Ophilia Melody reclined back in the small wooden chair, crossing her legs and steepling her fingers. “You know,” she began, keeping her tone bored. “I’m getting rather tired of doing this.”

The man across from her didn’t reply, but that was to be expected really. She returned his gaze, seeing the faint flicker of terror therein.

“It’s not as easy as it looks, I'll tell you,” she continued in a more conversational tone of voice. “My father just doesn’t understand anymore. For longer than I’ve been around, he’s had other people to do his dirty work for him. He doesn’t seem to remember just how stressful it can all get.” She paused, tilting her head to the side and staring off into nothing. “Am I making any sense?”

Ophilia ignored the silent, muffled response from her companion’s direction. With an air of disinterest, she nodded as if she’d heard something sagely. If nothing else, she reflected, her companions were astounding listeners. They hung on her every word as if it would be their last.

“Every Job is unique, but some things will never change.” She gave a soft sigh, her most natural expression. She began counting off on her fingers as she spoke, tapping every new digit with her opposite index finger. “When I work I always end up getting all sweaty and that does nightmares to a good suit, believe me.” She emphasized her point by plucking at her black, pin-striped suit. It was custom made, topped off with a white undershirt and a pinkish tie.

“Secondly, my coworkers are always slacking around, not carrying their weight.” She pointedly glared at the man across from her, earning a very faint, very ignored whimper. “Case in point,” she finished with another sigh. “And finally, when all’s said and done, I’ve always got such a colossal mess to clean up.”

The whimpers instantly turned into sobs, muffled and miserable, but Ophilia forcefully kept up her indifference.

“But, do you know what bothers me the most?” She asked, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward purposefully. “Repetition,” she said ominously, wagging her finger with every-other word, almost like a lecturer or a maestro. “That boring tedium; the same thing happening over and over again, ad nauseum. So, when I tell you that I’m bothered by this current state of affairs, it is because of the repetition you’ve presented to me and my father.” With a despairing sigh, she broke eye contact with the rapidly deteriorating man to study her surroundings for the umpteenth time.

The basement was well-maintained, an extension of a well-maintained home. It was obviously cared for with love in mind and had likely been the same home the man had lived in for years. And yet, the critical eye would be able to pick out signs of distress; spaces on the wall for power tools, left vacant; a pair of discolored squares on the floor where the washer and dryer had once lived; boxes, rifled through to find hidden gems among years of accumulated junk. What few things remained were either sparse or vital; a sink, a wood-burning heater – with an accompanying stack of wood – and a small emergency generator. Behind the whimpering man was a workbench, laid out with the various tools provided to Ophilia for this Job. If you studied them carefully, you could see the uppercase letter clear as day.

Trying to maintain her emotional neutrality, Ophilia studied the small fire she’d started in the heater to fight away the basement’s chill. It danced enticingly, like an exotic belly dancer at a strip club, crackling away without a care in the world. Ophilia had always held a healthy appreciation for fire. It was both a force of destruction and one of cleansing; a gateway to a new beginning, washing away the old to scorch a path for the new. It was indiscriminate, powerful, and always hungry for more. Sometimes, Ophilia wished she could be more like those flames.

Turning back to the man across from her once more, she finally took the time to study him. He was a small man with a small head, which was attached to hunched shoulders by a pencil-neck. Just below the unfortunate mess he chose to call hair was a face that greatly resembled a weasel – pinched and untrustworthy. The duct-tape over his mouth was slightly askew because of his blubbering and covered a mouth filled with misaligned teeth and a silver tongue. Unfortunately for him, words wouldn’t be of much use anymore.

Quickly, Ophilia locked away her soft, pathetic feelings once more. It wouldn’t do to let that part of herself run rampant now. It wouldn’t do to hesitate or question. Her father had been very particular about this job. The tools were symbolic, reminiscent of the old ways, the old days. But first, Ophilia added her own personal touch.

Without a word more, she drew out her trademark, the silenced 9mm pistol that was her preferred firearm. The man reacted instantly, sobbing pitifully into the tape and squirming against his restraints.

Anger blurred the line between thought and emotion – or at least, what emotion was left. Once upon a time, she’d been just like him, frightened and helpless – a scared little girl with no backbone and no hope, trapped inside a hellish limbo. Fear hadn’t saved her then and it wouldn’t save him now. Why did he have to let things get this far? Why couldn’t he have just done what he was supposed to do?

