The Birthday Cake

Sinali was found staring into the eyes of one of the skull's in her collection. It was almost as if she was having a staring contest, even though the skull only had eye holes and not eyes. Plus she had one eye closed. The guard entered nervously holding the paper out in front of him as if it was a shield. He coughed once and then spoke the words that everyone who spoke to Sinali should remember. "Beati Mortui." he said saluting. There was no reaction at first, which was odd for her. That was her phrase. He looked about fearfully. Had he said the words wrong? No he was certain he had said them right. Perhaps she just wanted context before she reacted. "Erm Miss Sinali....Lord Harrigan has a job for you." he said. The girl's body did not turn, but her head did in its truly creepy fashion. She stared at him for a moment, not even blinking, a look of confusion on her face and then her body rotated and she walked towards him taking the paper from his hand and read it. "Shall I tell him you'll take it?" the guard asked nervously. Sinali stood there for a few moments staring at the paper and reading it over with her one open eye then suddenly a grin came onto her face.

"Yay I get to go play with the children." she said happily and her eye snapped open revealing the guild crest upon it. The man instantly backed away and then turned and walked away quickly trying to keep his composure.  Everyone in the guild knew that if that eye opened she was in one of her killing moods. She generally was, but she was rarely as vicious as when the eye was opened. That was probably why she'd got the Savage skull mark tatooed onto her eye itself.

There was a clatter from the ceiling and a large butterfly worm descended. She looked at her pet and partner Perry for a moment. "You stay at home today Perry." the insect clacked its mandibles and hissed slightly before returning back to its perch near the ceiling. Perry would likely be pissed, but Sinali could not take the parasite queen with her this time. Yes, for this task her most useful comrade would be worse than useless. This was an infiltration mission. A giant insectoid creature would just make her stand out far too much.

That was a few days ago. Sinali had spent most of that time getting to the location, which was a large manor house. The other time had been spent spying out the land. She was very playful and hated this planning bit but it was necessary for the game to be truly fun. You couldn't play the game if you didn't know the rules. And if she had to infiltrate as one of the guests she needed to 'replace' one of them. There was no way they'd let some random child in. Not unless she spent months or even longer trying to become their friends. She didn't have that kind of time. If she missed the birthday party this year the mission might fail entirely or she'd have to wait an entire year. She had two days to find one of the people and learn enough about them to do a decent infiltration.

It wasn't long though before she saw a child leaving the house with her father who actually looked a lot like Sinali, though not undead. All things considered her transformation shouldn't require as much effort so she should be able to maintain it longer. Her target was chosen. She sneaked after the girl, following across rooftops. Their house was quite sizeable. Not as big as the one she was meant to infiltrate, but sizeable enough. She considered best how to get in and then saw the cat. She grinned and caught it before it went in through the back door's catflap and with little effort snapped its neck, tore off a scrap of its fur. and tossed it onto the roof followed by her dress. There was no need for it for what she was doing. She quickly ate the fur and concentrated. Her body rapidly transformed into that of the cat she just killed and strolled in through the cat flap. Now all she had to do was study the girl and learn enough before the party and then replace her. Then things would be set. Of course, doing so would take time. She hoped two days would be enough. She also hoped no-one would find the cat's corpse, but the roof was pretty high.

Now a lot of people who knew Sinali knew she only needed to see a creature to mimic it so would ask 'why did you eat some of its hair'. The answer to that was two words: Genetic Memory. Recently, she had gained greater control over her powers, though not enough to class her as B rank, and this control allowed her access to the memories stored within a creature's DNA via digesting it. Thus rather than having to 'learn' how to act as someone. She could actually act as them from their memories. It wasn't perfect, she didn't gain the full memories as her control wasn't THAT good yet, but it WAS good enough for now. It turned out this cat's name was Whiskers, which in her opinion was a cruelty. Perhaps it was a good thing she'd killed them. Well, of course it was because blessed are the dead, but it was also good because now the cat wouldn't be subjected to that cruelty.

She walked through the house slowly observing things. She had to find the young girl and get some of her DNA so she could begin learning about her. A cat's memories were easy. A dog's easier still. A human's were tough. A child was easier than an adult, but still very difficult. Plus she had to find a way to get rid of the child without her father or anyone else knowing. It was a truly difficult task to do in the time limit she had. Less than two days to get the DNA, replace the girl and go to the party. She hoped her transformation would be enough. Parents tended to be oddly perceptive. Yes, things could be tricky, but nothing was impossible. Even if this plan failed she could surely think of some other way of getting in.

