Craven Wild

Craven Wild is an assassin.  He is tasked by the Dark Council to remove supernatural threats or anything that might reveal the existence of the hidden world.

When he is ordered to kill Henry Miller, a mild mannered human resources manager, it all seems fairly straightforward.

Until he discovers Henry Miller is unkillable.

And that’s the sort of thing an assassin needs to know…

 

Chapter 1

The Dead wake up the living

 

Darkness, deep and uncertain–and then a voice. Henry was sure it sounded like a voice. His mind was still trying to focus and make sense of everything  

The voice was male, and very certain about its question.

“Didn’t you die yesterday?”

Henry replied without thinking.

“Yes, and I’ve got the mother of all headaches. And while I’m at it, who the hell are you?”

“I’m the one who killed you.” 

“Okay. So, this is the bit where I wake up.”

“No. This is the bit where I toss you off a building.”

“What?” 

 Henry felt a sudden chill; a wind whipped across his face and through his hair. He opened his eyes and focused, realising to his horror that the wind in his face was in fact tearing up the side of a ten-storey building and, more importantly, he was standing on top of that same building, his feet poking over the edge of the roof. 

Henry looked down, and a wave of vertigo and nausea overcame him. He nearly toppled over the side but willed himself back from the edge. 

For a moment, his anxiety abated, until a massive jolt in the middle of his back punched him forward out into clear air.

He toppled off the roof with a scream, rolling over as he plummeted just in time to see the two powerful arms that had pushed him over the edge, and he caught sight of a man’s expressionless face peering down at him.

He tossed his arms about uselessly as gravity ignored his struggles. All he did was roll himself over in mid-air, and another scream caught in his throat as he saw the ground rushing up towards him. 

Henry squeezed his eyes shut so he would not have to witness the horror of his own death and turned his head away, throwing his arms fruitlessly out in front of him, hoping it might prevent the inevitable.

 

It didn’t work.

An instant later he smashed into the concrete at a terminal velocity, the impact breaking him as the ground pile drove through his chest, snapping him in two, his last thought of unbelievable agony.

An indeterminate time later, he awoke and opened his eyes.

He was face down on the ground, staring at a dull grey sidewalk, right in front of his nose. His face wasn’t a broken, bloody pulp, even his nose felt fine. He could still breathe, albeit uncomfortably, as he lay there contemplating his fate.

“Well, this can’t be right.” Henry whispered to himself.

He closed his eyes. He could still feel his body. It was heavy, still in one piece, above and behind his nose. He wiggled his fingers, and they still worked. His arms lay outstretched to his sides. He found he could still move them. He bent his left elbow and brought his left hand to his face and felt his nose; it seemed fine and was still there. 

He wiggled his legs; they were working too.

He brought his arms in and propped himself up on his elbows.

There was a large thump beside him. He glanced to his right in time to see a pair of legs in dark trousers ending in a pair of expensive tan boots landing upright beside him.

“So, it’s true then.” A voice said with a detached nonchalance. The voice he heard a moment ago, the voice belonging to the person who just pushed him off the roof.

“What is?”

“That you’re immortal.”

“No. I think this is a dream and you’re a nightmare.”

The stranger crouched down to look him the eye.  The man was solid, age around forty with powerful shoulders and a questioning gaze. He wore dark clothes and a long black overcoat that flowed down to his knees.

“So, wake up.”

“What?”

“Wake up.” 

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can. You control your dreams, just tell yourself you’ll wet the bed. That usually works.”

Henry closed his eyes. He tried willing himself to wet an imaginary bed. 

For once, his bladder did not oblige. Most nights, it couldn’t wait to wake him up and usually right in the middle of those dreams where the starlet was about to drop her robes.

Henry worked out long ago that his bladder was a bastard who hated him.

This time, nothing happened. 

He opened his eyes once more; nothing has changed. The stranger tilted his head quizzically and smiled briefly.

“Yep. I’m still here.”

“Alright. What the hell is this?”

The stranger stood up. “Roll over and I’ll show you.”

The stranger turned his back on Henry and took two steps away.

With effort, Henry rolled over on to his back. He now looked up at the building's side from which he'd just fallen. 

“Show me what?” Henry asked while staring up at the dark obelisk of concrete and glass. 

The stranger suddenly loomed over him, holding what looked like a five-foot lance made from silver. 

“This.” The stranger smiled thinly and drove the lance, point first, into Henry’s chest.

A scream burst from Henry’s throat as his flesh split and the point punch through his heart. 

It felt like his chest was exploding. Then the pain stopped. 

He looked up. 

The lance was lodged vertically in his chest. 

The stranger shook his head, wobbled the lance around a bit and then abruptly withdrew it from Henry’s chest, tossing the heavy bar over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing. 

Henry could feel his chest muscles contract as the rent between his ribs healed itself. He felt for the hole and found it had vanished. He turned his gaze to the man towering above him as the stranger continued.

“Okay, that didn’t work–so you’re not a vampire or a werewolf.”

Henry Miller felt fine. In fact, he was more than fine. He was angry. “What did you do that for?”

The stranger scratches his chin and starts counting off with his fingers as he continued. “Let’s see, I’ve shot you, run you over, slit your throat and thrown you off a building; not to mention driving a silver lance through your heart. I’m running out of options here. Maybe I should try fire?”

Confusion stampeded through Henry’s thoughts. The stranger made no sense.

“Hang on, you’ve tried to kill me four -.”

“Five.” The Stranger interrupts

“Alright–five times.”

“Yes.”

“So how come I don’t remember any of it.”

The stranger knelt beside him. “Oh, that’s easy. I glamoured you.”

“You what?”

