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"Darkly funny and wildly over the top, this mystery answers the burning question, ‘Do assassin skills and Girl Scout merit badges mix…’ one truly original and wacky novel!"

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MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HITMEN

by

LESLIE LANGTRY

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ebook Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Leslie Langtry

Gemma Halliday Publishing

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to your online retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HITMEN

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Table of Contents

Rio Bombay

Caspian Bombay

Aberdeen Bombay

Dublin Bombay

FROM THE AUTHOR—GIN BOMBAY:

These tales are the bedtime stories and family histories of the Bombay Family. Because of the oral tradition in which they've been handed down all these years, I'm writing these in my own voice. Well, because of that and the fact that I'm very lazy, and apparently there are four cassowaries in Australia who are a bit impatient for this next book. By the way—this is for you, Bulvai, Hrothgar, Beowulf, and Kevin!

I've had some requests to include at least one story about how one of our strange family rules got started, so I've included one. See if you can spot it. Hint—it's a bit darker than the others. Being a Bombay isn't easy my friends.

Since publishing the first collection: SNUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON: And Other Bombay Bedtime Stories, I've had a few critics complaining about voice, historical accuracy, etc. And I'd just like to say that there are now a few less critics in the world.

You're welcome.

I hope you enjoy the stories. I know I did.

Rio Bombay

Felony, Texas—1870

It was dawn, and it was dusty the morning I rode into Felony, Texas. There was something romantic about that because I was in town to kill a man. Not just any man—the corrupt Marshal Beauregarde Figgins. My name is Rio. Rio Bombay.

Norbert, my horse, slumped between my legs. He was tired. But we were here, and he could have oats, a good rubdown, and a nice, dry stable for the night. Norbert didn't have to kill anybody. He could just hang out and wait until I was done. Then, I rather hoped we'd be able to ride off into the sunset or something poetic like that.

Chances were pretty good I could arrange that sunset thing. It didn't really matter when I killed Figgins. I was my own boss, so I thought I could make this happen.

Alright, I'll admit right now that I was a bit of a Wild West nut. Actually, I grew up in Newport, Rhode Island. But I spent all my time reading about cowboys and lawmen and gunslingers. When this opportunity came up, I jumped at it. Even bought a horse and everything. It was just unfortunate his name was Norbert. I'd envisioned a name like Duke or Trigger when I got my first horse. But he was a trick horse from the circus and only knew how to respond to 'Norbert,' so that's what I had to deal with.

Oh yeah, Rio really is my name. Rio de Janeiro Bombay. As a kid I shortened it and told everyone it was because of the Rio Grande. I wished it was. I really, really did.

"Why are you so quiet?" Jeb asked.

"Just thinking," I answered a bit sheepishly.

"Okay, Colonel," Jeb said as he continued riding next to me.

Did I forget to mention I wasn't alone? Jebediah Smith was a man from my infantry unit in the war. I'd come across him just outside of St. Louis. He was headed this way and thought we could ride together. A good man in a fight, I liked him when he served with me. Besides, a little company made the long trip to West Texas a bit easier. Unfortunately, his horse was named Cochise. I thought that was a bit unfair. But no matter. Jeb was just looking to homestead somewhere in Texas. Once he found that place, we'd be parting ways.

I slowly rode Norbert up what passed for a Main Street in this backwater town. Townspeople walked through the dirt, looking at me warily. It had to be the hat. I'd bought a black, ten-gallon hat in Oklahoma, much to Jeb's amusement. I thought it was most appropriate. I tipped it to several of the ladies who I passed. They ignored me. I hadn't expected that.

We found the hotel and tied up Norbert and Cochise. Norbert gave me a look that said he'd rather go directly to the stables. I stroked his ears and made my way into the two-story clapboard building.

"I need two rooms," I tried to say with a gruff, cowboyish snarl. In all those stories, cowboys were men of few words and had deep, crackling voices. Jeb turned away to hide his grin. I'd really have to talk to him about that.

"Okay." A bored matron shoved the register toward me and asked me to sign for both rooms. I wrote Rio Bombay in big, dark letters and a sharp, sloping hand. I was admiring my new gunslinger style signature when she tossed me two keys and snapped the book shut without even looking at my name. That was disappointing.

"Fifty cents a night. Dinner's at six. Stables around back." She frowned at us. Ah, the old spinster who ran the hotel, I thought, imagining her coming out here as a bride for sale, but having found no takers, she chose to run the local hotel. She would have a 'no frills' name, like Prudence and a sour attitude to match.

I paid her and tipped my hat and said, "Ma'am." I'm not sure she heard me because she turned away as soon as she had my money. I looked at my key—Room Four. Yes, that sounded like a good number for the room of a gunman. I tossed Jeb his key, and he caught it mid-air, which I thought looked good. He went up to his room while I checked on the horses.

Norbert looked a bit unimpressed with our new status as the savvy, sage lone rider and his trusty steed. I led him and Cochise around back to the stables. Once I was sure they were taken care of, I headed up to my room and dropped my satchel on the bed.

The room was neat and clean. There was an iron-framed bed with two pillows and a clean, simple quilt. In the corner was a table with a bowl and pitcher and small mirror. Perfect. Exactly what I wanted.

I practiced my quick draw in the mirror for a little while and must admit, I looked very cool doing that. Truth be told, I was pretty fast. When six-shooters first came on the scene, the Bombays started training on them immediately. I was good with one—the best in my family. That's probably why they sent me on this assignment. Maybe they saw cowboy potential in me.

Back home in Newport, there was little need for quick draw contests. Even though I came from a family of deadly assassins, my sister and mother were far more interested in the social seasons. Don't get me wrong. Both women were lethal and good at their jobs. But they preferred quieter methods, like a well-placed hatpin in the eardrum or a tincture of arsenic during a six-course dinner on 5th Avenue. I think they found my fascination with the Wild West a bit dull.

Actually, I found life in general a bit dull after the war. I was a colonel in the Rhode Island Infantry and managed well enough in battle. The endless death was depressing, but the action kept me on my toes. How could I go home to ballrooms and debutantes after that? A lot of my fellow soldiers made their way west, and I longed to join them.

I thought maybe I could set up a base here. Build a house—something with a big hitching post outside and lots of antlers inside. The more I thought about that, the more I liked it.

Norbert came from a circus in Virginia. He was a trick pony who came when called, had no issue with gunfire, and really looked the part of a cowboy's horse. A gorgeous paint, I wanted him the moment I saw him. Since we started riding west, however, he became somewhat less enthusiastic.

I ran into Jeb in Illinois, just before crossing the Mississippi into St. Louis. It was a nice reunion in a hotel tavern. Jeb had been down on his luck since the war ended. He'd been an excellent rifleman and missed the action, so he'd decided to go out West and try to make a new life for himself. When I mentioned that I was going to Texas, he leaped at the chance to go with me.

I liked the idea of having a partner for the ride. I told him about my interest in cowboys, and he managed to control his amusement. Apparently, I'd been well-known in my unit for all the dime novels about the Old West that I read. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a couple in my saddle bag even right now.

The morning wore on, and I made my way downstairs to the dining room to meet Jeb for lunch. The room was filled with normal looking folks, much to my disappointment. I was about to ask my server where the cowboys ate, when I spotted my target.

Marshal Figgins was a large, muscular man. He strode into the dining room like he owned it, taking a seat at a table for two near the window. The table should've been occupied—it was the best spot in the crowded place. That's when I noticed a large placard on it that said, RESERVED FOR MARSHAL FIGGINS.

No one spoke to him, I noticed. No one called out or waved in a friendly way. Everyone averted their eyes. Figgins removed his gun belt and slammed it on the table loudly. The people closest to him flinched. A server appeared immediately—a young woman with red hair tied up efficiently. She was the only one who didn't seem afraid of the huge man with the large, dark mustache.

Figgins murmured a few words, and she nodded and rushed off to the kitchens. He then leaned back in his chair and stared out the window.

I was completely absorbed. The history on Figgins was a violent one. Marshal Beau Figgins had spent ten years terrorizing half the Texas territory. He killed Indians at will—women and children too—because he thought they were unnecessary. He was known for his fast draw and his penchant for cheating in duels by placing snipers throughout the town. Most of his prisoners never made it to the jailhouse because they were killed "resisting arrest."

In fact, Figgins had become his own law. The governor and his appointed judges couldn't rein him in. Oh sure, they had some power, but he was stronger, smarter, and meaner than they were. All of this made him the perfect target for me.

My thoughts were interrupted as an argument broke out at the table next to me. Two men in derby hats and spats stood and shook their fists at each other, disagreeing about the bill. I watched as the manager rushed over to quiet them down. He whispered something to the men and then nodded nervously at Figgins, who was now starting to look at them with interest. The two men paled and immediately sat down, apologizing to those around them for disturbing their lunch.

I watched as Figgins fixed them with his gaze for a moment longer before turning back to the window. The men paid their check and fled as fast as they could.

"What just happened there?" Jeb asked as he sat down. He'd had a bath and a shave and bought some clothes. His hat looked a little larger than mine…or maybe it was my imagination. He looked good, really like a cowboy and less like a former infantryman from New England.

I filled him in on the disagreement, and we ordered lunch.

"I checked on…the horses," he winked at me. I'd warned him not to mention Norbert by name in public. "Thought I'd look around town and find out what the prospects are this afternoon."

"I'm going to the saloon," I answered as a huge plate full of meat and potatoes was set in front of me. Jeb nodded as if he approved of my plans, and we tucked in to eat.

After lunch, I got directions from Prudence to the saloon. She didn't seem to approve, or maybe that's just how she treated everyone.

Figgins was still eating, and I wasn't ready to follow him just yet. I needed more intelligence before I could draw up my plans. And the best place for that would be the saloon. To say I was excited to be going to a real, Wild West saloon would be a gross understatement.

"What'll it be?" A jolly, balding man with mutton chop sideburns grinned at me as I settled at the bar in the wonderfully named Diablo Saloon.

"Whiskey," I said, savoring each syllable. Mother would be unnerved. We didn't drink whiskey at the club in Newport. But I wasn't in Newport, and I was going to have whiskey.

"Not from around here?" the barman asked as he poured me a glass of amber fluid.

"Nope," I said as brusquely as I could. The key to being a good cowboy was in being mysterious. The mysterious stranger was the one everyone was always interested in.

"In town for long?" Muttonchops pressed.

"No," I answered, tossing some coins on the counter and turning my back to him. I heard the scrape of his hands retrieving the money, and he asked no more questions. I grinned. I'd pulled it off!

"What're you smiling at?" a tall, thin cowboy with a nasal voice asked me from the table a few feet away.

"Nothin'." I stopped smiling and touched the brim of my hat. This was getting better and better! Mother would be furious at me for my abuse of English, but she wasn't here now. I really needed to get her out of my head if I was going to be a cowboy.

"Leave 'im alone, Rocco." Rocco's buddy cuffed him on the head. "Now, are ya in, or ain'tcha?" He pointed to a pile of chips in the center of the table, and I realized a poker game was in progress.

Rocco pointed at me. "Ya wanna buy in?" Something in his voice was threatening, or at least, I hoped it was.

I narrowed my eyes to show them I was not someone to be trifled with.

"Prolly too steep for ya," Rocco sneered. "It's five dollars ta buy in."

I tried to control my excitement as I slowly made my way to the open chair at the table. I sat down and tossed five dollars on the table. I said nothing, because this was how it was done in the stories.

Rocco's friend introduced himself. "Name's Hank." He pointed to the man on the other side of me. "That's Axel, and ya know Rocco." Hank and Axel were about the same size and build. Both wore heavily stained hats and thick, bushy brown mustaches. The only difference was that Hank had long, greasy hair, and Axel didn't seem to have any sticking out from under his hat.

I almost exploded with enthusiasm! A real, cowboy poker game with high stakes and guys named Rocco, Hank, and Axel! I couldn't have paid people to dress up and act this out back home…not that I ever did that, of course.

"Name's Rio," was all I said.

We played a few hands, and I made sure not to win too much. I'd played a lot of cards during the war, and I knew men didn't like losing to someone they didn't know right off the bat. I had plenty of money. Money wasn't the goal here. Information was the important thing.

After the third hand, the men realized I wasn't going to cheat or kill them, and they began talking amiably. I joined in a little here and there, and let them know I was just passing through. I bought several rounds of whiskey, and before long Rocco, Axel, and Hank were clapping me on the back like I was an old friend.

"I'm stayin' at the hotel," I said as I picked up my cards in the seventh round. "Had lunch there."

Rocco grinned, "Didja see Miss Penny Philpot?" He nudged his friends with his elbows knowingly. "She's got hair like a copper penny. Real purdy gal."

I nodded, feigning interest in my cards. I was a bit sad because I had to throw away another straight just to keep things friendly. I discarded two cards and asked for replacements. "I saw her. Very pretty. She was waiting on the marshal."

Rocco's smile faded quickly, and Hank and Axel frowned. They looked at each other for a second. I didn't prompt them, I just waited as Axel slid me two more cards and I added them to my hand. Damn. Now I had a royal flush.

"Stay away from that marshal, friend," Rocco said quietly. He looked from left to right. "He's bad news."

I raised my eyebrows inquisitively. "I got that impression. In fact, your friend, Miss Penny, seemed to be the only one who wasn't afraid of him."

Hank and Axel exchanged looks before Axel turned to me. "The marshal's sweet on Penny. He's asked her ta marry him six or seven times. She always says no."

Hank nodded. "There's no one braver in this town than Miss Penny."

"I fold, gentlemen," I lied as placed my cards face down. "I just can't seem to catch a break today."

Rocco slapped me on the back and laughed. "I gotta say this, yer a good loser, Rio."

I smiled and motioned to the barman for another round. Hank dealt the next hand.

"What is it, if you don't mind my asking," I said casually, "about this marshal that I need to avoid him?"

Rocco looked at me. "If yer jest passin' through, make sure ya keep yer head down. Marshal Figgins owns this town."

"Owns it?" I asked. "Owns the property?"

Hank shook his head. "No sir. He don't have nothin' but his big house at the end of the street. He kinda owns it in a 'nother way."

"What do you mean?" I dropped one card and held up a finger to Hank, asking for another card. I had nothing in the hand, but I had to make it look like my luck might be starting to turn. I may have been enjoying this a bit too much.

Axel piped up. "He's the boss. He can shoot ya just fer lookin' at him funny and git away with it."

"Really?" I asked as I slid my new card into my hand. "How is that legal?"

Rocco shook his head sadly. "We've buried two judges, and the last one retired five days in. No one cares about what happens here."

I raised my eyebrows. "Why don't you leave?"

Hank shrugged. "Where'd we go?" The other two nodded in agreement, and that seemed to be the end of the conversation.

I didn't press—afraid that would be suspicious. These men were getting liquored up and soon would be useless. I felt a buzz, but that was about it. I had a very high tolerance for alcohol. After losing yet another hand, I thanked them for the game and excused myself. They waved me off good naturedly, and I paid the barman for my tab and left.

It was getting late, and I remembered that Prudence had said dinner was at six. I headed back to my room to clean up and then made my way back to the dining room for dinner.

A different clientele had filled the room this time. Well-dressed men and women took up every table but one—the empty table by the window that still bore the reserved sign.

I guessed that the customers in the evening were guests of the hotel…travelers. Over lunch this must be a popular spot for the townies. I wouldn't get much information from these people, so I just enjoyed my dinner.

The marshal didn't show up. I supposed he either ate at home or was just out killing people. The small bit if information I'd been able to glean so far matched the information given to me about the assignment. Now I just needed to learn more about his movements. It seemed to me that Figgins wasn't going to go down easy, and I was the outsider here.

"Would you care for some cobbler?" A sweet, soft voice intruded on my thoughts. I looked up to see the face of Miss Penny Philpot staring down at me.

She was beautiful. The word "pretty" didn't really do her justice. Large, blue eyes, pale skin with a smattering of freckles across the nose, and wavy, flame-colored hair. She smiled warmly, and I forgot all about cowboys and six shooters.

"That would be nice," I said somehow. She nodded and left, returning almost instantly with a dish of cherry cobbler. I thanked her, and she went back to the kitchen. I tried to read more into it but got nothing. It was immediately clear to me why the marshal had pursued her.

For the rest of the dinner, I tried to catch glimpses of Miss Penny Philpot as she worked her way around the room, greeting customers, serving cobbler, and shining like a beacon of flame-haired loveliness.

I really needed to focus. I wasn't here to court a woman. I was here to kill a bad guy, preferably in a showdown at high noon.

"Sorry I missed dinner, Colonel." Jeb joined me at the table and sat down.

"Not a problem," I said. "But please stop calling me Colonel. The war is over, and I'd rather you called me Rio."

Jeb nodded, and Miss Penny Philpot returned to our table to take his order. I stopped thinking entirely. I couldn't stop staring at the way she smiled…the way she nodded and thanked Jeb for his order…the way she breathed…

"Wow," Jeb said softly as I watched her walk away. "You've got it bad."

I tore my gaze away from the retreating Miss Philpot and turned to him. "What?"

"You couldn't stop staring at her," Jeb said with a grin.

All the air seemed to rush out of me. "I was terribly rude, wasn't I?"

Jeb laughed. "I don't think she minded, Col…I mean, Rio."

"Really?" I sat up a little straighter in my chair. "How do you know?"

"Just a feeling, Sir." Jeb took a sip from his glass of water and sat back.

"You don't have to call me 'Sir,' Jeb. The war is over, and ranks don't matter anymore."

Jeb nodded. "I know. Old habits are hard to break."

We chatted for a few moments until Penny brought his dinner, when I stopped thinking and focused intently on her. I was rewarded with a lovely smile before she left to check on another table.

Jeb had found an interesting prospect for work. A rancher outside of town needed a foreman and was partial to former Union soldiers because he'd lost two sons in the war. I listened politely and tried not to focus on the redhead who was distracting me.

After dinner, we said our good-byes and made our way to our rooms for the night. This business of being a cowboy had worn me out, and I slept very soundly.

At breakfast the next morning, I was a little more reserved when Miss Philpot appeared. What was it about her that turned me into a brainless twit? I was here to do a job, and pursuing a woman who had turned down the most powerful man in town seemed foolish.

Jeb didn't come down to eat, instead meeting me on the stairs to say he was riding out to the ranch for the day to inquire about the foreman position. That gave me a whole day free to find out all I could about Marshal Figgins.

Felony, Texas was not a large town. There was the main street, intersected by four other roads, each with a couple of streets and back alleys all their own. I decided to leave Norbert in his stables and walk.

The day was hot and getting hotter. Dust swirled in the air every time someone stepped off the boardwalks and into the streets. I guessed this was better than mud, but I was completely coated with dust before half an hour was up.

Most of the legitimate businesses were on the main street—a dry goods store, a dentist/barber, and the hotel with its restaurant and the saloon were bookended by a bank at one end and a very large house at the other.

I stopped in the dry goods store and bought a few toiletries, inquiring politely about the large, two-story house at the end of the street.

A young woman with brown hair pulled severely back in a bun, looked nervously around the store before answering.

"That's the marshal's house, mister. Take my advice and don't get too close or ask too many questions." She was then shooed away by a thin, balding man I assumed was the manager. He curtly asked if there was anything else I needed. I got the distinct impression he wanted me to leave. I touched the brim of my hat and gathered up my purchases and left.

After returning to the hotel to drop off my items in my room, I headed back out for more exploration. While getting change at the bank, I asked about houses for sale in the area. A pinched looking man frowned and said I had to build if I wanted anything around here. I asked who had built that large house at the end of Main Street. He shook his head and closed his window.

I had better luck at the stables as I checked on Norbert. My horse was happily eating a bucket of oats which had fresh hay next to it. I swore his eyebrows went up when he saw me, as if to say, I'm fine. Go away.

Two young boys were holding down the fort. They spoke animatedly about the town and its most fearful resident.

"And whatever you do, mister, watch out for the marshal!" the boy with red hair said as he hopped from one foot to the other.

"Yeah!" the taller kid with blonde hair added. "He lives in the biggest house I ever saw," He pointed in the direction of the house. "And nobody lives there but him and his servants! Can you imagine that? A big house for just you!"

"He doesn't have any family?" I asked as casually as I could. No family meant a few less grudge holders after I killed him.

