Phantom's Grasp: The One Armed Assassin Series

by Hans Bezdek

  “Anselm Brooks,” he replied, once he realized this wasn’t going to move forward until he did. “I’d shake your hand, but that’s not entirely possible at the moment.”

  “Oh, of course!” said Calina, blushing and pulling her arm back. “How silly of me… As to your second question, you’re here because you saved me from that assassin. He would have killed me if you hadn’t bravely stepped in between us.”

  Anselm fought back his smirk. Bravely… More like out of his own self-interest.

  “I didn’t want the other guards to find you so close to the Alchemist, so I took you down to my secret lab!” she smiled. “I wanted to repay you for saving my life.”

  “Why do you have a secret lab if you’re one of the guards?” he asked.

  Calina laughed for a few seconds, then stopped once she realized Anselm wasn’t smiling. “Huh, you weren’t joking. I guess that hit you took must’ve messed with your memory.”

  “I am having some trouble remembering,” admitted Anselm, but he didn’t see what that had to do with what she was talking about.

  “I’m not a guard,” she said. “You are. I’m guessing it was your first day, too, since I’ve never seen you around before.”

  Anselm took a moment before responding. She thought he was a guard? She had no idea he was an assassin? This was looking much better than he had originally thought.

  “Yeah, I’m sort of remembering now,” lied Anselm, nodding slightly under the rope. “It was my first day, and I was hired to protect the Alchemist.”

  “Now it’s all coming back to you!” said Calina, excitedly. “I’m glad your brain isn’t all scrambled!”

  “Me too,” smiled Anselm. “You knew the other guards would be mad at me for failing, so you saved me from them. I really appreciate that.”

  Calina beamed at the praise. “It was the least I could do. I’ll also see to it that you’re paid for your services, although they obviously won’t be required anymore.”

  “You’re too kind,” said Anselm. “What’s the deal with tying me down, by the way?”

  “Ah,” she said, her face dropping. She took a deep breath and whispered to herself. “You can do this, Calina.”

  “Kind of scaring me, here,” laughed Anselm nervously.

  “I’ll loosen the bond on your head first, but I need you to brace yourself,” she said slowly.

  “For what?”

  Calina blinked.

  “Sounds like all of your memory isn’t back yet…” she said, grimacing.

  “Brace myself for what?!”

  Calina reached behind his head and undid the rope, hopping back and wincing as she watched. Anselm brought his head up and glanced down at his body. His memory was jogged as he looked down, remembering that his right arm was gone before he passed out.

  “What the…?”

  Instead of looking at empty space, Anselm saw a glossy black material in the space where his right arm had been. It looked like it was made of obsidian or a material similar to it, and had been shaped to perfectly match his other arm and hand. There were small markings along it, colored red, yellow, and green.

  “Tada!” said Calina.

  “Oh, no,” groaned Anselm, slamming his head back. “My life is over…”

  “No it’s not!” insisted Calina, moving a little closer to him but still keeping some distance. “Plenty of people live long lives after they lose a limb!”

  Anselm knew she was right, but he also knew those people weren’t career assassins.

  “I’ve got no way to keep doing my job,” said Anselm, fighting back tears. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried, but he was positive he didn’t want to cry in front of this stranger. He’d never get his 100th kill, let alone any more. Everything he had worked for was gone in an instant.

  “Being a one-armed guard might bar you from certain jobs,” admitted Calina. “But that’s why I made you this new arm!”

  Anselm tried to get his breathing under control. “No offense, but I don’t think it’s going to fool that many people.”

  “It’s not meant to fool people, silly,” laughed Calina. “It’s an actual working arm! Can’t you feel the rope against it?”

  The assassin looked down at his fake arm again. He could feel something against the wrist, it just felt pretty numb. She poked the arm with a finger a few times, and again Anselm was able to feel a hint of something. Calina undid the rope around his arms and legs, allowing Anselm to sit up. He tried to move his right arm and was surprised to see it slowly move up a few inches.

