Thar Shaddin

The frustration he felt at his own inability to overcome senseless emotions just because she had a pretty face and eyes that reminded him of someone a thousand miles away blocked out any gratitude he might have felt for her cooperation. Deep inside, he was fuming, in utter turmoil.

Her talking made it hard for him to think. Cervantes knew he had to focus on what was happening. He barely heard the words she was saying. Something about money, and some name he'd never heard before. She was just pleading for her life, like anyone would.

"Shut up, nobody sent me." He whispered at her harshly. "I need to think."

Frantically his eyes searched the room around them while he remained seated on top of her. He saw the knife, and clumsily scooped it up, as if it was going to be any help if the shit hit the fan. Holding it made him feel better. Maybe he would spontaneously overcome himself and start stabbing her.

But that wasn't going to happen. He needed a way to salvage the situation, a way to get her out of the picture that he was capable of doing, without letting her identify him to Salliniari so that he could still kill Guido and finish the job. But how? If he let her go...

He started to climb off of her, pushing himself over and off the side of the bed, releasing her from his grasp. "Get up. And don't make a noise if you want to live." The harshness in his voice suggested both anger and nervousness.

Rapidly waving his hand in the direction of himself and the window he came through, he clearly wanted her to get out of the bed with him, and when she started to do so he snatched her upper right arm with his left hand, the right one still holding the knife, and began pulling her toward the window.

"You're coming with me. Say a word and I'll cut your throat."

The window was still open, and it was a single story drop to the ground. It was unclear how he expected her to make it outside, but one way or another he was going to get her out that window. He was being very pushy about it, and at least looked like he would live up to his threat, pushing her to leave through the window first.

For all she was a dancer and not a fighter, Jasmina had been taught the basics of defending herself. One of the first things you were told was, Never allow yourself to be taken to a second location. Jasmina knew her best shot for survival was not leaving this room-- both because if someone had heard her scream, help might be on the way, and because this was an environment her attacker clearly didn't have any control over. Letting him drag her off somewhere else all but insured she'd be killed.

Jasmina wasn't going out that window, one way or the other. She planted her feet firmly and braced herself against his pushing. And a bellydancer with strong core muscles generally made a fairly effective brace.

She decided first to appeal to his sense of reason. Still whispering, so as not to scare him, "But I have no shoes. You must let me get them, and my shawl. Then how do you expect a woman who is with child to go through the window and to the ground? I cannot do it."

If she wasn't able to stop him with words, she'd have to fight him off.

The sudden resistance by Jasmina when she reached the window came as a surprise to Cervantes, who expected a young woman who looked like her to be far more docile and just go without a fight. He tried to push her but she wasn't going to budge. He didn't have it in him to hit her.

Damn her. Damn her to hell.

Cervantes tried his best to set the same kind of cold and threatening gaze that always worked to intimidate people on the street on her. As attractive as he was, he did not look like a nice person. He had the eyes of someone who could hurt others if he wanted to. That didn't work either, she started whispering to him.

She wanted to get shoes and a shawl. She said she was with child and that it prevented her from being able to go through the window like he wanted.

Pregnant? Her? She was going to be a mother too? She didn't look like it.

Damn her twice. Damn her to hell again.

He shoved the knife up to her neck so that the point sat directly beneath her chin. The tip of the cold blade touched her so that if she moved her head forward, it would probably kill her.

Cervantes was angry, and spat at her in a harsh whisper. "Get out there now!"

Ironically, the more the man threatened her, the more confident Jasmina became-- because it was becoming all the more clear that the threats were at least relatively empty. If he truly had any intention of stabbing her, he would have done so already, instead of just talking about it.

That didn't mean he wouldn't kill her, of course. Just that for whatever reason, he was uncomfortable doing it here. Maybe he was just afraid of getting caught. All the more reason not to go with him, no matter why he was so reluctant.

His attempt to force her through the window had also made his motives a bit more clear. It wasn't a robbery. He hadn't told her to get her money or jewelery. Not that any of that was worth much... just that a robber would have at least asked.

