So, as you may have guessed, I've decided to just serialize Death Touch in its entirety. So, enjoy Chapter 6 and the rest of your night.
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Mia
How familiar this place felt. Mia was no stranger to cells. She had been in several for polishing her pick pocketing skills, but even her own bedroom had the look and feel of one. So, despite the fact that she was there for trying to kill a prince, she actually felt quite at home. She had been left there for several hours undisturbed after the spellwarriors discovered the starling tattoo on her right hip. Even they knew that interrogating her would be pointless, but they knew enough. The Scarlet Starlings had arranged an attack against the royal family.
If Mia had any reason left to feel despair, this was it. Her beloved guild mates were all in danger now. All because she had made such a stupid mistake. She expected to be executed at some point and was surprised to realize that she didn’t mind. Better to die first than witness the death of her comrades, who had all seemed so invincible to her. She knew the Hem Order was better. In a straight fight, she believed a Starling could kill the average spellwarrior without much trouble, but the Hem Order had numbers on their side and the blessing of the queen. The Starlings would have to fight from the shadows knowing that they were hopelessly outnumbered. For the first time she could remember, Mia wanted to cry.
But she was a Starling and Starlings don’t cry. They sing. So, with a mournful sigh, she began to mumble the words to an old folk song.
“Compared to what lies ahead,
death is but a gift.
Better to be dead,
than face the coming rift.”
Mia had, like everyone else that she knew of, forgotten what Song of the Rift was about, but the opening words had always stuck with people. And they seemed so appropriate in her case. They were the words of hopeless despair in the face of something one could not hope to overcome. Here she was, prepared to die knowing that something much worse was going to happen. When the Starlings were exterminated, justice itself would die with them.
“I think you’ll actually want to stay alive for the next part,” a familiar voice crooned from within the darkness.
“Mario!”
Mia wanted to sing again, so happy she was to see her fellow Starling. But that would have to wait until she found out what he was doing there. For Mario, whom Mia had always looked up to as an older brother, to be there might very well have meant that her failure had been so monumental that the Starling she loved most had to be the one to kill her.
“Keep your voice down!” Mario hissed impatiently. “The guards are unusually alert up there. Do you want us to be caught?”
“I’m already caught,” Mia grumbled petulantly. “So why are you here?”
“I’m here to get you out,” Mario said, as if surprised that she would ask. “What did you think?”
“I think I screwed up big time. The spellwarriors know I’m with the Starlings.”
Mario nodded grimly. “I know. But we’re all okay. We all went into hiding before they could find us. It’s almost like Lady Dinorah knew this was going to happen.”
Mia couldn’t believe what she had heard. That the Starlings were safe had only barely registered. Had Dinorah truly expected her to fail her mission? True, a royal assassination was hardly the best choice for a first assignment, but Mia had figured that Dinorah simply had that much faith in her. Could it be that she was set up? No, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would she intentionally endanger the guild? If she was going to be able to wrap her head around this, she needed to talk to Dinorah herself.
“What’s the plan?”
Mario shoved Mia’s backpack through the bars and began to work on picking the lock. “When I open this door, give me a few minutes to get clear, then you’re going to fight your way out.”
Mia didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Seriously? That’s the best you could come up with?”
Mario shrugged as the lock clicked and the door swung open. “Dinorah’s orders. She’s given you permission to make as much noise as you need to. If you survive, she’ll be waiting for you at our hideout in Solan. If you sense you‘re being tracked, you‘re to wait in Freedom‘s Reach instead. And stay on our side of the border. I‘d personally rather deal with spellwarriors than Galeon’s HDL troops.”
Mia sighed as she took her pistol in hand. If the Starlings were already made, there wasn’t any point to hiding her attempt to escape. After she nodded in acknowledgement, Mario slipped away like a black cat in the night. She waited for several excruciating minutes, she loaded her weapon and crept through the dark stone halls of what she assumed to be Beldor’s jailhouse. It didn’t take long for a guard to spot her as she slid around a corner. Here we go. She fired a single shot, which pierced his neck before he could even raise his crossbow.
“You spellwarriors and your primitive weapons,” she said calmly as a fire began to build up just under the surface. “I hope your brethren find the ability to combine magic with their crossbows worth it because it didn’t help you much.
Wasted words. He was already dead before she had even finished her sentence. But the sound of her gunshot had already echoed off of the walls, alerting others to her presence. Like the good soldiers they are, they clustered together on either side of her, boxing her in. But she was armed with more than a knife, gun, and garrote. Using her fresh kill as a human shield, Mia jammed her hand into her backpack and pulled out a thick copper ball with a dial on it, holding it up for everyone to see.
