To my wonderful husband, my shining star and muse. You will always be my Assassini...
San Gimigiano, a town of daunting towers that reach and claw skyward, massive granite brick monoliths that were built to withstand the howling winds of Tuscan summer rains and heavy weight of near ceaseless winter snows. The night was cool, calm, quiet; no breeze, no bellowing merchants trying to sell their wares, with few people. A near entire city asleep and that was just like she liked it. Azure eyes scanned the horizon from atop the second tallest tower within the city as yet another star fell from the heavily dotted night sky. What was that, the seventh one in the last hour since the sun faded from the day? It was beyond her comprehension why heavenly beings fell from their royal seats above mankind, but perhaps it was so angels could walk amongst men, to protect those that could not protect themselves. Anna leaned heavily on her bow as a sigh escaped her lips, the scuff of boots on stone assaulted her ears as if the sound happened right by her. One hand reached to the quiver behind her, two hundred obsidian tipped, eagle feather adorned arrows at the ready for her to pluck one, eager for the taste of blood. She turned, arrow secured against the string, the black bow creaked and bowed at the black leather grip, tension applied as she pulled the string back, touched her lip and pivoted right on her heel, her upper torso extended up and over the ledge, eyes closed as another part of her took over a sixth sense of sorts. Her fingers let go of the yew wound string, and all the guard a hundred meters away atop the third tallest tower heard was the sound of a whisper...and perhaps the blood that filled his lungs.
Yes, tonight was a good night.
Anna took eight running steps and with finesse she threw herself over the pigeon-covered ledge, a beautiful swan dive into a hay cart below where she waited for the rest of the evening shift change to occur, the guard atop the tower the first of many she knew. Four guards took the post of the four who had stood in front of a bank overlooking the city's now quiet central square and who now lay in the cart with her and she listened intently to the conversation. She had been in the city for three days and in her observations she found that the night watch was far more...liberal in what fell from their lips. An hour in, and after nearly a dozen pointless conversations later one of them regurgitated something useful. About time, Anna thought for a moment, a fleeting second passed as the brute's comrades groaned and shook their heads.
"So the commander told me that Messer Maffei would be arriving at dawn out of Firenze, Franco will be taking my place in a few hours. I get to escort his carriage," the brute cawed, the outward shift of his chest apparent even though he was buried beneath layers of chain mail and plate armor. The other three guards who stood with him rolled their eyes at their comrades boasting.
"Well aren't you just special. We always knew you were the commander's call boy," the captain smirked beneath his helmet, enough of his face left uncovered to allow her to see the full effect of the sarcastic emotion behind his comment.
"Tell me, brother, does he at least let you pick the position?" another laughed.
The brute chuckled, "You're just jealous. By the way...I saw your wife tonight, she wanted me tell you 'Salute' just before she showed me that birthmark you're always gabbing about."
The captain snarled, "You figlio de putana!"His face turned a brilliant shade of red, to match the red stripe that ran vertically down to the ground along the outer seam line of his trousers, a match to the red pinstripes in the black tunic and sleeves of his uniform.
Anna watched the later exchange in mild amusement before her thoughts turned once more to the arrival of a man she knew to be in league with the Spanish High Inquisitor. Antonio Maffei a king among vipers to be certain, a true heretic and hypocrite if ever there was one. A wicked smile crossed her lips at the thought of his eyes, wide as they gawked but pale without the Divine spark that once gave the demon plagued creature life. Five years, five years and finally God has given me the opportunity to repay the 'kindness' that bastardi and his Master had once done me. The past haunted her, was the reason why sleep and sanity were no longer her loyal companions as they had been when she was yet a child.
With a near quiet rustle, she exited the hay cart, slipped into the shadows, and scaled the wall in front of her. The rooftops her confidant once more as she crept to the southernmost gate, but as she crept further still, caught in a beautiful dance as she spun and pirouetted from shadow to shadow she heard the distant cry of a guard. Distress over the sight of a man on the rooftops two streets away from her, and from the flurry of profanities it sounded as if he had been in hot pursuit for some time. Anna stopped, instincts grabbed her and pulled her into a rooftop gazebo draped in crimson cloth, perfect for her to hide just long enough in given that the guard and the man in question had quickly begun to close the distance between her and them. A breeze began to stir the fabric of her hiding place, a strong whiff of lavender and musk assaulted her nose to which she was obliged to inhale it deeply.
