It's Been a Hard Day's Night

[Nir]

And I've been working like a dog.

The sky was beginning to slowly brighten as the sun pulled itself above the dreary city of Howe. Rain clouds dimmed the usual explosion of red and orange that came with the rising sun until it was pale gray in coloration. As was common in the summer months, the night had been spotted with showers of rain as lightning and thunder rolled overhead. The cobblestone alleyways were flooded with runoff. Now, though, the people of Howe timidly opened the windows of their apartments to peak outside as the skies cleared. It was a relief after nearly a week of nonstop thunderstorms. Everyone would be so caught up in their own lives, their schedules, jobs, taxes, and buying shit they didn't need that they wouldn't even notice the body.

No, the body wouldn't be noticed for at least a few hours and more likely a few days. The rain was a perfect time to perform a kill, the water washing most of the blood off of the street so that only a small pool still remained in the alleyway where he had dragged the body. It had been a quick and clean kill. The man had been walking home from work, it being nearly midnight at this time, and no one had been around. His call for help had been muffled by the thunder and the killer's left hand, reaching around from behind. The cold blade cut through his neck like butter and he was dead shortly after. Christophe would be lying if he said it was a difficult job, but he'd also be lying if he said he'd enjoyed it.

Sometimes he wished he'd be asked to knock off some criminal or knight or even an assassin like himself. In the beginning, simple kills that only took a few moments had made him feel skilled. Now that he'd had a few hard kills, though, all of these politicians and business men were getting boring. They didn't even hardly put up a fight. Such a shame, he thought as he cleaned his knife off with a kerchief. The dark red blood on the white satin was the only thing he had left of this kill. He tossed the cloth to the side as he walked down the middle of the street, his boots clacking against the stone. Wearing all black, the visible only trace of evidence was on his face where the victim had coughed up blood as he was propped against the wall of the alley.

Christophe was in a bad mood and there was no denying it. Instead of going straight to return to his apartment, the man turned right and headed into a small pub. All he wanted was this job to be over with. He just wanted to collect the money and get the hell out of here. Once inside the pub, Chris nodded his greeting to the bartender and then headed up the stairs beside the bar. The room he found at the top was dimly lit, the only source of light being a candle sitting on a table, the only piece of furniture in the room. He looked to both the right and left before pulling a chair out and sitting at the table. He leaned back in the chair and hung his arm over the side as he heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

"Well goddamn, it took you long enough," the assassin murmured, obviously annoyed. His emerald eyes followed every step the man made as he went to seat himself on the other side of the table. Christophe crossed his arms and leaned back farther in the seat so that now the front two legs were off the ground. He sat, looking at the other man expectantly. The other man was more rotund than Chris but that was the only feature distinguishable in the poor lighting the room had. Christophe ground his teeth as the two sat in silence for a while. The other man pulled a timepiece out of his jacket pocket, checked the time, and then went back to silence. Now Chris was just getting pissed.

"Listen, I did your job now where's my fucking money?" he said, raising his voice now. The look on his face was that of exasperation, not that the other man could see that. After a few moments of silence again, the man finally acknowledged the mercenary's presence.

"I know the job was performed... but it wasn't done by you. I don't give money where it is not earned."

Now it seemed like Christophe's turn to get silent. "What the hell do you mean I didn't do the job. I slit the bastard's fucking throat. How is that not getting the job done?" his voice was now on the verge of a yell. It was not in Christophe's nature to question a client. The customer was always right and he'd do what needed to get done, no "ifs", "ands", or "buts" from him but this was just absurd.

"I find it poor sportsmanship to claim another man's work. You are not aware but I hired someone else, just in case you didn't get the job done. He came to me just before you arrived. Obviously you saw the dead body and came to claim a reward you don't deserve. He even had a bloody kerchief to prove it. All you have is a clean knife."

The Fossgate native couldn't believe what he was hearing. He didn't even bother responding. The man he had been hired for was an idiot, it was as simple as that. Christophe's hand went to the sheath of his knife. He traced the intricate pattern on the leather and then grabbed the hilt of the dagger. He could just imagine whipping the blade out and slitting the fat son of a bitch's throat. Maybe then he'd recognize Chris's handiwork. But no, this bastard wasn't worth his time. Christophe rose from his seat, the chair toppling over as he shoved it out of the way, and stormed downstairs.

The pub was not yet open, but it was a well known place for 'deals' to go down and Chris knew the bartender well. "Gimme somethin' strong," Christophe muttered as he jumped onto a bar stool. He put his elbows on the bar and scrubbed his hands on his face as if trying to wake himself from some horrible nightmare. When he looked down he found an entire bottle of the most potent whiskey the bar served. Christophe smiled and took a long swig, the alcohol burning his throat as it washed down.

The only thing on his mind right now was who the hell took credit for his work?

[Benny]

It was a set up.

'An easy job, I'm confident you'll find no troubles,' the man had said, with his sterile priest's smile and greedy hands; just another unremarkable man with a remarkable grudge, status built on blood money, and a forgettable face meant to vanish in the grand scheme of things. Aleks had become so generalized to the routine machine of bounty-killing that it was almost a weakness now. He'd thought nothing of anything, accepted the down-payment with a curt nod and rueful twist of the mouth (sympathy that extended as far as 'poor bastard pissed up the wrong tree') and made good with his task.

