The Assassin's Gift

by C. P. IRVINE, IAN

  "I'm in hiding trying to avoid you killing me, and now I just saved your life. I've gone mad. Your craziness is spreading..."

  "If I let you go, can we continue our discussion?"

  "Or you kill me?"

  "No."

  "So you're not going to kill me?"

  "I want us to talk. Just a little more. Then I want to leave."

  "Perhaps I won't let you?"

  Alessandra smiled.

  "Perhaps you won't."

  Both knew it was an idle threat, but Alessandra's willingness to entertain him, made him smile in return.

  "Do you know how to break free of these things?" Alessandra asked, standing up from the floor, and holding her hands out in front of her, the plastic ties still holding them tightly together.

  "Yes," he replied. "On the count of three?"

  "One, two..." Alessandra counted out, joining McKenzie and raising her hands above her head, pointing the gun upwards, having flicked the safety catch of the gun on, but keeping it in her hands.

  "Three," they finished together, at which point they both forcibly brought their arms down and at the last moment forced and swept each arm apart.

  The ties on Alessandra's wrists snapped first time around. McKenzie's didn't.

  Reaching out with her now free hands, she adjusted the position of the plastic eyes on each of McKenzie's hands so that they were facing each other on the inside of his wrists.

  "Try again now?" she suggested.

  McKenzie raised his hands, and forcibly swept them down and apart, this time successfully.

  "Bingo," Alessandra said.

  They were now both free, apart from McKenzie and his feet.

  "Sit back down on the table, "I'll find some scissors in the kitchen." she suggested.

  She returned a few moments later, went over to him and managed after a few attempts to cut through the thick plastic.

  "I've seen you before, haven't I. It's been bugging me all evening, -your face seemed so familiar - and now I remember. You were at the Fiddler's Arms one evening."

  Alessandra laughed.

  "Well done. I was wondering if you would recognise me or not. I was surprised you hadn't. You were in disguise that night, but I wasn't."

  "What were you doing there?"

  "I came to find and kill you, but then one of the band... the man on the violin..."

  "The fiddle..."

  "- The man on the fiddle, he had a stroke, and I ended up healing him. Most inconvenient. He basically saved your life that night. I ended having to leave and spent the next half-an-hour emptying the contents of my stomach over half of Edinburgh. Mission abandoned."

  "Why? Does healing make you sick?"

  "For a short while. I seem to take on the symptoms of those I heal, become very tired and often fall asleep. When I wake up, everything is back to normal."

  Alessandra returned to the chair, picking up the other gun from the floor, before sitting down.

  "Anyway, I have the guns, but I don't intend to use them, so long as you speak with me a little more," she said. "I feel the need to talk with you, not kill you."

  McKenzie nodded. "I'd rather talk than die. You strike a hard bargain."

  Alessandra studied McKenzie for a while. Weighing the man up. Then she continued.

  "I'm changing. I can't run away from this anymore," she said. "The ability I have been given is becoming stronger, more powerful. Even now, as we speak, I can feel it. I am evolving."

  "Into what?"

  "I don't know. But I think I want to stop killing people for a living."

  "Do you realise how ridiculous what you just said actually sounds?"

  "Yes." She nodded, then paused. "But how many people are there in the world that can heal people? I mean, who can really do it? Who really have a gift... 'the Gift' as the monk calls it?"

  "You're the first I know, so apart from the monk you keep mentioning, you're probably unique."

  "I think so too. I'm just beginning to realise how much of a burden it might be. With such a capability, how many people can I cure? There are so many sick people out there who might need my help. So many people who don't need to suffer or die, because I might be able to cure them!"

  McKenzie looked at the body on the floor, and Alessandra saw it.

  "I never felt bad the first time I killed someone. He'd killed my father in front of my eyes, and I was just a little girl. When I killed him, I felt nothing. And you mustn't feel guilty about killing this man either. He's a trained killer. I'm sure you'll find out that he's guilty of many deaths, and that had you not stopped him, he would've been guilty of many more. Including yourself. He wouldn't have let you walk out of here alive, and I think you know that."

