The sounds of gunshots, death and swords filled Tex's ears as he stealthily made his way through the air ducts of the castle. He found an opening in the ducts and quickly jumped down to survey the room. The walls and carpet were pink, with a queen-sized bed in the middle of the room against the wall and a few paintings and sculptures that bought life to the dull room. It was a lot smaller than what he expected to see, especially in a castle and the Tatherly's nonetheless.
After a split second of admiring, the stench of death quickly filled his nose but it didn't affect him, he looked around to find the person or thing that gave off that awful smell and half a turn later he found it, Kaitlyn Tatherly, or one of her other widely known alias'; "Lady Kaitlyn", "Tramp", "Wench", "Tex's employers inside woman" but her name will just be Lady Kaitlyn Tatherly, or more accurately, "former" Lady Kaitlyn Tatherly. She was only 19, although she acted much older, So, seeing her dead body did not surprise Tex, for everyone knew she had a short temper and a reputation for thinking she was better than anyone that breathed, not to mention she had an enemy list the size of her ego, if possible, and none of them pushovers.
Tex was a master at noticing the smallest of details where ever he went, so as he examined her body, he noticed a number of things; the red mark around her neck, it looked as if she was choked, red marks on her wrists, a broken mirror and glass shards in her hair, so he guessed she was struggling against her assailant/murderer, small insignificant scratches on her arms, maybe from one of the multiple fights she gets into per day and a small needle in the left side of her ribs, hardly noticeable in the dark room. Tex slowly removed the needle from her ribcage and got a little surprised at how long the weapon actually was. "Pierced clean through the heart... an assassination?" He whispered to himself before darting out into the well-lit and decorated hallway.
The long hallway was lined with fine paintings of princes, queens, princesses, kings, captains (all of relation to or being a close family friend of the Tatherly's), sculptures and armor bodies, it had a clean, waxed hardwood floor and the ceiling was tiled, along with every other room. Tex quietly dashed down the hallway barely making a sound with every step until he came to a corner and stopped because he heard voices nearby.
"Well isn't this some bullshit, huh Steve? Lord Tatherly goes running to his "Sanctuary in the sky" and tells us to stand here and keep watch, like anything's going to happen all the way up here anyway. I'd rather be helping everyone else downstairs. I heard there was a raid on the castle. The townspeople, a couple of hired men and even the police came, some to stop them and some to help. But the scariest rumor of all said someone hired an assassin called "Tex"." Said the slim built guard, his face was pale white and his cheeks were flushed, he looked around 35 and was about 6'4". By the expression on his face, it seemed like he was terrified.
Steve, the other guard, shrugged and said "well I guess that's why he told us to stay here then. Heh, if I didn't know better I'd say you're scared Eric. This person Rex-"
"TEX!" Eric cut in.
"Well whatever" continued Steve "he can't be that bad and even if he was, it would be almost impossible for him to get up here without being seen and attacked downstairs." Steve was also white, not as pale as Eric and considerably younger, early 20's was Tex's guess, he was more built than Eric as well but shorter about 5'10".
"You don't get it, this guy is a PROFESSIONAL at what he does, he plans everything and I mean EVERYTHING. I bet he planned that raid downstairs... so he could sneak in here while everyone's busy and kill King Tatherly!" Exclaimed Eric. Steve looked at him with disbelieving eyes and continued to lean on the wall, then closed them but in all reality, Eric was dead right. Tex rallied up all the townspeople and told them the Tatherly's have been taking 60% of all the tax money they have been paying for their own personal use, for the Tatherly's knew anyone important, not to mention they're all in his debt one way or another. Tex also hired mercenaries to charge the house in search of Lady Tatherly and bring her to an abandoned house across town to be knocked out and left there until morning and as for the police? He wasn't sure how they got involved but was glad they could come and make more havoc for his cause.
"This shit makes no sense; how could anyone have known I would be here?" Tex thought to himself. He was a little thrown off by the fact that timid guardsman Eric blindly (and accurately) guessed everything he'd been planning. The thought of his plan being so predictable even a dim-witted guardsman could guess it insulted Tex, even if he wasn't believed. So, he decided he would kill Eric but spare Steve if he could because he could only imagine the horror of having to work with someone as annoying and talkative as Eric. Tex shuddered at the thought.
"So, what's this "Sanctuary in the Sky" you talked about?" Steve asked.
"It's just Lord Tatherly's room on the roof, he goes there when he doesn't want to be disturbed because apparently, his throne room has "too many visitors" nowadays, or so he says but the only people I've seen entering his throne room are the usual's, except for this new lady that comes by dressed in all black with a hood, so I've never seen her face, maybe a new play toy for our majesty. Why do you ask?"
"Pfft!" Steve chuckles a bit, "Lord Tatherly must have great connections to have a walking robot sex toy. I can't imagine him with any real women, honestly, I'm surprised he even made his daughter. But it's just the first time I've ever heard of it, so naturally I became curious. Anyway, let's start our sweep of the floor."
