Two
She stepped back from the barman as he let out a desperate wail, clenching big, calloused hands across the deep slashes that had opened up the top of both thighs, trying to hold his flesh together. His wide eyes founds hers, the brusque cocksureness he’d exhibited a few moments earlier now crumbling to dust. Yes, like all men she’d ever met, deep down he was nothing but a pitiful child.
Patético.
“Auxilio, por favor!” he cried out. Somebody help me.
They were the last words he’d ever speak. With a swish of the blades she opened up his neck, almost severing his head from his body in one violent move, like one of the huge yawning clams they sold in the Mercado de la Bretxa. She held the blades up to eye level and nodded. Good Spanish knives. Sharp. Deadly.
She stood over the barman’s slumped form for a while longer, watching him die, revelling in the sight of the deep crimson as it bubbled out from the neck wound and pooled on the dry dirt beside him. He’d learnt his lesson: don’t get in her way when she was working. It was a lesson hard learned, of course, and only bested by: don’t become her work in the first instance.
She knelt beside the man as his last breath left him, then wiped the blades clean on the bottom of his trousers. Satisfied, she stood up and returned the knives to the sheaths hanging on the back of her belt. One last scan of the scene (mainly for her own macabre enjoyment), and she gathered up the scattered sections of the nun’s habit and slipped into the bathroom to get dressed.
Once back in the black and white robes, she bustled through the busy taberna, passing the annoyed clientele waiting for service at the bar (heathens; they’d be waiting some time) and exited onto the street. It was mid-week, but the tabernas and restaurants here in San Sebastian’s old town were already thriving. She cast a glance up and down the narrow lanes. She wasn’t expecting to see him again, not tonight. But that was all part of her plan. Tonight wasn’t about getting the hit. She wanted to size him up, get him scared enough so he’d reach out to his people.
Besides, his reaction earlier had been one of shock and confusion, and that was no fun at all. She found it much more enjoyable when there was real cold fear in their eyes, when they knew what was going to happen to them. Danny Flynn knew she was out there, coming for him. Next time he’d be ripe with terror and dread. The perfect combination.
A thin-lipped smile spread across her taut features as she headed through the town – her thoughts drifting to how she’d do it when the time came. It would be a slow and drawn-out affair, she presumed. Her speciality. Nothing like the swift way she’d disposed of the barman just now. Although, she had found some delight in the way he’d pleaded for mercy. It was in these final interactions with her quaking quarry (them helpless and afraid) where she gained something almost transcendent. As though she wasn’t simply taking away their life force but absorbing it. So, yes, Danny Flynn’s time would come, but not tonight. She may have lost the element of surprise, but that wasn’t an issue. If anything, she’d use it to her advantage. People who were scared made mistakes, but those who were terrified couldn’t think straight in the first place. Luis Delgado could wait for his pound of flesh.
She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath as she reached the edge of the town. The air here was warm and still, the cool night breeze that often came in from the ocean unable to reach her down the old labyrinthine streets. As she passed by a shop window, she caught sight of herself dressed in the full nun regalia and the vision stopped her in her tracks. It felt like another lifetime away now, but this was almost who she’d become. She’d been ready and willing to do it too. To give herself to God, to a higher calling. Although, perhaps in her own way that was what she was doing still – committing to a higher calling.
Doing God’s work.
She often wondered what life would be like now if she’d gone through with her plans to join the local convent. She’d made all the arrangements. Said goodbye to her family. Was eager and ready to give up her life and surrender to her faith. But that was before the attack in the summer before she was due to move. She could still picture it when she closed her eyes.
Sometimes it was all she pictured when she closed her eyes.
Her at thirteen. Scared. Alone. The three men (boys, really, but with the brutality and lust of men) jumping out at her from the shadows, then every night after that from her dreams. That was, until she tracked them down and castrated and murdered them one by one.
Even after that she’d still considered becoming a nun. But by that point the bloodlust had grown too strong. She had a new calling.
The reflection in the glass smiled at the memory.
She pressed on through the town and arrived at her destination an hour later – a small convent standing on the hillside overlooking the bay, her home whilst she was in Spain. She’d thought the idea ridiculous when it first came to her, but the more she considered it, the more it had made sense. The old stone building was much smaller than the convent she’d almost joined near her hometown. And whilst the nuns here hadn’t taken a vow of silence, the convent