  McKenzie said nothing, but nodded. It was the truth, and he knew it.

  "Do you believe in fate?" Alessandra asked, changing the subject slightly.

  McKenzie thought for a moment.

  "Yes. In truth, yes I do."

  "I never really did. Not until very, very recently. Not until I decided to come to Scotland. Or that Scotland decided that I should come visit it. I wonder just how much free choice I've had in any of this. Until recently, I thought, I believed that my life revolved around me, that I was the centre of my own universe, and that whatever happened, happened because I had caused it to happen. But now, I question all of that. It occurs to me now, that I'm just a pawn on the checkerboard of life, and that all the moves I've taken recently have been driven by another person. And that my universe does in fact revolve around that other person. Not me."

  McKenzie's eyebrows raised.

  "Who? Him?" he said, looking at the body on the floor.

  "No. You."

  McKenzie coughed, then laughed.

  "Me? Why? Because you wanted to kill me?"

  "It turns out that I was never going to kill you. That I was simply made to believe I would. It would seem that the universe has other plans for you and me."

  Alessandra stood up.

  She walked over to McKenzie and handed Copernicus's gun to him.

  "I have to leave now." She said. "And you have some choices to make, whether to arrest me, to kill me, or to let me walk out of here." She turned and walked towards the door before turning and facing him once more. She could see the confusion in his face, and almost felt guilty for adding to it even more.

  "Before I came here in search of you, I went to Edinburgh. I was confused by my new found abilities, about the Gift which has been thrust upon me. I decided to spend some time with sick people, people who were dying, to explore the Gift and my reactions to being with people who could benefit from it. At the hospital, I met one person. A woman. She was dying. Had cancer. And she was sad, scared, and very, very lonely. She loved her husband very much and missed him... "

  "Where was he?"

  "He wasn't there. He'd gone away. And she was having to face everything by herself. Anyway, to cut a long and complicated story very short, through me she was cured. Through me, but not by me, her cancer was taken away and she was given a second chance. But that, Campbell, was not the true miracle. Not the most amazing part of this story by any stretch of the imagination."

  "I don't understand. What could be even more miraculous than curing her? Using your Gift as you did?"

  "It goes back to the revolving universe, Campbell, and who is at its centre. I remember reading in the tourist blurb that Edinburgh has about half-a-million people living there. And yet, when I sat in the hospital, my eyes closed, wondering why on earth I had been chosen to receive the Gift, it turned out that the random person I sat beside, the one person in the whole city that I befriended and discovered was dying and in need of my abilities, was... your wife. Fiona McKenzie."

  Campbell's face turned white. The blood immediately draining from his head. His world began to spin, and dropping the gun, he gripped hold of the table, holding on tight.

  "So, you see, it would seem that you, Campbell, are the centre of my universe, and all this is
because of you."

  There were tears streaming down Campbell's face now.

  "Fiona was dying?"

  "Not any more. It would seem that God has given you both another chance. I didn't know who she was until I found this in your wallet." Alessandra said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the photograph of Campbell and Fiona.

  She held it up, and saw the recognition in his eyes as Campbell recognised it.

  "Anyway, now you know. And it's time I left," she said, calmly.

  "Where... where are you going?" McKenzie blurted out, struggling to cope with everything that was being thrown at him in such quick succession.

  "There are some things I must do."

  McKenzie was dumbstruck, searching for something to say, scared that she was just about to leave, without him ever getting to think of the millions of questions he would spend the rest of his life wishing he had asked.

  When he spoke, it was the first random thing that came into his head.

  "Who is Salvador?"

  She looked at him, her eyes gentle, her face serene.

  "Whoever he was, he is now dead." She replied, pointedly looking at the body on the floor. "He is Salvador. You killed him. Or so you must say, and you must tell the world."

  "Then who.... who are you?"

  "The answer to that question, is one that I must now discover."

  She half-turned to leave, but then turned back.

  "There's one more thing Campbell. Not only has God cured Fiona and given you both a second chance, but He's given you both the gift of life."

  "I don't understand."

  Alessandra smiled.

