AUTHOR: Elizabeth E. Carter
TITLE: Deliberation on Rooftops
SERIES: Assassin's Creed
CATEGORY: Crime / Mystery
RATING: T
SUMMARY: A member of the guild is sent out into the shadows of night to stop a swath of murders by assassinating one man. She is the Assassin, her target is known as the Ripper.
DISCLAIMER: Ubisoft Entertainment owns the concept of Assassin's Creed and all of its characters. This fanfic is for entertainment and no profit what-so-ever. The OC charter is the only thing I own of the story.
A/N This is an Alternative History story
Jaundiced beams of light frittered down from gas lamps on to slick cobble stones. Pools of murky mud puddles lazily reflected the glow of the yellow lamps trying in vain attempts to brighten the shadows cast by the teetering terrace houses. Like their inhabitants the homes had seen better days. Now they lurched towards the gutters. Tilted and weakened from age, misuse and simple neglect they threatened to collapse. Plaster chipped, wood warped but such a place was ideal for a night's work- if your occupation required heavy shadows, convenient handholds and a measure of immunity.
How long she perched upon the clay tiled roof tops she could not say. Time was irrelevant. Her task was her only concern, not the petering annoying droplets of malevolent frozen rain that seemed to deliberately, continuously fall upon her. Coal fires belching out cloying black smoke from soot-caked smokestacks were not given a moment's glimpse of attention. Not even the jittering gaggles of navies and dockworkers, rummies, newies or night marketers gained a single drop of inspection. Pickpockets and women of questionable virtue lingering near the pubs and streetcorners gained even less attention from the ravenesque figure perched on the roof top.
Looking up one might have mistaken her form for a dilapidated chimney, a gargoyle or a very large black bird. Even if they did see her, they would blame the innkeepers of the pubs for foul liquor and the cold November night rather than admit to seeing a five foot raven taking to roost on the antique Tudor rooftops. The superstitious might have imagined her as the Angel of Death lingering for the next name on her list. She was rumour-it was a blessed condition believe me. To be whispered about on street corners, to live in other people's dreams but not to have to be. Do you understand?
Dark eyes watched with concentrated deliberation. She was auditing the crowds for a single figure she had painted as a target. She kept her gaze a drift from the sick illuminations of the gas lamps so she may not lose her night-vision.
Ah!
There-yes. There he was, just as described. He was just like the sienna monochromatic photo her guild master had given her to study, but not take with her on her hunt. If she could not memorize the face she didn't belong in the shadows or have the right to call herself assassin. She had earned the silver dagger and she meant to keep it.
Her keen eyes narrowed almost telescopically if not myopically upon her target. She had to be sure. Yes. It was definitely him. There was the alarmingly distinctive moustache jutting out almost comically from his face. He had the thatch of wiry greying brown hair crowning his head. The target was taller than most men and stout of frame. He was a man with a fierce temper and prowess when provoked.
She had been ordered to take special care not to come within arms length of him. She wasn't a sniper. Not exactly. She watched as he ambled his way along the streets his destination was one of the narrower conspiratorially dark alleyways. In his hand was a brass topped cane, presumably a sword-cane. Assume it was. Even if it wasn't armed with a blade the cane could be converted into a club. She logged it away in her calculating mind. He was said to favour top hats, but might be wearing a bowler or deerstalker. In this rain he opted for the top hat: wool not silk. Another note to be logged away, the brim could conceal a weapon in the band. Assume it was there. In one hand he held a soggy copy of The Star and tucked under that same arm was a parcel covered in now very damp brown wrapping paper and twine.
She wasn't a thief what lay concealed in the parcel was of little relevance to her. Her mind shifted from watching, to stalking. Her prey unaware he was being watched continued his way down the labyrinthine shambles of streets his own objective clearly in the forefront of his mind.
Black eyes lingered on the progression on her prey. No not black. Blue. A deep chilling blue of ice. A blue of frozen wastelands and artic nights that marshalled death in their wake. Blue ice matched the passionless heart beating behind the small frame of a killer. Bird like she tilted her head waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Yes with a carefully aimed dagger or throwing stars or crossbow bolt she could easily down her target in the back. But no. Too easy. She was told she had to bring fear to his heart before she struck. And that wasn't the only thing she was told she had to do to her prey. No, sniper style was definitely out. She had to get close and personal without coming into his reach.
This called for something special. Something she had wanted to try in the field but never had the chance before now. So she waited for a perfect moment. It would come like the gasp of air expelled after a night's passion, or the joy of biting into a rich chocolate truffle or gnawing into a perfectly seasoned steak. The taste of a kill mingled the frozen air of the night like sweet tasting vintage wine. Yes perfection. All in due time.
This was pure business. No other connection tied her to her target. His death had been paid for. She was sent out as she had been before on other assignments and she would do so again after this mission was completed. Contracts and money. Death has a price. Prince or pauper if you could pay the fee to inhume someone you had a deal. This target had a handsome price. Politics wasn't for her as she deemed them irrelevant and bothersome. A contract was a contract.
The Assassin had watched her target for a week. Each mannerism, every place he visited was noted. She had stolen into his chambers and memorised his timetable, knew his appointments, his jaunts. Waited for the prime moment to complete her contract and tonight was the night. The stipulation of her contract had also stated he had to die in the frozen streets of the East End. Poetic Justice her client had claimed.
'As you wish,' was the reply. There had been enough money for this stipulation because a public assassination was more difficult than say one in private quarters. Still the orders had been vague enough to allow the assassin to choose her location in the streets of the red-light district.
