Job One (Cobie and Karma)

Cobalt stood in the shadowed alley opposite the unassuming house of one of muggle Britain's MPs. He was some small time politician without any real importance but he was a back bencher for the main anti-magical group in Parliment at the moment. Cobalt reached into the darkness of the alley and placed a hand on Karma's shoulder,

"This is your first assignment Karma." he told her once again, "The man in that house, Fredrick Jamerson, is a member of the muggle government. I have been periodically giving him poison over the past two weeks."

He held out a poisoned knife, the small holes in the blade weeping a small amount of poison,

"Your target was a self-harmer as a teenager so he has scars on his wrists, quite large ones." he told her, "You will cut along one of the scars and he will die within the next hour. Don't worry about leaving evidence with the wound, the dagger is charmed to heal skin it cuts."

Cobalt gave her the knife before he gradually began to fade out of view,

"I will be watching."

Karma took the dagger, nodding, as she observed the house. She'd say it was quaint, if she used such words.

She was cautious, walking around the house to take stock of the outside rooms, the number of people in the house, the number of rooms. From the outside, it seemed to be a two floor house of regular standing, with a study on the second floor (that's where the target was) and three bedrooms on the same floor. There was a tree near to the open window of the study. The first floor had a family room, a dining room, and a living room, the kitchen and living room connected. There was a bathroom on the second floor in which a woman was bathing a small child who looked about four. In the living room two eleven year old boys were watching the TV with rapt attention.

Done with her observations, Karma walked back to the tree. It was not a tree for climbing, though by the scuff marks on it the boys had tried, and most likely failed, to climb it. It's branches were long and supple, but slim, and Karma wondered if it would hold her.

She placed the knife in her belt and began to climb. It was easier than most of the trees in the Forbidden Forest, and so it only took her a minute to swing onto the branch nearest the window. From here, Karma could see into the office, where the target was sitting in his desk chair with his back to the window. He was writing hastily, as though he had forgotten something and was trying to write it all before he forgot again.

There was a gap between the window and the end of the branch that was at least five feet wide. Inching along the tree branch until she was just at the end, Karma jumped, her arms reaching for the window sill.

She landed softly, softer than she thought possible, but didn't dwell on it. She hung for a moment, listening carefully. The writing had stopped, but slowly resumed. She waited for a moment before slowly pulling herself up high enough to peek into the room.

The Target was oblivious.

Using only arm strength, Karma pulled herself half into the room, careful to be completely silent, and reached into her pocket. She pulled out a small draw string bag and untied it quickly, holding her breath as she reached inside for a handful of the powder. With the little pile on her hand -it was more than enough, really - she softly blew the powder at the man, making sure to get it around his head. He sniffed the air curiously before he yawned greatly.

The man slumped over, asleep. Slipping into the room, careful to keep holding her breath, she pulled the knife from her belt and pulled up the man's sleeve. Cobalt had been right, there were scars there. She picked the one directly above the vein and cut it deep, stowing the knife back onto her belt. She walked back over to the window sill and glanced back to double check. The man was still asleep, and the cut was healing rapidly, not a trickle of blood leaking. She stepped onto the window sill, balancing effortlessly.

She tied the top of the bag closed and stowed it into her pocket. She jumped back to the tree branch and slid down the branch to the trunk. She did a quick scan of the yard before climbing back down the tree and walking casually back to the alley. Only once she was in its shadows did she allow herself to breathe.

Cobalt reappeared behind Karma, having followed her every move in complete silence, while totally invisible. He leant forwards to rest his chin on her shoulder with a casual smile,

"Well done Karma." he told her honestly before frowning a little, "Now for where you went wrong."

Lifting his chin from her shoulder, he moved round to the front of her, throwing up a few high powered privacy charms around the alley they were in. Leaning against the wall, he stared hard and emotionlessly at Karma,

"Where did you go wrong Karma?"

Karma didn't react to him putting his chin on her shoulder -she had long ago accepted that he could be anywhere and everywhere-, but looked blankly at Colbalt as he walked around her. What had she done wrong? "Uh..." she frowned and went through the entire specticle in her head. "I dunno. I imagine if I did, I wouldn't have done anything wrong."