  “It might take some time until it fully works as intended, if it ever does,” admitted Calina. “I’ve never actually tried something like this before, so I may need to fix it in the future.”

  Anselm glanced around the room, his mind racing. It wasn’t particularly large, and it looked like a miniature version of the Alchemist’s lab. There were about half as many random bubbling containers and strange objects, none of which Anselm recognized. There looked to be only one way in, and a chilly breeze continued to push through it. Anselm looked back at his fake arm and moved it a bit more.

  “How… How were you able to do this at all?” asked Anselm, amazed at what he was witnessing.

  “I’m the Alchemist’s apprentice,” she shrugged.

  Anselm coughed as he choked on his spit. The Alchemist’s apprentice?! He had no idea the man was training somebody. If she was capable of creating something like this arm, even if it didn’t completely work as she intended, then who knew what else she could do? If she ever found out that Anselm was there to kill her master, he could be in some trouble.

  “That’s why I was in the Alchemist’s lab last night,” she explained. “My master asked me to look in one of the closets for a few items he needed. I heard the door to his lab open and close behind me, and my master demanded to know what the man was doing. The man raised a glowing hand at the Alchemist, so I hid in the closet. Unfortunately, the thing was completely soundproof and I couldn’t hear anything. I had to guess when the assassin left, and I guessed wrong.”

  That would explain why she didn’t know Anselm wasn’t an assassin, too.

  “You know the rest,” shrugged Calina. “When you jumped between the two of us, I thought you might have had a plan to kill him before he killed us. I heard you whispering something to him, but couldn’t make out what you were saying. Whatever it was, it didn’t work.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Anselm mumbled. “What happened to him?”

  “After he hit you, I ran along the side of the room and got past him,” she explained. “I started shouting for guards, then heard an explosion inside the room. I couldn’t help but peek inside, and I saw that the assassin had left through a hole he was nice enough to make.”

  “I see,” said Anselm, thinking back to Phantom’s iron mask. He wasn’t sure how or when, but he’d find a way to make that man pay for what he had done. No one wronged Anselm and got away with it. “I’ll find him one day…”

  “That would be nice,” said Calina. “I’m sure the Alchemist would be happy knowing someone avenged him.”

  Anselm didn’t respond. He got to his feet, glancing down and noticing he was no longer wearing his dark leather garb. Instead, he was wearing a white linen shirt and black pants that were a couple of sizes too big.

  “Why am I wearing different clothes?” asked Anselm.

  “Ah, right,” said Calina, blushing and pushing up her glasses again. “Your clothes were covered in quite a bit of blood so… I changed you.”

  Anselm suddenly realized how cold the underground room was.

  “I don’t know what you saw, but this place is very cold,” insisted Anselm, his cheeks burning. “Abnormally cold.”

  “Of course,” nodded Calina, glancing away.

  “Good. Well, uh, I should really get home and get some rest,” said Anselm, wanting to leave as quickly as possible. “Could I get my stuff and get out of here?”

  “Sure, that
makes sense,” nodded Calina, turning back and grabbing a few things. “Take the passageway up and you’ll exit out of a rosebush in the front courtyard. None of the guards from last shift are around, so no one will recognize you.”

  So the secret entrance wouldn’t have led him into the Alchemist’s Mansion after all. Good thing he hadn’t risked trying it last night. Granted, if he had, he probably would have missed bumping into Phantom and all of this could’ve been avoided.

  She turned back around and handed him his bloodied clothes, belt, and weapons.

  Now that he had his weapons back, for a split second he wondered if killing her would be his safest bet. For all he knew, Calina had planted a bomb in the arm as a safety precaution. If he wasn’t going to be an assassin anymore, he didn’t really care about the rules. There was also the chance no one would find her down here for a long time.

  He decided against it. With only one arm, and his non-dominant one at that, he wasn’t sure he could beat someone that probably had a few tricks up her sleeve. Besides, she had saved him. Even if it was for the wrong reason.

