Accidents Shouldn't Happen (Awbri)

He looked short from a distance. Rugged, Cadenza would call him, as he wore neither shoes nor shirt. His hair hung down in coal black spirals and tickled the back of his neck, and two impressive swords swayed back and forth in a hilt by his waist. She found herself wondering what the young man looked like from the front. What someone like him was doing in the small port town of Bellavista. But then again, one would be led to wonder what the gypsy was doing in Bellavista herself.

She was here for a man, but not the attractive one that had passed her on the street. And not in that sense either. This man worked at the Rubato embassy in Bellavista. He held the top diplomatic position of that establishment, and enjoyed using, and abusing, all of the power that job offered. He was the ambassador.

Scipio Ciatore strutted down the newly paved walkway to the embassy, precious briefcase in hand, returning from his lengthy lunch break. As she watched from the street corner, Cadenza spat in disgust at the way the man carried himself. While she was a liar and a thief herself, she was a gypsy. This man was an ambassador, meant to represent his country with honor and dignity, and yet he was just as dishonest, if not more. The very sight of him made her stomach turn. And the contents of that briefcase, and the manner in which he had obtained them… that could only be described as unspeakable. Unforgivable. If there hadn’t been so many witnesses, if this assignment didn’t have to be pulled off in such a covert manner, Cadenza would have dropped Ciatore where he stood, arrow pierced through his heart.

She followed him to the embassy, as casually as possible, stopping along the way to glance in store windows and speak with street vendors. Cadenza wanted this plan to go off without a hitch, and that meant she had to be as unsuspicious as possible. She would masquerade as a tourist.

Her quiver was cleverly disguised as a backpack, her dagger hidden inside along with her arrows. Her bow was wrapped in a hefty sleeping bag, and lay horizontally across the top of the “backpack.” Her scowl, however, was harder to conceal. Every thought of her mission, and of Ciatore, brought it back to her face.

Vivace had communicated to her the importance of maintaining a low-profile over and over again. Her other sisters were doing their parts, and she needed to do hers. She was the most stealthy of them all, the one with the most fighting experience. And, even if Vivace would never openly admit it, Cadenza was the most expendable. She wasn’t sure how many guards protected the ambassador, but she could certainly guess it was more than enough to bring down one woman. But somehow, she was apathetic about that. This task… it wasn’t just another moneymaking scheme. This was for her father. The man who strived to put food on the table, and supported his children at his own expense. Cadenza felt in her heart that she would face all the armed men in all of Bellavista to help him now.

She let the introspective moment pass, and walked on by her reflection in the armor shop window towards the embassy. The building, a symbol of diplomacy, was not built to deter a small force like a single woman. There would be flaws in its design Cadenza could exploit to sneak inside undetected. Those flaws were what she would search for now.

The preliminary set of embassy guards stopped the gypsy as she came to the gates, and requested her ID, as was the customary course of action when the ambassador was in town.

“Name please, ma’am,” the first man recited, “Present identification.”

“Marisol Altomare, of the neighboring town of Folium,” Cadenza replied dryly, presenting her identification card.

“From that village beyond the Fortrylle forest?” the second guard asked, making conversation as his partner checked her ID.

“Yes sir,” Cadenza answered. She was amazed at how well she could keep a straight face when lying so blatantly. It came with practice, she supposed.

“Everything seems to be in order,” the first guard piped up, finishing his inspection and handing the gypsy back her card. “You may proceed.”

“Thank you,” she said politely. With a self-contained smirk, she was on her way up the path. Cadenza came to several more guards, all of which had received the okay from their co-workers and left the woman alone. She found it hard not to laugh. This was too easy.

The gypsy came to the glass double doors and paused for a moment, contemplating her next move. To the unwary guards, she appeared to be an average lady sifting through her backpack. But in actuality, she was pondering over the best way to reach the roof. Many trees were scattered about the grounds, planted to make the area more appealing. If she could find one close enough to the building, she thought, that would be her answer.

She waited patiently until the pair of guards closest to the embassy were looking away. Then out of her quiver she carefully drew an arrow, and brought it close to her face to aim. Her right eye narrowed, and her pupils danced about until finally locking upon a single point--the neck of a guard a few meters down the path. He would attract their attention.

Quietly to herself Cadenza chanted a spell to guide the arrow, and let it fly. The wooden object, instrument of death, soared through the air and stabbed the man in his Adam’s apple. He fell to the ground with a stifled wail, and his partners immediately rushed to his side.

“Perfect,” Cadenza whispered to herself. Without a moment’s hesitation, she sprinted to a nearby ash tree and thrust herself up the gnarled branches. At the top, through the dense foliage of the aging tree, she could see the snow white roof of the Rubato embassy.

