The Zodiac Assassins

Chapter 3

I glance up from the book I'm reading, through the open bedroom and glare at the door. Nothing for a second and then the sharp rapping again. Angrily, I huff out a sigh and trudge over to the door. I wait for another knock before yanking it open. The person outside nearly falls in, steadies herself and then looks down at me. Cancer is already at least half a foot taller than me, which isn't hard, but now she's wearing four inch heels she towers over me.

"What?" I snap.

"We thought that we'd have a proper discussion on how to kill this guy we're meant to kill" Cancer says sounding a little hurt. She's wearing a Lolita dress that looks like it's something from Swan Lake, a long sleeved white blouse and a headband that ties under the chin. "We couldn't reach a decision yesterday so we thought we'd re-try today. We've only got thirteen days to go you know."

"I know" I say peering over my glasses at her. "I'm trying to reach a decision on how we should decide ourselves. We all want to use our own method to kill him but lets get one thing straight." I raise my voice to a shout. "No way am I injecting this dude with insect venom Scorpio."

Cancer sighs. "We're going to talk about that now. If you want to join us then..."

"I don't work well with other people" I interrupt. "Being an assassin, see it's a singular verb, means that you kill people by yourself. Maybe if I'd been trained with others I might be obliged to try but I wasn't. I wasn't trained at all and I don't intend to be now by people who are just going to tell me things I already know."

"You're such a hermit" Cancer jokes, grinning wildly. "Come on, be sociable."

I flinch and from the look on her face, she knows she's hit a nerve. "I'm not a sociable person" I hiss. "I don't have friends and I'm doing fine by myself now." I close the door and lean against it with a sigh that makes me sink to the floor. I've never had friends. I was always the person on the outside, the loner. I was okay with that. It was what I knew, what I was used to. Now, years into my life, I'm fine being... being... me. Being independent; being unsociable; being the loner.

"Please" Cancer begs from the other side of the door.

Fuck it. I open the door, pulling my shirt tighter over my top, and walk past her. "Fine, where are we meeting? If we're going to do this together we have to have some sort of plan."

Cancer nods, hanging on to my every word. "We're at the top of the building in some old, abandoned ballroom. You should have seen Virgo's face when we walked in."

"Si, I should have" I mutter sarcastically, jabbing my thumb on the lift button as I walk inside.

Thankfully, Cancer is silent as we ascend and when we get to the ballroom, steps forwards to open the door in front of me. I nod an acknowledgement and walk in.

"She turned up" Aries looks surprised. "I thought that even Cancer wouldn't be able to make you come, that you'd drop out of this at the last minute."

"In your dreams" I whisper as I pass her. I sit down in a chair on the front row next to Leo who looks like he's just seen the Woman in Black. Carefully, I raise an eyebrow and he locks his eyes on the front where Cancer is standing.

"He's afraid of you" Aquarius mutters from my other side.

"Okay" Cancer starts before I can reply. "As you all know, the world as we know it could end in thirteen days. If we don't act and kill the man who could kill humanity, then there is a high possibility we'll die. We've been called together to kill him but we all want to kill him in our own separate ways. Does anyone have any ideas on how we can sort this out?" No one volunteers so I stand up and walk up to stand beside her.

"I propose that we do a vote of some kind" I say, trying to ignore Aries who is leaning forwards and running her hand over the top of a chair, looking like the psychopath that she is. "Everyone writes down their method and we chose our favourite, not being allowed to choose our own obviously. Then, we take the top five and do another vote like that, then the top two and that'll be the way we'll kill him."

"It's funny really" Taurus says out loud, also ignoring Aries. "We're arguing about how we should kill someone."

Someone bursts out laughing like it's the funniest thing they've ever heard and then stops short making someone nearby laugh for real.

"Okay then" Aries says. "I vote for Scorpio." She smirks, somehow knowing that was my least favourite. Scorpio punches the air. "But first Italy. What happens if this doesn't work?"

I raise an eyebrow. "Out of everyone, I thought you'd be the most confident. Wales."

The smirk vanishes off her face and she leans back in her chair, arms folded across her stomach, glaring whilst Taurus laughs silently.

We take the vote, the list being occupied by Cancer's poison, Leo's dropping-off-roof, Libra's drowns-in-own-blood, Capricorn's burning and Pisces Electrocution, then being narrowed down to Libra and Pisces. When it comes out as a draw, Aries stands up.

"I think that the first three in the spoken zodiac should choose now" she surveys the room with narrow eyes. "In the normal zodiac, Aquarius, Pisces and Aries are first but the spoken zodiac starts at Aries."

There are a couple of frowns but I think that most people have grasped by now that Aries is not to be messed with so no one contradicts.

Being third in the spoken zodiac, I stand up.

"Taurus" Aries shouts, pointing at him. "Go."

"Pisces" he says quickly, going bright red, clearly not expecting it.

"Gemini, go"

I raise my head to look her in the eye. They're deep and thin like some kind of sly fox, with silver glints in the dark brown. "Libra." We wait for her to make the closing vote.

"Pisces."

Pisces, a small, purple haired girl and the youngest of us al, jumps up and punches the air triumphantly. Capricorn looks up at her with admiration that I've never seen register on anyone's face before. Libra nods in her direction.

"And now." Pisces rubs her hands together excitedly. "I can give you all lessons on how to electrocute people properly!"