Murder! in Paris (Finished)

[Ilyα Cяσw]

The petulant stench of scorched flesh filled Ilya's senses, ensuing a look of puzzled disgust. She avoided each bloodied, marred pile of a person that was once a breathing, animated vessel with a muddied infusion of emotions: loathing, contrition, remorse. Just hours earlier Ilya's body count was leveled only by self defense, and not the retribution of someone she didn't even know. It was a strange feeling, and as misconceived as it was, she buried it in the back of her mind before over-analysis occurred. 

She entered the last room, the master suite cautiously, a sponge-like sound emitting from beneath her boots when they made contact with the dampened carpet. Ilya looked to the frightened, corner huddling woman and then to the body Jack was currently tearing apart with his weapon. "I think that's enough," She contended, shooting the ruthless Jack an expression of worry. She then lifted her bow for what she was hoping to be the last time today, aiming an arrow for the cornered woman's temple. 

"No witnesses?" She stated, but it sounded more like a question for Jack to answer. 

[Jacksoπ Flεtchεr]

    "Yeah. I was just finishing up in here." Jack jammed his sword into the floorboards and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. He felt a little out of breath from his exertions but couldn't tell how much of the moisture was sweat and how much was blood. All he knew for sure was that his hands were both stained red and the mutilated pile of flesh and bone at his feet that no longer resembled a human being.
    
    The young man looked at the terrified woman with a blank expression on his face. If he'd been alone, Jack would have killed her and set the entire structure aflame. But being there with someone else made him stop and think. He looked back at Ilya, a small wrinkle of worry creasing his brow as he recalled how she'd reacted seeing the bodies of the boy and his mother. Killing the men outside and at the store was one thing. Killing a defenseless woman was another.

    "Leave her be. She's harmless," Jack responded finally, deciding that even if Ilya could live with having the woman's murder on her conscience, she shouldn't have to. "I didn't see the father up here. He's probably in the basement. Let's go fetch him and get out of her. All this commotion and the cops will show up sooner or later."

    Picking up his sword the young man left the room, pausing outside the bathroom. By now they could hear shouts from downstairs. Some of the remaining men had broken through the front door and were back in the house.

    "I've got an idea," Jack told her, winking. He called up the water from the pipes and began flooding the first floor, creating a little of his own to speed things up. It took a few seconds for it to reach ankle height and by then he decided it was enough, things growing increasingly difficult to keep the water from flowing outside or into the basement. Drawing electricity from the house, amplified with his own power, Jack electrocuted the water. Screams could be hear from the first floor but after a short while they all stopped and things were completely quiet.

    "That ought to do it. We should stick any bodies that don't look completely dead, just to be sure. Cool?"

[Ilyα Cяσw]

Ilya had nodded once to Jack's words and stood perfectly still until he had exited the master suite. She lowered her bow and strapped it comfortably over her back all the while observing the cornered woman in heavy thought; the look of genuine relied on her face was almost enough to spare her life, almost -- but as far as Ilya knew, this was not a group of skill-less thugs and she was not innocent. The welfare of both herself and Jack was something far more important to Ilya than saving a stranger with an unclean conscious; she was aware of the going-ons of the establishment, and she bored her fearful eyes into Ilya and Jack long enough to remember their faces. It wasn't something Ilya could risk -- not this person, of the other seven she had killed in vague retribution. 

Ilya approached her with non-threatening steps, kneeling down and wiping away several strands of sweat-damp hair from the woman's face. She looked down solemnly, avoiding the last gaze the stranger would hold as she furtively removed a knife from her boot. "I'm sorry," She whispered, pressing the knife into the spine of her neck; it would be quick, and as painless as Ilya could manage -- and she was sorry, sincerely. But the risk was weighted greater than saving a bystander of questionable, internal intent. 

With that, Ilya left the room, grazing the blade of the bloodied knife with the tough fabric of her parka before pocketing it. She stood inches behind Jack as she watched him commit his deadly, magical nonsense. Her brows raised in visible shock -- ha-ha, get it, shock -- before descending the stairs to check the pulse (or lack thereof) of his victims. She would do the same as she did to the woman if there was a heartbeat. 

