Authors: Dawn McCullough-White

Tags: #General Fiction

Cameo the Assassin (23 page)

She turned and found Black Opal and Kyrian with pistols pressed against their backs. The expression on Opal’s face seemed almost numb. Perhaps he was expecting that their days in the sun had run their course.

“You left the girl behind,” Cameo said flatly. The pain at the base of her skull was beginning to subside, but she wondered how long it might’ve lasted if she had been merely human. She thought briefly on the knock to the back of the head that Opal had taken when he fought Gail. Obviously he was a bit more stoic than she had given him credit for.

“Girl?” Wick muttered, intent in getting the tobacco from its pouch into her pipe. “Little Lady Vanvinck? She was here. When I discovered her identity, we made certain the Duke’s, I mean King Avamore’s guard took her straight home.”

Cameo hadn’t realized just how connected to the king Lorelei had been. She wondered if Opal knew...then she wondered why he hadn’t told her if he did know.

“Tsk, tsk, can’t have the nobility involved in things like this,” the witch said as she lit her pipe. “Can we?”

“The King of Shandow is now the King of all Sieunes?” Opal spoke out of turn.

Wick signaled for one of the assassins to remind him who was in charge. Veth happily obliged by kneeing him in the kidney. This sent Opal to the floor, then he was scraped back up and forced to stand just as he had been a moment earlier.

Cameo flinched, and Wick saw it.

“Yes. Avamore is the new king,” Wick said nonchalantly. “Much easier on the eyes than his brother was, at any rate.”

“What do you want from me?” Cameo said.

“Politics too boring for you, assassin?” Wick chuckled. “Well, leave it to Black Opal to find interest in the King of Shandow.”

He met her eyes, defeated.

She smiled at him. “Yes, Black Opal always was interested in politics.”

He opened his mouth as if to speak but Wick stopped him with the wave of her hand.

“Don’t tire me. I’ve heard you speak before, Opal...many times,” she said cryptically. “I’m too old to listen to you pull out your soapbox now. Open your mouth one more time, and I’ll have you beaten half to death, then I’ll hand you over to Avamore myself for the bounty.”

Cameo looked at Opal, wondering what the old woman was going on about.

Black Opal lifted his chin. He pursed his mouth indignantly.

“
Black Opal
,” she mocked. “Where did you come up with that one?”

Cameo raised an eyebrow after witnessing the little exchange.

Pindray, Wick’s secretary, appeared with a decanter and several glasses and set them down on her antique desk with much care.

The old woman motioned toward Cameo.

“A glass, Cameo?” Pindray offered.

She took the brandy glass and drank it down. “Another.”

Pindray sneered as he watched her pour the drink down her gullet and ask for seconds. “Certainly, have as much as you would like.”

Cameo polished off the second one neatly. It was a very good brandy.

Wick also seemed delighted that she had chosen to imbibe.

There was definitely some sort of poison in it, but she shook it off as she felt the liquid burn her throat. “Why did you bring me here? Are you collecting bounty?”

The witch and her secretary watched Cameo from behind the desk silently until Wick nudged Pindray.

“More?” He offered her another glass. “We also have cake.”

“Why don’t you just hand me the bottle of poison?” Cameo hissed.

A cup of liquid hit her in the face suddenly, and she rose, angrily wiping her clothes.

The cup itself rolled over toward the prisoners and came to rest at Kyrian’s feet. On one side of the container was the symbol of the rising sun.

“Holy water?” Kyrian murmured.

“Edel was right,” Cameo said to herself. All those years she thought that Wick really knew something about witchcraft, about her being a zombie...she had no idea who Cameo was. She didn’t know as much as Cameo did about the supernatural. She had given her too much credit, given her too much power for far too long.

One of the assassins hit Kyrian in the head, and for a split second she saw a trickle of blood before she moved Kyrian out of the way and turned the pistol on that assassin.

There was a pistol shot; it seemed to bellow ten-fold in the small space, and Rance slumped against the door.

Veth, who was caught off guard by her supernatural speed, aimed his pistol at her as soon as he realized she was standing next to him.

She grabbed the barrel of the gun and pushed it from her as he pulled the trigger.

