Assassin's Curse (34 page)

As Natasha turned to leave, the twins stopped short and yelled simultaneously.

“Poppy!”

“Da!”

Without another word, they both dashed out of the coven house, running out the door as if a demon from hell were pursuing them.
 
Natasha called frantically for them to stop, but they were gone in the span of a breath, heading back in the direction of the market, back to where they had left Jeda.
  

The two older women followed as quickly as they could, but soon lost sight of the twins.
 
As she and Mirabelle continued to run, Natasha shot her sister another deadly look.
 
“A lot to explain,” she said between gasps of air.

***

It was still early morning as Mary and her
team made their way back
to the assassin’s guild house.
 
She warned them not to slink about or to use the back alleys in finding their way home.
 
The sun was well up and she did not want the local constabulary stopping any of the team for acting strangely or suspiciously.
 
Nothing screamed
criminal
louder than someone trying to hide or disguise himself during daylight.
 
Though the guild wanted the witches to get their brutal message, the team was not to be identified directly with the killings.
 

“Be casual in your manner, walk nonchalantly.
 
Do not hide in the shadows, but get back to the guild house as soon as possible,” Mary ordered her team.

As the team entered the marketplace, Mary suddenly stopped short.
 
The other team members instantly became alert and watched her for any hand signals.
 

“I can’t believe it,” she whispered.
 
Right in front of her was the traitor that her Brother Mave wanted so dearly, shopping and perusing the stalls of the marketplace.
 
Though he was not a specific part of her mission, she knew their brother still wanted him captured.
 
They would have no better chance.
 
The traitor was alone.
 

Mary motioned her team into the nearest alleyway.
 
“Brother Mave does not know the traitor is here in town.
 
We must capture him and bring him back to the guild house.
 
Our brother will be very pleased with what we have accomplished, but remember, the traitor is not to be killed.”

She outlined a plan and they all moved off to execute their tasks.
  

***

Jeda was searching the stalls for leather tack when he felt the familiar warning scream up his back.
 
It was so intense that he almost lost his composure.
 
Being careful not to look around, he entered the shop as if nothing was amiss.
 
Once inside, to the shock of the shopkeeper, he bolted out the back door and into the alleyway.
 

To his surprise, he ran right into a man waiting there for him, brandishing a pair of knives.
 
The assassin was also caught by surprise, but reacted by swinging one of his knives at Jeda’s head.
 
Jeda stopped short and blocked the swing with his forearm, but the assault overbalanced him and he fell backwards.
 
As he went back, he kicked up, catching his attacker in the groin.
 
The kick struck home and the assassin crumpled to his knees.
 
Jeda immediately jumped up and followed through with a vicious kick to the assassin’s jaw, twisting and breaking his neck, killing him instantly.
   

Looking down at his arm, Jeda first saw the blood, then felt the cut from the assassin’s attack.
 
Though he had blocked the blade from slicing his face, he still got a nasty cut along his upper arm.
 
His forearms were protected by the knife sheaths he always wore
, but those stopped at his elbow.
 
The assassin’s blade had skirted along the leather of the sheaths until it struck flesh.
 
The cut was deep enough that Jeda had to stop and tie it off using his own ripped shirtsleeve.
 
Just as he finished, two other assassins entered the alleyway in front of him.
 
As they moved to intercept him, Jeda grabbed a pair of his own knives and threw them in quick succession at the two killers.
 
The first blade made contact with the lead assassin’s chest, but to Jeda’s surprise the assassin kept coming.
 
The second blade missed its mark and the two killers continued their advance on him.
 

Jeda grabbed for two more blades, but felt a searing pain in his upper leg.
 
Looking down he saw another throwing knife sticking out of his thigh.
 
A quick glance behind him showed a third assassin entering the alleyway from the shop, readying another throwing knife.
 
He was now effectively surrounded and had to move fast or he would be dead.
 

Ripping the knife from his leg, he threw it at the two in front of him and turned to the closer, newly arrived killer.
 
He dove forward toward the assassin’s body he had just killed and grabbed one of the dead man’s discarded blades off the ground.
 
Standing up, Jeda swung the blade up at the newcomer’s face and scored a cut along her cheek line.
 
This assassin was female, smaller than Jeda, but no less deadly.
 
She struck forward with a second blade of her own, but Jeda had already sidestepped out of her reach.
 
As he tried to move around her to put her between himself and the others, he felt a searing pain in the small of his back.
 
He fell to his knees feeling nothing below his waist.
 
He looked up as the female assassin struck him in his temple with the butt of her knife, knocking him unconscious.
 

“Quickly, grab him and move to the stables behind us, but do not kill him,” Mary ordered, wiping blood from her cheek.
 
“I will take care of our brother here.”

The two assassins tried to lift Jeda’s limp body, but the one with the knife wound in his chest groaned and collapsed.
 
Though the knife had missed the man’s heart, it did tremendous damage and the effort of lifting Jeda’s body was too much for him.
 
Dropping Jeda to the ground, his partner went to see how badly his brother was hurt.
   

“Leave him,” Mary ordered, dragging the first body behind her.
 
“Get the traitor into the stable first and then we’ll come back for him.”

