As he fell, I felt bad but just for a moment. At the time I brushed it off as ridiculous but now looking back I understand. Back then, all those years ago, I may have known a lot but now, now I understand more.
He was just a child. When I first saw him, I thought he must be at least twenty-three. His hair looked messy with the confidence of age, his clothing was formal, but he was relaxed with the comfort I believed no child could feign. In his gait there was neither the exuberance of youth nor the hesitance of old age.
I should have seen it as soon as he walked in. It wasn't until he came near that I saw.
His hair was a façade; the mess was styled to perfection.
His clothing a second skin, neither hated nor liked, simply worn as a disguise.
His gait, that perfect gait that said he was an aristocrat of age, that gait was dictated by practice and discipline not age.
He was a just child. He is my one regret. My last burden which I divulge only to you at this my last hour.
Even in my regret I know the truth I had to do it. Even now looking back at it in my mind's eye I can see the truth in his eyes.
The coldness of his eyes, they knew not warmth or loyalty.
The darkness swirling, it snuffed out all hope or care.
All that was in those steel blue eyes was contempt, cynicism, and boredom. It was like looking into a void that knew not the worth of humanity.
When I held his hand I felt his coldness, felt his darkness wrap my hand. He was so young, too young to die but I had to kill him. In his eyes there was only darkness and cold intelligence. I believed he killed to try and feel but that he never could feel. All assassinations provided him with were challenges and distractions. I knew it then and I understand it now killing for missions was a distraction that was losing its potency.
I am spiraling and jumping around, not a proper way to write a final confession. Let me start from the beginning.
I don't look like it now, but I once was a spy and an assassin. I know what you are thinking, a woman being a spy and assassin in the seventeen hundreds, it cannot be true and never would have happened. But it's true; how I wish it weren't true but even at the end we cannot always have our wish. To be accurate, I mean I wish the assassin part was a lie, the spying was actually quite fun. At one time I was one of the Organization's top assassins because no one would ever suspect a woman of anything. I thought I was so innocent and pure. I thought I was so different from Michale McBride the monster. Pft the only thing I ever truly was, was dangerously naïve. I was naïve of the darkness inside of me. Naïve to think there were such things as righteous kills that don't stain your soul. I was naïve thinking that, that child was evil while I was good. In my mind he was the black sorcerer while I was the white knight and the fair maiden all wrapped up in one; oh how wrong I was.
But once more I am drifting. Let me focus back to my story, my last burden to unload before I go.
Boss, he must have had a name at some point but all I ever knew him as was Boss. Boss called me into his office and handed me a red file. I loathe myself for it, but I must now admit as part of my confession that I always enjoyed receiving red files for to me they meant a dragon to slay. I opened the file feeling heroic as I read the reports telling me all I needed to know of Michale McBride the traitor. Michale had become bored with the Organization's missions and so was using his underworld fame to seek jobs from anyone who offered him a challenge and coin not caring if the job came from the good guys or the bad. I believed then that such a thing as good guys existed. Back then I felt justified as if I was even better because I tried to save Michale by asking Boss if the Organization couldn't just give him more challenging missions to quell his boredom instead of killing him. I believed Boss was in the right after he explained Michale's story and that I would be serving the greater good by killing him. Boss explained that he himself had recruited Michale off of the streets where he had been living since, he was five years old as a pickpocket. He told me how Michale hadn't even ever bothered to learn his savior's name. I felt so appalled by hearing this I couldn't believe anyone could be so cold as to not care about learning something as simple as a name; I was blind to my own hypocrisy. As Boss continued his story speaking of Michale's kills and hobbies, I became more and more convinced that Michale was indeed a dragon in need of slaying. Michale was obviously a sociopath with no respect for humans or any concept of what is right or wrong.
Now I realize that while everything Boss said was true, he crafted the story just for me playing on who I believed myself to be to shape my opinion of the man I would be sent to kill. Now I realize that my thoughts were hypocritical as much of what Boss said could be applied to me. Now I recognize Boss's blatant manipulation hiding the true timeline of his rescue of Michale. Now I realize that all I ever was, was a dragon sent by monsters to kill dragons. I take solace in the knowledge that in the process I may have saved some innocents, but a world ruled from the shadows by monsters was never the world in which I believed I lived. Back then I saw the world through rose-colored glasses of naivety but now I see the truth and I am horrified.
The night Michale died I stepped from my carriage adorned in my favorite blood red dress and sparkling jewels feeling like a savior. The moment I stepped into the Edmund's ballroom with its sparkling chandeliers and huge windows I was swept away by giggling peers and flirting suitors doomed to spend the night with these frivolous Others, unable to kill them though it would be as easy as swatting a fly. I was such a fool. I believed no darkness lived within me yet even a brilliant evening full of music a people brought me only the desire to kill.
I saw him the moment he stepped through the ballroom doors with a giggling Other hanging off of his arm. I wished I could run up to him and simply ask him to dance so that the night may end but it was impossible. A disadvantage of being a female spy, it would have been improper for a lady to approach a gentleman, so I had to wait for the target to introduce himself first at fancy events. This night it was even worse as normally I could hover near my target eavesdropping for information to aid in my infiltration but tonight with the thrill of the hunt flooding my veins I had to wait for an invitation to dance.
