Blair

Chapter 2

My eyes flutter open and I turn my head to the left as I observe Denali chewing on a piece of gum while furiously tapping away on her cellphone. She is sitting on the same cushion-less wooden chair where I left her, only she has slid it forward so it’s about 3 feet from the side of the bed. She lets out a long sigh before crossing her legs and reaching her hand up to re-adjust her long black hair that she's got tied up into a messy bun. I squint my eyes shut and audibly yawn while stretching my body out on the bed, glancing back over at her. As her blue eyes meet mine, she smiles and quickly sets her phone down on the nightstand before looking down at her watch. Her eyes widen and she leans back in the chair, crossing her arms with an impressed grin.

"Wow, that was quick," she smiles over at me.

"How long was I out for?" I inquire as I prop myself up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed.

"Eh, only about two hours and some change. Mission complete, as usual?" she shrugs while tapping the button on her watch to stop the timer as mine beeps in unison with hers. I glance down at the screen on my wrist, reading the number 2:15:07 which shows me a rough estimate of the amount of time I was in the AP.

"Isn't it always?" I stand up and start making my way towards the bathroom while Dani ruffles around through her suitcase.

"Well yeah, but how the hell did you find Jack and take him out that quickly?" she mutters back from the bedroom. I stare at myself in the mirror and grab a more casual outfit off of the bathroom counter top, tossing on a pair of denim jeans and a green tank top.

"Let's just say that he wasn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. He heard my voice and came right into the AP. I didn't even have to convince him to follow me, he just did," I shrug.

"Well hey, that was the quickest quarter million that we've ever made," she mentions while crossing the room towards the front door. She takes an old rag that has been saturated with a sage water solution and begins wiping it down to remove the charcoal black witches’ knot that she painted onto it before I initially went into the AP. The witches’ knot symbol is used for protection and somewhat resembles a twisted cross with an open circle in the center. Ever since I began astral-projecting again, Dani started immersing herself in the Wiccan religion in an effort to protect me and help make my job easier. She began by learning how to combine a mixture of Angelica, dried charcoal and a few other herbs to draw protection symbols on any entryways prior to me projecting. After a lot of trial and error, she was able to discover a specific way to inscribe my weapons and other objects so they can be used in the AP. By carving the same symbol onto my knives, kill-con vials, and even my watch, I am able to bring these objects with me as long as they are on my physical body. Strangely enough, I am also able to physically bring my kill-con out of the spiritual world when it is in one of the glass vials. It is an incredible impossibility on its own and I'm not sure how any of this is even possible, but I guess life is filled with endless mysteries that will never be explained.

Since I started my illustrious career as an assassin operating in the astral world, I've only gotten quicker at tracking down my targets and better at killing them. Shockingly, this isn’t the only job I have that requires me to exercise as little emotion as possible. I’ve also got to keep an entire cartel full of drugs and arms dealers on a tight leash, even when I’m out of the country feeding this half of my life.

I glance down at my watch, noticing that it's already 12:30 AM. I shuffle over to the dresser and snatch one of my burner phones off the wooden top. I quickly type in Smith’s number and hit the call button, antsy to confirm our rendezvous point at the docks. I’m ready to get this cash/kill-con exchange completed so Dani and I can go out and tie one on with our substantial lump of cash. There is this little bar right around the corner from our hotel that always seems to have a steady stream of alcoholics flowing in and out, and that is the only place I want to be right now.

"Hello Reaper. Is the job complete?" Smith asks over the phone in a cool tone that grates on my nerves. I don't particularly care for him, but I guess that doesn't say much since I don't really like anyone. He and any other clients I have only know me by the assassin name that I coined about five years ago. A mere handful of people know my real name and I’d like to keep it that way. The fewer people that know about the real me, the better off I am.

"It's done and I've got the confirmation," I respond while picking at my nails.

"Excellent. Where would you like the exchange to take place?" he inquires.

"Meet my contact at the warehouse docks in half an hour to make the trade," I propose, standing up to grab my jacket so Dani and I can head out.

"Consider it done," he agrees.

"Per our agreement, make sure you bring all of the cash in U.S. currency, pre-counted $100 bills. I'm not in the mood for sifting through anything smaller," I grumble, reminding him for my own convenience.

