Le Meurtrier Français

~I perch on a low stool in front of a dwindling fire, my back slouching in exhaustion.
“The lady just got back from India and is having a huge party in two days. She says she will give me the sack if I don’t get all of her boxes and suitcases unpacked by tomorrow. I will be working day and night, so I may as well stay over there.” I sigh and hang my head in my hands, too tired to even look up. Ryan crouches on the floor in front of me and looks up at me with concerned eyes. His pale face is smudged with ash and his gold blonde hair is course and grainy with dirt. He is still in his red and white uniform, as if he is ready to spring into action on the battlefield at any moment.
“Do you have to go? I only just got back from Austria, and I do not want you to leave me.” My fiancé pleads me with jewel bright eyes twinkling in the dim candle light.
“It is just for a week,” I smile, taking his war calloused hands into mine. “I will be back before you know it.” He sighs and pulls me up, walking me to the door in fatigued silence. I walk out the door with my pack of meagre possessions clutched under my arm, and my beloved waving me goodbye.

I walk a few metres more; my demeanour despondent and my pace slow; until I am sure that he has gone back inside. Slipping stealthily into a side street and blending into the dark shadows, I chuckle with glee, my face lighting up in a wide grin. I cannot believe that he bought that story, and I revel in my clearly superior acting skills. My fiancé is a kind man, and if he finds out what my real job is, he will not be able to handle it. It is better that he remains ignorant, and carries on thinking I am a maid. Well, in any case, he has at least ensured that I have an alibi. I walk through the dirty cobbled streets of Paris, watching ragged little children scamper around with dirty bare feet. They throw mud at one another as a form of entertainment, and all of them are covered with grime. Every time I walk through this filth, smog falling on the city in suffocating swathes, I have more and more reason to hate the aristocracy. They are nothing more than lying conniving thieves, sucking the resources and riches out of the whole of France, and its people. My true joy in life is to put them in their place, one by one.

A few days ago The Client contacted me about my newest mission. Rumours on the street say that she fell in love with him and he left her. Other rumours say she wants his wealth and status. I care very little for rumours, and even less for the true story. I was shown the money and given minimal information, but none the less, The Client has made my mission clear. I have to sneak into Le’amour, the most heavily guarded hotel in Versailles, and kill the man in room 21: Lorenzo Von Stinson.  I do not even know what this man looks like, but The Client assures me that I will recognise him when I see him. I walk a few more paces along the street and fall back against a wooden wall, the darkness draping around me, making me invisible to the world. I knock briskly on the door, still looking around for any sign of someone following me. The door opens and I slip inside, nodding briefly to the dark figure lurking in the shadows. “It is upstairs.” He grunts gestured to the stairwell with his head, so I nod once more to show my understanding and glide to the bottom of the steps.

I pad silently up the familiar stairway into my arsenal room. The walls are covered in hundreds of silver knives, in all shapes and sizes, glinting maliciously in the moonlight. I smile in greeting towards my old friends. Knives have been my weapon of choice for all my missions, and I am famous in my trade for this reason. Walking around the familiar room, I let my fingers trail along the sharp blades. I have spent so much time in this room that it is like coming home. Something is different though. In one corner of the room stands a mannequin dressed in the black leather gear I use for all my missions. In the other corner there an identical mannequin has appeared, but this one dressed in a lavish red ball gown, the colour of fresh blood. On a low table in the centre of the room lies a note and the hand writing is smothered in fancy curlicues and flicks. It says:
“There is a welcoming dinner held at the hotel tonight. He will be there.”
An excited chill skitters down my spine at the prospect of the kill. Hurriedly I rip the gear off the mannequins and throw it over my head, aware that my opportunity is slowly slipping away. I pull my curly hair up hurriedly into a presentable style and frantically look around for something to secure it with. The glittering wall attracts my attention, and I tilt my head around slowly, deciding on my weapons. The beauty of this array of dangers never fails to strike me. Finally, I take two thin silver knives with an embellished handle, and secure them in my hair, like lavish hair clasps. I deftly flick a large shorter knife up off the wall and thrust it smoothly into my thigh sheath.  Whilst lacing up the huge garish dress over my tight fitted gear, I make sure that none of the many knives I am carrying are visible and walk over to a thin tall mirror perched against the farthest wall. If my fiancé could see me now, he would probably laugh. I look exactly like one of the disgustingly rich people we had both come to despise. It is just a disguise I remind myself, all the while flashing the girl in the mirror a malicious grin. I swirl around, ready for the hunt.