I turned away many a suitor that night. Afterwards Boss was quite cross with me as apparently, I managed to damage the reputation of that specific alias. Rumors spread of her being haughty and unapproachable damaging her future invitation prospects. I didn't want to risk missing any opportunities to dance with Michale. I believed he would favor socializing in groups to breaking off into dances. When he entered and began flirting, socializing, and dancing I thought I perhaps was wrong identifying him as my target until I caught his eye. About half-way through the night, I saw him see me and for just a moment he froze and the facade seemed disharmonious with the room for just a beat of the music. I thought maybe I imagined the slip as I watch him spin with his dance partner across the floor the perfect image of a young aristocrat, but as I fidget with my pocket watch making sure the needle is still securely in place I feel his eyes staying on me and my eyes lock on his. It was my first glimpse of the dark, cold, void that I still believe lived inside of him. I met and held his gaze unafraid of what I saw and no longer fooled by the facade of civility. I held my spot in my social circle listening to the chiming of the hours, the changes of the music, and watching Michale get swept away in dance after dance. At the start of each dance, he would be carried away from me but at the end of each dance he would end closer to the group in which I stood.
I still don't know why he approached me as I have since read the file of his last mission; he was never given a description of me or even told he was looking for a woman Boss only gave him my name. I sometimes wonder if maybe Boss did care a little for that orphan child he had pulled off the streets and tried to give Michale some chance of surviving. I will never know the answer to that particular curiosity.
The clock struck two in the morning. The last dance of the evening and for a moment I thought killing Michale may not happen during a dance. I began plotting maybe I could bump into him while we were all exiting and collecting our coats in the atrium but then he was in front of me asking me for a dance. That was when I began realizing something was wrong.
"Aldwyn Blaxton at your service Ma'am," He smiled at me before bowing.
I didn't understand why he didn't give his real name. I didn't know he hadn't been told who he was looking for. I brushed off my confusion and introduced myself as Delaney. For just a moment something akin to unease slipped through his gaze but I ignored it as he held out his hand inviting me to dance, I accepted confirming his identity by calling him by his true name, McBride. When I placed my hand in his it was cold against my warm skin, and I felt a chill go through me as though the darkness in him wrapped itself around me. I did it then. I killed him. When we settled into the first steps of the dance, I got my first real look at him and saw it. He was just a child. Back then I knew he didn't look twenty-three but didn't understand what that meant or how old he truly was.
We settled into the dance, and I can still clearly hear his question. The final blow that led me to question everything. "So, Delaney, what information do you have for me?" He asked me as though I was an informant and not his executioner. I didn't understand. My lips parted to ask but the dance interrupted me separating us in the first partner change and I knew it was too late. Michale would not answer my questions.
I watched him watching me through the first steps after the change. I watched him feel the first effects of the poison. I watched him change partners and I watched him realize. I watched him struggle against the inevitability as he swayed through the steps changing partners again and again. For a moment I worried he would make it back to me. For a moment it looked like he might. For a moment I considered breaking free of the dance and making a scene but before I did, I watched him fall and his partner scream. I thought I heard the word justice on his lips, and I didn't understand then. I understand now. I am no longer sure I heard him speak but if I did, I understand the Justice he meant. Tonight is not justice. I am not dying as I killed. I am dying old and alone as free as a woman with my memories can be.
That night I brushed off the unease, the confusion, the discrepancies but that night still changed me. The red folder holding Michale McBride's information was the last folder I ever held without feeling a quiet tingle of unease. That was the start of me finding the path to understanding.
Years later Michale McBride became the last trigger that opened my eyes to the real world. My unease built as little things continued to not quite add up and along with it my curiosity built as I continued to hear the name of Michale McBride in underground circles as if he were still the boogey man. One day after a last mission where something felt wrong my curiosity won, I stole Michale McBride's full file from records because I wanted to know why that night changed something in me. At first as I started reading, I thought I stole the wrong file because there were kills listed for Michale McBride past that twenty-second of December so many years before. When I finished reading his file I finally fully understood. I was forced to understand that Michale McBride was sixteen years old that day. A child. A child Boss turned into a killer at six years old. When Boss said he rescued Michale off the streets Boss made it sound like Michale had started pickpocketing at five and then done it for many years before Boss found Michale. That was a manipulation of wording. Michale only picked pockets for a year before Boss pulled him off the streets at six years old. Boss then trained him for a year giving Michael prisoner after prisoner to finish off before sending him on his first solo assassination mission at seven years old. Boss not only created a cold-blooded killer but erased the evidence that he lost control of his pet. Listed in Michale McBride's file is a report stating that on that fateful twenty-second of December he successfully traded intelligence with Delaney and assassinated one Aldwyn Blaxton. The most brutal of the kills I made after that night are listed in Michale McBride's file as his kills. Boss kept his greatest success alive as a ghost in the paperwork and used my most horrendous kills to do it. Without my knowledge I became Michale McBride.
I urge you whomever finds this letter and reads it to evaluate what you believe. Remove the rose-colored glasses before it is too late. I now look in the mirror and see the evil dragon I once thought I fought against. See the world for what it truly is while you can still become the hero you wish to be. My regrets are released to you.
I wish you the best,
Morrigan Dougal
(A woman who once was known as Delaney)