Assassin Night

            Ilara Bonaparte

 

The December night was an obvious variation of cold and dry, both sensations mingling together in the blackness of the night.  Snow fell with slow deliberacy, as if intent on its drop point on the hard ground.  The first snow was always brief, followed by the first blizzard.  Such was the way of things on the planet of Tyrus.  Seasons were brief, but intermittent spaces between them, prolonging the wait for summer or winter, were longer than any season itself.  Spring and fall lasted three times as long as winter and summer on the planet in the outskirts of the galaxy.

            There was a small carriage heading down a black, foreboding road.  Only the native families of Tyrus maintained their rustic lifestyle, moving to ride in carriages led by horse robots instead of the traditional hover cars.  There was no other sound but steel wheels crunching the snow in its wake and the soft wind between frozen leaves.

            The family inside was simple- a father, mother, and daughter.  The young daughter was in her early teens, on the very verge of becoming a woman.  A politically correct definition would be to call her a “young woman” but she was spoiled, and still a child. 

            The father monitored the robots’ path on his view screen, a small smile on his face.  He and his wife were the leaders of a revolutionary sect urging Tyrus to become independent from the corruption of the galaxy that had forgotten them.  He had enjoyed a relaxing night with his family, and soon he would have to meet his fellow revolutionaries to plan the first battle.  As soon as he arrived home, he would be forced to leave again with his wife, to leave their child with the babysitting bio-android.

            The father’s name was Kensin Logos, and his wife was Loreena Logos.  The daughter was unnamed, called by her mother’s middle name, Ikane, as was tradition on Tyrus.  She would not have a name of her own until she reached eighteen. 

            Kensin was slowly falling asleep, softly drifting off into nothingness.  His wife and child had been asleep for fifteen minutes before he drifted off. 

            He awoke with a start, however, when the carriage stopped.  Nudging his wife, she woke and looked around, brow furrowed.  Brown curls clung to one side of her face, the side she had been sleeping against the wall.  “What’s wrong?” She mouthed.

            “I don’t know.” Kensin mouthed back.  Both their gazes were locked on Ikane.  Loreena knelt next to her and softly brought the twelve-year-old into an embrace.  Loreena nodded to her husband, fear in both of their eyes.  They knew what was happening.  The Galactic powers of the Government had caught on- they knew who they were.  All that mattered was saving their daughter.

            Both parents crouched next to opposite doors.  “I love you.” Kensin whispered.  Before his wife could return her sentiments, he burst out the door, gun from his belt, firing.  After several moments, Loreena jumped out and ran.  She did not look back for her husband.  She ran until her daughter woke, dreary eyed and complaining.

            “I’m cold.” Ikane mumbled.

            “Quiet.” Loreena said sternly.  Ikane had heard her mother speak sternly so few times in her young life that she followed the order.

            Loreena was too far off to hear her husband scream.  She was not too far away to escape the assassin.  A shadow within shadows, the assassin easily got ahead of the woman.  Loreena was slow- she was carrying fifty pounds extra weight- and her breathing loud.  The assassin could track her with her eyes closed.

            A black shape of a woman loomed up at Loreena.  She instantly stopped and shielded her terrified daughter.  Before Loreena could plea for her child’s life, the assassin spoke.

            “I do not have a contract for the child.  She will live.  Do not worry for her.” The voice was sympathetic, pitying, but cold. 

            “How do I know you won’t kill her?” Loreena demanded.

            The assassin stepped forward, the light of Tyrus’ moon shining onto pale skin.  Emerald eyes gazed into Loreena’s.  “You have my word.”

            Loreena kept her child behind her.  “The word of an assassin?”

            A small smile lit the face of the woman.  “It is worth more than you might think.”

            Loreena nodded.  “Ikane, run.”

            “Mom?”

            “Run, child.  Run that way!” She pushed her daughter to the west.  “Run until you reach the river.  Follow it downstream to the village of your grandparents.  You know the way.”  The girl was understandably hesitant.  “Go!” Loreena yelled.

            The child obeyed, and soon was gone.

            The assassin stayed still while Loreena looked at her.  “Well?  Will you kill me now?”

            The assassin looked at Loreena for a moment, eyes shadowed.  She was immensely beautiful, with sculpted cheekbones and an aquiline nose.  Emerald eyes peeked out from under hooded lids shaded with the natural shadows of the night.  “Do not be in such a hurry to die.” The assassin looked into the distance where Ikane had ran.  Loreena tensed, but the assassin looked back to her.  “I am waiting for her to put sufficient distance between herself and you.”

            “Why?”

            She looked into the distance- into the past, perhaps.  “I will not allow an innocent to hear her mother’s scream.”          

            “I will not scream.” The woman replied stubbornly.

              The assassin was slightly amused.  “You say that now.”

            Loreena changed the subject.  “Who are you?”