Cobalt looked at her with a totally blank expression on his face before nodding and little and transfiguring two pieces of nearby rubbish into two chairs. He sat down in one and motioned for Karma to sit in the other. Thinking for a few moments, Cobalt nodded towards the house,

"Think about how this will play out in the muggle news Karma." he suggested to her, "A member of their government is found dead. Suicide is suspected as the man had a history of attempts in the past. The most recent being..."

He looked back at her with an unreadable expression,

"Twenty years ago." he finished quietly. Cobalt smiled a little, "I spent the last two weeks poisoning him with drugs to affect his mood. More angry, more inward looking. In time he'd have fights with his wife. His children would become afraid of him. Perhaps he turns to a mistress. Or the bottle. Or, perhaps, he takes up his teenage habit and accidentally goes too far and uses pills instead of a half-blunt knife."

He smiled gently,

"The problem was, Karma, that there have been no fights with his wife yet. His children still love him. In short, he has no reason to commit suicide." he shrugged a little, "Before a kill you do hours of research into your deader. That what separates us from the assassins. An assassin will kill at the first opportunity. A wetboy will wait patiently for hours, days, until there is no possible way for them to be suspected."

Standing, he smiled fondly at Karma and ruffled her hair gently,

"But overall? Good first job kid." he looked back towards the house, "I'm proud of you Karma."

Moving to the mouth of the alleyway, Cobalt sighed,

"Be that as it may, we need a new angle before the body is discovered." he turned to her, "Any suggestions?"

Karma frowned. Oh. That makes sense. At least she'd done a good job. The body on the other hand...

"We could always make it look like an accident." Karma said slowly, deliberating in her head. "There are plenty of books in his study, perhaps he fell trying to reach one... broke his neck." She thought of the higher up shelves, the ones that one needed a five rung ladder to get to. it wasn't that high, but it was high enough.

Karma frowned. "Or he fell and hit his head on the desk, shattering his spine." One couldn't live long in that condition.

Cobalt nodded a little,

"Well thought out." he admitted before sighing, "But ultimately impractical. We'd have to lift the body up onto the ladders and then let him fall so that it appears as though he's fallen, cracked his head, and died that way."

He closed his eyes a little,

"We also have to assume that by the time we're ready to put our plan into motion that the wife will have found the body." he sighed, "In which case she will have to die. She will no doubt scream, which will alert the children. And this is an operation that demands that there be no witnesses. So the children will have to die."

Cobalt opened his eyes and took a deep breath,

"I think we have to be thorough." he decided eventually, "We can allow nothing to be left to chance."

Drawing a knife from one of his many hinding places, he tested the edge against his thumb,

"We're going to arrange it to look like a robbery gone wrong." he told her quietly, "The husband will have tried to stop us so we'd have panicked and stabbed him a few dozen times, as amateurs do, and then we'll kill the wife when she comes to investigate. As bungled burglers we won't kill the kids, I'll cast a charm to make us look like a couple of homeless people I saw a few miles down the road."

He looked at Karma,

"Agreed?"

Karma nodded. "Yeah. Sounds like a plan." But of course it did, because honestly, if he couldn't make the right plans, she wouldn't be his apprentice.

Cobalt pointed his wand at Karma's face,

"Hold still." he commanded her as he weaved a few charms on her face that would make any non-magical see her face as a flesh-coloured blur, "There. Try not to make too many exaggerated facial movements. It'll look weird."

He looked casually around the alleyway before placing a hand on Karma's shoulder and apparating them both into the study, the man's corpse still as Karma had left it. He pointed his wand at the window and the glass shattered loudly. He stowed his wand away,

"No magic." he whispered to Karma, "And stab the corpse a few times in the chest with an uncharmed blade. Now."

Karma nodded and stabbed the man repeatidly with one of her daggers, realizing at the last minute that the poison blade would not be useful, because it healed all the wounds. "Shouldn't you have broken the glass from the otherside? So that the shards would be in here? It looks as if somone broke out, not in." Karma whispered, standing from beside the man's body. She glanced at Cobalt. "Who's next, the wife?"

