date: january 15, 2013. status: closed for @ofcastora. location: late afternoon, the third floor of a montague-owned penthouse.
Death, Boris thinks, makes his brain rewire itself. All other thoughts shift an inch out of place to instead focus at the task at hand: he’s always been better with words, and he’s a decent shot, but there have been so many mishaps and mercy-killings and blood stains to clean up over the years that when Damiano specifies that he wants someone erased from the world of the living entirely, well... he can’t help the nervous buzz. It’s one of his many fatal flaws: give him a crowd, and he’ll write them all poetry. Give him a gun? He can muster together a sonnet, but it’s not quite as flowery as his other works.
It’s with this sense of thrumming anxiety that he waits for the initiate he’s been assigned to babysit: not in the most official capacity, obviously, but the verbiage had more or less been keep an eye on her. Castora Aguilar is eighteen, wary to the ways of the Montagues but not disinterested in their methods, and seems to have a few notions spinning around in her head as to just how quickly she’ll rise through the ranks. He’s waiting on her now to arrive from the lobby with the keys to the flat, perpetually unoccupied. When they open the door they’ll find nothing but a rifle left behind by some other lackey, some bottles of water, and a camera to confirm when the deed is done. This afternoon, he’ll be wielding the camera. He cannot help but feel grateful for it. Taking a life is no small burden, besides.
There, across the street from the window of the flat Boris is waiting outside, sitting in the lobby and enjoying his early cup of espresso, is the man Castora is going to kill today. Boris might not like her much for the sake of her tendency to chatter, but if he’s intent on ensuring anything this morning, it’s that she’ll succeed. It flatters them both to do well, especially on tasks like this, when Damiano has insisted that the death be public and gruesome. Carleo -- no first name given, tall and reedy with a beard that looks like it’s been glued to his chin -- will have his brains splattered on the floor of that little cafe he so greatly adores before noon. The crowd will exit, and his little mob of buffoons that trail after him like hounds will find their leading man dead, effectively crushing whatever rebellion they’d been trying to incite among the ranks of the Montagues in a matter of moments. Boris checks his watch. They have a little over an hour to see this through. The elevator bell rings, and he lifts his head to see Castora step out. No one exits with her. It’s just the two of them in the hallway. He nods at her, only speaking once she’s close enough that he doesn’t have to shout: “Did you get the keys?”
That had been her first task of the day. Not nearly as daunting as the second, Boris supposes.
