Angel of Darkness: Chapter 2

The boy and Layla were hiding in the bushed by Mr. Adjo’s house. The sky was still dark and the moon still high. Layla estimated that time to be about 2:45. Next to her, the little boy was breathing hard from their run. Layla was sure that the young prince hadn’t run much during his time at the palace.
“What do we do now?” he asked wheezing slightly.
“Now I have an errand to run. You need to wait here.”
The boy’s eyes grew wide and his eyebrows furrowed.
“Why? I want to go with!” he whined.
Layla shook her head. It seemed that little prince was spoiled. She couldn’t have that.
“No, you see this errand I have to run will go a lot smoother without you.”
Again, the boy scowled.
“I can be good. I’ll do whatever you tell me.”
Layla smiled sweetly. Of course he would, Layla wouldn’t give him a choice.
“Whatever I tell you?”
The boy nodded excitedly.
“Okay then, stay here,” and with that she rose silently and walked off without giving the boy a chance to follow. She could just imagine him fuming in the bushes and she smiled gently. Mr. Adjo’s house was quite large. It was only one floor like most houses in the desert but it was spread out over a huge amount of land. Mr. Adjo owned the area around an oasis so his house was surrounded by palm trees and small shrubs. He was quite rich so he was able to afford this strategically place house and a few guards. Of course, Layla couldn’t be seen by the guards. The fewer people who knew what the Angel of Darkness looked like, the better. Mr. Adjo knew that and allowed her to climb over the walls and usually called the guards away from her preferred route of entry. Once inside, she made her way to the main pavilion. His house was built in the shape of a U, surrounding an open area used for parties or relaxing outside. Though being under the sun was not pleasant, inside during the middle of the day could be ten times worse. Mr. Adjo was standing by the only lit torch near a corner of the tiled pavilion. He looked different from the other Kemetians even though he had been born there and his father was a native Kemetian. His hair was dark but his skin paler than the sun would normally have allowed. He was leaner and taller than most people in Kemet but his Kemetain heritage was obvious in his dark hair and eyes. Mr. Adjo's story was not unlike hers. He had been raised in the north, though not in Hellas, by his mother and when she had died in the war he was brought back to his father's homeland. Most people said that that his father had been a wealthy business owner. Of course, no one could confirm that. Most of what happened before the war was only recorded in people’s memories and though Mr. Adjo searched everywhere no one seemed to know who his father was. He had risen to power by using any and all money he could get his hands on to buy a small area near the oasis and, by selling water, he was able to raise a small fortune and buy the rest of the land around the oasis. Now he had the reputation of one of the strongest men in Kemet.
Layla approached him carefully, quietly and only when she was a few feet behind him did she make any noise to make her presence known. He jumped a little as she allowed her feet to shuffle over the sandy stones of the pavilion. His black hair glinted in the torch light and his black eyes danced.
“So you have returned. That was quick.”
Layla just nodded. It actually wasn’t that quick for her. If she had killed the boy and hadn’t had to drag him along with her, she would have probably been back at least half an hour earlier. Mr. Adjo seemed to be expecting a real answer but Layla preferred not to talk about her missions with her employers. The fact that they hated someone enough to kill didn't bother Layla too much but if they wanted to know all the gory details, she often found herself repulsed by them.
“Well, here are the 1,500 yeli," Khalid said, gesturing to a money purse around his waist but he didn't make a move to hand it to Layla. She froze, all of her instincts screaming at her. She didn't want to believe that he would betray her but his guarded position and confident yet serious expression scared her.
"Goodbye Layla.”
Layla turned to leave.
“Layla,” Mr. Adjo said, “I can’t let you escape knowing I was the one who ordered the murder of Oba Ahmose’s son. I’m sorry but you won’t survive tonight.”