“Glamoured you. Erased your short-term memory. Like vampires do to repeat victims.”

Henry’s mind reeled. He was getting another headache. “Vampires? Glamouring? Victims? What in God’s name are you talking about?”

The stranger tried to sound reassuring. “Henry. There is a world of monsters out there. And I hate to break it to you, but you’re one of them.”

“And that’s why you’ve tried to kill me–five times.”
The man nodded in agreement. “Now you’re catching on.”

Henry patted himself down, checking for any further injuries. “Well, you’ll forgive me for saying this but you’re not very good at it.”
The man sat back on his haunches. “I know. But I should be. I’m an assassin, it’s my job. “

The man offered his hand in greeting. “Craven Wild, Supernatural Assassin.”

Without thinking, Henry took his hand. “Henry Miller. Human Resources Manager.”

“Yes, I know. I know everything about you Henry.”

“Except how to kill me?”

“Yeah. Bit of a problem that.” Craven Wild stood and brushed himself off. “Right, so let’s try fire.”

He reached into his black coat, pulled out a small silver lighter, lit the flame and tossed the lighter on to Henry.”

For a second, Henry’s shirt caught fire and Henry frantically tried patting it down. But the flames extinguished on their own, with no need for Henry’s theatrics. 

Henry sat bolt upright. Now he was furious.

 “Enough.” He barked.

Craven flew backwards out of Henry’s reach. 

Henry was aghast. He hadn’t lifted a finger. He stared down at his hands and then over at Wild as he picked himself up and sauntered back over.

Henry was completely dumbfounded. “How the hell did I -.”

“Catapult me across the sidewalk? No idea, but it might explain why the Council sent me after you.”

“Sent you after me? I don’t understand.”

Craven Wild sat on the sidewalk cross-legged across from Henry. “Henry, I kill supernatural creatures at the behest of the Dark Council.”

“Supernatural creatures, Dark Council. Are you jerking my chain?”

“No, you’re a legitimate target–at least in the eyes of the Council.”

“A legitimate target. I’m a human resources manager. Why the hell would anyone want to target me? I’m nobody, just an ordinary man. Henry Miller - ordinary.”

A thought occurred to Craven. 

“I just realised you’re named after a soft-core writer. Didn’t occur to me when I got the contract. Your parents must have been having a lend. Know any dirty stories?”

“No, I don’t know any dirty stories; and my parents are dead, so I’ll thank you not to bring them up.”

“Fair enough. Wonder who they sent after them? I’ll have to look them up on the other side.”

“The other side? What kind of crap is this? Look, I don’t know who you really are, or how you played all these tricks on me but enough is enough. If you’re some kind of mugger, just take my wallet and bugger off. But give it a break on the mind games.”

Craven looked at Henry, confused. “Mind games? I’m not playing any mind games.”

“Yes, you bloody well are - making me think I fell off a building, or that you drove a stake through my heart–or that I threw you across the sidewalk with my mind. It’s all a load of bullshit and cheap hypnosis, so here’s my wallet. Now fuck off.”

Henry reached into his trouser pocket and withdrew his wallet, offering it to Craven who just shook his head. “Henry, I don’t need your money. I make more in a week than you make in a year. Put it away. I’m here to kill you, plain and simple.”

“If you are, you’re doing a crap job of it.”

“You’re a bit of a mystery, Henry Miller. I’ll have to consult the archives and figure out what you are before I can dispatch you properly. Might take a couple of days.”

“Oh, a couple of days.” Henry glanced around the deserted street. “So, should I just lie here and wait for you to come back?”

“Well, if you could, that would make my job easier.”

Henry stood up. “Or I could simply call the cops, tell them some nutter tried to hypnotize me and spin some bullshit story and watch them drag you off to the happy hospital.”

Craven stood and shook his head dismissively. “No Henry, that would just get a lot of good cops hurt–and I don’t get paid for that. You just go home and I’ll look you up when I’m ready.”

“Oh, let me guess. You have my address and a key to my front door,” Henry replied sarcastically.

Craven adjusted his dark leather coat. “Don’t need a key. Locks don’t concern me.” 

In a move so fast, it caught Henry out, Craven disappeared, leaving Henry staring at the discarded silver lance on the sidewalk. He trotted over to it and picked it up, turning it over in his hands.

His estimate had been right. It was about five feet long, heavy, and had curious markings carved into the metal. “I can’t leave this here. Some kid might pick it up, but it’s too damn long to take on the train.” 

Before he could say another word, the lance shrunk in his hand, the two opposite ends collapsing towards his hand with a fast-moving, swishing sound until the lance was only six inches long. 

“Okay, that’s weird. That’s one helluva hypnotic trance.”

Without a second thought, Henry stashed the lance in his right trouser pocket and turned on his heel towards the nearest police station.

He didn’t know where he was, or where the nearest station was, and yet he knew exactly which way to turn and how long it would take to get there. 

For a man used to assessing the pros and cons of potential applicants, navigating the mire of bureaucratic balderdash and flitting around payroll systems and spreadsheets without thinking, he hadn’t given a second thought to his ability to know something by instinct alone. 

It was a second sight that hadn’t bothered to let his first sight know it was there, probably because Henry’s first sight was too busy mulling over the past few minutes. 

In the shadows of a nearby alley, Craven watched him depart. Something was completely wrong about this entire job. Henry Miller was human and should have been an easy paycheck, five minutes' work, then a coffee on the way home. But Henry had taken everything thrown at him, and was still breathing. 

He needed to know more about Henry, but he didn’t want to ask the Council. They hadn’t mentioned the fact his target was unkillable, and that’s the sort of thing an assassin needs to know.