Hunting By Night

Swinging her feet over the ledge, Natalie dropped with cat-like grace from the loft and landed with a soft thud in front of a figure whose face was shadowed by a cloak. Her silvery hair a dark contrast to her skin, Natalie smiled up into the cloaked figures startled eyes as he fumbled at his side in alarm, searching for the hilt of his sword belted there. Straightening from her crouch, she flecked a speck of imaginary dust from her robes as she enjoyed his discomfort.

“Payment is long overdue. I expected results weeks ago,” her icy voice cut through the night.

“M-my master is doing his best. The old inn keeper is proving elusive.”

“Tell him that his best isn’t good enough.”

Natalie inspected her claw-like nails nonchalantly.

“Maybe he needs incentive,” the last was hissed as her fingers lashed out, claws catching the man’s cloak and slicing through it like butter.

He yelped, tripping over a bucket in his haste to get away from her. Scrambling to his feet, he scurried off into the darkness, leaving Natalie standing in the shadows, her sharp teeth gleaming in the moonlight as she smiled to herself. It looked like she still had one last stop before her night was over.

Whistling into the breeze, she waited as the wind picked up the notes, carrying them beyond the stable door. The air seemed to shimmer with their presence before the soft clopping of hooves on the cobbles sounded and they dissipated like fog.

A ghostly nose poked its way in the door, a rather large body following behind. Walking up to Natalie, the stallion nosed for sugar cubes and, finding none, huffed as he butted his head against her stomach. Chuckling quietly, Natalie ran her fingers through his mane, her ears swiveling toward the night’s sounds even as Baerute’s own did.

“Up for one last stop?”

Baerute wuffled acquiesce and Natalie swung up, settling herself behind his prominent withers. Adjusting her seat, she shifted her weight forward, pressure from her inside leg directing Baerute.

They sifted seamlessly through the shifting shadows of the countryside, rider and horse moving as one. The moon filtered through the trees, lighting the pair with pearl like opalescence and lending a transient glow to the forest.

The house she sought was at the far end of town. It sat at the end of a barely used dirt road, ill lit and overgrown with weeds. But the weeds aided in her purpose, the leaves muffling the footfalls of her mount’s hooves as she approached the paint chipped front door with its wind chime spinning in the breeze.

Dismounting, she checked the street one last time to assure herself of its barrenness before slipping around the corner. She knew Artemis slept with his bedroom window open, so it was easy enough to find and enter with a bit of rope and some acrobatic skill.

Little moonlight penetrated the dirt and grime encrusted windows, as the house-faced northeast. Natalie was forced to wait for her eyes to begin adjusting to the dank interior before carefully sneaking her way along the wall toward where the bed and her objective lay. She was but two feet from its rickety base when she felt the prick of a dagger in the middle of her back and froze.

“I thought for sure old T had been pulling my leg when he tipped me off to your plans. Thought he wanted more money. But I took precautions just incase. You disappoint me, Natalie.”

“T, was it?” Natalie lifted her hands into the air in surrender as she turned her head to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of Artemis’s large girth.

“And after I taught you so much.” Natalie could see Artemis was holding the dagger in the arm he’d injured last week. He had probably been packing up when she surprised him by showing. She’d better be quick.

Without a hint to her plans, she whipped around, grinding her elbow into Artemis’s wound. With a yell of pain, he dropped the dagger onto the hardwood floor with a clatter and backed away, fearfully clutching his throbbing arm to him.

Snatching the dagger from the floor, Natalie stared at Artemis, her eyes twin orbs of steel as she advanced. “You never could learn patience, my slippery friend. Or how to hold a weapon.”

“Y-you wouldn’t do anything rash now, think about your pay.”

Natalie sneered. “You think I need your petty pennies?” She withdrew a grimy skin-sack and threw it carelessly on the floor, watching as Artemis stared hungrily at the pennies rolling about. “You’re disgusting.”