  “If you’d like to come back here later in the week, I can give you your pay,” offered Calina. “I’ll pay you for the full week, too, as a bonus.”

  “Thanks, I’ll be sure to do that,” said Anselm, who had no intention of ever seeing Calina again. While the pay would be nice, especially now that he’d be without a job for the foreseeable future, it wasn’t worth the risk of her asking around and realizing there was no Anselm on the payroll.

  Besides, Anselm had another paycheck he could collect. With the Alchemist dead, Demarcus would have to pay up. Unless, that is, Demarcus thought he could get away with not paying a one-armed assassin.

  Anselm thought that was likely.

  Chapter 5

  It was raining over Durzheim as Anselm made his way to Willow’s Bridge. That was fine with him. It meant there were fewer people about on the streets, less of a chance he’d run into someone he didn’t want to see. Like all assassins, Anselm had his fair share of enemies and rivals. Friends of those who were the targets of assassinations weren’t always keen to just let it go. Most weren’t likely to attack him unless they thought they had an edge, and once word got around that he was missing his right arm, some might try their luck.

  The right sleeve of his cloak had been destroyed when his arm was disintegrated by Phantom, so Anselm had to walk with his white linen sleeve out, his fake hand stuck in his pocket. He knew the odd style got a few glances, but nobody approached him.

  Willow’s Bridge was one of the least frequently used bridges in all of Durzheim. Not because it was in a lowly populated area, but the opposite. Over a hundred poorly kept apartment complexes covered the bridge. Roughly a wagon’s width of space was left along the middle of the bridge for people to pass through, which meant transporting goods quickly or safely was out of the question.

  “Want a warm bed out of the rain?” beckoned one woman of questionable reputation.

  “We’re runnin a special today!” called another.

  Anselm ignored them, as he always did. Part of him wondered why they continued to try and get his business after years of nothing but rejection. In reality, it was probably that the women who offered their services changed frequently. He never bothered to look their way to know either way. You could never be too sure who was trying to kill you in Durzheim, and it wasn’t worth the risk of being led to an unknown room where a handful of enemies waiting.

  This wasn’t where Demarcus lived, but rather Grayson. Demarcus was the temperamental type, so it was usually best to visit him with a friend of twelve. If Anselm wasn’t careful about hiding his injury, he’d need some back up to ensure Demarcus paid up. Unfortunately, he only knew one person who wouldn’t stab him in the back, metaphorically or physically, if given the chance. Grayson wasn’t the most intimidating, but he was better than showing up alone.

  The assassin reached his friend’s apartment building and walked up the stairs to the fifth floor. Some unsavory characters hung around on the stairs and in some of the halls, but none of them paid him too much attention. He was sure he didn’t look like someone that had money.

  Anselm came to Grayson’s room and tried to knock on the door. It took him far too long to realize he was trying with his right arm. The assassin sighed and used his left arm.

  There was no response from the other side.

  Anselm pounded on the door again.

  “People are trying to sleep in here!” shouted back a groggy voice.

  “Grayson, it’s nearly three in the afternoon!” barked Anselm. When Grayson didn’t reply, Anselm continued to knock.

  “You need a warrant!” shouted the voice.

  “It’s me!” growled Anselm.

  “Me who?”

  “Your only friend,” replied the assassin. It wasn’t good protocol to throw your name around when anybody could be listening. “The one you’ve had since we were twelve?”

  “I’ve got plenty of friends…”

  That wasn’t true.

  “Open up!” said Anselm, his patience growing thin. He hated waiting out in the hallway. This wasn’t the best area to have your back exposed for so long.

  “No,” said Grayson.

  Without thinking, Anselm pulled his arms back and banged them against the door. His right arm decided to work this time and the dark fist slammed into the center of the door. There was a screeching noise as the door crumpled and shot into the room, breaking the numerous locks Grayson had on it in half and taking them with it.

