Chapter Text
Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk.
“Carmilla.”
Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk.
“Carmilla, I mean it.”
Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk.
“Carmilla, we only have 37 more minutes to finish the job before the cleaners get here, stop playing with the target.”
Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunk-thik.
A high-pitched, terrified squeal forces its way out of the throat of the man who has each limb separately duct-taped to the Philippe Starck Louis Ghost armchair, which tilts backwards slightly as he tries to pull away from the woman sitting in front of him. His left hand rests on a solid block of polished wood with a hand-shaped indent carved into it, leaving raised ridges around his fingers. The wooden block is lying on his left thigh, which occasionally spasms with the tension he’s exerting to keep it still.
The raised ridges of the wood block have deep notches from extensive, regular impacts from the tip of a sharp, well-maintained knife. The five grooves for the fingers and hollow for the palm are almost completely smooth, but is currently smeared with a thin layer of blood from where the knife has nicked the ring finger of the man’s hand.
Carmilla grins savagely, making sure the man’s eyes are on her as she leisurely flips the blade in her hand, catching it by the handle each time.
“Lighten up, cupcake. Look at all this minimalist furniture. It’s not going to be hard to clean up.”
“I’m just glad this place isn’t carpeted. Do you remember last ti-”
“I remember.”
“When you refused to listen to me an-”
“I. Remember.”
Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk.
“And we had to replace the carpet within the hour and it came out of our paycheck because it was a joint assignment? The way this is a joint assignment?”
Thunk-thik.
Another squeal squirms its way out of the man’s throat, the sound muffled by the duct tape over his mouth. His pulse point throbs as sweat runs down the side of his face. His nostrils are flared.
“I said I remember, sugarplum, and unless you want to be the one playing this game with me, I suggest you let me finish.”
“Look, Carmilla, I let you indulge in your sadistic fantasies, but really, isn’t this game a tiny bit adolescent?”
At this, Carmilla turns around abruptly, grip tightening around the smooth grip of her hunting knife. Scowling, she says, “As I’ve tried to tell you, buttercup, it’s a respected tradition cultivated among our...cohort in Europe, and I may be based here now, but I do visit occasionally and I don’t want to get out of practice because as you can see, a lapse in concentration results in some distinctly unpleasant consequences.” Carmilla flicks the hand holding the knife, and a few drops of blood fly across the room at Laura, who is leaning against the sleek, marble countertop and wearing a displeased look on her face, even though the blood falls short and misses her.
“I’ve just been to the dry-cleaners, and the stains are getting harder and harder to explain, so would you mind not doing that?”
Carmilla smirks and turns back to the man and, back facing Laura, says, “Whatever, sweetcheeks.
Laura’s lips pout slightly as her eyes narrow, then re-focus on the leather-clad arse in front of her. She sighs. Carmilla and her theatrics. The transfers from Europe were quite a sight to behold. Hot as hell, most of them seemed to value style over substance, and assignments with this particular European generally resulted in a lot more blood than Laura usually needed to organise the cleaning of.
Carmilla was slick but messier than most of her compatriots. Laura couldn’t deny though that, despite the messes, she was very, very good at what she did, especially when the task involved sadistic torture prior to the kill. Laura had never quite cultivated the passion behind devising methods of torture that could be sustained over a long period of time, didn’t immediately kill the target, made relatively little mess, and inspired pee-in-your-pants levels of fear.
Carmilla, on the other hand, seemed to regard that aspect of their job as a form of art, taking to it the way Robert Morris took to standard dimensions of mass-produced plywood, or Shakespeare to sonnets.
Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk.
“Hey, Carmilla, where’d you get that plank thing anyway?”
Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk.
“A friend of mine back in Austria carved it for me special before I left. He has a way with knives.”
Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk. Thunkthuk.
“Why, do you want one, cutie?” The leather-clad arse is torn from her view as Carmilla flips around to face her, and Laura wills her eyes back up to look at Carmilla’s face instead, which would have worked were they not distracted by the amount of skin Carmilla’s corset reveals.
Carmilla notices and smiles lasciviously at Laura, sending shivers down her spine, and Laura thinks it might be nearly time to move on to another career because the knife in Carmilla’s hand is only adding to the other woman’s attractiveness.
Honestly, Europeans. A corset? On the job? It wasn’t exactly the most practical outfit for the torture and murder of a wealthy man whose will left everything to his son, who happened to be their employer.
Laura had long stopped trying to moralise on the job. Rich domestic abuser or hardworking college kid on a scholarship, a hit was a hit, she was good at it, and the job paid well. Occasionally she would decide to mete out the specific stipulations of her contract at her own discretion, such as at times like these. The contract hadn’t specified torture, only painful death for his extensive years of domestic violence against his now-dead wife, but Laura knew Carmilla didn’t read the fine print, and even if she had, she would probably have thrown in the torture for free.
She was just that kind of gal.
Instead of answering Carmilla’s sultry gaze, Laura gestures at the man in the chair. “Are you finished yet?”
Carmilla’s head shakes slightly, her lips tightening at the edges. “I read his file. He was a puncher.”
So. She had actually read through the entire contract. The girl was better than Laura thought.
Laura lets out a slow breath and shakes her head at the man in disappointment.
“A puncher.”
Carmilla cocks an eyebrow and nods twice. “Care to join me?” Her eyes are burning and terrifyingly beautiful, but the knife being proffered to Laura by the handle doesn’t tremble, and her gaze is steady.
Laura decides then that curiosity will one day lead her to ask about Carmilla’s penchant for picking assignments that involve revenge, but that this particular moment is probably not the time.
“I’ve never really played five finger fillet before,” Laura admits, testing the weight and grip of the knife in her hand.
Carmilla smiles broadly at Laura. It strikes Laura that this was the least sexual smile that the other for-hire had ever directed at her. It is a very endearing smile.
“Good,” she says, the smile growing a fraction wider, as the squealing of the man intensifies. “Good."