Hello folks,
I tried to be quick about this one to make up for the last chapter. Next chapter is in the works, but I have a lot of fun RL work to get to first. I'll try not to take too long.
I love to hear suggestions so please feel free.
Otherwise, I hope you enjoy.
yers,
-enithermon
***
The White Bay shone blindingly under a high moon. For miles it stretched, a glorious waste of ice and snow. Within its embrace, three dark islands, dumping grounds for the cities unwanted and forgotten: The mad, the criminal, and the dead. Around the base of the second a dark figure slid unnoticed over slick black stones, shining with layers of ice and mottled with patches of crystalline snow. In the distance the flickering but ever present lights of the city burned as a perpetual counterpoint to the silent despondency of the three 'sisters' which sat off and alone like hunched crones of fate, busy with their work of spinning and measuring and cutting.
The stones of the keep loomed high and the dark stone of the north-west face, untouched by moonlight, was as black as the stones below. Along this wall a hand full of men patrolled lethargically, pausing now and again to sip from flasks or rub life back into chilled limbs. One paused, momentarily startled as a movement, suddenly caught in the corner of his eye, caused him to turn his head sharply. He blinked and saw enough to think it the passing fancy of tired eyes, or at best the flutter of a hunting owl led too far from the shore by skittish prey.
Jairus cast the bright clear sky another look of supreme annoyance as he crushed himself against the wall to let yet another guard pass. The prison had one entrance, and three consecutive gates to guard it. The walls themselves were well manned and impossibly high, a feat of engineering in themselves, and all of it was located on an isolated island, its nearest neighbors a graveyard and an asylum. Near impossible to escape or infiltrate. That is unless one could scale impossible walls at a speed faster than the eye could catch. And even if one could accomplish this there were no windows or unlocked doors save the wardens window, another twenty feet of uninterrupted vertical assent up a broad turret. Jairus picked his way around to the moonless side of this very tower and began his quick assent.
As he neared the narrow slotted window overhead he heard the low and conveniently sonorous sounds of the warden. He made a quick check before slipping inside the dark room. He could already catch the sickly sweet smell of too much liquor from across the room. He made a quick inventory and found what he needed at a glance. The keys hung next to the door, a sword, with its red ornamental tassels, stood propped at the foot of the bed, and the almost empty bottle of spirits sat still uncorked on the desk. He took all of it, thinking the liquor might be an amusing touch.
The client had given him explicit and careful directions as well as guard rotations so it took very little time to painlessly reach the desired location. Fortunately the information he'd been given was good. Unfortunately, however, the man in the cell wasn't quite asleep and stirred at the sound of the key turning softly in his cell door. Jairus wasted no time. He was on top of the mark well before he could cry out, pulling him up out of the cot before rapidly spinning and shoving him against the wall, one hand over his mouth the other already unsheathing the wardens sword.
The man, Jairus knew, was a political prisoner, but the clients own personal interests lay more in the 'family way,' in all senses of the word. Specifically, the man had impregnated the client's sister, a member of his household staff, and promptly fired her, denying any and all responsibility. Of course such a thing wasn't uncommon, and by no means the reason for his imprisonment. The fact that the girl's brother was a guard was only an interesting coincidence. However, as a political prisoner he wasn't subject to the same indignities as other prisoners and thus the brother of the young lady was forced to seek professional aid since he was prohibited from gaining access to the man. Jairus wondered if the man knew that it had been his imprisonment which had been keeping him alive this long. Poor bastard.
"Julianna's brother sends his regards." He whispered into the man's left ear just before the blade slid upwards into his right side. He twisted the blade quickly, paused to listen for the soft gurgle of blood rapidly filling lungs, and withdrew the sword. He dropped the body, his ears attuned to his slowing heart, and carefully wiped the sword on the man's clothes before snapping off one of the tassels and shoving it into the man's clenched hand. He then took the liquor and tipped a minuscule amount onto the floor next to the body and a little more near the cell door. The space between the moment he'd first slid the key into the door to open it and the moment he turned it back to lock it once more had been significantly shorter than the time he'd given himself.
He replaced everything as he'd found it, though not quite perfectly so, and, with one eye on the warden, began shuffling through his desk. It was not the warden he was framing after all. He smiled as he found a number of papers with the name of the second mark. There wasn't a great deal to work with but he did find one less than glowing review and an incident report which had been recently dated. He decided they would do. He tossed the two letters on the fire, and waited long enough to be sure they were burned past recognition, hoping momentarily that it wasn't over kill. Some people didn't do subtlety very well. He glanced at the Warden who turned and snorted once or twice then settled back into a rhythmic snore. No, this one would have no use for subtlety.
