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"Jameel, damn it!" Despite the severe wounds on the Master Assassin, in sheer spite of the artillery being shelled their way, even with his a** knocked into the boat, it was still taking Ezio, Desmond, and Amir to hold Jameel in the boat and shove off. Shoving off proved just as difficult, as the Red Owl was doing his damnedest to maim them if they wouldn't get out of the way. "We'll go back for him, all right? We'll go back!" Jameel rounded on him with his hidden blade.

Serenity and Ezio latched onto his arms, holding him in place as he thrashed again with all his might.

Amir reached around Jameel's throat and pressed his fingers and thumb down hard on either side. The man's squirming ceased; his expression turned to one of confusion, though his glare remained. A few minutes later the glaring blue eyes rolled up and his body slumped backward onto the Italians.

"Get going," Amir ordered as he and Desmond dove into the water and swam back to the island, heading toward the keep, dodging further shots from the Crows as they went back inside.

Gunshots sounded from what felt like everywhere! The Assassins took down as many of the bird-men as they could, injuring where they couldn't as they hurried toward the upper levels. The stairway gave them a place for a brief rest. They were peppered with blood and it hurt to lift their recoil-weary arms and fire at the men coming at them from either side, bodies piling on either side of them on the case.

Finally, they were able to move up to the rooms above. The watchmen shrieked as the Assassins were spotted, rounding their rifles toward them, only to have three poisoned needles in one of each of their eyes. Amir shoved the needles deeper as Desmond finished them off with three shots in quick succession.

Boom--head shot. Boom-head shot. BOOM. HEAD SHOT, went the chant in his mind.

Desmond picked up one of the rifles and blew the door's lock apart with two quick shots, shoving open the cell door. It was then that they looked at the figure on the floor of the cell. Lex lay in a heap, unmoving.

"Ah--ah--ahk," Amir stammered hoarsely, staring at him. "Ahki..." Desmond bent quickly and scooped Lex onto his shoulders. He grabbed Amir's hand and hauled him back down the stairs, vaulting over the bodies blocking their way. The two looked up as a last group of Ravens blocked the exit, but kept barreling on, lowering their shoulders to bum rush the door.



Ezio rowed them back to Venice quick as he was able, directing them toward the waterside entrance to the building he knew to be a safehouse. The traitor looked up as she saw the entrance to the guild house. Ezio grasped her arm as they docked inside the building and dragged her to the door inside, banging on it with his fist.

An irate man with shaggy black hair opened the door, a ceramic mug in his hand.

"Ezio?" He looked at the woman, then the man again. "What is it? Who is this?"

"Allies are injured, Antonio. She is a traitor." The head of the Venetian Thieves Guild nodded and grabbed up a chair and some rope. The two men tied the woman to the arms and legs, then went to help Jameel from the boat. "I must go and get the others now. Wait for me."

Antonio nodded as Ezio headed back out, helping Jameel to the chair. The tall man slumped in the chair, pale faced and listless. He had awoken halfway to the safehouse and had remained silent since. He was safe...for now. Metal Lion, as far as he suspected, for he could not know anything, especially now, did not know where the guild house was, much less that it housed any Assassins.

His only concern was Lex. If he'd had the strength and the gondola hadn't been taken, he would have stolen it and rowed back across the waters to get to him again himself. They made me leave him. They made me abandon him. Damn them! Damn them all! No, not them. He turned his gaze toward Serenity. Damn her. Damn her to a thousand pounds of molten lead being poured in her ears! Damn her to having her eyes plucked out and regrown and plucked once more by ravens! Damn her to having her bones shattered by war hammers and allowed to heal that they may be broken again!

Jameel bared his teeth and hissed, "Ah dena mukk." Serenity looked up at him at the words, smiling widely. "In'a'al mayteen ehlak." She frowned at the tone of his voice, the set of his jaw, the look in his eyes. "Yela'an sabe'a jad lak." He rose up as much as his aching sides would allow, pulling forth all the venom and bile he could muster and putting it into his words, "In'al yomak, khanzeera al matina."

