The Majorette Killer by Skeboo

[esercito sconfitto]

Skeebo


The Majorette Killer
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The festival was in full swing. Merrymakers enjoyed a carnival-like atmosphere in anticipation of the coronation. It had been almost three hundred years since a queen had ruled this little nation. Controversy haunted the old king throughout his reign, but the media had loved his daughter since her birth. The princess’s soft brown eyes and honest smile had charmed the nation even as revolutionaries denounced the royal family on the streets. Today, at the tender age of twenty, she would take her father’s place on the throne.

Jack scanned the cathedral where the coronation would take place. He did not like what he saw. Though the nation was by no means wealthy, it spared no expense on the security of the royal family. With terrorist threats looming, the royal guard were taking no chances. Jack would have to earn his paycheck on this one.

One last time, he his schematics for any weakspots he might have missed, but each and every one had been shut off, sealed up, wiped away. Whether by design or divine providence, the crumbling church had become virtually impregnable to infiltration. He crumpled the map into a pocket and held his sleeve up to his mouth.

“Sorry Jill, but the cathedral is a no-go.”

His partner’s smooth voice purred out from his earpiece. “I told you we shouldn’t have bothered with the schematics. It was too easy. Now what will we do? The coronation is in less than an hour.”

Jack turned and began scanning the crowd of people gathering along the street barriers. Eager spectators stretched out to stare down the empty street in anticipation. “The parade is the key. It’ll march right up to the steps of the cathedral. I’ll have to mingle into it somehow.”

The line went silent as Jill hacked for intel on the parade. Across the street, a man held up a sign of the princess’s face beaming down on her admirers. High cheekbones and sensuous lips gave her expression a warm and inviting quality. Jack turned away.

Jill came back with directions, leading Jack to the rallying point where the parade would begin. Groups of garishly dressed marchers milled about in confusion, trying to find their places in the chaos. The security was more lax here, but Jack could not venture far into the melee without attracting attention as a trespasser. Like a lion, he crouched in the shadows of the alley and waited for a straggler to wander from the pack.

Several military officers passed by, swords swinging from their hips. Too risky. A cavalryman trotted by on a great warhorse. Jack let him pass. A group of marching band members wandered through, glancing around as if lost. On the end was a girl, about Jill’s size. She wore a red blazer with a crisp blue tie and skirt. Long white boots reached nearly to her knees. Balanced on her head was a tall white hat, and in her hand she absently twirled a baton. A majorette.

Change of plans. She would have to do.

Jack leapt from the shadows, grasping hold of the majorette from behind. He clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her cry of surprise and dragged her back into the alleyway. In the blink of an eye, they had disappeared into the darkness with nobody the wiser. The girl’s hat and baton fell to the floor as she began to struggle. Jack quickly kicked the baton deeper into the alley as he prepared to put his deadly talents to work.

For a few long moments they grappled over control of her body. The majorette twisted and bucked, throwing her elbows in every direction. She was strong, but she could not break free of his grasp. She tossed her head, biting at the hand clasped to her mouth, trying to call for help. After a few moments he was forced to relent, sliding his hand down her smooth face, down her neck, and over her tie.

Just as she began to scream, he whipped the tie free of the majorette’s blazer and cinched it tight as a vice around her throat. The girl’s voice came out as a ragged choke, inaudible above the cacophony of the crowd. Her hands shot to her neck, prying at the knot in vain. Jack corrected his hold and tugged with all his might, tightening the noose of fabric and strangling the poor girl. From that point, it was just a matter of time.

Jack controlled the young majorette easily from behind as he garroted her with her own costume. She thrashed and stomped and clawed, but she could not loosen the deadly knot, nor free herself from Jack’s grasp. Her sweaty hands clung and pawed at him to no avail. Little by little her strength faded and her struggles slowed.

Soon she began to sag in his arms as her legs gave out from under her. He gently eased her down to the ground, resting her head on his lap and staying careful to keep the tie tightly cinched around her throat. She could not escape, could not find air. Her hands feebly reached out toward him, but they found only darkness and silence. He watched as the life faded from her eyes. Her expression went slack, her body still.