That left a couple of possibilities. He could be the sort of garden-variety rapist you found in any city, hoping to take advantage of a woman he found sleeping. That, or he was trying to kidnap her, thinking there was some benefit to him in it. Maybe he thought someone would pay for her release. Time to rid him of that silly notion.

Jasmina didn't move, either to struggle away or to cooperate. Instead, she spoke softly again. "Do you take me to hold me for ransom? Perhaps you hope Mister Salliniari will pay for my return? He will not. I am nothing much to him. I amuse him for now, and in a week he will have forgotten my name. He will not give money to you for me. It would be best if you just left, and we both forgot this ever happened."

Cervantes was too used to dealing with people who were all too easy to frighten, and none too intelligent. His attempt at intimidation was backfiring. Badly. She knew he wasn't going to cut her throat and that gave her all the confidence in the world to stand up to him.

It was a risky move that Jasmina was pulling. There were plenty of wrong times to make a stand when someone threatened you. She didn't know that he was supposed to kill her, and had no idea how close her words were to making him plunge that knife into her throat out of sheer frustration.

In his mind's eye he saw himself doing it. Shoving the blade forward into her soft skin so that her words were choked up in a gargle of blood. He saw himself doing it, and that same unseen force stayed his hand. It was just too wrong. There was a line drawn in the sand of his world that he didn't know existed until this night. The great, tough guy assassin had a conscience after all.

He sneered, bearing his teeth at her. Anger and hatred continued to clash with a deeply buried sense of pity. She thought it was about money, and she knew she wasn't worth much. That wasn't good. He thought she was more important than that. Maybe rushing into things was a bad move.

Before he could stop himself, he blurted out more to himself than to her, "I'm supposed to kill you."

The knife pressed harder against her throat and he pushed her back into the corner of the window, stepping right up so that their bodies were close and she didn't have the option to get away if she suddenly decided to try. Secretly he hoped that by doing so she would get frightened and force him to do the deed. If he couldn't hit her, at least he could frighten her more.

"I'm supposed to fucking kill you."

Hearing the man's explanation, Jasmina was even more confused. He was "supposed" to kill her? Had someone ordered this? Who on earth would want to have her killed? The only person Jasmina could think of who hated her that much was Mikkel's wife... and Jasmina had already made clear she never intended to see Mikkel again. The duped mistress carrying the bastard child was already gone; why would killing her be worth the risk, either for the cheating husband or for the betrayed wife? But no one else had given any indication of disliking Jasmina, let alone wanting her dead.

Of course, it was possible he was just a crazy man after all. Maybe the voices in his head told him to do it.

Or perhaps he was mistaking her for someone else?

In spite of the circumstances-- or maybe because of them-- Jasmina had an odd sense of clarity. It wasn't that she was not frightened. She was. But somehow that was being overshadowed by an inappropriate calm, and a desire that, if she was going to die, she would at least know why.

"Sir, you must have me confused with another. I am of no importance. There is little reason for any to wish my demise. Nor, I think, the demise of the child I carry. For the sake of that child, I ask that you abandon this, and be on your way. I will not tell the authorities, if you simply leave now with no harm done."

Things were going to hell and it was all Cervantes' fault. He had physical control over her. Why wasn't that enough? It was all he had ever needed in the past.

It wasn't enough because he was a failure. An abject failure. A thousand miles across land, leaving behind everything and everyone he knew, just to show up here and fail because of some girl.

He pushed the dagger into her neck so that any more talking would cause pain... but the tough, angry, threatening tone of his voice had fallen away. It wavered.

"I can't go now. You've seen my face."

He was pleading with her. No longer able to support his front in the face of emotional strain he had no experience dealing with, the cold assassin turned into a frustrated child.

She wasn't going to listen to him. She knew he didn't have the nerve to kill her, and all his posturing only served to make that fact more clear. There was only one way out, and that was to stab her to death then and there. An act that would make him feel like he was killing his own mother. The mother he had left at home, alone and in the dark.

Images of Winnie appeared in his head. He had abandoned her just like his father had, and he knew it.

Tears swelled up in the corners of his eyes. He had to kill her.

*thud thud thud*

The door to the room shook under the pounding of a fist and a man's muffled voice came through, barely audible from the other side.