Her target turned yet another corner down a lane of forgotten streets, a shambled nest to the more modern brickwork homes and warehouses. Tabby boots made little sound on clay tiles as she sprinted across rooftop to rooftop. The terrace housing made it easy to speed along the backstreets. Between blocks she was able to salmon leap the gap and land as soundless as a feather coming to rest on the surface of a duck pond. A mouse running on shag carpet made more noise than the shadowed figure when she wanted to be silent. Darting onto another roof she easily kept pace with the target.
He came to a halt finally before a wooden door painted green decorated with a serpentine dragon the Chinese community so favoured. An opium den. It would be easy to strike him down now but it lacked finesse. Her one vice. Finesse. All her kills had to have a certain amount of finesse to them. Vulgarity was for the untrained and juniors in the guild. She was far from a junior member. And she was one of the more talented assassins the guild possessed. No wolf found here, this was a spider's task. The harvest of life.
She quickly donned the harness about her torso that would hold her weight easily when connected to the descent rig she employed. The pulley system was ahead of its time. She could acrobatically descend headfirst down, her dive controlled by clockwork mechanisms on her belt. It would lower and ascend her at will. The wheels and cogs so cared for and recently greased would make no sound as they worked. The contraption was not unlike the shrimpers yardarms hoisting nets full of shrimp and fish. Several kilos of fish were by far more difficult to manoeuvre about on deck or dock than the mere seven stone body from the gables of a dilapidated rooftop.
The target, a quack doctor of dubious liaisons had once been arrested for lewd public indecency. He was considered by those that knew him as a philistine lay-about. Not that it mattered to the Assassin but it guided her to follow leads into his habits which had directed her to this dark location. He was a man of many vices and grim hobbies. He cloaked himself in paranoia because of this. If he wanted to continue his practice and hobbies he had to be shrewd, calculative and speculative. This caused the Assassin to be more guarded and swiftly decisive in her hunt.
She meticulously checked the weapon strapped to her wrist. It was an ingeniously crafted flex blow-gun. The ballistics it fired were not made of lead shot and gunpowder. No that was too vulgar, and too loud. No what this fired were carefully crafted darts. The Assassin had quirkily called it elf-shot. The tips had been laced with a particular toxin collected from frogs that had been cultivated in the Amazon River basin. Fast, effective and silent. Just like she was. All the Assassin had to do was make a fist to disengage the safeties of the weapon. A twist of the wrist and it fired the tiny missile.
The counterfeit physician settled his stance in front of the green door, his gnarled callused hand rose to knock but then he looked up towards the narrow patch of sky allowed through by the clotted apartments above the shops. Why? He frowned at himself. Why had he looked up? He saw nothing there but chimneys and dilapidated eaves. Self possessed he waved away his weariness. No it was nothing. It was only being here at the Den that caused him to pause. No one knew he was here. And anyone of rank and class who saw him here now would say nothing for they were in the same precious predicament.
She saw him look up and swiftly melded her body against the chimneystacks ignoring the slight heat emanating from the mason work. She moved once he looked away with the swiftness of a hummingbird. Her pride in her tumble gear was unshakable giving her an acrobat's confidence. Leaping off the roof she twisted her body so she was now hurtling down headfirst towards her target. Her right arm outstretched, aiming.
By chance the target looked up once more. Fear filled his veins; his heart plummeted into his feet. He wanted to scream but his throat was far too tight to utter a sound. What he saw was a monster bat. No a demon raven, no Death. Dread filled him. Sergeant Death was strict in his arrest; he knew this axiom all too well. Sergeant Death was here now to collect his due.
"What…?" he never finished the question on his pale thin lips.
Bat-raven-spider pointed at him with the spindly arm best found on the Ghost of Christmas Future. The wrist twitched once. Had this shadow creature stung him like a wasp? Curiously he pulled from his carotid artery an ivory needle. The quill tip was covered in viscous green ichor. He gave a contemptuous snort at the vile thing and threw it to the wet pavement.
"You have seconds of life," The voice said.
The physician only stared at the spider-shadow in astonishment.
The female continued judiciously, for it was a feminine voice he heard. "Time enough to fulfil the obligations of the contract. I was to tell you: 'No more'."
He strained to see his attacker. But he saw only shadows within shadows. The face was masked not unlike the demon-killers painted on the silk screens that served as partitions in the inner sanctum of the opium den. Black clad tabby-booted free-knives battling with the noble samurai. The proprietor had called the shadow figures: ninjas.
"I am to further tell you this. 'Mary Kelly sends her regards'." With that she zinged backwards into the sky spider like as if the heavens themselves recalled this Angel of Death.
It was no use trying to spot her now. She had disappeared back into the shadows, allowing the night to swallow her whole.
He fell with an audible slump on the stoop of an opium den. A coroner's inquest said he died of overdose of the essence of the Green Dragon. His last thought was had Mary Kelly's phantom hired an assassin from beyond the grave?
Months passed. The wretched murders of a particular class of women in Whitechapel had stopped as suddenly as they had begun.
Sitting upon the rooftop, mindless of the biting snow fritting down covering the cloistered streets in a blanket of white, the Assassin perched with concentrated deliberation. Soon of course the newly fallen snow would be churned to a grey slush. The sound of merchants, horses and carriages dwindled into the preferable scope of hearing. It was irrelevant. Ice blue eyes scanned the milling crowd for one particular individual. There was a contract to be fulfilled.
Aw!
There…..yes. There she was…Identical to the photo she was given to study. The new target had been sighted. Let the stalking begin.