Monster's Mercy

by William D. Arand

  “Perhaps she’s a caged bird,” Rene whispered. “Well, time to get to work.”

  Slithering out from his hiding place, Rene crept along the roof. He made his way towards the edge, then peeked over and looked at the window below him.

  Taking out a thin wire from his quick-slots, he lay down on his belly. Leaning over the edge, he reached down with the metal wire and slid it between the tight window panes.

  Your skill in Lock Picking has increased (4)

  Your skill in Lock Picking has increased (5)

  Rene scowled at the window and then lifted the hooked wire. It caught on something. Pulling a little more firmly, Rene felt whatever he’d caught slowly give.

  Then, as if they’d never been locked, both windows slid open.

  Your skill in Lock Picking has increased (6)

  Replacing the wire in his quick-slot, Rene brought himself around and into position to get down. Moving as quietly and as smoothly as he could, he slipped off the roof, held on to the edge of it, and sent himself through the open window in one fluid swing.

  He landed silently and listened to his surroundings. Straining his senses, he did everything he could to confirm no one was around him.

  Your skill in Awareness has increased (3)

  Feeling a little better when he sensed no one, Rene turned around and closed the window. There was no shaking the uncomfortable feeling he had, but that was something that just came with what he was doing.

  Rene also made sure to lock the window. In this case, it would be best to leave everything as it had been. The less clues he left behind, the easier it would be to hide that he’d ever been here.

  The room he found himself in was most certainly a bedroom. The bed was made, untouched. A thin layer of dust coated the bedside table.

  There were no clothes anywhere, no flowers in an empty vase, and everything had that settled smell of a room which needed to be aired out more regularly.

  All evidence pointed to this room having not been used in quite a while.

  Rene crept over to the door, stood there for a second to listen, and then tried to feel what was beyond it. He was getting used to trying to push his senses beyond what he’d consider normal.

  Your skill in Awareness has increased (4)

  Feeling nothing beyond, he opened the door and stepped into a hallway. When he looked one way and then the other, he found it full of doors and little else. To his left was where the main entry would be. Down the hallway and to the right would put him further into the house.

  Moving to the right, Rene ghosted along the hall. He encountered absolutely no one when he turned the bend in the corridor. Not even the sound of someone.

  In fact, if someone asked him if there was a single person on this side of the house, he’d be hard pressed to say there was.

  Odelia’s offer to pull the master of the home to the front of the building now seemed more beneficial than he had originally credited it for.

  Approaching what could only be the bedroom for the master of the house, Rene wasn’t really sure if he should bother with it.

  It was certainly a possibility. It wasn’t impossible, just rather unlikely.

  There was no telling if it held who he was looking for without looking inside. Except that would raise his chances of being caught.

  Rene hesitated in front of the door. His doubt for the possibility was high, but he’d been surprised before.

  Caleb’s information said that Junk hasn’t been seen in a while. That he’s practically vanished from the face of the earth.

  He hid himself away and became impossible to locate.

  Mayhap our Junk has become a slut; for security and safety, he’ll put himself in a rut?

  Frowning, Rene had to really think on that one. That’d mean Junk was bedding his uncle.

  Then again, it wasn’t the worst thing Rene had heard in his life. Truth be told, it wasn’t even in the top fifty. People would do what they had to do, to accomplish what they felt they needed.

  Terrible shame we’ve seen up to ninety percent of that list firsthand.

  Monsters are we and those we deal with.

  Pressing a hand to the door, Rene tried to “feel” inside of the room. To push his senses above and beyond the domain of humanity.

  Your skill in Awareness has increased (5)

  There.

  Rene felt someone beyond the door. They felt… sleepy, to him. Like they were awake, but not fully aware of themselves.

  It’s almost too easy if he’s little more than a sleeping babe.

  Taking in a slow breath, Rene readied himself.

  Open the door, step inside, visually identify the target.

  Close quickly, strike to the stomach, fist to the back of the head. Collect him, bind and gag him, fireman carry. Back to the abandoned bedroom, out the window on a rope, over the wall, into the alley, gone.

  Putting his plan into action, Rene opened the door and stepped inside. As he mentally mapped the room, he found his target lying in the bed.

  Rene closed the gap and was on top of Junk in a fraction of a second.

  But there was no point to it. Junk was drunk. More than drunk.

  The kind of drunk where he would wake up and not even know what year it was, let alone who he was.

  At least he’s in his underwear.

  The Monster seemed rather happy about that. Rene couldn’t really disagree. He didn’t want to carry a naked man around.

  Considering his situation, Rene tried to figure out if there was anything else he needed to do. Junk being drunk would certainly make it easier to collect the payday attached to his name.

  Rene looked at his alignment bar to check the level. It was at the top right now. He wasn’t in the habit of keeping an eye on it. Eighteen years of nothing but good behavior had only encouraged him to ignore it.

  That’d changed with his recent actions, of course.