"Mith Jathmina."

Cervantes startled, twisted to look at the door, and slapped his hand over her mouth. In the process he pressed up against her body so that she still had no way to move.

*thud thud thud*

"Mith Jathmina, mithter Guido wanth to talk to you."

His whole body went tense. Adrenaline kicked in. He flushed, turned and looked at her with the knife pressed against the side of her neck. If he was ever going to kill her, this would be the time.

He stared into her eyes and knew he couldn't. It simply wasn't going to happen.

Furiously, with very little actual movement, he shook his head. Then, in case she didn't get the message, he shook his head again... and pulled his fingers from her lips.

With those words, the man destroyed any possibility that Jasmina would cooperate.

I can't go now. You've seen my face.

So that was how it was. She had seen him. She would recognize him, and he knew it. The only possible way he would allow this to end was with her death. It didn't matter that he was uncomfortable, or that he didn't seem to want to kill her-- eventually he would work up the nerve. Going with him, doing what he said, all might prolong her life... but it wouldn't change the ultimate outcome.

All she could do now was fight. The sooner she fought, the better. The knock on the door made her sure of that. She would eventually have to pit her strength against his, and it was better to do so here, with someone outside, than to wait till they were in some deserted alley or forest or seedy tavern room. Here, she would have help. And here, if she got hurt in the fight, she was likely to be able to get medical attention in time to save her life.

When the man removed his hand from her mouth, Jasmina screamed. She screamed at top volume, and she had a powerful set of lungs. In the same moment she pulled back from him as hard as she could, tilting her pelvis to draw her body away-- into what, luckily for her, was the Gypsy bellydancer's stance. Fluidly, without breaking the motion, she drew her knee up, aiming for his crotch.

If we die, she mentally told the baby within her, Let it not be said that your mother did not fight.

Naivete was not a flaw one could easily ascribe to Cervantes, and yet there he was, naive enough to believe that the woman whose life he had just spared would take mercy upon him.

She didn't. Instead, she screamed, and when she screamed he freaked out. Trying to cover her mouth again to stifle the noise, even though it was far too late for anything like that to work, he accidentally cut a slice in her neck with the knife. It was only her skin, not deep enough to be anything serious.

In the confusion, he left himself wide open to the subtle shift in her hips which brought her knee up to his groin. The damned dancer had the legs of a fighter. It connected cleanly with its mark with an unexpectedly forceful drive that drove him up and backward.

The knife fell away from his fingers and Cervantes lost control over his muscles as a jolt of pain surged through his abdomen. All he did was grunt and fall away from her while doubling over on himself.

Smash! The door broke apart under the mighty weight of a 250 lb man's shoulder. Salliniari's henchman followed splinters of wood into the room, trailed immediately by a concerned looking Guido. The henchman was wearing the same fine black suit that all the bodyguards in the establishment wore, and he was at least as big as the biggest man Jasmina had seen. He had black hair and a pudgy physique that showed on his face, making him look a tad less than intelligent. This matched perfectly with his lisp to create a caricature of a simple minded oaf.

"Mith Jathmina!" He yelled, and crossed the distance to her and Cervantes in only a few steps. Guido took twice as many paces to get there and, of course, he didn't speak.

The stupid looking man saw that Jasmina was bleeding, but had no idea what to do or how to deal with a beautiful woman who was in trouble without getting in trouble with Guido or Salliniari as a result. He didn't want to touch her, but he knew she needed some kind of help. His large hands idled in the air, trying to decide on a course of action while the man stammered.

Cervantes was on the floor holding his nuts. He tried to stand by pushing himself up with one hand. It was a bad move because it drew the attention of the bodyguard, who was easily twice his size, if not more.

Beating people up was something the bodyguard knew he wouldn't get in trouble for, so that's what he did. He got on top of Cervantes, grabbed his shirt, and began beating him bloody and unconscious with a serious of punches and backhands to the face. Under the commanding assault, Cervantes barely even tried to fight back. He lost consciousness, a lot of blood, and a tooth. He gained a broken nose and a wealth of bruises.

