He hated killing children—much in the same way he hated washing dishes or taking down the trash on Monday mornings.  It was such menial work.  A man of his experience and considerable skill set was much more comfortable hunting men, men that knew he was coming for them.  Powerful men who moved in secret and were given to disappearing into secluded villas, surrounded by the best security money could purchase.  Those kinds of jobs required a technician at the peak of his powers, an artist if you will. 

The assassin stared out at the humble ranch house on the other side of the field and waited patiently for the soft glow of the upstairs bedroom to vanish.  Once it did, he knew that it would take approximately thirty seconds for her father to come down stairs and take up a spot on the sofa, where he slept.  He’d watched the house for a week now and it was always the same. There wasn’t much need for a plan; jobs like these depended almost entirely on execution.  And while complications sometime arose, he’d yet to fail due to a lack of execution.

It would be an hour before he advanced on the house, so he allowed his mind a gentle reprieve.  The time for killing would come soon enough. He delighted in the image he’d conjured up—his arms around the Spanish girl of twenty whose hazel eyes and sun kissed skin had tamed his wandering eye.

 Ana was as uncomplicated as her name suggested, as pure and innocent as the day he met her on that train to Barcelona.  Somehow, she was immune to the dark that filled his soul, though she did recognize it.  She would ask him things about his past and insist he accompany her to church, her attempts to “fix” him obvious to a mind as sharp as his. 

Momentarily, and possibly due to the task at hand, his mind shifted into a memory, and regret stained his hidden face.  He thought of the only time he’d hurt her, when the long and tender curve of her thigh and fullness of her breast had finally become too much to ignore.  He’d attempted to drown her innocence then, and forced himself into her, experiencing her finally, wholly and completely.  Her cries had stopped him, the hurt in her doe-eyed face had shamed him, and he left her there, weeping.

Impossibly, she’d forgiven him.  Improbably, they’d wed the month before last.  She demanded to know all of him, that was her only condition, and so he shared his past with her, the abusive father he’d escaped from, the years he spent hungry in the streets, revealing every secret but one—the other love of his life. 

It was time.  He started for the house at a full sprint and yet his feet made no sound as they disappeared into the damp grass.  Once he’d reached the exterior of the house, he slid quietly along its walls until he arrived at the backdoor.  Making quick work of the locks, he snaked quickly through the house, ascending the stairs as silent as if he’d been floating. 

The girl’s room was across the hall.  She was thirteen, more than developed enough for the “old” him to have taken advantage of her before ending her life.  But that would have meant killing the old man snoring on the couch too, and that wasn’t what he was hired to do.  The lust for taking lives still moved in him, but its hold had lessened. Ana was having an effect on him, and slowly the monster inside of him was retreating—in time he wouldn’t even need to kill, he was sure of it.  The money no longer mattered, he’d taken enough jobs that he and Ana’s future was secure.  A smile crossed his lips when he thought of that day when she really would be enough to satisfy all of his wants.

            The door cracked and he slipped into the dark of the bedroom.  Sometimes the girl slept with a lamp on, but not tonight.  With the moonlight from her window, he could faintly make out the blonde hair draped across her pillow and followed the bed along until he could see her hip, confirming the sixty five inch frame that was his target.  He reached for the automatic pistol at his side. 

            “Leave now, and no harm will come to you.” The voice was deep and scratchy and had come from somewhere off to his right.

The assassin could feel the adrenaline surging through his extremities. His fingers tingled.  He should have had his gun in hand; he would have if he suspected danger.  Still that lapse had probably kept him alive. He was certain he’d seen the older man sleeping comfortably on the sofa, he’d even double checked. 

            “Forget you ever heard of this place, this girl, and this can end peacefully.  However, if you choose not to heed to this warning…” 

            The man that spoke didn’t finish his thought.  Not that he had to.  The lamp flickered on. His eyes moved to where he’d heard the voice.  In a rocking chair positioned in the corner of the room sat a man whose face he hadn’t seen once in the seven days he watched the house.  The man had a pistol trained on him, the assassin recognized the brand.  Whoever this was, he was a professional too—a bodyguard of some kind.  The girl was awake now, leaning up in her bed, looking at him not with fear…but concern? 

