Sun Li moved with the unconcious grace of the young as she darted through the marketplace. People thronged around her, moving with quick steps or the easy stroll of those with nothing better to do. It was a Friday morning and the fishermen had returned with nets and cages full of tasty fish and the tender sweet kelp that Sun Li liked so much. All around her was bustle and the loud buzz of a thousand conversations rising on the sea air at once.
She could hear at least a half a dozen languages as the crowd flowed around her. English, German, and Chinese being the most widely spoken here on the wharf of San Francisco. Luckily she spoke and understood both chinese and english although her uncle had ordered that german be forgone in her education. She wondered briefly if she could coerce some fisherman to teach her.
Not right now, she chastised herself. You have a job to do today, Sun Li. Uncle would be very upset if she failed in her set task.
She tore her attention away from the mass of humanity hawking and buying various foodstuffs in the late afternoon sunshine and refixed it on her mission.
For a brief second she feared that she had lost the woman she was supposed to be following. But the flash of the woman's bright green chenogsam caught her eye. The elder's greying head was bent close to the weathered face of a ship's captain as they poked through a basket of clams and dickered over the price.
Sun Li drifted nearer. She could now hear their voices as they argued back and forth. The woman's low respectful tone could not disguise her hard won confidence when dealing with underlings. She used her eyes and hands to convey to the man that she held the power in this interaction. Sun Li was impressed by the woman's grace and assurance.
The woman finished her dealings with the fisherman and motioned her manservant to come forward and take charge of the packages. The large, muscle bound man was actually a bodyguard provided by the woman's son, a partner of Sun Li's Uncle Chee. This man had been assigned to the woman for several weeks now and Sun Li had become familiar with his ways.
His name was Phan and he was competent but no more than that. He accompanied the woman whenever she left the home of her son and provided protection from the rampant street crime that was a trademark of San Francisco. Inside the home he served as a manservant to her every need. According to all of Chee's information the woman didn't abuse the man and only used him sparingly as a butler type. This spoke well of the woman to Sun Li.
The woman moved through the crowds with her head held regally high. Pride kept her spine straight and her movements brisk and efficient. Sun Li wondered if the aged lady knew what her son did for a living.
Ning had a fiercely maintained reputation as a respected man of business that covered his real profession of drug magnate. Ning and her uncle had been partners ever since they'd emigrated from China. The long boat trip had forged a long lasting friendship that flowered into a profitable partnership once they landed in California. Chee and Ning controlled a large amount of the drug trade in San Fran and also policed the small time men that worked the prostitution and gambling rackets.
His mother probably wanted to believe that he was what he purported to be... a shipping magnate.
Poor woman, Sun Li thought as she followed in the wake of her target and her bodyguard. She had no idea that her every move was watched and recorded by Chee in the event of Ning trying to overthrow the traces of Chee's control.
She trailed after them as they moved through the eddying crowd on the docks. They entered a coach and the bodyguard carefully packed the woman's purchases on top of the well constructed buggy and then climbed into the driver's seat to shake out the traces and cluck the horses into the flow of traffic. The only way they could move was slowly. The throng of humanity made quickness impossible.
With a negligent grace and strength Sun Li hopped onto the running board of the buggy and balanced there. No one even glanced at her as she was dressed as a young boy in short pants and a simple shirt with silken ties and no shoes. Most probably assumed she was a child of the woman inside the moving box, as it was common for said children to ride on the back rather than inside the stuffy box.
They passed out of the wharf district and picked up speed on the cobblestoned streets. Sun Li held on easily as the buggy rattled over the bricks and potholes. She cursed the setting sun as it shone in her eyes and blinded her briefly as they pulled up in front of the townhouse owned by Ning. She hopped off the running board and secreted herself in the bushes that lined the low, crumbling wall that marked the beginning of the yard.
The bodyguard aided the woman out of the buggy and into the house with a large gentle arm that offered balance rather than suggested weakness. He came back to the surry and climbed up to take it around to the stable. Sun Li lept back to her spot on the back and waited.
What she was about to do was by the orders of her uncle, but that didn't make it rest any easier upon her soul. She was honor bound to obey every request Chee made of her. He had taken her in, fed her, clothed her, educated her after the death of her mother when Sun Li was a babe. Chee had taken her into his home and made her a part of his family, such as it was.