The memories of her old weakness and old life urged her to do what came next. With no change of expression and two silent shots, Ophilia blew out both of the man’s kneecaps. He’d never run again in his life, one way or another. His screams pounded against the silver tape, filling the cold stone basement with sound. However, with a little money changing hands, no one would hear a single peep from this house. That sound, a cry of primal agony and fear, drown out what little emotions Ophilia still felt.

As his screams wound down into whimpers, the man’s eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out from shock. Ophilia heaved a long-suffering sigh, putting her pistol back into the shoulder holster concealed in her suit. “Always slacking…” She leaned forward, slapping the man solidly in the face. He groaned but continued to remain oblivious.

Heaving another theatrical sigh meant for no one but her, Ophilia rose and walked around the man to her stash of tools. She stooped, picking up a bucket from where she’d placed it beside her duffel bag on the workbench, and walked over to the nearby sink to fill it with cold water. As she filled the tin bucket, she idly tried to remember her companions name.

She couldn’t seem to remember. In that same moment, she decided it didn’t matter much.

The man snapped away when the water hit. Groans still leaped through his lips and pain still blurred his eyes, but Ophilia saw a new understanding there. Good, their relationship was firmly established.

She tossed the bucket over his head, watching him flinch as it crashed to the floor, and sat down across from him again. Folding over one leg, she became every ounce the composed businesswoman; all except her eyes, which stared the man down dispassionately.

“A lot of money, you owe us… Over twenty-thousand dollars, between your loans and gambling debts.” She spoke with soft, velvety words, concealing the thorns that lay beneath. “It seems like you’ve got quite the addiction to failure.”

The man tried to talk, mumbling something into his tape, but Ophilia’s hand shot out, slapping him hard enough to make him yelp.

“Don’t interrupt me. It’s rude.” The man groaned in response but fell silent the moment Ophilia gave him a glare.

“My family tried to work with you,” Ophilia continued, “time and time again, offering you ways to pay us back. Imagine our shock when we learned that, rather than taking those routes, you’ve been pouring even more money into your worthless addiction. Why, the gall of it all was almost too much for me and my dear, sweet father to shoulder.” She ended her statement with one of her all-too-familiar sighs. “You were living in this lovely house, offering up excuse after excuse, wasting not only my father’s time and money, but insulting our generosity as well, spitting all over our kind offers. We were so… disappointed to hear of all this.”

Ophilia rose, walking around her companion and humming a tuneless song, trailing a hand over his shoulder in an almost friendly gesture. He tried to shy away from her, but the ropes kept his arms in place. “But, luckily, my father had cultivated a payment plan to correct your enormously erroneous decisions and your arbitrarily grievous mistakes.” She felt the chair shift slightly as she put a hand on his upper arm. She knelt, giving the chair an experimental tug. One of the bolts she’d used to rivet the chair to the concrete was loose. Shoddy work, that. She’d need to purchase a new tool.

As she rose, she continued smoothly. “It’s really quite simple, once you consider it.” She moved to the spot directly behind her companion, smelling the sour scent of sweat, mixed with the harsh scent of freshly spilled blood. She placed a hand on either of his shoulders, leaning closer, but keeping far enough away that he couldn’t headbutt her. “See,” she said softly, almost a whisper, “you’ve got all these lovely things.” She gave both his shoulders a pat before turning to walk away, talking normally again. “This house, the furniture, all your bits and bobs.” She swept her next tool up, turning her head to look at the man over her shoulder. “So, my father, he decided to put all these wonderful things to work for us in your place, since you’re so woefully incompetent.”

For a few seconds, while she returned to her chair, she was silent. However, rather than sitting back down once she reached the chair, she snapped her leg up, kicking it violently out of her way. Despite this sudden shift in the situation, the man’s eyes were as riveted to the object dangling from her hand as the chair was to the floor. It was a sleek wooden baseball bat – cedar, with a leather grip.

The terror returned to his pain-addled eyes, and his muffled pleas began in earnest. The message was clear. He knew what came next.

Ophilia ignored him, swinging the bat over her feet like a batter, fresh at the plate. “Here’s the plan,” she began, ignoring the way all hope drained from the man’s already pale face. The feeble twisting of his body in hopes of escape.

The tears.

“Once we’re done here, in a day or so, a modified version of your will is going to be found on your property, signed and notarized, bequeathing all your worldly possessions to an as-of-yet unknown relative – some distant cousin, or something like that.”

