Authors note: thank you few who have reviewed, I am soooo glad you did, because I was thinking nobody was reading this thing, so I am happy somebody liked it. One of you mentioned the conversation was too 21st century, and I knew while I was writing I that it was, but I just can't seem to help it! so, sorry to all the historical purists out there, but oh well! Thanks for the feed back!
I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew there was sunlight in the room; desperately fighting its way through the one small grimy window in the basement. I sat up, glancing over to the other bed; to my surprise, CJ was not in it. In fact, she was not in the room at all.
I got up and walked over to the door and tried the knob, it was still locked. As I was wondering where on earth she had gone to, the door opened behind me. CJ was shoved inside; her hair was wet and she was wearing a different set of clothes, men's trousers and black shirt.
"Sure you don't want to take me up on my offer darling?" The guard eyed her,
By way of response, she smiled coyly and took several steps toward him; then she grabbed his gun hand and thrust it upward, throwing her other fist into his face all the while hooking her leg around the back of his then bringing it forward, landing the man on his back. This whole movement took all of two seconds, and guard looked up at her, amazed, as she walked over to her bed and sank down on it, picking up one of her books and calmly opening it.
I looked at the guard and shrugged, "she's fun, isn't she?" I said to the bewildered guard,
He nodded at me, "Alright, you next," He motioned for me to fallow him. I was led upstairs, and into a dirty bathroom. The guard left and shut the door, I heard a thud on the other side, and I assumed the man was leaning against the door.
The bathroom looked as though it had never been cleaned; there were cobwebs everywhere and the window had been boarded over. I sighed, there were buckets of water beside the tub and I fixed a bath for myself. The water was freezing and not completely clean; the tub was also ungodly small, I had to bring my knees almost to my chest in order to fit into it, so I hurriedly washed myself.
I stepped out of the tub and looked for something to dry myself with, but I found nothing. I eyed a pile of clothes resembling the ones CJ had been wearing; I assumed they were for me. I used my old clothes as a towel, and changed into my new ones.
When I arrived back at my room and walked inside, I heard the door shut behind me, but I was busy staring at the room. CJ had not been idle while I was gone; the beds had been moved, they were no longer side by side, they were pushed against opposite walls. CJ looked up at me.
"I thought this would work out better; we are farther apart," She said
"Yes," I agreed and sunk down on my bed. I was not tired; so I could not sleep. In truth, I was just board, I was not used to not being able to do nothing; there was nothing to write music on, no instruments to play, and singing was out of the question. I needed to do something though; my eyes fell on CJ.
She was contentedly reading one of her stolen books. The last thing I wanted to do was ask her if I could barrow one; but once the idea got into my head; it was all I could think about. I stared at her; her skin was still sallow, but at least her hair was now clean.
"How many books did you take last night?" I asked her, hoping she would take my meaning; that she had more than enough and if I wanted to read one it would be acceptable.
"Don't know," She said, turning a page; apparently she wanted to be difficult.
"More than two, yes?" I asked, trying again.
"Yes," she said still not looking up,
I was exasperated, "Well where did you put them?"
This time she did look up at me, "If you want to read one, just say so,"
"I don't" I lied, I wanted her to offer me one without actually having to ask her for one; I think it had something to do with pride and not wanting to admit she had had a good idea.
"Alright" she said, going back to her reading; she was not going to make this easy for me.
"What are you reading?" I asked her after a moment, causing her to put her book down and look at me,
"Listen, the books are right here," she pointed to a pile beside her bed, "Just take one and stop annoying me,"
I walked over to her bedside and knelt down to see what choices I had to pick from. There was an uneasy tension as I knelt there by her bed; I felt it, I was too close to her. The evening before I had wrapped my arm around her and pulled her close to me, but that had been acting. This was just us, alone in a room and I was too close to her. I quickly grabbed a book and returned to my bed.
That was how the rest of the day was spent; I read The Count of Monty Cristo and she read whatever the hell she was reading; she never did tell me. All in all there was an uneasy tension throughout the room.
The light in the room was filing and it was at this time that CJ and I both discovered the problem. I looked up at her and found she was already staring at me.
"What are the odds there are matches hidden in these beds?" CJ asked; in the growing darkness the pages of the book we were reading were illegible.
"Not good," I said angrily, I was almost finished and I was intrigued; the Count had done exactly to his enemies what I wished to do to Raoul, and I was very interested to see how it worked out,
"Than what are the odds that you can magically produce fire?" CJ said, picking up the candle
"Also not good," I was known as a magician, but that was when I had tools to work with; even if at times it looked otherwise, I could not make something out of nothing.
