CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ELLIOTT WAS ALIVE.
Overwhelmed with relief, James was dangerously close to emotion.
Fury or sorrow or gladness, he didn’t know which.
His eyes nearly reddened at the thought of…
At the possibility that Elliott could’ve…
That James would’ve found him beneath the…
He was merely grateful his best friend was still on this earth with him.
“Are you alright, Elliott?” James tried to keep his voice gentle, he knelt before him. He cradled his bruised face in his hand. “Speak to me.”
After confirming Elliott was physically fine–strangulation bruises, cuts, and scrapes aside–James had to tend to the tremors of rigor mortis of Lucien.
He could’ve burned Lucien right then.
Except, it was a mercy Lucien didn’t deserve. James wanted the reprobate to feel the eighty deep puncture wounds as though they were eighty thousand.
James was heinously proficient with a knife. He was unnaturally efficient.
He knew every major pain and pressure point.
In front of Elliott, however, he had to pretend to be inexperienced with a dead body. A bit clueless.
He had to pretend it took longer than necessary to remove Lucien’s teeth.
He grunted with false effort. He faked small mistakes.
James grazed his own hand in little nicks.
He even took two short breaks between the extrication of the lateral incisors and the cuspids.
Elliott knew nothing of James’s dark history, and James planned to keep it that way. Therefore, James took no chances.
When dentists extracted teeth, they hoped to preserve as much of the gums as possible, mindful of nerve endings, but James harshly exsected the teeth, keeping the cranium pried open.
His brash movements were more inelegant than if he was in the cabal examination antechamber, but he was not being watched by the provost from the tribune or Professor Ilaria over his shoulder.
Wulfram presided over the alchemy teachings and the experiment trials, however, the final examinations in the cabal antechamber were always Professor Ilaria.
The knife was meant for him to cut the throat of the provost, but James abandoned the assassination.
By 7:15 AM, James had already been finished with the corpse, but he behaved as though it took him until 7:30 AM.
He timed it down to the minute, extracting a lighter from his trousers, then stripped naked, burning it all with the birch wood tree in the forest, since it was fairly easy for the birches’ papery, resinous bark to catch flame.
It was one of the best fire starters in a forest if one were short on time and resources.
Of which James was both.
It had been fifty-five minutes since he left the amphitheater. It had taken him ten minutes to reach Eisenhower Woods at his fastest sprint, however, it took him another ten minutes to locate Elliott by luck and by ear.
Professor Ilaria’s reception party would begin at 9:45 AM sharp after everyone had a chance to purge their nerves, greet family members, wash off makeup, return the supplies, and clean the stage post-production.
Even though James made sure everyone saw him leave for Winterthur Residence Hall for a hot shower and short rest, he further made sure to be seen in his damp towel, shaking hands, and accepting congratulations on the way back to his dormitory.
Except, he was unaccounted for right now.
There would be a gap in his alibi where no one saw him.
He had no witnesses to prove he wasn’t in the woodlands.
Rushing, he burnt the body at 7:51 AM.
He was rinsed in blood. He couldn’t return to the dormitory covered in blood. The clothes were carbonized, as well, since it had Lucien’s remnants on them.
Therefore, he needed fresh clothes again, and he planned to sneak into his window he’d left open in the snowfall, change, and bring back clothes for Elliott.
However, his ears perked at the sound of voices. The electors would search for Lucien Montclair. It was their duty to locate the body as the only ones who could enter the sacred grounds.
Elliott urged, “We need to extinguish the fire. It’s too large. It will draw attention.”
“Not yet,” James responded. The smoke would lure them to his precise location.
As his analogue watch struck 8:38 AM, he heard the voices approaching even closer in their direction.
Elliott persisted, “James, we need to get rid of the fire.”
James rinsed off the blood in the rushing, rapid water of the river, and shell-shocked Elliott entered the frigid waters with him.
Sure enough, Perseus and Callum found the high fire that James left in the open to lure them towards his direction.
Not long after, James abducted their clothes, and briefly, very briefly, he thought of executing them both.
He was not a man capable of forgiveness.