Thursday, July 19, 2012

Razor's Edge-Part Two


It was a dry, sterile building-full of silent offices. The windows were all dark, on all thirty stories. This building hadn’t been used for anything in ages: or, at least, that was what the people in the dilapidated, crumbling city were led to believe. 
The windows in the building had been darkly tinted before, but now several coats of black paint coated them like thick, impervious scabs from the inside. No one could see out or in, and no one wanted to. The current owners of the building were a powerful mob-like band calling themselves ‘the Snakes’ Head gang.’
The city’s population lived in near-constant fear of Snakes’ Head, except a brave few.
Every inch of the blade-wielding woman un-ironically called ‘Razor’ was covered in black, and her jet hair was drawn smoothly back from her pale face into a tight, efficient bun. She ghosted through a battered door with chipped white paint and mounted the stairs behind it. Her dancers’ shoes made not a sound on the old steps. She climbed fifteen stories, then slipped silently through another door to a long, lightless hall, utterly un-winded.
Razor closed the door quietly behind her and then ceased moving-still as a statue, she listened as muffled shouts met her ears from further down the hall. She turned her head almost imperceptibly, observing an artificial golden light showing from under one of the office doors. Like a shadow she started forward again, listening intently. The shouting had stopped, but the voice was still irate. 
A meeker voice muttered something in response as Razor drew closer to the office door, but the loud guy broke in again. 
“Get the hell out of my office, Gibson.” Commanded the brash tone of her target.
The second man hesitated an instant then complied. He was intent on escaping, walking so fast he didn’t notice her. 
Stalking up behind the retreating man silently, the black-shrouded woman struck like lightning. Drawing closer than his own shadow, she simultaneously slapped a hand over his mouth and stabbed him deftly in the neck, expertly angling her attack so that it killed him instantly, lowering the body silently to the ground.
There she paused, waiting in abject stillness as she strained her senses to their considerable limits to determine whether she’d been detected. After a slow count of twenty, Razor approached the door, making as much noise as a shifting moon-shadow.
In her mind, she went over her plan again. The Snakes’ Head boss would be at his desk, at the far side of the room. He was always accompanied by two guards, one stationed at the door, another at his back to the left. Both would be armed with keen short swords, and comparatively well trained in their use.
Razor rolled her shoulders soundlessly, feeling the comforting weight of the twin twenty-inch kodachi swords resting in their sheaths on either side of her spine. She confirmed the location of her throwing knives with a slow glance to avoid even the sound of faintly rustling fabric; the ten wicked, perfectly weighted blades belted casually to her lower back. Ten more, five on each leg, were bound to the outside of each snugly-clad thigh.
She rested her long fingers delicately on the hilt of her signature long knife and exhaled silently. Then, Razor veritably exploded into the room, barely glancing at the guard who flinched only slightly at her abrupt entrance, and drew his short sword with startling speed. Unfortunately for him, his split-second hesitation was all the time she needed, and the instant before he was able to attack, she thrust her own blade into his heart and ruthlessly twisted it.
A breath, a blink later, the boss completed his spectacular twitch of surprise, and his remaining guard fell dead with one of Razor’s throwing knives buried to the hilt in his eye. The poleaxed boss watched in shock as both guards hit the ground at approximately the same time, while Razor calmly slid the door shut and retrieved her knife from the corpse next to her. She glanced about the small office before approaching the only surviving man in the room with a disturbingly blank expression.
He reflexively licked his lips, the only outward indication of his nervousness besides the light sheen of sweat popping into visibility on his brow.
“Long Knife?” He inquired. Razor inclined her head slightly to indicate an affirmative response, approaching slowly. Not with trepidation, but like a stalking cat lazily anticipating a satisfying conclusion to an enjoyable hunt. The boss shivered, his breathing speeding up as he struggled to sublimate his desperate anxiety and rising panic.
“Who took out the contract? How much are they paying you? I can double it.” He said desperately, transfixed by her easy approach and disconcertingly relaxed posture. Razor didn’t respond at first, just trailed her delicate fingertips along the polished wood of his desk as she started to round it to get to him.
He was well aware that any sudden move on his part would end in his death, so he stayed seated in his chair, but couldn’t help but inch the rolling desk chair away from her slightly as she got closer and closer, her faerie-like features terrifying in their abject blankness. 
“No one’s paying me. I just really don’t like Snakes’ Head.” She said, a strange darkness in her cobalt blue eyes. “I had the night off.”
“You won’t survive this.” He blurted out. Razor shrugged.
“I’m pretty confident you’re wrong about that.” She stated in a calm, mild tone of respectful disagreement. He opened his mouth to yell. She blocked his windpipe with the blade of her knife, hitting its pommel with the palm of her hand to drive its point deeply into the vertebrae of his neck.
Razor turned away from the corpse.

(About bloody time I posted part 2, eh? Yeah. Sorry about that. Anyways, here ya go. Part 3 to follow. ...Hopefully to follow sooner than part 2 did. hahaha. As usual, please comment! It helps motivate me to write more, and boy oh boy do I need the practice!:->)