12 Deaths of Christmas

by Paul Sating

  Her entire world existed under the umbrella of his reign, like everyone less than twenty years old. She didn’t remember what normality felt like, but she heard the stories about what the world was like before Marr sat on that throne. People spoke of a time of progress when the world was learning to be better. They said there was hope then, for everyone. Thana tried to imagine that, but couldn’t. This life under Marr was one of survival. Nothing more. His presence demanded it and his madness drove it.

  In the shadows, secrets moved. Those without power gravitated toward one another until the day came when they formalized a plan. Plotted. The day would come, they knew, when Marr’s madness would realize the finite nature of all things. With Marr astride his throne surrounded by hundreds of corpses, it was obvious even to a young woman who knew nothing more than a mad world, that someone had to serve as the catalyst.

  The plans of the shadow were about to be realized.

  Marr needed to die.

  And Thana was his assassin.

  Marr waved the child’s arm. The small hand flapped uselessly, bringing a rare smile to his face. “Look,” he laughed. “He’s saying bye-bye to everyone.” The sound of madness filled the chamber. Attendees played their part, some laughing, some faking smiles while others, the brave, sat stone-faced. Marr wouldn’t notice which of his attendees were guilty of not responding to him; the King of Kings was oblivious to the world.

  Thana was among the few who didn’t react. She’d seen such cruelty more times than she cared to admit. Nothing shocked her anymore. At times she wondered how she was ever going to be able to process the last few years of her life serving under Marr. How could she forgive herself for being a passive bystander to the deaths of so many innocent people? The shadow reminded her that her duty was to them, to the country, before herself. That was the duty of the mother of fate. But they had the convenience of ignorance. She existed for this one task, they reminded her. They were never in this chamber to watch Marr call time on the lives of thousands. They hadn’t attended his strategic sessions where Marr planned war and genocide with dull frigidness. They never spent a minute in the Hall of Witnesses watching without hope as Marr condemned thousands to excruciating sentences of justice.

  She envied them that.

  But tonight she didn’t have to fake a smile at Marr’s actions, she didn’t have to assemble the veil to hide her disgust and rage. No longer.

  When the laughter died down Marr tossed the arm to the side, bored. “What further business do we have?”

  James Karger, Marr’s closest advisor, stood with his hands clasped in front of his groin, as was proper. “Nothing, my Lord,” James reported, using the title Marr preferred since the day he erased the country’s constitution from its history.

  Marr set his chin in his palm as he leaned sideways. Thana’s heart skipped a beat. It was a sure sign that Marr was done for the evening. The king would likely spend the rest of his night getting drunk and abusing one of the unfortunate women from the city. Unless they brought him someone from another town, Thana reminded herself of Marr’s preference for what he called ‘exotic’ women. Anyone outside the city was a foreigner in Marr’s eyes. There wasn’t a person on the Council who hadn’t heard the king in his personal chambers, grunting as he satisfied himself at the expense of another nameless woman to fulfill his own lust. Sometimes Marr required more than a few women attend to him because his appetite was insatiable, for sex and death.

  Tonight she was going to free those women from their life sentence.

  “Good. I’m retiring for the evening,” Marr announced, standing and climbing down the pile of corpses. The way the bodies slid over top one another as he descended made Thana’s stomach churn. Those sightless eyes begging the question why she allowed this to happen.

  I’m going to be haunted forever.

  A smaller council of three of Marr’s longest-serving advisors fell in behind him as he left the chamber, escorted by a pair of bodyguards so massive their girth would serve as a hindrance.

  But the shadow had taught her the one vulnerability of a tyrant was in their conceited belief that they were impervious. Marr had that in droves from his decade and a half of ruthless rule. Conceit filled the king’s mind. His council was comfortable. And his security team grew bored years ago.

  Tonight he would die.

  “What are your plans this evening?” Henry Henriksen asked, collecting the last of his papers he prepared for every meeting—papers he never briefed. Thana wondered if the man put any effort into his reports anymore. She couldn’t fault Henry if he didn’t; she hadn’t for her own reports in a long time. As a financial analyst with doctored credentials, she was responsible for a program that Marr had no concern for. To him, budgets were irrelevant and the status of the tax base equally undeserving of his time. Money was always there when he demanded it. Reporting on it was futile, her job, expendable. In reality, she was only here because frothing old men dominated Marr’s perverse council. She was a visual stimulant Marr had grown bored with years ago but whom most of the rest of the Council still enjoyed ogling. It was only through favor and the machinations of the shadow that she reached this level of access to the King of Despair. It was only due to extreme fitness and the lust of old men that she was able to maintain it.

  “Sleep,” she laughed. “It’s been a long few weeks.”

  “It has, indeed,” Henry stood and wished her a good evening.

  It will be, she thought.

  All members departed soon after, everyone quick to remove themselves. Thana wondered how many of them were sneaking home to their waiting families, to join in secret and illegal festivities. Marr may have outlawed celebrations of the old holidays, but not everyone complied with his edicts.

