Free Assassin's Creed: Underworld by Oliver Bowden Page A

guards, they would have taken me for a street
boy of no consequence, given me a slap and sent me on my way. Had they investigated more
thoroughly they would have known that I differed from a street urchin in only one respect
– that I had in my pocket a coin.’
    Ethan was nodding sagely. He
knew the weapon. The coin is wrapped in the neckerchief, the neckerchief used as a
lumal
, a kind of garrotte. The coin chokes the victim’s windpipe, crushing his
larynx, hastening death and preventing him from crying out. It is one of the most basic but
effective of the Assassin’s tools. Ethan began to understand why Arbaaz had selected it.
He even began to understand why Arbaaz had chosen Jayadeep for the job. ‘Continue,’
he said.
    ‘I made the jump easily. And then, staying
in the shadows of the lodging-house roof and wary of the guards who still patrolled below, I
crept towards the hatch I knew to be in the ceiling of Dani’s room. I had brought grease
with me, a dab of it behind my ear, and I used it on the hatch, which I opened as carefully as
possible, before letting myself down into the dark space below.
    ‘My breath was held and my heart hammered.
But as you had always taught me, the presence of a little fear is to be welcomed. Fear makes us
careful. Fear keeps us alive. There was nothing so far about my mission to give me cause for
worry. Everything was going to plan.
    ‘Now I was in Dani’s room. I could
see the traps he had placed at his door and at the window. A pulley system attached to a ceiling
bell that hung not far from the hatch I had just used to make my grand entrance.
    ‘And there in bed was my target, a man
about whom I had learnt a great deal in the weeks leading up to the assignment. My breathing
became heavy. My temple seemed to throb as though the vein there was beating in time to my
increased heart rate. This was my nerves worsening –’
    Ethan stopped him.
‘While you were learning about Dani he was also becoming a human being in your eyes,
wasn’t he? You had begun to think of him as a person rather than as a target, hadn’t
you?’
    ‘In retrospect, you’re right. I
had.’
    ‘Who could have seen that coming?’
said Ethan, regretting his inappropriate sarcasm immediately.
    ‘Perhaps it would have been too late, even
if I had. Too late for second thoughts, I mean. There was no going back. I was an Assassin in
the room of a slumbering man. My target. I had to act. I had no choice but to go through with
the job. The issue of whether or not I was ready had ceased to be relevant. It was not a
question of being ready, it was a question of action. Of kill or fail.’
    ‘And looking around, I think we all know
what happened there.’ Again, Ethan regretted his flippancy, remembering that when this
conversation was over he would pull himself to his feet, brush the straw from his backside, call
for the custodian and leave the boy alone in this dark and damp place. No, this was no time for
smart remarks. Instead, he tried to imagine the scene in the room: the darkened lodging house, a
man asleep – did a man ever look so innocent as when he was asleep? – and Jayadeep,
his breath held, wringing his neckerchief in his hand as he gathered his nerves ready to strike,
the coin rolled into the neckerchief, and …
    The coin falling from the neckerchief. Striking
the floorboards.
    ‘Your garrotte,’ he said to Jayadeep.
‘Did the coin fall from it?’
    ‘How did you know? I
didn’t tell anybody that.’
    ‘Visualization, my dear boy. Haven’t
I always taught you about it?’
    Across the boy’s face came the first hint
of a smile since Ethan had entered the room. ‘You did. Of course you did. It’s a
technique I use constantly.’
    ‘But not on this occasion?’
    A cloud of sadness stole the smile’s slight
beginnings. ‘No, not on this occasion. On this occasion all I heard was the blood rushing
in my head. All I could hear was my father’s voice urging me on to do what had to be