Steampunk 5 – Jo & Griff

Jo stood just outside of the garden gates. A low light burned in one window, the study. Having scouted the venue thoroughly and watched her mark for days she knew now was her time to strike. She sucked in a lung full of the crisp night air. Jasmine and roses hung heavy in the spring air, their scent nearly covering the smell of horse. The almost silent creak of leather grated on her ears as she slipped her long leather duster off and draped it over the saddle. An absent check of her knives and she moved in for the kill.

A dealer of death since she could remember, she closed her thoughts down to focus on the task at hand. She opened her senses to the night, to her environment. All was as it should be as she scaled the ivy covered wall. Quickly she moved through the shadows, the soft glow a beacon to her. A wrought iron banister provided leverage as she swung herself over and on to the low balcony. The door sat ajar, as though she were expected. She took a deep breath to calm her racing pulse. The mark never knew she was coming. That is how it always was. She would silently slip in and make the crown’s problem go away. If they were lucky she might tell them why before the end, but usually she dealt a silent end to them, a quick death her only mercy.

She pressed on the panel and watched it swing in on well oiled hinges. There was a form sitting in a chair staring at the fire. There was a musky scent that hung in the air here. It tickled her nose and inflamed her. Ruthlessly tamping down the foreign sensation, she stepped forward one step, then another until she was behind him. Drawing her prized Gurkha knife from its sheath she leaned forward to grab his chin as she sliced the knife across his neck. Except, she found herself in flight. Her body hit the floor with a thud that clanked her teeth together and stunned the breath from her chest. The mark was out of his chair as she rolled to her feet.

“Who are you?” He demanded, his eyes cold and gray in the dim light.

With a grunt she feinted right and then swept left slashing her knife down in a deadly arc at the vulnerable spot between neck and shoulder. He blocked her thrust and wrapped his meaty fist around her forearm and jerked her forward into his chest. Her breasts pressed against the muscled wall of his chest. Her breath hitched at the proximity, and his bodies strange reaction. He seemed to harden, everywhere. He inhaled sharply as though his mind figured out what his body already knew. Spotting the moment of distraction, she jerked her knee straight up, but managed only to strike his thigh.

“Damn you,” she said. Thwarted, she pushed off him and turned to break away. Instead, he reached out and grabbed the trailing end of her rope of hair. He slowly began to reel her in like a fish on a hook. As he pulled her back to his chest Jo knew she was in trouble.

“Who are you?” His question was really more of a demand, but again she held her tongue.

Knife still in hand, she jammed it back into his thigh with a quick, shallow thrust. His grip on her hair loosened as he reached instinctively for his injured leg.

Jo seized her moment and flew to the window. She turned to assess his pursuit only to see him staring at her. His once cold grey eyes blazed with anger, and desire. A desire to kill her was a safe assumption. She shrugged one shoulder up in acceptance of her defeat and dashed over the balcony. The clank of metal on stone rang out as she hit the ground. Instinctively she reached to her thigh, one of her knives was gone. Damn. There was nothing she could do about it now. She pressed on to the garden wall and easily scaled it to return to her mount. Safely in the saddle, she spurred her dark devil of a horse to full gallop as she exploded into the alley and made a desperate dash for safety.