She scanned the ground for a second, checking on the guards’ location, and when all looked safe, sprung from the treetop to the building. Cadenza landed with a dull thud upon the rain-washed brick, legs folded in a crouch. She remained in the hunched over position and advanced closer to a vent she had spied from her vantage point atop the tree. The steel grate was removed without much trouble, and below from the darkness she could hear the humming of an air-conditioning system. Only the best, most comfortable conditions for Mr. Ciatore, she said to herself with a snarl.

Tonight, all of that pampering and indulgence would come to an end. Tonight, she vowed, Scipio Ciatore would repent in blood.

Sometimes it felt as if someone was watching him. It may have been a sixth sense, but he didn’t know. It just seemed…that someone’s eyes…were glued to him, tracing his every move.

Shifting his position, he adjusted his hilt and continued along the stone road, anticipating what he was to do that night. If there was a choice, he would not do this. Yet, it was the only way he was to make any money, and he needed it fast. The notice he had seen in that dank alleyway had been the highest paying one by far; he would be rewarded ten thousand zecca—a hefty sum.

So, he had waltzed into the office of the Madrigal sisters, taking up their offer. They had seemed quite pleased that he had picked it up, and quite pleased with his skills. The sisters had been fairly kind, all very thin and musical, in a way. Presenting him with the job in a very formal way, it turned out he was to kill the ambassador of Rubato, Scipio Ciatore, in a harbor town of Bellavista. His only concern was that they had stressed he did it within a matter of three days. He had inquired why it was so important, but the siblings had shooed him out the door and told him to do as they say or he wouldn’t get the ten thousand zecca.

Hashem was now standing in the market of Bellavista, at a loss for words. The town was quite large, but then again, it must have been for an embassy to be located there. Looking around for the embassy, he figured it’d have some sort of Rubato ‘seal’ on it or something—he was afraid to ask, because if he was close to getting caught, someone might be able to identify himself as a suspicious figure.

Eventually, after an hour of aimlessly wandering around, he came across a magnificent architectural building, composed of slender white bricks. It was enclosed in a large iron fence, decorated and fancy. Trees scattered the ground, and overshadowed the small path that led from the gates to the double glass doors. And there…there were two guards at the gate, and two at the doors.

And one on the path.

A half-dead one on the path.

The four guards went rushing to his side, screaming and flailing. Hashem’s eyes darted frantically around, and that’s when the caught the edge of someone jumping gracefully from a tree to the rooftop. He couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t just a bird, but it was awfully suspicious. Scratching his head, thinking, it took him a moment to noticed that the four men had picked up the fifth and were stumbling towards a horse and carriage, as if drunk, that was now outside the gate. Someone that appeared to be a paramedic, made a space for the man, as one of the four opened the gate and pulled him out.

“Hurry! He may not die!” shouted the paramedic, urging the men to move faster.

Hashem took it as his one chance. He ran around to the right side of the building with his back pressed against the gate, breathing quickly. His arm immediately heated up, slightly on his will, and he touched it lightly to the iron. Waiting for a few moments, it began to soften and he pushed the bar farther out so he could squeeze through. Reforming it quickly (and it looked horrible I might add), Hashem dashed through the yard, and straight in through the glass doors.

OoC: Sorry it's short, I'm feeling a bit muddled.

OoC: Quite alright, buddy. Each post doesn't have to be a novel.
This one of mine is going to be rather short as well, but I couldn't exactly jump to the action right away without giving Hashem a bit of time to snoop around.

BiC:
There was an uproar in the yard of the embassy. Cadenza could feel the rumbling of an ambulance over a cobblestone path in the soles of her feet. Oh, she thought, how unprepared were Ciatore’s men for the upcoming tempest that evening. How naïve they were, to all follow their wounded friend, and leave the building unprotected. Cadenza may have pitied them, if her senses had not been so blinded by hate for that night’s target.

She waved a hand over the open vent now, checking the intensity of the cool air blowing through it. The mild gust blew her bangs back, created soft ripples throughout her blouse, but nothing more. Conditions were well enough for her to enter.

The gypsy dropped the short distance to the air shaft, the metal cold and flimsy to the touch. With the utmost care, she crawled down the length of the shaft, and turned the corner to the right, where another vent was located. Here, she stopped to peer through the grate into the embassy. From what she could ascertain through the use of Vivace's map, this was where the ambassador's room should be located. And it was.

Below, Ciatore was seated in a leather upholstered, high-backed chair, speaking with a handful of his associates. One appeared to be an attorney, and was quite interested in the gray briefcase Ciatore occasionally patted. Cadenza couldn’t quite hear the conversation over the humming of the air-conditioning system, but from what she could pick out, the topic was indeed what she thought and feared. Her father was going to be in deep trouble.

The gypsy was tempted to slaughter each and every man in the room, but far too many innocents and witnesses still roamed the hallways of the embassy. It was still much too risky. She sighed inwardly and carefully inched her way back to the corner of the shaft. It would be there that she would await the closing of the embassy.

