'A life for every mark' he muttered as he slid his blood stained finger down a small weathered patch of wall. It was part of an old Guild ritual that represented a debt paid but for him it was more a painful reminder that his job was not yet done. He had made a promise to himself to punish those involved, all of them. His family was dead, they had killed them. She had killed them. The fresh streak made three, she would make it four.
He had been victim to her allure. The elegant angle of her cheeks, the curve, no, sway of her hips, the deepness of her eyes – that devilish curl of her lips. They had all played a part in the dishonouring of his wife, the abandonment of his children and the fulfillment of his corruption. The words she had once whispered were once words of a promised future now they were meaningless, nothing, left out in the open only to drive a hollow ache in his gut.
He picked up his pistol. The smell of death still lingered down its barrel. The man whose life it had taken only the night before was nothing more than a shadow of a memory.
The clock kept an uneven time with the rain as it tapped impatiently at the glass, the same way it had that night all those years ago. It hammered in his head like an inescapable torture. He could still see the pleas of desperation in their eyes, those same eyes that had seen too much. He could feel the tugging and tearing of the woman he had betrayed with his insatiable lust as she grasped at his shirt begging him to take her but save the children.
'The Guild was unforgiving, the Guild was merciless.' He recited smacking his hands to his temples. When the Guild demanded they be silenced, there was no other way. He couldn't stop them. 'I couldn't –'
He squeezed his pistol tightly. He would repay them all in kind, it was all he could do. An eye for an eye, a death for a death.
'Two more – two more.' He half-cocked his flintlock. Tonight they became one.
He would savour this one the most. She would be protected by the Guild, not like the others. She held a much higher rank than they did. She would be out of his reach that deep in Guild territory – almost.
He smoothed the waist of his coat and lowered the brim of his hat. Bowing his head he spoke several words under his breath, a prayer or curse, words that would draw her to him, the same words that led him to the others he deemed worthy of death. Then swiftly he left unseen.