"Damn," I mumbled "I wanted to see how this ended"
"What are you reading?" CJ asked, throwing her long legs over the side of her bed and turning to face me.
"The Count of Monte Cristo," I replied
"I read that, I can tell you the ending if you want,"
"No," I said in my most angry, commanding voice, CJ appeared un fazed,
"I'm just saying, I could tell you"
"I heard you," I snapped, "and I said no"
"Sure? Because I could tell you,"
"Yes," I growled, "How did you learn to read anyway? I did not think people like you would know how to read," I was trying to make her mad, and it worked,
"People like me? I suppose you mean dirty, ugly looking street girls who are only good for one thing, if that?" She narrowed her eyes at me,
"Yes, I guess that is what I mean" I responded smirking, I was happy to see she was irate,
"For your information, my father was a rich man, an assassin for England, and he taught me how to read, write, and many other things besides," Her voice was dangerously clam, "And where the hell to you get off looking down on me when you are no better?"
"Alright; so let's just say this," I began, "we are both vile, moral less, disgusting wastes of human flesh. We don't like each other, we don't have to, and maybe we should just not talk to each other,"
CJ nodded, then cast her gaze down to the floor. Mercifully, Dumas entered the room soon after.
"Alright, tonight it going to be much harder, there are several people you have to eliminate, and you have to get some money out, you see," Dumas spoke very quickly and wasted no time on formality, "There was a robbery about a week ago, and we finally tracked down the men who did the job, but as wasting good men in an attempt to retrieved something as unimportant to me as money and family air looms does not appeal to me, I am sending you two in."
We both nodded; great, I thought, I am going to risk my life to get back some money for an old rich men, the unfairness of it stung me.
"Alright, let's go," Dumas motioned to us and we followed.
The cab from the night before was waiting for us; but tonight there were no armed escorts.
"No guards tonight?" I asked Dumas dryly,
"I think we both know they were superfluous, especially after what CJ here did to Tom this morning," Dumas smirked as we got into the cab. Apparently he was checking up on us.
This night was going to be much more difficult, there would be no acting, no easy trusting drunk to let us into his home; we were headed for the home of career criminals.
CJ and I were let out of the cab behind the house we were going to be braking into. Dumas informed us that we were to find and kill the thieves; then carry the money and anything else we found of value out back to the cab. This time he handed both of us hand guns and a bag of bullets each.
The house was completely dark and there was no back entrance; only a small window high above the ground. I knew that it was unlikely anyone could see us in the dark from that window, but it was not impossible. And if someone was watching us, we were sunk.
Now the question remained; how were we to get in? The front door seemed unlikely; I could think of no plausible reason a criminal would believe for letting us in. CJ and I crouched behind a bush; I could not believe I was reduced to this; crouching behind a bush, intolerable.
"Any ideas?" CJ asked me, and I shook my head, "A diversion?" CJ suggested, and I stared at her. She really was good at this.
"Of what kind?" I asked, and CJ pointed to her gun. "I can shoot at the front of the house, while you go in through that window," She pointed at a pain of glass on the side of the house which looked as though it was about eight feet from the ground.
I nodded, but then I asked "why do I have to go in the window?"
"You're taller," she said simply, which was true, even though she was tall, I had several inches on her.
"Alright," I said, then she stood to go to the front of the house, "give me a minute," she said over her shoulder, then she disappeared into the Paris night.
I slunk to the side of the house, pressing my back against the rotting wooden planks of the building. I waited; then I heard the gun go off, the sound of the shot shattering the dark silence enveloping the area around me.
Realizing I needed to break the window, I turned to face it and pointed my own gun at it and waited; I heard CJ's second shot and quickly let my gun go off, shattering the glass. I hoped that who ever was inside would not have noticed that I had shot from the side of the house and that the noise of CJ's shot had covered mine.
I could hear people scrambling inside, and CJ's gun went off again. I could hear the sounds of feet running down the stairs and the front door of the house burst open and a voice yelled into the night. I heard a gun go off which was not CJ's and I knew it was my cue.
I jumped and grabbed the window ledge; and I silently thanked years of scampering around the uneven bowls of the opera which had allowed me the strength to pull myself up and into the room above me.
