Pansy received her first assignment after three months of training. A singular name, one she knew well, printed in white on a black calling card.
Eliezer Carrow.
A friend of her father’s, Pansy couldn’t help but think; but her father was gone now – at least The Last Meal had had the mercy to take him quickly.
The day of the kill Pansy hadn’t been able to eat at all, her stomach knotted as the sun sank and she readied herself to leave. Plaiting her hair back so it was out of her face, dressing all in black and packing her equipment belt with knives. I am Nightshade, she thought; I am deliverance.
The pavement was wet as she made her way to her mark’s house, the streetlights reflecting in amber and red off of the wavering puddles. Pansy trod silently, stealthily, as she made her way down the street she had known so well. Eliezer hadn’t fled, believing, foolishly, that the Ministry could protect him. Instead he lived, boldly, unabashedly in the house he was raised in, whilst Pansy and the rest of The Last Meal lived in the shadows, the spaces that nobody else wanted.
Something flickered inside Pansy, as a simple alohomora turned the lock of the grand front door. She thought, perhaps, that it was fear but as it built up inside of her she recognised it as justice, vengeance, control.
“He’s upstairs,” Angel spoke for the first time since they had established their legilimency connection ten minutes earlier, “in the library.”
“Is he expecting company?” Pansy asked, twirling a knife in her left hand, “I would hate to interrupt.”
“I believe he knows his time is coming.”
Pansy knew this house, she had spent time here as a child, at balls and charity functions, and she allowed the third stair to creak under her weight. She imagined Eliezer cowering in the library behind a shelf. Fear would not save him, but it would gratify her.
She was quiet but not silent as she ascended the stairs, hoping the soft rustles would scare him, the house was breathing its last breath. Casting a quick revealing charm Pansy saw the jinxes Carrow had put in place in an attempt to save himself. She almost laughed, it was futile for him to try and hide; she could disable all of these charms in her sleep. She set to work on the anti-intruder jinx, it was difficult to unravel but not impossible. Slowly she unpicked the jinx as though it were an unfortunate embroidery hoop, threading the needle in reverse to release the strands of the nasty curse. Just when she thought her attempts ineffective, the jinx fell away.
Pansy then quickly disabled the other jinxes and hexes before moving to the door of the library. It was locked and as the silent alohomora Pansy cast did nothing, she almost groaned in frustration. Eliezer was on the other side of this door – it was just a matter of getting to him.
“It’s likely a clausaro charm,” Angel spoke up, “you’ll have to unpick it.”
Pansy unwound the locking charm much like she had the other charms and relished the soft click that told her the door was open. She considered a disillusionment charm for a moment but decided against it; she wanted Carrow to know she was coming for him and that there was nothing he could do to stop her.
Pansy trod lightly into the library, it was grand but not large enough for Carrow to hide. He shot a stunning spell at Pansy from behind a shelf, which she deflected. After deflecting several more hexes and a particularly deadly entrail-expelling curse, Pansy bound Carrow with a well-aimed incarcerous.
Carrow scrambled to get away from her, kicking his legs in an attempt to free them, until his back hit the bookshelf behind him and he realised he was trapped.
Pansy removed a dagger from her belt. It was long and silver, with a handle shaped like a fish. It felt heavy in her palm, it felt like everything she had lost, everything she was willing to give to get it back.
Standing over Carrow she fingered the knife, relishing the look of fear on his face. He knew better than to beg, however. Which, although she wouldn’t admit it, made it easier for Pansy.
The knife fell from her fingers in a practiced spiral, sinking into Eliezer’s chest with a soft precision. She had meant to hit a major artery, and she hit her target on her first try. Still, she removed the knife slowly from Carrow’s chest, watching his face critically to discern any sign that the wound may not be deadly.
His eyes met hers as he struggled to move in some attempt to retroactively save himself. After a few quiet minutes his eyes closed as blood loss rendered him unconscious, Pansy knew that he would be dead within another five.
Retrieving a clean handkerchief from her pocket Pansy wiped the blade of the dagger clean and replaced it in her belt. She then opened the library window and whistled for a crow.
A silent moment stretched just long enough that Pansy felt her skin begin to crawl before a bird appeared out of the darkness, flapping its way down to the windowsill. Pansy held out the handkerchief for the bird to take, petting its head briefly before it took off, the evidence of her kill in tow.
She closed the window, wiping it down in case of fingerprints, and left the house the same way she had entered, stopping only briefly at Carrow’s body to check for a pulse. There was none.
“Target neutralised.” Pansy told Angel over the link, not bothering to wait for a reply before she terminated it.
