I, ASSASSIN

Chapter Ten

The seconds turned to minutes and the minutes to hours and the hours melted away quickly like icicles in the warm spring. Remy had trained extensively ever since he could remember but never more so than he did for the next few days. Throughout his fairly young life he had always been fascinated with weaponry but never more so when it came to Marius' extensive personal collection of weapons and in depth introduction to weaponry and the real uses that each exquisite piece could come to. This was more than just slash and stab.

There were so many different types of gun that Remy had lost count. Remy had never fired many guns before in his life; not unless he counted the odd BB gun or two during the occasional county fair. Now, he had fired everything in Marius' personal collection from Antique pistols, to 9mm hand guns, and even a powerful shotgun that had nearly cracked his shoulder on the kickback. He had to admit, although the weapons training had been interesting, he still felt uneasy about handling guns again, especially after what had happened to the dog. But it was unavoidable if he wanted to survive here, showing more weakness was not allowed. He couldn't show his hand, he simply had to endure what was dealt and try to bluff his way through it as best he knew how.

There were other weapons Marius had shown him that Remy had never thought to use in fights. There were so many weapons he had never thought to use before at all. Not the simple ones like throwing knives and spears, but the weapons like specialised daggers (made for the precise cutting of a throat), to two-handled serrated garrottes for hasty decapitation (for those who had the strength) and poisoned darts that were so small, the effect would feel akin to a bee sting (at least until the poison took its effect).

Remy had never thought there was so much skill involved in what The Assassins did, but he was soon to learn that he had been mistaken. Sorely.

It was upon his seventh day as an initiate that he'd been taken to The Chamber with Marius to begin what the man called his real training.

The training room in The Chamber was one he had never seen in the three years he'd been coming down here to witness initiations and participate in Guild events. Further underground of the main hall was another huge hall with high, arched ceilings, carved stone grotesques seemed to stare down at them from every corner of the ceiling, snarling, tongues flicking towards them as if to taste the scent of their blood.

There were dummies were set up everywhere, some were store mannequins, some were carved wood, some were cheap plaster garden ornaments and a few were expensive ballistics dummies generally used for crime scene investigation re-enactments.

"This," said Marius, he spun around to gesture at the dummies surrounding them both, "is where your real training shall begin, Remy. As we focus on your close kill efficiency."

Remy almost laughed, "close kill efficiency?"

"Don't take this as a joke, LeBeau."

"I'm not...I just...I thought that snipin' would be the thing you'd want to focus on. Like in that film Leon."

"Not every target can be sniped..." Marius responded, "Snipin' takes exceptional marksmanship and trainin', timing and the right situation. No wet-behind-the-ears Assassin is going to be sent out there with a Sniper rifle. Not every client will want a public execution for their mark. It takes a precise and experienced Assassin to kill a mark out in the field without endangering the lives of any other person. You think I'm going to hand you a sniper rifle on your first contract and let you go at it?"

"No...I just..." Remy chewed the inside of his cheek.

"Never mind what you just thought," Marius grumbled. "When I considered you for the honour of joining this guild-" he began.

Remy had to refrain from laughing. The Honour?! he thought in dismay.

"-I considered all the skills you have to offer."

Nonchalantly as he could possibly seem, Remy let his elbow rest upon the plastic shoulder of a female mannequin; she was dressed in clothes that wouldn't have looked out of place at a Lady Gaga concert. He kept his mouth shut, listening closely.

"We are Assassins, Remy. When we strike, it must be hastily done, we must lurk in the shadows and disappear like a breath in the wind. You are already trained to be a shadow, to strike fast and quick and be gone before anything is noticed. You already have the skill you need to get in and out. You already are the ideal Assassin for all but one fault..."

Remy pursed his lips, he knew what was coming now.

"When we Assassins take a life..." Marius pulled a dagger from his black robes – Remy thought this robe to be a little unnecessary to be worn when it was just the two of them in The Chamber – and held it out to him, "the blow must be fatal."

Remy stared down at the dagger in Marius's hands, feeling a little iffy about accepting it back again. It was the same one he'd been forced to use to skin that poor elk.

"When you killed the Elk during our hunting trip you only clipped it, it would have bled out slowly, it would have suffered. You can't let that happen again. You must learn to kill cleanly."

Remy shrugged, accepted the dagger, twirled it impressively around his hand and then quickly turned and stabbed the nearest ballistics dummy straight into the centre of the chest. The dagger remained there embedded in the jelly and fabric of the shirt, wobbling slightly.

"Useless," Marius chided, he gestured to the dagger unhappily, "what was that meant to do?"

"It was meant to do what it did! Kill him instantly," Remy suggested.

"No," said Marius, he yanked the dagger from the chest of the lifeless and wobbling victim, "a victim can survive an attack like this. Y' stab him there, y' miss every vital organ."

