Nine Shillings

Contracts

London - 1842

On my list of problems the easiest to solve was Father Brennan's. I had to admit I was a little impressed; I'd been a notorious troublemaker and I'd never had a contract put on my life. Or it was possible no-one had dared attempt it, I spent a long time fostering a dissuasive reputation. It didn't stop people trying to trap me in disused buildings or dark alleys. Granted, they were great places to trap people, but it also made them great places to get trapped yourself.

I dropped from the rafters and landed with a thud a few feet from Lord Wentworth.

'Jesus,' he exclaimed and stepped back into the two bulky fellas behind him.

The taller of the two fellas looked towards the rafters as if he was calculating how I could drop twenty feet without so much as an ouch. Their nervous sweat mingled with the dust and rot. I didn't have the vampire ability to manipulate people's minds but letting my inner predator seep through the human mask didn't need mind magic, just me.

',' I said, letting Dublin seep back into my voice. Mrs O'Connor, and her English accent, had met Lord Wentworth in the past.

'I thought The Reaper would be taller,' Wentworth said.

'And not a girl,' the taller fella whispered, still glancing occasionally at the height of the rafters. His hand was gripping a knife in his pocket, the sharp steel and whetstone stood out against rotten wood.

I smiled which was all they'd be able to see in the shadow cast by my hood. It occurred to me I should consider a mask in case long drops blew my hood back.

The tall fella stepped closer to Wentworth and said under his breath, 'I've got a bad feeling about this, boss.'

'I don't pay you for your feelings,' Wentworth replied, keeping one eye on me.

'It's just a girl,' the smaller fella said.

Wentworth pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Be quiet, both of you.' To me he said, 'You make people less of a bother.' He smiled as if we were chatting over cucumber sandwiches. 'I was hoping you could do the same for me. I pay well but so far others have been a disappointment.'

'I'd know about that,' I replied, shifting from foot-to-foot.

'Something about you seems familiar,' he said. 'Have we done business before?'

I shrugged. Mrs O'Connor was just one of many fashionable ladies, sometimes context could be the greatest disguise. I might've been more memorable if he'd known it was me who once flicked a sprout at his bald patch.

As the silent seconds ticked by on three pocket watches, his two men edged round to flank me. They'd planned for every eventuality and picked a warehouse with a nice big drain for dropping corpses in, if I disagreed. The taller one's palms were sweating and his heart was beating quick.

I pretended not to notice. 'You want me to kill Father James Brennan because he's encouraging workers to think they have rights and you don't like it. Not cost effective. '

Wentworth stepped forward, frowning into the darkness. 'How do you know that?'

'Do you know the most effective way to stop financially motived killers from killing a person?' I asked. 'Take away the financial motivation.'

I threw out my arm. My knife thudded into Wentworth's chest. He put his hand around the pommel and stared at it.

His thugs dived for me. I grabbed Tall Fella by the arm and swung him between me and Little Fella where he kindly caught a knife for me. I pulled the knife from his kidney, ducked a fist, and rammed the blade into Little Fella's eye socket. They hit the floor like tipped dominos.

Wentworth was sitting on the floor staring at the blade, it had missed his heart. My mechanised scabbards needed some fine tuning for my faster reflexes.

'It might've been a mistake to try and hire Father Brennan's sister to kill him.' I kicked the knife into his heart.

He collapsed backwards and gave the ceiling the expressionless eyeball of death.

Away went Father Brennan's problem. Until he found a new one.

My knife rattled against Wentworth's ribs as I drew it out, then I wiped it off on his fine tailoring and clicked it back into the mechanism. The click needed work too, there were too many beings who could hear it.

I scooped the men up one by one and dropped them into the drain. By the time I was done it was definitely full of shit.