The quiet London streets felt too quiet, too calm as the backdrop to the blood rushing through Pansy’s head. The jubilation of her first kill, of retribution coursing through her body left her high. She felt as though she could do anything, have anything; but Pansy couldn’t have the things she wanted anymore so instead she quietly returned to her apartment, where her two cats and a bottle of red that she had been saving for a special occasion were waiting for her.
As Pansy rummaged through her kitchen drawer for a bottle opener, her phone buzzed where it sat on the counter.
2:47am a crow? How fitting
Pansy knew she shouldn’t reply. While Pansy was confined to cower in the shadows, Potter was the sun. She scrolled absently through the dozen or so texts prior to this one that she hadn’t responded to. This one shouldn’t be any different.
But today was different. Today the entirety of Pansy’s body buzzed, she felt drunk and reckless, she wanted more.
The muggy summer air was really too close and humid for the long black clothes Millicent was pulling on, and her long dark hair stuck to her back with sweat as she struggled into her shirt. Freeing her hair from her neck she began the arduous task of braiding it tightly in coils against her head to keep it out of her way for the task ahead.
It was late, after nine, but the sun was only just beginning its lazy decent across the skyline, it wouldn’t be dark for hours – but Millicent didn’t mind the wait; she enjoyed time for contemplation, or, perhaps, penance; and time was something she’d had plenty of of late.
Leaving her boots next to her equipment belt and favouring bare feet she left the room in search of Peregrine – who would be on intelligence for her later that evening – and something to eat.
She found both in the kitchen of the run-down manor The Last Meal had taken residence in. Once the mansion had been grand, a symbol of status and wealth. Now, however, with large bills in reparations to the Ministry and the confiscation of the house elves, the manor was dusty and unforgiving. The Last Meal didn’t live in the manor, although sometimes members would crash there for the odd night or two, but members regularly gathered there, and preparations and debriefings for missions were often carried out in the library.
Millicent’s mark for this evening was not as prominent as some she’d had – a distant cousin of Daphne and Astoria’s, Millicent had considered giving them a warning but The Last Meal felt like a shameful secret and talking about it brought bile to her mouth – so she felt little anxiety over the upcoming mission as she made tea for the people seated in the kitchen and fashioned herself a sandwich from the slightly stale bread in the bread bin.
Peregrine briefed her on the floor plan of her mark’s house again as she ate and Millicent nodded along at the right intervals, but her mind was elsewhere, roaming through the corridors of her childhood home, which was not unlike the house they currently resided in. She remembered the window seat in her bedroom, where she had sat and watched the rain with the window wide open. Her governess had always told her she’d catch her death, but Millicent had loved the rain and hadn’t minded if she’d ended up wet and shivering. That was all gone now, the window seat most definitely, the house almost certainly. The part of Millicent that had lived in that house was long gone as well, shorter, rounder, less death in her.
Two cups of tea later Peregrine finally fell silent and Millicent returned upstairs to put on her thick rubber soled boots and attach her equipment belt around her hips. When she returned to the kitchen she and Peregrine established their legilimency connection and he took yet another cup of tea with him to the sitting room that had been delegated their command unit.
Millicent left the manor and apparated to the village where her mark, Sebastian Blishwick, lived. The village was a muggle one but with a strong wizarding presence.
“Perhaps you should disillusion yourself,” Falcon fretted over the link.
“Quite worrying, Falcon, you’ll wear yourself out.” Millicent replied, besides, it was too late now; she couldn’t just vanish off the street, it would look more suspicious than her attire.
Peregrine was silent as Millicent approached her mark’s house. It was a muggle townhouse, three stories of humble grandeur loomed above her as she let herself through the front gate and up the pathway.
“Do you have eyes?” She asked Peregrine as she approached the front door.
“Yes,” he replied, “he knows.”
Millicent grinned wickedly, let him know, she thought, it wouldn’t save him.
She raised a hand to the knocker and let it ring out, a loud clear death toll to the house’s inhabitant.
Of course, there was no answer, so Millicent simply let herself in; the locking charm no match for her training. Once she was inside she cast a revealing charm and the anti-intruder jinxes and hexes Blishwick had put in place glowed a faint blue; there were several tricky charms but Millicent managed to unpick them with little display.
“Where is he?” She asked Falcon, panting a little with the strain of undoing so many powerful charms.
“Top floor, to the left, at the end of the corridor.” He replied, “Study.”
Millicent began to hum as she approached the stairs, an eerie tune. When she reached the first floor landing her humming turned to song.
“Tili tili bom
Close your eyes now
Someone’s walking outside the house
And knocks on the door.”
Millicent could almost hear Blishwick’s heart thudding as the stairs creaked beneath her rubber soled feet.
“Tilli tilli bom,” she continued up the second flight of stairs.
“The nightbirds are chirping
He is inside the house
To visit those who can’t sleep.”
She reached the top floor landing.