Then a chord hummed inside of her, a resonance of the familiar like the strum of the string of her bow. That aroma, she had to.
With a quick flip of her crimson hood, a free hand pulled the matching crimson veil once more across the lower half of her face, a mask that hid her identity well. Anna took up her bow, her right hand caressed the feathered ends of the arrows in her quiver until one cried out to her. She counted in her head the steps that mapped themselves in her mind's eye as her talent once more took a strong foothold, her movements controlled into a single fluid mass that had stolen her father's breath away as he had trained her when she could first learn to walk. The man, who wore the same white garb as the man who had drug her from her cell, rushed passed with the guard quickly on his heels. She exited her hiding place, pulled the string, and with a whisper let fly the arrow that found its mark; two inches to the left of the spine, a half centimeter down to clear the rib cage and intercostal membranes, the obsidian point a through and through as the shaft pierced and clung to the walls of the guard's heart, an instant drop. She felt a sly smile tug at her lips before the man turned, his bright chocolate hued gaze met her own in shock.
Ezio Auditore had no idea what had just happened. The guard who now had done a perfect face plant in the tiles beneath their feet had just been in the process of calling him every name under the sun but one descent enough to repeat. He never heard the figure, clearly female by the hint of the bosom that peaked over the black corset cinched ever so precisely around a narrow waistline, the black trousers that clung so desperately to her every curve, the elevated heel that only added maybe what, an inch to the tall female a dead give away to her gender. How long had she been there? Had La Volpe sent her to aid in his efforts to wipe the Pazzi conspirators out of existence?
Anna's face had paled; she could feel the blood leave it. It had been two years since word had reached her ears of the death of the assassin Giovanni Auditore and his children with him, the result of a horrid lie spread about the man and by Templar lips no doubt. How could he be here, just a few short meters away from her touch? Her heart had yearned for it to be truly the man she once worshipped as a father figure, a man who saved her life and sent her to live with his brother in the Tuscan countryside not far from where she stood now. Her right hand rose slightly, instinctively to reach out to him.
Anna's eyes cleared of the cloud that had befell them moments before, the realization that the man who now stared at her was far too young to be the elder man she once knew and loved. Run, and don't look back, just run! The voice in her head screamed at her and she had to oblige.
His mind reeling still, his eyes could not help but drink in her visage in the split second he had been given before she pivoted so gracefully on her heel and darted across the rooftops. When he finally managed to shake the shock from his system, she was nearly half way to the gate with three guards left still as statues, dropped where they stood. She was quick, ridiculously agile...and beautiful.
"You'd better hurry, friend," a thief said from a neighboring rooftop as he caught the dumb founded look written on the young man's face, near one of the five towers of San Gimigiano, "word on the roofs say with as quick as that vixen is, she'll be gone and half way to Firenze before you could blink," he laughed.
Ezio could but only oblige the thief's goading; after all, this fem fatale clearly made her intent known that it was the guard, not him, that would meet the business end of her arrows. After all, how could he let those breath-taking blue gems leave without saying goodbye? More importantly, he had to find out why exactly she was here. He could afford no mistake or competition if that was indeed what she was. He had heard tell from the last three of the four conspirators that Maffei would soon arrive and that he would tell him where the secret meeting with Jacopo de'Pazzi would be meeting with this mysterious 'Maestro'.
His chest heaved, his feet already tired after the long sprint to evade the guard who targeted him nearly as soon as he set foot in San Gimigiano. Now, Ezio ran as fast as he could and dared across rooftops to catch up to the fleeing woman. That look in her eye, it was as if she had seen a ghost. Nothing slowed her, not guards, not the uneven ground which she darted and danced over. This woman could run, and he bet if push came to shove she would be able to out distance him in any endurance race; it was if she was bred for this, bred for running.
