Season of Ashes Ch. 01-02

It didn't connect as solidly as he planned; the blade sliced into fabric, but only grazed flesh deep enough to elicit a grunt of pain. That didn't halt his forward momentum. He followed the knife with his shoulder to the other's chest, sending them both stumbling against the back wall. They tangled in the gauzy drapes as they struggled to regain their footing, and a vase of lilies went crashing to the floor along with them.

Their assailant was fast. Fujiwara pulled the knife back to strike again, but he was shoved back by a knee to his gut. It didn't have enough leverage to wind him, but he growled with primal anger, slashing at the man's arm as he tried to follow the knee with a wide haymaker. Again, the knife didn't quite connect, and Fujiwara cursed internally. He threw his elbow into the attacker's face instead, eliciting a solid crunch as he landed the blow.

He had to make some space, and size up his opponent now that he'd landed a blow. He took a few careful steps back — it gave the attacker time to recover himself, but it also gave Dominik a moment to rebalance and reorient. Taking the opportunity, he glanced to the side to where the woman had fallen. He wasn't sure if she had been hit or had gotten out of the way; it had all happened too fast.

The reprieve gave him just enough time to confirm that she was still alive, and he saw the glint of a blade in a white-gloved hand —

— just in time to feel the searing pain of a fist to his ribs, and the weight of a man knocking him to the floor.

Stupid, stupid. Never let them catch you off balance. He just had time for the thought before the knife went skittering across the polished hardwood, clattering into the corner of the room. He barely managed to lift his arm in time to block the next punch, and he forced his knee into the man's groin, trying desperately to regain control of the situation.

Milicent

There was nothing worse than being caught flat-footed in the middle of an operation — especially for an operative with a penchant for high heels. Stress and fear melded in an unwieldy, primal combination, one that could either save her life with well-honed instincts or ruin it with ill-considered reactions. In those first seconds following the flight of the bolt, when each discrete moment seemed to stretch until it occupied its own epoch, Milicent's vital advantage had been her premature acceptance of her own demise. If death were indeed imminent, she could bite the bullet and leap into the breach without a care in the world.

But when she peered around the edge of her upholstered barricade, she was struck with a scene that was quite contrary to her early expectations. The Man-in-Black and the Pseudo-Bellhop were fighting. Her presupposed vision of an ambush instantly reshaped into a free-for-all. Sauve qui peut. What a stroke of luck.

She bolted. Speed was her only chance, especially while the two were occupied with each other. She dashed from behind one couch to another, the hemline of her skirt dusting the floor as she squatted, keeping herself low until she reached the vicinity of the escritoire. With her free arm, she scooped up the binder and tucked it into the crook of her elbow, turning around just in time to enjoy the sight of the two interlopers tangled on the floor, blocking the closest path to the hallway and the main doors.

She hesitated. The cogs in her head whirled.

Fights like this were messy even in the best of circumstances. Her interference would make it more unpredictable — even invite the possibility of an injury to her. She shouldn't even be considering it. But there was such a thing as battlefield loyalty, and not even Milicent's conscience was entirely immune to the lure of reciprocal goodwill. The Pseudo-Bellhop had been nice enough to her — if niceness could be defined as the absence of immediate murderous rage.

After a second's pause, she darted in the direction of the ajar window, sticking to the walls to avoid falling into the orbit of the hostilities. Along the way, she kicked the knife that had skidded to a halt in the corner of the room, sending it spinning toward the combatants. Bonne chance. Her good deed for the year.

Her shoulder bumped against the glass of the window, easing the casement open while her rear settled against the sill. Her legs flew across the air in one fluid sweep, arcing over the ledge and landing with a clack on the stone of the wraparound balcony outside. She pushed away from the sill, using the momentum to launch herself forward.

The urban soundscape was muffled; she perceived the distant blare of horns, the far-off rumble of vehicles, the indiscernible chatter of civilians, but it was all muted by the expanse of trees in the small park guarding this corner of the Impérial — an indispensable feature that safeguarded the tranquility of the hotel's most prestigious guests.

