The Shade of Night

The computer beeped as the darkened figure worked at another console. The room was shrouded in darkness, with only three small candles and the flickering lights from the three computer screens providing any light. The room was fairly large, and the apple scented candles didn't waver in the stillness.

The man known as Nightshade looked across at the lap top, his expression was one of complete calm. The screen showed an internet chat room, with a private connection established. The top line held a single word.

"Proposal?"

Underneath it appeared a sentence in bright green against the black background.

"Retreive and deliver appropriate package to appropriate place alive and unharmed."

The figure leant back for a moment, then tapped the keyboard.

"Numeration?"

The screen cleared, and a figure began to take appear.

"$450, 000."

Nightshade raised his eyebrows in surprise. It was more than double his normal fee for a simple elimination. He leant forwards again, and brought the keyboard closer.

"More details required. This line is secure. Please provide exposition."

He leant back again and waited. After a moment, the sentence disappeared, and more of the bright green text appeared.

"Bridget Moynahan to be retrieved from her residence, and delivered unharmed to the Pier 46 warehouse, where half the money will be waiting upon delivery. Upon acceptance, $225 000 shall be deposited in your account."

Nightshade narrowed his eyes as a dark suspicion began to dawn on him. A simple kidnapping, for that much money, surely leant towards a double cross. He didn't have any qualms about kidnapping, only little practise. That didn't worry him, because he knew that it was nothing he couldn't handle. His fingers flew over the keyboard.

"Accepted. Time-frame?"

"Two days. Nine pm at the warehouse."

Nightshade transmitted his deposit account number and shut down the computer. He looked at his watch, then at the candles burning low. Down the far end of the house, a single window was beginning lighten with the dawn of the new day.

***

Kathryn Bridget Moynahan sighed as she sunk back into the overstuffed hotel chair in her apartment. The window was open wide, and the fan was blaring. Kathryn hated air conditioners, hated them with a passion. She looked out over the huge pile of scripts lying in front of her and sighed again. She could almost smell the chlorine from the pool four stories below her on the breeze.

She sighed again and stood up. She wore nothing but her bikini top and a sarong, in full holiday mode. There was virtually no one in the hotel, except for several of the cast and crew staying there for the re-shoots to her new movie. She smiled to herself as the radio eased out "Nightmoves" by Bob Seger, one of her favourite bands despite the aged music.

The breeze cooled the hot apartment slightly, reminding Kathryn of her resolve to do several laps before heading off to sleep. Her hair had grown long during the shoot, and she flicked it back over her shoulder, and looked to the mirror on the other side of the room. Despite the heat, she couldn't be bothered with tying it back.

There was an instant's movement reflected in the mirror, and suddenly a sharp pain in her neck. Kathryn turned around, and her hand felt a cloth covered face, but her eyes had already gone dark.

Nightshade brushed her long hair away from her face and frowned. The tall brunette had an achingly statuesque beauty, and he shook himself as he inhaled the apricot scent of her hair. The assassin looked around, and quickly turned off the lamp in the corner, plunging the room into darkness.

***

Nightshade quickly and efficiently drove through the streets. The words nondescript were apposite for all aspects of the car, from the average looking paintwork with a few scratches to the two or three dents in the bodywork, more scrapes than actual damage. Nothing more than another car out late in the night.

He heard the soft hiss of silk and leather, and handed a bottle of water over the back seat. There was a pause of about a second, before the young woman grabbed it and drank. "I apologize for the taste. It's actually a Brazillian root, and leaves a terrible aftertaste. It goes away after a few minutes, Miss Moynahan."

"Who are you? Where are we?" Her voice sounded slurred, even to her own ears, and Kathryn shook her head and cleared her throat, but the grogginess continued.

"My name isn't really that important, but you can call me Shade, if you want. As for where we are, we are on the way to see the man who hired me."

"You're a kidnapper?" Nightshade chuckled as he heard the whisper of her sarong on the back seat, then the tiniest click, as Kathryn tried the door handles.

"No, actually my profession tends to leave me without much direct contact with my targets. A Mr. Farrier wishes to make your acquaintance, and has paid me quite a substantial fee to facilitate it." The back of the car was silent, and Nightshade's eyes lifted to see Kathryn's dark eyes glazed in shock.