The redhead shook his head. "Nope! Just him!" The boy started to dance around the stables. He looked a bit like Miss Philpot, but maybe that was just because they shared the same hair color.

"What's your name, son?" I asked.

The boy grinned. "Percy! Percy Philpot! And I'm seven years old!"

This information startled me. Did Penny have a son? Or was he a younger brother?

"You stayin' at the hotel, mister?" the other boy asked. When I nodded, he said, "Percy's sister, Penny, works there. You probably seen her." He hoisted his thumb to his chest. "I'm Ned. My dad runs these stables. Percy's my cousin."

"I help!" Percy giggled, before beginning to run in circles. Clearly the boy had too much energy.

"I see." I was a little rattled by this new information. But why should I be? I wasn't courting Penny Philpot. Okay, so maybe I harbored the fantasy that she would ride into the sunset with me when this was all over, but now I knew she had family here.

I tossed the boys each a coin and asked them to take extra care of my horse. Norbert snorted as if he were laughing at me, and then buried his snout in oats.

As I walked out into the street, I had this strange feeling I was being watched. Casually I looked around me but saw nothing in the blank faces. My instincts have never been wrong before. I ducked into an alley and waited.

"Didja see 'im?" A cold voice traveled a little ahead of its owner.

"Naw," came an equally gravelly reply. "Just disappeared-like. Figgins said we wuz to rough 'im up. Teach 'im a lesson."

My spine turned to steel, and I prepared myself to fight. These two men were talking about me, I was certain of it.

A man came into view, and I punched him in the throat before he saw me. He collapsed in a heap, spitting and clutching his neck.

"Whut the…" The second man came around the corner, and before he could get to his gun, I laid him out with an uppercut to his bristly, unshaven jaw.

I dragged the bodies into the alley and stepped out onto the street, making my way back to the hotel. It was lunchtime, and I needed to think.

I was sitting at a table in the dining room a few minutes later, concentrating on what had happened.

"Now then," a soft voice said over my shoulder, "what exactly do you think you're doing, asking questions and stirring up trouble?" Penny Philpot was standing over me, holding a pitcher of water that after a knowing glance, she poured into the empty glass in front of me.

"Excuse me?" Her words and her presence had caught me off guard.

Penny shook her head. "You need to be careful when asking questions in this town…Mr.…"

"Bombay," Jeb said smoothly as he pulled up a chair next to me. "His name is Rio Bombay."

Penny smiled. "Nice to meet you Mr. Bombay. And you are…?"

"Smith. Jebediah Smith, at your service, ma'am." Jeb nodded.

"How did you know I was asking questions?" I interrupted.

"My little brother told me. Apparently, he's quite taken with you. Calls you the Mysterious Man," Penny said as she filled Jeb's glass. "He likes your horse too. What's his name?"

Jeb winked at me, and I hurried to cut this conversation off. I was thrilled that Penny's brother thought I was mysterious, a feeling that would be somewhat tarnished by a horse named Norbert.

"I was just asking about this place. Seems like a nice town to consider settling down in," I replied.

"Hmmm…" said Penny." Well don't ask about the marshal. He's a bit touchy about that sort of thing." She looked me right in the eyes, and I saw that she knew about the fight in the alleyway.

Miss Philpot took our orders and left for the kitchen.

"What exactly did you do this morning?" Jeb asked.

"Nothing," I tried to be casual, but it wasn't easy. I sipped from my water glass to stall.

Jeb looked at my hand, then at me. "Been in a fight, have you?"

I put the glass down and looked at my knuckles. Damn. I should've worn my black gloves.

"It was nothing." I examined my hands. "A couple of drunks tried to rob me in an alley."

Jeb sat back and looked at me for a long moment. He was a fairly handsome man. I wondered if I had a rival for Miss Philpot. I brushed that thought aside. I wasn't here to court Penny, and Jeb wasn't that kind of man.

Our lunch arrived, and we ate in silence. This gave me time to think. Word spread a bit too fast in this town. Fast enough for the marshal to send some goons after me, and fast enough for my waitress to comment on it. Gossip wasn't necessarily a hindrance. In this case I was sure I could make it work for me.

"How did the job interview go?" I asked Jeb once the dishes were cleared and coffee was poured.

Jeb pushed his chair back and regarded me thoughtfully. "I don't really know. I thought it would be one thing, but it turns out to be another entirely. The rancher runs a tight ship, I'll give him that. But I just don't think I'm cut out to be his foreman. I'm not sure I could treat the men who worked for me like that."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Well, he's pretty strict with them and doesn't trust them at all. I'm used to the trust and respect we had in the army in the war. I don't think I could oversee men like this guy wants me to."

I nodded. "Things are different here, that's for sure."

At that moment, Marshal Figgins walked in and seated himself at his table. Jeb followed my line of vision, and together we watched as Penny Philpot emerged from the kitchen, took his order, and left his table.

"I've heard a thing or two about that marshal," Jeb said softly. "He avoided the draft and rode with Quantrill's Raiders. Even those bastards kicked him out because he was too cruel."

I whistled quietly through my teeth. Quantrill's Raiders were bad news. If they'd kicked Figgins out, he was even worse than I thought. And I didn't think that was possible.

Jeb leaned in toward me. "So what are you really doing here Rio?"

I couldn't tell him, even if I wanted to…which I did. Bombay code forbids it. And that was too bad because Jeb would've been useful in this situation.

"I'm just trying to fulfill a little fantasy, Jeb. That's all. And it seems I've stirred up the marshal's interest."

Jeb nodded. "And the marshal sent a welcoming party." If Jeb knew the truth, he didn't let on. "Maybe this isn't the kind of town I'd like to live in."

"And that's too bad," I replied, watching Penny bring the marshal his lunch. "I kind of liked the scenery."

Jeb insisted on spending the afternoon with me. He seemed protective, and I understood that. An idea was slowly forming in my head, and I thought I could involve Jeb without actually involving him.

We went back to the saloon and found a table in a corner. That was perfect because it seemed appropriate to me that the mysterious stranger (aka me) in town would sum up the saloon from his quiet corner. I think Jeb was onto me, but he said nothing. He was going to let me have my fun, and that made me a bit sad.

Bombays were allowed to have friends, as long as they weren't involved in the family business. As a result, many of us were loners or just stuck to family for our close friends. I had a few of those…a female cousin who lived in Atlanta and another cousin in Florida, but that was about it. Being a Bombay was a lonely business.

Jeb and I talked about the war, reminiscing about the men we'd known. It was a different time then. I'd always felt like I'd gotten away with something when I'd signed up to fight. Bombays weren't supposed to take sides. We weren't supposed to kill people unless it was for money.

The Bombay Council had urged me to do what others have done in this situation—pay someone of a lower class to fight in my stead. I couldn't do that. The very idea of sending someone else to die in my spot was repulsive to me. So, I convinced the Council that my fighting could be useful to the Bombays. In fact, I carried out a number of contracts during the war under the cover of being a soldier. It worked out in the end for them, and I'd done my part for my country. Everyone won.

I was thinking about all of this when a knife whizzed past my ear, embedding itself in the wall just inches from my head.

"Over there," Jeb said in a second as he pulled out his gun and rose to his feet.

I joined him with my gun in my hand (and was a little excited about this) when I noticed a scrawny man standing not a few feet away, actually shaking in his boots—something I always assumed was just a saying.

"Oh!" he pleaded. "Sorry, mister! That was an accident! I swear!"

Accident my ass, I thought. "See that it doesn't happen again, or you'll find enough holes in yourself that your mama could use you to strain beans," I snarled as I holstered my gun and sat down. Okay, maybe that wasn't the best turn of phrase, but I think he got the point.

Jeb did the same. "You know that was no accident."

I nodded. "No, that was too good a throw." I had to work a little to pull the knife free of the timber. "It was in deep, about two inches. You don't throw that hard unless you mean to kill a man." I liked the way I'd said, kill a man. It seemed so authentic.

Jeb rubbed his jaw and said, "So you have a new enemy in town."

"Marshal Figgins." I nodded. "Apparently, it doesn't take much to make him nervous."

"So," Jeb nodded toward the knife in my hands. "What are you going to do about it?" He looked kind of excited. There was an adrenaline rush men who'd seen combat experienced at the first sign of a fight. I could see how Jeb wouldn't enjoy being a foreman on a ranch.

"I'm going to wait," I responded, "and see what happens next."

It didn't take long. As we walked out of the saloon, a man rushed me. I stepped to the side and then kicked him off the boardwalk and into the street. My assailant jumped up and ran off.

In front of the bank, another man came out of the alley and tried to grab me from behind. Jeb knocked him unconscious and dragged his body back into the alley. In fact, the two of us found ourselves literally fighting our way back to our hotel. No less than five men tried to accost us, and all five ended up face down in the street.

"That was fun!" Jeb said, rubbing his knuckles once we'd made it inside the hotel. Prudence narrowed her eyes at us from behind the counter and called us over.

"You have a letter," she said curtly, frowning as though she disapproved of me receiving mail. She handed me an unmarked, sealed envelope, then gave us a look that told us to leave the counter.

The restaurant was set for tea, so Jeb and I went in there. It was mostly empty, so we took a table as far from others as we could manage. Penny brought us two tea cups and saucers and a tiered tray with sandwiches and scones. While this didn't seem very cowboy-like, we were hungry from beating up so many men. Jeb and I devoured the food.

"Are you going to open that?" Jeb said as he wiped the last of the crumbs from his lap.

I held the envelope up to the light. There wasn't any paper inside…just some sort of powdery substance.

"I don't think so," I said as I folded the envelope and tucked it into my jacket. "It's got poisoned powder inside."

Jeb choked on his tea. "Poison? You really are popular! Just what kind of questions have you been asking?"

I filled him in on my morning—making it look like I'd just been enquiring around town—which is what I'd hoped it looked like to the townspeople. Unfortunately, some of those folks had been quick to talk, and Marshall Figgins was turning out to be the most paranoid man of all time.

Jeb sat back in his chair. "Well, it seems like things are escalating rather quickly. By nightfall they'll just be shooting directly at us."

"Why don't you just leave?" a soft voice said behind me. Miss Penny Philpot stepped into view.

"Oh!" I said, looking around to see that the restaurant was now empty. "Sorry! I didn't realize how long we'd been here."

To my complete amazement, she sat down at our table. "No, that's not what I meant," Penny said. "Why don't you just leave town?"

"Because I just got here," I answered, settling back into my chair. "And I don't like being attacked for no reason." I left out the part where I thought I wouldn't be a very good cowboy if I cut and run at the slightest bit of trouble. I didn't think she'd appreciate that.

She looked at me curiously. "You've beat up half the town this afternoon. I wouldn't want to see anyone else get hurt."

I wondered if that included me.

"Not my fault," I insisted. "Why do you care about the thugs who would attack an innocent stranger?"

Penny sighed. "They aren't that bad, just stupid. The men who live here are more afraid of Marshal Figgins than they are of you. It's tomorrow you need to worry about."

"Why's that?" Jeb asked. He seemed a little too interested.

"Because that's when the marshal's old gang gets here," Penny said simply, adding nothing useful to that information.

"So why are you here?" I asked. "If Marshal Figgins is such a bully who can call in professional goons to threaten a traveler, why are you still living here?" It was a fair question that also allowed me to find out more about this lovely woman.

Penny looked tired all of the sudden. She looked down at her hands before looking at me. "I came here to teach, Mr. Bombay. I was a war widow. After my husband and father died, I brought my brother out here to find work as a school teacher."

A school marm! A real-live school marm! This couldn't get any better!

"So why aren't you teaching, Miss Philpot?" Jeb asked, and that's when it occurred to me he was right. We'd seen her at breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner. Clearly she wasn't in a charming, one-room schoolhouse out on the prairie.

"Because there aren't enough children here," was Penny's reply. "As soon as families move here and realize how dangerous this town is, they leave. There's only my little brother and his cousin. Marshal Figgins forced the town council to quit paying my wages, saying it was a waste of money." She looked angry.

"Why would he do that?" Jeb asked. "Seems to me you can't have growth in a town if you don't have a school. You need families to live here so you have a solid, second generation of citizens."

Penny looked around before answering. I wondered if she was even allowed to sit with us. I didn't want her to lose her job over me.

"Because a school teacher can't be a married woman. There are state regulations about that." There was a fury in her blue eyes that I found almost arousing.

I finished her thought, "And the marshal wants you to marry him."

She nodded, a little shaken that I'd figured that out.

"Gossip goes both ways, Miss Philpot," I said.

Penny stood and smoothed her apron. "I think you should consider leaving tonight, Mr. Bombay." She hurried off before I could press her to see if she was concerned about me.

"Well." Jeb stretched, flexing his fingers in front of him. "I think I'd better take a nap before dinner so I'll be ready for all that hand-to-hand combat that follows you around this place."

I nodded and stood. "Yes, me too. I'll come to your room, and we can walk down here to dinner together."

Jeb saw me to my room with a wink and a stifled laugh. I closed the door and lay down on my bed to think. There was a lot to think about. I tried to focus on the job at hand first, but Penny Philpot kept filling my head.

I felt sorry for her. She wouldn't have liked that, but I did. I'd lost many good men in the war, some of whom had families. Was she one of them? I tried to remember if any of my troops had mentioned a redheaded goddess.

It didn't really matter. A war widow deserved respect regardless. She'd been very brave to uproot all that she knew to come out West and work to support her brother. In fact, it made me feel a little small. Penny came here because she had to. I came here to play cowboy like a spoiled, little kid.

And then Marshal Figgins tried to control her future, whether she liked it or not. You couldn't do that to a Bombay. We were a very wealthy family from very old money. How out of touch was I that it never occurred to me my men's widows were now on their own to raise their families and support them? I felt instant shame over this. I would definitely have to do something about that.

Mother was always involved in charities. I would set up a foundation and have her run it. She'd love that. In spite of her love of society, my mother was very supportive of women's issues.

Marshal Figgins was going to die. I'd make sure of that. What kind of a man bankrupts a school teacher so that he can force her to marry him? He was a very bad man, and I needed to kill him. After all, he was already trying to kill me. It was only fair.

Penny was right—the men he'd been sending after me all day weren't up to snuff. But tomorrow…tomorrow he was bringing in reinforcements. It was interesting that I'd only been in town twenty-four hours and, after simply asking a few questions around town, found myself the target of this man. I could take care of myself, but how many other innocent men had been murdered to temper his incredible paranoia?

I could use that. Figgins' fear of strangers could be exploited to my advantage. AND, I could have the showdown at high noon I'd always wanted—which made me very happy. It wouldn't look like a contract killing at all—just a duel, instigated by a mysterious, world-weary traveler who'd had enough of Marshal Figgins. It was perfect.

But the problem was that Figgins was a cheater. He'd most certainly set up these men coming in tomorrow to ambush me once I'd won—which of course, I would. My record with a pistol was flawless, and he didn't know that. Figgins was known for using others to do his dirty work, which told me he wasn't that accurate with a gun. Or worse, they'd try to kill me before I fired. That would suck.

So how to deal with these other men? That was the real problem.

There was a knock at the door, and Jeb asked if I wanted supper. I grabbed my jacket, and together we made our way down to the dining room.

Penny was busy, since every table was full. Every now and then, though, I was rewarded as she caught my eye and smiled. I smiled back when I could, and then I noticed that someone in the room was not smiling. In fact, he was staring at me with a fury I could not mistake.

Marshal Figgins was sitting at his reserved table. And he'd noticed my attention to Miss Philpot. He also noticed her smiling at me. I stared back, practicing my menacing cowboy squint. It begins, I thought.

"You really must like trouble," Jeb said quietly as he watched me.

I nodded. It would be wrong to deny it. The marshal's jealousy did speed things up a bit. Maybe we could get this duel out of the way tonight, before his reinforcements arrived. I was just as good a shot in the dark as I was in broad daylight.

The problem with that idea was that I hadn't done anything for him to try to arrest me. And he hadn't done anything for me to challenge him to a gunfight. Sigh. Why did everything have to be so difficult?

"Up for a drink?" I asked Jeb.

He nodded. "Wouldn't miss it for the world." He cracked his knuckles as we paid the bill. No one was waiting for us outside this time. That was somewhat disappointing. I liked a little action before a showdown. I think Jeb wanted something to happen too. Instead, we made our way to the saloon unscathed.

We'd just sat down at a table with our whiskey when Rocco, Axel, and Hank came in and joined us. I made my introductions all around, and Jeb seemed to fit in nicely. It was only a matter of minutes before the cards came out.

Rocco dealt the cards as Hank leaned forward. "Word on the street is you got yerself mixed up with the marshal, Rio."

"Yup," I said as I rearranged my cards. "I don't think he likes me much."

Jeb hid a grin behind his cards but said nothing.

Axel shook his head. "Well nice knowin' ya."

Rocco kicked him under the table loudly enough for me to hear. "Just play yer damn cards, Axel."

There was something going on here. I waited for the next hand before speaking.

"I hear Figgins has men comin' in tomorrow. That can't be all for me…" I feigned innocence, and the men laughed.

"He's got some business at the border, I heared," Rocco said solemnly. "But I wouldn't put it past him to try and kick yer ass a'fore they leave town."

Hank and Axel nodded. This seemed to be a done deal. Take out the mysterious stranger—which is me—first, and then ride out of town.

"When are they leaving?" Jeb asked.

"Afternoon," Hank said. "But they'll try and teach you a lesson first." He nodded at me.

"They'll try," I said. "Does Figgins always go after visitors this way?"

All three men nodded and then looked back at their cards. Jeb wisely lost a couple of hands before slowly building a winning streak. They seemed a little put out about that. I folded and made the excuse to approach the bar for another round of drinks.

Mutton Chops, the bartender, eyed me warily as he poured out five whiskeys. He was avoiding my eyes so successfully, I decided to talk to him.

"Somethin' wrong?" I asked gruffly.

He set down the bottle and looked at me. "I just think I'm looking at a dead man, friend." I had to admit…I liked how he said that. It seemed so authentic.

"So you know how it's gonna go down, then," I said, instead of asking. The bartender nodded but offered no information.

"Fine," I said as I carried all five shot glasses back to the table. Fine.

The game ended after a few more rounds, and we chatted about the weather and other useless things. The bar was emptying out, and I wondered why. It was early yet in the evening. Something was happening.

I had my answer soon enough. Marshal Beau Figgins strode through the swinging doors and went straight up to the bar, demanding whiskey. Mutton Chops glared at me as the marshal swallowed the shot and demanded another. I did nothing.

Jeb sat back in his chair, relaxed but with his hand near his pistol. The three at our table began nudging each other nervously.

Figgins swallowed his second shot, then came over to our table and loomed over us.

"Rocco," Figgins acknowledged. "Hank, Axel. Who are your new friends?" His voice was very deep. It was the perfect cowboy voice. Too bad it was wasted on a slime ball like the marshal.

Rocco stuck out his chin, defiantly. "This here's Rio and Jeb, Marshal." I had to give him credit. Rocco didn't know me from Adam. He could've saved his own hide and just handed us over. But he didn't. He stood up to Figgins a little. Not much, but a little. I liked that.

"Rio Bombay and Jebediah Smith," I said with a tip of my hat. "And you're Marshal Beauregarde Figgins…The Scourge of Texas."

The marshal laughed. It was a long, slow, menacing laugh that made Rocco and his friends jump to their feet and flee the bar. Figgins slid out Rocco's chair and sat down in it.

"Why are you in town, Rio Bombay and Jebediah Smith? Maybe it's time you left." Figgins fixed me with a stare that summed up his entire career of cruelty. I returned his stare with my cowboy squint. Jeb just looked amused.

I answered him. "This seems like a real nice town to settle down in. Maybe meet a woman and start a family." I didn't need to say more. The way his eyes widened and his nostrils flared told me he knew I was talking about Miss Penny Philpot. I'd struck a nerve. Just as I'd wanted.

Jeb didn't answer—he knew the question wasn't really directed toward him. He just waited to see what would happen, his hand never moving far from his holstered gun.

"Well," the marshal said as he regained his composure. "You wouldn't like this town. There aren't many available women."

"What about that lovely redhead at the hotel?" I asked as casually as I could. "She seems unattached."

I could see the steel forming in Figgins' eyes. He was very angry now. And angry men did stupid things. That's what I was counting on.

"You stay away from Miss Philpot, boy," Figgins spat. "And you think long and hard about getting out of town by morning."