  He’d easily lost a rather large chunk of it. Truth be told though, he still didn’t see any way out of the situation other than the road he had taken.

  At the time, Rene had pondered what would be the best course of action to get the bar back up. To fill it, so he’d be safe from his benefactor.

  Apparently, he need not have worried. Turning in criminals worked splendidly to his advantage.

  Being so near the top at the moment meant he could spend some of it.

  His alignment was truthfully like a second currency of sorts. And he was well bankrolled right now.

  While he was flush with alignment, however, he was equally broke in actual coin.

  Rene needed money. As much as he could earn, take, or find. This little war someone had started with him would need monetary backing.

  Because that’s what it was. Rene had been targeted and attacked directly. There was the definite possibility someone would come back for him or his sister at a later time.

  Having made his choice, Rene slunk over to the bedside table. Though it was locked, a key sat atop it. Picking it up, he quickly inserted it and gave it a twist, popping the lock open.

  Fools.

  Rene felt a momentary distaste for the entire household. From start to finish, the only way he could describe the whole thing was sloppy.

  Disorganized, undirected, and lackluster.

  Opening the locked drawer, Rene found it doubled as a safe. Bank notes, letters, coins, rings.

  Father would be extremely angry. That vein on the side of his head would be throbbing.

  Scooping the coins and rings into his inventory, Rene shook his head. It was a messy way of doing it, but he didn’t want to waste any time. When he looked at the alignment bar, he found it had barely shifted.

  Either none of the loot had been gained honestly or the owner was so much of a criminal that it didn’t matter.

  Picking up the bank notes that’d slid into the center of the drawer, he began putting them back where they’d been. They were all signed and attributed, which meant he’d have to cash them direct
ly.

  And that would leave a trail he didn’t want.

  At the bottom of the drawer, however, was a series of loan documents and blank form letters of sale and purchase.

  There were multiple lines of credit to other people with various notations.

  Picking up the obvious ledger to one side, Rene opened it and gave the contents a quick scan.

  The sums were on the higher end, but given that Uncle Junk probably swam in wealthier circles, that wasn’t unsurprising.

  What was surprising to Rene was that the name “Delacroix” was listed. As in Odelia Delacroix. The sum attached to the name was mind numbing, on top of that.

  The original debt was for nothing more than a thousand gold. A small sum that had probably been borrowed to cover a purchase during a period when they couldn’t manage their assets for one reason or another. Such things happened and happened often.

  Father often said one should never purchase a thing if they couldn’t afford it.

  I miss father.

  Rene nodded as he read across the line-item. The final sum in the last column would bankrupt any family and damn near beggar even his own.

  Following that entry and how it had ended up this way, Rene found it was actually a string of interest rate numbers that spiked in a ridiculous fashion after missing payments.

  Rene closed the ledger, then quickly fingered through the notes and found the one matching Odelia’s family.

  He didn’t find anything out of the ordinary on the face of it. When he moved on to the penalties and clauses, he found the problem. Buried in a subsection was a caveat that changed the definition of the due date. It would shift upwards one working day when the payment date fell on a non-working day.

  Without a notification, or a reminder, almost anyone could easily forget to hit the payment on the right date.

  With a doubling of interest rate at each failed payment, and no clause that required notification of that doubling, Rene had a fair idea of what had happened.

  The worst part was that it was entirely possible Odelia’s father, one Geoffrey Delacroix, had no idea about the severity of the debt.

  Then again, even if he did know about it, there was probably no way he could pay it. The interest was more than likely already beyond their means.

  There would be no involvement from the law here either, as everything stated was technically above board. Geoffrey had been given every chance to read the document in its entirety and negotiate terms.

  He’d either read it and assumed he could handle it, which he evidently couldn’t, or he had failed to read the contract completely and signed it foolishly.

  Rene started to put the bond back and then thought on it.

  He had a chance to impact Odelia in a positive way. He wouldn’t get anything from it, though. His alignment was already nearly at the top. And it would definitely be there after turning in Junk.

  Normally at a moment like this in his old life, the Monster in his head would leave him a blistering response.

  Yet none came.

  Setting the bond aside, Rene picked up the ledger. He stared at the handwriting, concentrating. In his previous life, he’d picked up forgery skills.

  Leaving suicide notes for his victims had helped confuse the trail and give others pause. More often than not, people would simply say, “I had no idea he felt that way” or “he didn’t show any signs” and then move on.

  For those who bothered to question things, there was never enough information to prove it wasn’t suicide anyway.

  Taking a quill and ink from his inventory, he scratched in a note, copied from an example of another entry. After a minute of painstaking effort, he’d written that the bond for Delacroix had been sold to house Anatolis at two hundred percent of the original loaned sum.

  Taking a different bond that amounted to little more than a hundred gold, Rene inspected the seal from the magistrate’s office.

  There was no date on it, and it was nothing more than proof that it had been signed in the presence of a court official.