She swung the bat up, resting it on her shoulder casually. Continuing, she walked around her companion again, feigning disinterest as she approached her bag. The drama – the play-acting – helped make everything a little more surreal and, by extension, more bearable.

“Naturally, this mysterious relative will want nothing to do with his or her new, unexpected holdings. Everything will be sold off, piecemeal. I’m not too certain how much your material possessions will total up to, but I do believe that it will be enough to cover all your debts. And then some.”

Ophilia rested her bat on the table and, making sure the man heard her, ruffled some papers purposefully, drawing out her next set of tools.

“Oh my,” she drawled, feigning shock, as if this all wasn’t a part of the script. “I seem to have a copy of that very will right here. And a pen. How about that?” In silence, she drew on a pair of black gloves before handling the paper, pen, and clipboard. She walked back to her companion, leaving the bat behind at her work station, and stopped in front of him.

“Sign.” She clipped the word, filling it with all the meaning the man would want to hear. “Things will go much easier for you, if you do this willingly.” Fear had made the man’s mind faster, but not exactly sounder. Desperate, he nodded frantically, eager to take any escape he could possibly find.

“Excellent.” Ophilia set the clipboard and pen on the man’s lap, drawing out her pistol. The man whimpered some muffled words, but Ophilia ignored them, moving to the man’s side. She leaned in, lips brushing the man’s ear. “Make any wrong moves, and I’ll open your guts up in the most unpleasant way I can imagine. I’ve learned from past experiences that gut wounds are a particularly nasty – and lengthy – way to die.”

The man nodded more vigorously, until Ophilia reached over, tearing the tape off his face. The tape was off for less than a half-second before the man began to babble. “Oh, thank you! I promise that—” Ophilia cracked the side of the man’s head with the butt of her pistol, making him shout in pain.

“Shut up!” She wouldn’t let him talk. If he didn’t talk, she could still see him as something less than human. She could keep herself firmly in check. The man nodded meekly at her and Ophilia reached down, untying the ropes that bound his right wrist to the back of the chair.

He was all too eager to sign, but his hand was shaking from pain and anxiety. The clipboard helped keep the blood off the page, but Ophilia wondered about the value of this signature. Well, if all else failed, she could get the signature forged, she supposed. She let out a small, satisfied sigh as she watched the man write a semi-legible signature. At least now she would be able to show this man some small mercies.

“Very good,” she said, leaning forward with feigned interest. She replaced her pistol into her suit, making sure to keep the action out of sight and to make no noise. Quickly and quietly, that was the way.

When her hand snapped up and grabbed his wrist, the man flailed and screamed and pleaded, knocking the will to the ground in his frantic, last-ditch scramble. She peered over at it as she wrenched the man’s arm behind his back and tied the knot once more. Thankfully, he hadn’t gotten any blood on the paper. He was begging again, but Ophilia made sure to not listen to him; that was just sounds, she told herself, not words. Nothing with meaning, only the bleating of a sheep, soon to slaughter. As soon as his hand was firmly secure, she re-applied the tape with a relieved noise, silencing the accursed voice.

“I’m sorry, but you didn’t think it would be that easy to get out of this, did you?” She asked with false innocence, keeping her head out of bashing distance. He was angry enough to do something stupid, now. “Be that as it may, you have made this whole process much easier for me. Because of that, I’ve been given permission to make this easier for you too. I’m sorry to confess, though, that this will still be quite an ordeal, for the both of us.”

After a pat on the shoulder, she moved around him to retrieve the fallen will and pen. She carried them back to the table, drawing out a protective sheath for the paper to keep it safe, till it reached her father’s hands. Nothing would happen to her trophy.

After flicking the pen into the fire, she retrieved the bat and returned to her position behind her companion – no, her victim now. She misliked seeing the faces of her victims and avoided it whenever possible. She drew in a deep, calming breath and started speaking again.

“There is, of course, the matter of your health to be considered,” she began. “A will is only as good as the closeness of the patron’s death, you understand and you’re both rather young and healthy. This simply won’t do. But… well, we both know what’s about to happen, don’t we?”

The light faded from Ophilia’s eyes. She deadened her heart, locked away her persona, and marshaled her vast experience. This was par for the course, for what she was about to do.