A pawn buying off another pawn, and didn't that sound tasteful.

Aleks picked out the face in the crowd. He’d slunk out from his hole in the hide of the city to shepherd the sheep, bleed out the target; a needle through thread, his focus a narrow pinpoint. Noise peeled away to reveal the coppery taste of silence. Swift steps, gauntleted hand to the throat and mouth, kicking out the targets knees simultaneously, and then - the carnal motion of a knife gliding into the jugular. The target convulsed violently, a caricature of humanity, and then lay still. Blade and cooling flesh were beaded with sanguine drops both beautiful and revolting.

Picture perfect. One for the books. The mercenary released the body to the ground, wincing at the fleshy, solid thunk it made, and stood to survey the scene with a bleak grimace. Blood ran thickly through cobbled cracks, tiny rivulets dark as wine already draining into grated sewers. An ugly scene to stumble on, no doubt, but quite elegant for a murder – wasn’t that something! Aleks grunted with equal parts disgust and amusement, humored despite everything, and went about his business of ‘cleaning up’ swiftly.

It was easy to forget himself under the pretense of apathy. Easy to put up the wall and distance himself from the nauseating business of this, though it always caught up with him later.

The mercenary had just finished moving the body to a shadowed part of the narrow street when things began to head south with alarming velocity. Steps echoed in the silence as a group of men threaded down the road with heavy boots and snide confidence, the look of a cat cornering a mouse. Dark clouds of intent were gathered above them, and it wasn’t just the ones in the sky that threatened rain, either – these were soldiers born and bred, and they wanted to see it rain.

Five against one. The brawl was ugly, intimate, and verging on tasteless as skill lapsed into savagery and spite; when swordplay was not viable, it degenerated into a fray of fists, daggers, and legs. The first man fell to the symphony of squelching organs, sword in, out, and pulled free with a boot braced on the chest even as he sank to a limp kneel and died. The saccharine kiss of a dagger across Aleks’s arm elicited a grunt through clenched teeth, and then he was wheeling left until his gauntleted fist met face with a solid smack of impact and the crack of a freshly shattered nose. Hot blood sprayed in a sticky encore, a fresh slap in the face, and sluiced neatly off the mercenary’s metal cestus as he drew his arm back like a loaded spring.

No time for Aleks to catch his breath because there were still three swords to deal with and only one of him.

The remaining notions were almost mechanical. Sword here, fist there, duck, dodge; recoil gracefully even though at one point a fist flew into his face and split lip and gum in a vulgar waterfall of pain; SURVIVE.. But no one was perfect, and in a final show of bad luck the last man standing caught Alex’s wrist, twisted it, and threw him to the ground. Air wheezed out of him with hideous agony, made worse by the steel-toed boot crashing into his ribcage, and – wait –

– fingers scrabbled at stone, wandered across the handle of a discarded sword, and intent blossomed hot and angry in his bones. With a choking snarl the mercenary grabbed it awkwardly and drove it like a fucking spear from the hand of god into the chest of his enemy. A shocked look, a wide stare, and the man toppled forwards right on top of Alex, driving the blade deeper and winding Alex a second time.

A. Fucking. Set up. Why hadn’t he seen it coming? No time to lose. He was already on his feet and hunting through Howe.

This was what happened when he got sloppy, when all the gears rusted up inside of the mechanism - things fucked up and it was his head that nearly ended up on the chopping block. While Aleks had faced death before, had blinked at it without so much of a second thought, something about getting framed left a bitter taste in his mouth. He simmered head to toe with acrimony, bleeding off him in caustic waves so potent it was almost visible.

Mess with the bull, you get the horns – and every screaming pound of a pissed off savage ready to disembowel the next asshole dumb enough to try a second time.

It was a shitty end of town and nobody looked twice at Alex’s ragged ensemble, weeping wounds, and black eye. Although the rain washed away much of the blood that mixed on his face, the moment he slammed the inn’s doors open everything began to bleed anew, leaving an incarnadine trail. Foot on the stairs, aware of one thing and one thing only, but snapped out of focus by the careless bump of another man’s shoulder against his wounded arm – he’d come from the room, Alex was sure of it, but he would deal with that later. His crusade led him to the second floor, third room; his revenge was a blade to the throat and a subdued snarl of anger as his client’s body hit the floor.

Then it was back to the bar, where Alex set upon his prey with cold precision. It was almost friendly, the arm he meant to drape around the other man’s shoulder – until the point of a dagger came to rest in hollow of his neck, just behind the curve of his jaw. “You. With me. Outside. Now.” Breath on his ear, voice curling with hate and the lingering remnants of a light Germanic accent hissed through clenched teeth. The forced, almost painful smile on his lips said 'don't make a scene or I'll give you a chelsea fucking grin.'

Nevermind the fact that he was losing blood by the minute, and that his lungs felt heavy in his chest.