Tonight was the night.

Emerald eyes gazed out of the rain speckled window, drinking in the sight of the drops splattering against the glass. The water danced against the pavement, swirling and falling in harsh droplets. The rain comes, oblivious to the life it gives. And here she was, stood watching the rain giving life to this small port town knowing she would take a life from it tonight.

Neptune's Gambit, a large Spanish brig with two square-rigged masts, was pulling into the small port - its sheer size dominating the smaller ships that were already docked. Despite it once being a Spanish ship, there was no red and yellow flag, only a black one.

Pirates.

A smile tugged at the corners of her painted lips when she saw him descending the ramp from his ship onto the wooden docks. Her intel had been right after all - he was making port here, just a few days later than she had been told. She saw him make his way towards the Crimson Cutlass, a tavern across the cobbled street from where she had been lying in wait.

She moved away from the window when she saw him disappear inside the building and without hesitation she made her way over to the door, only pausing for a moment to pull a hooded cloak around her bare shoulders to keep the nights' elements at bay. When she was shrouded in the charcoal coloured material, she stepped out into the street. Her strides were slow - confident. Her hips swaying with each step she took closer to the tavern.

The distinct sound of music blocked out most of the voices and laughter from inside the tavern so that it was merely muffled noise to her ears. It was only when she stepped through the swinging doors that she could hear everything perfectly.

Upon pulling the hood of her cloak down, the laughter and voices grew quieter as the patrons turned to look at the woman who had just entered.

She ignored their intense stares as she walked further into the light of the room. For the most part the room was dimly lit, with just candles sitting on the polished oak tables. There was a few lanterns nearer to the bar that illuminated the room more successfully though, she noticed. The room was fairly large - possibly fitting fifty people in it around the tables alone. Round tables with stools littered the entirety of the space with only a small platform in the corner for the musicians that hadn't stopped despite her presence. The scent of stale ale and tobacco smoke was thick in the air, almost overpowering to anyone who wasn't used to the fumes.

The people in the tavern continued to stare - their stomachs almost ached to see the woman in full light. To call her pretty was to call a cyclone a summer breeze, or the sun a candle's flame. She was simply beautiful; painfully, stupidly beautiful. Thick curls fell in midnight rivers to her waist. Bright eyes brimmed with mystery, full lips painted as red as the crimson of her dress. Hourglass shaped - she was the kind of woman you only read about in stories.

Despite every pair of eyes in the room looking at her, her gaze was locked on the man who she had followed into the bar.

He sat alone. Hunched over some papers in the farthest corner of the room, his gaze pouring over the parchment laid out in a pile in front of him on the table - at least he had been until he had looked up and met her gaze.

His blonde hair looked freshly washed - as freshly washed as a pirate could be - and had been combed back neatly away from his worn face. Early thirties and the age lines had already wormed their way onto his face but his hazel eyes still looked as youthful as the day he first set sail in his teenage years.

"Good evening, Sir," she spoke as she came to a stop in front of his table, her voice as angelic as the rest of her.

Her smile felt like it was made just for him. She looked like a portrait come to life. A goddess walking the world with earthly feet, somehow seeming to see fit to spend some of her time with him here in -

"Mind if I sit?"

Before he had the chance to muster a reply she gracefully sat opposite him, shrugging the rain-speckled shroud from her shoulders with a smile directed only at him.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, milady?"

She smiled, leaning forward so she was resting on her forearms, giving him a clearer view of her cleavage.

"Can't a young woman just come into a bar and make friends with a stranger, sir?" she asked, a hint of a smirk on her painted lips.

"Make friends, aye?" his own smirk was broader than his own. His idea of friendship was obviously vastly different from hers and yet she smiled, playing the game for a moment longer.

"Well actually I was thinking of a more professional relationship... business partners if you'd like," her smirk grew, eyes sparkling. "Sound interesting to you, Walter?"

He fumbled for a moment, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to form a reply, his head swirling as he tried to figure out how this woman knew his name.

"Oh sorry," she smiled wider, happy to see his reaction. "You prefer to go by your surname, correct? Well Preston, we have a lot to talk about."

"How do -"

"Let me just stop you right there. You see usually people take one look at me - usually men, but often women too -" she grinned, "and they immediately think about how they can buy me, spend a single night with me or some even wonder if they can have me. But I'm not to be bought. I'm not here to sell anything Preston. I don't give a fuck about your money, your status or the smell of you on my breath. The only thing I require from you is a piece of information. And if I can't get what I came for then I'll be forced to take something else -"

"Who the fuck do you think you are? Coming in here and speaking shit -"

"I think you'll find that is not the correct way to talk to a lady, sir. Or did your mother never teach you good manners?" she said her hands coming to rest on her knees beneath the table as she stared him down. Her gaze hardened but her smile remained. "The others spoke to me the same way and they all met the same fate."

