The Thieves of Darkness by Richard Doetsch

answer to your prayers when you’re on the job.”
    “Why?” KC asked.
    “I guess to clear my conscience. I’m a troubled man, I’ve done some bad things, real bad things.” Iblis paused; KC could see regret in his light blue eyes. “Everyone, once in a while, no matter how bad we may be, we’re all capable of doing some good.”
    KC’S FIRST REAL job, her first real heist, was from a private home. General Hobi Mobatu was an immigrant from Africa who had amassed his wealth by pillaging humanitarian aid that was meant for the innocent, for the sick and dying subjects of his land. He carried his wealth to England, living the high life in his false general’s uniform, decorated with medals awarded to and pinned on by himself.
    KC had researched Mobatu’s purchases; he foolishly bought each work of art with much fanfare, massaging his ego with the accompanying publicity. She reviewed his inventory with Iblis, who helped her select
The Suffering
by Arls Goetia. Painted in 1762, it was from theheight of the artist’s career, depicting a mother holding her sick child while a celestial war raged above them.
    KC waited until the evening that the general was to be given a human rights award, an award created and paid for by himself. He left his mansion at 6:00 P.M . and by 6:01 KC had already slipped the lock on the back door and disabled the alarm. She wasted no time, heading directly for the sitting room where
The Suffering
hung on the far wall. She disabled the frame alarm, removed the painting, replacing it with a fake, and was out of there by 6:10.
    The painting wasn’t reported stolen for a month, the result of Mobatu’s lack of knowledge about what he owned. The police and private investigators canvassed the area, questioning the locals about whether they had seen anything that warm spring evening. But no one recalled a thing except for one woman who remembered a tall girl in a school uniform and knapsack walking home. The elderly lady tried to continue the conversation, hoping for company, but the police wrote her off and moved on.
    The papers and the art world buzzed for weeks with news of the theft, but no trace of
The Suffering
was ever found. The painting had long since been sold to a wealthy European who held it in his private collection. Iblis had shown KC how to move it, how to be paid in untraceable currency, and how to use her ill-gotten gains without raising suspicion.
    The job was like her senior thesis, a culmination and demonstration of all she had learned from Iblis. He had never asked for anything in return, which always raised her suspicions, but his sincerity always managed to quell her nerves. And so, with the completion of the job, the money in the bank, he said good-bye.
    KC made sure to pay him back all of the money that he had given her; she never wanted to be in his or anyone’s debt. And though he fought her on the matter, he reluctantly accepted the funds, seeing the pride and determination in her eyes.
    She was his best and only student.
    * * *
    KC WAS AN expert by eighteen. She preferred art to jewels. She hit only the well insured. Her subjects were well researched and deserving of punishment: the greedy businessman who swindled his employees; the rock-and-roll singer who violated young girls and boys, paying off their parents to avoid their pressing charges; people who were always above the law, whose misdeeds never went to trial, whose consciences were unfamiliar with the words
guilt, remorse, or pity
. She seldom did more than two jobs a year, all well planned, well executed, and without a single clue left behind.
    KC MISSED OUT on high school, sacrificing her life for her sister’s. It was the only way they could stay together; it was the only way she could make the kind of money they would need to survive. And throughout it all she felt a profound guilt for her actions. She’d never intended to be a criminal. It tore her up that no matter how hard she tried she was like the