by Lizzy Ford
The scent of cooking meat reached her nose, and a thrill went through her. She could smell again, and her wrist was cooperating.
When her captor all but dropped her onto the floor of another room, she was almost grateful she was unable to feel anything. She would be in pain from the rough treatment otherwise. Her gaze fixed to the ceiling, she tested her wrist to ensure it had not been trapped beneath her body before looking around.
To her delight, her neck moved several inches. It was small progress, but she was able to see more.
Several other boys and girls were propped up on benches, slumping and held upright by large pieces of wood. Two middle aged woman and a man were going down the line, very carefully applying makeup to the lifeless bodies of the new whores. The process took a solid ten minutes per child, and then another toothless, large man armed with a bone machete and a small knife hefted the human dolls and took them to the neighboring room.
Aveline’s fingers twitched instinctively with the need to hold a weapon. She glimpsed vast piles of clothing in the second room. The armed man moved back and forth between the rooms, carrying one at a time.
Her neck did not cooperate enough to let her see directly into the adjacent room, so she shifted her attention to the ceiling and returned to manipulating her free hands. The first hand whose fingers moved before being pinned between her body and that of someone else had regained feeling up to her elbow, her other hand just past the wrist.
Her legs remained useless. Fortunately, there were ten people ahead of her waiting to have their makeup done, and the process was slow.
By the time only four bodies remained between her and the next station, her arms were both free to the shoulder. The brothel workers did not seem concerned with looking after those who were paralyzed.
Aveline tested her arms. She tried to lift her small frame off the floor. The awkward angle prevented her from succeeding. She waited, thinking furiously of any way to leverage her weight and what strength and mobility she possessed. Finally, she reached out and gripped the arm of the person next to her with her right hand and pulled herself towards him. With her left arm, she shoved away from the floor.
With little grace and no control over the rest of her body, she managed to maneuver onto her side. She rested for a moment, cursing herself for putting her back to the people she needed to keep an eye on. She gripped the arm of the boy once more, this time with both her hands, and pulled.
She landed on her belly, half on top of him, with her nose planted in his cheek. His eyes were wide and terrified as he tried to look at her through his peripheral. As much as she pitied those around her, her first priority was to escape.
Aveline tugged the arm pinned beneath her body free, braced both, then pushed her torso off the ground to test her strength. Her arms were feeling almost back to normal, and the sensation was spreading slowly through her shoulders and down her back.
But not her legs. She blew out a breath in frustration and lowered her body to the ground once more. Resting, she was debating whether rolling out of the room was a valid option when someone snatched her off the ground. It took every ounce of control not to fight back, and she went limp as the thug in charge of moving bodies dropped her onto the bench between another teen girl and a log.
Aveline pretended she was numb and tried once more to work on her stubborn legs. Too soon, her face was covered in makeup and the man transferring her to the next station on her journey to becoming a whore.
The clothing room contained only four would-be whores at a time and a team of three dressing each. She was placed on the ground. The three workers clothed her in a blue dress with lace edging and then braided her hair and tied it into a topknot. Aveline forced herself to ignore the person applying lotion to her hands and painting her nails.
Another man picked her up when she was deemed finished and carried her more carefully out of the dressing room and down a hallway.
“Mixed girl goes there,” someone else directed. “Someone already paid for her.”
Another dose of anger, mixed with apprehension, tore through Aveline. She resisted the urge to fight the man carrying her. She needed more time for her legs to work.
The man deposited her into a cramped room and on a bed that smelled of sweat and then bent over her to smooth out her dress and arrange her body. A small window overhead brightened up the space, and she calculated it was almost dawn.
Aveline waited for the man to position her head and reached out, snatching the small knife from his waist and quickly tucking it in the space between her arm and body.
When he was satisfied, he left and closed the door.
She refrained from unleashing a cry of pure frustration, afraid of alerting her captors before she was able to run. Muttering curses under her breath, swearing vengeance against the brothel and anyone associated with it, she was quickly distracted from her anger by the pressing need to escape. Her arms and shoulders worked well, and she had regained feeling halfway down her back. She rotated her head another two inches but still couldn’t lift it. She pushed her body up, lowered it down, and stretched out to either side.
Her lower abdomen, legs and hips remained useless. She would not get far dragging herself away, and her heavy head and numbed neck made it next to impossible to keep an eye on her surroundings. She would be dead in seconds in an outright fight.
Her hope for the time needed to regain control of her body soon vanished.
The door opened. “Your first time with a mixed?” one of the brothel workers asked someone in a voice far too cheerful for their surroundings.
Aveline gripped the knife. She did not hear the response through the clamoring of her thoughts, except to notice the low male voice. The first rays of dawn formed a line along the top of the ceiling, and the sounds of the city awakening drifted through the window.