  Thana stopped to speak with a few counterparts on her way out of the chamber building. To establish a solid alibi, she needed to be seen by a number of people. Those conversations put her behind schedule, so she was forced to hurry along to the breach in the wall. It was where the shadow said it would be, a side wall with a temporary plaster facade she slid out of place and returned once she was inside the building, covering the vulnerability.

  Thana sprinted down the passageway and across the only open hallway. It was the only time she was going to be exposed. Sweating, she breathed a quick sigh of relief, checking her watch. She was on schedule again. Marr’s guards walked to take up their station for the evening. The secured observation booth gave them a site line of the hall leading to Marr’s chambers. Her window to cross the vulnerability was closing. Once the guards locked themselves inside the bulletproof booth she wouldn’t be able to cross the hall without them seeing her. They would be able to sound the alarm before she could kill them.

  As the two guards reached the booth, Thana sprinted across the threshold, her footsteps light. Silent. Tucking herself into the cove across the hall, she peeked around the corner to make sure the guards hadn’t noticed. They busied themselves unlocking the booth door. Neither saw her.

  She was cleared to kill now.

  Depressing the door handle, Thana slipped into Marr’s antechamber. Without even a wisp of a sound, she secured the door with a titanium brace. No one was going to get in now.

  The antechamber was silent. At the far end, tucked in a corner, two oak doors stood prominently together. Marr’s sleeping chamber.

  But the king wouldn’t be sleeping. Not yet.

  His subjects held firm beliefs that he spent his evenings consorting with the devil. The rumor had gone unsubstantiated for years. But the truth was as relative as it was true in this world. Thana didn’t believe in angels or demons, gods or devils, but she did believe the King of Kings was mad. The shadow did its best to confirm Marr’s tendencies. Those reports were consistent. Marr spent a good number of evenings alone in his chamber before being attended to by his choice of women. Reports obtained by the shadow confirmed that the king’s madness was rampant in privacy. Each night he locked himself away and could be overhe
ard speaking with another. The identity of the mysterious person remained a secret, but rumors persisted that the visitor wasn’t of this world. Witness testimony spoke of demons, or even Satan himself, of strange occurrences in the chambers, and of an overpowering scent of sulfur. As difficult as the reports were to believe, they were consistent. The shadow had prepared Thana for any eventuality.

  The shadow had prepared her to kill. It told her she was born of this fate, to free the world of the King of Despair and plot its new course. For all they had done for her, plucking her from hopeless obscurity and training her to be a killing machine, she owed them this. She owed them the kingdom.

  Thana approached his door, her calculated footfalls too soft for the untrained ear to pick up. Even if those lumbering bodyguards knew she was here, they couldn’t stop her from finishing her task.

  Leaning close, she pressed her ear to the door, listening for Marr’s whereabouts. She could hear him shuffling across the room. Knowing his location was imperative; the moment she stepped into his private chambers he would sound the alarm and she would have less than two minutes to kill him and escape with her life.

  The shuffling stopped. Thana held her breath, not wanting to give away her presence.

  On the other side of the door, something thudded. She listened for any indication that Marr was approaching. When he resumed his movements, she breathed again.

  Then his muffled voice floated through the door separating them.

  “Yes, my Lord, it’s in the works.”

  So, the rumors were true? Someone was in the room with the king. That was going to complicate the operation.

  But Thana hadn’t observed his entire walk to his chambers. During the transition, it was possible that one of his advisors joined him. It was feasible. Dammit. The shadow had scouted this mission for years. Marr was most vulnerable in his personal chambers. For someone else to join him now was the most inconvenient of circumstances, for both the shadow’s mission and for the unlucky person who fate chose to die alongside their king.

  Marr whined. “I live to serve, finding faith in his favor. You know this.”

  Thana put a hand on the door handle. He wasn’t close, approximately 15 feet away. That would give him plenty of time to sound the alarm if her sudden appearance didn’t shock him. She held the attack, for now, preferring to listen for further assessment.

  “Yes my Lord, I’m grateful he is pleased. Has he noticed my ruthless vengeance of late?” the King of Madness said to his unknown company. Thana imagined the influencer on the other side of the door. How powerful did a person have to be for Marr to sound so docile?

  Thana strained to make out the other voice. Her ability to distinguish voice and range was one of the things that made her a prized asset, yet even she couldn’t make out any other noise coming from the Marr’s chamber. If he were with someone, she would hear that person. But she couldn’t. Why?

  Because he’s alone and mad.

  “Yes, the plans are all set,” the king sounded lucid. His madness cycled quickly. It was strange, almost as if the man she had observed for the past three years was an actor. This was his true self. “The Council has moved. My Chiefs of Staff have positioned the military assets. Everything is ready. Everything.”

  Ready for what?

  Still no second voice. The king truly was mad. So mad as to convene with himself? The only demons here were the ones in Marr’s mind, unfounded rumors be damned.

  “By this time next week, the world will know pain. The world will know His justice.”

  She could strike now but even Marr’s murder might not preclude the rain of death he was about to release on the world. She needed to hear more detail so she could report back to the shadow. It would know what to do.

  “You’ve done well, my child,” a deep voice suddenly answered from nowhere, and everywhere, at the same time.

  Piercing pain. Thana jerked her ear away from the door. The inflection was rich. Mesmerizing. Even the physical barrier didn’t deter its luminosity.

