By the Pricking of My Thumbs || Closed

[claimsmedic]

WHO: Dr. Nathan Wallace and Dr. Frederick Chilton
WHERE: Maurtia Falls
WHEN: Halloween Night
WHAT: The Repo Man strikes.
WARNINGS: MURDER MOST FOUL no seriously there will be eviscerations



He had carefully planned this night.

The best night for a crime like this, really. Wandering through the streets with an unconscious man over his shoulder, dressed in his Repo-Man garb. People thought him frightening, or laughed and praised the quality of the "costume". Others thought he was simply escorting an inebriated friend home.

No, no. He's doing a thankless job. A.. repossession.

A gift, if you will, for a patient at the Maurtia Falls Psychiatric Institute.

He throws the man on the steps, passing into the shadows to unlock the door from the inside. Dragging him into the foyer where he gets to work.

He does not stop his screams when he makes the first incision. Why should he? No one is supposed to be here this time of night. At least, no one who will interfere. It's with careful precision he guts the man from stem to sternum, cutting open his ribs to splay him open. A quick slice to the throat, and he removes his bloody heart. A ritual. A sacrifice. Much like the girl in 304 had described.

Much like she had been institutionalized for.

And here, the true culprit, the one who had manipulated her, convinced her- Nathan stares down at him, cold eyes upon his dying form.

Well. The ritual never said anything about him needing his lungs or liver intact...

Comments

[slightlyoffchilt]

What a strange noise.

Chilton stilled his step, his slender legs having made their way down the hall at a typical brisk pace. It was late, yes, but he had been structuring Negan's profile -- scheming out the details of this unspoken treatment. A bargain he had made with Negan, that he would treat Negan as a patient while elevating him. A bargain that required much of Chilton's spare hours, those corners of his diligent focus. Anything he could spare to Negan he would.

So he had remained late, this Halloween night. He had remained quiet, tending to his darkly woven plots.

But those noises he had heard, they were distinctly pitched. Screaming, he had thought. He heard screaming. And Jack wasn't in the building -- he knew better than to hunt here.

A quick series of turns brought Chilton closer to the agonized sounds, until it all went deathly quiet.

"Jack, I swear to god --" his hand on the door knob. Twisting. His key into the lock, that master key he had access to everything with. "This better not be what it sounds like."

[claimsmedic]

Nathan doesn't pull away from his work, even with approaching footsteps, even with the key in the lock and a familiar voice calling a not-so-familiar name. He's too busy with his perfect incisions, humming to himself as he pulls out his lungs, reaching into the shadows for his delivery bag. A trophy. Until he can figure out what to do with them.

The liver is being sliced out of the body when he hears that key turn, and he looks over his shoulder, murderous in his intentions.

It's illegal to disturb a Repo Man at work. Punishable by death.

One last slice, and the organ is freed, and his palm is on a scalpel, ready to strike.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Chilton froze in that moment, the door open, the homicide exposed. He froze and couldn't move, couldn't run. He could barely breathe. The killer looking straight at him.

"Oh god," he whispered. A murmur, the way his heart murmured just now, the only words he could squeeze out from his throat.

A million outcomes raced through his mind, and most of them ended with him in dire agony -- but he could use pain now, he could fight power with compulsion. That realization alone kept his hand steady on the doorknob.

[claimsmedic]

The hesitation brings Nathan down upon him, his hands shooting out to try and catch him by the throat. He wants to shove him against the wall, wants to put that blade against his neck. How dare the man interrupt him, how dare he spy on his work-!

[slightlyoffchilt]

The catch lands, and Chilton found himself slammed against the wall. A strong, deft hand at his throat. A blade thirsting for his skin. Imminent death.

Don't kill him.

The thought is projected into Nathan's head almost instinctively, with Chilton having thrown the words psychically. Product of his fresh power.

[claimsmedic]

Don't kill him.

The voice that whispers in his head isn't his own. It's the soft, sweet whisper of his long-dead wife, haunting him from beyond the grave. Echoing in his head like crystal, ringing like a bell.

He does not kill him. But he does keep his hand on his throat, even if the other moves to tuck the scalpel away.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Good, good -- good sign, wasn't this? Chilton whimpered, the sickly icicles down his back cutting deep. Good sign.

That hand still clenched at his throat. That brutal force still against his body. Everything so clothed, covered in leather, and he couldn't sedate. Chilton wasn't in enough pain to command, so he had but one choice.

One manipulative tactic.

Protect him.

[claimsmedic]

Protect him Marni whispers in his ear, and how can he not? How can he disobey the ghost that haunts him?

"Doctor." The voice is low, gruff, and most likely unfamiliar to Chilton's ears. He tilts his head slightly, curious, examining. But he doesn't let go. How is he to protect the man?
"What threatens you?"

[slightlyoffchilt]

What threatens him? Chilton could barely choke back the strangled cry; while he hadn't expected his ability to work quite so efficiently against his assailant, he also would have thought that same assailant might have guessed.

Curious, thought Chilton, that he was recognized as a doctor and yet he could not place the voice of the man who nearly slit his throat.

"It seems that, at the moment," began Chilton. "You are the most threatening individual. In my vicinity."

[claimsmedic]

"So I should let you go?" He tilts his head, like some terrible bird, like some monster evaluating his prey.
He could be a guardian. Silent, unseen. He could...

So he slowly lets him go. Steps back. And starts sinking into Chilton's shadow.

[slightlyoffchilt]

"Oh, thank god, I --" Chilton practically yelped, as he turned to see his nearly-attack sink away into his shadow. An unnerving exit to witness, something that unsettled Chilton in a manner he had yet defined.

But it was over, he figured. He had defended himself, he used his powers and guile to persuade this predator away.

It seemed like it was over.

[claimsmedic]

It seemed like it was over. But Nathan is still there, lurking in his shadows. Protecting him. Waiting for him.

And, well, he had certainly left a sight for the doctor. The man spread eagle across the tile of the foyer, guts pulled out and open, entrails arraigned in an almost ritualistic manner.

A bold opening statement for the first kill of the Night Surgeon in this domain.

[slightlyoffchilt]

There it was, the sight that matched the scent of rusted copper and exposed meat -- that torn corpse, brutalized and displayed. Bile rushed up from Chilton's stomach to his throat, and his hand covered his mouth before he could fully retch; a saving grace at this point, he was reluctant to leave his own bodily markers at this scene.

Turning heel, he fled. His mind solely on Jack and the request he was about to make.