The night had started as the worst she could recall, with the death of her beloved father. By now, Rocky knew she was not coming, but could he possibly find her here? Even if he did, he would never reach her before the man in the hallway. It was one thing to go down fighting and quite another to be put down when vulnerable.
Tears stung her eyes. She hated crying and in the span of a single night, she had cried twice, once for her father and once for herself. What would her father think of her if he knew she had not lasted a day after his death? That all his training had been wasted? That she was weak?
Aveline swallowed the sob stuck in her throat and ran half a dozen scenarios through her mind, seeking one that allowed her to live through this unscathed.
The results of her mental exercise left her with one terrible option – and the determination she would rather face the punishment for her actions in the afterlife than remain here as a whore.
Aveline steadied her breathing and closed her eyes. She thought of her father, who was hopefully waiting for her among the other spirits, and then of Rocky, who would mourn her death. He would seek revenge on her behalf, once he discovered what had happened here. She would do the same for him, and knowing vengeance would be obtained stilled some of her fear.
Farewell, Rocky, she told her best friend silently. I have no choice. Death was not feared by assassins. At least, it was not supposed to be feared by them. She could not help thinking there was too much she had not accomplished with her life to die now. But she was too proud for the alternative: losing all control over her body and life.
Had her father experienced the turmoil of his stomach and his pulse quicken with fear when he realized he was going to die? Had he wished for one more day or one more chance at life?
Her heart felt like it was being squeezed in a clamp when she thought of her father. Aveline gritted her teeth. She waited until the door closed, clenching the knife. When the man who came to violate her took a step towards the bed, she acted.
Aveline plunged the knife towards the major artery in her neck.
The man snatched her wrist, and her eyes snapped open. He disarmed her and stepped
back quickly, as if sensing the blow she was in the process of flinging towards him. Her sloppy attempt at a punch did nothing but twist her body and nearly knock her off the bed.
Aveline righted herself with some difficulty then pushed her torso up and glared at the stranger.
He wore a mask. “I thought I would give you another chance to accept my offer.”
She blinked, registering his familiar voice. “You sent me here!” she snarled.
“I did not,” he countered. “I simply enabled your capture by the pursuer I believed would do the least amount of harm. I thought this could be a lesson.”
“A what?”
“You should accept an offer from a man like me when it comes. I am not accustomed to being turned away.”
This man’s ego had sent her to a brothel and driven her close to suicide? She narrowed her eyes in disgust and propped herself up against the wall.
“The assassins have an extensive set of rules,” he continued. “I believe one of them involves a life debt. If I save you, you owe me.”
“It doesn’t count if you’re the one who puts someone in danger!”
“I can leave you here to take your chances with the next man or woman who comes through the door. I was not the only person interested in the exotic beauty your owners claimed you to be. Or you can agree to work for me, and I’ll ensure your safety.”
Aveline bit back the acidic retort at the tip of her tongue. She was not in a position to offend him. Perhaps, after her night, entertaining her strange new stalker was not the worst idea she had ever had. “You put a lot of effort into convincing me to work for you!” she snarled.
“That should show you how important this is to me, should it not?”
The fixated man had to be insane. But she was smart enough to understand his lesson and leery of what happened if she turned him away again. “Who do you want me to kill?” she asked reluctantly.
“No one,” he answered.
Her brow furrowed. “Then why do you need an assassin?”
“Let me clarify. I want you to protect someone from anyone else who tries to kill her. In the potential circumstance where someone tries, you can kill whoever it is.”
“I’m not a guardian. I’m an assassin. Well, almost. I’ll be an assassin soon,” she said.
“You have something the other guardians and assassins I spoke to do not: the blood of the devil in your veins.”
She crossed her arms, uncomfortable discussing the curse no one else was supposed to know about. He was not an assassin or from the inner city. Who had revealed the closely held secret?
“I believe this will make you more effective in protecting your charge.”
“I will never allow the Devil’s blood to control me,” she said firmly.
“I accept this condition.”
Aveline’s mouth dropped open and then closed. The man was not making sense.
“All will be clear soon,” he promised, reading her confusion. “You will be rewarded above and beyond what you can imagine.”
“I don’t care about money. I care about becoming an assassin. Unless you can sponsor me, which you can’t, because you’re not one of us, there’s nothing you can do for me.”
“You seem to underestimate the importance of money, assassin. I can buy you a sponsor. If you want the new chief of the assassins as your sponsor, I will arrange it.”
Aveline laughed. “The Guild leader cannot be bought! It’d take more money than half the inner city sees in a year to tempt him!” she exclaimed.
“I can pay it.”
“Just for me to stand at someone’s doorway and not unleash the one trait behind the reason you’re hiring me?”
“Yes.”