[Jacksoπ Flεtchεr]

    So his shoes wouldn't soak through and make him have to walk around in soggy socks for the rest of the night, Jack turned all of the flood water on the first floor into steam and drove it out of the house. With every corpse he saw, the young man was sure to jab his sword through their chests or stomachs, making sure everyone was dead. Once they were done, he went back to the stairs, this time descending to the basement.

    Pretty everyone was dead, so the young man created a jet of water to wash his sword before replacing it in its sheath after removing the water from it as well. No longer worried about being hear, Jack took out the handgun he'd borrowed earlier, even though he was pretty sure there were no bad guys left.

    Littered around the basement were various piles of junk, broken furniture and other miscellaneous things. Tied to a chair was the father they'd witnessed being kidnapped earlier that night. He'd been beaten and tortured, stripped down to his boxers. Jack frowned and walked over to him, wondering if he was even still alive. The chair had been knocked over, either by the man's own struggles during the commotion or during the beatings.

    When he checked for a pulse, the man flinch and tried to awkwardly turn his head to look up at the both of them, eyes wide with fear. Jack righted the chair and removed the man's gag and bindings.

    "It's alright," the young man said soothingly. "We're here to help."

[Ilyα Cяσw]

Ilya followed Jack's lead down the stairs, cautious for what could be waiting. She anticipated something like a video game: your strengths are tested by all of the averagely skilled mobs within the level and where your prize would be lied the monstrous boss -- a man-legged alligator with a bazooka, or a grenade-tossing, zombified Mark Twain. An audible, soft sigh of relief chimed from the depths of her throat when there was nothing but the man she came here for. 

She took no time to soothe him as Jack did, stepping forward and releasing his limbs from their ties with the same knife she used to basically decapitate his captors. She pocketed it once more and relocated to stand at Jack's side, letting him talk rather than her; Ilya was never good with speaking when the moment called for something serious. It would likely come out in some sort of satirically humored drivel, as it usually would when she felt anxiety hurling her gut. She looked to Jack, and then to the man, smiling faintly and apologetically. 

[Jacksoπ Flεtchεr]

    "Y-you!" The father gasped, eyes wide. Clearly he'd figured out who they were and now he was just confused. Why were two random strangers from the gas station rescuing him from a bunch of kidnapping murderers?

    "Yeah, yeah," Jack waved dismissively, trying to get through the beginning part quickly so he could start get the answers to the questions that had been bugging him since the incident. "It's us, from the gas station. Just a couple good Samaritans who couldn't stand to let the injustice we witnessed go unpunished. We couldn't save your family, but we can save you."

    "T-thank you," The man's words could be barely understood, considering all the swelling around his mouth. Talking was clearly painful for him and blood began to flow as the cut on his split lip reopened. "A-are they a-all...?" He gulped, glancing nervously at the stairs leading up into the house.

    Jack nodded, silently answering the man's unfinished question.

    "W-who are you people!?"

[Ilyα Cяσw]

"Dead," Ilya put it plainly, retrieving a stray chair and straddling it to rest her forearms on its back. She lowered her chin and scrutinized the man as she often did, leveling his reaction with what words she could muster. "They're dead, mate, and we'd like to know exactly why -- and exactly what we can do to make sure this shit doesn't happen again." Her voice did not hint at any air of sympathy, although she was empathetic -- but given the circumstances and outcome of the situation, she felt the time for grievances could be kept for a later date. 

She raised and waved a hand in Jack's direction, "That one's Ten," She stated flatly, containing a strange, sour look at what already felt like an unfamiliar title for him, before lazily dipping her head, "And I'm Ilya. We are here to help -- but the pity wastes time." Her lips twitched at the noticeable indifference in her tone, and really -- this was why she wasn't one for the spoken exchange. Too late for censorin' your trap, innit, Ilya? She stifled a single sigh through her nose and made a mental note to get her arrows from the bodies outside as she awaited a response. 

[Jacksoπ Flεtchεr]

    "I-I don't know what you mean," The man looked away, his eyes darting around the room. He looked awfully shifty to Jack. The young man looked at Ilya, only refraining from commenting on the fact because he figured that she picked up on it as easily as he did. Jack let her take the lead with the questioning, knowing she wouldn't be afraid to call the guy on his bullshit.

