His body would slumber, but they couldn’t control his mind. Rramaan let out a long, slow breath, and sent his thoughts beyond the half-place he was in, back to the mortal world. Seeking.

Half-pictures and distorted images filled his head. Garbled sounds and disjointed thoughts garbled through his senses.

Rramaan peeled his seeking mind from the torrent of humanity, burrowing it deep in the quiet tranquility no one ever thought about on purpose. Sounds and images fell away, and only a few strong minds melded with his, quietly pondering.

~Twilight, then dark, in spectacular colors shading quietly to star-speckled black. Dry, warm air moving across skin worn and weather-beaten. Crunch of sand beneath booted feet~

Hello, Erik, Rramaan thought to himself. There could be no mistaking the quiet focus of that particular mind. Not being the eavesdropping type, he let those pictures trickle away. He knew what he was looking for.

**But I want to play with all the pretty shiny things. See, look at me, just like Uncle Wessin! Uh oh…**

Rramaan touched the last mind, feeling the familiar pattern of it. Reaching into it, he felt it grow aware of him.

With a quick jerk on the dreamer’s part, the contact snapped, and Rramaan was left alone in the emptiness.

I woke up, shaking off the eerie feeling of being watched by glowing silver eyes. I wondered if I was dead. Then I decided that dead people don’t feel like they’ve had their head bashed in by a brick wall, or have blood leaking from their noses. Since I was fortunate enough to have those symptoms, I figured I must still be alive.

“Uhnnngh…” someone groaned. I think it was me.

“Shhh!” someone else hissed. I think they were talking to me.

I ‘shhh’-ed. My head throbbed like a thousand hammers were hard at work in my skull. My blood was dribbling into my mouth. My throat was parched, and my stomach felt queasy. I didn’t feel like talking, anyway.

There were low voices somewhere off to the… Well, I’m not sure which direction. My head was ringing so badly, I was still having trouble with ‘up’ and ‘down’.

“…came this way? I don’t see ‘ny tracks, or…”

“I saw ‘em head this direction. C’mon, they can’t be too far ahead.”

“I’m telling’ ya-”

“Shut up. What d’you know, anyway?”

“Well,-”

“Never mind. Let’s jus’ keep followin’… bound to…”

The voices faded away, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I looked around to see who had ‘shhh’-ed me. It was that girl from Lafey’s pack. She was glaring at me. I attempted to smile, and groped for my knife. It was missing.

“Looking for this?” The girl asked, dangling my knife in front of my face.

I tried to grab it, but the effort of moving caused me to lose track of which of the three identical images I was supposed to be reaching for. My hand closed on empty air.

“Ow,” I said, deciding it wasn’t worth the trouble. If she wanted to kill me wit my own knife, at least my head would stop hurting.

She frowned. “Fine, then, I’ll keep it. You’re obviously in no shape to be using it, anyhow.” She tucked my knife into her belt. Which was when I noticed her tattoo.

In every streetkid pack, there are three people who get tattoos; the Leader, the Assassin, and the Medic. Not every pack has an Assassin, and very few have a Medic, but those are the positions of power. I’m not sure where the tradition originated, but that’s the way it had been for as far back as I could remember.

I wore the black Assassin’s tattoo at the base of my neck, between the shoulders. She wore her red Leader’s tattoo on her right hand.

I must have been staring, because she glared at me again.

“What is your problem?” She growled. She had the same funny way of talking as Lafey, I noticed. Odd. “You look like you’ve never seen a tattoo before, or something.”

“By this time, I had managed to prop myself up in a sitting position. Now my shoulder was hurting like Hell, too. “I’m jus’ wonderin’ what yer doin’ with Lafey’s pack if yer a Leader. An’ why I’m not dead right now. An’ why yer hidin’ me. An’ who knocked me out, ‘cause they gotta helluva punch. An’ what’s goin’ on. Jus’ gen’ral curiosity.”

“You ask too many questions,” she informed me. “Be quiet.”

I was very good at being quiet, when I wanted to be. I kept my mouth shut and wondered if my nose was still bleeding.