  Anselm stared down at the twisted metal in the middle of the room in amazement, then looked back to his fake arm. It once again hung limply and didn’t respond to him trying to use it.

  “W-What’s goin on?!” demanded Grayson, coming out of his room in a bathrobe. The elf gawked at what was once his door.

  Grayson was not your typical elf. He was balding, had a protruding stomach, and had no ability to do magic. If it weren’t for his ears and generally lighter complexion, no one would ever guess his real race. Back at school nearly two decades earlier, he was ignored by the other elves and picked on by the humans. Anselm hadn’t fared much better, which is how the two became friends.

  “Sorry about that,” mumbled Anselm, hurrying into the room. “I told you to open up, though.”

  “You did this?!”

  “I said I was sorry,” said Anselm defensively.

  “What’s happened to your hand?” asked Grayson, the elf’s eyes immediately spotting what was different. “And those clothes! Did you get dressed in the dark?”

  Anselm glanced at the elf’s leopard print robe. “You’re one to talk.”

  Grayson looked down and shrugged. “I was in a bit of a rush to come out here and see what caused all that noise. This outfit is just as much your fault as it is mine!”

  “Enough about clothes,” sighed Anselm, plopping down on a nearby chair. He was still exhausted from the night before, and the walk here hadn’t exactly been relaxing.

  Grayson’s apartment had three rooms. One was used as a workshop, the second to sleep in, and this main room as a sort of lounge and kitchen. Grayson kept a few chairs and small tables in this room, along with books detailing the various uses of poisons and elixirs that he loved to experiment with. Piles of unclean dishes were scattered around, but Anselm remembered there being a few more the last time he was here. The elf must have tried cleaning before getting distracted by something more interesting.

  “No, but really,” said Grayson, taking his usual chair in the corner. “What’s going on? Did something happen to your arm while you were taking out the Alchemist?”

  “Should we be talking so openly about this when you don’t have a door anymore?” asked Anselm.

  “I ain’t that worried about it,” he shrugged, pulling out a pipe and lighting it.

  Assassins made it a point to not discuss their job when others could overhear, but Anselm was pretty sure he had made his la
st kill. He took another deep breath, leaned his head back, and spoke at the stained ceiling.

  “First of all, getting in wasn’t too difficult,” he explained. “There were two idiot guards out front and I snuck by them. I went for the window on the second floor, like we planned. Turns out that was the right decision since the secret entrance we discovered doesn’t actually lead into the Assassin’s Mansion.”

  “It doesn’t?” asked Grayson, surprised and blowing smoke out to the side. “How’d you figure that out?”

  “I’ll get to it,” replied the assassin. “But first, I ran into a guard patrolling on the inside. It was incredibly unlucky, but you know how it goes.”

  “Did you use the tour as an excuse?” asked Grayson, proud of his earlier recommendation.

  “Yup. Tours ended hours earlier, so it made him even more suspicious.”

  “Huh. Hadn’t thought of that…” muttered Grayson as he took another puff.

  “Clearly,” growled Anselm. He shook his head and continued. “Your sleeping dart worked, though, so in the end you balanced yourself out. Granted, it did take a few seconds before he passed out.”

  “Figured as much.”

  “You did?!” Anselm sat up. “Why didn’t you tell me that ahead of time?!”

  “What, you think all my stuff works like magic, just cause I’m an elf?” asked Grayson, pointing an accusatory finger. “That’s racist, man!”

  Anselm rolled his eyes. “Just give me more of a timeframe next time, okay?”

  Grayson took a couple of puffs while he thought. “Alright, seems fair enough.”

  “After I took the guard out, I reached the Alchemist’s lab and… he was already dead,” sighed Anselm. “Another assassin killed him before I could.”

  “That’s great!” exclaimed Grayson. “Now we can get paid for doing nothing!”

  “That’s the hope,” agreed Anselm, pulling back the linen sleeve to expose his fake arm. “Unfortunately, this might be our last job for a while. The other assassin, named Phantom, did this to me.”