Jack held the garrote tight for several more minutes, keeping an eye on the entrance of the alleyway to make sure no one disturbed these final moments. Only when he was finally satisfied did he let go and look down at his victim.

The girl lay sprawled on the dirty concrete of the alleyway, her blank eyes staring up into oblivion. The dead body, still clad in her brightly colored uniform, looked almost absurdly tragic. She was pretty, in an ordinary sort of way. She could have been anyone. It’s funny, the people you wind up killing in this line of work.

He slipped her head down to the ground and stood up to stretch. He had now successfully strangled a majorette in an alleyway, but was he really any closer to his target? That would depend on Jill. He held his microphone up into his mouth.

“Change of plans, Jill. I’m coming to you.”

“What?”

“No questions. Just be ready.”

Jack glanced around nervously. He didn’t like leaving corpses out in the open, but he had to find something to put the girl in. He took a survey of the doors along the alleyway. Luckily, one led to the back entrance of a gym. Slipping inside, he quickly located a wheeled hamper full of freshly dried towels. He gave a friendly nod to a laundress who watched him wheel the thing out. She didn’t say anything. Confidence is an assassin’s best tool.

Back in the alley, he wheeled to hamper up to the majorette, still sprawled on the ground. He slipped one hand under her bare thighs and the other under her back, then lifted the limp body into his arms and dumped her into the bed of hot towels. Bending down, he scooped up the hat and baton and tossed them in after her. Once he had draped a few towels over the corpse, he wheeled his package out the opposite side of the alley, away from the melee and toward Jill’s command center.

Luckily, everyone seemed to have turned up for the parade, leaving the rest of the city empty. No one questioned the strange laundryman as he wheeled his precious cargo up to a nondescript door and gave the secret knock. Jill opened the door, her sharp features looking furious.

“What the hell is going on?” she snapped as he wheeled the hamper inside. “And what the hell is that?”

“Just shut the door and help me with her.”

Jack fished into the cocoon of towels until his fingertips felt flesh. He hooked under the girl’s armpits and lifted her upper body out of the hamper. The angle was awkward and he couldn’t quite lift her all the way out. Jill just stood behind him, staring in disbelief.

“Who the hell is she?”

Giving up, Jack let go and let the corpse spill over the side of the hamper to land on the floor in an undignified tangle of limbs. Then he fished out the baton and held it up. “Can’t you tell? She’s in the band. Or at least she was.”

Jill knelt beside the body. “Is she dead? Why are you killing marching band girls? What does this have to do with the assignment?”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Christ, Jill. Think! We can’t slip into the church, so we’ll have to go through the front entrance, in the parade.”

Realization finally dawned in Jill’s cold blue eyes. “And by ‘we,’ you mean...”

“You. Exactly. Now help me strip her clothes off.”

They worked together, slipping the garish costume off the dead body. Jill first went for the tie, and found it was still cinched like a noose around her throat.

“Wow, strangled with your own tie? Poor girl.”

After some work, she finally loosened the tie and slipped it over the girl’s head. As she moved to the buttons on her blazer, the body began to twitch. Jill jumped away in shock.

“God damn it, Jack! Are you sure she’s dead?”

Jack continued unlacing the girl’s boots. “It was just a death spasm,” he said. Jill didn’t move, staring at the body dubiously. Jack sighed. He hoisted the girl up into a sitting position and rested her back against his chest. Gripping her head in both hands, he twisted in one sharp, brutal motion, snapping her neck with a loud crack. He let her flop back onto the ground, now unmistakably dead. “Satisfied?”

They got back to work and quickly finished pealing the majorette’s uniform from her lifeless body. Jack regarded the naked, dead girl lying between them. She’d been in excellent shape, with a trim and athletic figure. Her bare breasts were small, but buoyant with youth. There was a golden fuzz of trimmed public hair between her thighs. She would have made any young man happy. For just a moment, Jack felt a little sorry he’d killed her.

“What are we going to do with her?” Jill asked.

“She’s not doing any harm lying there. If we make it back, we’ll take her with us and dump her by the side of the road. It will take the police a little while to connect the murders, and by then we’ll be long gone.”