She had a mere two days now left to complete her task. Then, all would be left to cruel fate.

Hashem’s eyes darted back and forth like a tired butterfly, scanning the halls carefully. The walls were a milky cream color, evenly coated and obviously professionally painted. A few small oak tables lined the walls, polished and shining with an abundance of antique vases and beautiful flowers. Whoever had built the place obviously had put a lot of work into it, but that wasn’t exactly what Hashem was paying attention to. What he needed was to find a sufficient place to hide in the embassy until the night, when he would commit the deadly crime. A very deadly crime. Goosebumps climbed up his skin at the though, but Hashem just shook it off. That was the kind of stuff he did not need to be thinking. It could ruin his whole plan.

Now, to find the office and a place to hide. He racked his brain for a way to go unnoticed through the halls, when he remembered something one of his colleagues had told him many years ago:

“You ever want to go unnoticed, then act like a cripple. People never notice cripples. Uphold a dull look in your eyes, bend your leg, and limp like crazy. And if you are noticed, people will feel so sorry for you that a, they’ll help you to wherever you want to go, or b, they’ll leave you alone. Completely.”

Hashem grinned, with a smug look plastered on his face, and bent his leg. He hobbled along through the halls, glancing at the doors and reading the names. Most of them seemed to be in the language of the embassy, and was slightly hard to pronounce. All he was looking for were the words that read ‘Scipio Ciatore’, and not coming across them was beginning to irritate him.

“..Excuse me, sir, but I don’t think you’re supposed to be down here.”

Hashem was on the verge of jumping in surprise, but he suppressed the urge and let his eyes sag. He bent his leg a little more, and turned to face the speaker.

“I’m sorry. I’m just looking for Scipio Ciatore’s office.”

The person who had startled him was a dark haired woman, fair skinned, and important looking. Her face was quite stern until her eye’s lay upon Hashem’s leg, when her expression immediately switched to sympathetic.

“Oh, of course.” She nodded and smiled largely, pointing down the hall opposite the way he had come. “Follow it until the straightaway ends and take your left. Just look at the doors, and the most elegant looking one should be his. It also has his name on the nameplate, so it shouldn’t be too hard to spot.”

Hashem nodded, and hobbled merrily off, if you could call it that.

The cooling generators powered down, and a clock somewhere below struck the eighth hour after noon. Warm night air lazily filled the air ducts, rousing the placid assassin half-awake inside.

Cadenza groggily raised a hand to wipe the sleep from her eyes, and stifled a yawn. The day had passed by uneventfully since her entry into the embassy late that morning. Ciatore's associates had left promptly after their meeting, undoubtedly for a ritzy dinner and limousine ride home. The attorney of the group made that trip home with his feathers a bit ruffled--he had not gotten Scipio's briefcase, and was quite disappointed. The pay-off that would result from the use of it was too enticing, and stimulated even the rich ambassador's greed to a point where he would not part with it. He simply refused to allow even a lawyer skilled in the courtroom to share in his deal. If the attorney obtained the briefcase and were permitted to use it in court, he would have been entitled to a portion of the sum Ciatore would receive. Cadenza could understand that motivation, she knew greed all too well. But what didn't make sense was why the strange “benefactor”--as Ciatore called him to deter any suspicion from employees who might overhear his conversations--would reward others to use this information in court rather than using it himself. Why he wanted to remain anonymous so desperately.

The gypsy mulled those questions over as she silently inched her way back to the vent above Ciatore’s room. She lowered her head slowly and peered into the office between the steel bars of the grate. Inside, the lights were dimmed, and classical music was playing at a low volume. The scent of roasted chicken with sautéed vegetables wafted up into the air duct, tantalizing Cadenza’s senses. She had not eaten all day, but that was not going to distract her at this point.

Scipio, who was apparently staying the night at the embassy to finish up some “work,” locked up the briefcase lying on the mahogany desk before him and rose from his chair. He stretched and made his way over to the lamp near the door. Two tugs on the lamp’s cord turned off the light altogether, and the room fell pitch black instantly. From what Cadenza could hear, Ciatore then had lain down upon a leather couch and had fallen asleep.

The gypsy lifted the steel grate quietly, and dropped down onto an ottoman without as much as a creak from the furniture. She was about to draw her dagger from its sheathe when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway, towards the ambassador’s room. The footfalls were odd, seemingly coming from bare feet that only made a light patting noise upon the tiled floors of the embassy. Still, Cadenza could not risk getting caught. Her eyes now adjusted to the dark, she spied a door to a closet on the left wall of the room, and sprinted towards it. She twisted the knob forcefully and thrust the door open, and then dove inside. As the door closed, she heard the footsteps come to a stop outside Ciatore’s office.

Cadenza snarled and readied her dagger once again. After the scare in the yard earlier today, what idiot would still be at work?