The two looked up at the sound of boots on the stairs. Antonio swept off the table that sat in the center of the courtyard they sat in. The others carried a limp body in and set it down. Jameel shuddered, feeling his heart clench unnaturally in his chest as the Assassins removed the jack of plates from Lex's body and tossed it to the side, cutting away his clothes.

Blood welled up from his arms and legs where stray rounds had found him in the mad dash out of Ravenwatch's nest. His right thumb was crooked, looking almost torn off, his left hand no better. Both wrists were coated in blood, the skin torn away to reveal the bloodied, pink muscle beneath, stark, white bone peeking through even beneath that. A large bruise showed where his ribs had broken, further bruises decorating his body everywhere Jameel looked. Dried blood coated his inner thighs. Again, his heart clenched, accompanied this time by a goodly amount of bile rising to his mouth.

A shudder rattled his spine. No, no, no, he groaned in his mind, biting his fingertips to keep from releasing the words aloud.

He watched as the others began to tend to the limp Sparrow's injuries, hating every hand upon him, hating his inability to do more than sit there, hating the woman he had cursed with many things worse than death and the men she had aligned herself with, and hating the men and the Order that had done this to his Sparrow.

Amir finally came to his side, rousing him from his seething musings. No words were exchanged. He removed his robes and allowed Amir at his burns and bruises. Metal Lion wasn't merciful when it came to torment--the Journeyman's body proved that more than the few marks on his own. Compared to the younger man, his wounds were as nothing.

Had he been there any longer, he surely would have been a broken mess on the floor, perhaps dead. Had he been there any longer, he was certain his lover's body would have lain at his feet. He closed his eyes, not wanting to think about it anymore, any of it, focusing on the stinging coolness of the salve on his wounds.

Amir cleaned and bound the burns carefully, giving the minor wounds on himself the same treatment as he let his thoughts turn vengeful, his gaze on Serenity. Had I the authority, woman, he thought to himself, your skin would have been flayed from your body by now and whatever remained of you covered in acid. A thousand needles in that cobweb-covered hole you call a v****a!

Desmond looked up from bandaging a graze on his forearm, eyes on his ancestor.

"Thanks," he said. "Is there anyplace we can rest?" Antonio motioned the men toward his quarters. Amir stood stiffly and followed after them, limping slightly from a shot he'd taken to his leg, eyes flicking to his brother before the door shut behind them.

Serenity looked toward Jameel as the man moved closer to where the Sparrow lay, still and pale, on the table.

"I really do love you, you know," she murmured before leaning back and attempting to get a semblance of sleep. A few minutes later, she was out.

Jameel did not respond to the words but for giving her another glare, looking more than wrathful. His unhappy, tired gaze turned back toward Lex, watching the rise and fall of his chest, shallow so that he thought whenever he took his eyes away it would stop moving. He reached out, taking the smaller, bloodied hand between his own and clasping it, careful of his thumb, leaning his brow against it.

"My Sparrow. My little bird. Oh, God, Lex, don't leave me. Don't leave me." His body began to rock. "Don't go." He blinked to clear his eyes, not noticing the tears that were falling down onto the wood beneath his elbows. "Don't go."

Desmond dragged himself reluctantly awake that morning, feeling more sore than he'd felt before, and that was saying something. He went to Antonio, who was already awake and nursing another mug full of hot coffee, and explained to him that if they weren't fed, each and every one of them was going to take a pound of flesh from his body.

"Even the dead boy on the table?" Antonio looked at him over the rim of his mug.

"Dead boy?" Desmond rushed out to the courtyard. Jameel lay with his head on Lex's stomach, asleep, an arm beneath the small of his back, the other over his legs. The bartender checked for a pulse. There it was--faint, but there. He sighed and roused Amir, the two heading out. Jameel awoke, or, rather, opened his eyes, as they left.

