Intimate Lethality
by Doug H.

The first time you kill someone is the worst. Up close, I mean, not with a bow at 100 yards but up close where you can smell them, hear them breathing...gasping. The sound the blade makes as it scrapes across bone almost made me throw up. The way they bite at your fingers as you struggle to keep them quiet until they die. Perhaps its not trying to bite you but merely trying to scream or breathe and your hand just gets in the way. It's a personal thing... dangerous. Intimate lethality, I call it. Sometimes you can even feel their heart beating its last beats at the end of your dagger. Its odd...creepy. In those last moments, you're God...or Satan.

Some marks struggle briefly, then seem to give up all too soon. One time, I almost yelled at the guy "Hey, you're fighting for your damn life here!" But I didn't. Others thrash around for an extraordinarily long time, hoping against futility. But you just clamp your hand down harder over their mouth and push your blade in a little deeper...and wait. I've always thought it must be like the feeling a boa constrictor gets as its prey struggles against the snake's muscled body. I wonder if snakes get a sick feeling after their first kill. I did.

People think being a thief is easy. They're wrong. Dead wrong. It gets easier with time but it never gets easy. Lady Luck is always there watching...waiting to see if you'll slip up and forget something. Just waiting...holding the Dice of Chance, poised to roll them against you. Did you forget to check for the town's guard around the corner? Roll the dice. Is your mark wearing a piece of armor you didn't see? Roll dem bones. Did you hide yourself well enough in the shadows? Snake eyes, your dead. Lady Luck loves chance. She's a gambler but she never pays the losses, you do. She has been on my side from time to time but I would never trust her. She'll turn on you like a viper!

You know, nobody seems to respect a thief either. Besides thinking its easy work, people think you're the scourge of the earth. Of course, that's bullshit. Everybody is out to get what they want, the easiest way possible. It’s just that their styles seem so noble sometimes that you overlook the essence of what they're doing. They're taking. Nothing else. Cut away the crap and you're left with theft. We're all thieves. But some just can't be honest about it. I know I'm dishonest. What else would I be? A politician? And what about the other careers?

Fighters? They're dumb as bricks. Magicians? Gay. Priests? They're lost in their own world. Druids? Now they are way, way out there. Illusionists? What’s the point? And they all talk about how hard their apprenticeship was. Hard! Every one of them trained in the guild area. Oooh, I'm banging swords with another fighter trainee. Oooh, I'm spending hours reading books to cast a speckle of light in the corner. Oooh, I pray so I can purify water. Oooh, I spend hours using my mind to control a butterfly. Big fucking deal! Do you know where my training took place? On the streets. If I slipped up during training, it was jail for me. And that's the best that can happen. Worse you could get stoned by some vigilantes or get hacked to death by your mark. Now tell me how hard their training is.

What's the option though? Being part of the public, the crowds, the mindless sheep? Not for me. Hell, they're just the feeder fish, the prey, the...chum that draws the sharks in.

I'm the shark. I'm not the big fish yet but I'm growing. I'm chewing up the feeder fish everyday and dodging the bigger sharks to keep from becoming their feeder fish.

So here I sit in the tidal pool watching the feeder fish go by. Its nearly midnight and I've been hidden in this alley for hours. I can't even remember what town this is. It doesn't even matter as long as it's not Schofield. Schofield is the big pond where the big sharks run. I was born in that big pond but left to improve my chances of surviving to become a big fish in a little pond.

My mark tonight is no one of importance. He's got some money, a nice bauble or two and a sword I've wanted for some time. It looks nice, very nice. I can't get close enough to really evaluate it but I can do that after it becomes mine. The past three nights he's walked past this alley on his way home from work. He carries a pouch of money under his cloak from the day's proceeds and has at least two tankards of ale in his belly after he leaves the bar across the street.

Tonight is a good night for working. It’s cool enough to be comfortable but not cold enough to show my breath and give me away. The moon is waning and the sky is covered in a blanket of clouds, making the night soft and shadowy. My kind of night. It started me thinking back to my first time and the feel of someone dying in my grasp.

Like I said it gets easier but that first time is a rush. Your muscles are tight in anticipation, you're sweating like you're on the gallows, and your heart is thumping like a drum. At the time it seems loud enough for someone else to hear. You feel like an animal waiting for prey. You feel scared. You feel unprepared. You feel sick to your stomach and then it happens. Your mark shows up. While you're totally absorbed in your own doubts and thoughts, boom! There they are waiting to get popped.

My first time I almost tripped trying to jump the guy. I don't know how I managed to stay quiet but before I knew it I was on top of him. Just like I was taught, I clamped my left hand down hard over his mouth, pulled him in close, moved my body slightly to the side for swinging room, then hard in with the dagger, to the hilt.

There wasn't much struggle. The guy seemed pretty weak. Surprising but it didn't distract me. I twisted the blade for extra measure and that's when I heard it scrape the bones. It sent a shiver down my spine like I'd been stabbed. But I just held on till the movement stopped. I dragged him back into the alley and he collapsed like a sack.

It took a minute for me to realize I should be searching the body. As the rush started to wear off, I started feeling odd. I pushed off the feeling and started searching. I felt for his money pouch and it was gone! Frantically I prodded and felt for other goodies. Gone! I'd been set up! I rolled the corpse over with rage in my eyes, ready to throttle the body just for punishment when I realized something.

The blank face staring up at me wasn't my mark's face. It wasn't even a man. The delicate face of an angel looked up oddly at me. It was a sweet face, flawless, pale. The eyes were wrong though. They froze in a desperate stare, slightly askew. That part was my fault. That and I had hit the wrong person. A woman. That feeling returned. I puked. My first time was as bad as it gets.

As I wiped the vomit from my lips and my eyes stopped watering, I noticed she did have a nice necklace. Shame to waste it. Like my uncle used to say "You have to see the good in everything!"

Oh well, gotta go. Tonight’s mark is on the way. Quiet now.