She dropped the weapon down, next to the body and sat at the edge of the bed to relax.
She started laughing at herself slowly and the indifferent laughter grew louder. She couldn't believe that for five years she has been living in darkness, being used as a puppet to take other people's lives ruthlessly for money, as if it was a normal thing to do.
"So, my name is Ishtar....!"
Speaking from hurting to herself, she exhaled heavily in disbelief and added:
"... a sales expert who can convince a man to wear a lady's g-string for a full month and he does...!"
She sighed a curse:
"Dammit!"
Blood stained her face, hands and blouse. All alone inside a hidden lone house within the woods, she swung her legs off the floor and laid on the bed straight on her back, staring at the ceiling. This time, Ishtar was drowned in a heap of tormenting thoughts.
After all, she had a lot of unfinished business to attend to.
Since she had no police to worry about that could come to investigate a grown-up man's death who chose to disconnect himself from the outside world for very many years, Ishtar stayed calm for the three hours which were remaining for the day to dawn.
Three hours later, light of dawn crept through the ventilators. With a yawn, Ishtar rubbed sleep off her eyes, swung her legs over the side of the bed and let out a soft sigh.
"Dammit!"
Mr Beard's body was still laying down on the floor in its own flood of blood. Ishtar grabbed bedsheets off the bed and carefully laid them on the side of the body. Then, she rolled the body onto the sheets and wrapped it in, fully. After that, with her feminine strength, Ishtar started dragging the corpse out of the house, tirelessly through the thick woods upto the grave in which she was going to be buried the day Mr Beard fished her out of a rough river half dead.
"You saved my ass from dying that day. Now I save yours from rotting on the surface like you have no good deeds."
Grimacing slightly, she pushed the body into the grave.
But then, Ishtar had a feeling that something wasn't quite right. She shifted all her senses on the alert for danger. Wolves had smelt blood and in the thick woods, they had their gaze fixed on the trace ready to attack.
Fierce Ishtar stood her ground against a pack of these ravenous wolves. Every breath she took, clouds formed in the cool air. Under the tree was a hard wooden stick. She gripped it. The wolves circled her, their eyes gleaming with hunger as they lowly growled. But she had fierce determination. With a sudden roar, she charged forward. The first wolf jumped at her but she sidestepped with grace, thrusting her weapon into its side. The howl of pain echoed through the forest, yet the remaining wolves pressed on, undeterred.
Ishtar knew the forest so well; it was her home. The wolves, though coordinated and fierce, began to sense her relentless spirit as she fought not just for her life, but to save Mr Beard's body which she had just dropped in the grave.
As the wolves took off, leaving her standing, breathing heavily but victorious, the forest became silent with only the quiet rustle of the leaves. In that moment, Ishtar knew that it was the spirit of the forest that empowered her to get to the top of such a deadly battle.
Back to setting Mr Beard's soul off, she stood and humbled herself in terribly torn outfits.
In a brief prayer she said:
"When you luckily happen to enter heaven gates, remember to tell the bees that you've got a friend who loves honey so much so they can make much more."
She added:
"And if you go to hell, then pay for my sins too because you made me a sinner."
Despite their differences that made her kill him, Ishtar still carried some respect for Mr Beard. Suddenly, a thunderstorm warned up in the skies and immediately it started raining heavily. However, the heavy rains did not stop Ishtar from finishing the burial. One spade after the other, she took quite a while pouring soil in the grave until it filled up. Then, she gothered a few rock stones from around and placed them to sorround the grave, adding a little bit of decor.
*****
At a prison camp for army deserters, Mr Beard escaped and survived being executed with more than 100 other soldiers. After hearing orders of finding and capturing him before he could reveal vital information to the state enemies, he detached from any kind of modern technology and decided to get lost, far away in the thick forest, where he set up a house which was very similar to a hill. All over this house, he planted a green vegetation, making it more difficult to be recognized. The house was his safe heaven where he settled and started a new life.
But he had a daughter he loved so much and couldn't stand to miss forever. One day, he disguised back to the bustling city. He went to his daughter's school to pay a visit. And as he was interacting with her, an idea crossed his mind.
"If I continue visiting my daughter like this, the army will find out and I will get captured."
Mr Beard's daughter was only seven years old when he managed to run away with her. From then, while living a free life with his little girl in the middle of the forest, Mr Beard started training her, giving her all the tactics he learned in the army. The training went on for years and when she turned twenty years of age, she was a perfect killing machine.
Mr Beard, being a high rank officer before he deserted, he knew a lot of inner army secrets and deals. Using the information he had, Mr Beard together with his beloved daughter started raided and stealing equipments from army trucks. They robbed from wealthy army officials off their dirty money that couldn't be kept in banks, including treasures like fine art pieces, pure diamond stones and gold bars.
In one of the missions, he traced down a high rank official who had an assignment to find all deserters. When Mr Beard and his daughter ended the man's life, news satulated praising the killers to be super professional. People were happy for the death of this man because he was known to be very corrupt. Of course, after watching the news with his daughter, Mr Beard got an idea. Using a high tech satellite divice he stole from one of the army tracks, he created a website and named it "assassin for hire".
Big deals started coming in and her daughter executed them very well. But, since he didn't want to attach himself to modern technology to minimise risks of being traced, he never had a bank account. Thus, each and every mission conducted, payments were made in cash.
Unfortunately, his daughter ended up having brutal consequences that stole her life away in the middle of a mission.
******
Under a little rain, Ishtar saluted Mr Beard's grave before she found her way back to the hill like shelter. While inside, she opened and displayed all the twenty duffel bags of cash including the case which contained diamond stones and gold bars. At least each duffel bags contained a million bucks.
Talking tough and cruel, Ishtar dangerously declared:
"Bob Lee and Nadia Browne, I am coming for you. And as for you Pixie and your vicious parents.... you have placed yourselves in grave danger for taking my three years old kid away from me!"