"You're going to assist me on the Fischer job."
Billie frowned in confusion. She was already assisting on the Fischer job and had been for the last several weeks, working out a rough layout of the man's apartment and offices and taking detailed notes on his daily habits. Then the realization hit her, and her eyebrows shot up. "Assist you with the hit?" she asked.
Daud looked up from his desk. "Is that a problem?"
"No, of course not," she said quickly. He was giving her a chance to really prove herself; no time to be nervous. "When will it be?"
"Tomorrow morning." He tapped one of the papers laid out in front of him, and Billie recognized the shaky handwriting that filled the page as her own. "Your notes suggest the guard presence at his offices will be lightest then. It's a good time to strike."
"Right." She had definitely been confident in all of her observations a moment ago, but now a sudden doubt began to gnaw insistently at the back of her mind.
Daud took pity on her and managed to hide most of his amusement. "You're dismissed for today," he told her. "Take some time to rest and prepare for tomorrow."
"Thank you, sir," she said, backing out of the room. She wondered if there was any chance at all she would actually manage to sleep tonight.
They followed a path through the city that Billie had mapped out during her reconnaissance, though Daud could almost certainly have found a faster route on his own. He stayed back, though, and moved at her pace, did not redirect her or use any of his otherworldly gifts to navigate across the rooftops. This was a test and not a lesson.
Billie swallowed her nerves and did her best to stay focused. She'd traveled this way many times. In this, at least, she knew what she was doing.
As they approached the building from which Fischer ran his business, one of Daud's lieutenants – Lucas, Billie thought, going by his height and stick-up-the-ass posture – appeared in front of them. He saluted Daud and ignored Billie altogether before gesturing behind him and giving his report. "I've scouted ahead as you asked," he said. "The information we have seems to be correct. There are only a few guards on duty, most concentrated around the building's entrance. Fischer should be arriving shortly by coach with one additional bodyguard. There doesn't seem to be any other security beyond that."
"Good," Daud said with a curt nod. "With any luck, this will be a simple job."
Lucas finally turned his attention to Billie, staring silently, his expression hidden by the darkened lenses of his mask. He looked back to Daud. "Is she ready?" he asked, skepticism dripping from his voice.
Billie bristled at the implied insult to her abilities, but Daud placed a heavy hand on her shoulder before she could do anything to object. "We'll soon find out, won't we?" he said pointedly.
Lucas dipped his head, a clear apology for questioning Daud's judgement if not for doubting Billie's skill. "Of course, sir. I'll be on the roofs nearby, if you have need of me."
She glared after him as he transversed away, and Daud did not release her shoulder until he was well out of sight. "To be an assassin is to be paranoid," he told her. "It's not always an insult to consider the possibility of failure."
"You know he meant it as one," she said irritably.
"Do you want to prove him right, or do you want to do your job?"
Billie grumbled a bit but forced herself to shift focus back to the task at hand. She dropped into a low crouch and edged her way to the end of the roof overlooking the square around Fischer's offices. A coach arrived with its telltale screech of metal-on-metal, and she watched as her target and another guard stepped out and made their way toward the building.
Daud's voice in her ear asked, "How are you going to approach?"
"I could always snipe him from here," she said, fiddling with the catch of her wristbow.
Daud snorted and shook his head. "You're a good shot, but you're not that good. Even I couldn't be sure of a clean kill at this distance."
"Could be fun to try, though."
"Show off on your own time, Lurk. We're getting paid for this one."
"Fine," she sighed. She shifted her attention to the building and closed her eyes for a moment, doing her best to recall all the little details she'd been mapping out these last several days. Then she opened her eyes and looked again. "Open window right there," she said, pointing. "One floor above Fischer's main office. He'll be in there for most of the morning, and nearly all the guards are on the lower floors. I should only need to worry about his personal bodyguard if I go in from above." She spoke with confidence, or at least with enough false bravado that she was fairly sure Daud couldn't hear her heart trying to pound its way out of her chest.
"A solid strategy," he said, though nothing in his tone indicated if it was a strategy he would personally choose. Still, it was close enough to approval that Billie would have taken it as such on any other day and moved in immediately. When she failed to do so, remaining in a ready crouch with her heart still hammering and her fingers drumming nervously on the handle of her blade, Daud tilted his head toward her and said, "You're hesitating."
"No," she protested automatically, despite her obvious lack of forward movement.
"You've killed before."
She swallowed and shook her head. "Yeah, but…"
"But you were angry then," Daud finished for her. "It's easy to kill out of rage or grief, but assassination is a different beast. You need to find something else to drive your blade."
"I know that," she said, a little petulantly.
"Then go to it."
With a soft sound of irritation, Billie gritted her teeth and pushed herself over the edge of the roof, dropping quietly down to the protruding ventilation shaft a short distance below before she could think about it anymore. She forced her nerves down and focused solely on picking her way across unseen to the target building, moving over slanted roofs, drainage pipes, and a few wide-hooded street lamps. Before long she had slipped through the open window and was making her way down to Fischer's office, ducking between darkened rooms and shadowed corners until she reached her destination. There she stopped and let herself think again.
The bodyguard stood just outside the door, big and intimidating, but clearly chosen solely for that muscle. He wouldn't be a problem; Billie could come up with a dozen different ways of distracting him from his task without even trying. As for Fischer…
He was a pretty nasty piece of work, from all the information she'd gathered, and it was tempting to just summon up a familiar face to make the killing easier. Picture either one of the Duke's monstrous children and channel all that old rage again. She could let it be that messy. They'd been paid to send a message this time, not to make a death look like an accident or suicide. It didn't have to be neat; it just had to get done.
But she knew Daud was right, and she would not always be able to rely on that. Chances were they would sometimes be hired to kill a more decent sort of person. What would drive her blade then?
If she disappointed him, that would be the end of it.
Billie took a deep breath and made her move. She shot out a light at the end of the hall with her wristbow and slipped past the bodyguard as he went to investigate the noise. She crept up silently on Fischer, who was hunched over his desk, muttering to himself as he read through his ledgers. She imagined Daud watching her as she drew her blade, pictured his frown as he followed her movements in the training room, the slight upturn of the corner of his mouth when she'd done well.
Her hand snapped out and around to clamp firmly over Fischer's mouth, silencing any screams as she pulled him off balance. Her blade flashed in an instant later, plunging in under the ribs, angled upward and going deep. Then she pulled back and let go. Fischer fell to the floor with a spasm and a gurgle. Blood spattered across his papers and the front of Billie's grey novice uniform, began to pool around the quickly stilling body.
It had taken only seconds. She could still hear the bodyguard's plodding footsteps moving away down the hall.
Feeling strangely calm – or maybe numb, she would figure out which it was later – Billie left through the same window she entered and made her way back to the rooftops at the outer edge of the square.
Daud stood up as she approached. His eyes flickered over her, cool and assessing, and lingered for a moment on the bloodstains. "Well?" he asked.
She gave a curt nod. "It's done."
He smiled then, not just a brief twitch of the corner of his mouth, but a real flash of teeth, an expression of approval and grim satisfaction. "Good work," he said. He waved his hand, gesturing to the dark stain on her uniform. "Next time, we'll try to make it a littler cleaner."
Billie ducked her head, feeling her heart begin to beat faster once more. She knew it was no longer from nerves but the surge of pride and pleasure at hearing his simple praise, the sudden thrill at the thought of next time. "Yes, sir," she said. "I'll be ready."
That would be enough to drive her blade for quite a while.