They turned their attention to the uniform. The blazer and tie had become quite wrinkled in the struggle, but luckily nothing had been torn. Jill quickly slipped the clothes on as best she could. The blazer was a little tight around the bust, and the skirt a little long, but it looked fine. Jack placed the tall white hat on her head and gave her the baton.

“Your crown and scepter, my queen.”

Jill giggled girlishly and favored him with a kiss. “How do I look?” She posed with the baton, lifting her leg to mime a jaunty march.

“My trombone would follow you anywhere.”

She laughed again, but sobered quickly. Jack held her gaze, serious now. “You can do this. I know you can.”

Jill took a deep breath and let it out, then nodded. “Barbados.”

“Barbados,” Jack agreed.

After one last kiss, Jill hustled out to join the parade while Jack sat down at her spot at the terminal. He could track her movements with the computer, but there was little he could offer her for the main job. Once she joined the parade, she was on her own.

Jill raced through the empty streets. An old man at a bus stop watched her pass and laughed. “Don’t worry,” he called. “They can’t march without you!”

She was panting by the time she made it to the rallying point. Everyone was lined up in perfect marching order and looked ready to go. An organizer appeared beside her and snatched her wrist with surprising strength. It took all of Jill’s concentration not to throw him on his ass.

“This is no time to go piss in an alley, you bitch!” he hissed and dragged her to the front of the band. Almost immediately, the parade started moving. Jill had no experience in any sort of marching band, but she remembered her school days enough to know what was expected of her. She pranced in front of the musicians as they kicked off a celebratory tune, and before she knew it they were marching through throngs of adoring citizens all waiting to spot the princess.

The girl of the hour was somewhere behind them, in a cavalcade of limousines. She wouldn’t exit until they had pulled up within a stone’s throw of the church courtyard, which was miraculously shielded from any Lee Harvey Oswald action. Jill twirled her silly little baton and every once and a while checked the position of her weapon, stashed inside her blazer.

The band reached the towering old church and took up position beside the steps. Jill fumbled badly on the complex maneuvering this required, but no one seemed to notice, for the princess had arrived! Flags streamed from all four corners of the royal limo as it pulled up to the walkway. A line of important-looking men formed along each side leading to the steps, making ready to kiss the royal hand before she entered the church.

Jill’s breath caught as the car door opened. Cries of exultation echoed from the crumbling walls of the courtyard as the princess’s chestnut hair hit the sunlight. Her royal regalia conveyed stately tradition as well as youth and progress. Brilliant white ruffles cascaded down to the floor when she stepped from the car. As she bent forward, she thrust out her famously ample bosom, highlighted by a scandalously plunging neckline that raised the graying eyebrows of several dignitaries. She turned and waved to the assembled masses, beaming her famous smile to rich and poor alike. The people adored her.

Jill’s breath began to quicken as the princess made her way through the lines of dignitaries, presenting her slender hand and offering words of thanks as each man pledged his loyalty. Jill saw her as a graceful and statuesque form among a pack of rotund peacocks. The princess drew closer as she made her way up the line. She was almost close enough to hear now, if not for the blaring music of the band. Thirty feet, twenty, fifteen feet away... All that stood between them was a line of overdressed old men. Jill made her move.

She slipped between two dignitaries and onto the walkway. The princess was distracted for a moment, chuckling at something a duke had said. Jill smiled nervously and stepped up to her. The princess turned to look at her with an amused smirk. Perhaps she was used to her people rushing forward to earn a favor, or perhaps she had respect for someone bold enough to breach all this stodgy protocol.

As the royal guard barked in irritation, Jill rushed forward, arms wide. “My queen!” she cried, and embraced the princess. As expected, the princess returned the embrace with good humor and whispered something patriotic into her ear. Jill felt a keen rush of adrenaline. She’d made contact with the target! In Jill’s arms, the princess was ordinary flesh and blood, just a tall, slender girl wrapped up in too much cloth to get away.