Milicent paced toward the edge of the terrace, torso leaning over the balustrade to gauge the height from the railing to the ground. Quite a drop. That would never do. Her best hope was to keep walking along the terrace and see if she could sneak inside an adjoining room of the Grisaille—

—Was someone talking?

She pressed her back against the wall, paused her breath, and concentrated on the noise.

"Je répète."

A man. Soft-spoken. Around the corner. A guest on another balcony? She crept closer to the very edge of the wall. She heard an electronic gargle, a hiss of static.

"Tu me reçois?"

No. Nearer. This balcony. She peered around the corner, and instantly locked eyes with a man standing two metres away: slight, middle-aged, balding. He nursed a radio in his leather-gloved hands, cupping it near his mouth to conserve the volume of his whisper. His eyes flicked from hers to the binder, which was peeking out from the side. He snarled.

Milicent cursed her slip-up. Of course there was a lookout.

She stepped forward, fully exposing herself, and moved the binder over her chest like a shoddy breastplate. He lunged first. The receiver in his hand became an improvised weapon. He raised his arm and swung at her, infusing the entirety of his forward motion into the manoeuvre. Milicent pulled her left shoulder back and — in the same seamless move — whipped her right arm with viperine efficiency toward his downswing, slicing the blade of her knife into his forearm to cut the puppet-strings of his tendons. Ruby droplets splattered on the stone. He grunted; his fingers twitched; the receiver fell down. Milicent smiled —

— then screamed as he barrelled into her, knocking her head into the wall while his other hand manacled her throat. Her knife clattered on the ground. Dark spots blossomed in her vision. She thrashed, kicking wildly. He squeezed harder. She had seconds. Milliseconds.

She lowered her chin and tightened the muscles of her neck to give her arteries the slightest reprieve. In a last-ditch effort to disable his hold, she slammed the binder into his wrist. It was all she needed: his four fingers on the one side of her neck were firm in their camaraderie, but his solitary thumb on the other side trembled in the wake of the force. His grip broke. The leather glove slipped from her neck. She gasped for breath, elbowed him aside, and dived for the knife.

In the blink of an eye, he was on top of her, pushing his hands against her back to force her face-down on the ground. No longer bound in a bun, Milicent's hair was a wild mess of gentle waves that draped around her, obscuring her vision as she gasped, her lips quivering on the stone. He was strong.

But she was young — and quick. Her hand found the knife. Her arm swung back haphazardly with machine-gun thrusts, rapidly carving his thigh with blind, shallow thrusts. He howled. Once more, his grip loosened — just enough for her to twist her torso around and incorporate the pivot into the strength of another thrust right into his neck.

A sickening squelch filled the air. Milicent grunted, pulling the knife out in a lurid spray of red. The man fell on her. Silent. His body twitched; his weight crushed her, mooring her to the ground. She felt his boiling blood seep into her dress.

Everything hurt. Even breathing. Her vision was blurry. Were those tears? She struggled to keep herself from hyperventilating. She thought of Monsieur Mûre, who possessed such a commendable tempo. Tick. Tock. Breathe in. Breathe out.

The binder was lying open next to her, its pages fluttering in the stray swirls of outdoor wind. Her thoughts drifted to Mr. Edward Newland, her husband — well no, they weren't actually married, were they? She couldn't recall the wedding, at any rate. Or the shape of his face. Was he real?

"Oh no," she muttered, her voice strained and soft. How was she going to explain to her parents that she'd gotten hitched to an imaginary man? How absurd. It all seemed so...ridiculous.

Exhausted, injured, and blood-splattered, Milicent Harris-Vogue began to laugh.

Dominik

The two men were locked in a struggle on the hardwood floor, each trying to overpower the other. Dominik had a size advantage on his assailant, but it wasn't enough for him to regain control over the situation quickly enough for his liking. He growled with effort, gritting his teeth as he held back the man's hands, which were striving to wrap around Fujiwara' neck. It was a battle of inches — one that Dominik was slowly winning, but fraught with danger nonetheless.