"Anything for you, ma cherie," he replies with a dark chuckle on the other end of the line. Hopefully this guy is smart enough to know if I check that bag of cash and there is even one single bill missing from the total amount that I am owed, I will hunt him down and kill him. There is no crevice deep enough for him to crawl into where I won’t find him once he’s asleep. I am the Reaper, and avoiding me is extremely difficult. I have very little patience when it comes to my money, so hopefully he doesn’t make me threaten him into paying me the full amount.

"I'm glad we understand one another, Smith. My contact will see you in half an hour.” I hang up the phone as Dani and I gather our purses to head into the hallway.

"So, are we going to hit up that little bar on the corner tonight after the exchange? I'm ready to get drunk then head back to Miami tomorrow morning. After being gone for six months straight, I really miss home," she states, her eyes beaming with excitement that I'm about to kill.

"I think I've got a couple more clients who need some work done in Germany and Thailand. Miami might have to wait a little longer," I carefully respond, knowing she is about to freak out on me. Dani grits her teeth and shakes her head with irritation, storming across the room and yanking the door open.

"Seriously Blair? Can you tone down the intensity with work and chill for a little while? We've been traveling and taking clients non-stop for the past six months. We need a break, and Sam can't just continue running Del Sur in your absence forever. Or hey, maybe he could if you'd just step down so we can retire already. It's not like we are hurting for money," she angrily responds and I groan.

I knew that telling her I want to take more clients was going to elicit this kind of response out of her. I love being an assassin and I thoroughly enjoy the amount of traveling that we do, but Dani does not. She is far less enthusiastic about my career choices than I am and I know that she only does all of this because I want to. She would much rather us go into very early retirement, move to a tropical island with no name, find husbands, and start popping out kids left and right. But that's not me and it won't ever be.

I don't want kids; never have and I'm sure I never will. I am far too screwed up as an individual to risk passing on my crappy genetics to another human being. I kill people for a living and I have been the head of the infamous Del Sur cartel in Miami for the past five years, so those aspects alone are enough to deter me from wanting children.

I also don't ever want to get married. I relish my ability to sleep with whomever I want whenever I want, and I think the entire institution of marriage is nothing but a waste of time. Why invest in that level of commitment when half of all marriages end in divorce anyway?

She knows all of this about me but deep down, I believe that Dani is hoping I will change my mind at some point in time even thought I know I won't. I'm not her, and those sort of attachments aren't things I want for myself. Dani has always been my polar opposite, being that she is emotional and caring with a flair for daydreaming about a perfect life with her own family. I, on the other hand, find myself to be much more of a solitary person with realistic views of the world. There isn't any part of me that yearns for life-long companionship and I've never understood the concept of being guided by sentiment. I don't care for anyone on a friend level other than Dani and Sam, and I'm definitely not attached to any man in a romantic way. I do want her to be happy, but her definition of happiness and mine differ greatly. I'm not even close to being ready to retire yet and I know that I enjoy being an assassin while discreetly leading a drug cartel far more than any normal human being should. It’s honestly enjoyable to me when it shouldn't be, and Dani knows it.

"Look, I promise I won't take any more clients for a while after Germany and Thailand are over, then we can go home to take a breather," I sigh and give her a remorseful look even though I don’t agree with her.

"Yeah, 'taking a breather' for you only means throwing yourself right back into Del Sur affairs since you never stop working and you like the chaos," she quips with annoyance as we trot down the spiral staircase.

"It’s just part of who I am, Dani. The Reaper and I are one in the same person and we can’t live separately. She’s drawn to the chaos, so I don’t have a choice but to immerse myself in it as well," I shrug as we skirt through the lobby of the bustling hotel and onto the street. The truth is, even if I could kill the Reaper and everything she stands for, I wouldn’t do it. We’ve become ingrained into one another so tightly that my existence is hers and she is mine.

The fiber of my being is a perfectly concocted, uniform solution of Blair and the angel of death.

•••

"I thought you told him to be here in half an hour..." Dani mutters with irritation over the phone.

"Haven't you ever heard of the saying 'patience is a virtue'?" I dryly respond.