“I’m going to hurt you now,” she said in a droll monotone. “Very, very badly. And only once I’ve decided that the pain has been enough – only when you’ve paid in full for your inexcusable hubris – only then will I let you sleep peacefully.”

She blinded herself to his tears. She closed her ears to his miserable, muffled cries.

She swung the bat.

The first swing sent a message. She brought the bat into the man’s wrists, bound together on the back of the chair. The carpus bones both snapped like a pair of dry twigs and the man screamed. He’d never sign another signature.

Without pause, she swung the bat up and around. With a sickening crack, the bones in the man’s shoulder shattered, accompanied by the shifting and clicking of the chair’s loose rivet. He wailed, trying more frantically to escape, trying to be free from this nightmare. But the nightmare was everything now. The nightmare was all he had.

With a swift and practiced move, Ophilia rolled the handle of the bat in her hand, re-positioning her other hand on the handle and altering the angle of the next strike. When the bones of the man’s upper arm broke, so did the man’s sanity. He became wild, flailing against the bonds, but his actions only brought more agony as the ropes twisted his shattered wrists and ground the bones inside together. His feet beat a fierce tattoo onto the concrete, but Ophilia didn’t hear a single thing.

The blow had been a fierce one; a well-aimed, two-handed strike aimed with precision at a weak point in the humerus bone. The resulting compound fracture tore violently through his skin, like a bloody white spike, shredding his fragile skin.

With a precision earned from years of combat training, Ophilia did more than beat her victims; she dismantled them, piece by agonized piece. As she promised, she occasionally allowed this man the mercy of shock – blessed moments of unconsciousness between bouts of devastating, indescribable pain. Had he not signed, she would have made certain the pain had been far worse.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Ophilia raised the bloody weapon over her head, delivering the coup-de-grâce; an overhead blow to the man’s crown.

The sound of his skull cracking reminded Ophilia of an egg being thrown at a wall. The unwanted comparison made the previous sounds – screams and all – seem tame by comparison. This, in turn, made it all so much harder to ignore. But, when the bat rebounded off the man’s skull, he still moved – still made noises.

And Ophilia couldn’t ignore it any longer. She was finally forced to stare headlong into the extent of her handiwork.

The last swing had been just slightly off its mark – a stupid, amateur mistake. The bat had struck the denser part of the skull just between the eyes, as the man had raised his head to stare at the descending death. He had thrown off her blow just slightly, but it had been enough to keep the lethality out of the strike. The damage, however, was still disturbingly extensive.

The man stared forward blankly with one eye, the other bulging grotesquely from a ruined socket. Blood oozed from his nose and ears, likely splattering the inside of the tape as well as he choked on his own lifeblood. He continued to make noises – a kind of whimpering gurgle. The damage to his frontal lobe made little else possible.

This was all too much. This was no mercy.

Suddenly sick, Ophilia passed the bat to her off-hand and drew her pistol. She put the bullet through the man’s head, wasting no time. The sound of grey matter splattering onto the floor carried a fitting finality with it.

Breathing deeply to calm her roiling stomach, Ophilia let the bat slide from her aching, now numbing fingers. She didn’t hear as it clattered to the floor. In retrospect, she was quite good at not hearing things. As she replaced her sidearm into it’s holster, she stared sightlessly and wordlessly into both nothing and into everything, her own soul especially.

For several long minutes she let her breathing level out. Her stomach still adamantly refused to settle, but that was almost blessedly normal. In time, with a comforting sigh, she set to cleaning up her mess.

First, that accursed bat. She lifted the bloody weapon gingerly, as if it were some exotic breed of snake. Quickly, and without an ounce of reverence, she carried the weapon over to the fire and fed it to the flames. At first, the moist wood wouldn’t catch, but Ophilia watched impassively until the stubborn wood gave in to the tongues of fire. She hoped her sins could be burned away so easily. Once the weapon was burning merrily, she moved on to her next task.

It was a small thing to remove the tape from the corpse’s mouth. She tore it loose with a detached sense of calm, not letting herself stare too long at the mangled head of what was once a living person. While there, she also undid the bindings on his wrists and ankles. That done, she carried all these items over to the fireplace, adding them to the pyre. Returning to the chair, she bent and recovered the three spent bullet casings, slipping them into the pocket of her pants. While she was down there, she wiped down the spot where she’d touched the side of the chair while examining the loose bolt.