Cobalt shook his head once at her first question,

"No." he stated simply, "I have this entire situation under my control."

Coughing slightly to limber up his voice, Cobalt screamed bloody murder in the voice of the man who already lay dead. The shattering glass would have prompted the wife to start towards the study but the scream, in her husband's voice, would make her rush. As expected, the door opened and the middle-aged woman burst into the room. Before she could think to speak or do anything, Cobalt took one step towards her before stabbing into her chest with a knife about as long as his middle finger. The woman's eyes widened and she tried to scream but only air escaped, Cobalt's strike having taken her directly in the voicebox. Without a sound, Cobalt flipped the woman over his shoulder, the force he used sending her flying through the broken window,

"They will conclude that the wife was stabbed and then thrown through the window." he commented to Karma emotionlessly before gesturing her to go through the door, "The children will reach the corridor in only a few seconds."

He glanced at her,

"You will kill them both." he paused before moving further into the study to begin to toss books aside randomly to make it look like he'd gone looking for valuables, "Do it quickly."

Though Karma was sure Cobalt had said the children would live, she did what she was told, taking two of her daggers in hand and sliding into the hallway. She slid into the shadows behind a large potted plant as the children ran upstairs. She took a deep breath and held it as she slashed their throats, killing them quickly, but having the blood splatter dramatically all over the hallway. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. Blood smelled somewhere between delicious and disgusting.

She was turning back to the Study when she heard the splash. It was coming from the bathroom. Though she knew what was there, she still went to the door and pushed it open, dread filling her.

The smallest child was in the bathtub still, his eyes wide and staring. Karma's eyes widened as well, making the charm on her appearance morph her into something like a monster.

The child started crying. Karma was frozen in the doorway, watching it. "Cobalt..." She whispered, an edge of panic to her voice. "What about...?"

Cobalt frowned when he heard a child crying loudly. None of the children should have been given a chance to scream if Karma had done as he'd told her to. He glided out into the corridor with a scowl before he noticed what was wrong. There was a child bathing in the bathroom. He saw the problem immediately when he saw the confliction on Karma's face. Centering himself he breathed out slowly and all emotion left his face and he glanced to Karma,

"No one can tell of this Karma." he placed a hand on her shoulder, "It's too late now. The child has seen the death around it through the door. If we leave it alone the child will experience the death around it. If we oblivate it they know we're magical. If we kill the child..."

He paused here,

"Then it suffers none of this."

Karma nodded, and pulled out another of her daggers, sliding her fingers along the blade before throwing it, leaving the room before it hit its mark, right in the middle of the child's forehead. She didn't want to look at it, and instead, accioed the blade from the hallway, wiping the blade, along with the others, on her robe. She pushed all of her horror at her other conscience, and it soaked it in, her ancestors glad for the sacrifice, leaving nothing but determination and slight sickness. She wasn't numb, but she wasn't feeling good either. She was tired. She felt weak, and she was craving chocolate.

Almost gratefully, she allowed her other conscience to take over. The change washed over her, her posture straightened, and she visibly relaxed. Her eyes were darkened slightly, from the deepest of brown to black, and she wanted Red Vines.

"Are we done now, Cobalt, or should we mess up more of the rooms? Surely Muggles would have fled by now, unless we're serial killers..." Her tone was conversational, and therefore not the tone she would have used, having just killed a small child. She felt something odd at that thought, a different voice yelling that this was wrong, but she ignored it. She wrinkled her nose as she stepped over the children's bodies, absolutely nothing showing on her face. "Perhaps we should vanish some of the things downstairs, that way they think things were actually stolen." She headed for the stairs, looking down them questioningly. She supposed that it would be alright, vanishing things, but she didn't see the point.

Cobalt watched the blade hit the child directly in the forehead before Karma magiced the blade away and back to her hand. He frowned a little before walking up to her. He looked deep into her changed eyes before shaking his head slightly,

"No." he told her firmly, "This entire operation was supposed to be without magic."