            “Please,” she spoke softly.  “Just leave.”  She, like his Ana, had the face of an angel.  The photograph hadn’t done her justice.

            The bodyguard’s face was weary, and despair radiated out the man’s blue eyes.  Or was it doubt that he saw there? Was it possible that this bodyguard truly wished to let him go?  Or was it that he’d overestimated this man, that for all the skill he’d demonstrated thus far, he was only some amateur, unwilling to make the necessary kill.  What was to stop him from coming back?  Either this man was extremely confident in his abilities, or extraordinarily naïve.

            The assassin removed his hand from his pistol and extended both arms into the air—a show of surrender.  He began to back away carefully, his eyes never leaving the man in the rocking chair.  One slow step at a time he moved and the gun followed him, never twitching even slightly, although he’d been holding it out for a while now.  This was no amateur, this was a practiced hand that aimed death at him.  Once he’d reached the safety of the hall his heart slowed and he regrouped.

            He could leave.  Though he hated to leave a job unfinished, this wouldn’t be the first.  Sometimes it was wiser to accept defeat.  And yet, there was thrill in him like he hadn’t felt in years.  Here was a man capable of being invisible, even when he couldn’t have been aware that this house was being watched.  The trips to school, to the grocery store, he’d never seen this man once.  How had he managed it?  And to let him leave, it was so arrogant.  This man was his equal, he had to be, potentially the centerpiece of his life’s canvas. 

            This was it.  This would be his last kill—enough that he could feed off its memory for years.  What could top this?

            He listened.  There was movement in the room.  He interpreted the shuffling; the girl had moved farther away, possibly ducking behind her bed.  The bodyguard’s movement indicated that he was just on the other side of the door.  The assassin smiled, as if he would really believe that. 

            Taking the pistol from his side, he swung back into the doorway, his suspicions confirmed.  The bodyguard hadn’t moved to closer to the door.  In fact, the room appeared to have been vacated.  He knew better.  He was here, and if he was, then she would be too.  Not that this was truly about her anymore.

            Only two steps into the room did the light cut out.  Almost instantly he moved his silhouette from the doorway and crouched low to the ground.  The lamp must have been unplugged.  Since his prey was aware he was here, the dark put him at a disadvantage.  At least he had them narrowed down to a quadrant of the room. 

            The room lit up again as the lamp came back to life.  The assassin was on his feet again, pistol up in a defensive position.  He fired a shot where he suspected the electrical socket to be, but heard his round bury itself into the wall.  Again the room was dark. 

            Not since the beginning had the assassin experienced the feeling that crept over him now.  That stomach turning sensation of being in over one’s head.  Continued success had allowed him to shed easily the doubt that accompanied his first few jobs.  On and off the lamp flickered and the assassin began to fire shot after shot into the area. 

            One round remained.  He wouldn’t give this bodyguard the satisfaction of having humiliated his opponent into emptying his gun. 

            It was dark when he heard a door open.  He should have suspected a hidden door, and he might have had it not been for that damn lamp.  He considered firing a shot in the direction of the doorway, but he had only one bullet left in his gun, and to waste it would guarantee his death.  The bodyguard surely knew this as well, which was why he’d come out to face him.  The lamp had been operated by some kind of remote, he guessed.

            But they were together now, and that meant that this could still turn out in his favor.  He only needed one shot and it didn’t have to be a good one for his aim to be true.  He and bodyguard danced in silence, and in darkness, each waiting for the other to make a mistake.  The lamp flickered back on.

            On his right.  That’s where bodyguard stood.  He whipped his gun around to fire, but rounds that tore through his flesh made him drop his gun.  Twice he’d been hit, and the wooden floor rushed up to meet him, though he couldn’t feel its impact. 

            The girl appeared above him, and his eyes found hers.  She had a hold of his hand, and though he couldn’t feel her touch, he could hear her song.  It was a lullaby, he knew it well.  His mother used to sing it to him before bed, before his father hit her one too many times.  He’d planned to sing it for the child growing in Ana’s stomach.  But that day would never come.

            The bodyguard tapped the girl’s shoulder, interrupting her song.  He took her hand and led her out of the room.

In his mind the assassin finished the lullaby, as death pulled him into its embrace.