#109 A Flash of Vengeance

by Lucian Baboi

She would come to kill him.

On the edge of a silent pond, on a starless night, with a silvery crescent above. She would come to kill him, and he deserved no less.

A ripple slithered across the pool’s still surface. Then the tip of her blade emerged from the deep, inch by agonizingly slow inch, with the moon’s silver flickering off it.

Waves of doubt and fear spread through his chest. The debt had to be paid he knew. She would never stop. Vengeance’s hunger had to be sated, but it had seemed so simple and easy before he had arrived at her woodsy altar. His clammy fingers clutched around cold, reassuring steel as the sallow hand holding the blade broke the surface. He gasped at the icy air while her pale, naked figure rose from the black depths.

He held his breath and she waited—dripping and bare foot on the surface of the water, until the pond grew still again. Screaming faces and the deaths he had caused danced in front of his eyes.

She strolled forward with muted steps that made no ripples—hair dark as death, sword limp against her white thigh. She stopped five feet away and watched him with eyes of ice. Revenge would have him die. It was justice, it was right, and it was not fair. He brought up the gun he clutched and aimed at Revenge.

She had come to kill him, and he had come to kill her.