The Young Lady is a Reborn Assassin

It was early the next morning, and the working day was only just beginning across the city. Stores were opening, factory workers were migrating, and the streets were jammed full of people trying to get where they needed to go. It was a brisk and chilly day – and there were several workmen carrying boxes to and fro in front of Cedric’s main office building.

The tragedy of the attack at the funeral was the big topic on everyone’s lips. Even as I pushed my way past the men out front and approached a set of metal steps at the side of the warehouse I could hear them speaking openly about it. Adrian and Max followed me with guilty hunches weighing them down.

Nobody saw fit to stop us as we ploughed through the door and entered onto the office floor. A dozen paper pushers kept their heads down and focused on their desks while we weaved our way through to the room where Cedric liked to work during the day. It was a large room surrounded by frosted glass, hanging over the edge of the balcony and looking out onto the main floor.

The door was already open for us. Cedric was nose-deep in a ledger of his own when we arrived like a tidal wave.

“Adrian?”

I didn’t stop moving for even a second. I marched up to the desk, slammed the book shut, and grabbed the ruffled collar of his white dress shirt, dragging him down onto his hands and knees and pummelling his head against the back wall with a quick and vicious kick. He clutched the welt on his forehead and tried to protect himself from any further attacks.

“Maria!”

“You said you wanted me to handle this. So sit there and shut up.”

I let the mask slip for a brief moment, but it was all too revealing. That was not the voice of a calm and refined noble lady – but of a person who was here with a single-minded intent to make this mule squeal for all that he was worth. I emphasised each word to make sure he heard me.

“You are going to tell us who is sending those assassins into Church Walk. I want names, I want to know where we can find them, and I want to know your involvement in all of this. Do you understand?”

“W-What in the Goddess’ name are you talking about?”

I was really sick of people playing dumb. I hit him again with an overhead punch. He clutched the back of his skull and tried to scramble away into the corner. Adrian and Maxwell hurried to the door and ensured it was locked from the inside.

“Have you not indulged in their support? A group of merciless killers, ready and willing to commit crime after crime in your name. We are already well aware of your involvement.”

We weren’t – I was bluffing.

Cedric was a straightforward type of asshole. It was obvious what his intentions and goals were, and the direction of the ‘narrative’ had me on firm footing when it came to accusing him of being the one who leaked information about the watch.

“Monarchists working in concert with you in exchange for information, and now for the sake of your project in Church Walk. It must have come as a profound disappointment when Adrian was not killed by those cultists back then.”

He finally caught on to what we were doing. His eyes snapped to Adrian, who was standing stiffly at the other side of the office and observing with fear on his face.

“Is this... is this about that bloody watch?”

“Not the watch. Pay attention.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that watch, or how it got stolen!”

Adrian cut him off, “You were the only other person who knew about it, and what it could do. I suppose it was all a bloody coincidence that a monarchist group swooped in to steal it the first chance they could. You’ve been calling in favours for the past year.”

Cedric got the impression that his denials were not going to avail him. He was backed up into the corner, both physically and emotionally, and his pleas for mercy were not going to get him out of it.

I smiled, “You have nought to lose by telling me the truth. This confrontation can end, and you will be none the worse for wear.”

“Naught to lose? Don’t make me laugh. I’m not compromising my plan to better this city just to appease Adrian’s misplaced paranoia. I will do what’s right!”

Adrian squawked, “Better the city? Do what’s right? You’ve turned the bloody place into a warzone! What do you call what happened yesterday?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with- urk!”

He gasped and coughed up a strand of spittle onto the floor as the tip of my leather boot met his ribcage. I knelt down and pulled back on his hair, forcing him to face me eye-to-eye.

“You are not fooling anyone, Cedric. I would highly advise that you cease these idiotic games, lest I lose my patience and throw your lifeless carcass out of the nearest window.”

I pushed him down and kept my foot on the back of his neck. He coughed the phlegm from his throat and shook his head. He was probably being sent for a loop by what was happening. A thirteen-year-old girl was kicking him around like an experienced protection racketeer.

Adrian got back on topic, “Yesterday. What was that?”

Cedric’s breathing became heavier. He continued to shake his head and sweat, trying desperately to delay for time so that he wouldn’t have to make a definitive statement on what was going on. I pressed harder and made it clear that such tactics were not helpful.

“I didn’t have anything to do with it! Honest! I didn’t tell them to do that!”

“So you do know who they are?”

“N-Not exactly,” Cedric rasped, “I don’t know who the gunmen are – but I know who keeps sending them down there. Gerard Verner Welt, he’s the one who relays the information between us!”