Next, her clothing. She stripped off her bloody suit, her shoes and socks, even her undergarments, all of which were at least moderately stained with blood, sweat, or some combination of the two. Naked, she stood with her back to the corpse, trying her best to ignore the smell of the recently dead; urine, offal, and the coppery scent of blood.

To help distract herself, she ran a hand over her body examining the places that would need to be washed. She flexed the muscles in her arms, watching them shift under her deceptively smooth skin. Ophilia knew that many people would – and had – used words like ‘shapely’ or ‘luscious’ to describe her, though never to her face. She was thankful to them, that they would be so blinded by a pretty face and a curvaceous body that they wouldn’t see what she really was.

Her hair was long, straight, and sleek; it was the color of a starless, cloudless night and flowed down her back to end just above her backside. She was a lean woman, but not skinny, with an hourglass frame, an obviously muscled abdomen, and ample breasts that were kept perky by a layer of muscle around and behind them. Her arm and legs were muscled as well, but still held the illusion of being as smooth and soft as silk; Ophilia was no pushover but neither did she look like some hulking body-builder. She had hidden her fair share of scars with surgery, giving her the appearance of mostly unblemished skin.

Her eyes, both a bright shade of light green, could be both hypnotizing or frightening in equal intensity. Ophilia had the kind of stare that could rivet a man or woman to the floor.

With only a moment’s hesitation, she deposited her ruined outfit into the fire, watching as the fine garment was reduced to motes of ash. She could get a new outfit easily enough, that was no problem, but it always stung, seeing a nice outfit spoil.

Next, she swung by her tools, opening the duffel bag wide. Inside was a neatly folded set of fresh clothes, as well as several other odds and ends that she’d need. She grabbed one of these now – a small jug of bleach – carefully, making sure to not get any blood onto the bag or it’s precious contents. Jug in hand, naked as the day she was born, Ophilia walked to the sink with barely contained haste. Once she was there, training took over again, forcing her to slow down and be cautious. Criminals who rushed, were caught.

With a practiced calm and skill that only experience could teach, Ophilia went about methodically washing the blood from her body. Without a sound, she watched the swirl of reddish-pink, scrubbing her skin vigorously – violently even. Out damned spot…

Once all the traces of violence were erased from her, Ophilia plucked the cap off the bleach and washed away any evidence she may have left behind.

Her skin raw from scrubbing, Ophilia doubled back to her bag, drawing out her clean outfit. With almost worshipful motions, she laid the clothing out on the workbench, but it wasn’t yet time to dress. From below the clothes, she drew out a large, black garbage bag and returned to her dirty work.

She walked back to the heater, watching the alluring flames, letting its warmth and dance further distract her. She gauged the progress of the fire’s feast wondering if this was what Hell looked like.

Once she was certain the flames had done their duty, she smothered them and began to wait for the ashes to cool, all the while feeling her emotions pound on the bars of her heart.

“Not now,” she whispered to herself under her breath. She bit the inside of her cheek, drawing blood. “Not yet. Just a little bit longer.”

Once the ashes had cooled down, Ophilia scooped them out into the garbage bag, ready to be properly disposed of later. As she washed the blackened soot off her hands – washing that down with the last of the bleach – she scanned the room one more time, making sure there was nothing left to be done, no minutia left forgotten. She pointedly didn’t look at the corpse.

Confident, Ophilia wiped down the sink’s faucets and gave a small noise of relief, setting about the blissful task of dressing. She took her time, reveling in the familiarity of the motions and in the simple pleasure of being clothed once more. After applying the small touches that any good suit requires, Ophilia swept her fedora off the table and placed it on her head. She applied the finishing touches – a pair of black silk gloves to keep from leaving any fingerprints – and she was done. She turned to the corpse in the chair and tipped her hat to it. It was hard to not think about its ruined eye socket.

“It was unpleasant doing business with you,” she muttered gravely. She returned to her kit once more, digging out the burner phone from deep in its pockets. She dug through the contacts, found the one she was looking for, and pressed the ‘CALL’ button.

The phone picked up but there was no answer. This was normal. “Three-fifty-two Holly Lane. Basic sweep and clean. Remove teeth and contact the morgue; we need to make it look natural. A car crash, I’m thinking. Use a John Doe, and bring our messy friend to my father, as per the arrangement. You will be paid double, barring any errors in judgement.”