I put on my best innocent expression. "Why, Marshal? I haven't done anything to warrant this kind of hostility." I thought I heard Jeb's throat tighten as he suppressed a smile.

The marshal stood and very, very slowly and loudly, slid his chair in to the table.

"Maybe I'll see you tomorrow then?" he said tightly.

"Tell you what," I answered back. "Let's make it high noon. On Main Street."

An oily grin crossed the man's features. He relaxed a little and nodded. "Sounds good."

I watched as he walked out of the saloon and then rose to my feet. Jeb joined me.

"Well, I guess no one will give us any trouble tonight." Jeb sighed.

"Nope," was all I said as we made our way back to the hotel.

Penny sat down at our table at breakfast and begged me to leave town immediately. While I was happy for her concern for my wellbeing, I told her this was something I had to do. Jeb and I discussed some thoughts about the upcoming gunfight before he left me at the door to my room.

I spent the next couple of hours mentally preparing for the fight. The whole town knew what was about to happen. I could hear people talking beneath my window all morning. I cleaned my gun and double-checked my ammunition. Everything was in working order. Now I just had to wait.

Penny Philpot took up most of my thoughts. She was a unique woman. One I hadn't experienced before in the cultured salons and tailored lawns of Newport. Penny was beautiful, resourceful, courageous, and smart. And I had fallen for her.

I had no idea if she felt the same way about me. I'd like to think she did. That she'd pack up her little brother and run off with me after the showdown. But I wasn't sure. This was a woman who'd already lost one man. It was highly likely she wouldn't want to put herself through that again.

I needed to drop this line of thinking and focus on the upcoming fight. After all, I was here to play cowboy and do a job for the Bombays.

And what would I do with Penny and Percy Philpot anyway? I couldn't just ride back into Newport with a frontier bride and her little brother. I couldn't stay here either, after killing the town's marshal.

A knock at the door brought my thoughts back to the task at hand.

"It's time," Jeb's voice said through the door.

I rose to my feet, put on my new silver spurs, gun belt, and hat, and left my room for the street below.

The sun was blazing above us as Marshal Figgins and I squared off at opposite ends of the street. I was a bit disappointed that he wasn't wearing spurs. He was supposed to wear jingling spurs! If he lived, I'd have to show him the novels in my saddlebag. But then that was silly, because he wasn't going to live.

We were only about fifty paces apart, and I could see the hatred burning in his eyes. We were really going to do this. I tried to look menacing, but in all honesty I was very happy. A real cowboy gunfight at high noon! I'd be a legend back home. Well, okay, so my mother and sister would most likely roll their eyes, but still…

I looked around and spotted Penny and Percy standing on the boardwalk outside the hotel. Her face was impassive, but she held her little brother tightly against her. Jeb was nowhere to be seen, as expected. He had other work to do.

"When the clock strikes noon, we draw and shoot," Figgins shouted, pointing at an enormous clock on the bank.

I nodded, suppressing my glee—this was so exciting! We had fifteen seconds to go. The clock's second hand seemed to tick so loudly I felt it in my blood. Ten seconds to go…seven…six…five…four…

The marshal's eyes narrowed, and I realized he was going to shoot early. Once a cheater…

Three…two…

A bullet whizzed by me, nearly taking my hat off. I whirled to my right and took out two gunmen who were poised to shoot from the alley. I had four shots left. A rifle cracked behind me twice, and I looked up to see Jeb smiling at me from the top of the hotel. Two more men with guns in their hands fell forward from the next alley on my right.

I heard the click of a pistol's hammer on my left, and I turned and shot one more man who was coming at me from the hotel. Another rifle crack, and one more man at the end of the street fell.

"Don't move, asshole." I couldn't believe I'd fallen for the distraction—this is a huge Bombay no-no. While I was being shot at (and early, mind you—cheater!) Marshal Figgins had grabbed Penny Philpot from behind and put a gun to her head. I steadied my pistol, but it was difficult to get a clean shot. Penny stood still as the marshal hid behind her, the coward. Percy looked up at his sister in fear.

"I'll blow her brains out! I will!" the marshal snarled. I looked up at Jeb, but it was clear he couldn't get a good shot either.

"Let her go!" I shouted. "This is between you and me!" It figured he'd hide behind the woman he'd wanted for so long. The tired, old, If-I-Can't-Have-Her-No-One-Can story. There was no style there, just brute idiocy.

"Drop yer guns!" He motioned with his pistol at Jeb. "Both of them!"

I dropped my gun and nodded to Jeb, who laid his down and held his hands up. My mind began working through alternate plans, but the bastard didn't let Penny go. A real fear started to fill me. This wasn't fun anymore. I couldn't let him kill Penny. But what to do next?

I was just thinking about that when Percy screamed, "NORBERT!"

What? He knew the name of my horse? How embarrassing.

A loud whinny filled the air, and Norbert thundered around the corner. Everyone watched as my horse rose up on two legs and started walking on them! He turned around in a complete circle on only two legs. I was hypnotized and a little mortified. Everyone else was stunned. No one could take their eyes off my horse.

Everyone, except for Percy, who brought his heel down hard on the marshal's instep, before shoving Penny aside and going right for the Figgin's groin. Percy's foot connected, and the marshal dropped like a sack of flour.

"You little bastard!" Figgins howled as he pulled his gun and aimed it at Percy.

I fired. The bullet went clean through his forehead, dead center. As his body hit the ground, I ran to Penny, and she fell into my arms.

"Are you hurt? Are you okay?" I said over and over until she assured me she was fine. Percy danced around us in the street, and Norbert went back to being his usual, boring self. I ignored the few whispers of, "Norbert? Really?" and just continued holding Penny. It was over. It was all over.

Penny, Percy, and I left town a few days later. I'd decided Texas wasn't really the place for us and thought maybe we could settle in Denver. Penny agreed to marry me, and I adopted Percy as my own. Norbert acted like nothing ever happened.

We built a large house in a nice neighborhood of Denver. Penny started a school, and Percy attended. Mother started that foundation for war widows and orphans. She hired widows of men from my old unit to run the foundation. I liked that.

Jebediah Smith was named the next marshal of Felony, Texas. And since Figgins was dead and had no kin, the town gave Jeb the marshal's big house.

I gave Jeb my stack of western novels. I didn't need them anymore, and he had a lot to learn about how things were supposed to be done in the West. Funny how he never thanked me for that.

With his new job and house and future, I was happy that Jeb had finally found his calling.

And in Miss Penny Philpot and her brother Percy, I'd found mine.

Caspian Bombay

Rome—44 A.D.

He'd really done it this time. Gaul Bombay had gone rogue. And I had to hunt him down and kill him. And he was my brother. Scratch that. My idiot brother.

I stood before the Elders, itchy in my new wool toga. While I love a new toga as much as the next girl, I took little pleasure in this one now. What was going on? No one had ever gotten another Bombay as an assignment before. This was unreal. Or rather, it was real, and as Gaul's sister, I'd have to deal with it.

"There's no point in arguing with us, Caspian," my grandmother intoned from the dais. Tall and thin with a long nose, I always thought she looked a bit like a regal stork of sorts. Well, one who wore too much makeup and had the power to decide who lives or dies, that is.

"We've made up our mind and cannot be moved." That was the truth. No one argued with my grandmother. She was notorious for cutting you down and making you feel like an infant. But that never stopped me before. I was a bit of an idiot myself.

I stared at the parchment in my hand. "But we've never killed one of our own before!" I protested. The Bombays were an ancient family—we'd been around forever. You couldn't just make up new rules after all these centuries of tradition, right?

Grandmother shook her head. "I know that. But we cannot have your brother going around killing people who aren't on their assignment list. The poet Cinna was the third and last straw. We have no choice."

The other Elders nodded in agreement. There would be no more discussion, mainly because I believed they were all a little afraid of Grandmother too. In frustration, I stuffed the parchment into my toga and left.

Back at home, Father turned the document over in his hands, as if it didn't really exist. I couldn't blame him. It was quite a shock. Technically, Bombays aren't supposed to tell other family members who their targets are—it made plausible deniability a bit easier. But this was new, so I decided there wasn't precedence for it. Of course, the Council might just decide to hunt me down too, but that was a risk I was willing to take.

"But why?" he said as he held it up to me, as if I hadn't gone over it again and again with him.

"He's an example," I said quietly. "This is a new rule, starting now. If any Bombay runs renegade and starts killing people outside the Council's orders, the penalty is death."

In a weird way, part of me totally got that. The Bombays hadn't gotten as far as we had in this business by straying from the assignments. Gaul was an ass who always did what he wanted. And recently he'd killed whomever he wanted. He thought being an assassin allowed him to kill with impunity—but he knew the rules didn't run that way. And now, they were making up new rules because of him.

He was like that as a child with small animals. Our parents never knew what to do with him. They maintained his training and hoped it would make him a good assassin. It did, I suppose, if your victims are starlings or fish.

Father dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands. Of course he was upset. His only daughter had to kill his only son. But he was a Bombay. I was certain his feelings were at war with logic here. Thank the gods Mother was dead. I don't think she could've handled it.

Not that she ever handled it well. Marrying into the Bombays was not easy. You had to agree to raise your children to be paid killers. Still, there were benefits. We were very wealthy, and Mother'd had a serious sandal habit.

But you never had to worry about money or security when you were married to a Bombay. Bombays were politically connected and protected. Still, Mother'd always had a fragile mind—the wrong flowers in a vase would set her off, and there was that one time when a lizard looked at her funny. We'd had to replace half the staff that day when all was said and done. When the fever took her a few years ago, I suspect we were all a little relieved in a sad way.

"I should talk to them…" Father said quietly.

I shook my head. "I tried. Your own mother gave the orders. Their minds are set."

I waited for him to collect his thoughts. Who could blame him? No Bombay had ever dealt with something like this before. Well, okay, there was that one time, a century ago, when Mykonos Bombay went a little berserk and killed a bunch of politicians using nothing but a pair of pliers—but people were kind of forgiving about that for some reason.

"Father," I said softly, hating the words I knew I had to say. "This has to be done. You know it does. Maybe we've always known it. Gaul has been…difficult…most of his life."

After a few moments, he stood up and nodded. Then he left me. Knowing Father, he'd lose himself in his miniatures hobby. At present, he was recreating the Battle of Troy, complete with a tiny Achilles and blood-soaked Hector. I used to point out that he was stretching history a bit whenever he'd throw in a herd of rabid badgers or giant, carnivorous plants—but that always fell on deaf ears. He'd be in his workshop for days. It was time to prepare.

Gaul hadn't lived with us for over a year. He'd moved out, and we rarely saw him except at holidays (He always turned up for a gift, the bastard.) or family get-togethers—only because they were mandatory. But over the past year, we'd heard about his exploits.

There were men who beat on the door in the middle of the night, demanding we pay for his gambling debts. (And a few who didn't survive the booby traps we had there—it had taken me a week to disable them all.) Common prostitutes would approach us in the market and show us bruises Gaul had given them. (FYI, be careful how you approach a Bombay on the street—that woman had a hard time accepting my apology through a broken nose.) And then, the murders had started.

The first was a criminal—someone we would normally kill on contract anyway. The man had hustled Gaul, cheating him out of his money and a large quantity of wine. (The money was meaningless to Gaul, but I heard it was some really choice wine.) Gaul beat him to death in a public bath house. There were many witnesses. The authorities decided to look the other way. Father had hoped this would be a one-time thing.

It wasn't.

The Elders called us to meet with them after Gaul's second victim—a young peasant girl who had wandered into town and into Gaul's clutches. She was found with her throat slit in our back yard holding one of Gaul's prized diadems. There were no witnesses, and Gaul was actually at the meeting, insisting he was innocent. That's when the doubt began to settle in the Council's mind.

Now, he'd had the poet Cinna murdered by a mob at Caesar's funeral. It had looked like an accident. After all, a totally different man named Cinna was one of the conspirators in Caesar's assassination. But the crowd turned on the wrong guy.

Several people remembered Gaul inciting it, insisting it was the conspirator Cinna and whipping the mourning mob into a murderous frenzy. The poor man was torn apart. Two people said they saw Gaul on the edges, laughing. I'd wondered what he'd had against the poet.

Cinna was a bit of a perverse freak—his poems were about incest between fathers and daughters, but he didn't deserve to die like that. Some of the witnesses swore that Gaul appeared all over the place, disguising his voice each time to make it sound like a lot of people were calling for Cinna's death.

People really are stupid, and it doesn't take much to get them whipped up into a murderous rage. It was, as mentioned, at Caesar's funeral and all, and folks were still a bit touchy about his assassination. It would be irresponsible for me to fail to mention we had nothing to do with Julius Caesar's assassination. A public scene with senators going all stabby? Too stupid for words.

Anyway, after Cinna's death-by-mob, there was nothing else for the Elders to do. They had to set Gaul up. We would lose all credibility if our employers thought we would just kill whomever we wanted. And I was the Bombay assigned to do it. Why? Because Gaul wouldn't see it coming.

I was surprised to discover my feelings were vague on doing this. He was my brother, after all. Shouldn't I be more upset? Then again, he always bullied me—tormented me. And I really believed that he had killed that peasant girl.

Besides, who didn't want to kill off their brother now and then? The only difference was most people saw reason and didn't follow through with it. I, on the other hand, had been ordered by my family to strike the deciding blow.

No, the Council was right. Gaul was a danger and embarrassment to the Bombays. He was an error in the fabric spun by the gods, and he had to be unraveled and corrected. I steeled myself for this job and decided that the less Father knew about it, the better. I made a note to try to find him a bunch of miniature meerkats for his diorama. That might cheer him up.

Later that night, after packing a bag with a few things, I left the house and made my way into the streets of Rome. I slipped quietly through the crowds, unnoticed, working my way toward the red light district. That would be where I'd find my brother. The sooner I got this over with, the faster Father could recover. At least, that's what I'd hoped.

The streets of Rome at this late hour were filled with beggars, prostitutes, politicians, and thieves—all basically the same thing in my opinion. No one wanted to be "seen" here, so no one saw me.

I liked to divide my assignments into small, achievable goals. Unlike other members of my family, I tended to get overwhelmed easily. This was a problem when I was younger, resulting in some very botched assignments. I would like to point out that I completed each and every one of them—the Council, on the other hand, would probably say that I "lacked focus." I don't truly understand that because, regardless of the fact that the target may have ended up in two to four pieces, or maybe died a little bit too publicly, or the poison maybe ended up melting the victim's face off accidentally, there was a body in the end, and it was most assuredly dead. Anything else is just nitpicky, really.

It was my father who came up with the idea of piecing out each assignment into smaller, easier to digest chunks. Take it one step at a time…don't think about the next step—just do the first thing on your list. Once that's complete, move on to the next, and so on. The gladiator in the arena can only kill one lion at a time. So take it lion by lion, he liked to say. It worked out pretty well for me, and my assignments—now with my new and improved To Do lists—worked out easier.

Gaul loved to exploit this weakness of mine. He'd tease and cajole until I was so freaked out I couldn't see straight. Then I'd figured how to deal with Gaul using the same idea. Gaul had a terror of mice. I'd put a live mouse in his bed every night he tormented me. If he didn't stop, the mouse got larger and more vicious until it was a very bitey rat gnawing him awake. See? Lion by lion! Works every time.

I never had to go beyond the rat, and I'm not sure what I would've used if I had…an irritated mongoose with an unfortunate skin rash maybe? Well, it didn't matter anyway because this twenty-four-year-old woman had finally convinced her asshole big brother to leave her the hell alone.

My goal for tonight was to find an inn and bed down. This would be my headquarters from where I would run my surveillances. I kept the picture of a small, quiet room in my head until I found the perfect spot.

The Odalisque Inn was on a side street and catered to a more discreet clientele. Mainly it seemed that these were senators who wanted to conduct business that would upset Mrs. Senator. The rooms were tiny but clean, and the dining room was full of dark, private corners. Perfect.

I unpacked my things and lay down on my bed to think. Here was where I'd come up with the next step in my plan—find Gaul. Finding him and killing him outright wasn't totally out of the question. When you're a Bombay, you take every opportunity you can. But opportunity was a fickle mistress, and I'd say that ninety-nine percent of the time planning was called for.

Tomorrow, I'd start figuring out exactly where I was in relation to my brother. By afternoon, I'd start nosing around the kinds of places my brother would frequent. I didn't think I'd find him that soon and factored that into my plan. The key was to accomplish each step until I reached my goal. I really wished we could use papyrus—I'd feel so much better with a large chart I could spread out. Unfortunately, that sort of evidence would be dangerous lying around, and the Bombay Council forbids it. They had a weird distrust of the stuff.

I committed the next step to memory. Satisfied that I was set for the next day, I drifted off to sleep.

I waited until mid-morning to emerge from my room and had a simple yet satisfying breakfast at the inn. I'd disguised myself as a young man, which was fairly easy to do. Roman clothes weren't much different for men and women except in color. My flat chest and, let's face it, dull features made it fairly easy to pull this off. I had a very expensive wig made years ago that allowed me to stuff my hair under it. Unlike other Roman women, I was not blessed with thick hair.

That's right, I was plain. I wasn't a looker like my mother, and I didn't have my father's handsome features. My parents always worried about this (and Gaul was merciless), but I always sort of embraced it. I liked being an assassin. Being average looking made things so much easier. No one could remember my face. I didn't stand out.

Unlike my female cousins, I didn't care about getting married or even having lovers. Okay, so maybe it would be nice to fall in love someday—but I wasn't obsessed with it or anything. I liked who I was, and I liked living at home and looking after Father.

It was still late morning when I slipped out of the inn, keeping to the walls as I worked the streets in a circular movement. The brothels and gambling dens wouldn't be open yet, but I had to get my bearings. Making note of the side streets and alleys that connected to my hotel, I radiated outwards until I'd exhausted the red light district. Gaul wouldn't be awake yet, wherever he was. There was very little chance I'd run into him. Still, I had a small drawing of him to show people, should I need it. It was a good likeness of him. Art was kind of my thing when I wasn't killing people. Even assassins needed hobbies in the down time between jobs.

Once I'd made a map in my mind of the area, I headed back to the inn for food and rest. I had completed step two—figuring out my surroundings—and it gave me a strong sense of satisfaction. But I needed some down time to digest it all. Back in my room, my mind again wandered to the task at hand—killing my brother for my family.

I was getting used to the idea now, and that bothered me a little. No matter how much I scoured my memories, I found it difficult to come up with a reason why Gaul should continue living. To my surprise, I realized now that the Council was right. How long had it taken them to make this decision? As harsh as Grandmother was, I'd like to believe it wasn't an easy choice.

No, Gaul had forced their hand. It was what any other family would be faced with if harboring a murderer. Except that other families could turn the killer in for justice to be done. My family had their own thoughts about how to handle it. We took care of it ourselves.

Would future generations hate me for what I now knew I had to do? I hoped not. The image of my brother killing that poor, helpless girl loomed heavily in my thoughts. Allowing this to go on would only make things worse for all of us. What he'd done was wrong. Monstrous. And I believed I was ready to do my job.

I needed to head out again and figure out where Gaul was staying. I tied my purse onto my belt, stowed the drawing of my brother into my toga, and ventured back out.

The trick to making inquiries is to make the person you ask forget what you asked, and that you asked it, immediately after. This was not easy to do. Money helped loosen lips, but it also made you memorable. Show too much money, and it made you a memorable target. Too little, and word spread that you didn't know what you were doing. It was a seemingly impossible task but one we were trained for. I liked these "invisibility" lessons as a child. It didn't work on a group of Bombays, but, on any street in Rome, I could ask directions and make you forget you'd even given them to me.

I had to get back to work. Time was on my side. Gaul didn't know about the order against him and likely wouldn't find out for a bit. So my next goal was to figure out where he might stay and the places he would most likely be.

I started with the brothels, hoping I could recognize the women who'd accosted my father and me in the streets, complaining of abuse by Gaul.

"Hey boy!" a woman with brashly bleached blonde hair called to me. I nodded and slouched over to her.

"Looking for some company kid?" Up close, the woman was slathered with garish makeup in order to cover a seriously ugly face. I wondered if that worked for her.

I shook my head. "No ma'am. I'm looking for someone. I have a message for him from a senator."