“The MP?” I asked.

“That’s right, the one who sits with the Restoration Party!”

“Is he the one in charge?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t.”

I backed away and gave him some space to breathe. He clutched his chest and staggered back to his chair so that he could keep his legs from shaking. He leaned against the desk and glared daggers at me.

“I never told them to do any of this. All he said was that he wanted to help me with the redevelopment, and I had no reason to refuse. Next thing I know – he’s sending armed lunatics into the streets to try and kill every gang member they find.”

“What does he get out of it?”

“I don’t believe he cares about what happens to the gangs. I have no idea.”

I suspected that the ‘benefit’ of deploying these assassins was not tangible or economic. The very act of dispatching them to complete a mission would provide their handlers with a wealth of information about how they operated away from watchful eyes. They were super soldiers. They were intended to be replicated and deployed wherever there was a war to be fought.

Monarchists subscribed to an idealist vision of Walser. Cedric was somewhat mistaken in his assertion that Welt didn’t care about what happened to Church Walk. It was reasonable to say that he saw it as just as much of an eyesore as he did, a glowing monument to all of society’s ills and mistakes, and all of those roads led back to one event – the Compromise that removed the Van Walser family from total power.

In his sterling, unblemished Walser, there would be no Church Walk. Miscreants and criminals would be executed where they stood or locked away for their whole lives. Citizens would be indoctrinated from birth to have an unblinking faith in the values of the nation, to be obedient and listless and unquestioning no matter the circumstance.

The kid at the graveyard said as much.

It was a dark preview of what might happen should I ignore the scheme. Normalized political violence would quickly spiral out of control. Everyone would become a justifiable target and chaos would take over.  

“What in the hell are you planning to do, Adrian?” he barked, “You have a bloody death wish wanting to mess with them! Do you have any idea how powerful they are? Even I’m nothing more than another piece for them to play with in these stupid games!”

“Fortunately, I did not inherit your same sense of cowardice,” he bit back, “There is only one man to blame for your situation – and that is yourself. You’ve kept their company for a reason, and now that you stand to lose it all, you try to act like a hapless victim.”

Harsh, but true. Cedric was outraged by his nephew’s words.

“The only thing you’ve learnt from my brother is how to throw pointed words! I can’t think of a worse person to lead our family business into the future. You lack good sense and manners, and the intelligence and ruthlessness that it demands.”

“I’m not the one grovelling on my hands and knees. I’m not the one at the mercy of a group of murderers!”

Cedric moved past the desk as if to confront him physically, but his ire was just as readily turned in my direction.

“And you! What has your Father been teaching you? I’ve never seen a girl of your good breeding act in such a violent manner. I have half a mind to report you to the police.”

I laughed in that typically obnoxious ‘Maria’ manner. Cedric’s shoulders stiffened at the clarion tone of my mirth.

“I don’t believe you will, Sir Roderro. I’m sure that you understand full well that the men you have entangled yourself with have eyes and ears everywhere. Infiltrating the police would be an easy task for them, and if they fear that you have been compromised in some way...”

Cedric’s pupils dilated in shock.

“...Well, let’s err on the side of caution and say that you won’t be troubling them for much longer after that.”

“You can’t... that’s not!”

Cedric looked to each corner of the room in search of comfort. Max and Adrian weren’t going to offer him any, nor could he run out of the office and call for help without looking the fool. The mere act of speaking was so risky that he couldn’t even reveal that I’d threatened him in this way. His brow furrowed and his skin shimmered with sweat. A cold panic was setting in.

“You can’t do this to me. I’ll report you! You’ll be branded as a disgrace to your family! Your old man will have to take on a new wife and have another child!”

I was not in the mood to stand here and listen to his hysterical pleas. I glared at him with all of my malice and silenced him.

“What do you not understand about this? If you speak out of turn, your friends will dispose of you. If you try to speak anyway and somehow avoid that outcome...”

I pulled open my coat and revealed the holstered gun by my side.

“...Then I will kill you myself.”

I released it and allowed the fold to fall back into place. Cedric was stunned, not only by the firearm that was attached to my side but also by the clear and present threat I was making to him.

“You will say nothing,” I ordered, “You will say nothing and do nothing. You can waste all the time on your redevelopment project that you please, but this is the end of your involvement in proceedings. No more gimmicks, no more tomfoolery, no more trying to kill your nephew. Do you understand?”

“You can’t do this.”

“And what do you suppose that you can do? Will you find that long-since abandoned sense of shame and do the righteous thing? Will you speak out and allow your life to be ended for the sake of revealing the truth? Or will you sit here in this office and keep doing what you’ve always chosen to do?”

