Italy, 2010s.
For what must have been the ninth time today, Mariko wondered why she was wandering the streets of Venice naked.
That may not have been strictly true, but considering the absence of protection and firepower on her person she might as well have been. She would have preferred being situated in the window of one of the crammed-together buildings, a rifle and a steadily filling ashtray as her only companions.
Instead, Mariko found herself wandering the narrow streets alone, a modified Glock 34 tucked in a holster beneath her jacket. Her hair was down and wafting gently behind her, a neutral mask placed firmly upon her face. The buildings loomed over her, and Mariko forced her gaze to pass along them casually, as if she were merely a tourist enjoying the Venetian architecture instead of a mercenary searching for a hidden killer waiting to take her out.
She was, after all, using herself as bait.
Mariko reached into an inner pocket opposite of her holster, careful to keep the weapon hidden as she withdrew a pack of cigarettes. She coolly withdrew one before returning the pack and flicking open a scratched and beaten lighter. The end of the cigarette fizzled to life, and Mariko held the smoke in her lungs, reveling in its singe before letting it out with a sigh.
“If you keep it up, they could afford to send a blind person after you. They’d just have to follow the smoke.”
A voice touched with an unknown accent wormed its way into her ear, as if the speaker were walking alongside her instead of on the other side of the city.“Counting on it...” Mariko muttered, quiet enough that she hoped the artifact Freyja had saddled her with wouldn’t pick it up. Mariko hadn't been thrilled at the prospect of placing a shard of stained glass in her eye, although the smooth flat stone that went underneath her tongue was less of an issue. Freyja had said that it would let her see and hear everything Mariko did, and so far it seemed to have worked. Mariko took another drag, feeling the tar settle into her lungs even as the nicotine dulled the chittering edge of her nerves.
She worked alone, had for the better part of a half-century. Yet in order for this plan to work, Mariko needed something that she’d never really been able to establish: connections. Sure, she was able to put together a loose network of black market dealers across Europe and most of Asia (although the land of her mother's birth still eluded her, not that she had much reason to visit anymore), but that was simply a matter of asking the right questions and, if necessary, making a shooting gesture with your hand and waving some money in the air. That usually did the trick.
Freyja’s connections knew things, though, and that information could be bought with the additional assurance that a bullet wouldn’t find itself buried in either party by the end of the conversation. Mariko had never had that luxury, her own paranoia a cornered animal that snapped at anything that moved.
It’d been beneficial, though, and Mariko begrudgingly admitted that this unlikely partnership may soon bear the desired fruit. After a half dozen assassinations, as well as taking out two different kill squads, she was just waiting for the third. The last ones had called themselves the Vultures and the Foxes, respectively.
Mariko hoped this time they’d send a Hound.
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