Daggers in the Dark (Book 3 of Hanthalah)

Chapter 29

"If I wanted him tied up or in a sack, I would have done it myself," Qasim, the brother of my first slavemaster Mas'oud spat at Amina, pointedly ignoring my presence, on my knees in the meadow. "You've revealed your true self to him. What am I to do with you now, Woodpecker? What am I to do with your insubordination?"

Woodpecker, I thought glumly. I remembered that the vile assassins dubbed themselves with names of birds. How pathetic. To think this band of morons brought me to my knees. Figuratively, of course.

Amina moved from my side, swaying gently as she stepped toward the greying Qasim. He was much more wrinkled than I remembered. It had been years since I saw him last.

They both wore black garb, but where Qasim donned his usual dark cloak, coat and trousers, Amina wore a single black gown. Tight against her supple body.

She put her arms around Qasim's waist, maneuvering herself closer. The old man did not balk at her less than subtle attempts. It seemed to me that this dynamic was not one only just blossoming before my eyes. Nor was this the first moment of intimacy they shared with one another.

There was something about her lips. The odd shade of blue to them. Her hand found its way between the old man's legs, blinding him to the increasingly darkening hue that was slowly engulfing her once-red lips.

"What you're going to do to me," she began answering his question. "Is a decision you need not confer with me."

Qasim's gaze was fixed on her figure rather than her face. His attention diverted to her hand rather than her lips.

"What are we to do with the murderer?" Qasim, the Raven, referred to me flippantly with apparently fleeting attention toward me. I did not blame the man, bitter enemy he was.

Amina scoffed, jerking her suggestively placed hand up and down. "He is no longer your concern."

"Wh-wha?" he groaned, unable to discern the meaning of her words.

It was then she struck.

Not with a dagger, not with a fist, and certainly not with a sword.

But with her lips.

She leaned forward, placing them on his own. First, a peck. Then, a full-blown kiss, incessantly reaching for his insides.

Oblivious to his reality, Qasim returned the kiss, putting more effort from his side into it, cupping the witch's face in his hands.

I broke free of my deliberately loose bonds the moment I saw their knees buckling. Qasim's gave out first. The dosage was becoming unbearable for Amina to resist any longer. It ended Qasim on the spot, on account of his age and the element of surprise. Perhaps arousal as well.

Amina staggered away from the bastard. The man himself fell to his knees as I found my feet, cradling my chafed wrists.

Though in an abysmal mood with self-doubt, an entirely foreign concept to me, riddling every fiber of my being still, I took a moment to savor the sheer look of defeat in his befitting black eyes as they stared up at me. Helplessness was what they reflected. Vulnerability. Powerlessness.

It was like looking into a mirror.

Amina fell flat on her back, unmoving. Entirely paralyzed now.

I grabbed Qasim by the shoulders, his tongue clicking in a failed attempt at speech. The Chinese concoction was taking full effect on him now as I shushed him with a finger.

"You were a valiant foe," I conceded. "My lifelong nemesis."

I envied the man. He was about to die. In a lush meadow, bountiful and green. Beneath a clear sky with pretty birds circling full clouds.

What did he do to deserve this? The question racked my brain, pounding past my misery as surely and suddenly as a wedge formation.

Through the grief and the sorrow, through the uncertainty and the precarious state of mind, an old friend stopped by, paying me a dear visit.

For a moment, I felt like my old self. I felt like Hanthalah ibn Ka'b.

I felt rage.

It coiled through my chest like a viper, sent bursts of heat pulsing through my body. My heart threatened to leap out of its cage, jumping with upheaval in its place, gushing and loud, excited at the impending carnage, roaring for blood as surely as it always had.

Sheer, unadulterated fury cruised through my veins, giving birth to renewed energy and letting slip a soft growl from my lips. I ground my teeth in an effort to contain it, to mitigate it. But to no avail. It consumed me as it always had, taking the helm, controlling me in my entirety until I became but a passenger within a vessel that was once my body.

"Can't run away now, you slippery bastard," the words escaped my ground teeth, tight against each other to the point of shattering. I pulled him toward me by his grey hair, twisting, yanking. He couldn't even scream. Not even a wince.

I kneed him in the jaw, sending a splatter of blood from an ancient mouth. I kicked him in the gut and decked him across the face. It did little to satiate the wrath snaking within, threatening to pour out in its entirety now.

"Let me show you how that nephew of yours died."