Gilded Shadows
an excerpt

The front door creaked open, followed by the distinctive sound of someone trying very hard to move silently and failing horribly at it. With no one directly in front of him to notice, Gil rolled his eyes and sighed inwardly. Could the man seriously think he was testing a novice of some kind? Or maybe it just amused him to try. Certainly he should know he was not going to achieve it. Either way the young man waited until his employer must have been standing just behind him, a hand poised over his shoulder and a triumphant smile exposing slightly crooked yellow teeth.

“Is this really necessary?” the dark haired assassin asked.

“Is what necessary?” returned an irritated tenor voice.

“This place, partly. Also the haste with which the invitation came.” He pushed the cold and now congealing beef stew to one side as he continued to pointedly not turn around.

“You didn’t have to come,” a heavy wooden chair scraped across the rush strewn stone floor as the taller blond man pulled it towards the table. He sat down across from the waiting young man. The serving woman appeared to have ducked out. Not that Gil blamed her, it was now past the inn's usual closing time. The two men could count on their privacy but not on any further service. He really didn’t need anything further anyway and if Cal had wanted to eat, he could have gotten here sooner.

A sardonic smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, “I was curious,” he replied dryly, “What kind of work could possibly be so dire as to pull me from returning home to a hot bath and a warm bed?” The idiot knew very well that it was in Gil’s nature to want to hear out every offer that came his way. As ridiculous as some could be, he would always listen. It was just another facet of that invaluable reputation that he was so proud of.

“How does preserving the human and elven ways of life sound?” Cal answered, eliciting a raised a eyebrow from his prospective employee, “How does the work of a savior sound?”

Gilwin snorted, incredulous, “I can’t say that that title or any desire for it has ever crossed my mind. Besides,” he continued as the smile returned, “when you’re the ‘savior’ everyone knows your name. And that is just bad for business, you know.” It sounds a little dramatic is how it sounds, he thought.

Calron just smiled back, he knew that was the kind of response he would get. “Alright then, I‘ll put it in terms you can better accept. How about you do this and you will get double your usual fee.”

That likewise got the response that the blond man wanted as he noticed the assassin’s eyes narrow ever so slightly in suspicion. “What’s the catch?” Even Gil knew his fees were next to outrageous. Getting the job done right and without even a trace of either assassin or employer being caught, though, was worth any price to some. Cal often tried to barter him down, whining all the while. Gil often suspected that the bartering was just out of greed. He doubted very much that Cal had been talked down by anyone searching for his services. Cal just looked out for Cal. Gilwin was nothing more than a tool to fuel his fortunes. Hence, the suspicion.

“No catch other than the usual. This one is just… important.” The ‘usual’ meaning that once Gil gave his word, he would keep it. That much was always understood. At least, he liked to think it was.

“Who is he then?” he asked quietly, letting the small insult slide by like water off of oiled leather.

“She,” came the immediate correction.

Gil coughed lightly, “She?”

Calron shrugged back at him, “You’ve killed women before,” he said in an off hand voice.

The younger man chewed on his lip a little, thoughtfully, “Once,” he answered, “and she was well deserving of it. I had to be sure, though. You know that I’ll have to be sure. Whoever it is, male or female, I have to be sure.”

Cal rolled his eyes, “Yes, I know. This time we want you to watch for a while anyway.”

He cocked his head to one side, “Who is she?”

“Some seamstress’s daughter. A mule woman in the West district.”

“A Mixed breed still remains in Old Dominion? She must not be very smart. Or has had some illegal racial surgeries.” Any kind of alteration that was done and was determined to confuse others on your natural born race was against the law. A few still did it anyway, though, and if it was done well it was very hard to prove but most determined that it was not worth the trouble. Even the Mixed breeds- or ‘mules’ as the other races tauntingly called them because like mules, they did not produce offspring- did not often take the chance. Given the public opinion on mixed breeds, they were obviously the ones that would seek it most often. Magical means could be used to determine a person’s true race but that was not often used as the spells were expensive and it was rare to find a priest who had learned the very exacting incantations.

“No, no,” Cal shook his head, “nothing so outrageous as that. She just keeps out of sight and doesn’t announce her breeding to the world. A few mules do still live in the city, you know.”

“And I’m the only one who can get to her for a clean kill? Surely you know a few others who could break through such formidable defenses as one such as her is bound to have,” he replied with light sarcasm, “Seriously, Cal, why me? I’m certain you could find someone much more… affordable.”

“There’s more to it than just a simple job of elimination.”

Gil nodded, he assumed there was. There would have to be. He leaned forward, deep gray green eyes intent on the other man’s watery blue ones. “Yes?”

That other man smiled, “For once, your annoying habit of studying people to justify your further actions will come as a benefit.”

“You just want me to kill innocent people?” he interrupted, stormy eyes wide with mock surprise.

“If I pay you enough, yes,” he snapped, then stopped for a moment, shaking his head. He reminded himself that the boy was still worth it, eccentricities or not. “We want you to, this time. The woman has some… sensitive information. We need you to find every scrap of sensitive information she might have written down. We also need to be absolutely certain that none of this gets back to us. We would prefer if it even looked like an accident.”

Gil shrugged again, “I can do that. It’s not what I normally do. The spying part, I mean…”

“That’s why we’re paying you extra.”

He nodded. “If she deserves to die, I will kill her.”

“And don’t you usually find a reason? I have never known you to take a job and then not find your… reason.”

“Yes, I do. Always.” He smiled and held his hand out across the table. The blond man grinned as he shook it firmly.