Anna could not help but feel elated, adrenaline poured through her veins, her chest heaving as she breathed in through her nose and out of her mouth, oxygen entering her lean musculature as she led the white hooded man across rooftop after rooftop. She did not have to look back to sense he was tiring; she could hear it in his footfalls across the tiles of the houses and shops the pair sailed across. When the sounds began to dull, she slowed enough to let him believe he grew closer to her capture, only to best him by an additional ten meters. She reached the wall and without thought she leapt, her knees curled toward her chest as she tucked into a tiny ball, like a pill bug. She hit the rooftop of the fast travel station, unfurled and landed on the fence, a lark to the smallest twig.
Ezio found he was more and more taken aback by the woman, dumb founded awake as he suffered a failed attempt to imitate her moves. "Signoria, please, wait! Just one, scopata della madre word, that is all I ask," he pleaded; deaf ears all that replied as his pleas were to no avail, a wince passed across his boyish features. Would she ever stop?
Anna heard his desperate pleas for her to halt and his words fell on her ears in an unfamiliar range. The man's attire, that scent, all the same as his had been the day he scooped her into his arms and placed her high on the back of his horse. Yet his voice, so foreign and young in tone that it could not have been the same man who clung so desperately to her that night as that man's voice was more at the level of a father. No, this man was a post-adolescent boy if her ears interpreted the pitch variations correctly in his winded begging, and more than likely one of the Church's altar boys sent to protect Maffei no doubt. There was no way she would stop until she had the high ground.
The country side was as wide as it was long and riddled with rolling hills of summer hay and barley, the vineyards ripened and heavy with grapes, pearlescent dew drops shimmered and reflected the light of the white moon that hung low and large in the night sky. The chase that had started near the southernmost gate of San Gimigiano now drug out through fields, over hills and fences. Ezio had enough, chocolate gaze searching for a four legged friend he could jump on. His lungs burned, his muscles ached and there was no way in inferno that he was going to let this crazed woman go without a fight. His eyes lighted on a white mare who grazed lazily in a field, "You'll do" he panted. He leapt the fence and landed squarely on her back, cracked the reins and the mare released a whine that let him know she was displeased with his sudden appearance."Get over it, now go!" he cried.
The steady beat of hooves echoed behind her where she had heard the grunts and groans of a man poorly trained. Still she ran, if not harder still, laughing to herself as a memory recalled of a race against the Gray Fox over the rooftops of Florence. She rolled her eyes, darted right and found herself in a satellite village of the countryside. Anna leapt high beneath an ivy covered beam that connected two housing units together, gloved hands sliding over the ivy, her entire body spun around the beam with enough momentum for her land on a beam seven meters away on her feet. Without missing a step she leapt from one building to another until finally she was able to run left and up an exterior column of a church, gloved hands once more reaching and grasping the ledge. She pulled herself up to the roof before running up another small wall, leapt right, and pulled herself up another ledge to now stand beside the exposed bronze bell in the housing above the heavy wooden doors of the aging structure.
Ezio slid the horse to a halt in front of the church. What was this girl's problem? "So guards don't scare you, but devilishly good looking young men do!" He called up to her, "Come down from there before you hurt yourself. Women shouldn't be climbing tall objects!" he smiled.
Anna rolled her eyes, "And people in hell want cold water," she called back, bow in hand. "Pity your masters won't be so well served in the next life as they are in this," she snarled, cocking her head to the left.
"Signoria, you are clearly misinformed, I am the master of myself," he said with a slight bow. His eyes scanned her but no red aura hung about her; she held no gold or blue aura about herself either. Concern began welling within him, a part wanting to leave now and still, another deeper part clung to the idea of seeing her eyes once more.
His words sounded earnest, no lie detected in his body language or eyes. Still, a gloved hand caressed her arrows once more. To her surprise, none called to her. "What is it you want? Tell me straight and your life will be spared tonight."
Ezio dismounted, "I wish to only speak with you, Madonna. I have no intention on harming such a beautiful being as yourself, of that I swear." His breath had caught when he saw the bow in her left hand as her right searched for a device with which to end him of that he was certain. If the last two years had taught him nothing since he had begun his training with his uncle back at the villa it was the newly developed hatred for arrows and archers. He'd found them both to be quite a...pain in the asino.
