An Only Pawn

An Only Pawn: A Short Story

A flick, a brief push of air as the folded note cuts a path towards the tabletop, and there is the name and particulars of the person I am to kill, written in a cramped, blotted scrawl.

A confession, Reader: I have never killed another person. No matter that I unfold the paper carelessly, that I read the words forged on the surface of the vellum as if I were scanning the details of a shopping list; inside of me there is a great tremor of something—fear, perhaps—that what I have been appointed to do will mark an event from which I can never recover.

"There's no concern over whether or not the death should appear natural." The man across the table from me—Edwards, is his name, as if he were a valet come to decry the muddy state of my boots—brushes his knuckles across his jaw before pausing to bite at the edge of a ragged fingernail. Nothing else about him is ragged, his coat and trousers immaculately tailored, if a bit nondescript. But it's not our purpose to garner attention here, in a middling tavern that treads a delicate line between the upper echelons of London society and the filthier holes of drink and gaming that share their foundations with the swarms of rats and overflowing gutters near the river's edge.

"So a slit throat and all will be well, hmm?" I look at the paper again, at the name that loops its way across the upper corner of the page.

Lady Ariadne Drummond.

"She is perceived as a threat to the Queen, to our nation's very security." Edwards raises one pale eyebrow, the movement incongruous with the enormity of his words. "I don't care if you remove her head and stick it on a pike along the road to Hammersmith, as long as her demise is not traced back to the palace."

I fold the note and tuck it into the pocket of my waistcoat. A line appears between Edwards' eyes, and I suspect he wants me to crumble the paper and toss it into the nearest fireplace. Though if he was worried about leaving a trail of evidence behind him, perhaps he should have thought twice before dipping his quill in an inkpot.

"Very well," he says, and gives his jacket a peremptory tug before he slides forward in his seat, unfolding himself like another piece of furniture set aside for use in the taproom. "I'll expect to hear from you when the task is completed." He fishes around in his pocket and tosses a few coins on the table, though he hadn't deigned to drink anything on offer. "Oh, and Mr. Muir? One final thing." He steps nearer to the table, the man's slight form blocking out the light from the fireplace and the dozens of other candles, casting a shadow and forcing me to tip my chin back at an uncomfortable angle to view him properly. Which is his intention, I assume.

"Yes, Edwards?"

The line again appears between his eyes, the only indication that he does not care for the flippancy of my tone. "If you could be so good as to prevent her death from appearing as if it were at the hands of... one such as you, we would be forever in your debt."

One such as you... I smile, the corners of my mouth pulling back, ensuring a display of gleaming incisors and canines that taper to a shining point. "Which must beg the question of why you bothered to ask me in the first place, considering what I am."

Edwards draws in a deep breath, nostrils flaring, an attempt at asserting dominance over the situation. I lean back, but simply to reach out an arm towards the tankard I've gone and abandoned on the far edge of the table, still half-filled with ale. "Should you succeed, Mr. Muir, then there will be no need to comment on your affliction. But should you fail in your endeavor, then do not think we will hesitate for a single minute to attribute the havoc to the actions of a lone, raving werewolf, one who will see himself locked back into the prison cell from which we just saved you."

I take a sip. And then another, while I watch him shift restlessly from one foot to the other while I drink. "You could save yourself the trouble and tell them I'm originally from Perth. That should destroy any standing I might have achieved since journeying south."