The girl got up and scouted the area, presumably to make certain we had escaped detection thus far. Why was she helping me?

While she was gone, I rubbed the knot on my head. It was tender, but would heal up fine in a day or so. I wiped crusted dried blood from my face, and tilted my head back. After a few minutes, the bleeding stopped. I began to feel a little better.

She came back in a good mood. “Tricked those bastards good, I did! They’ll be going around in circles for hours yet, if we’re lucky.” She looked down at me. “Do you think you can walk now?”

I started to nod, then decided that wasn’t a good idea. “Yes,” I said instead.

“Good. Let’s get out of here.”

I shook my head, and immediately wished I hadn’t. When the world stopped spinning, I pulled myself to my feet. “I’ve gotta finish my job.”

She gave me a curious look. “Why?”

“Why?” I wondered if I might have heard her wrong. “Did ya jus’ ask me ‘why’?”

“Yes,” she said, suddenly defensive. I mean, its not like it was an easy thing getting us out of there. And you want to go right on back? It makes more sense to leave now, and maybe they’ll never find us.”

I decided to humor her. “I wouldn’t be a very good Assassin if I let my victim jus’ case me away, now would I?”

“Oh.” She frowned. I began to wonder if her tattoo was real. Who in their right mind didn’t know Assassins killed their quarry or died trying? Weren’t Leaders, especially, supposed to know these things?

“I would like my knife back now,” I told her. She tossed it to me, and I stuck it in my belt. I looked at her, considering. On the one hand, if I were dead right now, it would be her fault. But I wasn’t, because she had somehow dragged me out of there.

“I’ll let ya live, for now. Consider us even. I’ll remember this, should we meet again,” I intoned formally, and turned to go.

“Wait-” She said. I stopped, and waited. I was very good at waiting. She sighed and sat down on a rock. “I could answer your questions for you, if you like.”

I turned, looked at her. What was she up to? Why did she want me to stay? Was she trying to stall me? Why? The alarm bells in my head were ringing again, and I decided to listen to them this time.

“Not now. Maybe if we meet again one day. I have a job ta do.” I left her, arm stretched out to me in protest, ignoring her calls as I once again took up the task Claude had given me.

Thandre curled up tighter in the shelter that he had dug out of a mound of dirt and concrete. The wind was still cold, and carrying the scent of rain. If a downpour caught him now, he would just have to rough it out.

He wasn’t sure exactly whose turf he was hiding out on, but he knew it wasn’t Hara’s. With luck, whichever pack owned this turf was tough enough that Hara’s pack wouldn’t follow him here. Scouting out the potweed hadn’t gone as smoothly as he had hoped.

He knew he was supposed to be back by sundown, but things just hadn’t worked out that way. Hopefully Claude wouldn’t count him as dead just yet. And his brother would come looking for him if he had to stay hidden longer than just tonight. Everything would work out in the end. He just knew it.

