That I'd have to plan some way to catch him unawares. That I'd have to work hard to kill him. None of this seemed to be the case. Sometimes, you just have to punch your vic in the throat. That's all it takes and often all you have time for.

I looked around the barn for some sort of place to dispose of the dead man, but found nothing. If only there
'd been a bottomless shaft or something. I trod back and forth on the boards, looking for a loose one to stash the body under. Nothing.

The wedding would be starting soon. If I didn
't get rid of the body of the groom, they'd find it with me standing over it looking like I'd just been mauled by a badger. I had to think quickly. And fast.

"
Abby!" Auntie India burst into the barn and stopped when she spotted Sperry at my feet. She looked me up and down.

"
What on
earth
have you done to your gown? I
cannot
be
seen
with you like this!"

"
Really? That's what you're going to give me a hard time over? My dress?" I asked.

Auntie grinned for a moment.
"Well, I
was
going to complain that you didn't wait for me. But that seemed a
bit
narcissistic." 

"
How did you find me?" I asked.

"
Everyone said you were running around in the woods. They also
chastised
me for allowing you out of my sight, and a few said some
unkind
words about me being a lazy chaperone—which I thought was
completely
unnecessary. I thought about the layout of the plantation and guessed you were here. And I was
right
."

I sighed.
"Fine. You were right. Now help me get rid of Carter Livingstone Sperry."

It was sad, an hour later, seeing Wini in her wedding dress, weeping openly in front of everyone. It was sad that she thought Sperry had ditched her on her wedding day. It was sad that it took Auntie and me twenty minutes to find that old, unused well and dump Sperry's body into it. We threw in a dead pig on top for good measure. That way, when the smell hit, they'd most likely just bury the retired well. And it was sad that I'd ruined my dress from Paris manhandling a dead pig.

People were in such a state of shock that Wini had announced her engagement and been jilted at her own wedding all in the same hour that very few people noticed my ruined dress. Aunt Josephine turned everyone out in order to comfort her daughter in privacy.

Back at the Washingtonian, once Siobhan had gone to bed for the night and Auntie India had once again become Troy, we opened the file on Sperry together.

The Bombay Council had been right. As they always were. Sperry was the worst sort of man. In his lust for gold, he
'd allowed an unstable mine to collapse, trapping and slowly killing ten miners inside. Gambling debts had become overwhelming, and he'd taken to seducing and killing a wealthy widow for her money. Once that ran out, he'd decided to come home and woo his cousin Winifred.

"
And that's why you need to read the file the Council sends," Troy admonished when I'd tossed the papers into the fireplace. "You wouldn't have second-guessed yourself today if you'd just read the file."

I was exhausted and depressed. In one day, I
'd managed to crush the hopes of my best friend who only wanted a husband and family. And while she almost married a monster who would've killed her, I still felt raw and empty.

"
You did the right thing." Troy patted my hand gently. "Wini will find someone else."

"
I know." I leaned back in my chair and stared at the flames as they devoured the sordid story of Carter Livingstone Sperry.

"
Maybe I need a little change," I finally said.

Troy
sat straight up. "Ugh! Please
don't
say we are going up north! I don't want to see Mother and the others right now."

I shook my head.
"I was thinking of something else. Maybe a grand tour of Europe?"

Troy
perked up. "Will there be parties?"

I nodded.
"Yes. And you don't even have to be Auntie India if you don't want to."

"
Can I be someone else?" Troy pouted.

"
How about if you are just you? The dashing and wonderful and witty you?"

Troy
looked at me sternly. "My darling, I am
always
wonderful and witty, whether I am a woman or not. No, you
need
a chaperone. I think I'll come up with someone else. A sister perhaps? Or a cousin this time? I
do
hate playing an older woman."

"
Okay. You can be my sister," I said. I'd always wanted a sister.

Troy
nodded. "Yes, your
younger
,
prettier
sister. Who has a
smaller
waist and wears hats that are
appropriate
to her age."

I sighed. I guess I could live with that.

Moray
, Scotland—892 A.D.

"You have to go to the Orkneys. We have a target for you," Uncle Rome said as he tossed another greasy bone to the dogs at his feet. He sucked on his fingers before wiping a slimy hand across his tunic.

I shook my head
. "I don't want to go to the Orkneys. No one does. It's cold there, and they have Vikings." And I meant it. Vikings were a pain in the ass—always bludgeoning this and stabbing that. Nobody wanted them and yet there they were, like an infestation of fleas…well-armed fleas that wanted to kill you.

And you want to talk about cold?
In winter, the Orkney Islands were frigid and damp, leaving your bones aching with the question of,
Why in the hell are we in the damn Orkneys?
The fire crackled to my left as if it too wanted me to stay.

Uncle looked down his nose at me.
"You say that as if you have a choice. You don't."

He was right. I might as well have been arguing with the wind. The cold, bitter wind that blew down from the Orkneys.