It was the craziest proposition she had ever heard. Whether he could pay that much money, or if he were concealing an additional agenda, she did not care. At the moment, she had one convincing reason to accept, no matter how bizarre the proposed employment sounded.
“You will get me out of here?” she asked cautiously. Although willing, she had not felt ready to die, even for the just cause of preventing anyone from dishonoring her body.
“Immediately. Give me your word you will do as I’ve asked, without question, and I will see you free,” the masked stranger vowed.
Aveline said nothing, pensive. Her father warned her against trusting someone who appeared to be offering her exactly what she asked for.
“As a sign of good faith.” The stranger pulled something from his pocket and held it out to her.
Aveline accepted it, and her breath caught. The envelope containing her father’s treasure she had sworn to protect. She had never seen its contents and fingered the lumpy envelope, relieved to have it returned.
The stranger was offering her a form of freedom and help becoming a real assassin. In the face of the alternative, no objection held merit. “Very well. I’ll do it, whatever it is. If this is a trick, I will find you and burn you alive.”
“Excellent!” The man seemed far too excited. “Remain here. I will send someone for you.” Without another word, he opened the door and left.
Aveline stared after him, unable to understand what exactly her new employer wanted.
If he were lying about being wealthy, she would soon know. The expectation for a whore was to make money, and no brothel owner would let her go cheap, especially when the money she made was supposed to be split between the owner and debt collectors. This madman would have to pay off two people in order to free her.
The longer she waited, the less convinced she became about the masked stranger’s ability to follow through. Aveline returned to testing her body. She was mobile from the waist up and leaned down to rub her legs, uncertain what else to do to encourage them to wake up from the drug.
Eager to be away from the brothel, she waited and prayed to the spirits of those who had come before her. The sun was fully in the sky and lining the wall in front of her when the door opened again. With one leg awake and the other useless, she was at least able to stand.
Turning warily from her position leaning against a wall, she eyed the two men in Shield clothing in the doorway. Her nose wrinkled at the scent of metal polish, and she sought to place the significance of the green sashes they wore across their normal scarlet uniforms.
“We have been ordered to escort you to your new position,” one said and looked her up and down critically.
The same enunciation and cultured lilt shaped his tone, and she realized what the sash signified. These men were part of the personal guard for the elite living in the outer city.
Her benefactor, whomever he was, was as wealthy as he claimed. She had never ventured once into the outer city; she would not know the city’s leader from a privileged servant or citizen, so why had he hidden his face?
The two soldiers stepped aside.
Aveline limped forward, dragging her sleeping leg with a curse.
She trailed one of the soldiers while the second followed her. As she walked through the brothel, she made an effort to memorize the features of every worker who crossed her path. When this mission was over, she was returning and driving a bone knife through the right eye of everyone enslaving the boys and girls. When she was done with the workers, she would track down those making meat out of children, slaughter them all, and feed the inner city.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she stepped into the cold winter day. The gray sky had never been so welcome to her.
The soldier led her to an enclosed carriage led by four bay horses and opened the door for her.
Aveline climbed in, ready to fight anyone who tried to attack her as she did. The inside of the carriage was built more for practicality than luxury with bench seats and blinds across the windows.
She sat down, uncertain what to expect. She pitched back as the carriage jolted forward and caught herself on the seat. Straightening, she sat back against the wall, tense and leery of the stranger who bought her freedom in exchange for her not being what
she was. Beyond puzzled, and concerned she would be at the mercy of his true intentions, she pulled the envelope containing her father’s treasure out of the pocket of her gown.
Her father never offered to show her its contents, and she had never requested to do so. In hindsight, she wished she had asked him if she were permitted to see it, or if she were supposed to protect it without ever knowing what the envelope contained.
She had lost it once and had it returned by a man she dared not trust. His offering was not lost on her, though, either. The stranger did not have to return anything to her after what he had to have paid to free her.
As curious as she was about what the envelope contained, she feared dishonoring her father. Aveline returned the treasure to her pocket and started to sink into the memory of hearing her father’s last breath and feeling the warmth of his skin fade away. Her night had kept her from such a thought. But alone, uncertain and reeling from her experience at the brothel, her emotions were far more raw than she wanted, and her father was forefront on her mind, along with uncertainty about what she had involved herself in a mere ten hours after his death.
The jarring ride in the carriage left her wishing she could walk. She massaged the thigh of her numbed leg. A tap came from one of the doors. Certain she had misheard, she ignored the sound.
It came again, and she leaned forward to lift the blind.
Someone was on the runner outside the door. He wore a familiar uniform.
Thrilled by the idea Rocky had found her, she unlocked the door and opened it.
The assassin in all black leapt into the carriage and closed the door. He sat down across from her and peeled off the skintight mask.
“Karl!” she exclaimed, startled to see her father’s most trusted advisor.