Panade: A dagger

Pericardium: The double baglike fold of serous membrane that encloses the heart

Cerebrifugal: The nerve fibers that go from the brain to the spinal cord and so transfer cerebral impulses; centrifugal impressions outwards

—–

You are a spasm on the face of the night; silently lithe, an oil slick seeping amongst rocks, ready to smother the wings of any birds you may encounter.

The guard’s cigarette burns brilliantly, a satirical star. You imagine the smoke curling in his lungs like old receipts in the bottom of a paper bag. A slow death. The light recedes, migrating, burning down until his lips are dully illuminated. You make sure the blood that spills from his lips extinguishes the nub. A gurgle of claret, a gushing waterfall, thick, sticky iron-rich plasma oozing like ketchup. You are the vampire bat; you are metal of fang.

Quick feet, a cat’s paws, every step a gracefully uncoiling spring. You ignore the paintings that hang from the walls, faces from history flashing past. You wonder if they approve of your task. They can’t judge you now. You melt into the shadows as two sets of footsteps stomp past. Right on time.

You know the floor plan; you know the number of steps on any given staircase; you know precisely where to stand in his room so that the silvery crescent of moonlight that slips between his curtains won’t fall on so much as a little toe.

Steady breaths, one staircase, then another, twisting, turning. You are Theseus pursuing the Minotaur, unspooling a reel of memorized directions.

Beneath the thin woolen mask that covers your face, beads of sweat start to form. You’re getting hot. You’re getting closer. You run over the plan once again…

Slip past the guards, removing their lives if necessary (you wonder whether any life is necessary, you chalk it up to collateral damage, you chalk it up to fun). Infiltrate his room, approach his bed then unsheathe your metal fang; the thin sliver of the panade, beautiful and deadly, a lone truth amongst the encroaching dark. You will slip the blade quickly into his pericardium – splitting the muscle in two. Then you will hold your hand over his mouth until the very last cerebrifugal pulse has faded from the spinal cord…

You’re standing outside his door, thick and wooden, a gloriously textured oak. The varnish stings your nostrils and your eyes spill a sudden film of tears that you quickly blink away.

You slip inside, an undetectable insect. Heavy breaths roll in like fog. You imagine the heady thud of your heartbeat acts like a bat’s squeals, your target caught amongst a net of sounds bouncing in the night.

Sleeping flags hang limply, the verdant reds, whites and blacks now a muted slurry of burgundy and grey, their iconography familiar, repellant.

You stand over his bed, his lumpy form already silent as a corpse, stiller than you expected. You unsheathe the panade and stab, stab, stab, stab, stab – all decorum consumed by a sudden intoxicating miasma. He doesn’t bleed at all…

And then, it is done.

Panting, you wipe a fleck of spittle from your lips, ‘Auf Wiedersehen Mein Fuhrer…’

You feel the cold, hard cigarette butt of a gun press into your back. You realize that, of course, he would have bled. Everyone bleeds. Even you. The gun dully illuminates and you melt into the shadows.