            The assassin’s gaze turned thoughtful.  “I have been asked that many times in my life.  I am beginning to forget its meaning.  You ask for my name, do you not?”

            Loreena simply nodded.  She knew she was going to die and yet she felt no fear for herself, only for her daughter.  She did not want her daughter to hear her scream- she did not want her daughter to even know her mother did scream.  However, Loreena knew she would.  This assassin had ways to kill that Loreena had never heard of, and the new widow had no choice but to wait for death and hope that her daughter lived.

            “My name has been feared for generations- for centuries.  I am told of as a myth to scare children into being good.” A humorless laugh escaped the assassin’s lips.  “I cannot tell you my name.  The child would hear you scream in terror.  I cannot have that.”

            Loreena’s eyes widened and she blinked furiously.  The cold was getting stronger- would her daughter make it?  “You are an assassin- a vampire.”  Loreena bowed her head.  She would die, now.  It was undeniable.  “You’re not any assassin.  You’re the Assassin.  Ilara Fox, the vampire.”

            Ilara looked up from the snow covered ground to her target.  “I am she.  You don’t react like the others.”

            Loreena shook her head.  “I was a vampire hunter when I was young, but I fell out of the habit.”  She began to reach her left hand slightly behind her, to the stake concealed in the small of her back.

            A sigh escaped the vampire’s lips.  “If you reach for that stake now, I will have to kill you.  Wait a few moments, after I am sure your child is not in hearing range.”

            “Why are you so concerned about it?  You’re a monster, why do you care about the lives of children?” Loreena asked bitterly. 

            Ilara’s green eyes darkened.  “I have lived long enough to know that the sound of a mother’s scream quiets any positive emotions within.  Revenge is piqued where I do not crave to have to kill your daughter in the future in self-defense.”

            Loreena had stopped her hand from withdrawing the stake, but regarded Ilara with bitterness.  “A selfish reason.”           

            “To live in this era, I must care only for myself to survive.”

            “What about others?  Innocents?  In the early years of your vampirism- a thousand years ago- you cared about them.  I know history.”

            Ilara shook her head.  “This galaxy is falling apart.  In a few years, chaos will ensue.  I care about the innocents- I care about them enough that I take these idiotic assassination assignments so I may have enough power to put the galaxy back on its feet.  I do what I do for the good of this pathetic, crumbling galaxy.”  She shuddered in pain.  “I lied to you before.  Your daughter reminded me of myself as a child- full of life, stubborn, loved.  I remember what it was like to watch my mother die- I wish it upon no one.”

            “Then you aren’t as selfish as I thought.” Loreena said kindly.

            The assassin withdrew a broadsword from its place at her back.  “She cannot hear us.  I will kill you now.  Draw the stake.”  As Loreena withdrew the stake from her back, Ilara touched the ground with her broadsword.  “I have never spoken so calmly with a victim before.  Perhaps, in another time, we would have been friends.”

            “Perhaps.” Loreena countered.  She reverted to her memories, so long ago, when she had been sixteen and outside at midnight, hunting the vampires on her home planet of Earth with a stake in her hand and friends at her side.

            Ilara didn’t need to remember the past to prepare for a battle.  She had the speed of a hyperspace engine.  She needn’t prepare.  She understood she was humoring the woman she needed to kill, but Ilara understood more than any other the importance of dying with a fight.  She raised her broadsword in front of her face in respect, and sped forward.

            Ilara saw the stake coming.  She could have dodged easily, but she allowed the wood to hit her in the stomach.  For some reason, she needed something to remind her of Loreena Logos, and a wound was sufficient.  The woman was…Ilara couldn’t describe her.  Honorable, perhaps.  Whatever she was, she was dead a moment later.  As Ilara took the stake in the stomach, she flipped over Loreena and thrust the broadsword through her chest.

            No competition.  Ilara thought sadly.  I let her wound me, and still no competition.  She removed the stake from her abdomen and tossed aside.  The wood poisoned her system, but it began to heal immediately.

            She cleansed the blade with her long black trench coat and sighed.  Loreena had not screamed- Ilara could have saved time by killing her the moment the child was out of sight.  However, she had enjoyed the conversation.  Morbid, but true.

            She sheathed the sword and walked in the direction of the child.  She sensed the girl weakening, knew she was ready to turn around and find her mother.  Ilara struck out with her mind- Sleep, She commanded, when the girl was only twenty feet away.

            The child fell to the ground in a dead sleep.  Ilara picked her up and walked in the direction of the town Loreena had told the girl to go.  The night was so cold that the child would never have survived if Ilara had not helped her.  She snuck through the window of her grandparent’s home and set her on the couch.  She covered her with an afghan.  “Use your stubbornness to heal the chasm that will develop.” She whispered.  “I hope you do not focus on revenge.”

            With that, she disappeared into darkness from whence she had come.