OoC: BACK IN ACTION!

BiC:

Hashem sat half-leisurely on the toilet in the men’s bathroom, taking great care to keep his feet out of sight from any who snooped under the doors. A few men had come and gone, but none appeared to have tried opening the stall he was in, and Hashem was lucky when one of them was mumbling to himself about the time. When that had happened, the man said “8:44”, and it seemed as if it had been 3 or 4 hours. Stepping carefully off of the toilet, Hashem exited the stall, resumed his limp, and found his way back to the office he had scouted out before.

He deepened his limp and rushed to a cross-section in the hall as he heard footsteps approaching. Swinging around one corner, he stooped beneath a piece of oak furniture as the person passed—he didn’t catch who it was, and was thankful he hadn’t been caught.

Peering around the corner, he watched the slit of light beneath Mr. Ciatore’s door for God knows how long. And finally…it clicked off. Hashem’s heart skipped a beat, and he stood up. Concentrating on his forearm covered in flames, he focused massive sums of heat into it, and slyly pulled out his concealed blade. He pressed his arm against it for a minute or two, and then held it inches from his face. Hashem had always been pretty good at guessing the temperature, and it seemed as if it was around 600 degrees, Fahrenheit, at the moment. Grinning, he took the blade and slid it in the crack of the door and touched the blade to the metal lock which kept the door bolted, pressing downwards, willing the metal to slice.

And eventually, the heat got to it, and it did.

Turning around, he scanned the hallway for a light switch.

And he found one, twenty feet from the door he had just about penetrated. Striding over, stealthily, he flicked it off and made his way back to the door, using the faint glow of lights from other halls to guide his way.

Slightly turning the knob, he stuck his ear to the crack and listened.

Steady breathing, like he was asleep.

He chuckled inside his head, and quietly slipped in.

Whoever it was had come in. Cadenza didn’t hear a jingling of keys prior to their entry however—no, her ears detected a much quieter noise, like the smoldering of a small portion of metal. But how in blazes would an embassy employee slice through metal?

Bare feet patted against the tiles almost inaudibly. Cadenza had to strain to hear any breathing aside from Ciatore’s. Mere seconds later, the footsteps stopped just as soon as they had started. Surveying the room, perhaps? The gypsy couldn’t be quite sure.

She nudged the closet door slightly ajar, and peered out into the room. Her eyes felt wide like saucers, looking out into the murky black room with only a sliver of moonlight for illumination.

Near Ciatore’s sofa stood a man, not over 5’4” if he were an inch, bare-footed and bare-chested, with a sword in hand. Certainly not an employee, Cadenza concluded upon first sight. In fact, he looks somewhat familiar…

Judging from the blade he wielded, the gypsy could easily fathom why the man had come to the embassy. He eyed the sleeping ambassador like a shark eyes its prey, almost as if, like a shark, he could smell the blood on vile Ciatore.

In another situation, Cadenza may have just allowed this man to kill Scipio. But this wasn’t just another assignment, where the desired result was only the death, and how it came about didn’t matter. This was personal to her. This man had committed heinous acts against her mother for the information he now possessed, and now he planned to use that information against her father. She would only be content if she was the one to spill his cold, wicked blood upon the floor.

The gypsy rose to her full height, and opened the closet door further. The man beside the couch didn’t glance in her direction until she exited the closet and drew her bow, arrow aimed at his throat. “Who are you?” she whispered.

He knew it. He knew he and Ciatore weren’t the only ones in the room.

His eyes flashed to the side, and a young woman, somewhere in her twenties, presented herself. Her deep blue eyes, almost black, pierced him, a conflagration of anger stirring within. She was not dressed as an employee, and nor was she dressed as someone who would be sleeping with Ciatore.

There was only one possible explanation—she was out to kill him too. Hashem refused to lose that money to this woman—he needed it.

His voice whipped through the air in a sharp whisper. “I think the question to ask, rather, is who are you?”

He dashed towards her madly, wrapping his arm around her stomach forcefully as if to push all the air out of her. Jutting his leg out, he forced her leg to buckle, all while swinging around and pressing his blade to her neck. He backed up to the wall, and compressed the blade just enough to draw a thin trail of blood.

And the fat man slept on.

The gypsy was tempted to answer by reminding the man that she had asked first, but on second thought, deemed that it was not in her best interest at the moment.

“My name is Cadenza,” she grated out.

The man continued to stand behind her, sword trained on her throat. His breath came out in slow puffs on the back of her neck, as the blood trickled down to her blouse. He apparently would wait until he got as much information as he desired.

There was a tense silence, until finally, the gypsy spoke again. “What more do you want?” she barked at him.

For Ciatore, the noise might as well have been a sweet lullaby. The ambassador continued to slumber like an oversized infant.

OoC: Happy birthday Awbri!