The man was obviously flirtatious in nature and it did little to secure him good standing in her eyes. Anna thought about her next set of words when a shadow caught the corner of her field of vision, ears alerted to a secondary shuffling sound that should not have been present seeing the horse now stood still. Had the man been followed, or did he purposely lead another here to lure her into a trap. "Then do so, good sir. I'm sure all of Italia won't be listening to a simple exchange between two hooded creatures of the night," she said. Only the man's actions would tell if he was friend or foe.
Ezio sighed; clearly this was going to be a long night. "Can I at least join you up there?" he inquired. The woman had a logical point; they were conspicuous enough being two people in hoods having a rather loud conversation, it was odder still given the fact she was on a rooftop and he was on the ground.
Anna laughed heartily, "I do one nice thing for you and now it's to this. First it's a word, now you want to join me up on this rooftop? Typical, you take, take, take, I give you a centimeter and you take it to twenty meters and continue to want still. Are you sure you have balls beneath those trousers? You remind me of a woman I once knew."
Are you kidding me? Scopilo, I had to find a woman with a mouth on her. The thought brought a sigh of frustration from his lips and Ezio's head was beginning to hurt, "Fine, have it your way," he grumbled and began climbing.
A sly smile crossed her lips as she detected the frustration in his voice. She followed the figure, her eyes never once leaving the figure as he grunted and grumbled his way to the rooftop she stood on, her gaze eventually watching the white clad male stand uneasily on the peak. Her smile vanished as began to advance to her, her bow in hand with arrow at the ready as she moved effortlessly once more, "Right there," she said. Her ears were tuned still to the sound of old tiles being shook loose from their aging settings, who was making that sound.
Ezio was met with drawn bow and arrow at the ready, his right wrist twitched and the sleek silver blade emerged with a schwink and a click sound. "M'lady, if this conversation is to remain civil, I would strongly suggest you drop your weapon." His voice was low and smooth, his words sharp with a poisonous suggestion that he was ready to accept her challenge.
Anna watched the blade emerge from his sleeve, head turned slightly to the right as she measured him. The pair held their breath for seemingly an eternity until she dropped her bow, "If it pleases you." Her hand never relinquished its grasp of the ebony objects, her body still as rigid as it had been moments ago.
Her eyes shimmered in the moonlight, her words, though sharp, left her tongue in a gentle roll like water cascading from a waterfall. The night wind changed direction and carried with it her scent; earthy like a forest after a heavy rain with a hint of night blooming jasmine. Ezio found himself ensnared by her, longing for her to unwind enough to let him near her. Yes, he loved women and he loved what they did to him still, but something about her was so enthralling it drove him mad now that they stood meters apart from one another. "First off, I wanted to thank you for saving me back there. That guard had been on me as soon as I hit the first roof," he smiled.
The breeze blew from behind her, but a stray gust bounced off of the wall of the secondary bell tower. Lavender and musk assaulted her nasal cavity once more, the scent intoxicating for her as the young man spoke. Anna took note of how the moonlight illuminated his sun kissed skin beneath the white fabric of his hood. He too was scarred, and on his right side, the line running vertical down from the top lip to his bottom lip near the edge of his mouth. His voice purred in the night air, caressing her ears so gently. "Nessun problema, good sir," her words drifted as her eyes softened as did her posture, the memory of Giovanni flooding her mind, "call it the fulfillment of a promise I once made long ago."
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth at her answer and for a moment he remembered something his uncle had said. 'My boy, you are not alone out there. There are others still who will fight for and with you.' "Second, what is your business here?" he asked.
"A problem is said to be plaguing the city and apparently all of Italia it seems. I am here as an enforcer of God to ensure justice is served." Her body tensed once more, "Which reminds me, I could ask you the same thing," she said as she spun the arrow she had been holding onto. The sleek black shaft slid effortlessly over the black leather gloves she wore as her eyes were still trained on the man, her ears honing in on the sound she still followed so closely.
Ezio watched her with guarded interest, musculature tensing as he waited for the object in her possession to be returned to the quiver on her back. "Seems we are both here searching for a pest problem," he smirked as he folded his arms over his chest. "All this week I have been hunting down some rather large vipers in order to find their nest."
"A snake charmer?" she smirked, "Well, then I shall do my best and be ever vigilant against the sound of your out-of-tune piping, Saint Patrick. Perhaps you will cleanse the countryside of her rat population as well?"