Currently, the Bombay Family was comfortably ensconced in a large, warm castle. After defeating a rather scruffy tribe of Picts (another group who are very stabby and bludgeony—but with worse manners) to claim the land, we'd settled in. Sure, the Picts had been tough to remove, but the Bombay Council had wanted a northern stronghold. This was it.

Sharing a castle with family wasn
't a trial so much as it was a challenge. A challenge to keep us from killing one another. And we faced this challenge every day. Not an easy task when every member of the family is a trained assassin. I, myself, was eyeing the fireplace poker and wondering how many ways I could kill Uncle Rome right now. Currently, I was entertaining a method that involved fire and a soft part of his body that I will leave to your imagination.

"
You will leave at once," Uncle continued, tearing off a hunk of bread. "You must kill Sigurd the Mighty. You have two weeks."

"
Two weeks?" I complained like a girl—I'll admit that. And it was not very becoming for a twenty-two year old man, but I was hoping it would work. "Two weeks to get there, establish some sort of ruse, and kill him? Are you mad?" It probably was not a good idea to piss my uncle off. At more than thirty stone in weight, he could probably squash me at will. In fact, that was his modus operandi when it came to killing the bad guys—he basically sat on them until the breath left their lungs. Completely charmless and unimaginative if you ask me.

"
Off with you." Fortunately, I caught him while he was eating. This meant he'd be at the table for a while at least. I'd be gone before someone was required to help him out of his chair. It was an event—usually involving the whole family. Other families have interesting and dare I say, fun, traditions. Ours involved levering a fat man out of various forms of furniture.

"
Stupid Uncle Rome. Stupid Orkneys. Stupid Sigurd the Mighty," I grumbled all the way to my room. I didn't mind killing people for work. I just wasn't a fan of Vikings or cold weather. Well, at least Vikings I could kill. There weren't enough wool socks to keep me warm and dry where I was going.

My idea of a good time was playing chess
in front of a fire with a flagon of warm mead nearby. Not that there were any good chess players in the family. There weren't. Any.

You
'd think that strange, wouldn't you? A family of assassins and none of them but me played chess. I think it's weird. We got the game a few years back from a cousin who'd travelled to Persia. So far, I was the only one who'd taken it up.

Strategy is important, I think. For a very long time, Bombays have planned out assassinations in ways that left us undetected. Planning a killing took skill and creativity
—like in chess. Why couldn't they see that?

"
Going somewhere?" My little sister Iona stood in the doorway, grinning. She'd just turned fourteen and, like most women, thought she knew everything. By the way, she did. It was incredibly annoying.

"
Up north. To the Orkneys. To take out a Viking," I groaned.
Vikings
. Not only did I have weather to deal with, I had to kill a Viking.

Not that it was hard to do so, mind you. Vikings were relatively easy to kill. You just needed to make them mad. From there, you just outwitted them. And I spoke their language. Again, I was the only
Bombay who'd been interested in learning the other languages when we'd relocated up here from Northumbria to the north of Hadrian's Wall. Why was that?

Iona
plopped down onto my bed. "So, how are you going to do it?"

"
I don't know," I said honestly. "I'll figure it out when I get there. Do you know anything about Sigurd the Mighty?" My history of the northeastern islands was a little, well, deficient. But Iona liked political intrigue.
Women
.

"
Oh, him," she said in a bored way. "He's Earl of Orkney. Kind of an idiot. His brother gave him that title and then abandoned him. The brother didn't want to be in the Orkneys either."

"
An idiot is good," I said as I stuffed a shirt and a couple of hoods into a sack. Maybe this would be so easy I could just ride up there, gut him, and be home before anyone was the wiser. I eyed the ongoing chess game in the corner of the room. I had an important move to think about. Even though I was just playing against myself.

"
You can't just walk up to him and kill him," Iona said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. "These are Vikings you're dealing with. You have to finesse it somehow."

I rolled my eyes.
"Really? You're saying it's more complicated than that? I don't believe it."

Vikings thought with their weap
ons: strike first, and then remember you needed to ask the dead guy something. Realize you just killed the only guy who could give you this information. Take his goat and find someone else to kill. Repeat.

My sister ignored this.
"I think there's some sort of border dispute going on there near Caithness. Something with the Magnate of Moray. That's where you should start." She tapped a finger to her chin as she stared into space. After a few seconds, she shrugged. "Anyway, good luck!"

I grabbed her arm as she was about to bounce out of the room.
"I think you should come with me. You could help."

Iona
grabbed my hand and twisted, throwing me neatly to the floor. All air had abandoned my lungs and she stood over me, hands on her hips as I gasped like a fish on the icy, stone floor. I really should put a nice warm rug in here.

"
Why should I help you? Why would I go there? Besides…some Viking warrior might try to rape me or carry me off and make me a slave. Why would I want that?"

I wheezed as I climbed to my feet.
"Like anyone could take advantage of
you
." I brushed the dust from my clothes. "Besides, I was thinking more of you traveling in disguise."

