8. One Corpse at a Time

O llie waved goodbye to Noble as he headed towards the stairs that led down to the entrance, the other man waving without even looking back. The very moment Noble was out of sight, he sagged against the circulation desk.

“And here I thought you’d be ecstatic after being stuck in a room with the man for hours. What was it that Fleur said in the group chat?” Jahla drawled before snickering. “Oh, right, she swore you were reading to him.”

He huffed. “Well, I did! And I was happy—no, I still am, but…” Ollie sighed. “As always, I made it awkward by just being…me! Multiple times!”

She eyed him silently for a moment before finally saying, “By being you, huh? You sure it’s not just him?”

“Why would it be him ?”

“Why would it be you ?”

“Well, he wasn’t looking all doom and gloom before he spent time with me, so what else would it be?! And, like, you know how I am!”

She sighed, gave him another long stare, before sighing again. “He did seem a bit off as he left, but then he always seems off to me.”

Ollie frowned. “In what way?”

Jahla shrugged. “I don’t know. Something about him sets me on edge. The smiles seem real, yet… I just have this feeling that he is hiding something.”

He snorted. “Jay, you think that about so many people. Like SO many.”

“I do not!”

As Red jumped onto Jahla’s lap for pets, Ollie started to list just the recent ones. “There was the substitute mail man on Monday, the two new library card applicants on Tuesday, the woman you ran into at the grocery store on Thursday, the delivery driver yesterday?—”

Noble drove back on autopilot, his mind was barely on the road at all.

What exactly had this accomplished? He shouldn’t have gone. He shouldn’t have bothered. Why let himself?

“Fuck!” Noble cursed. Sharply turning into the parking lot of a random grocery store, he parked as far out, and away from everyone else, as he could, and just…sat there.

Noble took a deep breath. It had been so simple in the beginning… No thinking… Not caring what any of the witches felt, or who they cared for, or who cared about them. He’d just followed orders…hah…

The crackle of the fire was loud in his ears as Noble eyed the painting hanging on the wall, more out of distraction rather than interest. Distraction was better than thinking, better than remembering.

Whoever it was, the painting was rather unflattering and somber. Midnight-black hair, pale skin that looked to have been shaded in odd grays, as if touched by death, and a bearded jaw with angles sharper than they should be. The man’s brown eyes were glaring straight ahead, as if he had only hatred for whoever was painting him. His thin lips were pressed into a sharp, unbending grim line, made grimmer still by the swirling gray and black background around him.

At the sound of footsteps, Noble slowly turned towards the owner of the home he currently stood in, Samuel Windler. His new tether to a world he wished did not exist, yet the recently unburied volatile part of him perhaps reveled in the fact that it did.

Blond hair, blue eyes, Samuel, unlike whoever was in the painting, had a kind smile on his face, like that of a priest. Yet the smile set him more on edge. Priests could remain smiling even when ordering your death. Far too much was hidden behind that smile.

“Are you a connoisseur of art, Noble?”

He didn’t react to the comment at all, just stared emotionlessly. What interest would an illiterate factory worker have in art?

“I suppose not.” Samuel’s smile widened. “Well, take a good look at who came before us. A hunter, Nordric Dune. A good man. If there is one thing you should learn from him, it is how easily any one of us can vanish.”

“Vanish?”

“Mm, never caught the devil responsible, but we will one day.”

A chuckle slipped past Noble’s lips. Lucinda was alive and well. At least, Nordric was not the one who killed her. But she had walked away from her life then…

“Are you certain?” Samuel asked again. “This will not be as the first. Their deeds not as obvious. And after, there will be no diverting from this new path, you will be one of us.”

“Regardless of what they did or didn’t do, I know evil,” Noble said firmly, truly filled with the conviction he heard echoed in his voice, even if he had no desire or need to be ‘one’ with anyone any longer.

“You have your instructions then. Go, Noble, and may God favor you this night.”

Noble started to laugh harder. “Arrogant son of a bitch.” Evil…sure, he’d known it, knew it… He knew it so well now, simply because he’d become it.

Noble felt nothing as he slowly squeezed his hands tighter around the slim neck of Joshuah Flynn. A cruel smile that felt almost foreign to him spread across his face as the young man’s panicked gray-blue eyes stared into his, while his nails clawed at Noble’s gloved hands, desperately trying to pry them off. Useless, the attempts were useless, just as all the begging had been. The man’s bloody lips parted in one last silent plea, right before he went slack in his hold.

His laughter slowed as the tears tried to come, but they didn’t. And they wouldn’t. Noble didn’t deserve to cry, and hadn’t in a very long time.

He wasn’t sure what that first young man he killed had done, and he hadn’t asked. Joshuah hadn’t been his first, but he was the first he had no justification for. Worse, his killings only grew more brutal with each one after. That curbed eventually, as one could only entertain oneself with brutality for so long before it grew stale.

What started him on his path—the actions he had taken then—hadn’t been wrong. It was just all that followed. And even then…he knew. Noble always knew something was wrong. And he’d seen it, once he stepped past all of the grief and rage. But Noble had ignored it in favor of blindly continuing forward, one corpse at a time.

Rubbing his eyes, he put his truck back into drive and pulled out of the parking lot, continuing home. When he got there, Noble was no closer to a decision than when he had left.

Walking in, he stopped and stared towards the small kitchen window above his sink. But he wasn’t looking out, he was staring at his own reflection. Gazing into his own hazel-green eyes, he barely saw a spark of life looking back.

“Who…exactly are you, Noble?”

If he ignored and threw away all of the monstrous shit that had happened to him, and that he’d done, what exactly was left? No family, no hobbies, no interests…

Did he even have likes? Dislikes? He had to have some. Even for small things. Yet…nothing was coming to mind, beside that he barely tolerated anyone entering his space.

He was just a blank, empty person who did two things…hunt and kill…

Noble blinked when his stomach rumbled loudly, and as if to protest him ignoring it all day, it gave a hard, painful twist.

Rolling his eyes, he set about making a peanut butter sandwich, as it was as much as he could be bothered with at the moment. With a glass of milk in front of him, the bread and peanut butter still open, knife sticking out of the jar, Noble slowly ate his sandwich.

On finishing and taking his last sip of milk, Noble hesitated for a moment, before making another. Setting the second sandwich on the same plate, he put the bread and peanut butter away. He tossed the knife in the sink before grabbing a water bottle from the fridge and heading to the pantry with the bottle tucked under his arm and the plate in his hand.

Noble tried to not think about what he was doing as he unlocked the door and headed down. It was best at this point not to think about anything at all.

Elisa eyed him, and as always, she seemed both frightened and angry at the same time. Setting the plate down on the chair he sometimes used, he removed the gag from her mouth. She stared wordlessly, her gaze flicking to the plate and the sandwich when he picked it back up.

“You’re hungry, right?”

Elisa’s eyes narrowed, before she spat, “What are you playing at, hunter?”

“No games, no poison, no nothing, just…food…”

“I won’t tell you anything…”

“I know. Most of you…don’t,” he said softly with an exhausted sigh. “Most never say a single word, not even in death.”

She stared silently for just a moment, before asking, “Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

He chuckled tiredly, before giving her a weak smile. “I…wish I knew…”

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