by D. N. Hoxa
ASSASIN
STARLIGHT, Book 1
D.N. HOXA
Copyright © 2017 by D.N. Hoxa
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
1
——————————
Present
George Allister crossed the road with his head held high, not bothering to even check if someone was following him. Not that I was complaining—he was making my job a lot easier for me, but I just hated sups who thought too highly of themselves to pay attention to their surroundings. Especially after this guy had tried to kill three of the Council’s sups for no reason that we knew of.
Then again, the Red Rebels never needed a reason to be a pain in the ass. They lived to cause more trouble than they could handle. Good thing I was there to make sure their actions had consequences.
When you looked at George Allister from afar, he didn’t look like a Rebel. He looked like an ordinary—if not a bit conceited—guy. But looks could be deceiving. I was living proof of that.
I waited for the half fey until he was inside the coffee shop in Miami. He was spending time with two gorgeous babes that he no doubt paid with the money he stole from the supernaturals he tried to kill. The street was crowded, and nobody noticed me following him.
His magic was weak because he was only half fey, but I still felt it. Definitely Unseelie. He wasn’t too far away, and his magic gave me a sense of ice: blue and grey and slightly filthy. He was on the other side of the sitting hall, and once I was sure of where exactly that was, I pulled my sunglasses back up.
Toilet. He was in the toilet. I hated men’s toilets, but I also didn’t think I’d get another chance like that, so I swallowed hard and made my way to the doors. One had a metal sign of a little girl in a dress on it and the other of a little boy. I tried the knob on the little boy’s door. Locked.
“Busy!” Allister said from inside.
I took half a step back and waited. The toilet area was in a small hallway, far enough from the counter so nobody could see me. Unless somebody decided they needed to pee before I got in, I would be fine.
Just as I was thinking that, the door opened, and Allister’s big brown eyes took all of me in, in a second.
“This is the men’s room,” he mumbled, curling his brows.
“Oh, I know.”
“Get out of the way,” he demanded when he realized I wasn’t about to move. He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. But I couldn’t get out of his way. I couldn’t allow him to keep trying to kill the Council’s sups just because he had nothing better to do with himself. So I pushed him back hard, and he flew inside the toilet again before I followed and locked the door. Hopefully, nobody had seen me.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he shouted as he recovered. The toilet wasn’t too small like I’d feared. It had two sinks, one urinal and one stall. More than enough space to kill a man of Allister’s size.
“Hello, George,” I said as I put my sunglasses in the beach bag. Surprise and panic registered on his face when I took out my favorite dagger—Bob.
“You…” That’s all he got to say.
I pulled my leg up, catching him by surprise as my knee connected with his gut, and he fell back half a step. I closed the small distance between us slowly, like a predator going for her prey.
Then I felt it. I felt the pull in my stomach—one of the reasons why the Council didn’t get rid of me four years ago—the moment he wanted me dead. It was a strange trait to have but much more valuable than one might think, especially for someone like me. I could walk into a room full of people and know the second I was in danger. It took away my enemy’s element of surprise pretty quickly. It was impossible to catch me unprepared.
George Allister recognized me. I could see it in his face.
Fear.
When close enough, I aimed for his jaw. It would’ve been nice if I could’ve gotten him back alive. Not likely though. The Rebels would do and say anything to make us kill them. It wasn’t like I blamed them. My boss, McGraw, had a pretty strange imagination.
He tilted back, avoiding my fist, but I was much faster than he. My feet connected with his left side, and he gasped loudly when air left his body. He didn’t go down. He recovered and attacked me, both his fists ready and aiming for my face. I turned at the last moment, his fast recovery catching me off guard, and his right fist connected with my left shoulder. That damned super strength. The pain washed over my entire upper left side.
The half fey reached his hands out and what I thought was supposed to be an ice shard started to form on his right palm. I didn't give him the time to properly create it. I sliced his forearm with Bob and took his legs from under him before he could blink. He fell hard on the ceramic floor, the ice he’d tried to create now forgotten. I kicked him in the gut before he could move again. I kneeled in front of him, Bob ready, right above his heart, bloodthirsty.
Allister opened his eyes, and that gleaming shone bright in them. The Red Rebels weren’t the only ones whose eyes changed drastically when in dangerous situations. Everyone in a fight had that strange, sickening gleam. I probably had it, too, and so did shifters, all kinds of fairies, the Nephilim, and all witches and warlocks. Vampires’ eyes were the coolest, though. They turned into two balls of liquid silver when fighting, or when they were thirsty. Or just horny.
“You…don’t know…what you’re doing,” Allister whispered, barely able to catch his breath. His face where it had connected with the floor was all messed up, and dark red blood came out of his mouth and nose. I smiled my evil smile for his pleasure.
“Oh, but I do.”