Shivering, he rested his head on his knees and drifted to sleep.

~~~~~~~ Silver eyes drifting on a sea of darkness. The feel of cold and ice lingers in the background. A touch, like a breath of vapor, light as the whisper of butterfly wings. Like the touch of a mind so alien it bordered on being incomprehensible, and yet familiar at the same time…

Lafey was waiting for me just outside the bomb shelter. I didn’t see anyone else around. Probably, Lafey had sent them all looking for me. But he knew I’d come back for him. It was there in his lazy, arrogant eyes. I hated him. The feeling, by his sneer, was mutual.

“So! The child killer returns, an upstanding example for all to behold. I’m very unhappy with you right now, boy. Four of my men dead, trying to catch you, and another had to be put down. Did you kill the girl, too? Pity if you did. I’d have liked to do the honors myself.”

I didn’t see any real reason to answer him. In my mind, he was a dead man walking. Instead, I spent my thoughts trying to figure out what trap Lafey had laid for me this time. No way he was stupid enough to leave himself unguarded. You didn’t live as long as Lafey had by being stupid.

“Looking for tricks, boy? Stop wasting your time. I intend to kill you fairly, in a way I’m sure your little Assassin’s honor will quake before. It will give me so much more satisfaction.”

He drew his sword. A thirty-year-old with a sword against a nine-year-old with a knife, and he used the word ‘fair’? There is no such thing as a fair fight. There’s a living winner and a dead loser, and it doesn’t matter how you get that way. There’s nothing evenly matched about that. There’s no such thing as honor once the blades are out, no such thing as rules. You’re alive, or you’re dead. Simple as that. I intended to be alive.

Before his sword had completely left the makeshift sheath at his belt, I watched my knife fly through the air to lodge in his throat. Silently, I thanked Charsin, the Assassin who trained me and taught me how to throw blades.

The first virtue of an Assassin is patience. The second is unpredictability. Apparently, Lafey was not expecting a knife in the throat from six paces away. Because he fell over, dead. I retrieved my knife, wiped off the blood. Lafey was dead, and half his pack, too. Claude would be pleased.

The forced calm of being on assignment to kill lost its hold and dissipated like fog when the sunlight hits it.

“Deities and witchcraft! I must be insane!” I shouted to myself. I began to feel shaky, my heart racing as the enormity of the task I had accepted and completed came crashing down on me.

“I should be dead!” I yelled at the sky. “I wasn’t ready for this! Why am I not dead?!”

Silence answered me. Dawn was beginning to rise somewhere in the east, and it would have been ironic justice if some early riser from a nearby pack decided to take it upon himself to put the poor, ranting lunatic out of his misery.

There were corpses all around. I needed to get away from all these dead bodies, was what I needed to do. Away from Lafey’s frozen look of surprise. Away from Emile’s grotesque, bulging eyes. Away from the dark black pool of dried blood around Red-head, whose name I never learned. Away from all the bodies in the silent dark within the shelter. I turned away and ran.

Angel looked around her at the mounds of broken stone, decrepit pieces of walls still trying to stand here and there, and the rough pavement under her feet. She frowned. She didn’t know what this place was, but it wasn’t home, and it was dirty and smelly.

Why was she here? How did she get here? Where was Erik and fat stuffy old Allyson and her warm bed with the feather pillow? She was hungry and thirsty and tired and cold and confused. Her hands were sore, her feet were heavy as rocks, and her skin felt like it was burning up. She wanted to go home.

The little voice whispered softly, but Angel didn’t want to listen anymore. Everything was not good and fine and happy now, no matter what the stupid voice said. She had gone where it said to, and so what? Sand, rocks, grass, and more rocks. At least at home there was a bed of pretty flowers to look at.

She wasn’t going to go that way anymore, or ever again! She was sick of it! She was going home!

Angel looked around again, chewing at her lip uncertainly. She had come from there… No, that wasn’t right… She had been walking that way, so if she just… But she remembered passing by that thingamajig… didn’t she?

Angel turned in frantic circles, her large blue eyes beginning to fill with tears. She was lost.

Thandre wrinkled his nose as he kicked his way out of his self-constructed nest. Why would anyone want to dream about girls, dressed or otherwise? And who wanted to drink something made of rotten grain, anyway?

Dak didn’t put much stock in dreams, either, but that was because most of his dreams were nightmares. Which Thandre could understand. If he had to kill people like that, lots and lots of people until his face was as hard as his brother’s and his eyes as cold… He would have nightmares, too.

Regardless. Claude would be upset with him for being late, but at least he was alive. Daylight was beginning to break, and the morning meal would be soon. If he hurried, maybe Claude wouldn’t give away his share to someone else.

Erik squinted into the bright morning sun. Shortly before dawn, the dry crunch of his boots on sand was replaced by the soft scuffing of knee-high grass. He didn’t have to look for tracks, not yet. If Angel had come this far, she would have passed much farther to the east. His path wouldn’t cross hers for another half-day at least. He hoped she was okay.

