Others

      For the next two weeks, Kenny assigned Kiva only reconnaissance missions, discovering her potential and value. The girl never got caught, always managing to find out what Kenny wanted to know. She was glad of that, because she was useful and it was easy to find the information she needed. It was better, than attending the Ripper’s slaughters, but he had taken her with him a few times. It had been an unforgettable experience, and the scenes of the massacre of the unfit had haunted her clinging mind for a long time. Almost always Kenny was brutal and unrelenting, never making a single mistake. So far, he didn’t demand active participation from the girl, but rather showed her how to act, coached her like some innocent child. Once the girl put the knife down, a guy reminded her of one of her dead friends, and she couldn’t kill him until he actually attacked her. She got a big kick out of Kenny for that weakness.       As she slowly walked away from the dead body, that reminded of her friends, Kenny came at her and slapped her in the face. The girl was in prostration and didn’t react in any way. Then he shook her hard by the shoulders, squeezing her painfully with his hands. Kiva raised her glassy, unseeing eyes at him, listening to him hiss in her face in poorly restrained anger. “What, your pity again? Throw it away and stomp on it, I don’t need that kind of thing.”       He saw, that the girl had only killed the enemy, because he had attacked her, rather than strike first as she could have. It was annoying, and then there were a few more not particularly pleasant notations to the girl, that turned her soul out.       However, Kenny was not able to erase this humanity to the end, the girl always tried to act without excessive cruelty. She managed to turn off these emotions at the moments of work and killings, not letting them interfere with the decisive moments. But that didn’t include those moments, when someone somehow managed to summon a rare but devastating anger in her. Kenny had even witnessed this rare event on a couple of occasions. One day he was waiting for her in one of the inns, the girl had to return from another raid on the houses of the local “nobility”. Kiva entered the inn and was on her way to the table, where Kenny was sitting, but she was stopped by a couple of drunken men. They were brazenly harassing her with a very obvious intent.       Kenny watched his subordinate curiously, wondering what she would do. Her actions gave him both pleasure and mild surprise. She had broken the arms of both of them, one had torn his arm from wrist to shoulder, the other had smashed his face. Her eyes burned wildly, revealing a hidden side to her essence. Was she enjoying the process? Yes, and Kenny was very pleased with this behavior, as if it was a confirmation of his choice. The case, that Grice had led them, to was slowly unraveling, but the girl had not yet managed to find out, who had become the bearer of the secret of the ruling dynasty. Apparently, this man knew, how to hide and was unwilling to share his secret. It was necessary to know for sure, before making the next step, for there was no room for error. Kenny decided not to kill Grice, thinking it would be better to gather as much information about the Central Division in Mitra as possible.       No particularly interesting letters came to Marlo. The girl tried to memorize all the names, dates, everything, that could be important. And amazingly, her memory never failed. It lasted a month, and when Grice seemed to be getting closer to his goal, dragging an invisible tail behind him, the unexpected happened. He was killed. Quite by accident, he was ambushed with the police by one of the gangs. It was a childish gamble, but only Grice died, cutting off the traces to the necessary source of knowledge. Kiva had yet to find out, if it had been truly an accident. Two weeks were enough to realize, that it was all just an unfortunate coincidence. At the same time, Kiva kept an eye on the movements of the police, to see if there were any new orders from Mitra.       For months afterward, Kenny had her follow his men, testing their loyalty. The results sometimes showed, that the fears were not in vain, and Kenny did not hesitate to remove the guilty men without the slightest hesitation. He didn’t need a stab in the back. Kiva faithfully reported everything necessary, and sometimes the information, she managed to obtain, became the subject of an important bargain with the other criminal authorities. The girl with enviable persistence waited for the right moment, penetrated into houses, reread documents, sometimes stayed there, eavesdropping on conversations. Kiva always remained unnoticed, skillfully disappearing into the shadows, and Kenny sometimes wondered, how the girl managed it. Life seemed to consist of waves of violence and constant struggle, but even the likes of them had their moments of peace.        Both were quietly and almost silently at home now. An hour ago they had slept together. In all that time, Kiva had gotten used to sex, but she was still uptight, and she wasn’t enjoying it much. Kenny, on the other hand, was just fulfilling a need, and he wasn’t going to change anything just yet. The man lit the fireplace as the house was getting chilly. The fire couldn’t be stoked every day, as good wood that burned long and didn’t smell like garbage was rare. Ackerman sat in his armchair with his foot on the leg, reading the newspaper and enjoying the warmth, that the fire radiated in waves. The measured ticking of the clock, the crackling of the logs, everything was peaceful. The girl was sitting on the floor beside the arm of the chair, cross-legged, doing something with her bag.       