Bob’s sharp tip tore through his clothes and flesh and went right between his ribs. His body grew stiff, and after a short moment, he let go.
I fell on the floor next to him. He was definitely dead. McGraw was going to be a pain in the ass. I could have taken this one alive, like many others before him. It didn’t even matter that they would say anything to get us to end them. I could take words. My skin grew very thick along the way.
But I could never bring myself to capture them alive. Their screams while they were being tortured in the cells for information by McGraw had kept me up many nights when I was in the Council’s Academy—Lyndor. I still had nightmares. I’d rather I killed them and spared them the misery.
With a sigh, I stood up, cleaned the blood off Bob with the dead man’s shirt and put it back in the beach bag. I washed the blood off my hands and face, and turned to stare at the body at my feet. I leaned down and grabbed his ankles, dragging him to the only stall in the toilet. He was heavier than he looked. By the time I sat him on the toilet and closed the door, I was starting to sweat. I checked the floor one more time for any sign of blood before I walked outside without looking back.
With a small smile, I put my sunglasses on and wal
ked right out of the coffee shop. It was really easy to blend in—at least for me. Once I had my mind made up and felt like I really was whoever I needed to be in my missions, there was no stopping me. And in that moment, I felt every bit the girl who was out enjoying a sunny day at the beach in Miami. The people who looked at me could never see who I really was.
Sure enough no one stopped me. I was beginning to feel a little nervous, though. This was the third Rebel who had told me I didn’t know what I was doing right before I killed them.
What the hell did that even mean?
Maybe I shouldn’t have killed him as quickly as I did. Stab him, sure, but I could’ve avoided his heart.
It didn’t matter, anyway. I could never bring myself to regret my actions.
The water glistened under the sun, the waves calling my name as I walked back to my hotel room. I couldn’t go back there. I needed to get away from Miami as soon as possible. My job was done. The twenty-first Red Rebel had died from my own hands.
The second I walked into my hotel room, I turned on the water to fill the tub. I hadn’t had the chance to swim in the ocean, but the water from the faucet would have to do. I took my shawl and bikini off and waited for the tub to fill while I avoided the two floor-to-ceiling mirrors at my sides. I didn’t like looking at myself. Probably because I hadn’t changed much since I was eighteen years old, back when I was a normal teenager, living a normal life with my family, clueless of what went on, on the other side of the world. My facial features were sharper than they’d been, but nothing more that I noticed. The big change was in my body. Where I used to be thin and weak, I was now full of curves and muscles in the right places. I was at least ten times stronger than your average sup.
Yes, I was the best assassin the supernatural world on Earth had ever seen. Well, the best along with another, but that was only because he was a vampire.
My being the best had something to do with my natural killing instinct that no one seemed to know anything about. Not the people I knew and not the books I read. My mind worked differently when I was in danger or when I intended to make a kill. I calculated every detail, opportunity and option in a matter of seconds. Plus, my training at the Academy had lasted three years. To think how sure I’d been that I would never be able to even throw a punch four years ago…
I relaxed my head on the tub, feeling so tired. Taking a nap would have been nice, but sleep and me hadn’t been on the best of terms in a very long time. That, and I had only a couple of hours before I had to catch a flight to Syria. McGraw wanted me in Lyndor for something important.
To say I despised the Academy would be an understatement. I spent the worst three years of my life there.
After my initial six months of training in Lyndor, I was catching up, becoming even better than any student who was training with me at the time. Little ole me, Star Nichols, the girl with no magic in her veins, whom the Council wouldn’t make disappear for whatever reason. Maybe that’s why everybody hated me. In their eyes, I was even lower than the half fey, and they were low.
Little did they know that their stares and whispers only strengthened my resolve. Maybe there was no magic in me, but I didn’t need magic to be a fighter. I didn’t need to float shit on air to learn how to use a dagger. I did the best I could with what I had, and I was damn good at it.
So the Council offered me an opportunity. A job. Stay in Lyndor and complete the training for the Royal Guards and work for them as a hit man—well, woman—for a crazy salary, and of course, the Council’s protection and all of the benefits. I didn’t even have to think about it. I’d wanted to become a Royal Guard ever since I first learned about them from the Academy’s history professor—Simmons. They were the elite of the supernaturals on Earth, soldiers feared by every magical being out there. They were the best trained assassins to have ever existed. They had the green light to do just about anything they wanted. Almost unlimited freedom to chase the RR.
When the time came, the Council refused my request to join them, saying something about me not being ready for that kind of responsibility. Bull. Shit. They knew very well that I was, but they wouldn’t tell me the real reason for the life of me, and eventually, I stopped asking and got better at doing my job on my own. It probably had something to do with the fact that there wasn’t anything magical about me. It bugged me, too—not really knowing. Everybody wanted to know what the hell they were, right?