So it was a trap. Layla’s eyes narrowed and she took out her bows and arrows. From the roof across from her, Layla saw a glint of metal in the night and dodged just as an arrow cut through the air where her heart had been. It landed at Mr. Adjo’s feet. Layla let loose an arrow that flew through the night in the direction that the arrow had come from. She was rewarded with a muffled thump, and a shout of pain. Suddenly, three more arrows materialized out of the air in front of her. She swung her bow in a wide arch in front of her, hitting them to the side so that they just missed her stomach. She was badly outnumbered and they had the advantage of the shadows. Layla lunged at the torch behind Mr. Adjo and yanked it out of its holder, stuffing it into the sand surrounding the pavilion. Darkness closed around her like a warm blanket. She started to run towards the roof. Six arrows appeared over the torch in the sand, as if Layla would be stupid enough to stay in the same spot. Layla smiled. The six arrows had given off the men’s positions. She released six arrows, one after the other in that direction and heard each one hit its mark. Layla listened for a second to see if she could hear anything coming from the roof, anything at all that might alert her to the presence of another guard. Hearing nothing, Layla turned to face the other side of the pavilion. With her sharp eyes, the full moon was like the sun and she could easily see Mr. Adjo’s pale skin as he trembled against the wall where he had been standing. Layla walked up to him. She knew that he wouldn’t be able to see more than a vague shadow in the darkness of the night. She crept up to him until she was leaning over his trembling form.
“You tried to kill me, Khalid?” she whispered in his ear and he yelped and started to whimper. “Your men are dead. You should know better than trying to assassinate an assassin.”
A soft, cruel laughed slipped past her lips and he whimpered again. Normally, she wasn’t this cruel to her victims but Mr. Adjo had sent her to kill an innocent little boy and had tried to kill her. It wouldn't have been that bad, except she had trusted him and he had betrayed her. He needed to suffer.
“I’m going to kill you, you know that right?”
“No, no, no.”
“Yes, yes, yes. You see, I never told you this but I have only ever killed for three reasons. The first is, of course, money. The second is if someone who I believe will turn me in has seen my face. And the last is self-defense. You have plenty of money. You have seen my face and I have no doubt after tonight that you will turn me in to the next authorities you see. And you did attack me. That is three reasons, which is two more than I need.”
Tears started streaming down his face but Layla had become immure to tears. If the prince had cried, he would be dead. Layla took one of her black knives out of her belt and yanked Mr. Adjo’s neck back.
“Goodbye, Khalid," she whispered in his ear and then she slit his throat.
She let him fall to the ground. Blood started to pool around him and soak into the sand. Layla wiped her knife clean on his expensive dress shirt and walked up to the opposite roof. There were six bodies each with an arrow sticking out of their head or throat. Then she saw her seventh arrow. It was embedded in a wooden shield which had been left on the roof. She looked out into the night but saw nothing. Suddenly, behind her, she felt another person. She never knew what alerted her to another person’s presence. It could have been a shift in the air or vibrations in the ground or just pure intuition. All she knew was that suddenly there was a six foot tall man behind her. She spun and yanked her sword out of her belt. It was three feet long and as black as her knives. It curved at the tip like most Kemetian swords. She caught the other man’s sword mid swing and countered quickly with a jab at his ribs, which he deflected. He was good; most people were not fast enough to react to her jabs. He sliced at her neck and she dodged under the swing, simultaneously sinking her sword into his heart. He had done what most of her opponents did. He had forgotten the she was quite a bit shorter than he was an allowed her to slip under his defense. Stupid mistake. Her opponent fell back, his eyes wide with surprise. After she was sure he was dead, she used his tunic to clean her sword and arrows. Finally, she jumped down and glanced at Khalid’s body. He’d been her employer for a while. Layla had killed six or seven people for him but no one as important as the son of Oba. He’d always paid fairly, more than most other employers would have. Of all her employers, he was the one that she least expected to try to kill her even if he was known for tying up loose ends.
She looked over the barren desert. The moon cast strange shadows on the dunes and the rocks that had terrified her when she’d first come to Kemet as a nine-year-old girl. Now, they seemed more inviting than terrifying. Many things had changed. Layla knelt by Khalid and used his blood to draw a small dagger on the wall above his body. It was a universally known symbol for betrayal and it was rarely drawn in vain. Whoever found the body would recognize that Khalid had betrayed her, though they may not know who she was. Layla wiped her finger on his sleeve and ran back through his house taking a few bags of extra money and valuables..He owed that much to Layla for trying to kill her. She did one last sweep to see if any of his other guards were still roaming but she met no one. Leaving through the main gate for the first time ever, she darted through the palm trees back to the bushes where she had left the prince.
