Liquification
A short story about an assassination.
Kilinis grumbled to himself as he squeezed through the narrow space between the floors. Above him boots thumped boards against his back, below him was a ten foot fall prevented by aged slats of wood, and all around him were the supports that kept the whole thing from falling apart. It was cramped, dusty, hot, and unpleasant. This was only an inconvenience to Kilinis. He needed to remain unseen.
His target had just made his way inside the room below... a private room. It was a fairly well-to-do inn and the mark was a fairly well-to-do fellow. Kilinis had been briefed on his target to make certain that this was the right one. No mistakes could be made. The target had to be eliminated completely with no possible suspicion. Luckily, Kilinis had just the thing for this sort of elimination.
Nobody would suspect the local apothecary; a mild mannered, middle-aged, introverted macaque who fussed about his chemistry sets day and night. Such a man was surely too absorbed in his work... too friendly and helpful with customers... to be an assassin. Assassins were secretive people who lurked in dark shadows with knives and garrotes. As far as the common man knew, Kilinis didn't even own a knife.
But the apothecary business was the perfect cover. Kilinis was no brute killer as folk always pictured. He was intelligent. He was crafty... he was expensive. Any fool could shove a blade into an unwary back or sprinkle poison on an untended plate. But those sorts of deaths were very visible and obvious. The 'assassin' would likely be caught as well, spouting some political nonsense or blubbering over lost pay and wasted life. It took a true student to make it seem blameless.
And today he would test his latest creation, the substance that had taken weeks and cost a fortune. His reputation, his future, his pay; all these things depended upon his latest concoction working completely.
***
I lie back against the sturdy, if just a tad too stiff, bed without bothering to pull back the coverings. It is too warm a night to bother with blankets. Stripped to the waist, I brush a hand through the coarse grey hair upon my chest, fluffing it up in hopes of cooling myself a little more. For a moment I entertain the notion of stripping completely bare, but should anyone accidentally barge in, as was prone to happen in public places, the impropriety and scandal would never be lived down.
A sigh of discomfort escapes my muzzle as I squirm upon the bed. The son of a baron should never be given such... common accommodations. Of course had I been a clear heir of my families' holdings I shouldn't have ever had to worry. But the life of a fifth son diplomat can be trying... having to deal with low society instead of languishing back at the manor. I wasn't even wealthy by courtly standards!
Thudding boots rattle the undecorated wooden ceiling above my upturned head, knocking a huge drifting cloud of dust down from a knothole there. Before I can react it has fallen directly upon my prostrate form! Growling with frustration I leap from the bed, trying in vain to brush off the offending dust. My mind races with the words I intend to have with the management about the disastrous quality of my room. Of course, in my diplomatic mind I can hear the bumbling hog that ran this cesspit complaining that I was given the best room in the house...
I notice that my chest tingles somewhat as I make for the washbasin. While the lukewarm water helps to cool me a bit, I find that the numbness there is slowly spreading. It is a swath of masculine breast that feels the same as when an arm or leg falls asleep. Grumbling, I wash the area again just to be sure. That boorish boar was certainly going to get it after all this.
But then, a great yawn split my canine features. After coming down from my frustration I was reminded just how tired I truly was. The cleaning had also allowed me to cool enough that I felt I might be able to get comfortable. The owners chastising could certainly wait till the morning.
I walked back to the bedside with my gaze tinged with fuzziness. The tingling was spreading, but the area in which it started had calmed. Prodding it with my fingers revealed a curious lack of sensation, but nothing terribly alarming. I likened it to watching the reddened edges of burned paper create a hole of ash upon the page. Whatever it was, I was sure it would be gone soon. Probably the dust, I reasoned, as I hadn't had much encounter with such filthiness.
My arms swept the bed clear of the remaining dust which had, amusingly, formed a rough silhouette of my figure against it. After a bit of consternation that my arms were feeling that same tingling, I simply tore the covers off the bed and lay back down. I began to get a little nervous as I felt the tingles converge at my collar-line. The rest had spread beneath my trouser waist and onto my sides.
Feeling a bit of trepidation I looked at my hands. They had become nearly insensate, like they weren't even there, and now that I beheld them I noticed that my fingers seemed to droop unnaturally. I tried wiggling them and was rewarded with seeing them obey my commands. But even as I watched they seemed to bend in strange ways... like they were softening.
I sat up to find that my midsection had gone soft this way as well. It was as if someone had replaced my spine with a line of rope! It was a curious sensation, being able to bend myself freely and without pain however I chose. My newly softened flesh even allowed me to turn my torso completely around so that I could face the bed while my feet yet pointed at the ceiling! I laughed aloud like a child with a toy even as the sensation crept up my throat.
That was when I noticed the patch of blue upon my chest. It was as if someone had replaced my fur with a slathering of sky-blue jelly! Confused, I dipped a finger into it, only to have a similarly blue finger drip off onto my chest! My breath quickened in panic as I stared at the nub of my finger and tried to command it to move, disbelieving its absence. To my utter surprise, a new projection of jelly dribbled out and responded to my command!
"What is happening to me?!" I tried to cry out, surprised to hear the burbling of my words as my throat failed to hold its shape.
I rolled out from the bed, horrified and disconcerted at my mystifying condition. I feel numbly to the floor with a splat of softening goo. I tried to rise to my feet, but only the area from just above my ankles was yet unaffected. I had slithered completely out of my clothes, leaving them empty upon the bed. I could only command those parts of me that I consciously focused on, and in the end that simply wasn't enough to regain my footing. Instead I crawled and slithered, trying desperately to call out to anyone as the vile, tasteless jelly rolled from my liquefying mouth. My teeth, my tongue, my larynx, all had become the same clear, sky-blue gel. I could feel nothing now... my mind was filling with fog... as if... a fog... had... descended...
I lift my neck. I am nothing. I can't think anymore. I only see, and even that is going blue. I slosh back down as it all goes black. I cannot feel. I cannot think... I am...
***
The mass that had once had been Otto Baudrier, fifth son of House Baudrier, was now a puddle of slime upon the floor beneath Kilinis. A full grown male wolf turned into nothing in just five minutes... it had been a complete success! Never before had such a thing happened so spontaneously, magical or not. The folk who discovered this heinous crime would simply think the man had been eaten by some rogue monster, caught unawares as he slept. The place would be searched, the inn likely closed, and the owner would no doubt be blamed... but none would suspect that this had been, in fact, a cold blooded murder.
Kilinis watched as the goo that had once been a talented diplomat lost a little more coherency and began to slowly drain down through the floorboards. A scream less than a minute later told him that the discovery of the remains would come quickly. Limbs protesting from several minutes of inactivity, he squirmed his way out from beneath the floor, back toward his hidden entry point.
Almost half an hour later, Kilinis had made his way into a tavern across town. It was a spot he frequented, where everyone knew him. Casually as ever, he ordered a pint of his favorite bitter and took a seat at his favored table. As he did every evening at an irregular time, he drew forth a palimpsest and took notes upon the wax surface as he calmly sipped the warm, sudsy beer. Since he was a regular customer who never showed up 'like clockwork', no one questioned the lateness of his visit. He was always working on something or other.
A bandicoot, commonly dressed and a bit disheveled, entered and sat with Kilinis at the table. This too was not uncommon. Everyone knew Kilinis; he was constantly heckled by strangers hoping for free advice or an emergency fix for some ailment that couldn't wait for business hours. What no one saw was the purse that changed hands under the table.
Across the bar, someone remarked, "Did'ja hear? Slime done et someone!"
Kilinis and Jalame smiled.