That gave the woman pause, and she nodded. The word "senator"' meant "be discreet and forget I said this." I shoved my drawing of Gaul toward her trying to emulate a clumsy youth.

The woman shrank back. "Oh. HIM," she said with an ugly sneer. "I don't do anything for him. He's a nasty one. Try the gambling house." She pointed out the way and shrank back from me with a shudder. Another victim of Gaul. The prostitute would try to forget me like a bad memory as soon as I left. Good.

I headed toward the gambling house. The shadows of the afternoon were lengthening against the white, marble pillars. Gaul would be on the prowl soon. I needed to spot him from a distance. He'd certainly recognize me. And that I couldn't have.

No matter what happened, I couldn't forget that Gaul had had the same training as I did. He'd notice someone following him. That was how we were taught. He may be fearless, but he wasn't stupid. Most of our victims had no idea a contract had even been taken out on them until we snuck up behind them and bashed them over the head. This time, the prey I was hunting was more aware than usual. I'd have to be very careful.

The gambling den was in an open building, and I circled it before entering. There were several exits, of course. People would want to have a number of escape routes should they be caught in the act by parents, spouses, or someone they owed money to.

I was wary. The job wouldn't be this easy. It would be unusual if Gaul were actually inside. Bombays didn't rely on coincidence or serendipity. In fact, we didn't trust those things because most of the time, they'll kill you. I waited a few moments and entered.

Noise assaulted me as I moved inside—people shouting insults, placing bets, making bawdy jokes. Cruel remarks aimed at me and anyone else bounced around the atmosphere. It was a cold and unforgiving place. Perfect.

I skirted the walls, trying to get my bearings. So this was what people did when they wanted to throw away their money. Red-faced men full of wine argued with each other as cheaply made up prostitutes plied their trade. I didn't see Gaul on my first pass, and that was okay. I wasn't really prepared to do anything. I had no knife or other weapons, but killing him here would be fairly easy. Tempers flared all around me as people lost their money and their heads.

I was just getting ready to leave when I heard shouting coming from a small room I hadn't noticed before. I crept to the doorway and peered inside.

There were only two men in the room. A short, portly man in purple senatorial robes, and the man who was beating the crap out of him…my brother, Gaul Bombay.

"I don't have your money!" the fat man gasped between blows to his head. He was in pretty bad shape. A couple of more punches might kill him.

Gaul sneered, "Then I'll kill you, old man!" He pulled back his arm, and I saw the trajectory of his blow. Gaul was going for a kill shot to the throat. Without thinking, I grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the room.

My brother spun on me with a furious look. It took a few seconds for him to realize who I was. Then someone down the hall began screaming, and I knew it was time to go.

"This way!" He roughly grabbed my arm and dragged me out a side exit and into the street. We didn't stop running until we came to a narrow, dead-end alley with a nondescript door. Gaul opened the door and pushed me inside.

"What are you doing here, Cas?" His voice was filled with naked hostility. Anyone who didn't know him would be terrified. And, years ago, that would've included me.

"Piss off, Gaul!" I shrugged loose of his grip. "What the hell were you doing back there? You were going to kill that man. He's a senator! What's wrong with you?"

Gaul narrowed his eyes at me, sizing me up. He said nothing as he went to a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of wine. He poured a glass for himself and drained it quickly. I looked around and realized that he lived here. There were few items that Gaul was never without—his lucky chisel (Don't ask.) and a bronze cup he'd had since he was a child. These were sitting on a shelf not far from me. I also noticed that he'd pilfered one of Father's miniature badgers and had decapitated it.

Other than that, the apartment was small but clean. Why did he live here, off this anonymous little alley? He had enough money to buy a villa.

"That," Gaul finally said during the break that it took to pour himself another glass of wine, "is none of your business. What I want to know is why you're here in the first place."

I rolled my eyes. "Well clearly," I said pointing at the single glass of wine, "it isn't for your hospitality."

"Is it Father?" Gaul's eyes flashed with anger and then went cold. He asked, almost bored, "Is he dead?"

I felt my anger swelling. He was such a bastard. If Father was dead, he clearly didn't care about it.

"No," I said evenly, "Father isn't dead. Not that you care about us."

Gaul shrugged. "I just thought maybe there'd be an inheritance or something."

That's when it hit me. The small, hidden apartment. Beating a man to death (well, trying to) over money. Gaul was broke. And he was hiding out from the law. It was inconceivable to me that he had burned through all of his funds. Maybe the Council had cut him off?

"You're broke," I said as a statement of fact. "You've gambled and whored away all of your money. That's why you live here."

His eyes flickered with mild surprise. "Why yes. You've figured it out. I have nothing."

He continued to pour himself more wine, ignoring the fact that I was something of a guest. "The fucking Council has cut me off. Those bastards. I really should kill them all."

I froze to the spot. I looked into his dead eyes, eyes that had always frightened me and worried my parents, and realized he just might do it. Gaul said it casually, but in my heart at that moment, I knew. Gaul was thinking about wiping out the Council.

"You wouldn't!" I said, wishing I hadn't. Of course he would. Why did I even say that?

My brother nodded. "I've thought about it. No one would miss those dried up prunes anyway."

I could kill him now, I thought. No one would be able to trace it back to me. The Council would be pleased. His body wouldn't be found for days. Gaul had so many enemies, the authorities wouldn't even try hard to solve the case.

"Maybe you'd want in on that action?" Gaul was grinning evilly at me. "Maybe you'd want to be the one who plunges the knife into Grandmother's heart? She's never been that nice to either one of us."

He was baiting me, and I tried not to let revulsion show on my face. Gaul wasn't just tormenting me like he did when we were kids. He was trying to decipher my loyalties with a dangerous trap. If I reacted negatively, he would probably try to kill me and take whatever money I had. If I responded positively, chances were he wouldn't buy it.

Gaul was on his guard here. Trying to take him out right now would be almost impossible. It would be two Bombays fighting against each other—two Bombays who had trained side-by-side and knew each other's strengths and weaknesses. I'd walked into a trap.

The only advantage I had was that Gaul didn't know about my assignment. The disadvantage was that now I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my brother would not hesitate to kill me or any of us for his own gain.

"I'm leaving." I shrugged—trying to re-create my nonchalant actions when he'd annoyed me in the past. The trouble was, I was shaking. "You're a dick, and I'm gone."

It took everything I had to turn my back to him and walk calmly to the door. My senses were heightened to the highest level of awareness. Somehow, I made myself put one foot in front of the other until I was out the door and out of the alley. Then, I ran.

Back in my room at the inn, I paced the floor, shaking with rage and fear. Why hadn't Gaul attacked me? He'd practically laid out a plan to kill the Council, and I'd rejected it. Didn't he know I was dangerous?

Hmmm…maybe not. Gaul's arrogance had always seen me as his useless little sister. Maybe that was why I'd been able to leave? If that was the case, could I exploit that to my advantage?

And what about the Council? I needed to warn them. They'd be angry that I hadn't finished him off on the spot. But then, they weren't there. If they'd seen his eyes…

I needed to calm down. And I needed a plan that would be more than just one step…

"Father?" I shouted once I crossed the threshold to the house. There was no answer. I ran through the home, checking every room. Nothing. My heart was pounding. If my brother so much as touched a hair on our father's head, I'd kill him with my bare hands.

"Caspian?" Father emerged from the courtyard, looking bewildered. "Where have you been? I've been worried!"

I hugged him and made sure he was all in one piece. "I had to run out. One of my friends was having some trouble. It's sorted."

Father nodded absently and then said, "Well it's all right now! Come out to the garden—we have a guest!"

I sighed. Company was the last thing we needed right now. I needed to get Father to leave the house for a while until I took care of Gaul. Maybe I could talk him into a little trip—leaving immediately. There were rumors of a zoo in Carthage. I could tell him they have some weird new animal he could introduce into his dioramas and offer to help him pack. Hell, I could make up an animal, and by the time he got there and realized I lied, this whole mess with Gaul would be over. I started to sketch out a creature in my mind as we walked. Something that could spit poison perhaps. He'd like that.

As we walked to the terrace, I tried to come up with excuses for why this guest should leave so I could send Father away. I was working on a doozy of an excuse where malaria was making the neighborhood rounds when I came face to face with my brother. Gaul was standing in the garden, an evil grin on his face.

Father smiled. "It's going to be okay, Cas. I told Gaul about the misunderstanding with the Council. He's going to straighten things out."

My heart stopped beating. Father told Gaul about the Council's edict? Did he tell him I was the one who was supposed to carry it out? This was worse than anything I could've imagined.

"What?" I asked Father. "You told him what?"

He nodded. "We don't have to worry about it anymore. Gaul has assured me that he will explain everything, and things will go back to the way they were. Isn't that wonderful?"

I'd misjudged my father's mental stability. The man had snapped. And now, he'd helped Gaul move forward with his idea of killing the Council.

This was all my fault. I shouldn't have told him about the assignment. Bombays had rules for a reason, and now I understood why we didn't tell other Bombays about our assignments. And that reason was staring at me with murder hiding behind his placating eyes. It was all an act. A deadly and evil act.

"So, Caspian," Gaul said nonchalantly. "I guess you had come to warn me, then? That's why you came to find me?"

He said those words, but I knew he didn't believe them. And I realized that now my Father and I were also on Gaul's kill list.

My brother walked over and casually draped his arm around me with a big smile. I shrugged it off. Who was he trying to fool? We weren't one big happy family. In fact, very soon, I was going to try to reduce us to a family of two. If I could.

"There's a Council meeting in a few minutes," Gaul said. "Cas and I will just go over there and settle things."

Oh crap. It was the first night of the week. This was the night the Council met to review business. Of course they'd all be there…Grandmother, Athens, Asia, and Syria. Granted, all four were accomplished assassins, but all four were also very old…nearly fifty years in age!

There was no way to warn them. I'd have to figure something out along the way. Which meant I'd have to wing it. Which was something I didn't do well.

Gaul clamped my hand in his and squeezed painfully. "We'll go together, dear sister. I don't want you wandering off, now, do I?" He dragged me out of the house before I could respond. I'd have to think faster than that if I wanted to make it through this alive…with Gaul dead.

"You know, Cas," Gaul said casually as he dragged me down the street. "I really have to thank you for this opportunity. You're giving me the chance to end the Bombay Family once and for all. You deserve some of the credit, I think."

I said nothing because I was thinking furiously, trying to come up with a plan. And unless I did so, I'd be dead too. But my brain was muddled. I had trouble putting thoughts together. I felt that old panic creeping up my spine.

It took us exactly ten minutes to reach the Council chambers. Julian, Grandmother's right hand slave, admitted us with no problem. I didn't try to warn him because he was unarmed, and Gaul would've surely killed him. I liked Julian—and he didn't deserve to die like this.

"Caspian?" Grandmother rose from the dais when she saw me. The sight of Gaul didn't cause so much as a flicker on her face. "What's this?"

Gaul shoved me roughly aside, and then gave a deep bow of deference. "Grandmother," he said, "you're looking well."

Grandmother narrowed her eyes. The rest of the Council stood there, wondering what was going to happen next.

"Thank you, Gaul. I just had my hair hennaed. You're looking rather slimy yourself."

I suppressed a snicker. Grandmother wasn't one to pass up a good insult. My humor was short-lived when I remembered that not only was Gaul there to kill them, but I had just demonstrated that I'd failed at my assignment.

Gaul spread his hands and shrugged. "Well we can't all be serpents like you, now can we?"

Grandmother arched her eyebrows at this but said nothing. She turned to me.

"Caspian? Why did you bring your brother here? You had your orders."

Oh great. My grandmother had just outed me. In front of my target.

Gaul's expression was confused for a moment, but he recovered quickly. "Oh. I see. You sent my own sister to kill me." He tut-tutted. "Not very nice. The Bombays have never killed one of their own before."

"Yes, well…" Grandmother said. "You set a rather unfortunate precedence for it. I'm afraid you signed your own death warrant."

Gaul flushed at this, his rage showing. "You can't assign me to someone! I'm a Bombay! You cut me off from my money! Who do you think you are?"

Grandmother rose to her full height. She looked regal, like a goddess—well, one of the not-so-crazy goddesses that is. "I am on the Council of the Bombays. And this," she motioned to her sister and cousins on the dais, "is the full Council. And we decide who lives and who dies." She shook her head slowly. "And this, Grandson, is not your lucky day."

Gaul charged the dais, leaping up the steps, and raised his fist at Grandmother. She deftly stepped aside, and, as he ran past her, she tripped him.

"You need to control your anger," she said as Gaul fell to the floor.

Gaul pulled a knife from his belt and ran at her, slashing furiously through the air. Grandmother countered by shoving his knife arm away and kicking him in the ass until he fell off the dais and landed at my feet.

"Are you quite done?" Grandmother asked, sounding bored. I had to admit, it was pretty badass. Grandmother 1, Gaul 0.

"I WILL KILL YOU!" Gaul screamed and charged for the dais again. I had no doubt he would try. Eventually his youth and strength would wear down the old woman who was giving him a beating.

Without thinking, I tore off the belt I was wearing and looped it around Gaul's neck. He was brought up short and fell backwards onto me. I tightened the belt, and he dropped his knife, his fingers clawing at the belt now cutting off his air supply.

Grandmother and the others watched calmly from the dais. They were studying me, waiting to see if I would do it. I'd never intentionally had an audience for my work before. It unnerved me.

But I had no choice. Gaul was writhing and spitting like an animal. Letting go now would mean he would keep coming at us until he or we were dead—just like he'd charged the dais and Grandmother, over and over.

Gaul's skin was turning purple, and he was beginning to lose consciousness. I looked at the Council. Their calm demeanor was sickening. But I had an enraged and murderous animal in front of me. I had no choice.

My arms were strained, and I thought I might lose my strength at any moment. But I continued to hold on. Tears began streaming down my face. I was weeping for my family. Weeping for the Council. Weeping for myself. And weeping for Gaul.

I waited a few minutes after his struggling stopped, just to make sure he was dead. When I was convinced, I let go of the belt. I rose to my feet and dropped the belt on the ground next to my brother's body. After giving the Council a withering look, I turned and left the chamber.

I did not go home. I couldn't face Father after what I'd done. Instead, I somehow found my way back to Gaul's small, rented room. Taking a blanket from the bed, I curled up on a divan and went to sleep.

The Council offered Father and I retirement from the family business at the next meeting, and we eagerly accepted it. They made it clear that this wouldn't happen for others who had to take out their own family, but they thought it was a fitting reward for me being the first and for Father having to lose a child. Grandmother begrudgingly congratulated me on a job well-done. It was weird.

Somehow, we were able to move on with our lives. Father hired me an art tutor named Janus, and to this day I spend most of my time drawing. The art tutor is pretty cute—in a sort of professorial way and we seem to be hitting it off. I'm not making any promises, but maybe I might be interested in a little romance after all, especially now that I'm out of the family business.

Oh, I still consult for the Bombays. Turns out there are other family members that have the same problem with tasks that I do. Grandmother asked me to work with them, and occasionally I have to travel to meet with distant cousins and show them the lion by lion method. They seem very grateful, and it's a relief to see that others have the same problem focusing.

Father has, oddly enough, found some fame for his diorama work. Turns out people like the little scenarios he makes, and the fact that the little stadiums are often filled with toga wearing storks, and the arena features plants attacking each other doesn't seem to matter. I think the storks kind of look like Grandmother.

But maybe that's just me.

Aberdeen Bombay

Richmond, Virginia—1856

"I'm boooooooored, darling," Troy Bombay whined from his chair as he tossed aside the newspaper. His immaculately clad leg dangled recklessly over the arm of the chair, in definite danger of being obscenely wrinkled. "What time is the party?"

"Keep that up and you'll get frown lines," I said. Well, I more like wheezed. Siobhan was torturing my tender flesh into the confines of the latest corset from Paris. Just as I tried to inhale, my maid took advantage of my breathless state to squeeze a fraction of an inch more out of my lungs. And I was paying her to do that.

"Someone has been overdoing it at the buffet," Troy mumbled quietly.

"I heard that!" I shouted in short, restrained gasps. "Remember that you're next, Auntie India." That would take the wind out of his sails if he were a normal man. But my cousin Troy loved dressing as a woman to be my chaperone. In fact, I think he enjoyed the pain of the corset a little too much. But that was something I never asked him—mainly because I didn't really want to know the answer.

Siobhan said nothing. She was an excellent maid and never commented on our weird arrangement. Of course I paid her well. That may have had something to do with it.

Troy rolled his eyes. "I'd bet my waistline is smaller than yours today."

I tried to growl, but it is difficult with no oxygen in your lungs. Instead, I shot him a look that hopefully said, Knock it off or I'll tell the other Bombays that you impersonate your mom.

My name is Aberdeen Bombay, but I prefer Abby. My cousin, Troy Bombay, prefers Auntie India. And that works well for me because as an orphan in a southern town, I would not gain acceptance into society if I were a young woman living alone. And I lived for these parties. No one parties like southerners. No one.

Oh yes, and we're assassins. I probably should've mentioned that. Troy and I come from a long line of assassins. The Bombay Family has been in business since Ancient Greece, and everybody born a Bombay works in the field.

It was my late mother who was the Bombay before me. A tried and true Yankee, she somehow fell in love with a southern boy from an old family. And then they had me.

"Do you think that little tramp Carmella will be there?" Troy wiggled his eyebrows at me.

I shook my head. "After the way you humiliated her at the Green's party last week? Never!"

Troy grinned wickedly. "All I said was that she shouldn't wear that décolletage in public."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "No. You said she looked like a painted harlot who had no business pretending to have cleavage. And you said it in public."

Troy giggled. "Oh, that's right. I did say that."

I rolled my eyes. "I don't know why I ever agreed to this whole Auntie India charade."

"Sure you do," Troy said. "Because you wouldn't get invites to all the best parties if I wasn't here."

"If Auntie India wasn't here," I corrected.

Troy was suddenly engrossed in the newspaper again. "Didn't I say that?"

I actually lived in hotels. My parents were deceased, and as soon as my father passed, I sent my newly inherited and immediately freed slaves north to live. It might have been a tad impulsive to sell the family plantation, but there was so much wicked history there that I simply couldn't keep it. It was only after the fact that I'd realized I had forgotten about some of our victims being buried there. Hopefully, that wouldn't come back to haunt me later.

Slavery had been an issue with me. My father never understood that, and, to my consternation, Mother never fussed about it, and she was a Yankee. On my tenth birthday, in fact, I asked for my father to free my personal slaves. To my amazement, he did. Then I immediately asked for a paid servant because how could I manage without one? He responded by throwing his arms up in the air and exiting the room. Mother gave me Siobhan. She'd been with me ever since.

So, equipped with an Irish, paid servant and my cousin, Troy Bombay, and no plantation to live on, I lived in hotels. This one, The Washingtonian, being my particular favorite. The lifestyle suited me, and I still had someone to take care of me.

My father was from a very old, southern family that had settled at Jamestown in 1609. He was proud and obnoxious, to say the least. We had our disagreements, but in the end he was my father after all. And I was the typical southern belle—in love with dresses and parties and plantation mansions. It made it difficult being an assassin, but I'd learned to adapt, just like my family has for centuries.

My mother, on the other hand, was a Yankee and a Bombay. The very essence of an independent-thinking woman, she'd disdained the frippery and frivolity that went with a southern life. But she had loved my father—for reasons I'll never understand.

It's actually an acceptable southern tradition for the man to occasionally take his wife's last name. Mostly this is due to seeing the end of the family name on the horizon. Men are so terribly sensitive about their family names, don't you think? At any rate, the Rhett family had done it—so had many others. It always surprised me that my father had agreed to it. But then, you had to if you wanted to marry a Bombay.

I was fifteen when they had died in a bizarre carriage incident. I'd always suspected foul play, but the Bombay Council came down from New York City and checked it out and found nothing unusual. I personally haven't trusted a herd of goats to this very day.

My Auntie India and cousin Troy had moved here and taken care of me for the next two years, looking after things until I was able to do so on my own. It was they who introduced me to living in hotels. Moving up north where most of the Bombays lived was completely out of the question. Northerners are soooooo serious and dull. And their parties! Dreadful!

Auntie India returned to Massachusetts, but Troy stayed because he too loved the parties. Unfortunately, having a male relative living with me was considered quite scandalous—which meant I wouldn't be invited to these lovely, aforementioned parties. So Troy became Auntie India—with his mother's assistance and tutelage, provided he didn't tell the rest of the family.