He didn't know what the woman was doing, and couldn't spare a moment to glance back at her. He half expected a knife in his back, for her to take advantage of their distraction to steal away with her prize. All he knew of her actions was a rustle behind them, the clack of heels on the floor —

— and the skitter of the knife blade as it slid toward him. Was it in reach? He couldn't take his eyes off his attacker, couldn't do anything more than brace his arm against the man's chest and try to kick him back as his fingers scrabbled blindly for the knife.

There. The familiar texture of the hilt slipped into his fingers, and he heard his heartbeat in his ears, each beat ringing like the toll of a bell. Thump-thump. The motions were instinctive, with no time to think, no time to analyse. Thump-thump. Each second stretched on into eternity, his muscles corded along his arm as he braced against his attacker. Thump-thump. His grip solidified on the knife, he felt its weight in his hand, and brought it around. Thump-thump. His arm swung through the air, slowly enough that it felt like he was trapped in tar, making its way almost lazily toward his attacker. Thump-thump. The satisfying and sickening sensation of flesh and fabric tearing open vibrated through his arm, and the man gave a guttural cry as the blade sunk into his back. Thump-thump. Dominik jerked the knife sideways, tugging past the resistance of the man's spinal column, grunting with effort as the body went limp instantly.

He panted with exertion, struggling to catch his breath as soon as he was certain the threat was eliminated. His head fell back against the floor, and he shoved the corpse off him, climbing to his feet.

Once, killing another human may have had an effect on him, might have shaken his resolve. Not anymore. His hands didn't tremble, there was no nausea or guilt — those days were well behind him. He looked down at himself; the bellhop's jacket was soaked with blood, staining the red fabric even darker, tarnishing the gold lacing. No point in keeping it in this condition; he shrugged off the jacket and glanced around the room to get his bearings.

The curtains were still fluttering in the breeze of the open window, and the binder was no longer on the desk.

"Bloody hell." Fujiwara cursed to himself, carving each word out of the vitriol that came from smoking illegal cigarettes every day for the past two weeks.

There was no choice. He followed in the wake of the mysterious blonde, clambering out of the window in a somewhat less distinguished manner than she had, slipping into the cool darkness of the Parisian autumn.

The slight breeze didn't bother him; he was still floating on the adrenaline of combat and the savage thrill of victory. He might have lost his aversion to killing, but that high never changed; it was a lingering reminder of what he was, no matter what face he wore or what job he was tackling. He was always a killer at heart — but he had more important things to worry about. The binder the woman had taken was worth a lot of money to him, and he wasn't about to pass up on an opportunity like that. Nor was he about to make an enemy of the man who had hired him.

The sounds of a scuffle came from around the corner, where the balcony curved around the building. Fujiwara arrived just in time to see another man slumped over the woman, her hair a blonde halo under the twitching body. He heard a soft sound as he approached — she was laughing?

"I'm glad you find something funny. I'm not laughing after you tried to fuck this job up for me." His voice was a low growl, hoarse with anger and exertion. "I'll be taking that binder — but you can keep the watch."

Crimson drops sloughed off the knife as he stood over the woman and her victim. She seemed unharmed, but he wasn't certain that he even cared after she almost spoiled the job for him. The wind tugged at his hair, pushing wayward strands across his face as he regarded her with cold eyes. "Not friends of yours, then? Seems like someone was setting both of us up."

He leaned down, wincing as sore muscles protested, snapping the binder closed and tucking it against his side. He dug his boot into the shoulder of the man, pushing him brusquely off of the svelte figure beneath.

Her dress was ruined — she wasn't going to be able to get that much blood out of it. She'd been utterly composed in the lamplight when he found her in the Grisaille, but even dishevelled, exhausted, and dripping in blood, the woman lent a sort of elegance to the scene. He had to admire someone who knew what she was doing, and looked good doing it.

Fujiwara didn't sheathe the knife. He wasn't sure if he should leave her in any condition to chase him down, not when she'd almost gotten away with his bounty. He didn't recognise her, but she was more capable than her clothing and her elegance suggested. The corpse laying beside her was a testament to that. In this line of work, you had to be good at what you did. Otherwise, you wound up like their former attackers, cooling in the autumn air.