There was no reply from the other side, but the call suddenly disconnected. Ophilia nodded to herself and replaced the phone into the bag. Finally finished, she began putting everything away, sweeping up her kit as quickly as she dared. Once the bag was slung over her shoulder, she lifted the ashes and started towards the door. From there, she paused to snatch her coat from where it hung on the doorknob, opened the door, and started up the stairs into the recently deceased’s home.

Here, there were even more signs of misguided struggles; spaces where items – sold to pay for an insatiable hunger for gambling – once rested. Ophilia knew, from the sparse information her father had let slip that next to none of these sales went towards the ever-growing debt the man was accruing. This, more than anything, was the reason for the Job today.

Charles Melody was a cold, efficient man with the ruthlessness of a territorial badger. At the end of the day this personality kept the Family running like a well-oiled machine. A client who worked to pay back his debts and give back to the Family is a properly placed cog, made slick with an oil called ‘fear,’ but someone who doesn’t pay, who is a long-term loss for the Family, is a squeaking cog – noisy at first, little more than an irritation, until it rusts, damaging the function of the entire mechanism. Better to remove the piece and fit in a new, better one, before the damage becomes too debilitating. That was Ophilia’s job; she was a mechanic for her father’s great machine. It was that kind of heartless, brutal, calculating mentality that made the Family the feared and magnificent organization that it was today.

As Ophilia ghosted through the halls of this unfamiliar home, she avoided looking too closely at the walls. She knew full well what was there already; smiling faces, weddings, birthdays, holidays.

Children. Parents. Memories.

The smiling faces and innocent eyes would only haunt her if she saw them, so she forced herself to look only forward, wearing emotional blinders until she reached the door. Idly, she noticed that her black gloves were moist with sweat.

She left the house with the poise of a businesswoman – head up, with a purposeful walk – and stopped to wipe off the doorknob. She wouldn’t let herself trip at the finish line. As she left the porch, the illusion was broken by her hand, which was instinctively wiping itself dry on her jacket – never mind that the glove got in the way.

Outside was what she had expected. Night had just begun to fall over the city of Manhattan and Ophilia shivered at a faint chill in the air. Parked beside her car – a black affair that looked almost like a hearse – was a pair of trucks. An elderly man was pulling a large rug out of the back of one truck, whistling to himself merrily. Ophilia knew him plenty well; Tommy “Two-Toes” Melody, a distant Great-Uncle or something, and a Cleaner for the Family.

Two younger men flanked Tommy, neither of them having any blood-relation to the Ophilia. They were grunts, trusted with little more than eating bullets and dishing out similar meals to other individuals. Tommy was the brains here.

The old man gave her a wink as he walked past, acknowledging her and her earlier request. In a few hours, he would walk back out of the house with her victim wrapped up in that rug. Nothing would be left in that basement except the memories in Ophilia’s mind. By this time tomorrow, this poor sap would be “found” at the bottom of a gorge or wrapped around some tree. Tommy would see to it.

Ophilia nodded her head back at Tommy but hurried along. The old man made her nervous, though she wouldn’t ever admit it openly. She made her way to her car, drawing out her keys. This vehicle was another symbol, just a tool used to send a message. When all was said and done, it wasn’t much different from her. Or the bat.

With that cheery thought, Ophilia tugged her coat on, drawing it tightly to her with her free hand as she hurried to her car. She pulled the door open, flinging everything over the driver’s seat, into the passenger side, before taking her place at the wheel. With a turn of the key, the car roared to life. While it might look old, the car was more than modern inside, hiding a strong motor under its ancient hood.

The headlights flicked on, revealing a quaint suburban home. Flowers of every color bloomed in the driveway and the porch sat empty, except for the ghosts of those sitting in the chairs and the regret – both of her and her victim – staring at her accusingly from the windows. Even a place like this wasn’t safe from the Family. In this city, they were the hand of God.

It was ten minutes later, far down the road and far from the house, that she was forced to pull over and vomit violently out of the open car door. Once her stomach finally relented and refused to offer up any more, Ophilia spat several times, slammed the door shut, and dug for the burner phone once more, eager to be done with this night’s grisly work. She pressed the second speed dial, listening to the electronic ring.

On the third ring, the call connected.

“Black Box News Network,” a bored female voice on the other end of the line recited mechanically. There was a soft popping sound. The woman was chewing bubblegum during a phone call; Ophilia immediately hated her. “Reporting the truth for over fifty years. So, tell me, what riveting story have you got for us?”

