Dr. Everton stepped out of her car, a professional looking bodyguard opening the door to her black SUV. Without a word she moved forward towards the alley opposite her, two of the similarly dressed bodyguards moving in to flank her from the identical SUV's both behind and in front of hers. Stopping roughly fifteen feet from the shadows cast by the buildings either side of the alley, she motioned to one of the guards, and he slid over a briefcase, which disappeared into the uncannily dark shadows.
She heard the clasps of the briefcase being undone, and then once again as it shut. A few seconds later, an old, short man stepped out of the darkness, one hand clasped behind his back, and the other gripping an ornamental cane, the clacking of which reverberated abrasively through the night. His eyes were so arched as to be closed, and he had what could only be described as a shit eating grin plastered on his smug, wrinkly face. The briefcase was no where to be found.
He stood barely five feet tall, and stopped just out of the shadows. He wore a traditional black kimono, equipped with a dark green hakama interspersed with white stripes. Zori sandals adorned on top of white socks which disappeared under his hakama made his steps all but silent.
"My, Miss Everton, you look positively radiant tonight."
He eyed her up and down, and she smiled to the best of her ability, mentally recoiling from his perverse stare.
"That's Doctor Everton, to you."
She corrected, still with a forced smile.
"Hoho, Of course ,of course. How could I forget. Doctor Everton, the Angel of death they call you, if I'm not mistaken?"
He was provoking her, but his wretched grin only grew wider and wider.
An inkling of anger flashed across her face, but she swallowed it down in the last moment, taking off her glasses and massaging the bridge of her nose.
"Enough, I know of your perversion for provocation, and I won't take the bait any longer. Does our deal still stand or not?"
For the first time during the conversation, her stony visage broke, and a rare glint of worry found itself taking place upon her.
She watched as the man took in her plight, his smile stretching to an almost inhuman width in response.
"Why Miss Everton, I'm ashamed you would even question my legitimacy."
The man looked to the skies and pouted, his lips quivering in a mock pained expression.
"However... I suppose with the weight of what you've provided me, I would be remiss if I didn't hold up my end of the bargain."
He held eye contact with her, and she found herself only getting more nauseous by the second. Those eyes contained nothing. Endless pits of black. She wanted to throw up just thinking of this pale imitation of humanity. Utterly inhuman was how she'd describe him.
"Thirteen, Seven, come meet your new master."
From out of the shadows behind him walked two men.
"Seven."
The old man pointed to his right, gesturing to one of the men who had just came from the shadows, as if he was displaying goods from a store. She found it odd, before she remembered what she was here for in the first place, and quickly fixed her gaze upon the newcomer.
He was a tall, yet overly skinny man. Black bags saddled his eyes, which themselves sank deep into his face. He wore nothing on his feet, and apart from his bland black jeans, only had on a white shirt with a grey cardigan worn overtop. He looked about mid 20's if the 5 o'clock shadow growing on his face was anything to go by. He had long, unkempt black hair. Making eye contact with him, she almost recoiled before bracing herself. His eyes were dead, and glazed over as if he was unconscious. He radiated danger. It felt like he gave her the same look he'd give roadkill. His expression was flat, not a twitch of emotion sparked from beginning to end.
Becoming slightly afraid at his wordless gaze, she returned eye contact with the old man, and saw the glint of pride on his face when he had watched her reaction to surveying the man known as Seven.
"Thirteen."
The old man snapped, pulling himself out of his prideful daze, and motioned towards his left, highlighting the other man who had walked out of the dark. This time he waved his hands about as if he was an overly excited hand model, opening his mouth in an emotion which somewhat resembled what we humans would call "awe".
The one known to as Thirteen struck a sharp contrast with what she had seen from Seven. Barely a man even. Was he even 20? He stood a full head under the height of her bodyguards, and was only taller than her by maybe an inch, though admittedly she was wearing heels. He had scruffy brown hair, which lay haphazardly brushed back against his head. He wore, and quite charmingly, she thought, a white dress shirt and well fitting black dress pants, topped off with a nice pair of black oxfords. The suit jacket was nowhere to be found however, and it didn't escape her notice the slight amount of soot and blood on the shirt and pants.
His face was youthful, if a bit sorrowful, but didn't hold the same unwavering, flat expression that Seven had, though it was definitely getting close. She might have even dared to call him handsome, had he not sported a sizeable horizontal gash from his hairline down to just above his eyebrow, the injury evidently recent, as the man would occasionally use his shirt sleeve to wipe the blood from getting in his eyes. He held steadfast eye contact with her throughout, however.
Speaking of which, his eyes reminded her of both Seven, and to a lesser extent, the old man, but there was something else within his eyes that couldn't be found in the other two. Not a humongous difference, but a difference none the less.
What was it? Idnignance? No.
Fear? Doubtful.
Ah. That's it.
Hope. His eyes contained a spark of hope.
What an awful quality for a slavebound assassin to have.
"I'll take seven."
She nodded almost imperceptively towards the tall one.
"However, I won't take the other. Not only is he scruffy and injured, but I'm sure you've noticed the shimmer he carries in his eyes."
Instead of agreeing or disagreeing, the old man, for the first time in the conversation, looked at her with a vaguely bewildered expression, albeit tinged with his seemingly ever present joviality.
"The information I gave you is worth a hell of a lot more than an injured, defunct, slavebound barely past his growing years. My life is on the line here, I need someone I can trust to take a bullet for me. I want another. Healthy, whole, and... make them bit older."
At her words, the old man's smile crept from an inhumanely wide, ear to ear grin, all the way down to a smirk, and eventually settled on a flat expression, mirroring Seven's, if not even deeper than his.
