Assassin's Creed: Allegiance

Chapter 2

The rustic fields and farmland whizzed past at a hundred miles per hour as the train roared across the rails with a clunk-clicking sound which send somehow calming tremors beneath the passenger's feet.

Richard sat opposite his former master in the train-car, both men beside a regularly cleaned window, with his legs crossed, arms folded and hood pilled over his face. His heavy breathing indicated that he was sleeping.

"Brat still snores like a thunderstorm." The man muttered under his breath, being careful not to wake his former apprentice. Although, as he well knew, when Richard was fast asleep an earthquake wouldn't wake him up.

He wore the same clothes that Richard has discovered him in except wearing similar hooded robes to his apprentice over them. At his feet lay a large leather suitcase which contained clothes, several books and a long, black walking stick with a silver head slotted into a strap on the side. There was also a hidden compartment in the case which contained throwing knives, compact firearms, bullets, poison and several attachments for the hidden blade which was attached to his right forearm.

He stroked his forearm thoughtfully, feeling the solid metal manacle underneath it. It had felt like a lifetime since he had worn the infamous weapon and had almost forgotten what it felt like yet the memory of when he had last used it to take a life was still crystal clear in his mind…

No. He couldn't think about that, not now. He shook his head frantically. He looked out of the window once again at the scenery which he had considered normality for half a decade being left behind by the steel carriage which was taking him rapidly towards London, towards Jack the Ripper.

His brow wrinkled at the thought of the murderer. Serial killers were nothing new and three victims was hardly a massacre but it was the nature of the killings that had bothered him. Every victim was mutilated almost beyond recognition. Mary Ann Nichols' throat was slashed, twice, from left to right and her abdomen partly slashed open. Annie Chapman suffered a similar fate except her abdomen was completely ripped open with her uterus removed, its current location is unknown and to be completely honest he wasn't sure that he really wanted to know what became of it. He found this disturbing that this man had not only taken poor Annie's life, he had stolen her womanhood.

Elizabeth Stride's body had gotten off quite lightly in his opinion. All that had appeared on her body was one clean cut along an artery along the left side of her neck. The fact that there was no abdominal mutilation (although that was surely on the way) was most likely attributed to the fact that the killer was interrupted during his grisly task.

"There was a fourth killing you know."

The man broke out of his trance with a start to find Richard, perfectly awake, hunched over and staring at his former master intently.

"What?"

"A fourth death, Catherine Eddowes, I guessed by the look on your face you were thinking about the killings, you always wear that look when you have a bad feeling about something."

The man shrugged in admittance, "So what is the nature of this new victim and why has she not had the honour of his dismembered remains being stamped on paper for the whole country to see?" He spat the last sentence out poisonously, clearly disapproving.

"Eddowes was murdered on the same night as Stride less than an hour apart." Richard began, "One of our brothers in the police force has informed us that a deal was made with the journalist who reports the killing to lay off the latest death for one day."

"Why would they disguise the true date of Eddowes' demise? The man asked dubiously.

Richard smiled thinly, "That is because the Ripper had left us a message. It was discovered that the apron belonging to Eddowes was stolen upon her death and it was found again, bloodstained, outside a tenement block in Goulston Street. Above this was a message written in blood."

"What did it say?"

"The Jews are the men who will be blamed for nothing or something along those lines, either way the police constable demanded for it to be washed off immediately."

"Do they believe that Jack the Ripper is Jewish?" The man asked bluntly.

"They're as clueless as the rest of us regarding the Ripper's identity," Richard said with his hands splayed, "But racial tensions in Whitechapel have gotten worse in recent times and this would be the perfect catalyst to cause suspicion and at worse mass riots."

The man turned his head towards the floor. He knew this to be true. London isn't the most tolerant place in the world, with the class system elevating the middle class and further beating the working class down into the dirt the people have to direct their infinite frustration at something and who better than the many immigrants who are taking the few jobs and homes that the city has to spare?

London was fast approaching. An unnerving cloud of black smog and fumes levitated over the great capital like a shroud. The smoke coming from the city was so thick it looked like a great dragon was blowing it up from the middle of the city, although it accorded to the man that what they were going to face in that darkened city was very real and much more deadly than any creature of myth.

The whistle on the train sliced through the air. They had arrived.

They both hurried off the train and, after manoeuvring through the suffocating mass of passengers scurrying off to god knows where, found a taxi cab waiting for them.

"Alright there, Archie?" Richard yelled through cupped hands at the driver with the reins.

The old man in the front seat shrugged indifferently, "I'm driving alone through the city alone in the middle of the night, every night, with a murdering madman on the loose, aye I'm living the bloody dream here!" He said with the combination of outstretched arms and a husky Scottish accent.

Richard chuckled at this as he helped his former master with his suitcase, which weighed a tonne, into the cab. He saw his master struggling with it.

"Getting frail old ma…ow! He had started before his former master smacked him across the side of his head.

"Still don't know when to shut up eh Dick?"