Sometimes, I was pretty sure I had magic in me, though I’d never said it out loud. I could feel it like a thick layer of air around me. I could feel it in others, too. It was all around them. I could hear it from the ground another sup walked on, from the air that surrounded him. It was a humming, almost a whisper, like wind sending words my way. When people weren’t shielding their energy, I could tell exactly the kind of magic each one possessed.
The half fey could do it, too, but all they could feel was that a sup was a sup, whereas I could give you a detailed description of what this magic was and how it worked.
Another thing that convinced me I had magic in me was my ability to shield myself from half fey. I could close the door to whoever was looking, and it took magic to hide magic. Right? McGraw could never give me a straight answer, but I figured it was correct.
Unfortunately, feeling like I had magic didn’t make it real. I’d never developed super cool magical abilities like everybody else. I tried for two years, all kinds of things. Nothing. And that sucked, especially when you lived in the world I did. My best friend was a shifter who turned into a leopard, for God’s sake. Where the hell did that leave me?
In the end, it didn’t matter. I’d accepted the life chosen for me a long time ago. As much as I didn’t want to, though, I still remembered the girl I used to be. The one who always listened and never talked back, never expected or asked for help and always accepted what was given to her.
At some point during the time I was in training at the Academy, I became someone else. Numb enough not to care about anything or anyone. I had nothing to lose. I lost the only family I had left four years ago.
All because a secret was locked inside my head without my knowledge, and the ones that weren’t supposed to, found out…
2
——————————
Four years ago
Standing outside a diner and staring at your boyfriend cheating on you while you decided what to think wasn’t exactly a productive way of spending a Sunday night. As I watched James kiss the blonde girl’s knuckles, angry tears escaped my eyes. Damn it, I didn’t want to cry. He was an asshole, one I hadn’t even really liked, so why was I still there, watching him?
Exactly.
So I pulled my hood over my head, buried my hands in my pockets, and headed back home. I couldn’t even say I was sad. But I was angry—very angry. I should have known better than to trust James. He was the hottest guy in our school. That should have been enough of a red flag when he asked me out three months ago.
At least wait until you’re alone in your room, I said to myself as another wave of tears crashed onto me. I didn’t want Dad to see me crying. I didn’t want to see me crying! Not over a guy, and especially not over a guy like James. We were supposed to go out for a movie that night, but something came up and he couldn’t make it.
I was just glad Ella—my little sister—was hungry, and she was Ella, meaning she wouldn’t take no for an answer when she asked me to go grab her a pizza at the diner. I kept my head down and my hood drawn the whole way, chanting to myself to hold it in, to hold the tears and the anger and just suck it up until later.
Finally, I walked inside my house, trying my best to look normal. Dad was still watching TV. Actually, I think his eyes were glued to it. Ella jumped from her seat with a big smile that disappeared the next second.
“Where is my pizza?” she said, looking at my empty hands.
“Sorry, Ells. They were out.” I tried, but I couldn’t keep my eyes on hers. That would’ve maybe made her believe me
. Probably not.
“Dad!” she shouted, her tiny hands pulled up in fists.
“Yeah, baby?” Dad said, turning his body towards us but never taking his eyes off the TV.
“Star didn’t buy me pizza!” Ella cried.
I rolled my eyes. Leave it to her to make everything so damn dramatic. But Dad didn’t even turn to look at me. I mentally thanked the Eagles for playing that night, and I really hoped they won.
“Dad!” Ella shouted again.
“Ells, I’m sorry. We can just order in if you want pizza so much. They were out, okay?” I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t have it. What the hell did I expect? She was only thirteen, after all.
“I wanted Danny’s pizza,” she said, her voice barely a whisper now, her head low and her eyes bigger somehow as she watched me angrily. She was very intimidating, I swear.
“Come on, Ells. Just let me make you a sandwich, okay?” I tried again. I really just wanted to go upstairs, lock myself in my room and cry. The image of James kissing that girl’s hand was still in front of me, and I needed to wash it away with big, fat tears all night long,
“Don’t call me Ells,” my sister said. “It makes me sound like a little girl.”
“You are a little…” I said, but she stopped me, raising her hand at me and closing her eyes—her signature I-don’t-want-to-hear-it gesture. I could only dream of ever being that authoritative.
“You better make the best sandwich you’ve ever made in your entire life, Star.”
She could even make that sentence sound threatening. I was so proud of her. Of course, I’d never tell her that, but I knew that nothing like what happened to me that night would ever happen to her. She wouldn’t allow it, and I was relieved to know that. I dragged my feet to the fridge, nudging her honey blonde hair on the way.
A couple minutes later, I put Ella’s tuna sandwich on the dining table next to her notebook. She still did her homework on the dining table for some reason.