He turned back to the naked body of the now deceased child,

"The summoning charm is too small to be detected." he told her quietly, "But vanishing things will leave enough residue for some of the muggle's gadgets to pick up."

Cobalt turned back to Karma,

"Start a fire downstairs in the living room." he looked at her with a strong will behind his gaze, "Use no magic and make the fire poorly. We want it to appear as though we tried and failed to destroy the evidence."

He stared into Karma's eyes for a few minutes before deciding on something,

"Then we'll make our way out." he turned back to the study to make it look more ransacked, "Then we'll start lesson three straight away."

Karma nodded, a small voice in the back of her mind telling her the name of that muggle inflamatory that Lace had used on her mother.

She walked down into the kitchen and doublechecked what she'd seen through the window. A gas stove. She turned it on, closed all the windows and doors leading to other rooms and headed for the back porch. She searched around the grill, following her nose to the lighter fluid. She pulled the cap off the small tin can, snatching a box of matched from beside the grill. She stuck the matches in her back pocket and slid the glass door closed.

The scent of the gas stove overwhelmed her as she poured the lighter fluid onto the ground in a trail, opened the door to the living room and closed the door behind her as she stepped through, cutting off the scent of the gas. She took a deep breath as she trailed the line of lighterfluid to the front door, then retraced it and went up the stairs. She splashed some over the children before continueing into the study, then the bedrooms, looping a trail around each. She barely glanced at the child in the bathtub, quickly splashing some lighter fluid into the bath.

The hallway looked like a star.

She returned to the study, holding the mostly empty tin. "How are we getting out?" She asked Cobalt. "When I set it from the front door, it'll reach up here before it hits the kitchen, which will explode." She looked down at the man's body. She resisted poking it with the tip of her boot. She wrinkled her nose. She could smell the lighter fluid.

Cobalt didn't need to use his ritually enhanced nose in order to tell that Karma had turned on the gass in the kitchen but it did help him figure out that she'd used too much and that it was blocked in. That meant the gas was trapped and that would increase it's pressure. Gas under increased pressure would explode more violently, taking half of the house with it. He glanced at Karma and considered pulling her up on this mistake but the distant sirens told him that they simply didn't have time. Cobalt nodded downstairs,

"We'll leave through the back door. Do a bit of garden hoping to lead the bobbies on a merry chance." he shrugged a little, "And then I'll age you and deage myself and we'll simply walk through their capture net."

Motioning for her to follow him, Cobalt walked downstairs before standing a short distance away from the backdoor. Without any preamble he kicked the door solidly in the centre, breaking three of the four hinges and smashing the lock open. He frowned a little, he didn't like to use anything but his full strength on jobs so that lackluster display of force annoyed him greatly but he didn't really want to tip the muggles to the presense of magicals. Not to mention that kicking a door clear across the garden and through the fence at the end would have meant some explaining to Karma, which he didn't have the mind to do. He smiled a little,

"Here's the fun part..." he told her with a controlled sense of excitement as he heard the sound of a helicopter growing closer, "No magic at all here Karma. If you use magic in this escape we are undone... and I will have to discipline you. Now light the fire and stick close to me."

Waiting until the fire was set, Cobalt burst into motion, sprinting faster than most of the world class runners. Reaching the first fence, he jumped up and vaulted over it with one hand before running through the next garden and doing the same again, the helicopter's spotlight turning to focus on him. Grabbing hold of Karma when they'd jumped over a fence back onto tarmac, he picked her up effortlessly bridal style,

"Hang on." he told her firmly before running again, keeping up the same speed as he'd been doing before with little difficulty as he ran down the main road of the housing estate. A police officer appeared around a corner and Cobalt, without breaking stride, brought his left knee up and rammed it into the man's crotch before continuing to run. Pretty soon he reached a small pedestrian tunnel, where he stopped dead and put Karma back down on her feet, "Alright, time to change."

Taking out his wand he poked it at Karma a few times, flicking and tapping it in a series of complicated motions before tapping her forehead. The effects on her body were immediate, aging her body to that of a girl of around 18. He raised an eyebrow as he looked her up and down,

"You look nothing like your younger self." he grinned, "I do good work and you age well. Good for you."

