I was pacing with all the selfcontrol of a wind-up toy.

Ridiculous to be pacing. Pointless; unless I intended to burn calories. Or wear a hole through the hardwood floors of the rented house at which I momentarily resided.

I’d taken the job. Just as I’d taken countless identical jobs in the past. I'd thrived on this job, as I had thrived on those before. It had been a delight. Shakespeare had said, "Violent delights have violent ends." He had been right.

And now the job was done.

Done.

But I swore I could smell the decay and rot rising up from the wooden floorboards. Cursing myself, I rationalized that there could be no smell of decay or rot, as there was no body. Mr. Burrell was currently nothing more than a pile of ashes in an unduly expensive urn. No body, no smell, no cause for pacing. But rationality was no remedy.

I continued to pace. Past the fireplace, pivot. Past the fireplace, pivot. I hated waiting. I liked action. I liked having a job to do. "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop," and all that. I didn't believe in the Devil, but I did believe in keeping busy.

A knock sounded on the front door.

All pacing ceased. I stood. I listened. Perhaps I’d been mistaken. Perhaps the knock had been as imaginary as Mr. Burrell’s stench. Perhaps–

The knock sounded again: firm, certain, and authoritative. Definitely not the knock of a neighbor seeking sugar. Definitely not Avon calling.

I continued standing, still as a corpse, listening. The knocker may simply leave if he went on unanswered. He had, after all, no way of knowing the resident of this dwelling was home.

Or perhaps he had the wrong address. All the houses in these eerie Suburbia cul-de-sacs looked alike.

"Miss Keen?" a confident baritone voice called out from the other side of the door. Another firm knock. "Miss Keen? May we speak?”

Three dozen disdainful thoughts stampeded through my mind, like a juggernaut through a rose garden. "Keen," the fabricated name on the postbox, was no more my name than this house was my house, yet the sound of it coming from the knocking man shook me.

I held my breath.

After a deliberate pause, the voice began again: "Miss Keen, I know you’re in there. I saw you pass by the window just moments ago. There’s no need to pretend you’re not at home.”

Goosebumps sprouted on my arms.

"Miss Keen," the man continued, "it really is impolite to keep me out here in this afternoon heat, speaking at you through the door. Won’t you invite me in? We could have a chat that would be very beneficial to you. Perhaps...assist you in purging some inner demons? You're battling some inner demons at this very moment, are you not, Miss Keen? Yes. I'm sure you are. You must be."

I inhaled a sharp breath. He knew. By the sound of his vague confidence, he knew everything. He knew I’d been hired to kill Mr. Burrell. He knew I’d made it look like an accident. He knew I was contracted to stay holed up in this rented house until after the funeral.

No one should know. But he knew.

"Everyone makes undesirable choices in their lives, Miss Keen," the man continued. "Everyone has a past riddled with imperfections and mistakes. Everyone has a skeleton or two hung up in their closet amongst the semicasual pantsuits. The important thing is that we admit these mistakes and make better choices in the future. You want to have a promising future, don’t you?”

He knew I’d murdered others in the past. And now he was threatening me.

Silence.

Then: a knock so loud it echoed through every corner of the near-empty house.

"Miss Keen, you are now being rude," the man informed me. "I know you’re thinking that if you just remain quiet I’ll become tired and go away. This is not the case. I am rather stubborn and quite dedicated. I have a message to deliver, and I would prefer to deliver it face-to-face. I see now that you are determined to make that difficult. But you should know, I am speaking on behalf of someone very powerful, Miss Keen. Someone who knows everything you’ve done. Someone who knows all of your sins.”

I had been made.

A chill seized my heart.

Enough. I’d heard enough.

In a decisive fury, I grabbed the iron poker from the fireplace, yanked open the front door, pulled the man with the voice into the house, and stabbed him through the torso.

There was a hideous sound of wet impact, a splattering of blood, and startled cry.

I yanked the fire poker out of his impaled midsection, and shoved him back against the foyer wall.

Back slick with blood, and mouth open in eternal shock, he slithered to the floor.

"These violent delights have violent ends," I told him.

As I cleaned the fire poker, I appraised him. He wore an unassuming black suit and round spectacles. I noticed the confusion in his eyes as the last bit of life faded out of them.

I also noticed something in his hand.

It looked like...paper? Glossy, colored paper.

Gingerly, I knelt and took the paper from his now-slackened grip. It was a pamphlet. The cover read:

“Jesus Christ is Lord! Repent and Be Saved! Join Kingdom Hall of Jehovah Witnesses.”

Well.

Fuck me.

~ * ~

#Assassin #Contract #Killer #BaitAndSwitch #Dark #Surprise #Keen #Delights #TheseViolentDelights


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