“She’s got a chaos grenade!” One of the guards shouted, close to panic.
Another responded with, “Why didn’t anyone search her belongings?”
A good question, Mia thought as she turned the dial and threw it toward the phalanx to her right. The guards began to scatter as the ball began to glow red hot and explode. Hoping that the path she opened would lead to an exit, she sprinted past the bodies of the poor fools that were caught in the explosion into a haze of black smoke. Covering her mouth with the sleeve of her left hand, she ran blindly through the hall until she stubbed her toe on what turned out to be the bottom step of a staircase. Almost there.
She climbed the stairs as quickly as she could, only just now realizing how hungry she was. Well, that would just have to be the second appetite she would sate. She drew a second grenade as she neared the top of the stairs and chucked it into the next room. A smile of cruel satisfaction twisted her face as she heard the resulting explosion and the shocked cries of whoever had been in the room. She stepped into the din with a cold calm and noticed a window just over the black haze. Freedom! With her wire uncoiled, she leapt over a desk and gripped the edge of the window. She smashed the glass with her pistol and peered outside. She noted that she was on the first story of the building, not far from the main entrance. Also, it was still dark. Mario had been quick to rescue her. She jumped down and dashed toward the stone wall that surrounded the jailhouse.
The wall was too high to climb and running for the gates would be suicidal. She didn’t like the plan that immediately occurred to her, but now was not a good time to think about it. She drew her last grenade and fastened her wire to the dial. Mia then heaved the grenade as hard as she could, relieved to see it sail over the wall and yanked the wire, which she hoped would pull out the dial. Surely enough, a third explosion tore through the wall and crumbled part of it a flurry of dust, shrapnel, smoke, and pebbles. She hadn’t quite managed to make a hole in the wall like she had hoped, but she was able to climb over it now.
Safely on the other side, the obvious choice left to Mia was to don another disguise and slip out of town, but as she prepared to leave, she felt something nagging her. As if something else were controlling her movements, she found herself wandering back toward the park where she had been captured. Mia felt a twinge of irritation as she found Johnny sitting on that same bench as if nothing had happened. His guards may be good, but they wouldn’t be expecting a repeat performance from the supposedly captured assassin. It became clear at that point that she couldn’t leave without finishing her job, but she’d have to take care of the spellwarriors first.
She peered hopelessly into her bag, wondering what, if anything, she could use to take care of the guards. She was out of grenades and wasn’t about to charge in with her pistol without being able to see them. It was then that she remembered Dinorah’s advice. An assassin’s greatest asset is her eyes. Be patient and you will spot your opportunity the moment it arises. Mia was in no position to be patient, but other than abandoning her mission, she didn’t have any other choice. Johnny Clark was still going to die that night. She only needed to wait for the opportunity to present itself.
The escaped jailbird couldn’t afford to wait for long, though. As soon as word of her breakout had reached Johnny, she knew that the guards would be on even higher alert and might perhaps even actively seek her out. It was as she considered that possibility that a wonderful idea occurred to her. And so, she set off to work.
Minutes later, a gunshot rippled through the park, missing Johnny’s left ear by inches. For the second time that night, Johnny’s drunken daze was rapidly overwritten by seasoned alertness. As Mia had anticipated, both of the spellwarrior guards reappeared and sprinted toward the source of the shot with pulsating vermillion barriers to protect them. They were definitely prepared for battle, but there wouldn’t be one for them. All they would find is a pistol pinned between the branches of a tree with a wire wrapped around its trigger.
Before she could pounce on her seemingly vulnerable prey, however, she would need to make sure there wasn’t anyone else who stayed behind to protect him. After all, counting on her inconceivable luck hadn’t worked out so well for her earlier. Unfortunately, all she had left were her disguise props and dagger. She removed the weapon from her bag and threw the backpack as hard as she could at the slob prince. Miraculously, no one showed up to protect him. The bag full of books hit Johnny squarely on the head and knocked him unconscious.
For the first time that night, Mia was certain that everything was going as it should. Both her doubt and nerves were gone and this time, as she crept up to her prey, she was firm in her intent to kill. Quickly, before the guards find out what I’m up to! She knelt over the unconscious royal and pressed the tip of her knife just over his heart.
And true to her word, she truly enjoyed carving into his chest and effortlessly partitioning his heart. What a wonderful knife.
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