Kiva wanted to alter it and make it into a kind of thief’s bag. It would fit more snugly around her body and not interfere with her movements. The girl decided, that she should start carrying lockpicks, rope, a short spare dagger, oiled rags, and other things that might be useful in a stealthy break-in. So the other day she got a long needle, strong threads, and pieces of pressed leather. She had first cut the bag at the seams, and now, laying all the materials before her, she thought, how best to sew it together to make it fit. Suddenly, Kiva felt a touch on her head. For the first minute she didn’t even realize what it was, then she turned her head slightly. Kenny was reading the newspaper thoughtfully, his arm hanging off the chair. When he was lost in thought, or thinking about something, he occasionally flicked his hand mechanically in the air, twirled his knife, or tapped his fingers.       Now his fingers found the top of her head and were going through her hair. It was strange, but pleasant. The girl tilted her head, giving his hand more access. She sat like that for a while, sewing the bag in the right places, picking up pieces of fabric, figuring out how best to fit the straps. The silence was interrupted by Kenny, who turned over a sheet of newspaper with a chuckle: “Ha, they gave me a new nickname.” “What is it?”, the girl asked mechanically, at the same time considering whether the chosen piece of leather would fit, or whether she would have to adjust it. “Reaper,” he snorted: “So unusual, I’m just a killer to them. But I like it.”       An unconcealed note of smugness could be heard in his voice, Kiva only smiled. The moments of silence and tranquility were rare, but they were all the more meaningful and enjoyable.       A thought came to mind, which turned into a question, and Kiva decided to ask it. It had been on her mind for a long time, but there was no good time to speak it without causing unpleasant consequences. “Kenny, what do you have to do with the Ackermans?”       The words hung in the air, the hand on her head squeezed hair, but then released it and resumed its stroking. “My last name is Ackerman.” “I see, I was thinking something like that,” Kiva threaded the thick thread into a needle and tried to pierce the edge of the gutted torc.       Kenny wasn’t prepared for the fact, that the girl’s curiosity and insight would somehow affect him as well. He pondered, on what basis she could have gotten to his connection to the distinguished family name. He couldn’t find any obvious leaks or references, so he decided to ask. “What gave you that idea, little one?” Kiva turned her head slightly.       The unreadable and ordinary expression on his face, the complete immersion in the paper, all told of the importance of the matter to the man. “Well, you reacted unusually to the mention of the Ackerman family in one of those letters. Not the usual way.”       Kenny tried to remember, if he had given away anything of his anxiety, when the girl had retold him the Reeves letter, which she had somehow contrived to read. It had been two weeks ago, and the man didn’t recall any particular reaction or outward manifestations on his part. He glanced at the girl, who was quietly sewing. He thought to himself, that the girl, with her powers of observation, had been living with him for quite a long time, and could notice things, that he had not noticed himself. He began to read the paper again. “You would have found out sooner or later.” “Does that explain the abundance of murders?”       Here Kenny laughed, the girl couldn’t understand the purpose of such frequent massacres, rubbed her on the top of her head. “Every time I slit a bastard’s throat, I know I’m building a better future.” “It’s going to be a busy future,” the girl laughed back.       Over the next year, life went on as usual. Venturing into the cities above ground, trying to find some people, kill some people, keep an eye on the the actions of the authorities. The money from the contract killings was being put aside. In order to accomplish their primary goal, they needed to move to the cities above ground. More valuable information could be found there, and it was easier to assassinate officials and look for traces leading to the real ruling dynasty. Not to mention a higher standard of living, for Kenny it was a given. He didn’t like the Underground City, but he was in it for security reasons. Yes, it was easy to dissolve and get lost, however the cities near Sina had a plus side. No one would be looking for an assassin in a middle-class neighborhood, or the usual civilians. Because of the easier access to Mitras, Kenny would have liked to choose the house in Stohess, but that was under heavy police scrutiny, because of the catacombs.        The underground passages were not empty; they were a tidbit for smugglers and those wishing to hide from their pursuers. That’s why police patrols were much more common in Stohess than in other cities of the Sina Wall. If something bad happened, Stohess was the first place they investigated, and the killer didn’t need that kind of attention. Kenny decided to choose Ehrmich There was a flow of people in the city, a safe place to hide. They were coming from the more dangerous neighborhoods, and the police were doing a good job of controlling, what they thought, was the situation in the city. That way, no one would even allow the thought of someone with a bad reputation infiltrating this town. Orvud seemed too boring to Kenny, and Yarckel was close to the passage to the Underground City, which attracted the attention of the authorities. In the event of something happening from Ehrmich, it would be easier to escape without attracting any attention.       