Milicent

Even the menacing patter of heavy footsteps failed to stifle Milicent's mirth. Instead, the burble of her laughter eroded into a chortle, and it was with a bright, beaming smile that she greeted the towering figure of her approaching friend.

Friend? That didn't seem accurate. Friends usually reciprocated smiles. This man wore an expression several dozen degrees away from amusement. And that grating, guttural register in his voice when he addressed her — why, he was positively upset. How vexing. Milicent was sure she didn't deserve that scowl. In the back of her mind, a sparkler burned, shooting neon flames around her thoughts: a warning sign; danger ahead. But what could possibly be wrong?—

—She gasped, a burst of air refilling her lungs after he punted the corpse off of her. Colour began to return to her wan cheeks. A smoky vignette clouded the corners of her vision. She sat upright, her thoughts churning with the slow trickle of logic as precious breath inflated her chest. Her skin tingled. Lethargy embraced her like an opiate perfume. She felt as though she had never slept a wink in her life.

"You survived," she managed. There was a husky undertone to her voice, which was now textured with the weight of her torpor. "No." She looked at the body. "Not my friends, either."

Gloved fingers touched her throat; she winced, sensing the residue of the stranglehold. Though somewhat worse for wear, Milicent had no misgivings about the slaughter. She regarded the corpse next to her with a look of scorn: what an eyesore. She struggled to process the man's words. Was this indeed a trap? Had she been sent here to die? Or had she simply crossed paths with multiple rivals dipping their fishing lines in the same stream?

Slowly — as though each square centimetre of her skin were tethered to the strings of a puppeteer — she arose, making no sudden movements that might provoke her not-friend, or incite pain from her bruised body.

Before, the candent splendour of her white dress and nacreous heels had afforded her the sheen of innocence — a blameless façade, whether she displayed her seraphic smile or her porcelain hauteur. People are always susceptible to beauty, always predisposed to imagine the best from those bearing angelic countenances. Milicent was no wallpaper motif; she could never fade faithfully into the background, so she opted instead to lean into her own conspicuousness, exaggerate her purity through smoke and mirrors, fabrics and colours.

But at that moment, she looked more like a hellfire bride, a fallen angel garlanded with blood, the final girl in some torturous slasher film. A tardy raindrop — arriving far later than the afternoon showers that ferried its brethren — splattered on her bare shoulder and formed a cloud-red rivulet that ran over her clavicle. She suppressed a shiver and thought wistfully of the palatial bathtub she had seen inside the suite. There was no time for that now.

Her infiltration, seemingly unchallenged in the beginning, had ultimately resulted in the appearance of two dead bodies (presuming that her not-friend's knife was currently dripping in the original intruder's lifeblood) along with a stunning wealth of forensic traces. She looked down at the crimson pooling beneath her shoes. How long before Newland returned? How long before the judicial police were inspecting the premises with UV lights and scent hounds? Time to cut her losses; time to run. But running meant forsaking her quarry — and with it, her fanciful passport to freedom. After this many sunk costs, could she really end her holiday, return to the agency, and content herself with the original rhythms of her career?

She twirled her fingers, wiping the stained blade of her balisong on her dress before retracting the blade. She crossed her arms and stared at the striking man standing before her — the Pseudo-Bellhop, the not-friend. So many puzzling aliases for such an enigmatic figure. Her eyes roamed over his features with a lingering tendency that was far too prurient to be considered polite; she glanced at the chiselled features delineating his face, the unyielding sculpt of his torso, the broad outline of his shoulders, the uncompromising grip of his fingers around the binder. Up close and out of the shadows, he bore all the annoying hallmarks of handsomeness. Milicent dismissed her indecent interest as another aftershock of adrenaline — the misattribution of arousal: her surplus excitement had nowhere to go now that the immediate danger had passed, so it settled into her engine and heightened her carnal appetite. Yes. That's all it was.

"Are you doing this for money?" she asked, fixating her eyes on his after a lengthy detour. It was a worthwhile guess; she, after all, was doing this for the payout. "If so..." — she sighed, swallowing a bitter pill — "...name your price." With Herculean effort, she maintained the stare, though every innate liar's instinct encouraged her to withdraw her gaze. "I can outbid anyone."

Dominik