Aveline (2 page)

Aveline and Rocky leapt over obstacles, slid
around corners, ducked through closed merchant shops, and doubled
back periodically to confuse their pursuers with the innate
familiarity of their surroundings only those raised in the streets
possessed. Past a statue of the Lost Vegas Founder and the Wynn
monument, into the narrow maze making up the oldest of the city’s
markets, through the brothel and neighboring slave districts, and
around the heavily guarded central water and food storage
buildings. Navigating the familiar footpaths and landmarks was
second nature to them both.

By the occasional change in Rocky’s speed
and the increasingly erratic route, he sensed what she did. Someone
had managed to track them long past the markets. Her heightened
instincts picked up the periodic brush of cloth, the scrape of soft
soles against stone and the pungent scent of the polish used solely
on metal and iron weapons, which were reserved for the upper
castes, their elite protectors, and decorated members of the
Shield. Even if assassins did not prefer bone and stone weapons,
the Guild built around discretion and secrecy would have avoided
the attention possessing steel weapons drew.

The longer Aveline and Rocky ran, the
clearer it became their pursuer was having no trouble tracking
them.

At long last, Rocky paused inside an
abandoned dwelling in the middle of the temple ward to catch his
breath.

Aveline stopped beside him. They listened,
panting in the darkness. The sense of being followed did not abate
and yet, no one charged through the door to confront them,
either.

“This isn’t right,” Rocky said quietly. “No
one from the outer city could’ve followed us. We learned these
routes from your father himself.”

She silently agreed. Her father had been the
city’s most wanted for twenty years. No one had been able to find
him, once he entered the maze of streets, alleys, and paths making
up the inner city. At one point, the Shield had ordered a manhunt
with no less than five hundred foot soldiers and still her father
escaped and returned home by dinner.

How were they being tracked? More
importantly, which one of them was being followed? Rocky, because
of his forbidden profession as an assassin, or Aveline, the
daughter of a wanted criminal? And why did either of them rate this
persistent level of attention?

“There’s more than one,” Rocky said and held
his breath.

She did the same, listening.

Voices came from two directions. Unable to
make out their words, Aveline could estimate how far they were. The
two search parties were no more than a hundred feet away – and
closing in on the abandoned building where she stood.

“Maybe they have the help of Ghouls,” Rocky
said.

“Maybe they
are
Ghouls,” she growled
in frustration.

“My mother used to say you could hear them
scream from ten miles away and devour a horse in -”

“I’m not in the mood for stupid fables meant
to frighten children,” Aveline interrupted. It was the worst night
of her life, and she was being given no chance to mourn before her
world fell spectacularly apart. She never asked the Great Spirit or
people around her or the city for much of anything, but she needed
a small break this night. “We need to split up.”

Rocky hesitated before agreeing. “Meet at
Guild Main at dawn?”

“Yes. If something happens …”

“…
we always come back for
one another,” he finished their friendship motto. Raised on the
streets, their survival had been a matter of working together from
the time they met, when she was five and he seven.

“Stay alert. I’ll see you at dawn,” Aveline
said and stepped outside the building. Listening once more, she
decided to go left, towards the center of the city.

Aveline deftly wove through forgotten and
abandoned routes, across streets and crossing the different wards
dividing the sprawling inner city. Passing through the slave ward
once more, she paused at one point and let her senses fill with the
late night sights and sounds.

From one of the buildings near her, a man
had been seized by a round of coughing. Music on ill-tuned
instruments floated from another direction, while the movement of
the vermin living within the city came from several directions. A
rat was dragging what appeared to be a human hand towards the
sewers, and larger scavengers were tossing inedibles from heaps of
refuse in their search for food.

And then the faint scent of metal polish
reached her.

She took off once more, vowing this would
not be the night she joined her family as a spirit.

Whipping around a corner, Aveline was
halfway down the street before she realized it had been recently
rerouted. Streets often were dammed and changed in attempts by the
Shield and city leadership to curb crime in the worst parts of the
inner city. She had been at her father’s side the past week instead
of exploring the streets as she normally did.

The sounds of pursuit grew louder. She
hesitated too long, her mind racing to find an alternate route. As
she tried to decide what to do, a low whistle reached her from
above.

Aveline looked up. A figure in dark clothing
was framed against the night sky, crouched on the edge of a roof of
the building flanking the alley. The figure stood, revealing the
tall, lean form belonging to a man. He tossed a rope down towards
her and motioned for her to take it. The figure was too wiry to be
Rocky, but it was difficult for her to determine anything else
about her rescuer.

Aveline snatched the rope and began to haul
herself up the side of the building, pushing and bracing herself
with her legs.

“Hey!”

She glanced down and saw two dozen men had
jammed up the entrance of the alley. Her thoughts went again
briefly to why she and Rocky rated a search party before she
concentrated on climbing. When she reached the top, she slung one
leg over the edge of the roof and hefted herself over. Her heart
flew, and she yanked the rope up before any of the men below could
grab it.

Aveline leaned over, trying to identify
something about her pursuers that might tell her who they were or
why they were so doggedly chasing her this night. Rocky had seen
the Shield members as well as the men working for the largest debt
collector in the inner city, Miguel. She fully expected both to
show up the night her father died. Miguel would sell off her
father’s possessions – which included her – to the highest bidder
to settle the debts of the Guild, and the Shield had an interest in
confirming the assassin leader was dead. Why the latter insisted on
chasing her, though, was not something she understood at all. What
was one orphaned street dog to the Shield?

