Warning: This chapter also gets a little gruesome. Just saying. Also sorry for the wait. I actually finished writing my original story this weekend, which is super exciting and also simultaneously the strangest feeling in the world. I'm giving it to a couple of friends to beta over the next month. So yeah, I'm in a good mood. Again, though, sorry about the wait. Enjoy the chapter.
Blight's body had remained in the bed through the night. No one could bring themselves to move her. Johnston refused to leave her side, even as a fever took ahold of him. It wasn't poison that was creeping under his skin and raising his temperature. It was despair.
Kirsten never managed to calm down, constantly pacing between the top floor and the basement. With halting words and a constricted throat, he informed the owner of the woman's sudden passing. He'd been unable to read her face, but immediately upon hearing what happened, she'd gone straight to her son's room, and hadn't come out since. Snake remained planted in the doorway of the couple's room, her gaze still locked with the now empty, clouded orbs of the dead. It was a sight she'd seen many times before. It never became less entrancing.
The only two who fell asleep that night were Ignatius, in ignorance, and Illumi, in satisfaction.
The very first thing the next morning, when the black sky shifted into the first shade of morning grey, and the blizzard that had moved in over night let up, Jeni Garner dragged the tired, disgruntled brunette to the front desk and checked herself out of the inn. Almost immediately after her departure, the winds once again began to roar.
Johnston was given a bed in an empty room, Kirsten returned to Ignatius' side, and at the protest of her stomach, Snake broke away from the death-filled room and surveyed the now cold buffet. After eating enough to satisfy her hunger, she went out into the blizzard to train. Illumi's presence was in the building, but she didn't see him once after daybreak. That was fine. She needed time to think.
The day passed as quietly as the night, and in the middle of the second nightfall, the snowstorm finally decided to subside. Snake trained through the night, and when the morning came again, the sky was a whitish grey, and not a wisp of disturbance grazed the land. She found herself staring out over the snow.
And then, shortly after the grandfather clock struck one, Kirsten reappeared. Eyes red and voice raw, he haggardly delivered the news that Ignatius' heart had stopped earlier that morning. Illumi and Snake were the only ones there to hear. He then disappeared onto the second floor of the lodge without another word.
Eventually, come nightfall, Mrs. Smith finally showed her face, trudging towards the front desk. Illumi intercepted her beneath the stairs.
"Shouldn't you be with your son?" he inquired. The woman showed no signs of irritation from being stopped in her tracks, and instead met the assassin's gaze with equally empty eyes.
"I have to call the funeral home."
"Oh I see."
Faster than she could've reacted in her best condition, he grabbed her by the face and shoved. She crumpled to the ground, head twisted to an ungodly angle.
Snake, who had watched from a chair by the fireplace, didn't flinch, and didn't ask. She understood what it meant well enough. She wondered briefly if he intended to kill her, as well, but the phone resting in her lap said otherwise. Of course, she still wondered why, but she also figured she'd understand eventually.
Then he went upstairs. Although she had an inkling as to what he was doing, she stretched her En to its limits just to double check. Surely enough, first to go was Johnston's already weakened aura. And then went Kirsten's. She let her eyes fall closed. She couldn't have stopped Illumi, even if she'd tried.
Illumi descended the stairs as casual as ever, pulled on a pair of black gloves, and began rummaging around at the front desk.
"...If you planned on killing everyone, why did you wait so long?"
"It was part of the client's request," he replied, gathering documents out of the drawers and stacking them atop the closed check-in notebook. "They wanted to sully the inn's reputation. I had a feeling this job would go in that direction, so I enlisted you. There were other ways I could have done it, but I'd never tried faking an epidemic before. I thought it'd be fun. I must admit I had my concerns about that man Ging interfering, but as luck would have it, he left on his own. It'd be best if I could kill him as well, since he seemed to know more than I'd like, but I'm neither being paid to track him nor is he a target I would kill for the price I'm being paid."
"What grudge did your client hold against this place?"
He looked over at her while he straightened the stack of papers. "We don't ask. However, this client was rather vocal about his reasons. He had a strong hatred for Lienne's late husband. He never got the chance to 'give him his do's', as he put it, when he was alive, so he paid me to ruin the things the man held precious."
Revenge against a dead man...such an irrational reason.
"There was also something my client wanted that Lienne inherited from her spouse, but the Zoldycks are not thieves. I checked her vault and reported where it was so he can come and get it himself."