Eric nodded and they both started walking to the corner Tex was hiding behind and in an instant, Tex wall jumped to the ceiling, removed a tile and climbed in without making a noise and slowly put the tile back in place a split second before both guards appeared around the corner. Steve started checking the first room on the left, and Eric took the right. Kaitlyn's body was 4 doors down on Steve's side, so he could either A, wait for the body to be discovered, get blamed for it and risk being compromised, which would make killing his target that much harder, or B, kill both of them and continue with the task at hand. An obvious choice. Now it was time for his favorite game, "who to kill first?" and since they were checking rooms out of sync, all he had to do was wait for the right moment where one was already checking a room and the other just about to enter and take the latter out quickly. Steve was the unfortunate winner and just as he entered a room two doors down from Kaitlyn, Tex jumped down making the smallest "Thud", unsheathed his dagger and before Steve knew what happened, the blade was already in his throat and Tex's hand around his mouth to muffle the sound, a second later Steve was dead. Tex hid, waiting to see his next victim exit the room he was searching and right on cue, Eric walks out to continue his sweep. Tex decided to play with him a bit.
As Eric walked to the next room, Tex steps out of the room he was in and says "Excuse me sir, is the bathroom located somewhere close-by?"
Startled, Eric turned around and fell, as he stared at this person dressed in black, grey and blue leather, with an assortment of deadly instruments all over this person's body, a black and blue belt tied backwards. His face started to look sick and even more pale than usual, for he knew exactly who this masked man was; Tex, the hired assassin. At that very moment Eric's bowels released and he started sobbing uncontrollably, sitting in his own fear. Tex almost busted out laughing at the petrified guard but pulled himself together long enough to say "Come on Eric! If you had to use the bathroom all you had to do was either direct us to it or wait until I killed you, at least then you would have had an excuse to piss" *sniff* *sniff* "AND shit yourself?!" Tex laughed "You could have died with some type of dignity but oh well right? Your reaction to seeing me was priceless though, so thanks for the laugh."
"PLEASE DON'T KILL ME, I HAVE A FAMILY!" Eric cried out, but Tex just shook his head
"Do you know how many times I've heard that line? And some of the time they don't even have a family! A target I was out to kill a few months ago asked me not to kill her because her turtle would go hungry without the "proper care", can you believe that? A TURTLE! HA-HA- *sigh* and the worst part is; that same line you used? I'll probably hear 30 more times before this month's done." All Eric could do was stare, too scared to move, too intimidated to make even the slightest attempt to attack him. "But to answer your question, no I can't let you live for that could, and most likely would, be the downfall to my plan."
Eric opened his mouth to speak but Tex cut in "YEAH, yeah I know, you won't tell anyone you promise right?" Tex mocked, for those were the exact words he was about to say. "I believe you, honestly, but just to make sure, I'm going to kill you anyway but don't worry, it'll be slow and painful, I promise" Tex said in a joyful manner which just made Eric that much more scared as he blurted out "Don't you mean QUICK and painLESS?!"
Tex shot him a cold sharp blank look, took out a poison dart, walked closer to the guardsman and cleared his throat before saying "I know exactly what I said, but before I kill you let me tell you why you get the "deluxe" package. When you were telling Steve there" (he gestured to the room which he's been "searching" in for the past 5 minutes) "about how I planned everything, you were dead on and the fact that my plan was GUESSED by a guardsman kinda hurt my feelings, so you know."
Eric was in shock and then Tex threw a dart into his arm, Eric felt a small pain, like a pinch and looked at Tex puzzled "What did you just do?! What will happen to me?!" Tex turned, took six steps towards the corner, stopped and said "If you can still talk, it might not be painful." Nothing was said, so Tex continued around the corner and down the hall to meet his target "I guess it will then." He whispered to himself and walked up the spiral staircase.
At the top of the stairs there was a door, Tex was just about to open it when he started hearing a ringing in his head, it was so bad he was forced to hold his head and crouch over in pain. When it subsided, he opened the door to the roof and, to his surprise, he seen his target Lord Tatherly, along with a mini army standing behind him, weapons drawn, all aimed at the intruder standing in the door.
"Such a warm welcome you have for me Timothy. I'm a little embarrassed, all I got for you is my blade. So, what's the occasion?"
"The occasion is you killing my daughter." Lord Tatherly said with a small grin "You murdered her to try and lure me out but when you seen that failed, you promptly came to pursue your real target. Clever of you to think of that but I'm always prepared assassin!"
Tex thought for a second and made all the connections he needed "Ahhh, it all makes sense now, so it was you who used the needle to make it look like an "assassins" work, I'm also going to go ahead and assume you knew she was our inside contact?" Lord Tatherly's smile grew wider "Of course I wouldn't, she's my daughter!" But Tex seen right through his lies
"Seems like dad's been bad today."
"And you have been equally bad, if not worst but now it all ends here because today is the day you die Assassin!!" Right after he said that Lord Tatherly screamed "FIRE!" and when all the rifles fired, at the same time, Tex heard the same ringing as before and woke up to the sound of his phone ringing. He checked the time, 7:27. He groggily answered the phone "What?"
"Tex, it's time for work. I sent a car to get you so get dressed and meet at the usual spot."
He responded with an "Understood." and hung up the phone. "That was an interesting dream... I wonder what it means." He got dressed and started his day as "Trent Xneighler" AKA Tex.