Chapter 1 continued...

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            The boy’s amulets shone even in the blackness.  The earring and ear cuff on the left ear to enhance hearing; the rings on his fingers, likely speed and strength charms; and metallic bracelets jingled off his wrists.

            Two long daggers, perpendicular to each of the boy’s arms, slashed through the ranks.  Drake followed suit, killing everyone in his path.

            Death breathed silence through the abyss.

            As the guards faded to dust, Drake flew the blade to the boy’s carotid artery, stopping short of the skin.  A second later, the boy wrenched out a gun, pointing it at Drake’s heart.

            Drake smiled.  The boy was fast, but not fast enough.  He could have killed the assassin in that second.  But he didn’t.  He was much more interested to know why a young assassin had come knocking on hell’s door.

            “Since when do assassins enter the Paris Underground?  Death wish, perhaps?” Drake mused.

            “It’s knight, you asshole.”

            Sweat gleamed off the boy’s brow, sliding down his temple to dribble across the square jaw, before becoming just another drop of water on the sewer floor.  The boy’s dread thundered in Drake’s ear through his thumping heart.  He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, with a sandy crop of sunshine on his head.  Yet he held Drake’s gaze and gun with steady eyes and hand.  Young, but well trained.

            “Move and I’ll kill you,” the boy said, cocking back the safety on the gun and pointing it closer.

            Drake didn’t bother to glance at the gun he knew it so well.  Military issue 1862 Smith & Wesson revolver; wooden grip, rare nickel finish; elite alchemic weapon of the Assassins Association.  Any bullet fired from it homed in on the intended victim, sought out the heart, and exploded.  Only three still in existence…all in the hands of the ruling family.

            “Nice Blooming Heart you have there.  You must be a Steele.”

            The boy didn’t answer so Drake decided to goad him a little.

            “Would you mind being a little quieter next time?  I don’t want my recon ruined by an inexperienced assassin.”

            The boy gave a bitter laugh.  “That’s rich.  You don’t actually expect me to believe—”

            “I killed all of those guards, didn’t I?  I’m sure we have the same goal in mind.  After all, isn’t your enemy’s enemy, your friend?”

            When the boy didn’t immediately answer, Drake smiled.  He knew he had a willing partner in wait.

            “I’m going to lower my hand.  I believe you are a gentleman and will lower your gun also.”

            Drake caught the razor blade and put it back into his pocket.  The boy didn’t move.  After a long minute, he too lowered his hand and stuck the gun in the back of his belt.

            “So let me ask again.  Are you a Steele?”

            The boy nodded.

            “My name is Drake.”

            “Ian.  Ian Steele.”

            They said nothing more and merely turned to open another door into the unknown.

            Yellow fluorescent lights lit a long corridor of white walls sparsely dotted with brown wooden doors against polished linoleum floors that branched off to unknown destinations.

            No more guards.  This was it.  Behind one of those hallways, beyond another door, the Council met, plotting to sink its claws and exert its influence on another aspect of the world.

            Chary footfalls tread across the white, immaculate strip, empty save for the lone pillar supporting the ceiling and city above.  As they neared the middle of the corridor, Drake suddenly grabbed Ian’s shoulder and pushed him behind the pillar.  Ian threw him a curious look but said nothing.  Two hundred feet from them, down the left hallway, someone had opened a door.

            Ian pulled two small throwing daggers from his boots as two sets of feet came towards them.  The delayed clicking of the approaching wooden loafer indicated a long, familiar stride.

            “Well that was a surprise,” came a voice.

            Drake caught Ian’s wrist, staying the weapon.  He’s my friend, Drake mouthed.

            “Does anyone know who she is?” the same man asked.

            Drake heard Ian’s heart skip a beat.  He glanced at Ian, who had held his breath, waiting to hear.

            “She was caught in New York,” said another.

            Ian’s hands clenched the leather weaving of the daggers and Drake tightened his grip for fear the boy would run out and expose them.

            “That’s Christoff’s jurisdiction.”

            “If I find anything else out, I’ll let you know.”

            The footsteps turned the corner and Drake held his breath and slowed his heartbeat.  Sure enough, the clicking of the wooden heels stopped a few feet from the pillar.

            “What is it, Kelley?”

            “Nothing,” Kelley replied, continuing down the hall.  “I just realized I left something in the lab downstairs.  Mind walking with me?”

            The two men disappeared down another hallway and it wasn’t until Drake heard the ping of an elevator did he feel safe to step out.  Kelley must have heard their heartbeats and likely guessed Drake had killed the guards at the front door.  To avoid any questions, Kelley had purposely taken the Council’s man back down to the basement.

            Ian put away his throwing daggers and removed the long knives he battled with before.  Anger flashed across his face.

            Tonight’s mission had taken a different turn.  But Drake didn’t mind.

            He called forth his powers.  Blood rushed through his veins and energy coursed to his hands leaving his fingers tingling.  He stretched his hearing through the corridor, past the drywall, searching for the Council, feeling for a mix of powers congregated in a single room.