He paused, leaning further on the table trying to appear bigger and more intimidating. But she wasn't fazed. "What do you want?"

"What I wanted from the rest."

He frowned, the wrinkles on his forehead deepening.

"Roose Wellerby... Bale Saunders... Drake Harrows..." she reeled the names off slowly and deliberately, watching as his expression became more and more confused.

"What about them? You want information on those fellas? Because if so then you're out of luck - those idiots washed up dead months back, one a month or so after the other," Preston explained, his smirk back on his face when he thought he'd won.

"How do you think their dead corpses ended up in the ocean."

He looked at her with disbelieving eyes before he erupted in a fit of laughter. Tears welling up in his eyes as he leaned on the table laughing. "Are you trying to tell me it was you that killed them? You're the dreaded pirate killer that my crew has been gossiping about. The Crimson Viper? Come on love, stop making up stories and tell me why the fuck you're sitting here!"

Click!

The distinct sound of a gun cocking made him freeze. His smile faded while her's grew twice the size. He glanced under the table and saw her gun pointed directly at his crotch. She had a pair of flintlock pistols made with ivory stocks which were covered in unusually elaborate decorative details - she only had one of her pistols out, the other was still hidden beneath her crimson dress in the holster on the outside of her left thigh.

"I told you," she tilted her head giving herself a more innocent look, "I just want some information - it's pretty simple. But obviously if you fail to give me the information I need like your predecessors; Wellerby, Saunders and Harrows - then I guess you'll meet the same fate. Do you want to end up like them, Preston?"

He shook his head, his hazel eyes flickering down to the gun beneath the table. The fear in his eyes made her laugh, her eyes sparkling as the smile lit up her face. If she wasn't pointing a gun at him he might have been daydreaming about how much more beautiful she was when she laughed like that.

"You know, I did have more creative methods of extracting the information out of you like I did with the others but I guess a shot to your groin would work just as well as pressing a knife to your throat. Isn't that right? It's interesting that a man's cock is the most precious thing to him. Cut off a hand or a leg and he won't give in under the torture," she smirked wickedly, "But threaten his manhood and the information just spills out..."

"Who are you?" he spat venomously.

"I'm the woman who is going to kill you unless you tell me where your Pirate Lord is intending to next make port and when."

"Morrigan? You want Captain Morrigan?" He frowned in confusion. "Why?"

"Because I had the chance to kill him five years ago at Kingston Harbour and I failed back then. Now I think it's about time death finally caught up to him - don't you?" her voice had changed. Gone was the angelic voice that had made him smile at the sweetness of it - now it was darker, a more serious tone to it and he knew then she wasn't messing with him.

"You were at the Kingston Harbour Massacre?" he asked incredulously.

"You're avoiding the question, sir," she hissed the last word though gritted teeth as her finger tensed over the pistol's trigger, poised to shoot. "Tell me or I will shoot you."

He smiled, climbing to his feet as he walked around the table slightly until he stopped, hands resting on the table. "Oh sweetheart," he cooed as he brushed a finger down her smooth cheek, "You couldn't hurt a fly."

Her smile faltered. He wouldn't talk and the bar was filled with some of his crew - all armed - if she shot him they'd be on her in a heartbeat but she needed to get that information and so she smiled up at him, angling the gun slightly to the left to accommodate for his new position. "Oh sweetheart," she mocked him, finger tightening around the trigger, "You can't even begin to imagine what I'm capable of."

Bang!

The gunshot echoed deafeningly in the confines of the tavern. Preston staggered and fell, clutching his left knee in agony as he collapsed in a heap on the ground, blood already spilling from his shattered knee cap. He pressed his shaking hands to the wound to stem the blood flow but it was no use.

The woman stood from her chair, already hearing the screams and shouts from behind her as the patrons already began flooding from the building in fright. Those who remained yelled out for their captain as they moved to draw their weapons, some too drunk to even comprehend what was happening. Putting the empty gun down on the table, the woman lifted her skirts, pulling out her two long curved daggers from their hidden holsters. Turning to the six men left in the room, she smiled.

"So gentlemen, who's first?"