As she neared, she heard him breathing softly and evenly. A rueful smile spread across her features. The little boy had fallen asleep. Carefully, Layla lifted him up into her arms and started jogging as fast and evenly as she could so as not to wake him. Layla didn’t actually have a house. It was more like a base.  She’d found it by accident a year after she’d come to Kemet. She had been running near the cliff of a canyon, some men who had seen her kill a friend of theirs, following her. Still not quite efficient at hiding or killing, she’d searched for something to conceal herself behind and had caught sight of a patch of brambles nestled between a few rocks. She’d jumped behind them only to fall into a small tunnel, which gradually opened up into a cave that looked out over the canyon. It had most likely been hollowed out by the small stream which ran through the back of the cave. After scrambling up the passageway again, she’d killed the men who had seen her. That had been five years before and now the cave was stocked with everything that she would need; some food, an extra set of black clothes, lots of normal clothes to blend in during the day, extra weapons, and a bed. The bed was actually a few blankets wrapped around soft straw that was actually quite comfortable to sleep on. It's proximity to the capital, where many of her jobs occurred, was ideal.
It took her about an hour to reach her cave carrying the boy. Even if she hadn't been, it would have taken her a good 45 minutes since it was all the way on the on the other side of the town. When she arrived, she pushed the bushes out of the way and sat down on the ground. She normally crawled in on hands and knees but with the boy in her arms that was a little harder and she didn’t want to wake him. She dragged herself forward on her butt a few feet at a time until the tunnel became large enough to stand in. Carefully, so as not to wake him up, Layla lay the boy down on the bed and took off his moccasins. His soft breathing filled the cave and Layla felt a strange longing for human contact that she hadn’t felt in a long time. She caressed his forehead and ran her fingers through his silky black hair. He murmured in his sleep and Layla smiled, wondering what he was dreaming about. Then she stood up and started her routine. She didn’t kill often, once or twice a month, but she always did the same thing afterwards. She took off all her weapons and put them in a corner of the cave except for the ones that she had killed with that night. Those she washed in the small stream at the back of the cave, being careful not to get her wooden arrows or darts too wet. Those she carefully patted down with a damp piece of cloth. She recoated the poison on the darts that she’d used and then put them back with the other weapons. She unstrapped the knife from her arm and took the other knife out of her boots. She also slid the two knives that were strapped to the inside of her jacket out of their holsters and placed them with the other knives. Then, she took off her boots and her jacket so that she stood barefoot on the dusty rock of the cave. Her cotton shirt had no sleeves, revealing her strong, dark arms. She ate a few granola bars and washed them down with water . Then she started doing pull-ups on a bar that she had installed across the doorway of the cave. Then squats and then curl-ups also on the bar. Layla always exercised in the afternoon but when preparing for an assignment, she usually didn’t have enough time so she exercised afterwards. It also helped get rid of the extra adrenaline that had been released into her veins. After stretching, she washed off. She followed the little stream to the north until it intersected with two other underground streams. There, where the stream turned into a river, it was deep enough for her to submerge herself completely while bending her knees. She rinsed off all sweat and grime of the night, and then dried off and changed into a pair of shorts and a loose shirt that she used as pajamas. She lay some blankets across the floor on the side of the cave opposite to the boy and lay down.
As she tried to sleep, her mind started to drift. If the boy was going to live with her—She stopped herself.
“No, he won’t live here. I only promised to help him escape,” one part of her said.
“Well, are you just going to dump him in the middle of nowhere? He can’t protect himself,” the other part of her said.
“Having him live with me isn’t much better. I'm pretty sure that there are other people who are better suited to take care of him. I’m an assassin remember?”
“That doesn’t seem to bother him. Anyway, all that means is that you get good money and you can protect him.”
“I can’t take care of a kid. They need other things than money and protection. They need a mother. Do I look like a mother to you?”
“Well, it’s better than the alternative. Have you thought about what’ll happen if someone else takes care of him? Won't they wonder where he came from? Do you think he's old enough to keep his mouth shut?”
“He’ll tell.”
“Yes. Think about it. He's old enough to take decent enough care of himself. If you train him for a while you won’t even have to protect him.”
“All right, all right. He can stay, but there going to be a lot of changes.”
And with this thought, Layla fell asleep, allowing the darkness to go in through her skin and crawl into her mind until morning.