"Danny...Jesus." Her face was a mask of sudden fear, and she locked eyes with Nightshade. "He'll kill me. You have to let me go." Nightshade frowned.

"And yet I won't. I'm sorry, Kathryn, but it's not the sort of thing I normally do, expose myself to this degree. But Mr. Farrier is putting forth a great deal of money for your safe return." Nightshade turned off the main road and began to make his way down to the docks. A generic heavy nodded behind his ridiculous sun glasses as they pulled up at the gate.

"Four minutes down, turn left into Cavern Hill Cresent. Another fifteen minutes, you should be at the warehouse." Nightshade nodded as the heavy grinned appreciatively at the frightened young woman in the back seat. They drove for a few moments, and then she slid forwards towards the bars her kidnapper had installed across the divide.

"Bridget."

"I'm sorry?"

"You may as well call me Bridget. I haven't gone by the name of Kathryn in some time." Nightshade nodded wordlessly.

"If you wish." She eyed him behind the bars as he concentrated on the road ahead. In the brightness of the high beams, the Cavern Hill Crescent sign was clear, and they turned off.

"You some kind of Marvin, Shade?" A smile curled his face at her question.

"I love that movie. And I like to think so. Just because you're a professional killer doesn't mean you have to be impolite. But I work alone, not part of a team of hired killers." Bridget nodded and sighed quietly. Shade's eyes flicked up into the rear mirror, and he frowned.

"Forgive me for saying so, but you hardly seem the type to associate with Danny Farrier. He's bad news, always has been. You make those sort of mistakes often?

She gazed at him archly. "You've never made a mistake with a girl?" Shade didn't answer for a moment.

"As it happens, no." Bridget's glance spoke volumes. Shade hunched his shoulders against her unspoken disbelief. "I've never..."

Her eyes went very wide as he blushed, and rolled his shoulders against the seat. He cleared his throat a number of times, and refused to meet her eyes. "You mean, you've never... not ever...?"

"So you made a mistake. With Danny. What happened?" She stared at him for a moment longer, and then looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap.

"I made a mistake. He was someone I thought I could get along with, and be with happily. I was wrong. By the time I figured that out, it was too late, and I was too scared to do anything."

Shade snorted. "But you did do something. You got out."

"Eventually. I knew I had to play a game with him, make him lose interest without getting too angry, so that he'd dump me." Shade snorted again.

"Sounds complicated, but that kind of shit usually is, I've noticed. Sounds as though your little game worked, but now he knows you played him. He'll probably be mightily pissed at you. Or maybe he just really misses you."

This time Bridget snorted in disbelief. "He's scum, not really someone capable of that at all, being human emotion and all. All he is is hate."

They drove in silence for a moment. Shade stretched in the seat. "Probably. But you should try being a little more respectful, if you want to get out of this alive at any rate. He's still the one in control."

There was a moment of silence from the back seat, and Bridget leant forwards. The apricot scent of her hair suddenly filled the car, and Shade swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. "Not yet he's not. You could just turn the car around and leave. At the moment, you're in control. You could do it."

"And yet I won't."

There was another long pause as Bridget gathered her thoughts. "You're not one of his usual meat heads like the idiot back there at the gate. You're not one of Danny's regular heavies, are you? So what, are you just some kind of kidnapper for hire?"

Shade smiled to himself. "I think I'll take that as a compliment. No, I'm not one of his cronies. I'm an assassin mainly. I dabble now and again in burglary and theft, but the pay is much better if there's death involved."

"So what am I, a payday to you? Is that what all this is about, money?"

"No, it's about a lot of money. I thought we'd been over this."

Bridget slumped back into the leather of the back seat as the lights of the warehouse appeared around a bend. They passed through another gate, and another leering meathead. As Shade relaxed more, Bridget noted his hand slipping back under his top, putting away a gun, she surmised. "So what are you to Danny?"

Shade shrugged. "A means to an end, I suspect."

"You do this often, then? Hire your skills out to the highest bidder?"

Shade slowed the car and twisted to look in the back seat. Bridget's long hair framed her face in swirling curls, and for the first time in several years, he felt suddenly nervous. It showed in his eyes, and Bridget narrowed her own. The stone cold killer was obviously uncomfortable, but for what reason, she couldn't quite tell.

