The Master Assassin’s Revenge

The fat man sat at his desk, sharpening his dagger. He smiled. The day had gone well. All of his assassins had completed their missions, and only one had gotten arrested while doing it. Every target that he had pointed to had been eliminated, even the head of the large weapon company, Emanuel. The fat man laughed. He had paid Emanuel’s sister , Estarla, to kill him, and she hadn’t come back for the rest of the payment, now that Emanuel was dead. The fat man assumed that she was hiding somewhere, having a mental breakdown over what she had done. He shrugged.

“I suppose I’ll have to find out who the second best assassin in the world is” he told himself  dismissively.  Estarla had been the world’s Master Assassin for many years. Only a few people knew what she looked like, as most people who saw her never had time to notice, let alone enough to tell anyone. As far as the fat man knew, and he had extensive knowledge on such matters, only he and one other crime boss had ever talked to her in person, other than her family. He pulled a  folder out now and opened it. In that folder, the fat man had every assassin listed and ranked by skill. 

The second assassin on his list was Joy Jones. He smirked. She was a tall, thin young girl with short, straight blond hair. She always wore tight black leather jumpsuits and black jewelry. She even wore tall black high heel boots. In his mind, she was a little over the top. She had named herself Joy Jones because her favorite bad guy was Jesse James. She thought they sounded similar. She was not nearly as good as Estarla, but she would do. He didn’t need a specialist very often, anyway. Only when there was someone important to get rid of. Now that Emanuel was gone, he could take control of the weapon company, and then he could control who got weapons, and the need for a specialist to take down heavily armed enemies would go down. The fat man ran his hand down the list of assassins. He frowned. There were so many assassins he had no use for, that might be employed by his enemies. He would have to pay Joy Jones to shorten the list a little. Maybe she could also find Estarla, and make sure Estarla would never complete another mission. 

He was about to close the folder and put it back in the drawer when an arrow flew out of nowhere and pinned it open to the desk. Startled, the fat man looked to the door. A figure was standing in the doorway, covered in an earthy green cloak. A large, old-fashioned recurve bow was in her hand, and the tips of white feathered arrows showed over its shoulder. The fat man stepped back in fright. 

“Estarla!” he croaked. A smile formed on the portion of the face that was visible. The fat man was scared. If Estarla was showing up now, in this fashion, it meant bad news. Estarla was very old-fashioned. She wore medieval clothes, used a bow and arrow, and avoided cars as much as she could. She was even old-fashioned in the way she talked. She was always polite, and friendly, never making a rude or insulting comment. So if she just appeared in his room without knocking, it was a bad sign. The fat man tried to smile  so that Estarla wouldn’t know how scared he was. 

“Welcome!” He said shakily, motioning to the chair in front of the desk. 

“Did you come to get the payment for your mission?” he asked, trying to pretend he wasn’t worried. Maybe she would settle for the money, and leave him alive. Estarla threw back her hood and nodded briefly. 

“Yes, sir. I have” She was very beautiful, with large green eyes, and pretty red lips. The fat man had always wished she was more like the other spies, the ones who didn’t mind giving him pleasure, but at the same time, he admired Estarla’s old-fashioned morals. He loved everything about her. Except, as he was realizing now, her temper. Her green eyes looked snake-like, in thin slits, and he could tell by the way her hand strayed to her quiver to brush the arrows, that she was close to killing him. He frowned slightly as he studied her intently. Something was wrong. Something about Estarla wasn’t the way it normally was. He shifted nervously, trying to pin it down. Suddenly, he saw it. The embroidery on the hem of her long navy blue dress was torn, and the sky blue apron-like overdress was dirty. His pulse raced. Estarla never showed up dirty. She was always clean, and organized. Somehow, the fact that she was dirty scared the fat man more than her anger. Her long brown hair hung over her shoulder, and the braids encircling her head were messy and coming loose. The fat man leaned against the wall, and stared at her. She was gorgeous this way, but also terrifying. The fat man’s eyes strayed to the desk where his dagger lay, but quickly looked back up again. The dagger would be useless against her bow, and he didn’t want Estarla to notice what he was thinking. Slowly, he reached behind his back for his gun. He was pretty sure she meant to kill him, and he meant to stop her. If she just wanted the money, as she said she did, then she would have fixed herself up first. He pulled the gun from under his shirt, careful that it looked as though he were nervously adjusting his shirt. If she saw him get the gun, he would be dead. To distract her he said, as evenly as he could:

“So, we agreed on fifty thousand, right?” He unlocked the safety on the gun and put his finger on the trigger. She smiled at him and nodded.