            Badump…badump…  Three…five…ten…  Fifteen down the right hall.

            He grinned at Ian.

            “How about a flashy entrance?”

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*          *          *

This is a work of fiction.  The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the author is illegal.
Thank you for supporting the author's rights.

Part I: Marked

Chapter 1

            Drake ran down the spiraling stairway to the bowels of the endless tunnels of stone quarry walls and mining rubble.  Electric lights danced in the darkness, solitary sentries of wet gravel pathways leading to destroyed estates and cathedral cemeteries.  In some caverns, the water seeped through the ceilings, calcifying with the eternal residents, cementing together in a lovers’ embrace of limestone rock.  Four hours in the Paris Underground and those ghosts among the fecund matter and stench of decay were his only company.

            Tourists never saw this section of the Underground.  They saw only a road to a history of death, contamination, and the human will to find order sparsely displayed in paved floors, reinforced cement for weakening Roman arches, and buttressed supports among turning tunnels.  Even the Parisian residents who lived above this rot stayed innocent and ignorant.  They drank their coffee with long drags of their cigarettes, not knowing the catacombs connected to the sewers, which connected to the Council headquarters.  They didn’t know that a gentle 1,300-mile river of human waste and putrid smells, sandstone and maintenance pipes, complete with signs that mirrored the streets above, led to those who truly controlled the City of Lights.

            But he knew. 

            Something sinister stirred for the Council to call an emergency meeting, requiring all five of its governing members to fly in from across the globe.  Something important had happened.  Or was about to.

            What could they possibly discuss except more novel political decisions to quench an insatiable quest for power that could extinguish the fragile lives of the people who would have nothing left but torched towns, ruined homes, and orphaned children fleeing the devastation left behind from war?

            A bitter void expanded through Drake, threatening to swallow his rationale.  He would never let another war overtake the continents.  It didn’t matter how many he had to kill.

            Dim, winding channels blended into cavities darker than black.  Where had the Council hidden the entrance to the site?

            Suddenly, he stilled.  The feeling was faint, but tangible.  Drake stepped silently towards the feeling and after five minutes, stopped again.  It grew stronger.  Two of them.  He gauged they were lower-levels.

            He focused his eyes through the veiled torpid thickness.  It took a second for his sight to adjust, but he saw them standing there in black suits, guarding the front of a black, wrought-iron gate with bars wide enough to let water through.  No lock hung on the open gate.  It likely had a lot of regular traffic.

            Two more men in black suits and ties walked by the gate, patrolling the dank hallway.

            He had only one shot—that short split second when all four stood within close range in front of the gate.  He watched the men walk back and forth, gauging the length of time it took for them to cross each other’s paths.

            Drake slipped his hand into his pocket, pulling out a small razor blade between two fingers.  Just as the two patrols intersected, Drake shot out his hand.

            The razor flew at the guards, slicing the path his hand instructed.  The blade cut from left to right though the first patrol’s neck, making a sharp left turn to carve through the throat of the right sentry, then the left.  Drake pulled his hand back, the power in his blood calling the razor, to careen around and sever the esophagus of the last patrol.

            Drake caught the razor in his fingers and waited.  The guards stood still for a few seconds before they crumpled to the floor, their bodies slowly disappearing in different colors of crystalline light.  He shook the blood from the small weapon and slid it back into his pocket, fingers tracing the blade, admiring its sharp edge without feeling its bite.

            He continued through the sewers along the edge of the flowing wastewater ravine, heart calm despite his increasing proximity to the Council.  Discovery waited.  His imagination logged dozens of reasons for tonight’s emergency meeting.  Perhaps they discovered a traitor in their midst.  Or they were arguing over territory jurisdiction.  Maybe they tired of peace and wanted to start another War of Awakening.

            The Council never surprised him, with its ambition that hid itself behind bureaucracy, that chain of command that claimed to represent those of the same blood, spreading its control through every aspect of human life.  A cancer.

            He edged around a bend.  He couldn’t see them, but he felt them.  Dozens.  This had to be a major artery to where the Council met.

            “Who’s there?” someone asked.

            Before Drake could wonder how the guards could have heard him, a faint metallic scent wafted to his nostrils.

            Blood.

            It was too late.  He would have to kill them all.

            Drake rushed down the dark hallway.  The razor left his fingertips, slicing across the throat of a guard several feet away just as he rammed his hand into an enemy’s chest, ripping through the thin fabric of the shirt, tearing into the flesh, with ribs giving way under the onslaught, breaking and cracking from the sternum.  His hand closed around the pulsating organ, fingers pressing against arteries.  He squeezed and wrenched it out in a stream of blood.

            He tossed the heart away with one hand and guided the razor with the other.  It sped in trails of white light, the small blade carving through the enemies’ flesh in rivulets of blood.

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            And all the while, his eyes followed the lone attacker who had started it all.  A boy.  An assassin.

This is a work of fiction.  The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the author is illegal.
Thank you for supporting the author's rights.