"I already told you, I dabble now and then. I'm a far better killer than kidnapper. If I were you, I'd stop trying mind games to sucker me in and worry about Danny, because he's about ten minutes away." Bridget cocked her head to the side as she looked at him, watched him turn back around stiffly to watch the road.

"So you'd kill a woman, just like that? You know Danny will kill me. I won't go back to him, even if he wanted me to, it's not going to happen. But if you deliver me to him, then you might as well pour the concrete or pull the trigger yourself."

Shade smiled a chilling smile. "You know, I never understood that little moral cliché. Taking a life isn't difficult. Dangerously easy, actually. Once you've killed a person, whether they're male or female doesn't really matter. Their organs are the same, the flesh is the same, the mind may be different, but it's still a carbon based life form of blood, muscles and flesh. It's only the mindset."

Her look was incredulous, but Shade refused to look at her marvellous eyes. "So you're nothing but a cold calculating killer?"

Shade shrugged again. "That in itself is something special. There aren't that many of us around, actually. I'm the only one in this country at the moment, so that's the only reason we ever met."

Moynahan sighed. "That and the fact that Danny thinks we're destined for one another."

"Yeah, that too." She smiled sadly and shook her head.

"So you don't have any morals whatsoever? What about killing children, something like that? You still believe your morally incorruptible?" Her deep brown eyes stared at Shade accusingly, and he met her fury with calm defiance.

"I've never killed a child personally, although children have died either directly or indirectly through my actions. I'm probably a sociopathic and amoral monster, but it's all I've ever been. But what about you? Two brothers, Andy and Sean, Father an administrator at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst."

"First really noticed by most hormonally charged men in Coyote Ugly, and voted 86th sexiest woman of the world by the incredibly artistic, or more presumably autistic readers of Stuff Magazine. Sports background in childhood before blossoming into the incredible woman you've become to grace the covers of Glamour and Vogue."

"Not bad for a now thirty five year old New Yorker screwing a skull thumping football player. Now you tell me, Bridget, could YOU be anything else than what you are?"

Moynahan slammed her fist up against the twisted wire. "Yeah, well good to see you're on the ball there, sparky. Too bad you don't get to finish the story, because you're about to kill me. How can you be so fucking cool and calm? You don't have a heart, you're a fucking monster."

Shade stayed stock still as she vented her rage through the wire. In truth, her statements hurt him more than he cared to admit. After a moment, she quieted. "I don't want to die."

"At least you have something to live for. I can't ever go out and meet a girl. I'm a sociopath, and a cold hearted monster, just like you said. I don't have a sense of humour, and aside from passing skills as a cook, I don't have any real practical skills. This is all I've ever known, this life. Not something you want to share if you love someone."

She stared at him again, and nursed her bruised knuckles. "You've never been in love, and you've never...well...never? Maybe that's the problem. You need to go out and find a girl, and find out there's something else out there aside from guns and death."

Shade scoffed and shook his head, but didn't say anything. The apricot scent of her hair swum around him through the air, and he found himself inhaling her scent, leaning into it slightly. He swallowed the lump in his throat, and cleared his throat.

"I don't do love. I'm not good with people."

She smiled. "Yeah, nice try. That just means you don't like people, not whether you're actually good with them or not."

Shade slide the bolt forwards on his two pistols, and slid them back under his belt. "Never said I did like people. It's a great help if you don't actually get along well with everyone. You might have to kill them one day. If I'd known you before today..."

His sentence drifted off, and he closed his mouth with a snap and ground his teeth together. Bridet hugged herself against the growing cold around the car, and Shade's eyes locked with hers in the rear vision mirror. "Besides, look what love's gotten you into with Danny."

She scoffed. "That wasn't love. That was lust, and sex. Surely you can at least understand that."

Shade's fist clenched on the steering wheel as the closed around the corner, and another three heavies waved at them. "I can understand it. I just haven't experienced it."

Bridget shook her head sadly. "My last moments on earth and I'm treated to words of wisdom about love by a virgin."

Shade stepped out of the car and opened the door, grabbing hold of her elbow roughly and pulling her from the car. "What I am is a killer, pure and simple. And we're here."