Her earliest memories were not of her uncle but of the women he housed in a spacious wing of his sprawling mansion. Those women had raised her, taught her all she knew and depended on her now to prove that they had not wasted their time and effort. Their fate rested upon her narrow shoulders for if she failed tonight Chee would take out his anger and disappoinment on her teachers.
Through instincutal scuttling she managed to avoid the bodyguard's attention while he removed the horses from their traces and tended them. His breathing seemed very loud next to the huffing of the animals and the rustle of straw. Sun Li crouched in the stall next to where he worked with his huge hands. Hands that could and would crush her throat if he knew she was there.
She listened carefully and moved when the inevitable noises of the grooming would cover the slight sounds of her gliding movements.
When he crouched down to lift the horse's leg and peer at its hoof she leapt upon him. For only a second she felt his breath shudder through his chest, his heart suddenly pick up speed. Then her right hand came over his shoulder and the sharp curved blade held in her fingers swiftly severed the man's throat.
She did not loose her grip on his massive form as he half stood before collasping under her lithe body. The chestnut horse snorted and reared away from the sudden coppery smell of blood as it rushed from the man's neck, pushed out of the wound by the whoosh of air that was his last breath.
Sun Li lifted herself from the rapidly emptying body and stepped over the pool of blood that looked black in the lantern light. She made clucking noises and lifted her empty hand to touch the animal's muzzle. It calmed as she stroked it and spoke to it softly in Mandarin. Eventually it allowed itself to be led carefully over the prone body of it's groom and into another empty stall.
With coldly efficient eyes Sun Li scanned the stable for any sign of her presence. Not finding any she knelt and placed her fingers upon the man's throat. Feeling no pulse she nodded in satisfaction and left the body to cool in the salt laden breeze that managed to find it's way even this deep into the heart of the city.
The back door of the house had been left unlocked for the bodyguard and Sun Li found entrance easy to obtain. No one was in the kitchen although a fire burned and tea had been set out on the counter. Likely the woman had gone to her rooms to change out of her formal clothing and refresh herself as was her custom.
Moving without haste, Sun Li ensured that there was no one else in the house and proceeded upstairs to the lady's quarters. The house was well built but the stairs still creaked a but under even her light tread.
"Phan? That was quick. You must have cut short your conversation with the horses this evening..." the woman's voice reached Sun Li as she approached the open door of her suite. "Did you put the fish in the ice room? I'd hate for them to go bad when we had such fun getting them."
"I'm afraid the fish will go bad, mother of Ning."
The woman's eyes went wide as she spun to see who the unknown voice belonged to. The almost undetectable fear in her dark gaze disappeared instantly when she saw the child who stood in her bedroom.
"Who are you, missy?" She looked at the clothes and short hair of the girl before her, but wasn't fooled into thinking she was a boy. "Where is Phan?"
There was a flash of horror in the girl's unique jade colored eyes then once again they were cold and clear.
"He is dead, honored mother."
Before she could accept the shock those words summoned the girl had moved quicker than the woman thought possible. She now stood uncomfortably close and now she could see the cunning purpose in those tilted eyes that belonged not to a child of pure blood but to a bastard mating of chinese and something else.
The woman found her eyes drawn to the young one's hand. Held loosely in her fingers was a long spike made of steel with a flat end that fit snugly in the girl's palm and a wikedly sharp end that extended several inches between the clenched fingers of her fist. She gasped and stared back up into the child's face. She found no emotion there, just cool, intelligent purpose.
"Are you a demon?" Even sudden terror could not destroy this woman's grace and Sun Li felt her respect growing with every second.
"No, honored mother, I am Death."
The steel spike moved with lightning speed. The woman had no chance to even fully take another breath before the cold length of metal buried itself in her ear. She fell back, onto the bed, her vision filled with the sight of the achingly young assasin who had killed her. Those alien green eyes burned into her and sent her on her way out of this world and her last fuzzy thought was that she didn't even know why she had to die.
Sun Li reported back to her uncle with in an hour of the deaths of Ning's mother and her guard. She stood before the dimunitive man to whom she owed her very existence and recited every word the woman had said to even the lowliest vendor on the wharfs and dictated the means of her murder. Afterward, she stood silently as she awaited her uncle's decree.
"Excellent, Sun Li." Chee's small black eyes fairly twinkled with high spirits. "You have done well, exactly as I have asked. Return to the Women and continue with your studies. The next time I call on you I expect the same efficiency and success."
Sun Li bowed deeply and kept her eyes respectfully lowered.
"Yes, Uncle. I await your word."
She was eleven years old.