I walked past him and to the window that looked out across the warehouse floor, where two dozen of his employees were loading up carts to begin their business for the day.

“I’m doing you a favour.”

“How?”

“This is not a battle that you can win. You have no allies, no means, and no influence. The moment you gave them control over the field of play was the moment that you became a non-factor. They can throw you beneath the churning wheels and deliver you a lovely, solitary cell right next to your brother’s. The only thing I’m asking you to do – is nothing at all.”

I turned back on him and put my hand on his shoulder, “Manage your business, make your money, and go home and sleep in your warm bed. All you have to do is nothing, but I have come to discover that asking someone to do nothing is often asking for too much. Can you stem your ambition for even a short time?”

I released him and moved back to Adrian and Max’s side. Cedric was unable to formulate a coherent reply to what I was saying. There was a truth in it that even he could not deny. He did not have the leverage he needed to pull a fast one on Verner Welt.

“You’re going to get killed,” he murmured, “I meant what I said. You don’t have the instinct for this kind of thing, Adrian.”

Adrian shrugged, “Neither do you.”

---

Veronica had to work through her personal channels to make the interrogation happen. It was clear that both WISA and the military were compromised, and a wide-reaching conspiracy was emerging that threatened to rob them of their ability to resist. She couldn’t rely on the other agents or utilise the resources that the agency afforded her.

Luckily, she was paranoid enough to maintain a network of contacts that allowed her to work without going through WISA or her handlers. There were plenty of secure cellars located throughout the city that were unoccupied. Agreement and payment with an old friend meant she could haul her new suspect into a storage basement, chain him down to a chair, and keep him there until he squealed like a bird.

That would be her ideal outcome, but the elevated levels of aggression displayed by the subject meant that pressing him for information was off of the table. He was in no mood to speak with the likes of her.

‘Elevated levels of aggression’ felt like a mockery of the madness she saw in his eyes the day before. He snarled and ground his teeth, eyes leering, bulging out of their sockets, with angry red veins running across their yellowed surface. Veronica feared that he would bite off his own tongue in his fury and kill himself by accident.

Getting any answers out of him was impossible. All of her questions were ignored as he struggled to try and free himself from the heavy metal restraints that covered his body. Most notable of all was a pair of mittens that covered both hands and connected behind his back. These restraints were designed to counter magic. Using a concussive blast to try and remove them would result in the blowback severely injuring him.

As the hours went by her anxiety about the assassin figuring out how to escape lessened. He made a big show of pushing against the chains that tied him down, but he wasn’t strong enough on his own to break through them. Even if he could – the anti-mage gloves would keep him from doing damage to the room he was locked in.

The problem was the same – he couldn’t even talk if he wanted to.

The blood leaking down the front of his chest, from what should have been a series of deadly gunshot wounds, matched the profile of what was found outside of the morgue and on the body of the first killer in Church Walk. Separate but united, a mixture of human blood and what appeared to be a thick, oil-like substance.

That was the hyper-conductive demon’s blood that was stolen from the corpse created by her daughter. Not only did it contain huge quantities of raw energy, but it also allowed the user’s natural energy to flow through the body at an accelerated pace. This could create explosive and devastating spells that would be impossible otherwise.

That blood also congealed at a supernatural rate. Whatever it was doing, it ensured that the assassins transfused were capable of surviving two dozen gunshot wounds to the chest, sealing up the injuries and keeping their organs from rupturing.

She hoped that a long night spent in a cold, dark, miserable cellar would be the medicine he needed to come back around and start speaking again. The lack of noise she could hear from behind the heavy doors promised either that or an abject failure with a newly dead body.

Veronica unlocked the door and pulled it open. Light flooded into the room and stirred the dazed assassin from his stupor. All of the rage that filled his body the day before was now gone. Veronica maintained a position of control by theatrically walking into the space with her hands held close to her back. Framing was everything.

“Good morning, sir. I hope you had a restful night.”

Veronica took long, harsh steps that made a lot of noise on the stone floor. Each one sounded like a gunshot and caused the man to jolt in his seat. She circled him three times exactly before stopping in his field of view and removing her hat.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

There was no response. He remained steadfast in his silence.

“Can you speak?”

Veronica studied his features carefully. He was around forty years of age, with a pair of bushy brows and a natural frown. His skin was extraordinarily pale - in line with witness statements about the other killers he worked in concert with.

He jostled against his binds again – but without the same level of energy or aggression she witnessed the previous day. He then snapped back to reality and shook his head. He inhaled with a harsh gasp and then slumped over.