"What the fuck?" Remy demanded angrily, "I stab him in the heart. He'd die!"

"You missed his heart, his lungs, you missed everything. He'll bleed, sure. You might even make a tiny puncture in the lung if you're lucky...but it's not fatal. It'd take hours to die."

Remy sighed, "okay, so I fail anatomy."

Marius handed him the dagger, reached to the dummy and yanked the shirt open, Remy felt a button ping against his cheek. "Take a good look, LeBeau."

He eyed the dummy carefully; the dummy was a replica of a body, certainly, and there were replicas of all the organs beneath the cloudy yellow gel. He saw the spine, he saw where the heart was, the lungs, and half of the other organs he didn't even know the names of.

"Heart," said Marius, gesturing with his pinky finger, his fingernails were slightly too long for a man his age and it made Remy a little uneasy for some inexplicable reason. "You stab him there, deep enough, hard enough, and pull the knife a bit to make sure you tear it so it bleeds out...he die in seconds. The blood stop pumpin' to the body, everything stops working...helpless victim, you escape fast."

"Why pull it?" Remy asked, "surely the stab would be enough."

"Sounds plausible, but trust me, there's people who have survived bein' stabbed in the heart, especially if the attacker happens to leave the damn knife in, stops the blood from flowin' and gives paramedics time to save the life."

"Oh," said Remy. He thought perhaps should he ever accidentally stab anyone in the chest, he should make sure to not remove the knife in that case, even if it did hit the heart.

"And never stab with the blade vertical, especially not on the upper torso or you're likely to get the blade stuck between the ribs. Holding the knife so the blade is horizontal..." Marius demonstrated with his own knife, "more likely to slide between the ribs and go in deeper, you see?"

Remy pointed to a bean shaped organ with the dagger, "What if I stab here?"

"Didn' y' ever go t' school?" Marius demanded impatiently.

"I went. Occasionally. Can't say I learned much," Remy confessed with a shrug. He supposed he'd have learned more if Jean-Luc hadn't pulled him out at an early age so he could participate and train more in the family business.

"That," said Marius, "is a kidney. And a human body can survive with just one. Take note. You stab a man in the kidney and leave, he's going to survive to identify you in court before you're sent down for death by lethal injection. Got it?"

Remy rolled his eyes, "fine."

Marius gestured towards all the dummies again, "these represent several of the victims you may face, and not every victim will need the same weapon...not every victim will be as vulnerable. It is up for you to determine what needs to be done, and how you must do it."

"Okay."

"No matter what the contract is," said Marius, "no matter who you kill..." he warned, "You must be sure to make a clean kill. This is vital. We are Assassins, not Animals. We do not leave a human to suffer."

Remy gazed upon the numerous dummies, some dressed like his adoptive father and brother, some dressed like Cate Blanchett at a movie premiere. "What if I miss. What if...I dunno, what if I knick somethin' instead of take it out? What then?"

Marius swiftly moved behind the Lady Gaga-esque mannequin grabbed the face with his firm right hand, grabbed the back of the head with his left, and twisted it hastily until the thing snapped off with a sickening crack.

Blinking, Remy gaped, "You want me to break someone's fuckin' neck?"

"We do what is necessary," assured Marius. "You do not leave a soul to suffer. It is a sin to do so, and it is the rule above all you must obey."

"It's a sin to take a life, too," Remy reminded pointedly.

"Are you telling me you can't do this? That you're not willing to do this?" asked Marius, his tone hostile.

Remy swallowed. What if he was to tell the man that? What would the outcome be? Could this deal between the guilds be annulled? He doubted Julien was having much success with the Thieves right now. Perhaps it wasn't too late.

But the look on Marius face told Remy that it would be dangerous to try and suggest the idea. Instead, Remy kept his poker face, didn't answer Marius and turned quickly to threw the dagger towards one of the other ballistics dummies. It pierced through the head, deeply embedding itself there.

Marius gave a chuckle, "Now that..." he slapped Remy on the back, an expression of contentedness spread across his deeply lined and darkly tanned face, "is what I call a clean kill."

For some reason, as Remy stared at his handiwork...all he saw were the warm brown eyes of a German Shepherd asking him 'why?'.

End of Chapter Ten

Clearly I am not an Assassin...so I know very little or absolute nought about Assassinating people. This is all just speculation, things seen from movies (thanks to Ekster for recommending "Leon", awesome film), read from books, or imagined simply from sitting thinking about Assassinations, etc, etc, etc. A lot of it probably is or might possibly seem wrong, I don't know. I'm winging it, trying to make Marius sound like he knows what he's talking about is a difficult task, if any of it sounds wrong, please overlook. I'm trying very hard here to write a good story (that I know not many are interested in but I just love the concept and must write it).

Thanks to anyone who has reviewed this story, it means a lot that someone still reads it. :)