Turning southeast, Erik looked out across the grasslands. The chaotic crumble of stone and concrete that remained of the shattered city of Paris could be seen not too far off. Was that where she was going? If so, why? There was nothing thee but the carcass of the past, a few starving streetkids, and a quick death for those who didn’t belong.

How could she have made it even this far in so short a time? He wondered. At the rate she was going, she’s far ahead of me by now. A child would have to be possessed to go so far so fast…

Alexis and Victor had not returned from their assignment, and that was never a good sign. Maybe they were hiding, maybe they were badly injured, Maybe they were dead. Maybe their luck had run out and they would never be coming back.

Thandre had returned, but late - and had gathered no useful information before being forced to flee for his life.

That Harq and I were successful didn’t seem to cheer him up any.

“The grain was ours in th’ first place,” Claude growled. “An’ th’ turf, too. A handful’a wheat an’ a dead adult aint gonna feed this pack!”

I just looked at him. We might have had to fight a pack war over that handful of wheat. We might all have been dead right now, defending our turf from Lafey. We were lucky. It’s generally a bad idea to sneer at luck. You might find yourself short on it at a critical moment.

Claude sent Jean-Pierre and Harq out to discover what had become of Alexis and Victor. Packs take care of their own. If they were injured, we would find a Medic for them. If they were dead, we would mourn them and distribute their rations of flatbread to those who remained.

“Be back by noon tomorrow,” Claude told them. “If you’re not, you’ll be presumed dead.”

Harsh, but for a half-bushel of potweed…

When they left, I looked around at what remained of my pack, my family. Three. Three left a lot of empty space around our firepit, cold and empty space. Three, I though, is such a lonely number. Even when it was Claude and Thandre who kept me company, I couldn’t help thinking we were… incomplete.

None of us had slept much during the night, and all of us were looking like witches had raised us from the dead. Claude took first vigil, and Thandre and I curled up close to the fire.

I was glad Thandre’s luck had held out while he was away. Maybe it was because he was truly my brother, born at the same time as me, and so we’d been together long before we joined any pack, but I felt a special affection for him. And a certain protectiveness.

But for our eyes and my hidden tattoo, the both of us looked exactly alike, though I sometimes wonder about the eyes. Was Thandre just joking when he said mine were black? Did he realize I meant the color around the black center? My eyes might have been the same soft, warm brown as his. Thandre had a weird sense of humor, but maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe. Black eyes?

I smiled. That was why I had always wanted to be an Assassin - to protect my brother and my packbrothers, all so dear to me. As sleep slowly claimed me, I wondered if they were okay. I couldn’t protect them if they were dead. Three is such a lonely number…

Of course, the boy had not known what he truly was. If he had, there would likely have been none of that precious sympathy, that trust…

Rramaan was now uncertain if he truly knew which mind he was searching for. He had thought merely a child’s, resting in the quiet stillness of strong and focused minds, but there were a suprising number of those - nearly half a dozen.

Which one, which one? It could be any of them, even that first mind that had shut him out so suddenly. Carefully, he reached for it again. Perhaps if he could reach inside of it for longer this time, he could verify…

I woke with a start, shaking off the eerie feeling of being watched by silver eyes. A moment of fear as I looked around me. Where were…? And then I remembered. Missing. Searching. I sighed, thinking of that strange being’s hopeless quest. Was our own quest to be as ill-fated? But it was only a dream, I reminded myself. Dreams meant nothing.

I hated killing. I hated myself for being an instrument of death. Every person I killed took a piece of my soul with them, leaving me empty and bitter. How many, in my five years with the pack, had fallen to my knife? How many children who had clung to the streets as their one chance of survival in this hardened, uncaring world, had seen that hope shudder and die because I was told to kill them?

I had wanted, more than anything in my life, to wear the Assassin’s tattoo. I still treasured it more than the food I ate or the air I breathed. But that did not mean I loved the hunt, the killing, the blood on my hands and blade. I killed because it was the only way to protect those I wanted, needed, to protect. I killed because I was good at it. I was the best. And if I didn’t kill, those I loved would die.

Sometimes, I was afraid. Afraid I would fail when my pack most needed me to succeed, afraid I would die, and no one would be left to protect those I loved. Afraid I would break and no longer have the strength to do what had to be done. And I was alone in that fear.

It hurt to be alone like that, in such a strange, indefinable way. To look up at the blue-gray sky that went on forever and ever and realize that, in all of that vastness, there was only me.