  Looking up, he found his target fading in and out of consciousness on the bed. Unresponsive and incoherent.

  I have time. I can make this work.

  Once more, there was no response from the Monster. It seemed to be quietly watching.

  Turning his eyes back to the bond, Rene shifted his weight around.

  He unsheathed one of his daggers and slipped the thin, razor-sharp blade between the paper and the seal. It came free with a soft crackle.

  Complete and intact.

  Holding the now-worthless bond in hand, he shoved it into his inventory. He’d throw it away later.

  Rene picked up the quill, took one of the blank letters of credit, and focused on his task. A few minutes after and he was done.

  He’d copied from all the other documents that were readily available. He now had a bill of sale for the Delacroix loan in its entirety for the matching amount listed in the ledger.

  On paper, everything looked correct, accurate, and proper.

  He signed his own name for the house of Anatolis as their representative. Having reached his majority, Rene had been given the right to sign for his father when he was not present. His father trusted him a great deal and had made certain that Rene wouldn’t be questioned for his actions in his stead.

  After putting the quill and ink bottle back into his inventory, he retrieved a crude chemical match and a candle. He’d found these on his captors, but had seen no use for them until now. Their intended purpose was for pipes.

  He struck the chemically unstable match to the wall, then held the lit end to the candle’s wick.

  Shaking out the match, he dropped it back into his inventory to dispose of later. Evidence destruction was much simpler when one could make items vanish outright.

  Laying the forged letter of sale on the ground, Rene held up the wax seal over the candle.

  As soon as it looked like the bottom part of the seal had melted partially, he placed it onto the forged document and pressed firmly on top of it.

  Once it felt firmly affixed, he held up the document and got the candle close to the edges of the seal, melting it. He pressed it into place as he did so.

  The goal was to make it look natural as well as official. He tried to give it the right look of being done by a hurried clerk trying to get through his day.

  Done, he put the candle into his inventory, which snuffed it out as well.

  Rene now had everything he felt he needed. A letter of sale, all signatures accurate, seal affixed, and matching notes in the ledger and bond.

  Regretfully, he counted out the coins and rings he’d stolen and placed them back in the drawer.

  It wouldn’t do to tip off his hand to the Junk household. Missing coins and valuables of that nature would certainly make them aware things had been changed.

  Why?

  Unrestrained, Rene settled everything back into its place, minus Delacroix’s bond and the letter of sale.

  Locking the table, he set the key back where it had been and loomed over his target.

  We owe her nothing. Why?

  Rene had no answer for the Monster. None that would do any good at least.

  Instead, he rolled Junk over to one side and bound his hands, then his feet. Moving the drunk onto his back again, Rene fixed a gag in place.

  The most disturbing part of the Monster’s question wasn’t what it had asked, but more that it seemed genuinely confused, and the question didn’t seem wholly directed at Rene.

  Lifting up Junk and wrangling him into a fireman’s carry, Rene left the room.

  Trailing back down the hallway, he heard the murmurs of angry voices from the front of the house. Whatever was being discussed sounded like it was about more than books.

  Rene opened the vacant bedroom door and entered quietly. After closing it behind himself, he went to the window and popped it open with one hand.

  Looking down at the grass below, he considered his options
.

  Drunks bounce. Don’t they?

  Shrugging, Rene did as instructed and dropped Junk the drunk out the window.

  With a thud, he hit the grass and lay unmoving.

  “Not so much a bounce as a thud,” Rene whispered, then climbed out of the window and shimmied down the side of the wall.

  Made a good sound when he hit the ground.

  Shame there wasn’t the crack of bones, I do enjoy those grinding tones.

  Rene rolled Junk over to find him unharmed, other than a split lip.

  Picking him up, Rene made his escape.

  Chapter 10

  There’d been momentary concern at the courthouse about handing over the money for the bounty to a hooded individual, until Rene had turned around as if to leave with the catch.

  If they wanted to know who he was, he figured they didn’t want their bounty after all.

  As soon as he’d turned around to leave, they’d very quickly changed their tune and Rene had gotten paid his four gold swiftly.

  A quick series of errands after that to tie up a few loose ends, and Rene was done with his work for the day.

  The lack of things to do eventually led him to stand before the Delacroix homestead.

  Dressed in something he’d wear to a meeting with a client, Rene felt more himself. To be fair, he hadn’t just embraced his new life—Rene had dived into it. Numerous were the days he had spent just talking with his father, mother, or sister. Enjoying their company and merely being around them.

  Rene the hitman had well and truly been dead and gone.

  Adjusting a button on his coat, Rene waited quietly outside of the home. He’d arrived on foot and simply announced himself as Rene Anatolis, looking to speak to Master Delacroix. There’d been no notice of intent to visit, no carriage to proclaim a personage, just a young man showing up at the door and stating his intention.

  In the corner of his mind, the Monster grumbled yet said nothing. He was annoyed, but not agitated. Apparently, even he could understand that simply showing up wasn’t polite.