Now in my nineteenth year, I was becoming a bit long in the tooth by marriageable standards, but that didn't stop me from having several suitors. I flirted and teased but mainly ignored them. They were after my fortune of course, and I simply didn't have time for that.

Besides, I was having too much fun! Why tie myself down to some boozy old colonel or some silly-headed plantation owner's son who did nothing but laze about and party? Okay, so I lazed about and partied, but that didn't mean I wanted the same thing in a mate.

"Darling." Troy lounged in an overstuffed chair in my room as I got ready for the picnic. "Tell me you aren't wearing that tired old thing!" He pointed to the blue and white dress on the bed.

"Dearest cousin, that tired old thing just arrived from Paris yesterday, so be a darling and do shut up," I answered him. "When are you getting dressed? We have to leave soon, and I can't go to the party without Auntie."

Troy suppressed a yawn so it wouldn't mar his delicate features. "I'm already in my corset. Once Siobhan is done stuffing you into yours, she'll go to work on me."

Siobhan said nothing, as if helping a man dress in drag was an everyday occurrence in Ireland. And maybe it was, for all I knew.

"Do you think that silly Susanna Thornton will be there?" Troy asked. "I really do hate her. Always tossing those ratty curls like she's all that."

I giggled. "I doubt it after the tongue-lashing you gave her at the Franklin's party last week. What was it you said exactly? That her horsehair coat looked better on the original horse?"

Troy rolled his eyes. "I think she was wearing the horse's teeth too…poor dear." Troy always ended a slam with "poor dear," as if it forgave him for his sharp tongue.

"And still you get invited to all the best parties," I sighed.

"People love me, darling." Troy pouted. "I just say what they're thinking anyway."

"Miss Abby, ma'am?" Siobhan was helping me lace up my corset. The Buckinghams were having a barbeque, and it was THE event of the month. I ate early, so I wouldn't eat at the party. If I did, my corset would surely burst open.

"What is it Siobhan?" I asked in short bursts of breaths as she tugged hard on the laces. She would have made an excellent torturer under Torquemada. That made me a little proud.

"There's a packet for you in the hall. It was just delivered. Had one of those red wax seals on it. I thought you should know."

Oh. An assignment. I breathed out, and, unfortunately, Siobhan took advantage of my breathing out to tighten the corset. Now I couldn't breathe in. Well, as they say, fashion is pain…gorgeous, gorgeous pain.

"Well…you'd better…bring it…here then," I said after a few attempts at breathing. Siobhan nodded and left the room. She returned in moments with a large, brown envelope with my name on it and the blood-red crest of the Bombays sealed in wax. She excused herself. The maid had been with me enough to know she wasn't allowed to see the contents of the envelope, and she never pried. She really was an excellent servant.

Troy rose daintily to his feet and giggled like a toddler who'd just figured out where the hidden candy was. "I'm going to steal Siobhan now." He nodded and followed the maid out of the room. He knew an assignment was private. He also knew I would tell him anything, and he'd get the details later.

I cracked the seal and opened the envelope, spilling the contents onto my bed. Oh sure, I could've left it until after the party—but what if my target was attending? After all, half of Richmond would be at the Buckingham's this afternoon. Never let an opportunity pass you by. That's what Mother always said during my training, and I've found that to be true in almost every situation.

A drawing of a handsome, young man stood out among the files. He had short, dark hair and a darling set of sideburns. His eyes seemed to be looking right at me. The notes in the margin said they were green. That should make him easy to find.

"Carter Livingstone Sperry," I read quietly. It really was too bad. He was such a handsome man. Oh well.

Apparently, Mr. Sperry was in Richmond, visiting from California. He was staying, where else, with the Buckinghams. He'd surely be at the picnic today. Serendipity! A kill AND a barbeque!

I stuffed the rest of the file back into the envelope and moved it to my suitcase, where I had a false bottom hidden. Tucking the assignment inside, I decided I needed to pick a hatpin for the occasion. That was one of my favorite ways to kill someone at a social engagement. Hatpins were so perfect—functional and pretty and left very little mess (which is very important when wearing the latest fashions). The holes were undetectable most of the time—which meant I could enjoy the rest of the party and make a clean getaway.

I didn't know what Sperry had done to warrant me killing him, and I didn't care. I stopped reading the reasons why in the files long ago. I'd realized that the Bombay Council always had good reasons for dispatching someone. Why waste my time with more reading than was necessary?

Our targets were always villains. Always. There was simply no point in questioning it. So I didn't. Instead, I summoned Siobhan and told her I'd need a hat.

She picked out a simply lovely straw hat with a blue ribbon that circled the brim and tied under my chin or fetchingly around my neck. The maid then handed me a long, mahogany case, and I opened it.

"The sapphire, I think," I said as I selected a very long and very sharp hatpin. The head of the pin was a large sapphire, encrusted with diamonds. It was a personal favorite because it went with my eyes. It is always beneficial to coordinate one's accessories with your best feature. And if it was lethal, all the better.

Siobhan finished dressing me. Once she styled my hair, I added the hat and pierced the hat and hair with the pin. Now I was ready to have some fun and kill someone naughty. It was the perfect day.

Troy joined me an hour later dressed as Auntie India. He looked positively gorgeous in an emerald green dress with matching bonnet.

"You are not wearing that hat!" Troy pointed his matching parasol at the straw hat on my head.

I stuck my chin out. "I am too." Really! Troy could be so snooty about fashion sometimes. Like he was an expert or something.

He shook his head and his wig's shiny, black sausage curls bounced appropriately. "You are too old to wear that hat."

I whacked him on the arm with my own, blue parasol. "I am not. I'm nineteen. Just on the borderline. Besides," I pointed to the sapphire pin, "I need it for this. I have an assignment."

Troy's eyebrows rose. "I will be completely humiliated!" Troy always talked in italics. You could hear the words bending to the right as he spoke them. "They will blame me for not insisting you wear a bonnet!"

"No, they will think nothing of the sort." I pulled my shoulders back to show I was serious. "Or we can tell them I insisted."

Troy/Auntie India whipped out his lace fan and fanned himself/herself quickly. "I don't like it."

"I don't care," I answered. "It's just a hat."

He/she gasped in horror. "It is not just a hat! It is so much more than that! I can't think of a worse scandal!"

I giggled. "It would be worse if I didn't do my job." He knew that. If you failed at a mission, you ran the risk of being hunted down. That would mean Troy would have to go back home. No more parties. And no more dress up.

Siobhan joined us. "Your carriage is here." Then she turned on her heel and left. She probably couldn't get away from us fast enough.

In the carriage, Troy tapped me on the hand with his fan. "So, are you going to tell me about the job?"

"Carter Livingstone Sperry," I answered. "He's staying with our hosts and, from the drawing, is quite a dish."

Troy shook his head sadly. "That just doesn't seem right. Why can't we have more ugly vics? Like in Savannah. Remember that?"

How could I forget? Savannah, last year, Troy helped me take out a pair of twin slave traders. Ugly twin slave traders. It really should be a crime that if you're that ugly, there shouldn't be an exact copy of you. Both men had eyebrows that not only came together in the middle of their forehead, but also formed a sort of caveman overhang over their eyes. I won't even tell you about the teeth and warts. It wouldn't be decent.

"I seem to recall that we had a little trouble in Vicksburg. Something about wet gunpowder?" I asked innocently.

Troy scowled. "Am I to be tormented by that one mistake forever? I forgot I'd hidden it in my wig. When I washed it, the powder got wet. You need to get over that."

"I don't think I ever will," I said. "You should've gone as Troy, not Auntie India. I had to strangle one of those brutes with my bare hands! It took weeks to grow those fingernails back!"

Troy looked at my hat. "Well, my dear, now that you have your age-inappropriate hat, no one would ever notice your fingernails."

I rolled my eyes.

"So." Troy grinned. "What's it going to be? The razor bladed fan? The sharpened whalebones in the corset? The poison in the locket? Or the pistol inside the cage crinoline?" My cousin listed my weaponry as accessories.

"None of them." I smiled and tapped my hat pin.

"Ah. That's why you're wearing the wrong hat for your age." Troy nodded, happy to get one more dig in.

The driver pulled up in front of a large, plantation house and helped Auntie and me out of the vehicle. As he drove off, I linked my arm through Auntie India's (Once we were in character, I wasn't allowed to even think of him as Troy.), and we opened our parasols and joined the party.

"Oh damn," Auntie said softly in her fake falsetto voice. "Colonel Potter is here."

Sure enough, the short, fat colonel was quickly waddling toward us. I suppressed a giggle. Colonel Potter had met Auntie India at the holiday party at the Cantwells last year. Somehow, he'd fallen in love with her and was making it his life's work to pursue and woo my dear, widowed Auntie. Troy hated the old, overweight officer, but I thought they were darling together.

"Miss India!" Colonel Potter swept low before us in an obnoxious courtly bow. His bald spot caught the sun and blinded us. Beside me I felt Auntie shiver.

"And Miss Abby!" the man quickly added. "You are both such a vision to these old eyes!" He wrestled Auntie's arm from mine and placed her hand on his forearm. "Come with me, my dear! Your niece won't mind, will you, Miss Abby?"

It took all I had to suppress a smile. "Of course not, Colonel Potter! Why my Auntie was just saying on the ride over here how much she was looking forward to seeing you today!"

Okay, it was a bit much, but I was still stinging a bit from the too old to wear that hat. My cousin glared at me over her fan before being dragged off by her suitor.

"Abby!" I turned to see Winifred Buckingham coming toward me. I raised my hand and waved. I loved Winifred. She was my cousin on my father's side, and we were very close. It's unusual for Bombays to spend time with family on the non-Bombay side, and we are discouraged from having friends outside of the family. Wini was my connection to the south—my connection to the world I insisted on being part of. We hugged each other, and then she led me around the side of the house.

"I have been waiting for you!" Winifred was the very embodiment of over enthusiasm. There was nothing that made this girl upset and everything made her happy—kind of like a hungry puppy inside a smokehouse. "We have a new guest that I'm simply mad for you to meet!"

"Oh? Really?" I pretended. Of course she meant my assignment—Carter Livingstone Sperry. But she had no idea that I knew that, so I played along. I liked the idea of getting this over quickly so I could truly enjoy the rest of the party.

"He's a distant cousin from California! Can you believe that?"

"That he's a cousin or that he's from California?" I teased.

Winifred laughed. "Both darling, both! Anyway, his name is Carter Livingstone Sperry, and he's a gold prospector! He's found an entire mountain made of the stuff!" Wini smiled broadly. An only and overly spoiled child, she was a very pretty girl with strawberry blonde hair, green eyes, and freckles. I wondered if green eyes ran in her family.

"So he's wealthy." I sighed with boredom. It never failed to amaze me how these ridiculously rich southern belles were so smitten by a man with money. How dull.

Winifred looked at me with faux shock written in her eyes. "Must you be so gauche, Abby? What's wrong with a wealthy man anyway? You will need a husband to look after you sooner or later. Why not one with money?"

I shook my head. "Surely you haven't forgotten that I don't need money or a man to look after me, my friend. I can take care of myself. And I have Auntie India."

Winifred shook her head. I'm sure I scandalized her. Most of these women thought I was completely mad. Who wouldn't want to be married and settled?

"Well he's handsome and charming too," Winifred ventured a little more carefully. "You simply must meet him!" Her puppy-like enthusiasm returned in abundance, and she took my hand and ran for the door of the house.

The Buckingham's home was larger than the White House. And I knew because I'd been. To the White House, I mean. It was years ago, but I was able to help Mother take out a member of the French Foreign Minister's staff who was there to kill the president. That was my introduction to the elegant simplicity of the hat pin as a weapon.

Wini and I stepped off the front porch onto the inlaid, tile floors, and I looked around. The extreme gaudiness of her home never failed to embarrass me. How did the Buckinghams live like this?

Pink and green marble from Italy clashed wildly with a huge, mahogany staircase and banister. The wallpaper had giant, gold fleur-de-lis dripping down the walls behind a crystal chandelier that took up half of the ceiling. I'd often toyed with the idea of saying something to Wini about this obnoxious display of wealth, but what good would it do? Troy often referred to it as Satan's entryway into Hell. I thought maybe he was right.

We stopped beside a giant, stuffed bear, posed on his hind legs as if he was going to attack us for humiliating him this way.

"Now let me see." Wini tapped her chin with a well-manicured forefinger. She was so lucky she didn't have to strangle anyone with her bare hands.

"Where did Carter go off to?" She finally finished her question to herself and then squeaked like a spaniel as she dashed off, dragging me behind her, toward the library.

We opened the huge, oak doors to the library and sure enough, found ourselves face to face with Wini's soon to be dead, distant cousin.

"Carter!" Wini cried out as she pulled me towards my victim. "I want you to meet my very best and oldest friend, Miss Aberdeen Bombay!"

Carter Livingstone Sperry rose to his feet, and I could see that he was quite a bit taller than I. I would probably have to plunge the hat pin into his ear when he was sitting down. Yes, that would be the best way to do it.

He took my hand in his and drew it up to his lips for a kiss. "The pleasure is mine, Miss Bombay." Carter's voice was deep and smooth as silk. What an oily bastard. It wouldn't be difficult to get him alone for the fatal blow. Men like this took whatever conquests they could get.

"The pleasure is, I assure you, all mine, Mr. Sperry." I managed to scrounge up a blush as he gently let go of my hand. Now all I had to do was get rid of Wini. I didn't really want her around when I killed her cousin. She didn't seem to know him at all, but, still, discovering that your best friend is an assassin would be a major shock to the poor girl, and I'd probably have to kill her for knowing that.

"Oh Wini!" I gushed. "He's darling! Absolutely darling!" I was quite good at flattery, and Mr. Sperry had the good grace to smile.

I turned to my friend. "You simply must find Auntie India so she can meet him! Do be a darling and run off to find her! She's with Colonel Potter by the buffet, I'm certain."

Wini cocked her head to one side with a quizzical look on her face. Of course, I was asking for a scandalous breach of protocol, asking to be left alone with a man I didn't know. But I needed to get on with it so I could enjoy the rest of the party. I figured I could lay Sperry out on the sofa to make it look like he was napping. It would be hours before anyone realized he was dead. Whoever came into a library during a barbeque anyway? My fingers twitched for the sapphire hat pin, lodged in my hair.

"But Abby," Wini pouted, "I can't leave you alone in here with Carter!"

I nodded dismissively as I laid out the plan in my head. I'd invite Sperry to sit with me on the sofa—that would eliminate my need to carry him and bring him down to my ear level. I could carry a man—but it would devastate my dress. And that was not happening.

"Oh darling!" I waved her off. "This is your cousin! I'm certain he is a complete gentleman. We will be fine. I promise you." I pictured the whole event playing out in my thoughts. We were only a few feet from the sofa. I'd bat my eyelashes and flirt shamelessly while removing my hat and pin. It would be over in moments. I toyed with going through the eye socket—but sometimes the eyeball popped which would make it easier to declare foul play. Going through the ear was far harder to detect, but it was nearly impossible with a man's full attention on you. I could always go up through the nose into the brain…

"But we'll be scandalized!" Wini squealed. "Simply scandalized!"

I frowned at her. She was making a tremendous fuss. All she had to do was leave the room for a while. I would need to distance myself from the body as soon as I'd killed the man, but I could say I went looking for Wini and Auntie myself when they didn't come back soon enough. It would be easy if Wini would just do what I said.

"Wini! It's me, Abby, you are worried about! You have nothing to fear. We will be fine."

Wini looked from me to the now amused Carter Livingstone Sperry. The cad didn't even try to protest. He wanted to be alone with me. And he would pay for that.

"It's not just you, Abby." Wini actually began wringing her hands. What was wrong with the silly girl? "It's my family. No, I simply cannot do it. We shall all go look for your aunt." She turned to beam at her cousin. "Isn't that right, Carter, dear?"

I stared at her. Okay, fine. It wouldn't be the first time plans in the middle of a hit had to change. There was no point insisting on doing it my way because it would stick in Wini's memory if I did.

"That is fine, my friend," I soothed. "There is no need for you to get so upset!"

Wini smiled and stepped closer to Carter. A huge smile spread across her face. "I do apologize, Abby! It's just that I'm so terribly excited!"

"About what?" I asked casually, starting to work on a new plan for Carter's demise.

"The reason I was so worried about a scandal wasn't for you," Wini said. "It was for us."

"Us?" I asked. Maybe I could get him alone in the evening. The Buckinghams had several acres of woodlands on their property. The body wouldn't be discovered immediately. That was probably a better plan.

Winifred smiled and put her arm around her cousin. "Yes, us. You see, Carter and I are engaged to be married! Isn't that simply divine?"

It took everything I had to force my lips into a sincere smile. My diaphragm pushed my voice up and out past my lips. My legs felt like they'd grown roots and were holding me to the floor, and my stomach was spinning inside of me.

"That is wonderful news!" I managed somehow.

Wini pulled me into a crushing embrace. "Oh darling! I'm so glad!" She pulled back and searched my eyes. "I wanted you to be the first to know! Daddy insists on announcing it at noon. I didn't want you to hear that way!"

"What an honor that you wanted to tell me first!" My throat burned as I spoke each word. "May I tell Auntie India your joyful news?" I wanted to get out of there. Leave that library and the house. I wanted to find my cousin and our driver and head back to the hotel.

Wini nodded before hugging me again. "Of course you can, silly! Just make sure she doesn't breathe a word of it to anyone else before Daddy makes his announcement!"

I nodded and fled the house. My best friend was marrying my victim. I dodged other guests as I worked the perimeter of the barbeque, searching for Auntie India. I finally found her, surrounded by other matrons who were laughing hysterically at something she'd just said.

"Auntie! There you are!" I said breathlessly. It was dreadfully hot out, and racing about in a corset had not been a good idea. I turned to the women surrounding my cousin. "Will you excuse us, ladies? I really must ask my aunt a very important question!"

The other matrons nodded and then looked at each other warily. I knew that the minute we left them, I would suddenly become the subject of their gossip. And I didn't care.

Once we were a safe distance away, Auntie pulled her arm out of mine and hissed, "What's gotten into you?"

"I met my vic," I said, taking a moment to compose myself.

"So?" Auntie shrugged.

"It's bad," I said. "Really bad. I'm not sure I can go through with this."

Auntie's eyes grew wide. This was serious. A Bombay never backed down from an assignment. "What do you mean? Do you need my help?"

I swallowed. "No, I mean neither of us can go through with it. Not today, at least."

"Don't be silly, Abby," Auntie's falsetto changed back into Troy's baritone. "We're here. The vic is here. There are about one hundred other suspects to confuse things and several places to ditch the body."

I realized what my cousin was saying. She thought I'd lost my nerve.

"It's not that. None of that," I said. "It's worse."

Auntie resumed her falsetto as a woman walked past us. We nodded at her and waited until she was out of earshot. "Worse?" Troy's voice returned. "How could it be worse?"

"Carter Livingstone Sperry is now Winifred Buckingham's fiancé. This isn't just a barbeque—it's an engagement party," I said quietly.

"Oh," Troy whispered. "That is worse."

I nodded as my cousin whisked me away to a quiet, shady spot beneath a magnolia tree—far from the other party-goers. After resuming Auntie's voice and persona, she waited for me to start breathing normally again before offering her help.

"I could do it."

I looked at her. "You could do what?"

"I could kill him for you." Auntie whisked out her fan and began fanning herself madly as if she felt the vapors coming on.

I shook my head. "Neither of us can do it. We can't kill Wini's fiancé."

Auntie stared at me for a moment and then looked around to see if there was anyone nearby who could hear. "Do you want to go home? I could make up some excuse? Maybe that you're terribly embarrassed because you wore a hat that is too young for you?"

"We can't walk out. This is Wini's big day. Besides, I think we need to get to know Sperry a little better." I kicked at a tree root. "Oh dammit! Why didn't I read the file? Then maybe I could talk some sense into Wini—tell her what a bad man he is!"

Auntie's jaw dropped open in the most unladylike way. "You didn't read the file? How could you not read the file?"

I started to feel a little defensive. "I never read the file. Who has time to waste on doing that?"

