Snippet #1628153

Ishtar's Residence

Pandora couldn’t make too much sense of what Victoria was saying, but she judged it was something logistical about guarding the sewer passages, or maybe that section of Alpha? She did not recognize the specific place; it was not the Facility or the palace, and thus she’d never had cause to visit it. Still… right there? Someone was keeping prisoners. No, not someone, Gilgamesh.

That man scared her on a level she would not care to think about if she could avoid it. The funny thing was, she had never even seen his face. Maybe that was part of the reason- he scarcely even seemed human to her, just some kind of looming shadow with arms long enough to reach her wherever she hid. Everyone was sticking their necks out so far just to stop him, and on top of that, the rebellion was gathering momentum. She’d almost thought it couldn’t get much worse, only… living in Delta was a lifelong lesson in the nonexistence of a rock bottom. It was always possible to fall further.

Ishtar was talking again, though, and what she said was surprising to say the least. “Um…” the mage wasn’t really sure how to respond to that. She’d never really thought anyone was pushing her around particularly. Mostly, they just knew more than she did, and really there wasn’t much she could do about that. At least they tended to tell her what was going on instead of leaving her in the dark, right? That had to count for something. “I’ll do my best,” she promised, because really that was all she could say. Either way, it seemed to satisfy the madam, and she accepted the rolled-up map with an uncertain sort of gravitas.

She had made it to the door before she looked back, and noted that there seemed to be some kind of exchange happening between Ishtar and Victoria. She might be hopeless at lying, but Pan wasn’t totally incompetent, and she knew tension when she saw it. This kind was actually pretty thick, and she bit her lip. “Victoria? Shouldn’t we probably be going?” The small woman hovered there with her hand on the brass doorknob, and glanced back and forth between the other two. True to form, the thought that killing Ishtar might make them safer had never crossed her mind. The woman had provided information that Pan thought was important, and that had moved her summarily from the “unknown” designation to the “ally” one in her (overly simplistic, she would admit) understanding of the world.

---

District Beta, Blacksmith's Guild Apartments

The food was delivered, but Scheherazade chose to wait before eating it. She had that much in the way of manners, at least. It didn’t take too much longer for Garbiel to show up, anyway, and privately she wondered if the meeting had gotten worse after she left it. It must have; the man looked positively haggard, shoulders slumped as though bearing a tangible weight. What on earth had occurred in her absence? She’d let him in without bothering too much about it, but his next words demanded a bit more attention.

“I hope the food is to your liking Scheherazade, but please I believe it best for us to dine first before we discuss our next order of business.” Lovely; nobody talked like that unless they had something awful to say afterwards. She spared her meal a glance and inclined her head. Where she was not a fan of small talk, it seemed to be something he was inclined towards. A change for her, dealing with someone who was, for lack of a better word, pleasant. Not that the others she dealt with were unpleasant, exactly, just… Loki was almost all business, with a side of attitude she kept well-concealed in public. Not cordial by any stretch of the imagination. Many of her fellow assassins were similar in some ways.

Realizing the silence had stretched a bit longer than was probably polite, she shrugged minutely. “It’s fine, and if that’s what you want…” she trailed off mid-sentence, not really needing to finish. She was what she was, and frankly if she even tried to match his demeanor she’d fail horribly. This was as courteous as she got.

As soon as the meal was concluded, she found herself with a sturdy knife in one hand and perhaps the last instruction she’d been expecting. “You want me to kill this man? Well… all right, but there are less obvious ways to do it than this,” she indicated the blade. Still, if he wanted it to be public knowledge that he was willing to hire assassins, she wasn’t going to counteract him. “If anyone would recognize this as yours, I can leave it in the body if you want.” She wouldn’t unless specifically directed though. It was a good knife. Frankly, she wasn’t even sure she was going to use it at all.

To his question regarding Danterus, she simply nodded, her eyes narrowing slightly. Where was he going with this? The two matters seemed completely unrelated until he continued, and Scheherazade frowned. “I won’t tell him you said this, if that’s what you’re asking, but… if he does become a problem, you’ll have to hire someone else. I won’t help a father kill his son,” she said firmly. She had the luxury to choose; she was no formal member Amon’s Guild. Family was a touchy subject for Scheherazade. She held no loyalty for what remained of her blood, and in some senses, she’d never known what it was like to have one. The idea that someone would will such a connection to be torn was repugnant to her in a way that simple contract killing was not.

Was she a hypocrite? Maybe, as she’d sooner see her blood father dead than anywhere near her. But her actual family, that troupe of acrobats and performers in Gamma- she’d sooner slit her own throat than kill one of them. “And you shouldn’t even consider it a possibility. Lock him up until this is all over if you must, make him hate you, but don’t have him killed.” She knew she probably had no right to say these things, but really that had never stopped her from saying something before, and it wasn’t about to now.

---

Midnight

Zade crouched outside the room of her target, examining his doorknob. Frowning in concentration rather than displeasure, she withdrew a medium-sized lockpick from the pouch at her belt, sliding it into the mechanism and listening for the soft clicks that would signal her success. A number of years breaking into places much better-guarded than this single room made it a rather simple affair, and she was out of the relatively-exposed hallway in seconds. The room itself was as dark as one would expect of a sleeping chamber after the occupant was abed, and she gave her eyes a moment to adjust, pupils dilating to let in as much light as possible.

The soft outline of a sleeping person was just visible on the other side of the room, and Zade tread carefully, placing each of her feet before shifting her weight onto it. The window there was her emergency escape route and also the only reason she could see at all, but if all went according to plan, she’d be able to just walk back out the door. A gloved hand grasped the hilt of the knife Garbiel had given her, and it slid smoothly and noiselessly from its sheath. Holding it in her right hand, she approached the sleeping figure, who was snoring at such volume she wondered if perhaps he hadn’t been drunk before he went to bed.

She used to say she didn’t kill people. Even in that battle a year ago, she’d forgone much of her advantage by refusing to do so, but once the attacks started coming more quickly and viciously, she’d found herself backed into a corner. The only way to shave her own life had been to take that of her assailant, and when it came down to it, she hadn’t hesitated more than a moment. In the time since, she’d eliminated the moment altogether.

Which was why, when she placed her hand over the sleeping man’s mouth, he didn’t even have enough time to fully regain his consciousness before his throat was gruesomely slit, and she held his weakening struggles down for the short time it took him to bleed out of a severed jugular vein. The effort smeared her clothing with blood, and she decided she probably shouldn’t take the hallway, just in case she was seen. Instead, she slid the window open and climbed out after confirming that the man really was dead, and scaled the building, running across the roof and climbing back down to her own window, which she’d left ajar just in case. The bloody garments went straight into the fire, replaced with ordinary sleepwear, and Zade settled into a chair beside the flames, watching them with glassy-eyed constancy.

No matter how many times she killed a person, she still wasn’t able to sleep the night afterwards.