The cab pulled up beside a tenement block and, after Richard paid the fare, stepped inside and started up the stairs.

"This is your house?" The man asked curiously.

"Yep, it's not much but its home."

The man took a look at the squint paintings on the walls which were slathered with a thick coating of duct and the warped wooden banisters. "It'll suffice." He mumbled grumpily.

Richard stopped so abruptly that the man almost smacked his face off his back. "Excuse me? I believe it was your idea to stay in that brothel in Madrid!"

"That wasn't as bad as you're making it out to be."

"We barely got out alive!"

"Hey, I was drunk and how was I meant to know that that girl didn't work there….or that she was married?"

"You're a twisted old pervert." Richard shook his head but still hiding a grin.

His flat was on the 2nd floor and the second they walked through the door Richard was tackled by a young girl in a pink dress.

"Daddy!" The young girl shrieked as she buried her head into his clothes.

The man stood there confused and petrified. Daddy? When did that happen?

"Mummy, Daddy's home!" The girl took off like a bolt of lightning into what the man assumed to be the kitchen. A young woman stepped out of the room, whom she assumed to be Richard's spouse. She had her auburn hair tied back in a ponytail, her eyes warm and brown and her face as calm and fresh as a summer flower. She was one of the most beautiful women that he had ever seen in all his travels…. How did an idiot like Dick manage to do this well?

She outstretched her arms, "Hello there my name's Stacy, I'm Richard's wife and you must be his father," before he could do anything she had already pulled him into a tight hug.

This had shocked him even more than the fact that his apprentice had a wife and child, "Father?" he mouthed while still in the hug.

"Please just play along." Richard mouthed while making a pleading gesture with his hands.

The man closed his eyes and exhaled heavily, I'm going to kill him, he thought in his head. Stacy finally released him from her embrace.

"I'm sorry, it's just it's great to finally meet you, Richard talks about you all the time." She said cheerfully.

"Does he now?" The man said through nearly clenched teeth which he somehow twisted into a weird looking smile, "Well..um.." he had seen the little girl staring up at him with wide eyes, he awkwardly patted her on the head and walked over to Richard.

"If u will be so kind as to excuse us," He jabbed his finger into a pressure point in his former student's ribcage, it took all his restraint not to cry out, "We have some catching up to do."

Richard and his 'father' walked towards the bedroom that he and Stacy shared while the little girl tugged on her mother's apron.

"Grandad's strange."

They entered the bedroom and the man closed the door.

Richard turned to face his pretend father, "Well I must say I think you handled that rather we…" Richard began before the man grabbed the back of Richard's head, brought it forward and smacked his forehead into the closed door.

"Jesus chri…what was that for?" He cried while clutching his forehead with both hands.

"Talk. Now." The man responded.

"Ok ok, I told her parents that my father was a retired politician who lived in the countryside and rarely visited due to illness."

"Why the hell would you lie to your father in law like that?"

"So that I could marry Stacy in the first place!" The man looked confused at this. Richard sighed. "Come on, do you really think that he'd let me, an orphan with no real money to speak of and of such low social class, marry his only daughter? No, but an ambassador who's the son of a prestigious politician…."

"But what's the point of all of this?"

Richard shrugged, "I loved her from the first time I met her, I would do anything to be with her."

The man sighed. He couldn't judge the boy for that. He himself knew how strong a force that love could be, a fact which he had thoroughly learned a long time ago.

"Where did the ambassador thing come from?"

"Well I can't exactly tell her father that I kill people for a living can I? But I also have to justify my being absent a lot of the time, so foreign ambassador it was, plus it made it seem like I was following my father's footsteps in politics."

"Makes sense, sorry about your head."

"It's alright; I probably should've given you a heads-up first." Richard laughed, back to his old self again.

There came a knock at the front door, Stacy answered it just as the 2 men were coming out of the bedroom. A hooded man walked through the door, adorned in the same robes as the man and Richard. This man, whoever he was, was without doubt, an assassin.

"Hello there, Arthur." Stacy smiled softly at their enigmatic guest. Arthur pulled his hood down.

"Good to see you again Stacy, is Richard about?" His accent had a comic cockney tinge which made the man beside Richard snigger slightly, even after all the times he had heard it before.

Arthur scanned the area like an eagle ( with his pointy nose he certainly looked like one ) until his eyes set on Richard and the other man.

"Ah there you are…oh my god…Carter… is that you?" He sounded both happy and shocked at the same time. His mouth was moving slightly as if he was speaking but forgot to make any sounds after he said this.

"You seem surprised," Carter responded while glancing at Richard, "I thought that I was expected here?"

"Oh no you were it's just… I didn't believe it at first I never thought you'd return after…" He ceased after Richard shot him a venomous look.

Arthur wondered why until he realised that Stacy was still standing there beside him, looking more confused than Arthur was when he first walked in. He stood erect and became 'all business' again.

"Right, you two had better come with me," He gulped," Crawford wants to speak with you."