As they entered the stables, Mary motioned to the tack room off the stable’s main floor.
 
The room had a door and it would offer the privacy and security she was looking for.
 
She had to secure the traitor and treat the wounds of her team before she would chance moving on to the guild house.
  

***

Kara was the first into the alleyway and spotted the man on his hands and knees, trying to get up.
 
She went flying over to the man and grabbed him by his hair, jerking his head up.

“Where is he?” she whispered in deadly quiet, releasing and catching one of her babies in her free hand.
 
She pressed the blade directly below the assassin’s eye and turned it inward.
 
The edge of the blade was razor sharp and cut the man’s lower eyelid.
 
Even with that, the assassin looked at the youngster with deadpan eyes.
 
He had received much worse at the end of his brothers’ hands and neither this little one nor the one behind had anything that would scare him, or so he thought.

“Wait, you’ll kill him and he hasn’t told us where Poppy is yet,” Kala said to her sister.

So these are the infamous twins
, the assassin thought, realizing they must be talking about the traitor.
 
He looked them both over, trying to judge how he might capture them.
 
The pain in his chest was growing worse by the second and he had no real hope of securing them, but if he kept them here long enough, his brothers would come back for him and could get the twins at the same time.
 
The loss of an eye was a small sacrifice for capturing these two.
 
He looked up at Kara and sneered.
 
“I’ll never tell you where he is.
 
We take care of our own.”

Kala placed her hand on Kara’s arm just as she was about to drive the blade into the assassin’s eye.
 
Though she didn’t care if the man lived or died, she needed him in a conscious state of mind for what she planned next.
 
She reached over Kara and her blade still resting on the assassin’s eye, and grabbed the man on either side of his head.
 
“Let me give it a try, but step out of the way,” she told her sister.
 
“I don’t want you to get hurt, too.”

Kala began to concentrate, letting her magic flow into the man.

The absurdity of a fully trained assassin being held down by a young girl made the assassin chuckle.
 
“You can do nothing to make me talk….
”
 
Instantly the assassin locked his jaw and he screamed at the intense, searing pain he felt in his mind.
 
It was as if a burning ember was lodged in the center of his head and was burning his brain from the inside out.
 
He tried to jerk back, but Kala had a good grip on his hair.

“Now once more,” Kala said, lessening the pressure she was exerting.
 
“Where’s my poppy?”

The assassin nearly broke down in tears as the burning in his head decreased, but only blood poured out from his mouth as he tried to speak.
 
He had bitten clean through his tongue and couldn’t talk.
 
He looked desperately to the left, pointing with his eyes at the stables, hoping she understood.
 

“If he’s not in there, I’m coming back for you,” Kala said.

The assassin had never felt such excruciating pain in all his years of training and testing with the brotherhood.
 
His self-discipline was non-existent as he stared, wholly terrified, at this fiend in little girl’s clothing.
 
He shook his head at her, pleading with his eyes for her to believe him.
 

“I believe you,” Kara said, moving back in front of the man while Kala held his hair, “but I don’t trust you.”
 
She took her knife and shoved it straight through the man’s eye to the hilt, piercing his brain and finally, mercifully, killing him.

“What did you do to him?” Kara asked, removing the blade from the dead man’s eye, wiping it clean on his sleeve, and sheathing it away.

“I used the spell Nana showed us for heating water.
 
I let the magic flow inside his head and it began to heat up everything real quick.”
 

Kara shook her head and wanted to smile at her sister’s cleverness, but she was too concerned with finding their father.
 
“We have to find Da quickly.
 
I felt him get hurt, but I can hardly feel him anymore.”

The two girls ran to the stables and cautiously entered, looking and listening for any movement.
 
A door off to their right opened and revealed a gruesome scene to them.
 
There on the floor was the crumbled body of their father lying
face-down
in the dirt with a female hovering over him.
 
Another man was backing out of the door, listening to the commands from the woman.

“Go back and get our brother in the alley while I take care of this traitor.”

“No,” Kala screamed.
 
She rushed forward, ducking under the man’s arm, and launched herself at the woman.
 
The assassin in the doorway was shocked at the darting form that had just slipped under him and looked up just in time to see Kara reach toward him with outstretched arms.
 
It took mere seconds for Kara to unleash a tremendous windstorm that picked up the assassin and slammed him against the far wall, knocking him unconscious.
 
Straw, dust, and dirt went flying around the room, making it difficult to see anything.

Kala ran forward into the room, executing a perfect, flying
drop-kick
and struck the woman in her back.
 
The woman fell forward, but managed to roll forward and came up facing Kala.
 

Mary was surprised that two little girls could soundly defeat her team.
 
This would not look good to her head brother, no matter who these youngsters were.
 
She used the settling dust to mask her movement and knelt down to Jeda, laying her blade against his throat before either girl could make another move.
 
“If either of you move forward another inch, he dies.
 
You may know how to fight, but you cannot reach me before I slice his throat.”

Kala took a step to her left.

“I said quit moving,” Mary screamed, not believing the little girl could have misunderstood her threat.
 
Of course, what she did not see was Kara as she dropped her babies into each hand and furled her brows in concentration.