"Antonio." The thieves' headman looked at him as the Red Owl lifted the boy into his arms. "Take the woman to Theodora's."

"What are you doing then? And what about the others?"

"Tell them where to go. Amir knows the way. I'm going to get some breakfast."



Serenity had been awakened as she was jostled to a stop, finding herself in a red painted room, a couch to one side of her, a hearth at her back, the wooden floors gleaming beneath her feet and the chair legs. Women stood in front of the glassed windows. A brothel.

She looked at Desmond, who sat on the sofa nearby, munching on a few grapes. He looked up at Amir as the boy entered the room.

"How're you feeling, kid?" Amir looked at him flatly. "...Right." Back to munching he went.

"Do you think the boy is going to live?" The two Assassins, who had been steadfastly ignoring her presence, now glared bombs at the woman. "You did not even see the extent of the blood that he lost in the cells. It's--" Two fists connecting with her face shut her up and put her on her back, trapped more effectively than a turtle knocked onto its shell.

The Assassins looked up as Jameel entered through the door. His face went from blank to a scowl in no time as when he saw Serenity. Tossing the last of a tangerine back, he swallowed it whole and shut the door behind him.

"What are we going to do with her?" asked Desmond.

"What we usually do with traitors." Amir looked at the bartender. Desmond thought back to Masyaf, remembering what had happened with Altair after the Templar attack as Amir moved forward and untied the woman. She stood and folded her arms across her chest, making no attempt to escape.

Her eyes fell on Jameel and stayed there. Jameel kept his mouth shut. She may have proclaimed her love and devotion, but it was all one-sided. What was her latest display of affection anyway? Handing him over to the Templars? That is not any kind of affection I've ever known in my life; it is madness, madness and betrayal. Why is she so hellbent on gaining my affection anyway? I'm not going to give anything back to her. I never was going to and I never will now!

"What do you have to say for yourself?" Amir demanded. Serenity stood taller.

"I was trying to win over the Lion's trust. If he trusted me, then I could kill him when the time was ripe. I admit, I let my jealousy cloud my decision with the boy." She looked at the Master Assassin. "But I never intended for you to be harmed as you were. The situation became...complicated. My intent was not to compromise or even reveal the Brotherhood, but to eliminate a powerful enemy. If I appear a traitor, I assure you, I am not."

"You do realize he does not trust anyone? He never has." The words seemed to come from the air and not the man's lips. No movement came from the Red Owl. He hardly even breathed. His glare remained, frigid as the lowest level of Dante's Hell.

Had he not been trained to keep a level head, he would have been destroying everything that came to hand in a blind rage.

"He was beginning to trust me," she stated.

It was taking all of that training to not kill her on the spot.

"Are you high?" This was from Desmond. "Have you not heard that guy? Have you not seen that guy? Jesus Christ, lady, who are you that you can tame the psychopath into listening to you at the same that he's doing--doing that?!" He pointed to Lex.

"Desmond." At Amir's nearly inaudible statement of his name, the bartender silenced himself with an effort. The Coal Tit kept his gaze leveled at Serenity. "My brother will want a piece of you for himself for what you have done to the Red Owl, so I propose that we don't kill you yet, but each of us will take his pound of flesh from your body. Agreed?"

The two men cracked the knuckles in response.

Desmond was allowed first, throwing a very heavy punch to her face that sent her sprawling over the chair, still tipped onto its back, following it up with a heel drop to her stomach. He moved back to his place.

Serenity looked up at them, a whimper escaping her as Amir moved up to his place.