Leaving the papers on the desk, he then returned to the woman's body, and lifted her like a bride into his arms. He took her up the left staircase. When he got to the top, he turned, dropped her, and let her roll until she laid in a contorted heap at the bottom.
"If there are any traces of yourself, clean them up. We have time since we are secluded, but once an assassination is complete, it's a basic rule to leave the scene as soon as possible."
He waited until she moved. As she stood, she said, "No one will believe so many people simply died all at once."
"They will. Rumors will get around when they're found, and people will start telling stories of ghosts. Or they'll say Kirsten went insane and murdered the others. After Jeni has told a few people about the sickness, I'll finish her off, too. The only one who will know we were here will be Ging, and since he left, he will have no proof that we were here when it happened."
As much as it seemed like it was all too much to get away with, he would. He spoke too confidently for her to believe otherwise. She could, she supposed, spread the truth, but then he would simply kill her and whomever she told. She didn't doubt so for a second, even if he was keeping her alive right now.
She went to the basement first, to get her shoes. They were waiting where she'd left them, untouched in the home's entryway. She picked them up, and gazed down the hallway to where she knew Ignatius to be. There was no smell. Not from such a new corpse. Instead, it was deathly silent.
When she returned upstairs, Illumi was standing at the firepit, tossing in strips of something. The stack of papers still sat on the desk, so it wasn't that.
She passed him and went up to the second level. The urge to peek in on the corpses there proved irresistible, despite her original intent to go straight to her room. She went to the room Johnston was in first, on the way pausing to stare into the room Blight still laid in a dried pool of blood. The door was open for some reason, but there wasn't anything unusual. She was still untouched, her glazed eyes still locked onto Snake in the doorway, and the room looked the same. The bed, the dresser, the two suitcases, the easel…
The door to the room Johnston was in was also open. He was also on the bed. His sheets had been ripped back, showcasing him as he laid face up towards the ceiling. Blood soaked his shirt, a large, open gash dug into his heart. Illumi had not tried to be subtle with his murder.
In the room she'd felt Kirsten's presence disappear, she found him hanging from a rafter, a stool toppled beneath him, and a gory butcher's knife beside it. A few spread bloodstains gave the distinct impression that Kirsten had dropped it.
They'd each had quick, straightforward deaths like Lienne. Had they even had time to realize what was happening? She wondered if Jeni, too, would be killed off quickly, or if she'd be made to suffer.
She got to her room and began to pack. She hadn't brought much. She didn't own more than a few pairs of clothing and the bare necessities of personal hygiene. After double checking her vials of poisons, venoms, and acids (none of them could be cracked, and each had a strap on the inside of the bag they fit into), she laid her phone atop her clothes alongside her Hunter's license and zipped the bag shut. Illumi walked in while she was slipping into her boots.
"Ready?" He hoisted his own bag off the floor. Their beds were made impeccably, and he's already collected every strand of hair from them so they looked utterly unused. When she nodded, he tilted his head a bit, and commented, "You never did tell me how it felt to kill innocents."
She blinked. "I might have poisoned them, but you were the one wielding me."
"You mean you didn't kill them?"
"No, I did, but even so it was your doing. I was used by you."
"And…?"
This time, it was her turn to tilt her head curiously. Illumi stepped closer, her fingers coming to cup the sides of her face as he leaned over her, dominating her field of view.
"How did that feel?"
Whatever changed in her face struck a spark in Illumi's, and all of a sudden the back of her knees collided with the bed and she fell back. Illumi fell with her, his hands darting to her wrists. His black hair pooled onto her white as he soaked in the quiet but raging flame that had ignited behind her eyes. The conflict in them was finally gone. Her addiction to death, it had won. He was her villain. He would always be her villain, because he'd dragged her down and become her god. There wasn't any other way to put it. That look in her eyes as she stared at him...it was pure, unfettered, adulterated worship.
A warped smile twisted onto his face, his abyssal eyes alight with pleasure. He lowered his head and kissed her.
In her fervor, Snake returned the kiss. And then there was a pressure on her head, and the lights went out.
When she finally blinked her eyes open the next day, Illumi was gone.
If you thought everyone dying was the end, then you were wrong. I've still got a little more planned for Snake. Now that I've finished my original story, though, I can feel guiltless about focusing entirely on my fanfiction for the time being, so hopefully I can speed up my updates again. So I will see you guys next time, when we'll see what happens next!