EXCERPT #1
The sun shone like a beacon in the brilliant blue sky, casting shimmering rays of light that made everything on the café patio appear vibrant. Mulched areas around the patio boasted pockets of colorful flowers. Carefully placed trees lent their shade to tables on the outskirts of the dining area. The setting was picture-perfect, as if it had captured life in full bloom.

A dark-featured, handsome man in a sleek business suit smiled wolfishly. He stood up from his seat at the outdoor café table and shook hands with the short, overweight, balding man standing across from him. The handsome man’s smile faltered and his features fell slack as a bullet ripped out of his forehead and sprayed blood all over his lunch companion’s face. 

The short man sputtered, backing away from the scene. He stumbled into a nearby table, knocking over drinks as he tried to regain his balance. Diners around him stopped talking to gawk, while others looked in shock at the spilled spaghetti dinner that was the other man’s forehead. The balding man’s ruddy face went pale, and tiny droplets of cold sweat coated his face as comprehension clicked. Baldy stood frozen for a few precious seconds. Maybe baldy thought the hit was complete. Maybe terror was replaced by hope. Maybe he thought he could outrun the next bullet. Whatever the fleeting thought was, baldy snapped out of his stillness, turned, and ran. 

His movements were jerky and uncoordinated. It looked like he was trying to rev his out-of-shape body from zero to sixty miles per hour, and his current configuration wouldn’t allow it. He made it exactly four steps before a bullet pierced the back of his skull, adding to his forward momentum and throwing him to the ground like a limp, overstuffed doll. The diners, who hadn’t screamed at the initial hit, finally seemed to realize what was happening. They howled and ran for their lives almost in unison.

Wow. Whoever the operator was on this job was a special kind of sick bastard. Instead of putting a bullet in the first target and immediately moving to the second, he (or she, because girls can be messed up too) waited a couple of seconds. It’s like the sniper wanted to give baldy time for the dark realization to dawn that he was going to die. Someone definitely missed out on a few hugs as a child.

With sick fascination, I changed the scene I was viewing on Horus. I captured the reflection of a single, squinting, green eye looking into a high-powered rifle scope. As if the eye saw me back, it jerked away and its owner snapped the scope cover shut. This eye was new. I’d have to keep an “eye” on it in the future. I chuckled at my pun, then sighed. I needed to get out more.

I often watched the assassinations on a wall-sized plate of tinted glass I’d nick-named “Horus.” The name had Egyptian roots. It referred to what people now knew as the All-Seeing Eye. The nickname kept me from accidentally giving away my little secret. They said clothes made the man, but it had been my experience that careful habits made the man. Horus was my “source,” and I was an information broker, of sorts. It rolled off the tongue to say I needed to check with “Horus.” And people assumed Horus was the name of my contact or a cover name for my network of contacts. Honestly, that wasn’t too far from the truth.

I switched the view back to the outdoor patio scene and watched the remaining diners scatter like gazelles. I had no qualms about enabling the deaths of those men. They’d sown enough evil to earn their bloody ending several times over.

A moral compass was important when wielding the type of power I had, or at least that’s what I told myself. I refused to deliberately use my gift against people unless they had proven their guilt. Work of this nature usually waded in the waters of moral ambiguity and often swam out to the depths of moral depravity. I’d learned that lesson the hard way, so I was unbending when it came to rules. I did have a half-depleted case of scotch in the pantry, just in case the lines became “grayer” than usual while I was working a job. But my regular clients usually toed the line, or at least lied convincingly. 

EXCERPT #2
As I drew closer, I heard fighting. I peeked around the corner. Both April and the intruder were on the floor. The assailant, while obviously strong, was struggling to keep April’s head and neck in a sleeper-hold. It looked like he was trying to crush her neck. Not a bad choice—no blood, no noise. I think he’d expected no struggle as well, but that clearly hadn’t panned out. April slid her hands underneath his forearm, giving her a chance to gasp some air. She was wriggling like a worm on a hook. I took a deep breath. It was now or never.

I stepped around the corner, gun extended.

“Freeze, Scumbag!”

I immediately regretted my word choice—I definitely lost a few cool points with that verbal gem. I may have even winced. On the bright side, I brandished my pistol without tossing it to the ground. My victory was brief. In one fluid move, the intruder rolled to his side, kicked the pistol from my outstretched hand, and tightened his choke hold on April.

Charlie appeared next to the wrestling duo in his multicolored pajamas and scrunched his eyebrows, arms motioning wildly. “You suck at this.”

I stood there for a moment, stunned at how quickly I went from hero to loser.

“Well?!” Charlie said, “Don’t just stand there! Ball up your fists and punch that guy before he pops April’s head off!”

The comment jarred me from my frozen state. I dropped to my knees and swung my fist with as much strength and weight as I could muster. I heard the assailant’s nose crunch. Unfortunately, my aim was a little off and, as I followed through, I also clipped April’s right eye. The intruder let April go, and I fell on top of him, swinging with alternating fists. We grappled on April’s hardwood floor, and my brave offense quickly turned into a lackluster defense. While I stopped the assassin from getting to his weapon, he hardly needed it. He was kicking my ass. Evidently, video game kung fu fighting didn’t translate well into the real world.

The intruder pinned me to the ground, my stomach on the floor, his knee on my back, my head twisted to the side. I briefly pondered my imminent death when April sprang into action. In one swift motion, she righted herself on one knee, scooped up my orphaned pistol, and fired it twice, putting a single bullet through each eye socket. The attacker slumped to the ground with a dull thud as if he were a marionette and his strings had been cut. Blood oozed from his nose and what were now mutilated eye sockets. I tried to appreciate the poetry of her method, an eye for an eye and such, but mostly I was preoccupied with trying to not further humiliate myself by vomiting.

She aimed the still smoking barrel at my head with a collected calm that sent ice skittering through my belly. “Who the fuck are you?”