Pressed together as they were, no one could see Jill slide her hand into her blazer and withdraw the dagger. With her first blow, she plunged the blade up to the hilt in the princess’s belly. She could feel the princess jerk with the sudden and unexpected pain, but Jill pressed firmly against her, locking her tight. She withdrew the knife and stabbed again, slipping it cleanly through the ribs. The princess grunted and clutched at her in shock. Mercilessly she stabbed again, sliding the blade up under the ribcage. She kept stabbing in short and rapid strokes, invisible to the world.

In less than six seconds, Jill was holding the princess’s quivering body upright. The royal head had drooped down to her shoulder, rasping as her lungs filled with blood. Jill slipped the knife back into her blazer and pushed away. The princess immediately folded up and collapsed to the floor. Luckily she fell face-first, hiding Jill’s work. The bloodstains on Jill’s bright red blazer were also not immediately apparent. For a few precious moments, no one knew what had happened.

Onlookers gasped to see their beloved fall. Jill knew that memories of the princess as an awkward teenager were still fresh in the people’s minds. At first they might think she had merely tripped on her dress. Jill stepped back behind the line of dignitaries and tried to mix back in with the band.

The guards made a rapid, but belated, swoop into action. They quickly turned the princess over, and the screaming started instantly. The front of her dress was a horror of blood and torn fabric. A guard ribbed the garment open to expose the princess’s wounds as well as her bloodstained breasts. Her big brown eyes had rolled back into her head. Blood dribbled from her sensuous lips. The last Jill saw of her was a guard slapping her cheeks uselessly before the swarm of black suits closed in around her. Now was the time to leave.

Jill felt a hand grip her wrist with crushing strength. This time Jill let her instincts take full control, picking up her discarded baton and whipping it around to smack a bodyguard across the face. He let go and reeled back, cradling a crushed nose as Jill bolted.

Full-scale panic was already breaking out. Jill shoved past band members and other parade participants, hoping to get lost in the crowd. Larger bodies buffeted her small frame about, but she ploughed on. Above the screams and weeping, the harsh voices of the royal guard hounded her.

She could see the chain barricades up ahead, blocking off the main city street. If she could only get into the city proper, she could lose her hunters in the twisty alleyways. She lifted her sleeve to her mouth. “Jack! I’m going to need directions on-“

There was a crack, and someone running beside her stumbled and fell. Jill turned to see a black-clad bodyguard aiming a pistol at her. He was shooting into the crowd! She juked in one direction and dashed in the other. Another crack, and a bullet whizzed by her ear as she ran. Up ahead, a black suit appeared out of the crowd, taking aim at her. Jill grabbed a woman next to her and shoved her between them. Another crack, and the woman’s body jerked in agony as a bullet pierced her chest. Jill let the woman drop and dashed away again. Her heart felt like it was about to burst.

“Jack...” she screamed as tears rolled down her face. “I luh-“ Her leg collapsed underneath her and she went flying to the concrete. Dazed, she sat up and saw blood streaming from her thigh. A bodyguard advanced on her. His pistol cracked, sending a bullet slamming into her chest. She fell backwards, staring up at the clear blue sky. The bodyguard stood over her, glaring down from behind a pair of sunglasses. He carefully aimed his pistol at her forehead. She shut her eyes, and he pulled the trigger.

***

Jack sipped a beer and stared out into the ocean. A tropical breeze was picking up from the west, rustling the palms overhead. On his laptop, he read about the shocking assassination that had rocked the global community. A young, beautiful, jet-setting princess had been brutally stabbed to death moments before her coronation. She died in a pool of her own blood, on the doorsteps of the church. The nation had gone into a month-long period of mourning for the bright and vivacious girl who might have lifted their nation out of the dark ages.

The assassin had gained access to the coronation by murdering a 19-year-old majorette in the royal marching band and stealing her outfit. The majorette’s naked body had been found strangled by the side of the road about twenty miles outside of the city. Members of the royal guard killed the assassin during her apprehension, making it unlikely that any of her co-conspirators will ever be identified or brought to justice for these heinous murders.

Jack set his beer back down and shut the laptop.

“Jack and Jill were sent to kill
A rich and lovely princess
One sharp knife to end her life
But poor Jill died in the process.”