The decision had been made, and Kenny didn’t even think of doing everything personally through intermediaries, knowing that no one would agree, because no one wanted to keep the killer’s secrets in the grave. And it was not in his interests, if there was an opportunity to do everything secretly, why not take advantage of it? So he did all the official business of buying a house through Kiva, taking advantage of the fact, that no one alive knew about her or her work for the Reaper. Kenny went out into the courtyard to give the girl some orders. She was practicing with a knife. He had never seriously interfered with her exercises, not thinking it was necessary. In all this time the girl had gained incredible plasticity and strength, and watching the man taught her how to move better.        But she couldn’t get the speed, precision, and strength, that Kenny had. She was repeating the movements, but she felt something was missing, something was wrong. Kiva turned around, a look of slight irritation in her eyes, and pointed at the man. “You. Practice with me, I can’t figure out, what I’m missing.” “You’re just not as talented as me, little baby.”       The man said mockingly, but walked over to her and pulled out a knife. He had never sparred with her like this before, he wondered, how long she would last against him, he didn’t even doubt his victory. Kiva had lasted about fifteen minutes, a decent result. Perhaps, she would learn from this and gain some thoughts from it, but later. Right now she had work to do. Ackerman got her documents in someone else’s name and sent her to the notorious mediators, carefully instructing her. The girl made up a story on the fly and was no different from a simple citizen of the Underground City, who wanted to move to a more pleasant place to live.       Thus, how Ackerman moved to a peaceful and quiet town remained a mystery even to the local gangs, who always tried to keep the killer in sight. All formalities took less than a month, and slowly Kenny moved closer to his main target. The move to Ehrmich didn’t cause any technical difficulties. If for Reaper it was a step to return to a familiar and normal life, for Kiva it was a long-awaited step into the bright world, she had been deprived of. The girl enjoyed exploring the city, the streets, the houses. She enjoyed every minute, spent in the fresh air, and Kenny was calm about her long runs around the city, it was very useful. She enjoyed it all, and needed it for her work, because first she had to thoroughly explore the area. And soon Kiva easily built a map of the city in her head. Her memory did not miss a single moment, noting the most important and interesting places. She didn’t hesitate to go down into the sewers as well, she wanted to study everything in detail.        Soon she could lead with her eyes closed to the house of this or that rich man. The city had a centralized post office, which made it easy to extract information from correspondence. Frequent trips to neighboring towns allowed them to be explored gradually, though sometimes Kenny made them without the girl, leaving her at home. However, the most pleasant thing about this change of residence was the nature. She liked everything: the wind, the sky, the forests behind the walls, the sunlight. She liked to climb onto the roof of their new house before the sun peeked out from behind the high walls. She liked to watch the sun peek out from behind the structure, as if it were some kind of natural mystery. But it wasn’t that often, the new house was bigger and needed more care, and the new field of action took more time and effort.       The house was a full two floors and did not stand out from the others. The first floor had a large room with a fireplace, a smaller room, a small but full kitchen, a pantry, a bathroom, and a separate restroom. A staircase with polished steps led upstairs, and in the staircase itself was another small pantry. There were two identical rooms on the second floor. So much free space was straining Kiva, and there was nothing to furnish it with, but Kenny was not worried about that, it was only a matter of time. As usual, they didn’t have to deal with the mundane things for long. After a month they were on the right trail and something big was coming up. Kiva, not particularly pleased with herself, walked into the house, where Kenny was waiting for her, it was already dark outside. He greeted her with words that sounded a little impatient: “Well, what did you find out?” " It’s just as you thought, Berner certainly knows something about the monarchy, and he certainly knows those, who are in the know. It will be possible to get information out of him, because he is careful in his letters and conversations, I have nothing to boast about. I’ve only been able to find out, where he lives and what places he visits.”        Kiva waved her hands apart, showing her discouragement. Kenny didn’t expect anything else; he remembered the rich man as very distrustful and calculating.       He’d had enough of the address, he wanted to look into the victim’s eyes. Berner was one of those who actively supported the extermination of the Ackermans, so Kenny considered it quite realistic to combine information and a sophisticated death. “That’ll do, give me the address.”        After listening to the exact location of Berner’s house and Kiva’s advice on, how to silently get inside, Kenny got up, he couldn’t wait to get started. The girl watched him calmly, keeping her scanning gaze on him. The man put on his hat, turned to Kiva, giving her orders: “I’ll handle it myself, you get some rest, there’ll be more work later.” “If you say so,” Kiva shrugged, making herself comfortable on the couch by the fireplace. Ackerman said goodbye: “By tomorrow night he will be dead.” “I don’t doubt it,” she muttered quietly to herself.       She closed her eyes, a disturbed thought on her mind, but she decided to think about it after a little rest.