The first man charged at her, swinging his sword towards her, his swing sloppy due to the amount of rum in his system. She managed to duck beneath the blade easy enough and taking advantage of her adversary's drunken stumble and her crouched position she was able to plunge her curved dagger into the back of his thigh. She pulled the dagger out watching the blood splatter against the wooden floor with the force of the tug, smiling when the man fell to the floor with a cry of pain. She rose to her feet quickly, flipping her knives over in her hands with the skill of someone who had practiced for years. The cold of the blade in her left hand contrasted strikingly against the warmth and wetness of the blood coated blade she held in her right hand. Just as the next two men moved to charge at her she reared back and flung the blades with practiced ease, both blades finding their targets. The two men crumpled to the ground in heaps, blood already seeping from their wounds and dripping into the gaps of the wooden floorboards.

The final three men, seeing that she was unarmed, were already moving towards her with swords drawn. She took three quick, careful steps back to the man she had stabbed in the leg, prying his cutlass from his shaking hands as he lay bleeding out on the floor. She held the sword in front of her ready for the attack, her hand clenched as she tried to steady her rapid heartbeat.

She let the first man make the first move and she swung up to meet his sword with her own but the force of his swing made her stumble, arm aching. She recovered quickly and stepped forward to clash her blade with his, surprised by her strength, he stepped back and tripped over the body on the floor behind him, giving her the chance to land the fatal blow to his undefended torso. The next man was smaller and skinnier than the previous; little-to-no muscles on his arms and so she swung at him, hoping to knock him down with the force but she failed to consider how fast he would be. He ducked under her swing with ease and managed to slice the skin of her exposed arm making her wince in pain. She turned, kicking him back into a nearby table, watching as it collapsed beneath his sudden weight. She gasped in surprise, the cutlass falling from her grasp as the final man kicked her to the ground from behind. She scrambled to her feet, cursing herself for wearing a dress to a sword fight. She tried to catch her breath but as she turned to the last man -

"Umph!" Air came out of her lungs like whiskey out of a shot glass. Her knees bent against her will but she managed to block the next punch with her right forearm while reaching blindly for the empty bottle on the table beside her with her left... perhaps being left-handed might save her sorry ass...

Her fingers curled around the neck of the glass bottle as the man reared back to land another punch to her face. Grunting, she swung the bottle at his fist that was coming closer to her. With a cry of pain he stepped back, staring at the glass shards protruding from his hand in surprise. Before he had the chance to react, she reached up with the smashed glass bottle and impaled him through the neck with it.

He fell to his knees - frozen, hands clasped against his gushing throat. His mouth opening and closing in shock, trying to speak but realising he couldn't. No words fell from his lips, only blood. Just before he fell backwards, she saw light slowly ebb from his eyes.

She sat there for a moment. Her eyes wandered over the chaos in the room - or at least what was left of it. She felt sick from the punch and coughed. She tasted something metallic and wet, and upon touching her mouth, she looked down at her fingers and saw the blood. She could feel the blood building up in her cheek so she spat it out. She looked over her shoulder at the sound of coughing and immediately climbed to her feet.

Stepping around the bodies and broken tables, she made her way back over to the table in the corner where Preston was still on the floor sat in a growing puddle of his own blood.

"So Preston," she said, crouching down in front of him, "I believe you still haven't answered my question."

"Fuck you!" he spat, groaning in agony as he moved his leg.

She smiled. "I would have thought you'd have learned your lesson by now. But of course if you're adamant that you have no information to give then I'll just end your life here and now, kill the rest of your crew and see if I can find the information I need aboard your ship. Savvy?" Her smile widened at the expression on his face - defeat.

"On the table," he said nodding to the table that the two of them had been sat at before. "The papers -" he gasped, hands clinging around his injured leg, "Letters... from Morrigan."

Her eyes widened - an actual lead on Morrigan's location from the man himself? She smiled at Preston as she rose to her feet. "Now was that so hard?" she asked him before she shuffled through the stack of papers on the table, grabbing anything that looked remotely useful like maps or anything that had been signed using Morrigan's seal.

"Now please you have what you came for," he begged, face losing its colour as he lost more and more blood. "Let me go."

She sighed, once again bending down to his level. "I never promised you could live," she said with a sigh, "After all I can't have anyone warning him that I'm coming for him."

His eyes grew enormously wide when the silver of her dagger that she had pulled from her boot glistened in the faint light of the room. He opened his mouth - probably to beg for his life like the others - but before he could, she swiped at him with the dagger, slicing his throat clean open with one quick flick of her wrist. He gasped for breath but no air. Blood pooled in his mouth, thick and crimson, oozing down his chin and neck.

Knowing she shouldn't linger much longer she threw her charcoal cloak around her shoulders, concealing the documents beneath it as she began making her way out of the tavern, gathering her scattered weapons as she went. She dared not glance back at the scene she left in her wake, only hoped that there wouldn't have to be much more killing after this. There was only one more person to kill, the one who started it all - Captain Gregor Morrigan.