Friday, June 16, 2006

Two Bloody Rings

Dara fiddled with the golden ring in her ear. She was beginning to grow impatient. They should have arrived by now, she thought, settling deeper into the shadows of the tree's branches. The young assassin checked her knives to be sure they were all in place. She could use guns, but they were too loud and cumbersome. Better to use knives. Just as Dara grasped the hilt of her belt knife, she caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye. Making sure she was properly concealed, she waited. A man emerged from the shadows. He was well dressed and obviously extremely wealthy. Jewels and rings adorned every finger, but it was the two gold earrings that attracted her attention. They were her main prize in this venture. The rings marked that thins man had brought about the end of two major mob bosses. Dara had only destroyed one, in a remote Russian town. She nearly chuckled. They never found his body. Mr. Grade must be extremely stupid, Dara thought as she watched the events from her perch, No one in their right mind would wear that much jewlery to a secret meeting in the woods. Then again, Grade thought the forest was full of his hitmen and bodyguards. Dara did smile at that thought. She had dispatched them hours ago. Her satisfied smile vanished as another man joined the scene unfolding below the assassin's watchful eyes. Now the fun begins, Dara laughed in her head. The seconds man wore all black clothing and had a dark scarf wrapped around his head, concealing his facial features. He was not taking any chances. Grade nodded to the man as a sign of recogition. The man did not nod back. The leader of a very successful mob, Grade did not take insults lightly. " Why the scarf?" Grade questioned, suspiciously. " We're all friends here." " The scarf is for your own safety, Mr. Grade," the man hissed, his voice unusually hushed. " There are those who would not grieve to see me gone." " I understand," Grade sighed after a momentary pause. " I am in a similar situation." " Then you will not mind if we go straight to our business here?" " Not at all." The man in black tossed a sack of gold coins into the center of the clearing. Mr. Grade cast greedy eyes upon the coins, but did not move. He was smarter than that. " You once employed three well known arsons and hitmen who once burned a house and its occupants on the orders of another employer. Thisbag of gold is yours if you can give me their real names. I will know if you are lying. I have another bag of gold if you can provide me with their current location." " I would be glad to give you their names, if what you plan to do when you find them is not pleasant?" " It's not." " Good. They failed me and lost quite a bit of my money. Their names were Lenny Jacobs, Nathan Slicks,and Charles...what was his last name? hmmm..... Oh, yes! That's right! Johnson, Charles Johnson." Dara's blood boiled as she mentally noted the names of her next three victims. The man in black nodded as Grade listed the names. He was taking note too. " And their current location, Mr. Grade?" " I'll need to see that extra gold first, sir." Clever, Dar though as she silently slipped from one tree to another, causing no more disturbance than a slight breeze. Eventually she posiotioned herself so that she was crouched high in the branches directly above Grade. If the mob boss noticed anything, he did not show it. He was too consumed by the second bag of gold the other man had thrown down. " Last I heard they were in New York City somewhere." The black clad man stared at Grade and then nodded. Her believed the jewel covered man to be telling the truth. Dara had heard enough. Before Grade could take a single step toward the treasure, Dara drew the blade from her belt and dropped from her position in the tree to one behind Grade. He heard he fall behind him, but he did not have time to turn. Her knife was all ready buried in his throat. Bloood squirted from the wound, painting his jewelry a shimmering red. He choked, blod dripping from his mouth. Then he staggered and fell face-first onto his precious pile of gold. Ignoring the other man, Dara rolled Grade's dead body off the gold and yanked her knife from his throat. Sheathing the larger knife, she pulled a smaller one from her belt and began working to cut the rings from his ear. " You did a good job," she said to the other man, who had removed the scarf. He was young: Eighteen, nineteen maybe. Silvery, blond hair hung in his eyes, giving him an extremely reckless appearence. His two canine teeth had been replaced by silver snake-like fangs. He loved to baffle the investigators by leaving what appeared to be a snake bite in his victims' throats. Dara called him Dracula. He called her Phoen, short for phoenix. She was the girl who has risen from the ashes of her past, after all. " You really think so, Phoen?" he chuckled. " I think I was just the bait." " No the money was the bait," she panted as she pulled the rings from the corpse's ear. " You, Dracula, were the bait's keeper." " Never lost your sense of humor." He shook his head, smiling. " Where do you want to dispose of the bodies? I'm assuming there is more than one?" " Of course. There's an old land fill nearby that's about to be filled in anyway. We can dunp the bodies in there. They won't be found for weeks and by then we'll be gone." Dracula smiled. Dara smiled too, as she stabbed the bloody rings through her ear. Her long-waited-for revenge was almost at an end.

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