Guido ignored the assault, moving around the wailing oaf to get to Jasmina's side. He had a questioning look on his face, wondering what had happened. Seeing the cut on her neck, he patted his own neck, and then motioned to her with another unspoken question.

For reasons she couldn't entirely understand, Jasmina felt some measure of sympathy for the man being beaten within an inch of his life. It wasn't that she felt she owed him anything. The fact he hadn't killed her did not much count in his favour, since if he hadn't entered her bedroom with a knife intent upon murder, she wouldn't have been in any danger of death in the first place.

Maybe it was because he'd seemed confused and frightened too, and now that she could get a better look at him, she realized he was rather young.

Maybe it was because Jasmina's own father had died in such a way-- though unlike this man, her father had not provoked the attack that killed him. The sight of her father's bloody, broken body being carried back to their wagon, the sound of her sisters' wailing, the frozen shock in her mother's eyes... all of that would never leave Jasmina. Perhaps this man had family somewhere too.

But it probably wasn't any of those things, so much as that this was a fellow human being, and Jasmina was not accustomed to violence. Seeing someone suffer like that-- even a man who would have killed her-- made her breath catch and her palms sweat.

Jasmina put her hand to her throat. The cut was bleeding freely, but it wasn't deep, and she knew she was in no danger. "Stop! Please, just stop! I don't know who he is, or why he came after me... but he said he was 'supposed' to. It may be that someone else forced or tricked him. Either way, you should not just kill him without learning who was truly responsible. I am unharmed, merely frightened. Perhaps you should summon the police to deal with him?"

She tried to make her argument seem logical, rather than admitting how much the sight of the beating was disturbing her.

Jasmina pleaded from behind the bodyguard, but not before the bodyguard's fist connected again with the already unconscious Cervantes and split his lip, sending an arc of blood through the air and across the wall and fine drapery. The huge man had virtually no concern for the life of the murderous little wretch he had on the floor, and might have killed him by mistake if not on purpose.

Guido's attention remained on Jasmina even after she started yelling for the bodyguard to stop. He didn't much care about the violence or Cervantes, only that she was alright. Having someone get beaten up was business as usual for him. The intruder was probably going to be killed one way or another for his crimes.

The bodyguard did stop, however, and pulled the limp and bleeding Cervantes up by the front of his shirt. He gave the body a little shake, as if to see if he was fully unconscious, and then turned to Guido for further instructions. He looked at least a little pleased with himself for beating the daylights out of the young man.

"Polithe? Huh?" Jasmina's suggestion confused the heck out of him, though by the looks of the bodyguard, so did most things. "What you want I should do with him mithter Guido?" he asked in his infantile way.

Guido did pay attention to Cervantes then, and stepped forward to study his bloodied face more carefully. He shook his head and got out his notepad to scribble something down. There was only one word on the page that he showed to the bodyguard. It said, simply, Tarsis.

The bodyguard squinted at the writing and scrunched up his face. He didn't know how to read very well and struggled to sound out the letters one at a time until he figured it out. The process of sounding them out wasn't a silent one either: it came out slowly.

"Ta... Tarth... Tarthis. Really mithter Guido? Oh, gee, he's dumb to come in here. Heh heh. Don't worry mith Jathmina, we'll fix him good."

Again Guido shook his head, and then pointed the bodyguard toward the door. He then pointed downward with his finger, and the bodyguard knew what he meant. There was a standard procedure for dealing with people like Cervantes. He needed to be interrogated and then killed.

Drawing his attention back to Jasmina, Guido drew a handkerchief out of his front pocket and approached her, holding it up in offering to her so that she could use it on her neck.

Jasmina pressed the handkerchief to her neck gratefully. It served to staunch the bleeding somewhat, particularly when she applied pressure, but it didn't entirely stop the flow. She wondered if she would need stitches, or if she'd have a scar.

The name "Tarsis"-- what she assumed he meant by "Tarthis," mentally correcting for the lisp-- held no meaning for her, but she stored it in her memory, even though she didn't know what it referred to. The man's name? His employers'? Some gang? Or even the city he was from?

"Sir, you seem to know who this man is," Jasmina suggested quietly. "Perhaps you could enlighten me the reason for his presence in my room? Waking up to a man holding a knife is not a common occurrence, to say the least. What will happen to him now? And who... or what... is this Tarsis?"

