Industry & Intrigue (8 page)

“
I aim to
please
,” she
replied and she ran her finger over his lips as he turned to look
at her. Her soft, brown hair hung over her head and the pillow and
sweat beaded on her forehead. She slowly sat up and left the bed.
She could feel the man’s eyes admiring her naked
backside.

She
pulled on her clothes, when she was
done she looked like an inconspicuous peasant girl, instead of the
sultrily-dressed prostitute she was playing. She splashed a bottle
of liquid over her hair and face and she felt a tingling as the
glamor washed away. Her hair began to grow shorter, rising to below
her ears and the color changed to light blonde. Her features were
changing as well, her eyes sharpening and her lips becoming less
full. She had a long scar running from below her temple to the side
of her chin. When the effect had ended she was a different
person.

The man
tried to say something but all
that came out was a mumble. She looked over at him. He was
straining to move himself, but he was still in the same position.
“Ah,” she said “you can strain as much as you like Mr. Trent, it
won’t matter. That poison initiates a state of complete body
paralysis.”

She walked over to the bed and
looked down at his face, there was fear in his eyes and
his body was
trembling with the effort he was putting into trying to move. She
showed her finger to him, the same one she had ran over his lips
“Venom of the Iris cobra. It causes paralysis and then a heart
attack within minutes. Fortunately it doesn’t absorb by skin
contact, but it will mix with saliva.”

She used the small hand basin to rinse her
hand and then thoroughly wiped it down with a hand towel. She then
put the towel in a sealed bag and pocketed it. “I doubt they’ll
check for it. It’s a rare poison, but better to be cautious and not
leave traces.”

His eyes were now full of anger as he
watched her movements she matched his gaze and said, “I’d be angry
too, staring at my death and unable to do anything about it. You
probably want to know why, but I’m afraid I can’t enlighten you. In
my profession one doesn’t ask questions. I’m given a target to
eliminate, nothing more, nothing less. In your case, whoever wanted
you dead, wanted it to look natural.”

She walked over to the
large
,
ornate closet and opened the door, as she did the girl she had been
impersonating, Darla, his favorite girl at Madam Shard’s
whorehouse, fell out. The assassin pulled her over with and laid
her on floor face down. “I’m afraid your beloved whore was dead
long before you arrived. I took care of her before using a simple
glamour on myself to fool you into thinking I was her.”

She took a pinch
from Darla’s
tarcaine supply and sprinkled it around the dead girl’s mouth then
rubbed what remained off her hands and stood up. “That about does
it I think,” she said, “When they find the two of you, you’ll have
died from too much excitement and Darla here will be a drug
overdose.”

Trent suddenly
gave out a ragged
breath and his back arched slightly. “That’s the venom kicking in,”
she said. “I must admit for an old man you were spry in the sack,”
and she smirked. He gave off one last gasp before all the tension
went out of his body and his eyes slowly closed.

She
scanned the room one more time,
double-checking that there was nothing she could have missed. Once
satisfied, she opened the window and carefully climbed up towards
the roof. She pulled herself up and silently walked across two more
buildings before reaching a fire ladder and made her way down to
empty alley. Now all she had to do was report in on her
success.

Her usual place to meet
was a tavern, the
Iron Boot, in the working class Charwood district. She entered
through the main doors and her training kicked in. She slipped into
the mannerisms of a working factory girl that matched her
disguise.

Half a dozen factories were
within a snail
’s crawl from the Iron Boot and many of the workers came
here for meals at all hours of the day, even in the middle of the
night. Most of the factories ran on twenty four hour schedules and
several shifts finishing during the night.

There were only a dozen or so
peopl
e right
now and all of them were preoccupied drinking. Most of them were
sitting at the bar, soot and oil on their clothing identifying them
as factory workers. One group of four was taking up a table in the
middle.

At one of the booths to the
side sat
a
dignified looking elf. He had the bronze skin tone common to Talfey
elves and wore his hair in the pulled back, ponytail style of Tal
Feros, but it was raven black in color, closer to the elves Ze
Feros, than the gold and silver hair common to Talfey
elves.

He
was dressed in an immaculately clean
dark-green blazer and a white shirt and was reading a newspaper,
the Alkos City Chronicle. He had a steaming, hot beverage on the
table in front of him. He looked up at her entrance, placed his
newspaper down and sat back, watching her. She moved over to the
booth and sat down opposite him. “It’s done,” she said, “all
clean.”

“
Good,” he replied. “The client
will be pleased. This is for you.” He passed an envelope across the
table to her.

She picked it up and tested its
weight in her hand.
“This feels light,” she said.

“
Did they not explain it to you
Lucina? You opted to become a free agent. It means you have more
choice in your jobs. But it also means that when you do use take
our contracts, our commission is larger than you may have been used
to,” he replied.

Lucina
paused before answering. For a long
time she had been a member of the Arm of Assassins, a criminal
organization based in Longhaven, It was the only life and home she
had known since the loss her birth family in her youth.

She had been one of the
many
child
refugees of the Estaran Civil War and had drifted before being
captured by slave traffickers and taken to Longhaven, a city
notorious for its crime and corruption. She had managed to kill one
of her guards and escaped and spent a year on the streets before
she became involved with the Arm.

After her training, apprenticing and
eventual graduation to master assassin, she had wanted a change.
The Arm wasn’t inflexible and allowed members to leave under
certain circumstances. She was considered a reserve member of the
Arm.