The room I tumbled into was completely dark; and also empty of ever thing save a bed and some sacks, thankfully. As I pulled myself into the room, I cursed the broken window pain; there were still sharp edges which cut into my back and hands. However, there was no time to worry about that.
I made no noise as I edged out of the room. My eyes adjusted quickly to the dark; I had always had a gift for seeing in the dark. Outside my original room of entry, I was faced with a short hallway; one door at the end and two on the right side. To my left a narrow stairway led to the down stairs. I quickly reloaded my gun and waited.
I listened to the raucous downstairs; four voices were arguing.
"Somebody is out there,"
"I know that, why do you think Marc ran after him?"
"He won't catch him"
"Yes he will"
"What if he doesn't?"
They were coming up the stairs,
"We should go after him; help him"
"You go if you want" I heard one set of feet turn around. Now three were still advancing. I could see one was holding a lantern; it was casting a flickering yellow shadow up that stair and I quickly retreated into the safe cover of the dark room.
"Do you think someone found out it was us who robbed the Toulon house?"
"The way you were bragging about it in the pub two nights ago; I would not be surprised"
Now they reached the landing where I was standing; hidden in the room I had entered in. One turned and walked straight at me; his eyes were not used to the blackness of the room after the light of the lantern, I don't think he even saw me as I pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger.
He fell dead on the floor and I darted to the wall beside the door as his two comrades came charging into the room. They dashed right past me hiding beside the door and concentrated on the broken window. I quickly made up my mind; taking a quick step toward them, I cracked one man hard in the back of the head; it was a dirty thing to do, to attack from behind, but really what else could I do? He fell and his friend with the lantern turned.
This was where he should have shot me; I had not had time to reload my hand gun; he was pointing his gun right at me. However instead of pulling the trigger, he shook fearfully and backed up against the wall.
I must have looked hideous standing there with my mask off; the flickering lantern light further distorting my malformed excuse for a face; like some kind of beast from a nightmare or a mythical tale.
As my quarry quivered, I stooped and picked up the unconscious man's gun and shot. It was a gruesome sight; blood blossoming from a hole in his chest as the fallen lantern rolled across the room sending strange shadows spinning across the walls. It was almost fitting; the room was whirling almost as much as my head was.
What had this man really done to deserve death? He had only been trying to survive; we were all just trying to survive in this Paris city and it was inevitable that not everyone could do it in a righteous way; I was an example of that as much as they were. It was true these men had broken the law, they had robbed a house, and it was easy for men like Dumas to say 'obey or else,' but they were not stuck in a run down old house with nothing to eat. Under those circumstances, anything seemed like a good idea.
The lantern hit the wall and the shadows became stationary again; it snapped me back to reality. I had some surviving to do myself. I reloaded and shot the unconscious man in the back of the head. I had to; that was my job.
Trying not to think about how I had been standing in a room with three people and now they were gone; I moved to explore the rest of the house.
Picking up the lantern I strode to the sacks I had seen earlier. There were two medium sized cloth bags; and opening them I discovered coins, a gold candle stick, and a diamond necklace and a gigantic diamond ring. For some reason; I pocketed the ring. Standing, I left the room; stepping high over the three dead men, and opened the first door on my right; it was empty. The second door was a bedroom; but I saw no sacks such as the ones I had found before.
However, I knew that did not mean there was nothing in there; I knew if I had robbed a house I would not leave my take in plain view. I looked to the floor; it was wooden planks.
Stooping, I looked over the floor, my eyes searching for any uneven planks. It was not long before I found what I was looking for; a slight raise between the floor boards. Setting down the lantern and the sacks, I pried the floor board loose, and beneath it lay what I was looking for; two more sacks filled with stolen goods.
It appeared that the take had been two sacks each; I had found four which accounted for two of them, so I was looking for at least six more. "It's not worth it" I mumbled standing and taking the four sacks of money with me; I left the lantern, I did not really need it to see.
In the room at the end of the hall I discovered two more sacks, hidden even less originally in the bed mattress; Only now I had run out of hands to carry the sacks in so I decided to carry four of them over to the window; hopefully CJ would return soon and help me carry them; I placed them by the window in case she did not and I had to throw some down and then jump out; something about using the front door unsettled me.
I put the sacks down,
"Don't move" An icy voice behind my said suddenly, and I felt my blood run even colder than normal. There was no way I could go for my gun; or any other weapon, I was dead, unless the man behind me did not have a gun but something told me he did. I stood slowly; this was the end. I thought, and I never got to see Christine again; that thought crushed me. At least it would be over.
