The Zodiac Assassins

Chapter 2

The room is about the size of your average hotel room. Maybe that's what it was. A small corridor lead into a minuscule kitchen/diner/living space and doors off the corridor lead to a pint sized bathroom and a bedroom with just enough room for a bed, cupboard and table. I dump my bag on the bed and wander into the kitchen living space. To the side is a door that at first, I thought was simply some kind of wardrobe but turned out to be like an office. It was by far the biggest room with space for a desk, a swivel office chair, lots of bookcases and pacing room.

I'm about to start unpacking when I glance at a clock on the wall. It's five past five apparently so I head down towards where I passed some kind of canteen. When I get down, the other eleven assassins are grouped around the long, central table, talking silently among themselves. My stomach grumbles slightly and I peer at the hands on my watch. For a moment, I'm convinced that a whole hour has passed whilst I came downstairs only to remember that I've forgotten to change the time. I sigh, grab a plate of rice and curry and sit down at the far end of the table.

"Hey, you're Gemini aren't you?"

I look up to find everyone staring down at me. It doesn't take me a second to nominate the speaker: Cancer, who is beaming down at me with a huge, white smile.

"Come and sit with us."

I'm too tired to argue so slide down a few seats until I'm next to Capricorn, the American, who has pink hair tied in bunches.

"So where are you from?"

I hesitate before opening my mouth. "Where do you think? Italy"

At the other end of the table, Aries covers her mouth, whispers something to Taurus and then grins.

Cancer smiles reassuringly and rolls her eyes. "No, it's obvious you're from Italy, where abouts?"

"Porto" I shovel up a mountain of rice and chicken and eat it slowly so as to try and avoid any other questions. It usually works but Cancer isn't falling for it.

"Where's that?"

I want to tell her to fuck off, but she's smiling so innocently I can't. Carefully, I swallow. "Capraia. It's on the western side off the coast of Livorno, near Pisa and Florence."

Her eyes light up. "An island? That's so cool. Was it nice?"

I nod. "We are on an island now you know?"

She nods in a way that makes me think she's more shaking her head. "You can't see the sea from here though. I'm from Paris so I only ever went to the beach on holidays."

"So..." Leo, sitting across from me, rakes a hand through his strawberry blonde hair. "Were you an assassin on this tiny island?"

It's such a ridiculous proposal that I want to laugh out loud. "No. There were like, fifteen people living on the island. I moved to Rome, where I could go anywhere in the country I wanted."

"Okay, enough on the small talk" Aries says, standing up and clapping her hands in a way one might do with primary school children. "We're not here to get to know each other, become best friends and go picnicking..."

"Picnicking?" Scorpio laughs. "Where are you from?"

"Anglesey" she snaps. "We're here to discuss how we're going to assassinate this guy... can anyone remember his name?" 

"Gordon Ellis" Sagittarius shouts, leaping up out of his seat. "His name was Gordon Ellis."

"Yeah him" Aries says, gesturing for Sagittarius to sit down again. When he doesn't, she gives him a death stare. "Has anyone got any ideas?"

"Blow it up" Aquarius shouts excitedly. "We should blow the whole place up with him and his work inside so that no one else can ever try and replicate his work. All the files, all the information, bang."

"Oh you're here" Libra sighs. "I know you, everyone knows you. You blew up half of some city last week didn't you? The bomb obsessed assassin right." Aquarius nods happily. "Well, you're useless. You can't claim any of their deaths as your own hand as it was just pure luck that they were in the building at the time that you pressed the button." Aquarius snarls. "I for one, think that we should all go in at once, take out all the guards and then drown him in a bath of his own blood."

"Nice" Taurus gets up. "Personally, I recon that we should all just go for the good old run-in-there-with-a-gun-and-hope-for-the-best. That always works if we all storm the place at once."

"No, no, no, no, no" Cancer stands up. Until this point, I'd completely forgotten that she was an assassin. "If you're going to kill someone, you kill them in the most kawaii way possible. So you poison them."

"No, you poison the guards and then hang him" Virgo cries. "You don't poison him."

"Remove all his body parts one... by... one" Aries says slowly, miming it out with her hands like she's chopping something up. "Utter pain and agony is the only way to leave someone."

We're all silent for a second, staring at her before Capricorn stands up and shouts: "burn him" and then, we're all arguing. During that time, I get up out of my seat having finished my curry, dump my plate on the counter and try to sneak out.

"What do you think Italy?" Aries shouts after me as all noise vanishes. I feel eyes burning through my back.

"Me?" I ask honestly. "Well, obviously, you suffocate him, slowly. Lock him in a small room with no carbon dioxide filter and it should be all over in around two minutes."

"All of them deaths people thought were murders but didn't have evidence for" Leo says quietly. "That... that was you wasn't it?"

I flash him a sinister smile as a congratulations and leave the room, the door slowly swinging shut behind me.