"You should always read the file, darling. That's why they give it to you." Auntie's voice was incredulous. She acted as if I'd just told her I didn't put on that seventh petticoat layer or had poisoned kittens.

I threw up my hands. "They're always bad. Always. I trust the Council on that. Why should I question it?"

Auntie shook her head. "It's not that. You should always be aware of your target. You need to know their background, interests, and motivations. It helps when things go wrong. Seriously! Didn't your mother train you right?"

"I know that!" And I did, too. I just…well I…it's just that…Dammit! I knew what I was doing!

"Sweet pea," Auntie said soothingly. "You'll have to do this the old fashioned way. You have no time to run home and read the file. You're going to have to get to know Mr. Sperry. Here. At the barbeque."

My mouth opened and then closed. Get to know my vic? Was she crazy? I didn't get to know my vic! It was far better just to swoop in, kill them, and then be done with the deed. Get to know him?

Auntie nodded as if she could read my thoughts. Damn.

"There you are!" Wini's voice carried across the well-manicured lawn. "Abby! I've been looking all over for you!" Attached to Wini's arm was the man in question. Carter Livingstone Sperry.

"Miss Aberdeen," he removed his hat and bowed. "And who is this charming creature with you? Your sister?"

Auntie smacked him on the arm with her fan. "Oh you are a charmer, aren't you?" She turned to Winifred. "My dear, please introduce me to this simply dashing young man!"

Winifred made the introductions, and I watched as Sperry bowed over Auntie's hand. Auntie made a complete fool out of herself fawning all over him.

"What is the matter with you?" Wini whispered in my ear. "You just ran off! And on my special day!"

Auntie turned and glared at me, and somehow I found my voice.

"I am so sorry, Wini!" I gushed with as much sincerity as I could muster. "I wasn't feeling very well. It's my own fault—I really should've eaten before we left. I'm quite famished."

It was a silly excuse because I wasn't at all hungry. But it was all I had, and I hoped it would get me away from Wini and Sperry for a few moments to think. I couldn't keep my thoughts straight.

I'd never had a personal connection to an assignment before. Well, there was that one time when I'd had to kill Wini's governess. (She liked to murder the children in her care with poisoned oat cakes.) But that was a fluke. This was something different. I barely knew Sperry and would normally have no problem plunging my hat pin into his eye. But Wini was a different matter. She finally had her little fairytale engagement. And I was supposed to ruin it for her. Of course it would certainly ruin the party to have the guest of honor murdered.

"Carter!" Wini cried out. "Please escort Abby to the buffet and make certain she eats! I simply have to run and find my parents to finish the arrangements for our announcement."

Wait…what?

"No," I started to protest. "I cannot take you away from your fiancé at your engagement party!" I looked at Auntie for help, but she gave none.

Instead, she took Sperry's other arm. "We shall all go together!" With a triumphant look she usually reserved for our waist measuring competitions, Auntie pulled Sperry away toward the other side of the house.

I followed limply, wondering if I could get away with killing Auntie too. It would have to be something gory so it would muss up her lovely face. She'd hate that.

"Well aren't you just adorable!" Auntie exclaimed as she and Sperry walked around. Her falsetto was cracking. I toyed with pulling her wig off. Instead, I caught up.

"I am looking forward to expanding my holdings," Sperry was saying once I slid my hand through his other arm. He nodded to me before continuing. "I'm planning on buying up land north of California. There's more mining to be done up there."

Auntie responded with a ribald cackling that could be heard in three counties. I looked for Colonel Potter. Maybe I could tell him she was considering accepting his proposal and preferred autumn weddings.

"So you're the man who will take our beloved Winifred away from us?" Auntie said loudly so I'd hear. That got my attention. Of course Wini would leave Virginia when she married! Why hadn't I thought of that? That might just be enough for me to want to kill him.

"How long have you and Winifred known each other?" I asked, I hoped, casually. It just occurred to me that they barely knew each other at all. That gave me a glimmer of hope. Wini would be sad, but she probably wasn't in love, and she did look rather fetching in black. She'd make an attractive widow. I'd need to wait until after they were married. And of course, her holdings would double in size. She'd be the catch of Richmond, maybe even the whole South! Why, I'd be helping her!

Sperry grinned at me, showing a row of neat, gleaming white teeth. I pictured a great white shark. This might be easier than I thought.

"Well we've known of each other's existence for years," he said slowly. "But I haven't seen her in a long time. We did begin a correspondence a few months ago. That would be how we got to know each other. She really will make a wonderful wife."

I tried not to shudder. The way Sperry said wife made me think of trophies. Wini deserved better than that. I needed to help her.

"Have you selected the wedding date yet?" Auntie asked, whipping her fan open and coyly looking at Sperry over the top. She was every bit the coquette. I wanted to kick her but thought that might look a bit strange.

"Why wait?" Sperry asked. "I go back to California in a few days." He looked around before smiling at us conspiratorially. "Can you ladies keep a secret?"

Auntie giggled and I simply nodded.

"We are planning to get married today! At this very party!" Sperry smiled, looking smug.

"But…but you'll deny Wini her perfect wedding day!" I blurted out, not very ladylike either. This just wasn't done! Every southern belle longed for a huge wedding! How could he take that away from her?

Sperry patted my hand condescendingly. "Yes, I know. You ladies like white lace and lots of attention. But I have a business to run. I need a wife, and we need to do this immediately. Wini understands, I assure you."

He used my pet name for Wini! The bastard! Who did he think he was? I was ready to kill him right now.

Auntie drew his attention away from my fuming. "Of course you need to get started right away! No time like the present!"

Sperry laughed. "You are so right, my dear. I need to get that little filly home so she can start her wifely duties!"

To say I was horrified was an understatement. This repulsive man needed to die. There was simply no way around it. I couldn't kill him before the wedding. In fact, I probably should wait a few days just to make sure everything was legal for Wini. Aberdeen Bombay was back in action. I just needed to bide my time.

Sperry led us through the buffet. I had to take more food than I would normally eat because of my earlier statement on being weak with hunger. After parking me and Auntie on a bench, my target left to find his bride-to-be.

"Could you be more ridiculous?" I asked Auntie.

She glared at me. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean." She speared an olive with her fork and chewed on it thoughtfully. "I wondered if you were ever going to snap out of it. I literally had to do everything."

I did not hit her. A lady never hits her chaperone. Instead I dropped a spider on her plate and watched as she screamed. She really screamed like a girl. Isn't it funny how an assassin—a trained killer—can be terrified of spiders? I'd bet she wished she'd never told me that.

I waited for Auntie to regain her composure. Assassins are very patient people as a rule.

"Well that was uncalled for!" Auntie said with a deadly look.

"We have to get back on track," I said, ignoring her. "What are we going to do about Vic?"

"I'd been thinking about that while you were looking for a spider" Auntie said. "I think we need to allow Winifred her wedding day and night. Killing her fiancé before that would just be mean." She wiggled her eyebrows at me, so I knew that putting a spider on her plate was mean too.

I nodded. "Yes, I agree. If we wait a couple of days, Wini will be a very wealthy widow. She might as well get something out of that."

Auntie looked at me. "Don't you think she'll be upset?"

I did. Maybe not as upset as she'd be if she was truly in love with Carter. More like I-broke-a-nail upset. "Yes. But that gives us time to figure something out."

A young slave girl came up to us to tell us we needed to gather for a special announcement on the front lawn. Auntie and I handed the girl our plates and made our way to the front of the house.

On the marble front porch, framed by huge, marble pillars, Winifred stood next to Sperry, beaming like a blushing bride. Her father, my uncle Daniel, held a glass of champagne aloft.

"My dear friends!" he shouted. "Today I have a very special announcement! My darling daughter, Winifred, is betrothed to my dear cousin's boy, Mr. Carter Livingstone Sperry!"

A roar went up from the audience, and I turned to Auntie. "Everyone seems very fond of using his middle name, don't they?"

Auntie leaned in and whispered, "This is your territory, my dear. I always thought the way you people throw names about was weird."

Uncle Daniel continued, "And as a special surprise! The lovely couple is going to get married right here! In one hour!"

The party goers cheered as Winifred and Sperry were spirited away by the family.

The same slave girl who took my plate earlier appeared at my elbow. "Miss Abby," she said quietly. "Miss Winifred would like you to help her get ready."

Auntie frowned. "What about me? Can't I go too?"

I shook my head. "You have a job to do, Auntie India." I leaned closer and whispered into her ear. "I need you to try to find out what anyone here knows about our vic."

Without waiting for a response, I took off in the direction of the porch and entered the house. Wini's room was at the top of the stairs on the right. Her mother, Aunt Josephine, opened the door to let me in and hugged me warmly.

"Isn't this exciting Abby?" She squeezed me extra hard before letting me go. Aunt Josephine was a petite woman who could crush a horse if she had a mind too. She managed to squeeze me tighter than my corset did.

"And so unexpected! I had no idea!" I proclaimed with faux happiness.

Josephine nodded. "I know, it does seem rather sudden. But when Carter made his intentions known we thought, 'why wait'?"

I pressed my aunt. "I didn't even know Wini and Mr. Sperry were that well acquainted!"

"Oh, they barely know each other!" Josephine giggled. "But they will have plenty of time to get to know each other later." She then pulled an exaggerated pout. "I will miss my little girl though. He's taking her off to California in a few days! I'm simply devastated."

I patted Aunt Josephine on the hand and mumbled some condolences. If they were so happy Wini was getting married, why were they upset that she was leaving?

"There you are!" Wini pushed her mother aside and hugged me. "I need you to help me get ready! You are my maid of honor, after all."

Under any other circumstances, I would love to hear this news. My head would be spinning helping with wedding plans, getting a new dress to wear, and anticipating the parties that would happen from now until the wedding. But today was different when you consider I had to off the groom before he took his bride away.

Aunt Josephine and I helped the house slaves strip Wini down to her corset and begin to build her foundation clothing. A lovely, white lace gown dripped from a hanger—presumably Wini's wedding dress. I had so many questions to ask my cousin, but how to manage that?

"Wini," I said as I helped with her fifth petticoat. "Were you surprised to hear of Mr. Sperry's proposal?"

Aunt Josephine shot me a look, but then went back to fussing with a veil she was sewing onto a garland of magnolia blossoms.

Wini nodded absently. "I was, in fact. I didn't even know that Carter remembered me! But it's so exciting, isn't it Abby? Imagine me! A married woman!" Winifred actually pirouetted across the floor, landing in her mother's arms in a rain of giggles. They were a very close family. Winifred was an only child. Of course they'd be upset to see her go.

It made me wonder why they agreed to it. There were plenty of eligible bachelors here in Richmond and all over the Commonwealth of Virginia. Bachelors who'd stay close by so Wini would always be in her parents' lives. But they agreed to Sperry's out-of-the-blue proposal. Well, maybe they were just happy to see Winifred married. Or maybe her enthusiasm made them happy. Or maybe they were one of those families that liked intermarrying each other. I really didn't care about that. I had a job to do.

"And don't forget, Wini," Aunt Josephine said. "You must carry my mother's handkerchief. For luck."

Wini hugged her mother with tears in her eyes. "Of course I will!"

As I watched them, I started to get a little teary. Wini's departure would be a difficulty for Aunt Josephine and Uncle Daniel. Of course I was planning to kill her husband before he could take her out of town, but still, they had to be sad.

"I'm so happy you could be here, Abby." Josephine squeezed my hand. "I wish your father were here." Then she bounced out of the room, mumbling something about finding her blue parasol for the bride.

Now I was sad. Aunt Josephine and my father were also orphaned young. My grandparents had left each of them wealthy enough to get along in comfort, and Josephine married very well. Uncle Daniel had the largest tobacco plantation in the Commonwealth. And when they died, it would all go to Wini. Her dowry would be enormous.

Wait a minute…

There was a sharp knock on the door. I answered to find Auntie India standing there, her face flushed with activity. Did she run up those stairs? In that dress?

"Wini," I called to my friend who was having her corset tightened. "Could you excuse me for a moment?" I took advantage of her breathless state to slip out of the room. I pulled Auntie into a small sitting area off the main corridor.

"I have to tell you something!" Auntie said.

"I have to tell you something!" I replied.

"Sperry is after her money!" We both said simultaneously. This was followed by us frowning simultaneously. It was like looking into a mirror image of myself who was also a man.

Auntie held up one finger to cut me off. "Me first. Sperry's prospects are not what he says they are. He's broke and needs money to keep his gold mine going."

I nodded, "Everything was rushed. Wini had no idea he wanted to propose, and he wanted to get married right away! Wini's an only child. When she dies, all of her parents' money will go to Sperry!"

We stared at each other for a moment before saying in perfect unison, "He's going to kill Wini!"

When two Bombays come to the same conclusion at the same time, it's bound to be true. Sperry needed Wini's family money. But loans from Uncle Daniel wouldn't last forever. He needed more than that. He might not kill Wini immediately or even in the next few months. But he would kill her.

"I really wish I'd read that file," I mumbled.

"So we have to take him out," Auntie said.

I nodded. "Only now, we have to do it before the wedding."

"Or Winifred will inherit Sperry's debts too," Auntie finished. I hadn't even thought of that.

"You have to go in there and stall Winifred. I'll go finish my assignment," I said.

Auntie shook her head. "No, you go in and stall, and I'll finish your assignment."

"Not a chance," I said to her. "I'm supposed to be the maid of honor. My disappearance will hold things up a bit. You have to find a way to distract the bride."

"Damn it." Auntie bit her lip. "I hate it when you're right." With a sigh, she went to Wini's door. She stood there for a moment and then looked at me and nodded. After a quick knock, she went in.

Now, where would Sperry be? He wouldn't have to do much to get ready. I'd have to find him quickly and get the job done. I'd also have to dispose of him. Yes, that was it! Make it look like Sperry had run off—jilted Wini at the altar! It was cruel but far better than having Winifred married to this monster.

But where would I find him? I searched the house but couldn't find anyone who knew where the groom had gotten to. Very carefully, I slipped into the kitchen and out the back door. Soon, Wini would launch a search party to find her missing maid of honor, so I couldn't take the chance of anyone seeing me.

Have you ever tried to hide while wearing a hoop skirt? You cannot press flat against a wall, and climbing, running, or even walking fast is impossible—especially with the addition of a corset.

Carter Livingstone Sperry was nowhere to be found. Nearly everyone in attendance had moved to the front of the house after being told the wedding would take place on the porch. I managed to skirt the perimeter of trees, which shredded my dress. Surveillance was not easy when you were a well-dressed woman in the South.

Branches tore at my hair and scratched my face. By the time I emerged from the trees behind the house, I looked every inch a disaster.

Instead of facing the other revelers in this state, I located a small path that would eventually lead to the tobacco barn where I could straighten my appearance and think. No one would be there at this time—the slaves were all working at the party, preparing food, setting up tables and chairs, and serving.

The barn door was slightly ajar, causing me to pause outside. Bombays are a suspicious people—something learned from entering one too many buildings where the door had been left open, I suppose. After waiting outside a few moments, and hearing no sound from within, I decided to go in.

The spicy scent of dried tobacco leaves hung oppressively in the hot, dusky air. I started to work on repairing my hair. I couldn't remain here long if I didn't want to smell like tobacco. It took longer than usual, because my damn corset made it difficult for me to raise my arms and breathe at the same time.

Once my hair was in some semblance of order, I started to clean up my face with a handkerchief. How had I gotten so dirty? The dress was beyond repair in some places. There was nothing to be done about that. I tried to rearrange the fabric to cover the worst tears, but people would notice. I'd have to come up with an answer for that.

"Ahem…" A deep voice to my left caused me to jump. I landed in a defensive stance and realized with a start that I didn't have my hat, which meant I didn't have my hatpin. Both were sitting on Wini's bed…where I was supposed to be. Damn.

"I am sorry to disturb you." Carter Livingstone Sperry stepped out of the shadows. "I thought no one would be here, and I'd have a few moments to myself before the wedding."

"You should've announced yourself!" I pulled out of my defensive stance.

"What happened to you, Miss Abby?" he asked with a leer. "A bit of a tussle with some young man in the woods?"

My face flushed hotly. "How dare you imply such a thing! I was not compromised in any such manner!" What a bastard. How did Wini think she could marry such an oaf?

He raised his hands in a mock attempt to fend me off. "I meant no disrespect. I was just curious. After all, you are supposed to be helping my betrothed prepare for her nuptials."

I looked at him for a long moment and decided to dispense with the southern belle niceties.

"I'd personally rather she didn't marry a man like you. I don't really care for your sort."

Sperry's face grew dark. He grabbed my wrist roughly. "I don't care what you think of me. You'd better not come between me and my bride."

I yanked my wrist from his grasp. Did you know that the thumb is the weakest of the fingers? If someone grabs your arm, pull in the direction of their thumb. You'll get free every time. We are taught that as toddlers. Bombays start early.

"Winifred deserves far better than you," I said quietly. "She deserves a man who really loves her and wants her. You, I suspect, are more interested in her inheritance."

Sperry lunged at me, but I dodged out of the way. I wanted to bring my knee up and force his balls into his throat. But that would be very silly in a hoop skirt considering you couldn't see what the legs were doing at all under there. So instead, I punched him in the throat. Hard. I heard his trachea splinter.

Sperry stumbled backward, clutching his throat in surprise as he gasped for the air that would not come. He dropped to his knees, his body shaking as it struggled to get oxygen. Within seconds, the man fell dead at my feet.

That happened faster than I thought it would. I'd thought it would take a while to lure my vic to someplace where we could be alone. That I'd have to plan some way to catch him unawares. That I'd have to work hard to kill him. None of this seemed to be the case. Sometimes, you just have to punch your vic in the throat. That's all it takes and often all you have time for.

I looked around the barn for some sort of place to dispose of the dead man, but found nothing. If only there'd been a bottomless shaft or something. I trod back and forth on the boards, looking for a loose one to stash the body under. Nothing.

The wedding would be starting soon. If I didn't get rid of the body of the groom, they'd find it with me standing over it looking like I'd just been mauled by a badger. I had to think quickly. And fast.

"Abby!" Auntie India burst into the barn and stopped when she spotted Sperry at my feet. She looked me up and down.

"What on earth have you done to your gown? I cannot be seen with you like this!"

"Really? That's what you're going to give me a hard time over? My dress?" I asked.

Auntie grinned for a moment. "Well, I was going to complain that you didn't wait for me. But that seemed a bit narcissistic."

"How did you find me?" I asked.

"Everyone said you were running around in the woods. They also chastised me for allowing you out of my sight, and a few said some unkind words about me being a lazy chaperone—which I thought was completely unnecessary. I thought about the layout of the plantation and guessed you were here. And I was right."

I sighed. "Fine. You were right. Now help me get rid of Carter Livingstone Sperry."

It was sad, an hour later, seeing Wini in her wedding dress, weeping openly in front of everyone. It was sad that she thought Sperry had ditched her on her wedding day. It was sad that it took Auntie and me twenty minutes to find that old, unused well and dump Sperry's body into it. We threw in a dead pig on top for good measure. That way, when the smell hit, they'd most likely just bury the retired well. And it was sad that I'd ruined my dress from Paris manhandling a dead pig.

People were in such a state of shock that Wini had announced her engagement and been jilted at her own wedding all in the same hour that very few people noticed my ruined dress. Aunt Josephine turned everyone out in order to comfort her daughter in privacy.

Back at the Washingtonian, once Siobhan had gone to bed for the night and Auntie India had once again become Troy, we opened the file on Sperry together.

The Bombay Council had been right. As they always were. Sperry was the worst sort of man. In his lust for gold, he'd allowed an unstable mine to collapse, trapping and slowly killing ten miners inside. Gambling debts had become overwhelming, and he'd taken to seducing and killing a wealthy widow for her money. Once that ran out, he'd decided to come home and woo his cousin Winifred.

"And that's why you need to read the file the Council sends," Troy admonished when I'd tossed the papers into the fireplace. "You wouldn't have second-guessed yourself today if you'd just read the file."

I was exhausted and depressed. In one day, I'd managed to crush the hopes of my best friend who only wanted a husband and family. And while she almost married a monster who would've killed her, I still felt raw and empty.

"You did the right thing." Troy patted my hand gently. "Wini will find someone else."

"I know." I leaned back in my chair and stared at the flames as they devoured the sordid story of Carter Livingstone Sperry.

"Maybe I need a little change," I finally said.