“Yes. We did.” She put her hand on the belt she wore around her waist and stood in a relaxed position. As fast as he could, the fat man pulled the gun from behind his back and fired at her. Almost faster than he could see, Estarla pulled a knife from under her belt and threw it at him, dropping down on her hands and knees at the same time, the bullet passing over her head. Her knife ripped the gun from the fat man’s hand and slammed it into the wall, where it hung, quivering. Estarla came and stood right in front of him. Her smile was gone, and the fat man seemed to feel the air getting colder around her. 

“The payment has changed,” she said quietly. The fat man shrank low, but could see no way out of his situation. She looked at the wall above him and seemed to see something that wasn’t there. 

“You sent me to kill my brother,” she said suddenly. “And for a moment, I almost did it. I hid along the edge of a path that I knew he walked down alone every day to relax. He came along, I put an arrow on the bowstring, and pulled back. But I couldn’t do it.” The fat man saw a tear roll down Estarla’s cheek.  

“If only I had put down the bow quicker! He saw me and thought that I was actually going to kill him. The look on his face! He was astonished, mad, and so disappointed. I tried to explain. But he pulled his gun and fired at me. Oh, Emanuel! You always had such a temper!” Estarla seemed to be in a different world. The fat man tried to slip past her, but she grabbed him and pulled him back in front of her without even looking at him. 

“Emanuel wouldn’t listen.” she continued, still holding him in an iron grip.  “I tried to send a warning arrow past him, but he jumped in front of it on accident, trying to get a better shot at me.” Her face was wet with tears now, and tears were running down her arm, getting his collar wet. 

“I tried to help him. I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I couldn’t get him up again. The arrow went right through. I rocked him gently. He smiled. He said sorry. He forgave me. I cried. I cried. I couldn’t wake him up.” She suddenly turned her head  and looked directly at the fat man. Her eyes were green fires, and she was snarling like a wolf. 

“For that mission, I will get paid a different value. A value that matches the value of Emanuel’s life a little closer.” Estarla took a step back and raised her bow. She stood a few feet back from the fat man, who was almost whimpering in terror. He shrank down, as if by making himself smaller, he would become invisible. His thoughts were frozen, all he could do was stare at the razor-sharp broad tip that Estarla was pointing at him. She had designed her arrowheads herself, and they were so sharp they could cut through bulletproof clothing. Looking at it, he could see the small barbs along one side, making it extremely painful to pull out. The light from his window gleamed off the smooth metal and shone into the fat man’s eyes. 

“For this mission,” Estarla’s voice had a high level of excitement in it;  “For this mission I give you a promise!” 

The fat man looked up quickly. That wasn’t what he was expecting. Why was she giving him payment? What promise?  Was she entirely crazy?

“A promise that I will never kill anyone for money ever again! Now that I know what their sisters feel like, I won’t do it! I will protect targets, not kill them. Protect them from you!” Estarla had a new hardness in her face, mingled with disgust. Her voice lowered so low he could hardly hear it. It was cold and icy.

“But your payment to me, that is even sweeter.” She said, sending a thrill of fear running through the fat man. Estarla pulled the bow back to full draw, and the fat man suddenly found that he couldn’t breathe. His attention fixed on the arrowhead, he heard Estarla’s voice as if from a long distance. 

“Your payment, that is your life!” she released the arrow, and it flew at the fat man. He saw it go deep into his chest, and his legs felt weak. He slid down the wall, and collapsed on the ground, staring up at Estarla’s satisfied, tear-soaked face. A small breeze from somewhere unknown was blowing her hair. There was a darkness closing in, framing Estarla’s face, and it looked so lovely. He wanted to reach up and touch her, but he found he couldn’t move his hand. A warmth was spreading throughout his body, his mind was drifting. He thought back on the past, on everything he wished he could have done differently. He thought about the future and everything he wished he had time to do. He struggled to push back the darkness, to see, to get up, but he couldn’t. The future was gone, he would never get it back. He stared up at Estarla, but all he could see were eyes. He stared in horror at those glowing green eyes, filled with crazy elation. Then the darkness closed, and he knew no more.