  It sounded from within her.

  Thana shook her head, blinking away the stupor. She wouldn’t put it beyond Marr to put up some fantastic pretense exclusively for his entertainment. The shadow had said there were no video cameras in here, Marr wouldn’t allow them, but she still doubted. His madness was boundless. This was a trick of some sort.

  “Thank you, my Lord,” said Marr, muffled, so unlike the ethereal voice that arched through her.

  “Your reward will come in time, my child,” the other voice thrust into her mind.

  Thana stumbled backward, pressing a hand against her ear. What sort of trick was this? The shadow hadn’t prepared her for this level of manipulation. How was Marr doing this? He was much more powerful than the shadow thought.

  Thana spun, sure she had missed something, some clue, a presence that would threaten her. Kill her. The sound was too clear, too distinct. The closed chamber doors didn’t inhibit it in the least. No, it had to be coming from within this antechamber.

  But the room was empty. She was all alone in the vast space. This was madness. Was she becoming mad like the king himself? Was his influence so great?

  “Will He take me then?” The King of Pain asked the intangible voice.

  Thana leaned closer to the door, risking discovery, to hear the answer. She wanted to. She needed to. The answer to everything lay in the response.

  “Your time is near, my child,” the deep voice boomed in her head, disorienting her again. “Very near.”

  Thana winced, tears of pain obscuring her vision. Was this all part of a ploy, a game for the King of Sadness? Was she nothing more than his latest victim of manipulation? Was she about to fall prey to his whims and demands, charmed by his magnetism to do things unholy, things her morality objected to, but things she would do just the same? Was this some trick of illusion? That was explainable. Security cameras. The shadow must have missed them during the scouting missions. Yes! They missed them and now Marr knew she was here, invading his personal space. And this was all a game to him. To torture before he killed. That was Marr’s way.

  Marr’s justice.

  The shadow!

  She was here to execute the shadow’s mission.

  But she was losing control of her thoughts. Slipping.

  Thoughts, anew.

  Why was she here? Who was she, really? Who sent her and what did they need?

  The shadow began to fade. A presence of something greater than it or even the King of Madness himself pressed on her, began to penetrate her. It hurt. It pierced. A virgin, by decree of the shadow, Thana had no idea if what she was feeling was the same as the first experiences of sex her friends described to her all those years ago. Her friends had taken joy in her growing discomfort at their explicit descriptions of the carnal act. This mimicked their stories.

  She felt vulnerable, open.

  Madness seeped in.

  Further delay would be to risk everything. She had to act now. Now, before it was too late.

  Thana shoved the door open. A wall of sulfur assaulted her.

  “Now, child!” The voice boomed in her head, urging her forward. Its will was her own. Its desires, hers.

  The Lunatic King whirled around, jumping to his feet as Thana surged into the room. She knew exactly where he was, exactly where he would be kneeling. She could tell by the volume and level of his voice. The position she found him in was exactly the position she anticipated. All her training, all of her sacrifices, had been for this one moment.

  And she executed with perfection.

  Before the target could defend himself or sound the alarm, Thana pulled the blade from her belt and jabbed it into his throat, through to its handle.

  “Yes, child. Yes!” the voice vibrated in her head, reverberating around the empty room.

  Thana moaned. She was pleasing him. She was fulfilling her destiny.

  Penetration.

  Filling her.

  The King of Death coughed, g
urgling on the blood filling his throat. His hands went to hers in an attempt to pull the blade free. It didn’t matter now; he was as good as dead. Her strike had been true. The lengthy blade passed through and exited his throat on iconic display, piercing his larynx and shredding his esophageal muscles. Marr could do no more than release a small death choke. Thana released her grip on the blade. Marr’s eyes widened, blood flooded from his mouth, down the immaculate silk robe he wore. His bedrobe. The robe that served as a last vestige of dignity each time he raped one of the local women. And it would now serve as his death garb.

  Marr fell to his knees again, his mouth opening and closing rapidly in silent questioning. Then he tilted to one side and collapsed. Thana stood, watching as the man-who-would-always-be-a-boy died.

  “You’ve done well, my child,” it vibrated through her, stimulated her. “Your Lord is pleased.”

  Thana arched. Her wetness a sign of approval as the presence filled her. Inside, she warmed. He searched. Through her. I, into her. Becoming one with her.

  She swelled, the heat of his importunate desires made her face flush.

  “And you are awarded,” the loving voice teased.

  Thana tingled everywhere at once.

  Warmth, His warmth, spread through her. Life sprung up inside her.

  “You will bear him.”

  Thana unbuttoned the bottom of her tunic with shaking fingers to allow her swelling stomach freedom to breathe. It rose. Swelled. Perfectly symmetrical.

  Perfectly perfect.

  She placed a light hand over her belly. Love and pride, pride and love. The honor was all hers.

  “You are the carrier, but you are also the protector.”

  She nodded, sobbing as she caressed her swelling belly. The baby kicked. She felt its first touch. The first contact establishing the eternal connection.

  The shadow had been right.

  She was the mother of fate.

  “You will see our dear Savior born,” the voice ordered.