There are people in my line of work who would kill me as soon as look at me.

I think that may be more due to my switching of sides a couple of times and going into hiding than anything else. But anyway, it's interesting. I always have to be suspicious. Alright. Paranoid. I’m okay with admitting that.

Which is what I told myself as I sat in a shady dive (I always wanted to use that cliche) in a tiny village just outside of Prague. I sat in the corner, in the dark, because I'd felt someone following me since I left a museum an hour earlier. I felt the need to assuage my paranoia and hide for a while.

A waitress filled my water glass. I thanked her and sent her on her way

But she came back a few moments later and sat down across from me. Her eyes roved the establishment — wary, searching — before she looked at me straight. She said she knew who I was and she'd been following me all day. (I knew someone had been. See? Paranoia validated.) She wanted my help.

Apparently, her stepsister (we'll call her Elle) had married some country prince after putting him under a spell. This country prince had actually wanted to marry the waitress (we'll call her Ruby) but Elle concocted a story in which she played some kind of poor, innocent girl forced to clean the house of Ruby and her family. Ruby recounted the story that was chock full of singing mice, friendly birds and really stupid metaphors for sex.

After hearing the tale, I wondered if Ruby was just angry about being a waitress and I suggested she try to market the story and make her fortune. For some reason, she wasn’t amused.

Ruby showed me a note from this country prince.

I won't recount the goopy, shmoopy mush that was contained therein because it might make me sick again, not to mention that it was pretty racy. Get a room, people.

Bottom line, though, Ruby needed an assassin.

Lucky for her, she'd found one.

(I neglected to mention that I wasn't actually a good assassin since she was planning on paying me and I desperately needed the money.)

I found myself, a couple days later, outside an old, run-down castle somewhere in the wilds of the Czech Republic. Not exactly where I had envisioned myself being after a day or so in Prague. But there I was, camera in hand, trying to sneak into the dwelling of Elle and the country prince.

Ruby had gone inside to "visit" with her stepsister and the country prince. When she stepped outside for some “air,” she tearfully (actually, it was more like sobbing) told me how awful it was that her lover didn’t show any signs of recognizing her at all. Then she started talking about how her prince used to make poetry for her. She had the awful idea to recite some.

Gag.

I got her back on track with a well-meaning slap across her face. She wasn’t too happy, but at least it made her stop spouting horrid rhymes to me. We got back to the plan and she went back inside.

The “plan” was to take Elle out and that would supposedly break the spell she had over the country prince. I kept my skepticism to myself. I didn't really know a lot about magic at that point in my career, so I figured that it was at least worth it to try.

Except I couldn't find any secret ways in. The ruined castle wasn't that ruined, apparently. So I moved to plan B. I knocked on the front, er, drawbridge.

A butler lowered the... drawbridge and escorted me inside where I met Elle, the country prince and Ruby, who wouldn't meet my eyes. (No, Ruby… not suspicious at all.) I explained that I had been driving but my car had stalled and I got lost trying to find help.

(Such an old story, it was a wonder they believed me at all. Then again, they were living out a fairy tale that was used as much as one of Cinderella's soot-encrusted rags.)

Ruby stood closest to the door while her prince and her stepsister sat at a table. It looked like they were getting ready to give a thanksgiving feast to birds – on the table, there were bowls filled with seeds. Elle explained that she loved giving the best to the birds that lived around the castle.

I shrugged and turned my attention to the prince. I immediately noticed that the he looked an awful lot like Orlando Bloom. I also noticed the extremely vague expression on his face, like he'd been ingesting an awful lot of vicodin. Poor guy. Two women fighting over him and he couldn't even appreciate it.

Jeez, he was good looking... Make that three women... No. I had to focus on the job...

Elle served me some tea. She smiled a vapid smile, showing perfectly white and straight teeth. Good dentist? Or magic?

Huh.

So I sat for a little while and listened to Elle chatter. She was really the only one talking and after about five minutes, I wanted to smack her. No wonder she had to curse men into spending time with her. She was like a bird that wouldn’t shut up.

I waited to see if she'd come to suspect her new, silent visitor (me, of course) but she didn't seem to be capable of suspecting much. I watched her closely and I noticed that she held a shiny, crystal marble in her left hand. I asked her if I could look at it because marbles enthralled me.

She just laughed and shook her head without giving a reason why I couldn't hold it.

I thought I might not have to assassinate her after all. The marble could very well hold the key to the country prince's enslavement. I couldn't wait around any longer, though. I had to take action or I'd go nuts from hearing Elle yammer.

I stood up and made to grab for her left hand. She anticipated it somehow and slapped me. I returned the assault, smacking her face which stunned her. I reached for the marble but she was too quick for me and she grabbed my hair, yanking my head down. She pulled me across the room and I slammed into a table, knocking several bowls off and onto the ground. Millions of seeds scattered all over the floor.

I regained some composure and bit her hand. She let my hair go and I tried to get behind her to pin her arms, but she spun out of my way (not easy to do in the dress she was wearing, I'm sure) and punched my stomach. Leaning over from the force of it, I was able to hook my hand around her knee and sent her crashing to the floor where I immediately straddled her stomach and grabbed her wrists.

She screeched at me and kicked her legs, almost unseating me, but I managed to hold her left hand and pry the marble from it.

I stood up. It was crystal clear and had me hypnotised instantly. So pretty... Every way I turned it, I could see a little rainbow in the candlelight…

I don't know how long I stood there, but it felt like years until the marble was wrenched out of my grasp and I faced an extremely unhappy and disheveled Elle. She glared at me, snarled, and commanded me to look at what I'd done.

She spun me around to face Ruby and the country prince, who were busy making schmoopy eyes at one another. (I felt more than a little nauseous, to tell the truth. Ew.)

It turned out that it wasn't the marble that held the spell over the country prince. Ruby said that Elle had made the poor guy separate five different kinds of seeds to feed Elle's birds. The spell was completed when he had finally separated them all, though Elle had no intention of actually feeding any birds.

Knocking the bowls from the table mixed the seeds and broke the spell.

The marble was just that. A marble. (Of course, they never could truly convince me of that.)

I can't say that it wasn't a successful job. I helped Ruby with her country prince, and apparently, they were going to live happily ever after or some such nonsense. I didn't want to hear about it.

Elle wound up at the shady dive taking over Ruby's job. I hear the customers can't stand her. She’s still spouting the martyr story every chance she gets.

And I, well, I'm still in hiding. Another assassination that didn't exactly come through for me has only strenghthened my enemies' ideas that I shouldn't be allowed to live. Lucky me.

I'm used to it by now. And there really aren't too many things I need out of life that I can't get. I have connections through my failed attempts at assassination and I don't really feel like I'm lacking any substance in my life, despite the hiding and paranoia.

I can't stop thinking about that marble, though, and wishing I could hold it one more time...