Amir nudged the woman with the toe of his boot. He nudged her again. "You b***h!" A hard kick to the chest. "Who do you think you are?" The woman curled up. He dragged her up by the hair. "You hurt my brother just to satisfy your jealousy!" He threw her down face first into the floor. Turning away from her, he waited until she was able to stand again. Then--"You impotent cow!"--an elbow to the face. He spat down onto her tear streaked face. "May your soul be eternally roasted in Hell, you who is lower than the mummified s**t of a dung beetle! I damn your ancestors to the eighteenth generation, and I damn your progency until seven generations are gone from your line!"

With that, he moved back to his place. Jameel strode forward.

Affection. She wants my affection. Well, let's see how she likes my affection!

He dropped to a knee and decked her across the face, grabbing her by the front of her robes and punching her again twice before standing. Three kicks went into her stomach, each harder than the last. He pulled her up and beat her about the face again with punches from the right and left. He kneed her in the gut before throwing her to the floor much as Amir had and spitting on her.

He turned to move over to the others and stopped for a minute, looking at Lex where he lay on the table in the dining room beyond. Rounding on the woman once more, he gave one last, hard kick. Her mouth was snapped shut, a crunch alerting that her nose had been broken. Blood spurted from her mouth--she'd bitten her tongue, though not hard enough to sever it.

Serenity's eyes blurred as she looked up at the man who stood panting above her. Jameel backed himself to where the others stood. He glanced at the other two.

Amir looked over his shoulder at his brother, then at the woman who lay clutching her battered face.

"My brother still awaits his chance to take his payment from you. If he should die, you will die. More slowly and painfully than any has died before at the hand of any Assassin. When he wakes, he'll take his due, and after you will be sent to the Grandmaster of the Order to meet your death as is fit. Is this acceptable to both of you?" He looked at Jameel and Desmond.

Desmond nodded. Jameel nodded as well and added stiffly, "Fitting. Fitting indeed."

The two dragged Serenity and the chair up, tying her to it once more as Jameel took a seat beside the table and watched Lex. As Jameel watched, Desmond and Amir went upstairs to speak with Ezio, who was about to enter the arduous process of attempting to get a few hours' sleep.



Was it possible to feel heavy and lightheaded at the same time? He did. His eyelids, head, arms, legs, and chest felt like they'd been plastered, then cemented. His brain was foggy. Then he realized he was breathing and light was warming his eyelids.

What time was it? Didn't he have to get up soon to go on that flight with Jameel? Had his alarm not gone off again?

It came back in a rush, memory up until what felt like that last moment when his body had been catapulted backwards into blackness by near point blank gunfire. Lex opened his eyes and took in the view. Ceiling, kitchen, the Red Owl in the corner of his eye.

It was getting hard to breathe again. Was he dying now? No, tears were building up, sliding down the sides of his face from the corners of his eyes. As if he didn't have enough of a headache. His voice came out in a choked, wet rasp.

"I'm sorry. It's my fault. I'm sorry."

Jameel was immediately at his side on hearing the words. He ran his hand through his lover's hair and shook his head.

"They would have killed us both anyway. No deals are to be made with the Lion. He will play people for fools, just like the cat that plays with the mouse. Just such a fool is getting her punishment for putting us in that mess." He cupped the Sparrow's face between his hands, wiping his tears away with his thumbs, his gaze back to the gentle snowfall it became when he looked at Lex. "Don't cry." He placed a kiss on his bandaged brow, down his nose to his lips. "Don't cry." He wiped his face again gently with his sleeve. "Rest and recover."

Lex nodded and managed a ragged smile. At that moment, Desmond stuck his head around the corner.

"You awake, a*****e?" was the first thing out of his mouth, at which Amir gave him a stout punch to the kidneys.

"Shut up, Desmond, or I'll make good on what I said before. Brother?" Amir looked down at the Journeyman, who had slipped back into the arms of sleep. He looked at Jameel. A slim smile was on the man's face, its owner having an almost serene look on his face. The Coal Tit let his mind wander and thought for a moment that he looked almost meditatively upon the Sparrow, but knew that he wasn't just staring into the ether for giggles. Jameel was keeping watch over him, if not with his eyes then his ears.