The party was on sunday afternoon. She'd entered this home on friday afternoon. She spent the entire of friday and all of saturday observing the girl. It was fortunate that the party was on a weekend. Observing the girl would be difficult if she was at school. She was also very fond of the cat and came over to play with it often. Over the time spent observing Sinali learned some quirks the girl had and saw that whilst her father had picked her up from her friend's he didn't spend that much time with her. Most of her time was spent with a 'nanny'. Thus her father shouldn't be an issue in her replacement. All Sinali needed now was a moment alone with the child and that was provided on the second evening. Her father was away on business or something of that kind, probably out on a date in reality, and the nanny was kind enough to allow her to have her 'cat' sleep on her bed. That was perfect. A young child alone in a room, undefended, was an easy kill. Almost too easy really.

She curled up at the bottom of the bed and waited for the child's breathing to change from those of someone awake to those of someone asleep. It took a full hour before she was convinced. Now all she needed to do was kill the child in a non messy way. She walked off the bed and focused changing back into her human form. A naked 8 year old undead child. She walked over to the girl's sleeping body and placed one hand over her mouth to prevent screaming and then with the other snapped her neck. Instant death. "Beati Mortui." She lifted the child over to her rather large toy chest and dumped her inside, burying her beneath a whole bunch of toys. She wouldn't be found for a day at least. Before burying her she'd stripped the girl and bit off one of her fingers and ate it, bone and all. The memories provided by her DNA flowed into her as she slowly transformed into a replica of the girl and dressed herself in the outfit.  Now all she had to do was wait until the morning. Plenty of time to digest the memories.  The body shouldn't start decomposing for a while yet so the smell shouldn't give it away.

Her door was open so the cat could leave thus it wouldn't be too hard to explain where 'Whiskers' had gotten to. Yes, it was all a matter of waiting now. Clarissa was an easy transformation. Now all she had to was digest the genetic memory. Once that was done she had to understand it and combine it with the observations she had made. Only then could she be a good enough replica for the infiltration. Only then could her plan come close to succeeding. Everything was going according to plan so far. She didn't need to sleep so her transformation wouldn't wear off during sleep. It was one of the useful things about being undead.

The next day the nanny came in and didn't even notice anything wrong at all. She helped Sinali, or Clarissa as that was the form she was in, pick out an outfit for the day and helped her get washed and dressed. Of course, she didn't need all the help, but a young girl always wanted to look pretty for a party. Any girl did. Except perhaps Sinali herself. Clarissa definitely did though she hadn't shut up about it the entire of yesterday. It had been quite annoying. Still, it was worth it to gain more knowledge of her.

It was one o'clock in the afternoon when the nanny took her down to the party holding a large present. Sinali knew what it was despite not seeing it because she had the girl's memories to some extent. It was some sort of doll. Nothing that was too important to her, but she would need to know what to say when she gave the girl it. She knocked on the door eagerly, something she didn't fake and it was opened by the target. She held out the present. "I got you this Prissy." she said using the nickname that Clarissa had for this girl. Priscilla was her actual name, but all her friend's called her Prissy or if they were joking with her Cilly.

"Yay thank you Sissy." Priscilla replied taking the present. The two girls then walked in and the nanny left confident in a job well done. Little did she know that she'd just sentenced all of the people in this house to death by not realising 'Clarissa' was actually 'Sinali'. "Do you like my dress?" she asked twirling showing off the elaborate pink and blue dress she was wearing.

"Its gorgeous Prissy. Do you like mine?" she said twirling revealing her white dress. It was a beautiful dress. Elegant yet simple. Not as expensive or as beautiful as Priscilla's, but it was truly a pretty dress. The birthday girl tilted her head and stared at it for a moment.

"Its beautiful." she decided after a little while and then grabbed her friend's hand and dragged her towards the main room where the party was going to take place.

No-one seemed to notice she was a fake at all. None of Clarissa's friends, nor any of the adults, which in truth were mostly servants. But not even Miss Vanderscwein, Priscilla's mother, noticed the fake. All things were in place. Now all she had to do was wait for the opportune moment then she could end the lives of every person here. She already had the way planned in her mind.