Once inside, he thrust Bridget's staggering form at the eight men standing threateningly around a small chair. The tall brunette fell to the floor, and her sarong slipped. There were several leering grins as the thugs eyed her off, until the older one glared at them. "Ah, you must be the notorious Nightshade. Welcome, and greetings. I am Danny Farrier."

Shade's stance was loose and ready, and his entire being was predatory. The eight thugs looked at one another warily, and silently wondered at the threat the boss was provoking. "Where's the money?"

Farrier smiled charmingly. "Of course, of course, the direct approach. It is of course next door, in the warehouse office, right there. You may have it in a moment." Shade tilted his head to the side incredulous, and his silenced pistols appeared in his hands as if by magic.

"Now, Mr. Farrier, or we don't forget this ever happened, and Miss Moynahan suddenly develops an air head personality." The warehouse filled with the sounds of triggers and bolts being slid into position.

Farrier spat on the ground with a pained expression. "Forgive my insolence, Mr. Nightshade, but you had best put the guns away, and stop pointing them at Bridget's head, or I'll ice pick your forehead and skull-fuck the brain hole. Open casket alright, is it?"

Shade smiled coldly, his eyes suddenly frosty. "I don't think so, boy. You should have brought more than eight if you planned to play hardball." There was another instant's silence, and then Farrier's laughter echoed through the empty warehouse.

"Ha ha, indeed. I like you, killer. Michel here will show you where the rest of your money is, whilst I discuss several things with Miss Moynahan." Shade nodded and slipped his guns away.

"Lead the way, Mike. Goodbye, Bridget." The actresses eyes were downcast, resolved to die, and she didn't answer. Shade sighed once, and his entire being tensed as the gentle scent of her apricot hair filled his senses. He started forwards after the heavy, but glanced back at Bridget. They locked eyes for a moment, and the hardened killer felt his face colour with shame.

As he opened the door, Michel flicked on the light. Shade's hand crept down to the waistband of his jeans, where his guns were re-holstered. On the desk beside a computer keyboard lay a thick silver briefcase, open and filled with money, easily the 225 K that Farrier had promised him. "It's all here, we're done."

Michel shook his head, and jerked his chin towards the poor light of the warehouse, where the other seven heavies were gathering around Bridget's terrified form. "Mr. Farrier wishes to speak to you about a further fee for the disposal of Miss Moynahan's remains should she decide to be...impetuously impulsive."

Shade's hand tightened around the handle of his gun. "So either he'll have her, or no one will?"

The guard rubbed his hand over his crotch, his lips curling into a hungry leer. "Something like that." Through the open door, Farrier's voice carried his soothing voice, his tones oily and dripping with false sincerity. The memory of the apricot scent filtered through Shade's mind, and he eased the hammer back on his gun as he sighed.

Out in the warehouse, Bridget was staring at the assassin's ashen face, and realized that the man was about to do something rash, which seemed totally out of character for what she'd seen. Farrier's face slid into her field of vision.

"You see now how I can take your world and turn you into nothing, Bridget. You've been controlled, and in a moment, you'll be repeatedly raped. But you can stop all of it with a single sentence. You'll be mine again, pampered and protected. And none of this will even be remembered. Or, you can..."

She heaved forwards, putting all her vehemence into a single scorching slap of her hand, her nails slicing deeply into the man's cheek. She spat in defiance, and leant back, watching the war take place on Shade's features as his inner turmoil began to calm. Farrier slowly wiped the spit off of his face with a silk handkerchief and turned to Michel, who nodded and reached into his pocket, pulling out a syringe.

"Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. Unfortunately, you've dealt with some highly unsavoury people, and as such have developed a hitherto unseen addiction. You'll be found in some alleyway, discarded like a used condom, laying on the ground with a needle in your arm like some common guttersnipe. Kill her, Nightshade."

Shade slowly bent down, his eyes on Bridget's unshed tears shining in her glorious eyes, and he smiled at her slightly. His other hand stayed at his belt, on the handle of his gun. "It's amazing, paying me this much for a simple snatch and grab. One would almost suspect you of having ulterior motives. Like setting me up for a heroin smuggling sting, after soaking your ex in the shit. Am I far off the mark?"