Taking a seat opposite him, Amir set his head atop the other's chest and listened to his steady breathing.

Lex awoke later, inhaling the smell of something good. His stomach groaned, wanting attention. As did another organ. The Sparrow clamped his teeth on whatever noise he'd make as he forced himself to his elbows, then a proper sit, then to the edge of the table and finally off. Pain hit him full blast then. Okay. Take stock. First piss, then food, then pain killers.

Shivering, he took in his surroundings, tongue moving in his mouth and finding the hole where a tooth had been. He prodded at the tender gum and found Amir asleep in the chair Jameel had been in and Jameel not in sight. He looked to the one person who was there and conscious then, a woman, a stranger, staring at him.

"So, you are like the Christ, risen again?" she asked softly, although the sarcasm was evident in her voice.

"Just need the chamber pot," he whispered. The madame of the house waved him in its direction and went out into the street. Once his business was done, he dragged himself back through the kitchen, taking some bread with him as he went. Dropping into Amir's previously occupied seat, he began to eat.

As Lex moved about the floor, Serenity awoke. She had had a fitful, if any, sleep, her limbs were sore, and there was crusted blood on her face from Des, Amir, and Jameel's beating. Her ribs were bruised, if not broken--her every breath ached. She made sure of the others' sleeping states before she spoke.

"Lex, it's good to see you awake and about." She was cut off by a coughing fit that expelled a small amount of bloody from her mouth. "I had my reasons for doing what I did," she continued, "but I had to make you believe I betrayed you to reach my goal."

Lex ate laboriously, his focus on lifting the bread to his mouth all but blocking the sound of the woman's voice from reaching his ears.

Almost.

"Uh-huh. Sure." He finished off his meager meal, stood, and went over to the woman, using the furniture for support as he went. "You almost got him killed. That ******** cat was going to kill Jameel." The Sparrow's voice dripped acid. His limbs quaked. He wanted to wrap his fingers around her throat and squeeze.

Serenity looked away from his scornful stare and said almost inaudibly, "Lion would have died long before Jameel, but"--here her voice rose, her gaze moving back to him--"you just had to ruin everything with your so-called bravery act." A smile crossed her face that sent a trickle of fear along the young man's spine. "Oh, I almsot forgot to mention this: the rest of your lovable band of birds was waiting for you to recover enough so you could have a go at me." She indicated with her head the current battered state she was in. "Jameel and Desmond were near on breaking my jaw, that laughable Assassin known as your brother has done a good job on my ribs, and that idiota Auditore slept through it all." As she spoke, she began to move her hands, fighting to free them from the bonds. "I wouldn't want you to miss out on all the fun."

His blood ran cold at her words, fists curling tightly.

"I ruined everything, huh?" He went to the kitchen and took up a knife, coming back and cutting the bonds from her legs. He spat in her face as he untied her hands. "I'd like to see you kill that p***y." He shoved her, almost tipping the chair back. The Sparrow grabbed her by the front of the robes and punched her across the face. "And you think you can do whatever you want!" He shook her hard, panting, his ribs shrieking in protest. His right hand was in more pain than ever and the stitches on his upper arm had popped, blood coating the bandages. "And lemme tell you something, b***h. Il gufo...Lui non sta andando essere la vostra!" He swung at her again, from the left this time.

Serenity laughed almost maniacally at the treatment. One knee to the rib cage loosened his hold. Grabbing both his wrists in a hand, her nails digging into the bandaged skin, she flicked the knife from her boot and pressed it to his throat.

"Ma oggi forse in futuro egli sara." Her triumphant declaration was halted by a blade pressing to her own throat.

"Se mi amate, lasciarlo andare," came the snarl in her ear. Jameel's eyes were cold daggers once again. Serenity spared Jameel a glance before jabbing her elbow back into his burned side. She then kneed Lex in the ribs again as the Owl's blade faltered, punching him in the jaw and sending him sprawling before she made for the door, calling over her shoulder, "Siete fortunati oggi, passero, ma solo perche Jameel intervenuta!" She paused long enough to blow the downed Red Owl a kiss and a wink before she was gone.