    "We were just stopping at the gas station w-when," He paused, his face twisting as he remembered the events, tears welling up in his bloodshot eyes. "W-when those men attacked us. I don't know why they did it." The man stared at the ground, guilt evident on his face. He looked back up, wide eyes darting between Jack and Ilya, almost as if silently pleading with the two of them not to push their questioning any further.

    "P-please just get me out of here. Please?" He begged, tears beginning to stream down his bloodied, bruised cheeks. It seemed they would have to press just a little harder to get him to spill what he knew.

[Ilyα Cяσw]

--And now, in a blink of an eye, Ilya was mad; real, blood-boiling mad, raising from her perch upon the chair in a slow and deliberate motion to close the proximity between her and the beaten man. "Please don't make me repeat myself," Ilya said in a low, guttural whisper -- as courteous as her statement was, it did not sound so at all. In fact, it oozed in an underlying threat. She lowered herself to look him in the eye, bore into his bloodied soul before rising to her feet again, cracking a wry, bitter smirk. 

"Now, ah -- what was your name again?" She paused, head tilting for an answer before continuing, "You see, I have killed a proper dozen fuckin' people tonight, sir, to help you; and Ten, here? Twice that, at least. We are at our wits end and I would highly suggest that you tell me the truth before I pry it from the bottom of your throat." Holy shit, Ilya -- where did that come from? 

Those are the words of a tired woman with blood on her hands, literally and figuratively, she thought back to herself. She didn't have the patience to coo answers from this man with soft words and feigned care. She could have, perhaps, three hours ago -- but now? No, not in the slightest. She turned, and waited for a reply worth hearing with an expectant bearing to her features. She did not realize that she was trembling, however; the adrenaline was nearly gone and all that was left was her current frustration and physical, bodily shock. 

[Jacksoπ Flεtchεr]

    Shock was present on the man's voice, the disbelief clear in his wide eyes. They'd professed to have shown up to save him and now Ilya was intimidating him, threatening him. And he believed her, too. She would hurt him. The man turned his eyes to Jack, hoping to find mercy there and, finding only darkness, he gulped and began breathing heavily, terrified.

    "O-ok. I'll tell you," He finally sputtered out. By now, the man's eyes were darting around the room as if looking for an escape. There was none to be found, however, and he knew they would catch him. And something told the man that he'd wish they'd left him with his captors if he didn't start talking.

    "My name is Frank. I-I worked with this group over in Europe. W-well not with them! Sometimes they'd hire me to do a job a-and I needed the money, for my family, so I'd do it, no questions asked." Frank gulped, sweating heavily now. "I didn't want to do it anymore so I tried to quit. They sent a guy after me so Francine, my wife, and I, we p-packed up and ran to the states."

    Frank's eyes pleaded with Ilya. "We needed the money. I-I thought we were safe." Tears streamed down his face and he sobbed. Jack couldn't help but wonder what exactly this so called group was and what Frank happened to do for them. His vague explanation raised even more questions than it answered.

[Ilyα Cяσw]

"Frank, I need to you explain every single detail. I mean it. This group, what was the name -- where was their main location, what did they do, and what did they ask you to do? I need the name of the person in charge of this," Ilya said, spit-firing demanding questions as if she were some legitimate private investigator, and not a bumbling twenty-four year old Scottish girl.

She returned to her seat on the chair and began to chip at parts of it with her knife, her sight never leaving the man. The lack of answers made her tolerance grow thinner and thinner; she knew this man wasn't an idiot. Her gut told her otherwise, but making the assumption that he would gift her information to work with must be expecting too much. She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed heavily. 

"Listen, mate. I'm ninety-nine percent sure that I am the nice one of us two," Ilya offered, a hand motioning between her and Jack, "Either you give us what we want and you are free -- or I'm sickin' the dog on you." She pressed her weight against the chair and observed in uncomfortable silence, slumping. The pain of her wounds was settling in and it throbbed against her skin like a second and third heartbeat -- but she did not make that visibly known, not at all. They were scratches -- and what kind of woman would she be if a flesh wound made her wince? 