"Oh that's rich coming from you, the queen of impatience," she scoffs as I roll my eyes and settle into my cushioned chair. I stare down at Dani on the concrete docks from the dusty second floor window of an abandoned warehouse, keeping a close eye on her from afar. Anytime we make a kill-con/money exchange after a successful mission, Dani is my physical representation. It's too risky for me to expose myself to any clientele and I aim to keep my appearance a mystery, so I only interact with clients over the phone. People hire me, but they do so through Dani so no one really knows what the Reaper looks like. Only two people alive and countless dead know that Blair Windsor is the Reaper.

My eyes flicker to the right when I observe Smith in a button down suit, alone, and heading in Dani's direction. I smile when I see that he is carrying a black leather suitcase through the sporadically lit streetlights because I know it's got our money in it. Dani turns to face him and instinctively places the phone on speaker for me to do most of the talking.

"It's such a lovely evening, wouldn't you agree?" Smith casually mentions into the receiver while I watch from afar.

"Why don't we bypass all of the formalities, Smith? I'll give you what you need and you hand my contact the cash for counting," I reply through the phone. Smith huffs slightly as he and Dani exchange the glass vial containing a bloody lock of Jack's hair and a suitcase full of money in unison. Smith withdraws a flashlight from his pocket and shines it into the vial, carefully observing its contents.

"I have to admit I was a little skeptical when you were initially recommended to me by a fellow business partner, but you do not disappoint," he murmurs with a grin as Dani pulls a currency counter out of her backpack.

"Well, you don't earn my kind of reputation unless you deliver results.” I watch as Dani opens the suitcase and begins loading cash onto the counter. Smith nods his head and smirks, shoving the glass vial into his back pocket.

"What would you say if I told you that I've got a business contract you might be interested in?" Smith casually asks.

"I'd tell you that I don't do contracts. I take singular deals with no commitments, you've known that from the beginning," I retort. I never take contracts with clientele because engaging in that level of business leaves too many loose ends. It opens the floor for temporary employers to become a little too nosy about my identity and I can't risk any of the slip-ups that go along with being comfortable.

"What if it's an offer you can't refuse?" he ponders aloud as Dani finishes up counting the currency. She locks the suitcase and glances up at the window, giving me a little nod to let me know that all of the cash has been accounted for.

"There is no offer I can't refuse. It was a pleasure doing business with you, but this is where our relations end," I reply while standing up from my chair.

"Fifteen million for two targets." My eyes widen and I stare out the window at Dani as she straightens herself out with the phone still in her hand.

"Holy shit..." I hear her whisper over the receiver before clearing her throat.

"Fifteen million dollars for two people? Are you insane?" I demand while doing some quick mental math. That's 7.5 mil per head and exactly 30 times more money than the mere quarter million I just made off of Jack. I've never been offered this much money to kill anyone so whoever these targets are, they must be extremely important to warrant that kind of bounty.

"Yes, you heard me correctly. The price is fifteen million cash for two targets, but time is of the essence and I need your decision now. If you turn down the offer, I've already got someone else lined up who would love the opportunity," he replies as I hear Dani sigh. She already knows that I won't say no to an offer this large. Killing both of them would be the cash equivalent of taking out 30 individual people and it would be stupid to refuse, even if it is a contractual deal.

"Where are the targets located?" I anxiously pace back and forth in front of the window, waiting for his response. I watch him withdraw a folded manila envelope from his back pocket and hand it to Dani.

"They are located in Cartagena, Colombia. Everything you need is in that envelope and the flight leaves in four hours," he adds as Dani opens the package and begins sifting through it.

"Fine…we have a deal," I respond through closed eyes. I’m silently wondering whether or not this is a huge mistake.

"Great! Once the targets are eliminated and you've got the kill-cons, you know what to do," he beams before nodding at Dani and walking back in the direction he came from. As soon as he is out of sight, Dani's hand shoots into the air while holding up a picture that I can't make out from this distance.

"Hot damn, B. Get your ass down here and take a look at this," she loudly declares as I make my way towards the stairwell.

"What is it?" I inquire while casually trotting down the steps.

"Let's just say you certainly won't be wanting to kill one of them," she replies with a dreamy sigh.