Grey II - Ghosts

Chapter 6 - Red Revenge

And I hold your beating chambers until they beat no more.
You die like angels sing.
The horror of our love, never so much blood pulled through my veins.
The horror of our love, never so much blood.

Ludo – The Horror of Our Love

I could still taste Jevin, the cold death his presence always left on me, when he called me back to his room, luckily it was just for a kill, not something more intimate. I left immediately, wanting nothing more than to get out of that house and into the bitter winter air, hoping it would numb the feeling of him from my skin, hoping the cold could blend into the memory of his skin against mine until it just seemed like winter, not something worse.

I packed a quick bag of weapons, throwing daggers as well as some larger knives and a lightweight crossbow in, and finally clothes, silently hoping my target would take more than one night, and was gone within minutes.

I pulled my coat up against the cold, nestling my head back into its hood. I was maybe eight blocks away from the house when I felt their presence. My Shift arched in my mind, stretching, preparing for a fight, giving me a warning. A moment later I felt a disturbance in the air. I dropped to the ground as a dart flew over my head and stuck into a garbage can just a few feet from me. One look told me it wouldn't have been deadly, no poison and not large enough to cause any real damage; so this was a capture, not a kill. Their mistake.

I rolled to the side, spinning back toward my attacker as I stood. It was a woman in a dark ensemble, clearly my kind, I could tell from her presence though she wasn't Shifted. I also knew she was weak, a diluted bloodline that was no match for mine. My Shift ripped from me as I sensed two more Darklings, then three, then four.

This wasn't just an attack, this was an ambush. I sent my full Gift to their thoughts, something I hadn't done in weeks. Feeling others' minds just reminded me that my own was broken, numbed to the point of no longer being a mind, not with my own thoughts at least, my own desires. Feeling others just reminded me of the emotions I had given up so much to forget. In the past weeks I usually only looked into people's pasts, their memories, to determine their guilt and ease my conscious about my orders to kill them. In this rare case though, I needed my Gift in the present tense. I needed it to give me the upper hand, an advantage to the five Darklings, the Clan, that was quickly converging on me.

I hadn't needed my Gift like this on any of my kills before. They had never been that challenging. Murdering someone unsuspecting was almost so easy it wasn't even fun, which had been my entire plan. I didn't want to enjoy it. But now the tables were turned and I was the one caught off guard.I felt a small burst of defiance, of pride, something usually so dulled I couldn't even remember what it felt like. I refused to die like so many of my targets had, taken by surprise, beaten because they let their guard down, a fatal mistake.

My mind reeled as I tried to figure out how they had found me, how they even knew of me. I hadn't gone after this Clan, I hadn't done anything to gain their attention. This Clan wasn't my target, they were my hunters. So someone had sent them. Someone had targeted me, but not for death, for capture. I wouldn't lose like this, like an animal snared and collared to yet another master.

I knew what I would do even before a single second had passed - one dagger to the throat of the man behind me, trying to get a shot at my back, a quick turn and then my second knife to the chest of the woman before me, my Sign could suffocate the next to try and come for me, giving me time to grab the sword from my bag and spin once more. A strong swing at the second Darkling behind me would leave him decapitated and then it would be one-on-one, an easy task and all under four seconds.