These two parties were joined by men in
maroon she did not recognize. There were four of them. She ducked
back from the edge of the roof when the men on the ground spotted
her peering down at them. It was better to find safety first then
spend time debating who was chasing her.

“You’re welcome,” a low, unfamiliar male
voice said from nearby.

She had nearly forgotten the man who threw
her the rope. Aveline whirled to face the shadows cast by the
neighboring building. The man was there, hiding from the night. She
breathed in deeply, using all her senses to pick up any clues as to
who he was.

No smells, no sounds, no impressions. He was
being very, very careful.

“Do you work for my father?” she asked.

“Sort of.”

She frowned and ran through the voices of
every assassin or client who had ever crossed the threshold into
her father’s cabin.

“You are for hire, are you not?” the man
asked. His accent was polished, the rhythm of his speech slow and
enunciated.

He was from the outer city. What was he
doing here?

Wary, she shifted one hand to the knife at
her thigh. “Why do you care?” she replied.

“Because, if you are, I would like to hire
you.”

“Hire.”

“You are a seventh generation assassin, are
you not?”

If he were one of her father’s men, he would
know she was not allowed to call herself thus yet, because she had
not completed her final trial.

“I assume you need a benefactor of some
sort. Or were you running through the inner city for exercise?” he
asked.

“Thanks for the help, but I’m not
interested,” she said.

“You have not yet heard what the job is or
what it pays. I have never met an assassin who did not wish to know
how much I was willing to donate for my wishes to be carried
out.”

“There are dozens of assassins. Hire one of
them,” she said shortly. “I’m not currently looking for
employment.” Aveline started away, towards a ladder leading up to
the roof of an adjacent building. Roof walking was dangerous. She
had done it before but generally preferred not to risk falling
through anyone’s ceiling. With her current route blocked, she had
little choice.

“You bear the devil’s blood, do you
not?”

She stopped in place at the
polite question. It was not chance that placed this man in her
path.
Devil
was her
father’s nickname, earned from his actions during the single
deadliest massacre ever to occur in the inner city of Lost Vegas.
Those who coined the nickname did so out of a sense of admiration,
claiming her father had to have the blood of the devil flowing
through his veins in order to kill a thousand people in three days
time.

They did not know how accurate they were,
and very few outside the two of them knew the truth about the curse
she bore. Her father’s family really was touched by the devil. To
relinquish one’s control over the blood curse was to become
possessed by the spirit of the devil himself, and by a rage that
burned so hot, it turned everyone in its path to ash. After he
witnessed for himself how lethal his curse was, her father had
raised her to control it at all times and forbidden her from ever
unleashing it.

“Only you can complete this task,” her
rescuer said.

“Who are you?” she asked, facing him once
more.

He remained in the shadows.

“Why are you hiding?”

“The girl possessed by the devil wants to
know why I do not wish her to see my face?” he retorted. “My name
has no meaning here, but my money does. I know enough about the
Guild to understand those who bring in benefactors often advance
more quickly than those who do not.”

It was true the Guild relied upon funds from
outsiders to maintain its locations and care for the families of
those assassins caught or killed during their missions. Assassins
earned their place in the Guild by the merit of their ability to
fight and kill. In payment for blindly obeying orders, they
received a stipend, along with free living quarters for the rest of
their lives. Those who purchased assassinations paid the Guild
rather than the individual assassin. The Guild was a large family;
money went where it was needed, and it was understood among the
Guild members that no one would be rewarded more than his brother
or sister, no matter what the circumstance.

Except when someone brought in the kind of
grateful benefactor who could fund stipends for a year or build a
dozen new living quarters. The assassin favored by a wealthy
benefactor received none of the money but moved up the ranks
faster.

She would need a benefactor, if not before
she appealed to the Guild’s board to take her trial, then soon
after to gain status.

More importantly, she would need a
benefactor to settle her father’s debts. There had been a dry spell
in assassinations the past three years caused by the emergence of a
second group selling similar services to the wealthy. Her father
had taken out large loans from Miguel to fund the Guild, loans she
was now either responsible for repaying or dying for.

The timing of this
stranger’s appearance, however, coupled with the death of her
father, left her suspicious. He had not been waiting for anyone to
come through the alley. He had been waiting for
her
.

To accept a mission when she was not a full
assassin would not only earn her a reprimand but hinder her ability
to find a sponsor and take the final trial. How could she justify
potentially spending days, weeks, months on assignment, and
disobeying the Guild’s council, when she needed to focus on drawing
the attention of a Guild sponsor?

Her future was shaky enough without the
added challenge.

“Find someone else. The Devil’s blood died
with my father,” she said and spun away. Reaching out to grip the
wooden ladder, she was trying to figure out how this man, and the
others, had found her this night when the stranger spoke.

“We will discuss this again.”

Something stung her neck, and she slapped
it, expecting to feel a mosquito squish beneath her palm. Instead,
her fingers met the long, slender arrow of a blow weapon. Before
she could react, the world slid out of focus, and her body grew too
heavy for her to stand. She sank to the ground, helpless to move or
speak.

“I apologize for this,” came the low male
voice. “You have forced my hand.”

Alarm spun through her mind as darkness
swallowed her.

A woman’s shout awoke her.

Aveline’s eyes snapped open, and she stared
at a wooden ceiling. A cacophony of activity pummeled her groggy
senses. The events of her night were clear; the world around her
less so. The splashing of water, strange moans, and at least two
women barking orders were joined by the sound of knocking at a door
and someone else stomping across the floor.

Where was she?

She started to stand up only to realize her
body was unresponsive. She tried again. Nothing happened.