The hotel is majestic, every wall hung with handmade tapestries and paintings depicting scenes of heroism and bravery.  The table tops and surfaces are cold white marble embedded with flecks of gold and the red mahogany staircase is huge and winding, reaching up into the heights. I stand in the grand foyer with my mouth hanging open in awe, just trying to take all of it in. Shaking myself to clear the cobwebs from my mind, I remember that I am not here to wear pretty dresses or stare at aristocratic finery. I am here to complete my mission.  I ascend the huge staircase leading to the very top of the vast hotel, where my target should be in the near future: Room 21.

Every time I think the infinite staircase is going to come to an end, more stairs materialise before me.  When I reach the room I stop for a moment to catch my breath, my sides aching and my feet throbbing.  Quickly I shake off the pain and start to fiddle with the old lock, sliding one of the knives out of my hair and inserting it into the keyhole. I twist it slowly until I hear a loud click. I open the door, cringing in anticipation, waiting for the loud creaking noise it will make as it swings on stiff hinges. However, there is no creak. The door slides smoothly over velveteen carpet to reveal a luxurious room, with a huge four poster bed standing in the middle. There is a canopy of snowy material draped over the frame, and long sheer curtains hang all around the pale white sheets and milky pillows. The plush carpets covering the floor are creamy white, the colour of shining ivory. It is truly beautiful, and I have to stare for a moment to take in the sheer opulence.

Suddenly I hear the loud noise of heavily booted footsteps and sprint to the bed in panic, nimbly clambering up one of the tall mahogany posts under the loose curtains.  I pull myself up onto the top of the bed and disappear into folds of white material. When I am sure that no one can see me I start tugging at the red dress until the loose laces come undone and strip it off, leaving only my elimination gear and knives behind. The heavy wooden door leading to the bedroom opens, and in stumbles an intricately entwined couple. The woman is wearing a creamy gold flowing dress, and it falls all over the floor like an opening flower as the man rips it off. He is wearing a red and white military suit, as if he has just come home from the war in Austria. He pulls the woman to him and kisses her feverishly spinning her around so he can push her onto the bed. In that moment, my whole world freezes.

The man has clean pale skin and gold blonde hair as fine as silk. His uniform is neat, devoid of holes and dirt. Regardless of all these remarkable changes, he is still unmistakable. My fiancé Ryan was leading a double life as Lorenzo Von Stinson. Millions of emotions flash through me in that one moment. At first I feel shock and disbelief, coupled with dread and nausea at the thought that I am going to have to kill him. Then I feel a growing anger inside of me at his untrustworthiness and deceit. All those impassioned speeches he had made about aristocratic scum were lies. Actually, our whole relationship had been a lie. He was cheating on me and leading a different life. Everything he had ever said was a lie. These decisions come quicker and quicker, until the moment of complete clarity, when I make my choice. Liars and cheats deserve to perish.

My vision turns red and my whole body starts shaking with anger. I drop down off the canopy into a crouch, like a black panther about to pounce on his prey.  The woman shrieks and pulls the curtains over her body to preserve her dignity, but I don’t care about her. I pluck the knife from my thigh sheath and deftly flick it at her. It buries deeply into her chest and causes blood to pour out and stain the snowy sheets red with murder. Stalking towards the target like a wild animal in a feeding frenzy, I snarl at him and bear my teeth, feeling more animal than human. The blood drains from his face and he stumbles backwards, tripping over the dead body of his newest play thing. 
“You have thirty seconds to explain,” I hiss menacingly, “or I rip your throat out.” He puts his hands up in a gesture of surrender skittering back a few steps. “I just needed to get away from the money and drama, so I thought pretending to be poor would let me escape my miserable life for a while. I really do love you though, and when I asked you to marry me, I really did mean it.” He hurries to think of more meaningless excuses, speaking in a shaky weak voice. I shriek at him in anger, my rage barely contained. I feel like my emotions are about to break me and come rushing out in one huge tsunami of pain and anger.

He mumbles something, his face white with shock and fear, and his hands shake.
“So that girl you were about to sleep with. Was she just another romantic way for you to tell me how much you love me?” I hiss dangerously at him. He frantically shakes his head, still moving backwards as if he can somehow run from me. I straighten up from the crouch and pull both knives from my hair letting my wild curls free. Relaxing my posture, I fiddle with the tapered point of one of them in an absent minded fashion.

“Well, I have been paid a lot of money to kill you,” I say thoughtfully taking a small step towards him. “And after this, I also sort of want you dead. So it would be like killing two birds with one stone.” I take another step towards him and he jumps back in fear. Slowly leaning down into a tensed position, I ready myself to pounce. I jerk forward, flicking my two knives up at him with blinding speed. His head comes off so cleanly and so quickly, that his expression of terror does not even change. I straighten up and look around, surveying the damage I have caused like a queen surveying her empire. So there I stood, towering over the dead body of my beloved, his bright red life soaking into the white.