The day went well, nobody noticed her being a fake, and the few times it seemed like her transformation was going to wear off she went to the bathroom, turned back to normal, waited a little while and transformed back. Maintaing the transformation was harder than she thought even with the similarities in their appearance. It was probably because she couldn't focus 100% on it like she could during the night. She had to act like the girl and that act had to be flawless. A single flaw could mess things up entirely.

Eventually though the cake was brought out and everyone sung the traditional happy birthday song and the girl prepared to blow out the cake. Sinali was behind the girl and as she went to blow out the candles Sinali prepared to snuff out her life.  The moment the girl exhaled Sinali's ribs burst out from her chest and trapped the girl before crushing her back in slicing her heavily.

"Uh oh. Looks like Prissy's wishes won't come true." she said with a smile and her body began to ripple and transform back into normal. "Such a shame. Oh well. Beati Mortui." The rest of the people were screaming and some were calling for help. All of them were scared of her, which was just the way it should be. Her eye, which was closed at the moment of her returning to her normal form, snapped open revealing the emblem of the Savage Skull guild. She was getting serious. It was time to clean up.

The clean up. It was the most fun part of any mission. It was where she killed whoever she liked and prevented herself being caught. A few of the servants leapt at her trying to beat her for killing their favourite child. Sinali just grinned and raised her hands and fired off her nails hitting each of them through the eye killing them instantly. She reached into her own mouth and down her throat then pulled out her silver snake bracelet. "Time to play Mr. Snakey." she said as the bracelet transformed into a sword. "Beati Mortui." she said again as she swung the blade and it extended into its whip form slicing a few throats and even decapitating a couple of people. As their blood soaked into the blade she manipulated the blood's iron content to extend the blade's length and harden it to make it even deadlier.

Bugs erupted from her skin, 20 bees and 10 dynamite-like wasps. More screams erupted at this sight. Just who was this girl? They were confused, panicked and fearful. All according to her plan. The ten dynamite bugs flew over to the strongest looking targets and exploded. None of them died, but they were hurt quite badly. Enough for the 20 other bugs to stab them to death killing them slowly and painfully. It was so exquisite.

Sinali meanwhile swung her sword with one arm slicing into people and the other stretched to smash people with her insane level of strength. What an observer would notice though was that she left all of the children, except priscilla, alive. She had plans for how to kill them. They would die once all the adults had died. That too her was somehow more fitting.

Slowly they fell. All the adults to her sword and magic. They were no match for her ferocity or her power. The fear she caused with her initial attacks had been enough to make her victory assured. They had become weak. Fear was something she rarely felt for it was almost impossible for her to die. Why fear what could not kill you after all? The children had all cowered together. They had seen their friend, their friend's parents, servants and in some cases their own parents all die at the hands of this one blood stained child. Her clothes had become torn by her actions and the blood had stained them red. She looked almost like she was wearing the same dress that she had been wearing before she killed the cat.

"I liked the dress before, but its much nicer now its coloured by death. Don't you think?" she asked pointing the blood stained blade at one of the children. "Well?" The girls and boys all cowered not saying a word. Most of them were crying now. She walked closer and held the blade to one of her 'friends'' throats. "Well Cassie. Doesn't it look better now?" The girl nodded in agreement fearful for her life. "Awww thank you for being truthful. Now you get your present first." she pulled back and stabbed the girl through the throat. "You get to go see Prissy in the underworld before everyone else." All of the other children screamed out in fear. Sinali smiled and swung the sword slicing through all their necks one after the other till only one was left. A little boy. She held up the head of one of the children to him. "Run and tell them that Sinali did this and remember. Beati Mortui." The boy cowered. "What were the words?"

"Beati Mortui." the boy said. She smiled and ordered him to run. He ran away in fear. The words stuck forever in his mind. Sinali used the resources of Savage Skull and her position as Keeper to find out that the boy was mentally scarred heavily and only ever spoke three words from that day. Sinali and Beati Mortui. He was afraid of all girls and had to be kept secluded. It was pretty good.

Yet that wasn't the last thing she did before leaving. Instead she walked around the room and used the corpses to form the symbol of Savage Skull and the words Beati Mortui. With that done she formed wings on her back and flew off. Her mission was complete.