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Somehow, this change terrified her a lot more than his usual, almost alien, smile.
"Injured? Defunkt? Young? Unreliable?"
He stared her down, and even from his tiny height it seemed as if he was looking down on her like a teacher would scold a student for answering a question wrong.
"Just what is it, exactly, that you think I do?"
"I-"
A vein popped up on the old man's head, but he stopped himself mid sentence, lowering his head and rubbing the bridge of his nose, just as she had done earlier. He breathed out a long sigh, and turned to look at the men to his sides for a brief second each, before returning to meet her eyes once again.
"Seven. Thirteen. Kill me."
"Wha-"
Before she could speak a word in confusion, the two men were already upon the old man, who stood still, one arm on the cane, and one behind his back, meeting her gaze as he had done before.
From the right of the man, the tall one known as Seven had bolted to just behind the old man, and swung at him with a soft sword that she hadn't even seen him produce prior to this moment. His expression was as flat as it had always been, his eyes looking almost bored as they watched towards where the sword would make impact with the old mans neck. She had no doubt that killing had the same mental priority as walking to Seven.
To his left, the younger one known as Thirteen had flashed to the side of him, and seemed to move even faster than Seven had. Was that due to skill... or?
Thirteens left hand was strained into a claw grip, and his arm swung to make contact with the old man's throat. His face, once again contrasted with his brethren, and even she, who had seen her fair share of death, and was a long shot from being an "innocent soul", felt the very essence of the word "rabid" emanate from him.
His eyes were strained, close to popping out of his sockets, and locked unceasingly to the old man's eyes, though the old man still looked at her, all the same. Thirteen bared his teeth ferociously, the corners of his mouth raised ever so slightly, and for just a moment she felt the same horrible, eerie feeling as when she had first saw the old man's abnormal grin.
Before she had even finished her involuntary gasp, and just centimetres before the two men's attacks would strike the old man, they both made a short gasp, paralysed in place, and rather unceremoniously toppled over, both of their attacks falling just short of their intended target.
As soon as they hit the ground, they both started spasming uncontrollably, from what she could only assume was a tremendous amount of pain. Seven lay behind the old man, but apart from his spasming body, his face was still locked in the same flat expression it had always been, leading her to wonder if he even felt any pain at all.
Thirteen lay in front of the man, facing away from her, and from what she could tell, his spasms were more controlled than Seven. From her expertise she inferred that he was actively fighting against whatever was causing the pain, unlike Seven who gave in to it. Meaningless resistance, it would only serve to exasperate his condition.
Knocking her out of her stupor, she noticed the old man was making his way towards her, his typical smile back in place, the cane gently clacking in rhythm. Still coming to terms with what she saw, she unwittingly took a step back, and noticed that the unforseen commotion had caused her nervous bodyguards to draw their firearms, which they inadvertently aimed at the spasming men, before correcting themselves and switched to aiming at the old man.
The old man's smile only grew wider at the upset he had caused, stopping just shy of arm's reach of her, the pleas of her bodyguards shouting at the man to stop falling on deaf, wrinkly, ears.
Straightening herself up to proper posture, she coughed once into her hands, and glared at her bodyguards until they got the message and holstered their handguns, swallowing the croak they had in their throats.
The old man took his hand from behind his back and extended it, turning it upright and producing a small remote, which he gestured her to take with his eyes.
Taking the device, she noticed that as soon as it left the old man's grip, the two men on the floor stopped spasming, and dropped exhaustedly to the cobbled ground.
"You asked for my best, and that is what I have provided you. Do not think my training so useless that inconsequential things such as injury, attitude, or age would affect their reliability."
The old man lost a hint of his jovial demeanour at the last part of his sentence, and turned his back to her.
"And least of all, Miss Everton."
He accentuated her name and title.
"Least of all, question their obedience. As long as you hold that remote, then order them to take a bullet, and they will do so as if you had ordered them to brew tea."
As the old man walked away, Seven and Thirteen had righted themselves, and stood, wiping the soot of the cobbled ground from their faces. She noticed that on his way out he had whispered something to Thirteen, who flashed a number of undiscernable emotions, finally resting on an erratic mix of disappointment, rage, contempt and resolution.
The old man disappeared into the shadows, and before long the rhythmic clacking of his cane had whispered into nothingness.
Seven and Thirteen walked over to her, and dropped to one knee in tandem, their heads held low.
"Seven greets Master."
"Thirteen greets Master."
They spoke in unison, both sounding equally dull.
She took a second to watch their obedient forms, finding herself more excited with the power she had over the two men than she had expected to.
She unzipped the hem of her pencil skirt enough to allow her to squat down, and grasped the chin of Thirteen, bringing him face to face with her. She played with the remote in her other hand, just enough for him to notice but not enough to look deliberate, and inched her face closer and closer to him.
"Tell me, Thirteen, what did he whisper to you?"
She breathed her words provocatively onto him, her eyes locked onto his lips as she twitched her own, just centimeters from his, threatening him with intimacy.
"Master"
Thriteen responded dryly, causing her to shudder, inhaling his words as her eyes rolled ever so slightly.
"He said, 'Good job.'"
Recovering from the afterglow, she returned his gaze, meeting his eyes.
"And what would that refer to, little Thirteen?"
Thirteen broke eye contact, and slipped out of her grasp as he brought his eyes downwards, which she mirrored, following his line of sight.
From the tip of his oxfords, a small pointed blade protruded, the tip of which was laced with numerous serrated teeth. Blood coated the final inch of the blade, which steadily dripped onto the ground.
With a glance, she looked over his shoulder and noticed a slight trail of blood disappear off into the shadows.
She couldn't help herself as a devilish grin spread across her face.