Ophilia didn’t let the sarcasm bother her. Too much. “Oh, my apologies,” she began, a sneer creeping her tone. “Here we were, thinking you’d be interested in some real news. I suppose I’ll contact someone else about the dead bodies.” She hoped the immense disdain made it through the voice masking hardware on the phone. There were times when she wished she could damn her father’s paranoia and just be reckless.

There was a crash on the other end of the line, followed by muffled curses as the woman dropped the phone. To her credit, she recovered quicker than Ophilia had expected her to.

“Wait, what’d you say?” The reporter asked, suddenly shaken.

“They’re killing people, you know? The Family. Making them vanish; poof. You really should say something about that. The cops, I’m sure they’ll deny it, cover it up, but your job is the truth, right? Spread it.”

“Hold on, just who is this?” The woman sounded frightened now. She should be. Calls like these were just another of Ophilia’s calling cards.

Now the news would know that ‘The Silencer’ had killed someone for the mob, but not who. Black Box was a tabloid, so the cops probably wouldn’t take it seriously, but people read those things – even believed them sometimes. It was a small thing, but small things piled up, when done properly. Ophilia was an expert on the micromanagement of mass hysteria.

“Riveting enough for you, bitch?” Ophilia snarled into the receiver before mashing the ‘END’ key. She stared at the phone, feeling a faint burn behind her eyes. Without wasting another moment, she hit the third and final speed-dial, calling the number presented.

“Ophilia. Finished already?” Her father’s voice was crisp, like the first bite into a fresh apple. Ophilia shuddered despite herself.

“Yes father. It’s done.” She paused, taking a short, calming breath. “I won’t be using a bat again in a job such as this. It’s far too inaccurate, I’m afraid.”

There was a pause, then a drawn-out sigh. She could tell he was smoking; it made her teeth itch. “Fair enough,” he replied. “There are other ways to make an example of someone. You made the calls, I presume?”

Ophilia dug through her glove box with her free hand. “Naturally. Two-Toes should have his fake corpse planted by tonight, and I’ve got the will in the bag. I whacked B.B.N.N. like the wasp’s nest that it is; the reporter was more stuck-up than usual and will probably act hastily; I imagine we’ll be getting a big media frenzy hitting real soon. The right news will reach the right ears.” Ophilia felt a surge of relief as her questing fingers finally found the pack of cigarettes. Just looking at them made the pressure behind her eyes dim to a dull ache. “I’ll be headed home now.”

“No, not yet,” her father replied curtly. “I’ve got something else for you to do, another job before you turn in for the night.”

Ophilia pulled a cigarette from the box with her lips, tossing the pack aside and drawing her lighter from its place between her seats. “I don’t know, father. I’m not really up for it.” She flicked her thumb over the lighter’s wheel, watching the sparks impatiently.

“It wasn’t a request. It shouldn’t be too strenuous: a new gang has started dealing drugs in the upper north-east side. You’re just delivering the usual warning and letting them know who runs this city.” A pause. A sigh. “They call themselves the Mixer Misfits. They’re a bunch of hormone-filled teenagers, from what I’ve gathered. Apparently, they’re boss is some eccentric disk jockey named VeeVee. I don’t want them peddling their filth in my city, Ophilia. I want you to make that abundantly clear.”

Ophilia cursed the lighter as it continued to spark, refusing to offer up a flame. She flicked it more forcefully, making her thumb sting, and yet the damn thing just kept sparking. “Fine. Give me the address.”

He did.

Ophilia groaned, throwing the lighter out of her window with a fierce snarl. Naturally, the damned thing was out of fuel. She looked into her phone, ready to tell him what he could do with his little mission for her, only to notice that he’d already hung up. She knew this job would be far worse than he’d implied. The address was enough to make that abundantly clear.

She felt the tears then; twin lines streaking down her face, dripping off her chin and cheeks. She squeezed her eyes closed, finally letting the dam break, letting all the dirty, filthy feelings – all the pent up pain, misery, and rage – loose. She cursed under her breath, over and over, as she leaned forward, curling up in her seat. She let all the volatile emotions have their way with her mind and body. It was a small weakness, but one she allowed herself – felt she needed, even. In her eyes, she would have gone crazy a long time ago without it.

Then again, perhaps she already had…

Author's Note

Welcome to Chapter 1 of Legacy. I expect many will enjoy this story; it's possibly my best work to date.