Merely tapping himself on the forehead with his wand he changed almost immediately into a younger version of himself. His face lost the hard edge it had taken on with time and the stubble disappeared to display his strong chin smoothly. His eyes brightened to a lighter shade of cobalt blue and all of his battle and weather hardened skin became smooth and creamy. Strangely enough he seemed to be about 19 and yet his body was only lightly more muscled, showing that he'd kept himself well maintained as he aged. He looked down at himself,

"Huh..." he frowned a little before turning back to Karma, "You think I'm 'hot'? Charlotte said I was but I'm not really seeing it."

He unbottoned his shirt a little to examine his smooth abs before smiling a little,

"Well I'm less scarred so I suppose 'hot' is young." he muttered before buttoning his shirt up, "Now we need an excuse as to why we're out here together at this time of night. Any ideas?"

Karma followed Cobalt out the back door, lighting one of the matches when prompted, and setting the trail of lighter fluid alight with a smile. She followed at Cobalt's heels, hopping over fences like she had tons of times before. She clung to Cobalt as he picked her up and kept running, looking up at the helicopter with a skeptical eye. An explosion from the direction they had run from and the creaking of a falling house tipped her off that maybe the gas had been a little reckless, but there was nothing that could be done about that now.

When he set her down and changed her age, she looked down at herself and turned around, trying to see herself from all angles. "I look like my boggart." she mused. She watched Cobalt's transformation and raised an eyebrow. "You look nice, I suppose, but I've seen better." She shrugged. "As for what we're doing here, there's a restaurant that way." She gestured over to the 24 hour cafe near the end of the street. "We obviously lost track of time, and are on the way home."

From an alley came a miffed meow and out of nowhere Nightmare came out, slinking towards Karma with an obvious disapproval. The cat stuck her nose in the air and sat at Cobalt's feet, sniffing him then looking at Karma expectantly.

"Stop looking at me like that you dumb cat. We're in the middle of something." Nightmare cocked her head and meowed. "We don't have time for this."

He looked at her again before nodding a little with a casual shrug as he looked around the area without obviously looking,

"Well how about that... guess that's how you're going to look when you're older then." he commented in a distracted tone before scoffing, "Seen better? Your 13 Karma. You wouldn't know what to do with me."

Unable to really think of a better story, and realising that the chances were they wouldn't even need to give their story, Cobalt accepted it despite the numerous holes in it. He took Karma's right hand in his left to free up his right hand. There was only a little difference in the strength of his two arms but as a naturally right handed person he preferred it,

"Good enough." he agreed and picked a direction to start walking, "Remember to act natural. As if this isn't just a tad creepy."

Hearing the cat, Cobalt closed his eyes with a sigh. This was not part of the plan. He looked down at it as it sniffed his feet with some disapproval, causing him to bare his teeth a little but nothing more. The cat was cute after all. Deciding that this was Karma's cat, Cobalt reached down and gently picked the cat up, placing it on his shoulder, where it gripped onto his shoulder with it's claws,

"I hope you know how to play cute, cat." he told the cat with a small frown before beginning to walk away with Karma, "So. Why is your cat here Karma?"

Karma shrugged, accepting Cobalt's hand and glancing around him at Nightmare. "I don't know why she's following me. She does it all the time. I guess she thought I was in danger." The cat meowed. Karma walked along side Cobalt and looked up into the sky, wrinkling her nose as the acrid smell of smoke reached them. "When can we go back to school?" She asked, her eyes still on the sky.

As they walked around for a bit, establishing a plausible alibi if it were ever needed, Cobalt thought about the events of the night in greater detail. Eventually he stopped by a park bench and sat down, transferring Nightmare to his lap, where he idly scratched the cat behind the ears,

"Pretty smart cat." he acknowledged quietly while looking up into the sky, "Nice to know she cares about you as well I suppose."