Troy sat straight up. "Ugh! Please don't say we are going up north! I don't want to see Mother and the others right now."

I shook my head. "I was thinking of something else. Maybe a grand tour of Europe?"

Troy perked up. "Will there be parties?"

I nodded. "Yes. And you don't even have to be Auntie India if you don't want to."

"Can I be someone else?" Troy pouted.

"How about if you are just you? The dashing and wonderful and witty you?"

Troy looked at me sternly. "My darling, I am always wonderful and witty, whether I am a woman or not. No, you need a chaperone. I think I'll come up with someone else. A sister perhaps? Or a cousin this time? I do hate playing an older woman."

"Okay. You can be my sister," I said. I'd always wanted a sister.

Troy nodded. "Yes, your younger, prettier sister. Who has a smaller waist and wears hats that are appropriate to her age."

I sighed. I guess I could live with that.

Dublin Bombay

Moray, Scotland—892 A.D.

"You have to go to the Orkneys. We have a target for you," Uncle Rome said as he tossed another greasy bone to the dogs at his feet. He sucked on his fingers before wiping a slimy hand across his tunic.

I shook my head. "I don't want to go to the Orkneys. No one does. It's cold there, and they have Vikings." And I meant it. Vikings were a pain in the ass—always bludgeoning this and stabbing that. Nobody wanted them and yet there they were, like an infestation of fleas…well-armed fleas that wanted to kill you.

And you want to talk about cold? In winter, the Orkney Islands were frigid and damp, leaving your bones aching with the question of, Why in the hell are we in the damn Orkneys? The fire crackled to my left as if it too wanted me to stay.

Uncle looked down his nose at me. "You say that as if you have a choice. You don't."

He was right. I might as well have been arguing with the wind. The cold, bitter wind that blew down from the Orkneys.

Currently, the Bombay Family was comfortably ensconced in a large, warm castle. After defeating a rather scruffy tribe of Picts (another group who are very stabby and bludgeony—but with worse manners) to claim the land, we'd settled in. Sure, the Picts had been tough to remove, but the Bombay Council had wanted a northern stronghold. This was it.

Sharing a castle with family wasn't a trial so much as it was a challenge. A challenge to keep us from killing one another. And we faced this challenge every day. Not an easy task when every member of the family is a trained assassin. I, myself, was eyeing the fireplace poker and wondering how many ways I could kill Uncle Rome right now. Currently, I was entertaining a method that involved fire and a soft part of his body that I will leave to your imagination.

"You will leave at once," Uncle continued, tearing off a hunk of bread. "You must kill Sigurd the Mighty. You have two weeks."

"Two weeks?" I complained like a girl—I'll admit that. And it was not very becoming for a twenty-two year old man, but I was hoping it would work. "Two weeks to get there, establish some sort of ruse, and kill him? Are you mad?" It probably was not a good idea to piss my uncle off. At more than thirty stone in weight, he could probably squash me at will. In fact, that was his modus operandi when it came to killing the bad guys—he basically sat on them until the breath left their lungs. Completely charmless and unimaginative if you ask me.

"Off with you." Fortunately, I caught him while he was eating. This meant he'd be at the table for a while at least. I'd be gone before someone was required to help him out of his chair. It was an event—usually involving the whole family. Other families have interesting and dare I say, fun, traditions. Ours involved levering a fat man out of various forms of furniture.

"Stupid Uncle Rome. Stupid Orkneys. Stupid Sigurd the Mighty," I grumbled all the way to my room. I didn't mind killing people for work. I just wasn't a fan of Vikings or cold weather. Well, at least Vikings I could kill. There weren't enough wool socks to keep me warm and dry where I was going.

My idea of a good time was playing chess in front of a fire with a flagon of warm mead nearby. Not that there were any good chess players in the family. There weren't. Any.

You'd think that strange, wouldn't you? A family of assassins and none of them but me played chess. I think it's weird. We got the game a few years back from a cousin who'd travelled to Persia. So far, I was the only one who'd taken it up.

Strategy is important, I think. For a very long time, Bombays have planned out assassinations in ways that left us undetected. Planning a killing took skill and creativity—like in chess. Why couldn't they see that?

"Going somewhere?" My little sister Iona stood in the doorway, grinning. She'd just turned fourteen and, like most women, thought she knew everything. By the way, she did. It was incredibly annoying.

"Up north. To the Orkneys. To take out a Viking," I groaned. Vikings. Not only did I have weather to deal with, I had to kill a Viking.

Not that it was hard to do so, mind you. Vikings were relatively easy to kill. You just needed to make them mad. From there, you just outwitted them. And I spoke their language. Again, I was the only Bombay who'd been interested in learning the other languages when we'd relocated up here from Northumbria to the north of Hadrian's Wall. Why was that?

Iona plopped down onto my bed. "So, how are you going to do it?"

"I don't know," I said honestly. "I'll figure it out when I get there. Do you know anything about Sigurd the Mighty?" My history of the northeastern islands was a little, well, deficient. But Iona liked political intrigue. Women.

"Oh, him," she said in a bored way. "He's Earl of Orkney. Kind of an idiot. His brother gave him that title and then abandoned him. The brother didn't want to be in the Orkneys either."

"An idiot is good," I said as I stuffed a shirt and a couple of hoods into a sack. Maybe this would be so easy I could just ride up there, gut him, and be home before anyone was the wiser. I eyed the ongoing chess game in the corner of the room. I had an important move to think about. Even though I was just playing against myself.

"You can't just walk up to him and kill him," Iona said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. "These are Vikings you're dealing with. You have to finesse it somehow."

I rolled my eyes. "Really? You're saying it's more complicated than that? I don't believe it."

Vikings thought with their weapons: strike first, and then remember you needed to ask the dead guy something. Realize you just killed the only guy who could give you this information. Take his goat and find someone else to kill. Repeat.

My sister ignored this. "I think there's some sort of border dispute going on there near Caithness. Something with the Magnate of Moray. That's where you should start." She tapped a finger to her chin as she stared into space. After a few seconds, she shrugged. "Anyway, good luck!"

I grabbed her arm as she was about to bounce out of the room. "I think you should come with me. You could help."

Iona grabbed my hand and twisted, throwing me neatly to the floor. All air had abandoned my lungs and she stood over me, hands on her hips as I gasped like a fish on the icy, stone floor. I really should put a nice warm rug in here.

"Why should I help you? Why would I go there? Besides…some Viking warrior might try to rape me or carry me off and make me a slave. Why would I want that?"

I wheezed as I climbed to my feet. "Like anyone could take advantage of you." I brushed the dust from my clothes. "Besides, I was thinking more of you traveling in disguise."

A flicker of interest glimmered in my sister's eyes. She liked disguises. As a child in Northumbria, she often moved through the streets unnoticed as an urchin, or was kowtowed to as a princess. Dressing up was her favorite thing and a weakness I could easily exploit.

"Really?" she asked with enthusiasm. Upon seeing my interest, she toned it down and started pulling at a string on her dress. "Why would I be interested in that?"

"Because you love costumes and you love intrigue," I answered. I was really warming up to the idea. Having someone else along would make the time pass quickly too, even if it was Iona.

"Okay. I'll do it." Iona smiled. Either she was bored, or she wanted a break from wrestling Uncle Rome out of his chair. "What will I be? A Pictish princess? A warrior girl? A Viking shield-maiden?"

"A boy," I answered.

Iona sulked from the back of her horse as we picked our way through the muddy forest. She hadn't quite gotten used to the idea of being my boy servant. She'd had to bind her breasts and put her hair up under a hood. For some reason, Iona had gotten a bit girly and man-crazy in the last year, and she was not enjoying this disguise as much as I'd hoped.

"Not too far now," I said for the tenth time today. "Moray is nearby. I'm pretty sure of it." Actually, the only thing I was pretty sure of was that I'd forgotten to bring a map. We'd had to ask people all along the road if we were going in the right direction. I'd made Iona swear she wouldn't tell the other Bombays when we got back. That would be humiliating.

It had been a three-day's journey from home to get this far. A cold, wet drizzle glazed the branches of dead trees, and, in spite of our heavy wool cloaks, we were soaked through and chilled to the bone. Iona had been moody and silent the whole way, so I spent my time thinking of my next chess move. I really was stuck with this one because both of my rooks were cornered. Maybe I'd get an idea along the way.

At least we'd been able to stay at various farms and inns. They were rough, and they were few, but having a night to hang our wet clothes in front of a fireplace had been a benefit. Money wasn't really a problem for us, and it did most of the talking. There were few travelers who could afford to stay at these places. Hot food was another plus. Although if I ate one more eel I was pretty sure I'd snap. What was it with these people and eels?

"Are you still sulking?" I asked my sister. "You should be getting into character."

Iona nodded and said in a dead voice. "Fine. I'm Oxnar—your servant boy. I'm thirteen. And we are on our way to the northern islands to see your father. Who is a fisherman." She threw her hands up in the air. "That's the best you could come up with? A fisherman? How many fishermen's sons can afford a servant? And why in the hell would we go visit him in winter? I should've made up the backstory. I'm far better at it than you."

I shook my head. "You have to keep things simple. A fisherman's son is unimportant. The people of Moray won't feel like they have to bow to or even acknowledge us. They will forget us once we've gone."

Iona shook her head. "What about the servant thing? How can you explain that?"

I sighed. "I told you. I'm now a cloth merchant of some small reputation. You are my apprentice." I tried hard not to roll my eyes. That would've made her angrier than she already was, and I didn't need that.

"Whatever!" Iona threw her hands up again, before slouching into sulk mode.

"You there!" a voice cried out ahead of us. I squinted into the piercing rain to see a figure form out of the mist. A young man, about my age I'd guess, stepped forward, wielding a large stick. Sticks were a favored weapon of these parts. They literally grew on trees.

"Yes?" I asked casually. We'd encountered many people like this on the road—most of them beggars and thieves. I reached for the axe I had hidden under my cloak.

"Where do ya think yer goin?" The man thrust a stubborn chin up at us. His hair was red and unruly, but his clothes were intact and not worn out. I decided he was a guardian from a local farm or something similar.

"To Moray to spend a few days resting our horses before continuing up north," I said, looking him directly in the eyes.

The young man looked from Iona to me. He seemed to be struggling with a thought. I let him. There's really no point in giving someone too much information.

"I'm Taran," the man said, and I realized he was much younger than me—closer to Iona's age. "My da is the innkeep in Moray. You kin stay with us." And without waiting for my reply, he took hold of Iona's horse and began leading us up the trail.

My sister raised her eyebrows at me, and I knew she was wondering if this was an ambush or a trap. Her hand went to her short sword she kept hidden beneath a cloak. I shook my head and she nodded. We might as well follow Taran. If he was telling the truth, then we'd have our place to stay. If he was lying, well, he'd be dead soon. It didn't really matter.

The horses moved slowly through the muck that sucked at their hooves as the rain began to come down in freezing sheets. Loud, sharp cracking sounds filled the still, rain-muffled air as the coated tree branches snapped beneath the weight of the ice. I hoped Taran was right. We needed to find shelter quickly.

I studied the back of the boy as he walked, his right hand still gripping the rope of Iona's horse. How had I misjudged him so easily? This was clearly a boy. The illusion that made me think he was a man was subterfuge. It must have been his stance and his attitude. The boy had developed it to deter the wrong sort. It made me like him immensely.

We pulled up to a two-story, half-timbered building with a thatched roof.

"This is it," Taran said. "I kin take yer horses around back and see to em."

Iona and I climbed off the horses, and I tossed the boy a coin. He looked at it, and his eyes grew wide. A smile crossed his features making him look younger than ever.

"Tell Da you want the corner room," Taran said with a wink. "That's the best one." And with that, he was gone.

The door complained heavily as we entered the inn. The main room was filled with people sitting at rough-hewn tables and benches, but it was warm from a roaring fire, and the smells of stewed meat and baked bread made me sigh in relief.

A grizzled but friendly-looking old man met us and handed our soaking wet cloaks to a thin, frowning woman. "Taran brought ye?"

"He did," I answered. "He told us to ask for the corner room."

The man nodded. "He must like you then. Just so happens it's not bein' used." He motioned to the tables filled with people. "None of these folks are staying here. They just like the food." I noticed the thin, frowning woman start to smile at this. She must be the cook, and this was a compliment of importance to her.

"Well it smells as though we are in heaven," I said, bowing to the woman who let her guard down enough to widen her grin. "My compliments, madam. My boy and I are famished."

I glanced at Iona and saw that she was staring at a platter of meat and bread on one of the tables. The old man guided us to a table closest to the fireplace, chasing off a couple of men who were sitting there but not eating. They spat on the floor, but left without a fight.

"Name's Deort," the man said as we sat down. "How long will ye be with us?"

"Two or three nights," I answered, handing him a couple of coins.

Deort's hand closed over them, but his eyes never looked at the money. He nodded. "That'll be good." He whistled, and the thin, now smiling woman brought us a tray full of food and two cups of beer.

"When yer done, I'll show ye to yer room," Deort said before leaving us to our dinner.

Iona took a bite and rolled her eyes heavenward. "Oh my God. This is the best thing I've ever tasted. Ever."

I knew that was a lie. Our cook at the castle was talented. But we were cold and wet, and that made this tavern a glittering castle.

The meat was succulent, and the bread was crusty and warm. We ate in silence, savoring every morsel. We'd made it here, to Moray. The worst part of our trip was over.

"What's our next move?" Iona said quietly as she shoved the now empty trencher away and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. She belched, and I was proud of the fact she was really getting into her role.

I looked around the room. These were villagers, not visitors, Deort had said. We'd need to get some information. If the Magnate of Moray was involved in a dispute with Sigurd—this seemed like the logical place to start.

"Work the room. See if you can overhear any gossip," I said. Iona nodded and slipped away from the table.

"How was yer dinner?" Taran appeared at my elbow with a wide grin.

"Hit the spot," I said. "Are we the only ones staying the night?"

Taran nodded. "Yeah. Everyone jes comes 'ere fer dinner." He pointed at a couple of men the next table over. "They work for the magnate." Taran puffed up his chest. "He comes here a lot."

"After the dinner I just had, I can see why the most important people come here." My words had the desired effect—Taran lit up with pride.

"I keep tellin' my da that. Maelbrigte the Tusk always comes here."

"Maelbrigte the Tusk?" I asked.

Taran nodded. "The magnate. They call 'im The Tusk on account of his teeth sticking out." He pointed at the door. "And there he is!"

A man, his face shielded by a hood, stood in the doorway. He didn't look like anything special—average size and height. A cheer went up at the table next to me, and the man in the doorway slipped off his hood.

If Taran hadn't prepared me, I wouldn't have been unable to stop staring. Maelbrigte the Tusk was aptly named. The ugly man had shaggy, dark hair that went in a number of surprising directions out over one, thick black eyebrow. His eyes were wild, as if he was mad. A broken nose sat frankly between them. But it wasn't his strange appearance above the lips that startled me.

Maelbrigte had two, huge teeth in the front that stuck nearly straight out from his face. I'd never seen anything like it. A wild boar would find himself confused if confronted with this man.

"Don't stare," Taran said quietly. "He don' like it when yer stare."

I pulled my eyes away as Maelbrigte made his way over to the table filled with his men.

"I see why he's called The Tusk," I said softly.

Taran nodded. "He looks mean, but he's a good man. He's fair, an that's more'n yer can say fer most."

"I've heard rumors on the road that your magnate is involved in a dispute with a Viking?"

Taran spat on the floor, his face contorted with disgust. "The Earl of the Orkneys." He spat again. Apparently Sigurd rated a double spit. "He ain't the earl of me! He's a bastard. That's what Da says."

Trying to seem as if I really didn't care, I asked, "Why?"

"Vikings. They don' belong here," Taran said.

Deort called his son away from me, and I was left with my thoughts.

Iona appeared in front of me. "We got lucky. Sigurd is coming here in two days' time. And he won't be alone."

That got my attention. "Really? Why?"

Iona grinned. "There's to be a fight. A forty-on-forty-man battle. To settle the border dispute."

A forty-on-forty was interesting. Basically, the magnate and the earl would each bring forty men to the battle, just to keep it fair. Whoever won the battle won the dispute. Actually, I was a little surprised that the magnate had agreed to it. Vikings were talented fighters in a group. They could just chop away at people with axes until there was no one else to chop. After which, they'd look confused and go find some goats to steal.

I shrugged. "Why not just let Sigurd be killed in battle then?" Did we even need to be here, I wondered?

"You need to make sure the job is finished," Iona answered. "We can't leave until we know for sure Sigurd is dead."

That was a good point—but I wasn't about to say it to my sister. Chances were, the Vikings would come out on top here. I needed to make sure Sigurd did not survive this battle.

We once again gave our compliments on the dinner and followed Deort upstairs to our room. To my surprise, it was a large, corner room with two small beds and a blazing fireplace. After bolting the door and shuttering the one window, Iona and I disrobed and hung our clothing in front of the fire.

The things we'd brought were wet, so they too went in front of the fire. My sister and I wrapped blankets around our bodies and sat on our beds, mulling over what we knew and what we still needed to know.

"We should check this town out after breakfast," Iona said. "We can get a lot of gossip in the market."

I nodded. "All we have to do is make sure Sigurd doesn't leave here alive. I can volunteer to join Maelbrigte's forty fighters." I'd had a great deal of battle experience. Up here in the Pictlands, you just needed to step outside your front door to find it.

"I can help with that," Iona said. "As your boy, I can fight with you."

"No. I'd rather you didn't. You're just here to help me. I need to carry this assignment out." And that part was true. It was my job. But I also didn't want her to get hurt. It was better if she stayed out of the fray.

Iona frowned. I knew that look. That look meant I was in for it.

"I'm a trained killer too, Dublin. I can handle myself." She was angry with me.

"I know that." I struggled to figure out how to placate her—considering my next move from every angle. I missed my chess board. "What I meant was that I want you to stay on higher ground. Watch the whole field. If Sigurd makes any attempt to run away, you can go after him if I can't."

Iona smiled and nodded. She really was too easy to manipulate. Maybe I needed to teach her chess when we got back. She'd shown no interest in it previously, but my sister needed to learn strategy.

"I'll go to the bakery tomorrow and get us some bread," Iona said. "You need to make friends with the magnate."

"Good idea. By the way, did you get a look at the man?"

"Not really but I heard about his teeth. I was wondering how he eats like that." My sister shuddered a little under her blankets. "Why doesn't he just have them pulled?"

"Because maybe that's all he has," I answered. Teeth were important. Once you lost them, you were stuck eating broth or, in the case of my grandparents, having others pre-chew food for you. Which is why I brushed my teeth every day with a bristled twig. The others made fun of me sometimes, but my sister and mother used it, and we still had all of our teeth.

Sleep got the better of us. Our bones were weary but finally warm, and we settled into the straw filled mattresses and were out quickly.

"Dublin! Dub!" Iona's voice startled me awake, and I sprang from my bed, ready to fight.

My sister laughed. "You might want to put some clothes on." She pointed at my nudity, and I scowled as I walked over to the fire and retrieved my stiff but dry clothes.

"I thought there was trouble," I grumbled.

Iona giggled. "No, I was just waking you up." She'd already folded her clothing and was dressed.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Oh, it's still pretty early," she answered. "I just didn't want to miss breakfast." Iona took a deep breath, and that's when I noticed the tantalizing smell of fresh baked bread in the room.

Deort's cook, who turned out to be Eithne, Deort's wife, greeted us with a smile and led us to a table. In minutes, she'd brought out a plate of bread, cheese, and apples. Once again, the little tavern room was filled with people. Iona and I ate heartily. We weren't going to be hungry again until we left.

It was a cold but bright, sunny day outside. Our breath mingled in the damp air. The village was not much to look at in the daytime. There were maybe ten crude buildings scattered recklessly about. People moved to and fro—some dragging animals or children with them. I asked a few questions and soon found myself standing face-to-tooth with Maelbrigte the Magnate.

I was staring. I know it was rude. But I couldn't help myself. The two teeth were even bigger in person. And they seemed to know I was staring at them. I don't know how I knew that…I just did.

"You lookin' fer me?" Maelbrigte said, but I could swear it came from those two teeth. They were enormous.

I forced my eyes upward and looked into his. He had two different colored eyes. The green one, on the left, looked right at me. The brown one on the right, wandered somewhere off to my right. I focused on his eyebrow.