  "Don't worry, you will... Now go home. "

  For a moment they stood facing each other. No more words were said.

  Then the woman turned and walked out of the cottage.

  A moment later she was gone.

  Chapter 44

  Plockton

  Tuesday

  8:15 a.m.

  Young Angus was in his bed, dreaming. Bright, vivid dreams.

  So intense, they were almost real. And a welcome relief from the intense pain which was growing worse day by day.

  In the dream, he was with the braw lassie, Alice, again.

  She had come back to heal him. To cure him.

  "Sleep," she said, "Stroking his face. Don't wake up yet. But when you do, the pain will be gone."

  "Aye, lassie." he replied, smiling, enjoying the warmth of her hand on his face.

  He felt another hand now, on his body.

  It was also warm.

  Very warm.

  The feeling spread throughout his body, deep into his bones, pervading every cell of his flesh.

  And with it came a wondrous sense of peace. Of tranquillity. Of love.

  Young Angus smiled.

  It was without doubt the best dream he'd ever had.

  He wanted the dream to never end.

  It was only a dream, but for the first time in years, he felt no pain.

  He felt as if he was truly, honestly, young again.

  When he awoke later that day, his pain was gone.

  And on the mantelpiece above the fire there was an envelope and a note.

  The front of the envelope was addressed "To Gavin."

  The note beside it was for him. It said,

  "My dear Young Angus,

  Please give this letter to Gavin for me, along with a hug, and a smile.

  One day, perhaps, I will return to Loch Ness, and maybe we will meet again.

  But now I have to go on a journey, and to share with others, that which I have shared with you.

  Your friend in life,

  Alice."

  Chapter 45

  Sicily

  Friday

  3.25 p.m.

  It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, and the smell of citrus fruit permeated the air on the veranda of the house, just like it had when she was young. When she had last been here.

  Alessandra had walked from the town, turning down the offers of a lift from the locals, some of whom recognised her and were both amazed and pleased to see her.

  She was in no rush.

  Walking up the road approaching her mother's and her father's house, she stopped and closed her eyes, remembering.

  So many memories.

  As she came to the gate at the entrance to her family home, she hesitated for a moment, admiring the changes that had been made to the main building of her home.

  She was pleased to see that they had not taken away its character or its charm.

  There was a woman, an old woman, sitting in a wheelchair on the veranda.

  Alessandra could see that she was asleep.

  At first it shocked Alessandra to see how much the woman had aged and changed, but then again, so had she.

  In so many ways.

  Entering the garden, and breathing in the sweet air, she had approached the woman, and knelt before her.

  Alessandra placed one hand upon the lady's head, and the other upon her right hand.

  She closed her eyes.

  And as she had done several times in the past few days, she first prayed.

  Thanking God for her Gift.

  And thanking God for her mother.

  Alessandra could feel the darkness within her mother's mind.

  If felt cold.

  She could sense the confusion. The pain. The suffering.

  In her mind, she pictured her mother as she used to be.

  Happy. Joyous. Clear minded. Alert. Charming. Young at heart. And loving.

  The woman that had long ago attracted her father, and who Alessandra had loved, and never stopped loving, all her life.

  She thought of the Monk, and the blessing she had received.

  The Gift she had been given.

  For her to use to help others.

  Selflessly.

  To give life, and to prevent it from being taken.

  To ease the suffering where suffering need not be.

  Slowly, carefully, lest she alarm the woman in front of her, she released the heat through her hands, banishing the darkness, and replacing it with light.

  Opening her eyes, she withdrew the hand from her mother's head and placed it over her other hand.

  And waited.

  The pain in the woman's face had gone. Her features were relaxed. Her skin already appearing younger.

  The eyelids began to flicker and open.

  Slowly, the woman lifted her hand and reached out to Alessandra, her fingers stroking the contours of her face.

  For a moment, the woman looked at her, almost as if not comprehending, but then the words were uttered for which Alessandra had waited half a lifetime.

  A simple sentence, but the most wondrous words in the entire world.

  "Alessandra, my beautiful daughter, you've come home!"

  THE END

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