On the other side of the room, the ball caught Pindray in the chest and he collapsed, spraying the wall behind him in blood and gore.

Opal hit Veth in the back with a dagger.

Cameo jerked the dagger free before Veth was able to touch it.

Wick hefted her girth over Pindray’s wrecked form and made a dash for the back door that led to her bedroom.

Cameo was suddenly standing in front of her.

Wick staggered backward and looked down at the Cameo’s bloody fist pressed against her stomach. The dagger had entered with such astonishing speed that she didn’t feel it until she was looking at the hilt.

The expression on the assassin’s face was stern.

“Free of you,” Cameo uttered bitterly as she jerked the blade free and let the woman fall.

Wick’s body hit the floor with a dull thud, then Cameo turned to Opal, “Politics?” she began, intrigued.

Black Opal removed a rapier from one young assassin and tested it’s balance. “You came to his defense and not mine?”

Kyrian staggered into her, dazed.

“Kyrian? Are you all right?”

He put a hand to a gash on his forehead that was bleeding into his eye.

“It doesn’t look too bad.” Opal handed her a rapier and Kyrian a handkerchief, “It’s just going to bleed a lot.”

“I’m fine,” he sulked. He glanced over at the corner of the room toward the men, now lying bloodied and dead.

Cameo swung the rapier a couple times. It wasn’t her favorite weapon, but it would do. Opal was busily going through Pindray’s pockets.

“Politics?” she said, leaning in.

He met her eyes. “I think she most likely had me confused with someone else.”

“Oh, I see.”

He fixed his jacket. “And just why didn’t you come to my defense anyhow? Why, why his?”

She looked over at Kyrian who was wiping blood out of his eye. “That’s a rather sarcastic tone. Has it been such a hardship traveling with Kyrian?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You are terrible at avoiding questions.”

“You have blood on your face.”

“So do you.”

“Well, I...” She glanced down at Wick’s dead body. The floor was littered with the slain bodies of her enemies, their blood pooled here and there. It was a gruesome sight. Cameo looked over at Opal again, his interest was still piqued. He was still waiting attentively on her reply, looking incredibly handsome and jealous. She wiped a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth, and then without warning she leaned in and kissed him. A light, gentle kiss.

Opal pulled her closer into a deeper kiss.

“Uh... what was I saying?” She pulled away.

“Somewhat exhilarating in here,” he said.

“You like my dark little world?”

He smiled mischievously. “You know that I think you’re wonderful.”

Kyrian grumbled in disapproval as he leaned up against a wall. The bodies of the two dead assassins were right in front of him, their eyes staring out of dead sockets, and the pair of them just lying there pale and lifeless.

Cameo glanced over at Kyrian with a sudden realization that he was in the room, then turned back to Opal, smiling. “You smell good.”

“Thank you,” he breathed as they parted.

She grinned at him.

There was a shade standing in the doorway, and as she stepped over the bodies, it moved down the corridor with the same stride as a human.

She wandered down the black hallway behind it. Cameo assumed the passage would be full of assassins curious about the pistol shot in Wick’s office, but it was empty.

The shade was soon at the front doorway, insisting that she exit there.

Cameo glanced back at Opal and Kyrian cautiously, then flung the large door open and found Haffef standing there.

“Master?”

He rested on his cane, his long raven tresses fell over his shoulders and touched the wet ground just outside the tower. There were several dead assassins lying at his feet.

His cold, black eyes met hers. “There is something I want you to do....”

END

About the author

Dawn McCullough White
grew up a keen observer of people. She spent her childhood listening to her father tell stories about history and ghosts. This left an indelible mark on her psyche. At the age of fourteen she penned her first novel and has never looked back since. In her spare time she enjoys watching documentaries on history, and playing Super Hero Squad with her son. Dawn lives in Rochester, NY with her husband and son.

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Novels

Author of Dark Fantasy series the
"Trilogy of Shadows"

Cameo the Assassin

Cameo and the Highwayman

Cameo and the Vampire

Coming Soon

The Emblazoned Red

Short stories

"The Ghastly Bath"
The Gate 2: 13 Tales of Isolation and Despair

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