A flicker of interest glimmered in my sister
's eyes. She liked disguises. As a child in Northumbria, she often moved through the streets unnoticed as an urchin, or was kowtowed to as a princess. Dressing up was her favorite thing and a weakness I could easily exploit.

"
Really?" she asked with enthusiasm. Upon seeing my interest, she toned it down and started pulling at a string on her dress. "Why would I be interested in that?"

"
Because you love costumes and you love intrigue," I answered. I was really warming up to the idea. Having someone else along would make the time pass quickly too, even if it was Iona.

"
Okay. I'll do it." Iona smiled. Either she was bored, or she wanted a break from wrestling Uncle Rome out of his chair. "What will I be? A Pictish princess? A warrior girl? A Viking shield-maiden?"

"
A boy," I answered.

Iona sulked from the back of her horse as we picked our way through the muddy forest. She hadn't quite gotten used to the idea of being my boy servant. She'd had to bind her breasts and put her hair up under a hood. For some reason, Iona had gotten a bit girly and man-crazy in the last year, and she was not enjoying this disguise as much as I'd hoped.

"
Not too far now," I said for the tenth time today. "Moray is nearby. I'm pretty sure of it." Actually, the only thing I was pretty sure of was that I'd forgotten to bring a map. We'd had to ask people all along the road if we were going in the right direction. I'd made Iona swear she wouldn't tell the other Bombays when we got back. That would be humiliating.

It had been a three-day
's journey from home to get this far. A cold, wet drizzle glazed the branches of dead trees, and, in spite of our heavy wool cloaks, we were soaked through and chilled to the bone. Iona had been moody and silent the whole way, so I spent my time thinking of my next chess move. I really was stuck with this one because both of my rooks were cornered. Maybe I'd get an idea along the way.

At least we
'd been able to stay at various farms and inns. They were rough, and they were few, but having a night to hang our wet clothes in front of a fireplace had been a benefit. Money wasn't really a problem for us, and it did most of the talking. There were few travelers who could afford to stay at these places. Hot food was another plus. Although if I ate one more eel I was pretty sure I'd snap. What was it with these people and eels?

"
Are you still sulking?" I asked my sister. "You should be getting into character."

Iona
nodded and said in a dead voice. "Fine. I'm Oxnar—your servant boy. I'm thirteen. And we are on our way to the northern islands to see your father. Who is a fisherman." She threw her hands up in the air. "That's the best you could come up with? A fisherman? How many fishermen's sons can afford a servant? And why in the hell would we go visit him in winter?
I
should've made up the backstory. I'm far better at it than you."

I shook my head.
"You have to keep things simple. A fisherman's son is unimportant. The people of Moray won't feel like they have to bow to or even acknowledge us. They will forget us once we've gone."

Iona
shook her head. "What about the servant thing? How can you explain that?"

I sighed.
"I told you. I'm now a cloth merchant of some small reputation. You are my apprentice." I tried hard not to roll my eyes. That would've made her angrier than she already was, and I didn't need that.

"
Whatever!" Iona threw her hands up again, before slouching into sulk mode.

"
You there!" a voice cried out ahead of us. I squinted into the piercing rain to see a figure form out of the mist. A young man, about my age I'd guess, stepped forward, wielding a large stick. Sticks were a favored weapon of these parts. They literally grew on trees.

"
Yes?" I asked casually. We'd encountered many people like this on the road—most of them beggars and thieves. I reached for the axe I had hidden under my cloak.

"
Where do ya think yer goin?" The man thrust a stubborn chin up at us. His hair was red and unruly, but his clothes were intact and not worn out. I decided he was a guardian from a local farm or something similar.

"
To Moray to spend a few days resting our horses before continuing up north," I said, looking him directly in the eyes.

The young man looked from
Iona to me. He seemed to be struggling with a thought. I let him. There's really no point in giving someone too much information.

"
I'm Taran," the man said, and I realized he was much younger than me—closer to Iona's age. "My da is the innkeep in Moray. You kin stay with us." And without waiting for my reply, he took hold of Iona's horse and began leading us up the trail.

My sister raised her eyebrows at me
, and I knew she was wondering if this was an ambush or a trap. Her hand went to her short sword she kept hidden beneath a cloak. I shook my head and she nodded. We might as well follow Taran. If he was telling the truth, then we'd have our place to stay. If he was lying, well, he'd be dead soon. It didn't really matter.

The horses moved slowly through the muck that sucked at their hooves as the rain began to
come down in freezing sheets. Loud, sharp cracking sounds filled the still, rain-muffled air as the coated tree branches snapped beneath the weight of the ice. I hoped Taran was right. We needed to find shelter quickly.

I studied the back of the boy as he walked, his right hand still gripping the rope of
Iona's horse. How had I misjudged him so easily? This was clearly a boy. The illusion that made me think he was a man was subterfuge. It must have been his stance and his attitude. The boy had developed it to deter the wrong sort. It made me like him immensely.

We pulled up to a
two-story, half-timbered building with a thatched roof.

"
This is it," Taran said. "I kin take yer horses around back and see to em."