[Jacksoπ Flεtchεr]

    "I don't k-know! I was just a low level acquisitions type guy, not even really a member... Technically, I'm not even supposed to know what they do, but I figured it out." Frank gulped and made a sort of jerking movement that Jack recognized as a very nervous shrug. "It wasn't that hard. I-I think that's why they wouldn't let me go..."

    "I never talked with anyone important, I swear! A guy I knew from college, Mike, recruited me and acted as a go between. He'd thrown me a job every now and then but a year ago he came to me with something more full time, working for these guys."

    Frank wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, wincing as he touched his sore face, before continuing. "I-I got them materials. Nothing too suspicious although they were illegal." He looked at his feet, avoiding their gaze. The man practically whispered the next part. "But I knew what they were for. They were for making bombs."

    "I denied it to myself for a long time but when I heard they were planning something in Paris, something big, I knew I had to get out. T-they're-"

    "Terrorists. Shit." Jack finished for him, beginning to connect the dots.

    The young man rubbed his temples, sending a pile of scrap flying across the room in his frustration. What the hell had he walked into?

    "Y-you're one of them!" Jack looked up to see Frank's wide, terrified eyes. "One of those freaks!"

    "Oh god, oh god! You're not gonna let me go, are you?"

[Ilyα Cяσw]

"Mike what? What was your friend's last name -- and the name of this organization, you don't know it?" Ilya replied hastily, the tone of her voice hinting at a frantic demeanor becoming of her; from the hole she and Jack were evidently digging themselves, a grave rather, and Jack's reaction to the heavy news. Her frustration returned at the blatant, fearful throw of an insult as Jack had done some bit of magic in his own anger -- she hadn't seen, personally, since she was turned away from the two to collect her thoughts, but she did hear it. Frank's reaction was enough for her to whip around like a bloody mad man and get in his face, grasping his cheeks with her thumb and forefinger. 

"This 'freak' saved your life you pathetic, inconsiderate swine--" Ilya started in a hiss of an exchange, but stopped herself as her voice began to raise in volume. She stepped away and relieved her hair from its up-do, raking both hands into her knotted trusses in a stress filled fidget. She slammed the iron toe of her boot against a chair and grunted viciously -- yet truly, she was overwhelmed to the point where she couldn't quite grasp what all she had gotten herself into in a matter of hours. Denial at its finest. 

[Jacksoπ Flεtchεr]

    "I-I'm sorry!" Fred flinched and cowered away in the face of Ilya's chastisement. "I meant n-no offense. Just please don't hurt me," The man squirmed in his seat a bit, casting fearful glances between Jack and the young woman. He was beginning to worry that he might've been better off with the others. At least he'd known what to expect then.

    "M-Mike Ekim, that's his full name! I don't even know if their organization has a name for itself! I was never a part of their inner circle..." The man jerked his head toward Jack. "Only the f-" Fred stopped himself, looking at Ilya before continuing. "Only people like him got that particular invitation."

    Jack stepped forward, his eyes narrowed. "What do you mean? Are you saying there are supernaturals working for these... Terrorists?"

    Fred nodded. "If that's what you, you t-things like to call yourself. What face have you got hidden under that one?" The man demanded, looking at Jack like he'd tasted something disgusting and hated it. Jack furrowed his brow and bit back a response. Instead, he tapped Ilya on the shoulder.

    "We need to talk about this." The young man motioned for them to move aside, so Fred wouldn't hear.

[Ilyα Cяσw]

Ilya was just about ready to maul the man for referring to Jack -- to all supernatural beings -- as 'things', as if he were blatantly going against her threatened state towards him; but Jack ushered her away from her frustration before ever doing so, to Fred/Frank's thinning luck. She side-stepped a subtle distance away from the frantic man and turned so she had him in her sights while having a discussion with her 'au courant' acquaintance. Even with her ears set on what Jack had to say, Ilya's eyes never left the man's position: a silent, foreboding warning for Frank/Fred. 

"Yes?" Ilya said as an opening for what it was that Jack needed to share, briefly peeling her gaze from one man to the other. Thankfully enough her anger and distress was distracting her from how immense the situation was becoming, and how quickly it was becoming so. "What are your thoughts, Jack?"