She still paid fees and had to run targets
by her contact, currently the elf sitting across from her, Ral
tor’Kraos. But she also had the freedom to take what jobs she
wanted and to choose where she operated. The Arm was happy to have
another member operating in the capital, as their influence here
was nowhere as strong as it was in Longhaven.

“
Oh it was explained, though
they never mentioned the exact number. I’m not complaining,” she
said, while pocketing the envelope. “I knew it would be different,
besides I’m making do.”

“
Yes so I
hear
,” said
Ral. “In fact I would say you’re doing rather well, considering the
high level clients you’ve been taking contracts with. And your jobs
have been masterful, it was an excellent decision for you to move
here.”

“
Thank you,” she
replied.

He sipped his drink.
“What would you say
if your fee jobs could go back to the normal rate
permanently?”

She looked at him with
disbelieving eyes,
“I’d say I don’t believe you.”

Ral chuckled, “Normally, yes. But this is
different. The Arm has a high value contract that we want you to
fulfill. The Dark Hand himself asked for you.”

Lucina blinked at the mention
of that. The Dark Hand was the head of the Arm and the only
members
aware of his identity where the Circle of Five, his most
trusted assassins. He appeared from time to time at Arm assemblies,
but was usually covered in shadow magic, all anyone could see was a
bipedal-shaped shade and he never spoke. He was considered the
greatest assassin in the world.

He saw her reaction.
“Yes, I thought
that would get your attention. You see Lucina, your abilities at
silent contracts are excellent but you’re even better at
sharpshooting. One of our best and that’s why we need you for
this.”

Lucina smiled.
T
he truth
was she preferred assassinations with guns, especially long range
kills. It made her feel like a god, looking down at the target who
never had a clue at what was coming. “I’m listening,” she
said.

“
If this contract if successful,
you will return to full membership rates for Arm contracts, but you
remain free to take your own jobs in Alkos City. In addition you
will be paid one hundred, thousand crowns upon
completion.”

Lucina’s eyebrows raised and
she
whistled
lightly. That was more money than she had ever received for a
contract. The target must be high-profile indeed.

“
I know you have other contracts
ongoing r
ight now. Don’t worry, you’ll have time to fulfill them.
The target will not arrive in Alkos for several weeks, which is
fortunate because we will need time to prepare.” He leaned forward,
speaking more softly. “This will not be simple Lucina. When this
target is ended there will be dire consequences, so we must make
certain everything is perfectly planned for execution, escape and
evasion.”

Lucina nodded, “I’ll do it,” she said. Not
only for the money but high profile targets gave her a certain
thrill. For the money that Ral was offering, the target could have
been the emperor himself, though she doubted if even the Arm would
be willing to take a contract like that, but she guessed it was
political.

“
Excellent
,” said Ral. “I will meet you
at your home in one week’s time and bring all the details. From
there we can begin arranging the plans.” With that he took a sip of
his tea and went back to reading his newspaper. That was her cue to
leave so she stood up and walked out of the tavern.

She was feeling
good, she had been
offered the most lucrative and infamous contract the Arm had worked
since the assassination of the General Caimbeull fifty years ago.
The assassin that had finished that contract had spent the next
twenty years of his life as one of the Five. This was her chance to
become one of the top assassins, if she played her cards right she
could carry out her own expansion of the Arm here in Alkos
City.

Chapter 8

Walking
the streets of the South Alkos
district had never been so easy. As a short woman, Brenna was
usually challenged by the lowlifes that lived in the district. She
would usually have to break a few bones to get them to back off and
let the rest know she meant business.

With her new partner
howeve
r the
situation had changed. The tall and ferocious looking Snar kept
practically everyone at bay. Most folk here had only heard tales of
the savage races of the steppes and seeing one up close and
personal was too much for them.

S
houts of, “Agorid!” occasionally rang out
and people tripped over themselves to get out of the way of the
bear agorid.

They were headed to an address
given to them by the drug dealer connected to the suicide at Warded
Spirals, Brenna had put him through the ringer during interrogation
and threatened him with manslaughter, backed up by the name of the
Dunn family. The dealer had practically wet himself in fear and
given up his superior,
Connor Wallace, who was in charge of a drug safe
house. He gave them the address and the time his boss would be
there arranging for the distribution. She hadn’t thought about it
until now, but the one downside of having Snar with her, meant that
word could quickly get back to their target that the watch was in
the area.

“
Snar
,” she said.

“
Yes sergeant?” he
asked
.

“
We are attracting a great deal
of attention.”

“
Indeed. I apologize.
Unfortunately the less well-educated citizens in this part of the
city are likely to react to my physical presence in this manner.
Racial prejudice is not something that is easily overcome,
particularly when most members of my race are still in the
hunter-gatherer stage of societal development.”

Brenna smi
led, he talked like an
academic. No doubt influence from Professor Bruce. “Well that may
be useful to us at times, but as we get closer to the location it’s
going to cause problems,” she said. “We need to be discrete in
order to catch Wallace with the drugs.”

Snar nodded then scanned his eyes up and
down the now empty street. “If I were to take this route?” he said
and pointed down.

His claw pointed
at a sewer opening
and Brenna frowned. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” she
said.

“
Why not?
” he asked. “It’s perfect, I
can move much swifter down there and no one will be shouting out
while you approach the intended building.”