Jade Reminders

Jade Reminders

Gleaming emeralds scanned the streets through a veil of lusciously dark locks. They fell casually over indifferent eyes, most of the bangs nearly reaching the shadow-engulfed male´s chin. He hung in the murky shadows of the alley, avoiding the cold warmth the amber glow of the surroundings streetlamps released.

His appearance was nearly impossible to distinguish, as the shadows appeared to cling to him, concealing him wholly in its frosty darkness. The occasional passerby would double-take to get a better look at the half-hidden male, attempting and failing to appear nonchalant. When finally he removed himself from the friendly shadows, those nearby began to stare, unaware of their rudeness; for, even as he was in the glow of the streetlamps, tendrils of murkiness seemed to reach out to him from where he had stood just moments ago. It was more than merely slightly upsetting.

The calm sinister young man had an apathetic aura that repelled all from him as he stood, glancing around as casually as one wondering which way to go. His skin was of natural tone, one that was neither pale and sickly nor tanned bronze in the summer sun; and his hair a black that had a gorgeous midnight blue luster to it, the wild and unruly style becoming him greatly. He wore a jet-black shirt beneath a lengthy dark trench coat that reached down about mid-shin, the collar of it pulled high around his neck to make him seem a shady character in a mystery novel, and a pair of casual, loose-fitting black slacks clothing his long, slender legs. Flexible, soft soled calf-high boots the hue of a raven´s wing allowed him to move as silently as a feline in the silver moonlight of midnight and the ebony shadows of day.

"Yes..." he breathed inaudibly, the corners of his lips gradually drawing upwards in the shadow of a smile as the gleam of bloodlust colored his emerald-green eyes with silver diamonds of ice. "Target sighted."

His bloodthirsty gaze drank in the sight of the twenty-year-old male who walked out of the building directly across from his position. The blonde man, whose name was Marcus Constance James, seemed approximately one-hundred-seventy centimeters tall and was probably about eighty kilograms from the looks of him. He was what one would call a "normal person," as everything about him was inconspicuous, from the clothing he wore to every one of his handsome physical attributes; nothing was out of the ordinary in any way but his uneven gait. Marcus stumbled and lurched across the broad sea of inky pavements, beaming much too cheerfully to be even slightly sober as he just barely managed to escape a collision course with a wild late-night driver.

The midnight-haired man heaved a silent sigh in his head as the whisperings of the cold wind caressed his long, dark bangs with fingers of ice. Mechanically, the young assassin shadowed every staggering step of the drunken blonde, absently listening to him rambling on about mayonnaise jars and their smart mouths. A cold gust of December wind whipped his black trench coat back with a resounding snap, causing him to flinch involuntarily at the sudden noise in the silence of the dead night rather than at his stinging cheeks, which were continually being batted by long bangs that acted as a cat-o´-nine tails against the back of a disobedient soldier.

He glanced at his watch, and the moment it struck midnight, the young assassin moved in for the bloody kill. His sea green eyes flared silver with the electrifying thrill that usually preceded an assault. His senses were so turned on the target that he could actually taste rather than smell the rancid odor of alcohol as Marcus continued his babbling, the topic now of the mystery of tic-tacs.

The young assassin, nearly salivating over the imminent bloodshed, silently withdrew a long, silver blade from its sheath at the small pouch of his back within his dark cloak. It was a wicked thing, the blade´s sharp edge hooked and demonic in its own frightful way, it was one of his favorite weapons, one that he used especially for disembowelment. The coldness of its curved hilt of silver in his deft hand, the excremental stench of hot bodily fluids and entrails as he twisted and wrenched out of his victims dying body, the flash on intense pain reflecting from shock and confused eyes filmed with a thin layer of blood precisely before they turned blank and empty; just the thought of the broken body on the sidewalk floor in the middle of a pool of blood the color of ripe cherries caused explosives of excitement to erupt all the down his spine.

As the pair passed a large black Dumpster and a homeless man digging through it, there was a falter in the drunken man´s lilting voice, as well as his uneven step. The young assassin´s gemlike eyes suddenly narrowed as swiftly he noticed that the man´s body was drenched in a nervous sweat that betrayed his clearly sober state.

The midnight-haired male sensed rather than heard or saw the sniper´s shot, just barely managing to sidestep the drugged dart discharged. In the single moment it took the sniper to comprehend that her shot had not hit its target for the absolute first time, the assassin twisted with fluid grace to confront his trembling victim face-to-face and thrust forward and down to gut the half-relieved Marcus just withdrawing his pistol before he could react to the sudden movement. The man emitted a sound that was similar to a choking squeak as he realized that he had been impaled by the barbed knife of a well-trained and well-known assassin who called himself Chi Enjeru, Angel of Blood.

The younger man with the icy silver of the curved hilt in his left hand drove the blade deep into Marcus´s abdomen and, with the speed of a dark shadow´s dissipation in bright light, rotated his wrist in a counterclockwise manner before swiftly wrenching the blade from the dying body with practiced ease. The nauseating odor of the blonde´s steaming entrails filled Chi Enjeru´s delicate olfactory senses as he gazed apathetically at the face frozen in a distorted array of emotions: pain, shock, confusion, sorrow, anger, resentment, even. His handsome eyes the hue of the noon sky in the middle of spring were coated lightly with a fine film of a scarlet haze, and Marcus Constance James stared up at the midnight-haired assassin from his dying position on the cold ground, eyes holding deep within them to the question his lips could not form: "Why?"

His soft blue eyes went blank.

After a moment of silent reverence, the young man murmured quietly to the still man as he sheathed his deadly blade, "Because I would rather die than leave any mission incomplete." He gazed emotionlessly as blood pooled beneath the dead man´s broken body like a liquid frame, then bent to brush his hand over the other´s forever staring eyes in order to close them respectfully. He thought apathetically to himself, "Mission accomplished."

"Chi Enjeru." The homeless man, an "undercover agent" like the dead man, addressed the assassin by his code name before adding, "Or shall I say, Harry Potter?"