Realizing she'd asked quite the string of questions, and that Guido would need to write out his responses, she paused, giving him time to respond.

Cervantes was hauled out of sight by the bodyguard without further incident. The man had no trouble carrying him - Cervantes was not particularly big. Certainly not by comparison.

There were others in the hallway then, moving in to find out what caused all the noise. One of them, one of the henchmen Jasmina had seen earlier standing guard over the hall, stood in the doorway, peering in to see for himself if everything was alright. Like all of them, he was big and broad shouldered. His jawline could slice bread.

Guido noticed the man and waved him off while Jasmina asked her questions. The man accepted Guido's authority without question and was gone behind the cracked door frame a second later. As ever, the relatively paunchy Guido seemed not to need to hear the words Jasmina spoke. He waved the henchman off, and had his pen scribbling away on his notepad even before she had finished asking what she wanted to know.

A few seconds of scratching away, and he held up the booklet for her:

The Tarsis are a rival trading company from the west coast. They like to stir up trouble. He was here to get at Mr. Sallinari, and he thought killing you would accomplish that.

He let her read, then flipped the page and began to scribble again in his scratchy Eyropan script before showing her again.

I'm sorry you had to see that. I will post a man outside your door, and have others check the area outside. It won't happen again. We will find out what we can from him before we turn him over to the authorities.

It was easy to lie on paper.

Jasmina was rather surprised by Guido's description of Tarsis. She knew business rivalries could get ugly... but actual murder seemed quite extreme, even in the heaviest competition. But what did she know of running a company? Nothing. She tried to chase her doubts from her mind. Perhaps this Tarsis group had felt killing a peasant without family, as Jasmina was, would not be the same as murdering a more important person, and that made the difference. Perhaps the Tarsis people were just crazy.

Still, Jasmina could not bring herself to be wholly satisfied with Guido's explanation. She silently resolved to ask someone else-- someone not involved with Salliniari-- some discreet questions about Tarsis. If she received the same answer, that it was a rival company, she would drop the matter. If not... well, she would go down that road when she came to it. For now, she simply nodded, then waited for Guido to flip the page.

In response to his next set of lines, she gave him a grateful look. "That is most reassuring. I doubt they will send anyone else, but I will feel safer knowing we-- the baby and I-- will have protection."

Jasmina tried to slow the beating of her heart, which was still too rapid, and to calm her breathing. Now that it was over, it seemed harder to control her shock. That struck her as rather odd.

She didn't think to question Guido's explanation of what would happen to the man. There was simply too much else going through her head to evaluate it.

"If this cut does not cease to bleed, I may need to see a doctor in the morning for stitches. Can that be arranged?" By which she meant, would it be paid for? She could hardly see how they would object, under the circumstances.

Guido nodded in agreement when she suggested that they wouldn't send anyone else. They wouldn't. Not in Keltaris, so far away from their homeland. This boy was a nobody; a tool sent from out west on a suicide run at the whim of his superiors. He likely would have made a lot of bishani had he succeeded, but Guido knew their ways. He was almost surely sent alone. They didn't care about the street rabble they used for their dirty work.

Which was just fine, because neither did Guido.

He nodded again, repeatedly and in the most reassuring manner that he could muster, when she asked if she could see a doctor for stitches. Yes, of course she could. He would fetch their doctor for her right away if she needed it. He hoped she didn't. That would be an embarrassing blemish on the hospitality of the whole establishment. She was already probably going to have a small scar from it, which was bad enough. On skin as fair as hers, in her line of work, scars were bad things to have.

Taking a politely cautious step forward, he leaned to the side to try and see how bad her neck was, hoping she would remove the cloth so that he could get a look. The location was spot on. Had it been any deeper, she would be dead. Jasmina, as far as he was concerned, was extremely lucky.

He pointed to himself, and then indicated the room across the hallway, hoping to not have to write more down on paper for her. Then, pointing at her once, he made a knocking motion with his hand in the direction of his door, followed by another point to himself. He wanted her to know that she could summon him from his room if she needed to.