Ezio couldn't help but offer a boyish smile. The woman had wit and she was as cunning as she was charming if one could consider a female fox deprived of its dinner charming. "Perhaps one day I will have you tell me of this Saint Patrick, bella madonna, but now to more serious business. Again I implore of you, what is your business in San Gimigiano?"
His words fell on deaf ears as she lifted the tip of the arrow to her lips through the crimson veil, eyes narrowed on the source of unease. Anna lowered the arrow to her bow string as she stepped towards the young man, his scent growing stronger still with each of the seven meters her strides quickly closed.
Ezio saw the arrow tip raise to some mid-point on the piece of cloth that hid a majority of her features from him, brow lofted as she hurriedly closed the distance between them. He couldn't help but to smile; someone up there in the heaven's liked him because he got his wish. Her eyes were a chilling blue, the coldest blue he had ever seen, the scent of patchouli and jasmine heavier than they had been moments before. God was she intoxicating. His thoughts drifted until he heard what had struck the alarm; they were not alone.
Anna glanced upward towards the man's eyes, their gaze meeting momentarily and in that moment she felt a chill race up her spine from the base of her back. She was not one to be so easily drawn to anyone, let alone another member of the opposite gender and it down right shook her to the core. "When I say drop, you drop, no questions. Understood?" she said in hushed tones. Her hands dropped, back of the arrow secured against the string of her bow, tension applied as she heard the familiar creak of a weaker bow echo off of the brick wall of the secondary tower. "Now!" she cried.
Ezio did as he was instructed, taking a knee to the roof, the female with a quick side-step as she brought up her bow with fast precision, an opposing arrow flying over him and just a short centimeter away from her left shoulder.
Anna never flinched as she let her arrow fly, moonlight glinting off of the obsidian tip before a cry ripped through the night. The mysterious archer fell to the ground with a poof that echoed softly against the church. She reached a hand down to help the young man she had just saved come to a standing position. He reached up and grasped her forearm and with a quick jerk from her he was on his feet again.
"Madonna, seems I now owe my life to you twice, I am indebted to you," Ezio said, bewildered still how she had heard the noise before he did. Did she, too, possess special talents that defied nature?
"You were followed, messere, whoever trained you has done a poor job. An Assassin, I was told one time, should always be wary of their surroundings, even in their own home." she said coolly as she slipped the open part of her bow around her head, letting the object sit at a diagonal angle across her chest from her upper left shoulder to her lower right side.
Ezio's body tensed, "Prego?"
"I once saw a man dressed like you, boy, many years ago. He was an Assassin much like others I had once known whilst I was yet a child. Be careful on who sees those blades you wield so hastily, there are those out there who mean to do your kind harm just by the sight of those blades alone. "Anna took seven steps away from the seemingly shell shocked young man, peering over the edge, confirmation of her suspicions apparent as her gaze hit a yellow tinted hay pile.
Ezio took two steps towards the woman who now spun on her heel to look at him, stopping him short, "Wait, you know so much of me but I know so little of you. I cannot in good conscience let you part ways without first knowing a name by which I can call you." She had pinned what he was with little to no effort in prying anything out of him, who was this fem fatale?
Anna laughed, "Never on the first date," she said.
Ezio felt a deep seated sense of desperation creep up within him. His uncle had told him a little about what they were, but this woman seemed to know so much more that sounded as if it would answer more questions than create them as the information Mario had given him had done. "Then perhaps if I do so, you will follow suit," he said before bowing slightly at the waist. "I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Madonna..."he drifted off mid sentence hoping she would finish the thought.
His name hit her as if the very tower she now stood in front of had just fallen into a million pieces around her. Ezio Auditore, the second son of the departed Giovanni Auditore survived? It wasn't possible. Que Diavolo she thought. She opened her arms wide, she could hear no more of ghosts tonight, "Ezio...until we meet again," she said as she fell backwards. She watched as the man claiming to be Giovanni's son rushed to the edge before she hit the hay. She exited the hay stack, only to come face to face with a waiting steed, the same horse Ezio had rode to the church on. Free horse she thought a sly smile on her lips as she mounted the white horse and with a quick kick, both she and his former ride left the scene.