Veronica tortured people from time to time, at least until the head office issued an edict saying that it wasn’t that effective and agents had to restrain themselves from doing it. It wasn’t going to be effective against him anyway. She needed another angle of approach to make him speak, and she could roll on from there.

She took the chair from the corner of the room and placed it in front of him, making a deliberate show of getting down to his level and meeting his eyes.

“Can I have your name?”

He inhaled with a rasp, his eyes darting back and forth. He held that breath for some time before releasing it again. His entire body shivered. He was all raw nerves; exposed sensitivities and prickling needles. Veronica allowed the question to hang in the air for however long it took to get an answer.

“Michael.”

It was so quiet that she almost missed it.

“Michael,” she repeated, “Can you tell me what happened yesterday? What you did?”

Again, another long silence.

“I don’t recall.”

“Do you remember how you felt? Do you remember feeling angry?”

He nodded.

“Why were you angry, Michael?”

“No home, no job...”

Veronica maintained an even expression as she started to chip away at the layers in front of her. She was intentionally starting with more personal questions whilst repeating his name as often as she could to elicit an emotional response.

“Has this been the case for a long time?”

“Three years.”

A homeless man with no job and no address. They were often the target of predatory criminals of all stripes. If the people organizing the killings were trying to find a good scapegoat to experiment on it was likely that they saw Michael as the ideal subject. Nobody would be reporting his disappearance to the police.

It posed a new problem for her thesis of the case. Working-class people were less likely to strongly support Monarchist causes. They had more faith in Parliament and the concepts that it represented. It would have been tough to select a monarchy-sympathizing homeless man who felt strongly enough to kill. His behaviour suggested that his mental acuities were being manipulated in some way. He was in a blind rage during the shootout, but now he was completely listless.

“You attacked a funeral that was happening by the old Sara Monastery. Do you know the names of the two people who accompanied you?”

Veronica chastised herself. That was too complicated for him to answer. He shook his head.

“Okay. Do you remember anything at all about who took you and what happened afterwards?”

Events prior to the shootout were on more solid footing in his memory.

“They said they’d pay me if I went with ‘em. Some strangers, they approached me on the corner, said they’d pay me. They never did. They threw a bag over my head and hauled me off. After that...”

“They injected you with various substances.”

“Aye. I think that’s what happened. They were at it for a long time. Weeks. It... hurt a lot. Hurt real bad. Then they’d send us out to do stuff and pump us full with even more shit. I don’t remember what happened after that...”

Veronica had to strain her ears to even hear what he was saying. His voice was hoarse from shouting and screaming for so long, and his body was sapped of strength after being severely injured during the fight. Monetary, psychological and drug-based manipulation – they were going all out to ensure that their assassins were as compliant as they could be.

That would be expensive and time-consuming. A steady supply of hallucinogens didn’t appear out of thin air. Veronica had tangled with every drug-smuggling gang around, but they traded in low-grade swill that was more likely to kill the user than give them a real high. They had a source she wasn’t familiar with.

“What instructions did they give you?”

The question caused a significant pause in his testimony. He squinted his eyes, closed them, and licked his dry lips in an attempt to summon forth the memory that teased the tip of his tongue.

“I don’t... I don’t recall exactly. They said something about white rags?”

“The Church Street Gang. Do you have any experience with them?”

“No, no. Not the likes of me. I stayed well away from Church Walk. Too dangerous. I suppose that’s what they meant when they said white rags then. They repeated that a lot. It got stuck in my head.”

He was almost fully coaxed out of his emotional shell now, but it wouldn’t be long before the withdrawal symptoms set in. That would be the end of his helpful testimony, so Veronica had to make her questions count before she handed him off to someone at the head office.

It sounded as if the puppet masters were utilising drugs and repetition to condition the assassins. They would give them a simple set of orders and then set them loose in a particular area of the city to see what they could do. There was also the possibility that some of them were willing participants in the scheme.

Veronica tried to fill in the blanks about how many assassins there were, how many were willing members of the group, and how the demon’s blood was obtained and smuggled to where they were located – but a combination of their secrecy and Michael’s memory loss meant that he was already running low on helpful details.

An hour of questioning had gone by. Veronica stood back up from the chair and pushed it back into the corner.

“I appreciate your candour. I’ll move you out of here in a moment.”

Michael slumped over in his chair and closed his eyes. Even speaking to another person briefly was exhausting. Veronica left the cellar and ascended the stairs, where her contact was still waiting.

“Did it go well?”

“Mostly. Let’s get him to the office and hand him off. I’ve got some new leads to follow.”

The contact sighed; “I’ll bring the cart back around.”