Jairus sighed. Overall it had been remarkably easy. Too easy perhaps, as he had expected a bit more of a challenge. If this was too be his last job, he was hoping it would be one worthy of the title. He'd honestly found stealing those paintings far more difficult. No doubt the councilman was paying his people significantly more. He'd been attempting to do it without engaging the guards and had had to improvise. These guards, though plentiful enough, were little more than warm bodies.
Still, he thought as he eased himself out the window, whether the set up would work remained to be seen. He had decided that to frame the man directly would be too obvious, but to implicate him in the framing of an immediate superior was perhaps convoluted enough to hold water, not in the least because the warden's departure would mean an almost certain promotion.
The hardest part had been getting to and from the island unnoticed. Even moving as quickly as he did, navigating the plane of ice which covered the lake was somewhat nerve wracking. As he made his way back, it was hard to ignore the echoing groans beneath his feet as thick ice slowly buckled under its own weight, or the sharp snap as loose pieces broke and shifted around one another in the distance. It probably wouldn't kill him, but slipping and getting caught under shifting ice wasn't his idea of a pleasant way to spend an evening.
He'd paused to feed before he'd begun this little endeavor. Adding that time to the rest, the job and the odious work of keeping himself out of the ice bath, his total time amounted to less than three hours. He couldn't help but allow himself a moment of satisfaction over that. He'd like to see even another of his own kind match that. He hadn't been lying to Thea about the turning just making one 'more' of what they already were. He had already been well trained in combat and a skilled hunter, so those abilities had been magnified. Even his sire, who had been several hundred years his senior, could not have matched him in many of his abilities, then or now. Of course, she had her own.
He kept one eye on the distant city he approached and wondered idly what such a change might do to Thea. He smirked, god help him. He could imagine she'd be strong, and graceful, and utterly fearless. It would probably make her that much more stubborn as well. His smirk turned into a wry grin. He was strong, it was true, but he wasn't sure anything was strong enough to deal with that. Then again, he'd always claimed to like a challenge, had he not?
Gods help him indeed.
**
Thea couldn't say what it was that woke her, but something stirred in her and forced her to open her eyes. Call it fate, chance, or just blind stupid luck.
There were voices in the hall. She couldn't hear the words, but they were deep and male. She didn't know how long she'd been asleep for. Jairus was gone but the high, diamond bright moon shining through the window slates told her it wasn't all that late. Instinct told her to get up and get dressed. Reason told her to be quick about it.
Quietly she slipped out of bed and fetched her discarded clothes from wherever she'd haphazardly tossed them earlier and tiptoed to the door while struggling into her shirt. She turned her ear to the cool wood to listen even as she started hopping into her pants and boots. The voices drew closer and she caught a knock a little ways down the hall. She wondered if she should risk a peek. Someone told them, very loudly, to go do rather nasty things to their mother. They knocked again and she took the chance, cracking the door by just a fraction. There were three men, all very large, very tall, with dark hair and, she didn't doubt, dark eyes. She pulled the door shut immediately and slid the bolt just as quickly home.
She licked her lips and backed away from the door her heart suddenly pounding in her ears. This was not good. This was a terrible mistake. This was too soon, she wasn't ready...god, Jairus was right. But then she'd already known that, hadn't she? What was wrong with her, why was she even here? Had she gone insane?
That must be it. She must have cracked the moment they tied her up at that post and she hadn't recovered since. She was a calm person. A reasonable person. Or at least she used to be, before she was sucked into this strange dark dream. Now she felt like she'd been doused with a bucket of full ice water, and had abruptly found herself wide awake and staring down the sword blade of reality.
She didn't want to die, but she was here now, and she was alone, and she was running out of time.
"Think girl, think" she whispered under her breath.
She bit her lip and looked around the room. The sparse furniture wouldn't do much to hold the door if they decided to break it in, but she grabbed the chair and shoved it under the handle anyway. It might buy her a few seconds.
She ran to the window and tried to push up the latch. It was rusted and stiff and resisted her efforts. She heard another knock even closer and took a long deep breath, trying desperately to still her nerves and rapidly fisted and opened her hands to try to keep them from shaking.
She tried again, using more force until she finally slammed the meat of her palm up against the damned thing as hard as she could. It popped free, but she had to bite back a hiss of pain as she managed to cut herself on the degraded metal hinge at the same time.