He shrugged a little, it didn't really matter when they went back to school to be honest. He could apparate them to the very edge of the wards and they could stroll in right now. But Cobalt hadn't become the best wetboy in the world for being lazy in his escape. On the contrary, Cobalt prepared every job as if he didn't have magic on his side at all. That way if his abilities as a wizard were neutralised (for whatever unlikely reason) he could still be deadly. He sighed a little as he stroked Nightmare's head gently,

"We'll go back in a bit." he told her quietly, "Why did you choose to be my apprentice again Karma?"

Karma sat beside him and sighed, frowning slightly. "I need to become the best. There's a war coming, and being defenseless was not an option." Her frown deepened. "I need to know that when the time comes and I have to kill to protect myself, I can." She averted her eyes. "And I have to be able to kill."

What are you telling him all this for?! Her other conscience spoke up. She'd changed back on the way there, the change for once, not draining her energy. She suspected it was the adrenaline.

Cobalt is my mentor. She thought. If he's going to teach me anything, he needs to trust me. Though she sensed disapproval, she ignored it, and instead pushed her other conscience away.

"That's the reason I originally wanted to be an assassin. I know its a job where people will try to constantly hunt me down, but its better than being killed by a Muggle." She looked at the ground. "So, the reason is that I want to live. I did do it so I could be the best, as I told you in your office, because the best are usually the last to die."

Nightmare meowed and cocked her head at Karma, stepping lightly out of Cobalt's lap and into Karma's, purring and rubbing up against her. Karma patted her absently, unconsciously relaxing slightly. She was still aware of their surroundings, they were still on the run after all. She heard a helicopter in the distance and it made a small smile spread across her face. She could hear that it was heading in the opposite direction.

Cobalt read her body language but decided not to show any outward indication that he had. The body rarely lies. He sighed a little and threaded his fingers together to grip his hands tightly. After a few seconds he let out a deep breath,

"I can make all of you fear... all of your doubt... all of your insecurities... disappear." he told her quietly, "I can make you unbreakable. But first... first I'll have to break you. Can you live with that?"

Karma smiled a sad smile. "I figured you'd have to do that, but if I'll be better for it..." she shrugged, her eyes returning to the sky. "I'm ready." She heard the distance in his voice and tried to get as close to it as possible. But.... she was scared. Really scared. Fear was not something she was used to. It started as an ache in her stomach, but quickly spread throughout her body. She was scared. She closed her eyes and let out a long breath, forcing herself to do it slowly. She opened her eyes and met Cobalt's squarely as Nightmare twined around her arms. "When will you... you know...?"

Cobalt looked away for a few seconds. It was true that there was a ceiling Karma would reach if she didn't go through this, admittedly, brutal method of training but it wouldn't come for another few years. This was so that she'd never encounter that ceiling. What was awkward for Cobalt was that the training was harsh. So very harsh. And, unfortunately, some people broke under it. He was risking Karma's sanity to some degree here,

"You'll be better for it." he promised her, nothing in his voice or body giving away any conflict, "If you succeed in this training there will be no ceiling for you Karma. There will be no level where you stop growing as an a wetboy. You will become the best because you will constantly be improving. If you have no fear... you have no boundaries."

He patted her comfortingly on the shoulder,

"Come to my office tomorrow night. You will excused from all of your lessons for the week, as well as homework." he told her in a reassuring tone, a warm and fatherly tone, "It is quite a simple process Karma. I will put you in a room that is completely cut off from the outside world. Even nightmare will not be able to reach you. Once there... once there I will use every method that a captor would to try and break you. You MUST NOT GIVE IN. Do you understand me Karma? This is a test of your resolve as well. You can make it stop anytime you want but if you do then you fail."

Cobalt smiled and kissed her gently on the forehead,

"The exercise will be over, truly over, only when I say a triger word. When I say "Tennessee", the training is over and you have passed." he hugged her lightly, "The exercise will only be over when I say that word. Get a goodnight's rest Karma. You will need it."

With that he apparated all of them, Karma and nightmare along with himself, to the outskirts of Hogwarts. He stroked nightmare on the head and kissed Karma of the forehead again,

"Goodnight Karma."