“B-but, w-wait!” He stuttered, hastily backing away as she advanced. “This can’t be how it ends!”

“What, did you think I would never repay you for the service you did me as a child, selling me to that whorehouse?”

“I-I-”

Reaching behind her with one hand, Natalie withdrew one of the ropes she always carried in the pouch hanging from her belt.

“Tie this around your wrist.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Just do it or I may decide to kill you,” Natalie snapped, her impatience getting the better of her. If she hadn’t had to deal with this scum, she could have already been asleep in her bed.

“You mean you’re not going to kill me? Oh thank you!”

“Shut up and get on with it.” Natalie watched coldly as he tied one end of the braided rope about his wrist. “Now tie the other end about that rafter,” and she pointed to a beam above the writing desk.

Natalie almost smiled as he did as she directed. It was almost too easy. The dumb brute obviously had no idea what she had in mind or he wouldn’t comply so easily. She had counted on that.

When he had finished tying the rope to her specifications, she instructed him to do the same to his other wrist with a second rope she tossed him. Keeping her dagger ready in her hand, she stood on a stool and tied the loose end of the rope to a rafter across from the first. Artemis now stood on the desk, both arms suspended by ropes on either side.

“Goodbye, Artemis,” and she watched in enjoyment as realization finally dawned in his black beady eyes when she stepped toward the side of the desk.

“Help! Somebody help me,” he screamed, jowls quivering.

“They can’t hear you, Artie,” Natalie tsked and gave the desk a sharp nudge from the wall. There was a groaning from the beams as they took on Artemis’s substantial weight and his cries for help turned to screams of pain as his shoulders wrenched under the strain.

She stayed long enough to hear the reassuring pop as both his shoulders dislocated before boldly strolling out his front door. The street was still abandoned, and Baerute stood a few feet away, riffling through the sparse grass. She wondered how long it would take for Artemis’ lungs to fill up with fluid, maybe a couple days. Natalie grinned at the prospect.

She had barely worked up a sweat, and was quite ready for bed when she arrived at the town’s only inn. The sign creaked above as she let herself in the door to be met with catcalls.

“Hey, honey, you can come and warm my bed anytime!” a drunk by the hearth called out, gesturing rudely.

Natalie ignored him as Carte came over, giving the man a warning look he was too drunk to recognize.

“You were out later than I expected. You said it would only take you an hour, you’ve been gone for three; I’d almost thought about getting worried.”

Carte had been a rather amorous patron of hers that had done her the service of buying her bondage price from the whorehouse and setting her free. Since he hadn’t possessed one of those numerous personalities that annoyed her, she had decided to keep him around as her companion and lover. She knew he felt more for her than she could ever return, but if he were content with their arrangement, she wouldn’t be the first one to complain.

Natalie chuckled with him as they climbed the stairs to their private set of rooms. When the door was securely closed behind them, Carte waited while she poured herself a brandy before demanding an explanation.

“It appears Artemis was tipped off to my business elsewhere. I’d thought he was becoming a mite suspicious when T failed to provide proof of Jacob’s death weeks after I was supposed to have finalized the transaction.”

“He found out you had another job for T?”

Natalie gasped as the liquid seared its way down her throat and nodded. “Probably found out that I had never hired T to kill Jacob at all.”

“How did he guess?”

“T tipped him off. He told Artemis that he had been hired to kill him. But I took care of that little problem,” a satisfied smile crept over her face as walked to the window and gazed out into the night.

“Don’t tell me you went over there?” Concern written all over his face, Carte came up behind her, wrapping his arms about her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder.

“He won’t be alive enough to talk, don’t worry,” she patted his hands and took another sip from her glass.

“So what are you going to do now? The reason you got into this business has been avenged by his death, are you going to move on?”

Natalie shook her head. “It seems I have one more assignment, love.”

Carte turned her to face him, confusion in his eyes.

“T, darling. T.”