"Yes. I've heard much about you and wanted to meet you in person."

The brown eye focused with the green eye on me for one moment before wandering off again. "That so?" the magnate said. "Buy me a drink then." His hand came up and turned my shoulder back to the place where I'd just come from. I curbed my instincts to toss him to the ground. Bombays didn't like to be manhandled as a rule. But I needed this weird looking man. So I allowed it.

Back in the inn's tavern, Deort clapped two tankards of mead in front of us.

"Who are you?" Maelbrigte asked as he took a large swig of mead. "Why are you here?"

"My name is Rabe. I'm a merchant from the South. Just passing through." I nailed the backstory. In your face, Iona! "I'd heard about the Magnate of Moray. You have the reputation of being a good man. I thought I'd introduce myself."

Maelbrigte's green eye regarded me thoughtfully. It was difficult to say what the teeth were thinking. Their gaze never wavered. "Good to meet yer." He clapped me on the arm. "Sorry yer had ta come at this time though."

I polished off my tankard and motioned for Deort to bring another round. This seemed to please the magnate, and he took another drink.

"Why is that?" I asked innocently. I needed to maneuver him into telling me about Sigurd. It would be too telling to ask directly.

The magnate ran a hand through his stiff, unruly hair, accomplishing nothing. He looked at me again and sighed. "I've got a Viking problem."

"Vikings?" I asked with what I hoped was casual interest. Even though I was starting to get used to the crazy eyes and protruding teeth, it was still unnerving.

"Sigurd the Mighty. Earl of the Orkneys. He's comin' here with forty men." All of a sudden I picked up on the fact that Maelbrigte was weary. He was worried about the battle. Taran had said he was a good man. Maybe he was concerned for his village as well.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" I offered. It was a risky gambit. After all, why would a minor merchant passing through want to help?

The brown eye swiveled in its socket and fixed on me. Obviously, I had his attention.

"Why?" Maelbrigte asked.

"Because I hate Vikings," I answered. "And I'm good with my sword." I let that information lie there for a moment.

He nodded. "That would be kind of yer. I'm short a few men. Most of 'em heard about the Vikings and lit out."

"Give me the details, and I'll be there," I said.

Maelbrigte told me about the forty-on-forty-man agreement. Sigurd had encroached one too many times into Moray. The two men had worked up a deal that each should bring forty men and the results of the battle would decide the terms.

"And just where will that battle take place?" I asked.

The magnate drained the second tankard and rose to leave. I tossed a few coins on the table and followed him out the door. We walked in silence over the frozen mud until we came to a small clearing.

"Here." Maelbrigte pointed at the field. "We wait for 'em here. Day after tomorrow." He ran his hand through his hair again. The man looked miserable. Clearly he had no confidence in the idea of winning the battle.

"Is it just to be man-on-man or will there be cavalry?" I asked.

"We're to fight on foot," he said. "That was the deal. But they'll arrive on horseback."

I looked at him for a moment. "Something is bothering you."

Maelbrigte looked off into the distance—which was something of a relief because I was exhausted trying to figure out which eye to talk to.

"I don't trust 'im," he said simply.

I nodded. You just couldn't trust Vikings. Sigurd might honor the agreement. But he might not. I tried to remember if I'd ever heard of Vikings doing the honorable thing, but I was useless at history. I'd have to ask Iona later.

"For what it's worth," I said, "I'll help do what I can."

Maelbrigte agreed to meet me in the morning to discuss the battle in detail. I studied the field a while longer after he left me. Then I returned to the inn.

Iona was waiting for me in our room. She told me pretty much the same story, and she had a loaf of bread and a bag of cheese. We sat in front of the fireplace and ate while I told her about my visit with the magnate.

"How big is the clearing?" she asked.

"Not big. And it's surrounded by trees and marsh in every direction except from the road leading to the village."

Iona wrapped the remaining bread and cheese in the bag. "You think they're going to cheat, don't you?"

"I don't know what to expect. What do you know about Vikings?" I asked. My sister knew her history and, according to her, everything else.

"They show loyalty to their leader, so it's up to what kind of character he is. Sigurd's a younger brother, so he'll be trying to prove himself. The problem is, the Vikings aren't really vested in this land. They don't think of it as home." She threw her hands up in the air. "It's a crapshoot really."

I nodded. "I'm going to work with Maelbrigte tomorrow. Maybe we can come up with something."

"Can I come along? I won't speak. Please?" Iona looked at me pleadingly.

"Fine." I felt bad for her having to bind her hair and breasts all the time for this ruse. She had to be bored out of her mind. "But let me do all the talking. It would be weird if my servant started spouting history or politics."

She nodded and made an "X" sign over her heart. Yeesh.

The next morning, Maelbrigte joined us for breaking the fast. I introduced Iona as Oxnar, and immediately realized I'd made a huge mistake. I hadn't prepared my sister for Maelbrigte's um, unusual appearance.

The magnate, fortunately, ignored my servant. Iona, however, did not ignore him. I'm not sure I've ever seen a fourteen year old girl stare at a man like that before. Her eyes moved back and forth between each eye and the teeth. She couldn't seem to decide which feature was more worthy of her attention. In moments, she drew in closer, her face just inches from his profile, staring as if he was, well, a man with freakish features.

"Go check on the horses," I said gruffly, trying to distract her. Iona snapped out of it and looked at me. Her mouth opened with the protest she was just about to utter, when she realized what she had been doing. She nodded and fled the tavern.

"Forgive Oxnar…" I apologized. "He doesn't get out much. Never leaves the shop back home." I twirled my finger around at the side of my forehead. "Idiot," I explained.

Maelbrigte stiffened, and then relaxed a little. He probably never got used to the attention. "I didn't even notice he was here."

"Tell me what you have in mind for tomorrow," I said.

"I have forty men now, with you." The magnate pointed at me, his brown eye aimed at his finger. "We wait at the field. They will come. We will fight."

I tried not to sigh. I truly did. Yet another example of how chess would help people like Maelbrigte plan his battles. Granted, this was a small battle. More like a melee actually. But planning was still important. I stood up.

"Follow me," I said as I headed outside. Along the wall to the left of the door was a long bench. I motioned for Maelbrigte to sit, and I picked up a stick and began to draw.

"This is the field." I drew a rough oval. "These are the trees, and this is the road to town." I added trees that looked like X's and a line for the road. I wasn't much of an artist. That was more Iona's area. But she was hopefully off with the horses and not staring at the magnate from a distance somewhere. I really had to talk to her about that.

"I suggest we be ready here." I drew a line at the far end of the field, opposite where the road came in. "That way, we can watch them arrive and arrange themselves."

Maelbrigte nodded. "They'll have horses."

"Yes, but they'll use them for travel only. The field is too small for a cavalry charge, and Vikings aren't keen on fighting from the back of a horse."

We talked for a few hours, discussing his men and their strengths and weaknesses. It was cold outside and overcast, but I didn't feel it. The thrill of strategy took over. Iona joined us at one point and squirmed, trying not to stare at Maelbrigte. Eventually, she began to follow the drawing in the dirt. If she knew better about something, she didn't show it.

"This is good," the magnate said slowly. "I think we have a chance."

I smiled because I got to introduce him to planning. Now if I'd only had my chess board…

"Maelbrigte!" A young boy came running up to us. "There's a problem with the pigs!"

The magnate thanked us and followed the boy away.

"You spent all this time doing that?" Iona pointed to the drawing. "I could've told you that."

"You spent all that time with the horses? Maybe you should take a bath," I grumbled.

"Why didn't you warn me?" Iona asked. "I had no idea he looked like that."

"I do apologize for that. I should've prepared you."

"It was a total shock!" My sister folded her arms over her chest. "I wanted to run and get a pair of pliers to straighten his teeth at least!"

"How would you have handled the brown eye?" I asked.

Iona frowned. "An eye patch, I think. Why?"

I just shook my head. I was hoping she had a real answer because it was very distracting. Then again, maybe that was the point. Maybe he liked it that way.

I changed the subject. "Tomorrow's the battle. Do you remember what I wanted you to do?"

She nodded. "You want me to watch from higher ground. If Sigurd runs off, I go after him." The way her eyes gleamed, I was afraid she was hoping she'd get the chance to take him out herself. That wasn't going to happen though. I'd kill him on the battlefield first.

That night I had trouble sleeping. Iona snored softly, but I was worried. Of course I couldn't tell her that. She'd mock me, or come up with a better way to handle things. I'd have to move out of the castle back home and find somewhere else to live. Women really were impossible.

The problem was that I was getting attached. To Maelbrigte. Buck-toothed, roaming eyed, wild haired, one-eyebrowed Maelbrigte. I could see how Taran and the other villagers liked him. He was a man who worried about his people. But then, why did he enter into such an asinine agreement with the Vikings? Maybe he wasn't all he was cracked up to be.

At dawn, Iona and I ate breakfast. Taran appeared at my elbow.

"I'm gonna fight with yer," he said, a stubborn look in his eye.

"No. You're not," I responded as harshly as I could. Even though boys his age had a history of participating in battle, I didn't want to risk anything happening to the boy.

Taran frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. "Yes I am! I kin fight! Yer need me!"

I shook my head. "Your da needs you. More than the magnate does. You stay here."

"You can come and watch," Iona said.

I glared at her. She had no idea what she was doing. Boys are stubborn and will lie to you. Taran would no sooner arrive at the field than he'd pick up a fallen man's axe and plunge into the fray.

"I don't think that's a good…" I started.

Iona turned to Taran. "I'll be there. You can stand with me." Taran considered this before nodding and running off.

"What are you doing? He shouldn't be there!" I protested.

My sister shook her head. "He's going anyway. You can't stop him. This way at least I can keep an eye on him. You'll be on the field. You can't."

I couldn't argue with her logic. Okay…she was right. There I said it. Demanding the boy stay away would only make him more determined to go.

"Fine," I said at last. "But you'll have to watch him and make sure he doesn't fight."

Iona nodded and went back to her food, smug in the knowledge that once again, she was right.

I paid for our meals and collected my weapons before heading out to the field. No one really knew what time the Vikings were coming. They'd sort of forgotten to set up that part of the deal. How hard would it have been to say, Hey Sigurd, let's meet at dawn? Instead we had to wait.

Maelbrigte came first with about twenty other men. The others staggered in, either hung over or maybe they just walked that way. By noon, we had our full complement of men.

A stark, dull sun hung limply in an iron-grey sky. The air was flat and brisk, but at least the mud had hardened overnight. No one spoke much. I surveyed our troops.

The majority were farmers, each holding a favored implement. They were big men, which was good, and Maelbrigte had assured me they were seasoned fighters. I hoped so, for his sake and theirs. Whatever their vocation, it was clear they had no problems fighting. The Vikings were not popular here.

I gripped my axe in my left hand and my short sword in my right. I was anxious to get started. To get it over. To make sure Sigurd the Mighty was dead so I could go back home.

A noise came from the road, and the magnate's troops turned their heads at the same time. One rider on a small horse trotted toward us. He came to the middle of the field and stopped.

"Maelbrigte!" the man shouted as he got down off his horse. "I am here!"

This was Sigurd? Sigurd the Mighty? The man before us was very short. I was considered tall in my family, but Sigurd barely came up to my shoulder. He had a full head of curly dark hair that rose up from his forehead and swooped backwards. Tiny, sharp eyes framed a tiny nose and thin lips. But the worst thing was his voice. He sounded like a squirrel who'd been kicked in the balls.

"Where are your men?" Maelbrigte shouted.

"They are coming," Sigurd cried with a strange giggle. His thin, reedy voice was ridiculous. And he giggled. I should've killed him right then and there for that alone. "You can still back out and turn over Moray to me!" The Viking spread his feet and assumed a haughty pose intended to intimidate. Instead, it gave the impression of a cricket throwing a tantrum. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Iona doubled over with laughter. For a moment I thought of joining her.

Maelbrigte shook his head. "You'll have your fight, Viking."

The sound of hoof beats echoed down the road, and the magnate's men formed a line, gripping their spears, rakes, and hoes. I wondered why the sound of forty horses didn't sound more intimidating. It should have.

Then I saw it. A line of horsemen on small horses. Very small horses. Was this a joke? First a dwarf Viking and now dwarf ponies? I watched as the horsemen came in and lined up opposite us. There was something else. The horses seemed to enter the field and move into a line without turning their backs on us. Why did they do that?

The Vikings on little ponyback didn't dismount. Were they going to make an attempt at a cavalry charge, I wondered? I looked up and down the line. Something else wasn't right. I rubbed my eyes. What was it?

"Are you going to fight on yer horses?" Maelbrigte shouted. "That wasn't the agreement."

And that's when I saw it. I knew what was wrong. I pushed my way through the other men to get to the magnate.

"Yer can't change things this way," Maelbrigte continued. I grabbed his arm, and he shrugged it off, intent on yelling at the tiny Viking. "A deal's a deal, Sigurd!"

"Maelbrigte!" I hissed into his ear.

The man turned his brown eye on me. Was I imagining it or were the two teeth sticking out further than before? "What?" he snarled.

I pointed at the riders on ponies. "Look!"

The magnate followed my finger, and his eyes widened when he saw what I saw. Each rider seemed to have an extra pair of legs. There were two men on each horse. Sigurd the Mighty had cheated. He'd brought eighty men to a forty-man fight.

"You need to say something to your men!" I urged as the Vikings began to get off their little horses now. Each rider seemed to double now, and Maelbrigte's men realized that they were outnumbered.

"Give them a speech—inspire them!" I begged. The magnate needed to instill confidence in his men before it was lost.

Maelbrigte turned to his men and began to shout, "I expect each one of you to slay two men today!" And that was it. No, Let's get rid of these Viking bastards once and for all, or even an, I know you can do it!

I looked at our troops. They were stunned. Horrified. Yup. We were going to lose.

With a war cry that can only be described as the sound a chicken makes when you step on it, Sigurd the Mighty unleashed his eighty strong Viking force on Maelbrigte's farmers.

I fought alongside them, trying to help them when I could, but it was too much. The Vikings cut them down like weeds. It should be noted that I killed way more than my allotted two men. But it was over before it began. The field was full of bloody body parts. Only myself and a couple of others were still standing when Sigurd called an end to the fighting.

To say I was disappointed was an understatement. Maelbrigte the Magnate and most of the men of the village were now dead. Sigurd the Mighty was still alive. And I hadn't finished the job.

Iona appeared beside me. "That didn't turn out well," she said.

"Where's Taran?" I asked.

My sister shook her head. "He showed up, but I sent him back to the tavern for water and food for the survivors. He didn't make it back in time." She scratched her nose. "Not that I thought he would…"

Bragging, know-it-all kid sister. How did she do it?

We watched as Sigurd walked over to the corpse of Maelbrigte the Magnate and cut off his head. Being that he was a small man, it took him overly long to do this. I wondered if the other Vikings made fun of him.

Sigurd spotted Iona and tossed her Maelbrigte's head. "Tie that onto my saddle, boy!" he squeaked. "I'm taking home a trophy."

I put my arm out to stop her, but my sister just shook her head and carried the magnate's head away.

"The rest of you," the Viking earl tittered, "go back to your fields. Tend my crops and prepare for taxation in the spring." Sigurd giggled insanely, reminding me somewhat of a deranged leprechaun.

Iona joined me, her hands and tunic covered in blood. She smelled faintly of feces. But this field was filled with horrible sights and smells. It would take several baths to wash it all off. We watched in silence as Sigurd attempted three times to climb on his horse. Finally, one of the other Vikings tossed him into the saddle. He swung his leg over, and I saw that it was right next to Maelbrigte's head. The empty eyes stared straight ahead. The brown eye didn't swivel. Not even once. And that made me a little sad.

The other Vikings mounted their tiny ponies and rode off. Then the women of the village came to gather the bodies of those who'd died.

"We need to go after them," I said to Iona. "I'll have to sneak into his camp at night and slit his throat."

Iona smiled and shook her head. "No. You won't. He's already dead. He just doesn't know it yet."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

My sister just grinned and said, "You'll see."

We followed the Vikings for two days, keeping to the forest so we wouldn't be discovered. On the third day, I noticed that the Vikings were not uprooting camp. They remained at the crook of a small river for another two days.

Iona and I lived off the loaves of bread and the cheese she'd packed from the village. We sheltered in an old cave we'd found, waiting for the Vikings to move on to the coast. But that didn't happen.

"See?" Iona said with a grin. "I told you." She was wrapped in her cloak, trying to stave off the early evening's clammy chill.

"I don't see anything," I growled. The cold and damp were wearing on me, as was the complete lack of activity. What was happening?

"Oh, go see for yourself since you can't sit still." Iona rolled her eyes, and I stood up and made my way out of the cave.

"You stay here," I ordered. For once, she didn't argue.

I moved carefully through the trees, keeping to whatever foliage I could find for cover. There wasn't much. Sticks cracked beneath my feet, and leaves crunched however I moved. My short sword was at my side, and I had a knife in my boot. This was it. I was going to kill Sigurd so we could go home.

Twilight had fallen like a blanket over the forest as I came upon the farthest edge of the camp. Two men were digging a deep hole in the frozen ground. From their swearing, I could see they were not happy to be doing so.

"Why don't we just take him to the coast and do a proper burial at sea?" one of the Vikings asked.

Viking number two shook his head. "He died of the fever. We can't risk catching it ourselves. Olin says burial, so we are doing a burial."

Someone died of fever? That would explain the camp staying put. Maybe the fever would wipe them all out, and I wouldn't have to kill Sigurd.

"It's weird, isn't it?" Viking number one said. "It's like the magnate got his revenge."

What were they talking about? Who did Maelbrigte get revenge on? He was nothing more than a head.

"We're to bury the head too," Viking number two said. "Just in case."

The first Viking shuddered. "Sigurd was a fool. Riding with Maelbrigte the Tusk's head against his leg like that. The Tusk got him alright!"

The two men laughed, and I moved a bit closer. They weren't making any sense. How did The Tusk get Sigurd?

"It's a curse! It has to be!" Viking two said. "Maelbrigte biting Sigurd's leg like that and the wound getting pus so fast! We need to bury them both and get out of here!"

Back in the cave, Iona smiled as I walked in.

"He's dead, isn't he?" she asked with an impressive level of sarcasm.

"Yes. How did you do it?" I asked. My sister already knew she was right. She always was. There was no point in ignoring it.

"Horse shit," Iona said. "From those stupid little ponies. After I tied the magnate's head on the saddle so his teeth would rub on the Viking's leg, I smeared a little horse shit on them. I figured that would work."

"It did," I said as I stood and lifted her to her feet. "And now we can go home."

Iona became nearly impossible to live with. She didn't tell the others in the family that she was actually the one who took out Sigurd the Mighty. But she made it clear she could at any time—especially when she wanted something. I pleaded with Mother to marry her off quickly, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. Mom liked having her around.

That winter was a hard one. A thick blanket of snow made it impossible to leave the castle. Uncle Rome had a heart attack when we tried to extricate him from the privy. It was a relief, really. And now there was more food for us. Mother took his place on the Council.

On a cold, despondent day, I entered my room to find Iona puzzling over my chess set. After pretending she really didn't care for a few days, she finally allowed me to teach her the game. We've been playing all winter long.

And she wins every damn time.

*  *  *

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About Leslie Langtry

Leslie Langtry is the author of the Greatest Hits Mysteries, The Adulterer's Unofficial Guide to Family Vacations, and several books she hasn't finished yet, because she's very lazy. Leslie loves puppies and cake (but she will not share her cake with puppies) and lives with her family and assorted animals in the Midwest.

To learn more about Leslie Langtry, visit her online at

www.leslielangtry.com

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or Twitter.

BOOKS BY LESLIE LANGTRY

Greatest Hits Mysteries:

'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy

Guns Will Keep Us Together

Stand By Your Hitman

I Shot You Babe

Paradise By The Rifle Sights

Snuff the Magic Dragon

My Heroes Have Always Been Hitmen

Four Killing Birds (a holiday short story)

Other works:

The Adulterer's Unofficial Guide to Family Vacations

Enjoyed this Greatest Hits Mystery?  Check out these other humorous, romantic mysteries from Gemma Halliday Publishing!

Table of Contents

Rio Bombay

Caspian Bombay

Aberdeen Bombay

Dublin Bombay