Chapter I

Magic is scarce in the world. Darkness and danger run rampant. The streets are dangerous place now, and thievery is a dying art. With all these new age technologies it’s going out of fashion.

My name is Rogue, strange I know, but it’s what I’m called. I can’t remember what I was called before. Before my parents were killed along with my sister, Belladour, and I lost all recollection of anything I ever knew.

I was found, wandering the streets, by The Brotherhood, a group of people with unique abilities, who took me in. they were a sanctuary for people who were classified as freaks by the human world. They specialized in training people as thieves and assassins. That’s what they trained me to be. I was always very good, and no one could ever sneak up on me, I was…different.

When I was 13 they started hiring me out to work as a thief and we were payed well.

Now I’m 16 and working on my own. Different to most thieves I am quite tall, taller than an average girl of my age, but, then again, average is never a word I would use for myself. Nor a word others would use for me. Strange, abnormal…freak. That’s what I’m used to; it’s what I’ve always been called. I have paler skin than you would think of an English girl, and darker hair than even the darkest of those I know, it can look almost black. But for my line of work, it helps. I have some of the best senses and excellent aim too. Comes in handy in the shadier parts of the city.

Take tonight for instance, I was off on a job, in an old antiques place. And I came across this marvellous Venice Renaissance mask, hand sculpted and beautifully painted, not what I was there for but gorgeous none the less. And just as I’m walking down the back, nearly free I hear them, 3 or 4 of them at least, thugs, coming up the same way. Well I couldn’t go out the front, not without risk of setting off the alarms and besides, ‘flight and hide’ that’s not my style. So I unsheathed one of my blades and listened carefully to the approaching footsteps. Steadily they got closer and I smiled, in a job like this, you couldn’t afford to show mercy. You had to be ruthless, so I was. I hadn’t had a good chance to use my uncanny skills for a while and I was thoroughly looking forward to it. The first of them rounded on me and I flicked my wrist with precision and, as usual, excellent aim. SMACK, the blade thudded into his skull and he immediately fell to the ground, stone dead. Blood oozed from the entrance site of the death blow and I chuckled lightly. It was a job, yes, but that doesn’t mean one couldn’t have fun doing it. The second came and I flicked a small knife from the inside of my right cuff straight into his throat, he chocked, spluttered and fell to the floor beside the last. I stalked forward, eager to meet the third in his final dance with the Devil. Effortlessly, I pinned him up against the wall with one hand. I had him by his throat and placing my other hand behind his head… SNAP! The vertebrae of his spine splintered and broke. I removed my hand and he too crumpled to the ground. I turned my back on the fourth as he came to give him an easy shot at my heart if only he knew how to take it. He lunged forward and swung the knife around my throat, he didn’t want to kill me, not yet anyway. I felt the blade as it sliced lightly into my throat and seized the wrist that held the blade.