Lex found his feet and made for the door. He made it farther than he'd anticipated, out the door and down the stairs. There he planted his face in the cobbles. The Sparrow slapped the ground, unable to lift himself again. Blood welled under his arm.

"That stupid woman..." Jameel muttered, following Lex out and picking him back up onto his feet.

Amir was already out after the woman, scouring down the street for her as Desmond came pounding down the stairs, awakened by the commotion.

Lex didn't look at the Owl as he was lifted to his feet again. He couldn't. He stared into the distance in the direction the woman had gone until Jameel led him back inside, wiping the mud from his face.

"What the hell happened now?" Desmond asked.

"Woman escaped. She will get herself killed, I know it. Stupid, stupid girl." He sat the Sparrow down and removed the bandages, beginning to re-stitch the wound.

"What the hell is wrong with you, man?" ranted the barkeep, glaring at Lex, who kept his eyes lowered. "You untied her and for what? To get your a** handed to you? What were you thinking?" Amir returned as Desmond was saying, "You really blew it this time, Lex. I mean, seriously blew it. Big time."

The man stopped, finding himself fixed between two glares.

"I am at as much fault as he is," Jameel hissed, "so don't blame Lex alone. Blame the circumstances that left us wounded you two sleeping." He took up a roll of bandages and began binding over the fresh stitches. "We are only human and fallible on top of it. This is one mistake we'll have to correct and prevent in the future." He tied off the bandages. "She has to be stopped before she reveals the location of our headquarters. That is what he will want. That madman must never see this place, or any other place like it. He and his guards will kill everyone here, including the citizens."

In short, she would compromise everything. Everything. It would be like Masyaf all over again. Jameel looked at Amir, who looked back at him. Both remembered, and neither wanted that experience all over again. Masyaf had joined the things that played in his nightmares: Abbas' rise to power, the installation of the corrupt Council, Sef's murder, Malik's imprisonment, rescue, and beheading, Maria's murder, their mad dash for freedom, scattered to the winds: Gilbert and his wife and Marianna to Tartus, Amir and Darim with Altair to Egypt, himself to Mecca.

Lex finally raised his eyes for the first time in the past few minutes.

"I'll fix it. She'll be stopped." The Sparrow's voice was flat and hollow. He stood and made his way to the door. Amir moved after him, making sure to drop Desmond to his knees with a swift punch between the legs on the way. Reaching the door before his injured brother, he took him by the shoulders and held him in place.

Lex squirmed, trying to move around him. Amir pressed him to the doorway, kissing him hard. The Sparrow continued his wriggling for a moment, only to sigh and sink to a sit, the Coal Tit's arms around him, kneeling over his lap.

"Bleib setzen, Bruder. Das ist ein Befehl." He flew out the door and into the street, on the hunt for the woman.



Once back at the hide out, in her hidden section, a room in the back of the hearth, she changed into a new set of clothes and restocked her weapons. The only one missing with the glorious hidden gun. Non importa. Prendo uno abbastanza presto.

"Bambino stupido... Amato Jameel, perche abitudine potete vedere il bambino e solo problemi che aspettano di succedere?" she muttered to herself as she began tending to her wounds She looked in the mirror and sighed. Assassini stupidi tutti tranne me mutilato! She lashed out at the mirror impulsively, smashing it and garnering herself another series of wounds on her hand. Gathering what food she had, she looked at it. "Acqua e pane raffermo?" She sighed again. "Avra a che fare."

After cleaning up the glass shards, she looked at herself in the mirror. The woman then shed her emerald cloak and cut off her hair quickly at the nape of her neck. That done, she left the hide out.

Time for her next assignment. The Elephant's assassination.