“He walks
He is coming
closer.”
“Tilli tilli bom,” the door to the study creaked on it’s hinges as it swung open, “Can you hear him closing in?”
To his credit, Blishwick was waiting to meet her when she stepped out of the shadowy hallway into the faint lamplight of the study, pressed up against the desk as though he could back up no further, face white and hands trembling where they grasped the edge of the ornate writing desk for support.
“Dobry vecher.” Millicent greeted him, almost conversationally, her lips blooming into a wicked smile. “It’s hot out today,” she motioned the open window and took a step forward, as though she were simply heading to close it.
Blishwick twitched, a jerky, terrified movement. Millicent stopped, her smile growing wider, if it was possible.
He reached for his wand, in what she supposed was supposed to be a lightening movement, but Millicent saw it coming and with a swipe of her hand he flew to the side and was pinned by invisible hands to the bookshelves lining the walls.
“Tilli tilli bom,” she continued, her hand forming a fist as the invisible hands closed their hold around Blishwick’s neck, his eyes bulged in their sockets and he scrabbled at his throat for a hold on something that was not there.
“The silent night hides everything
He sneaks up behind you
And he is going to get you.”
A gargled noise emitted Blishwick’s throat and Millicent tightened her grip.
He gave one last futile effect at clawing the invisible hands squeezing the life from him before his arms fell limply to his side.
Millicent released the vicelike grip on his throat before directing Blishwick’s motionless body to the floor where she propped him against the desk leg, as though he had simply sat down there for a moment. His eyes were wide with fear, staring unseeingly at a spot on the floor near the doorway, Millicent bent to check his pulse before removing a box of matches from her equipment belt. She struck one, letting it burn for a moment, before opening Blishwick’s mouth and placing the still lit match on his tongue. The wet of his saliva fizzled it out immediately with a soft hiss leaving the charred, half burnt matchstick in his mouth, which Millicent closed again.
The window was still open and it had begun to rain softly. Millicent allowed herself a moment, and crossed the room to stand by the window looking out into the dark backyard.
“Someone will see you.” Falcon snapped.
“Piss off,” Millicent retorted, but she took one last breath of the rain-soaked air and moved away from the window.
She barely glanced at Blishwick’s body as she left, his arms hung awkwardly at his side and his head lolled lazily. His neck was perfectly devoid of any bruises or marks.
This was mestʹ, Millicent thought, as she trod silently down the two flights of stairs and paused briefly by the front door to disillusion herself. She opened the door just enough to allow herself to slip out into the damp night.
The rain could not see her, but she could feel it as the cold drops soaked her clothes and rolled down her neck and between her shoulder blades. She walked a little further than necessary to apparate, enjoying the feel and the smell of the rain around her; it smelt like jubilation, she mused. It smelt like mshcheniye.
#RealShit!!!! It aint about no rap shit thats real ass shit!! #teamsnoopinthisbitch @snoopdogg #TheLastMeal album #trk16 #ICantSwim my favorite! #MrStonerzIzRightAgain https://www.instagram.com/p/B5dpnvVHOIx/?igshid=1q3wz7zbvnw06
We Cater! All events, PopUps, Birthdays, Weddings, Baby Showers. 95th St. Tacos will have a Collaboration Truck posted for your Taco Fix Soon. Looking forward to feeding Yall Soon!!! Love 95th St. Tacos (Picture) Fire Flower Vegan Tacos Thank You 📸@abitewithbarney - #TacoTuesday. This past weekend @95thsttacos served us #TheLastMeal at their current location. But don’t worry, these bomb a** Cauliflower Tacos will be back soon. Make sure to follow them to be on the look for where they will be popping up next!!! . . . . . . . . #Avocado #Cauliflower #VeganEats #HealthyFats #VeganTacos #GlutenFree #ZipKick #FoodArt #AtlEats #AtlantaFoodie #ATLfoodie #ABiteWithBarney #ABWB #BuzzFeast #EatFamous #BlackFoodBloggers #BlackFoodie #BuzzFeast #HuffPostTaste #BlackFoodie #ATLFoodBloggers #EatingForTheInsta #EatingInATL #IGersOfATL #ATL #AtlantaEats #catering #tacos #burritos #foodtruck #popups #fedtivals https://www.instagram.com/p/BzfuhDIBSxt/?igshid=we8wem4799o8
I was beyond happy to see my Brian Montuori Dillinger prints arrived today. So worth the wait, they are absolutely stunning!! Thank you so much Brian, your work is amazing, and it will be an honor to have these on my walls. Got #19 for all 3 final Dillinger Escape Plan prints. 😍😍😍 #brianmontuoristudios #brianmontuori #thedillingerescapeplan #dillingerescapeplan #apprehension #thelastmeal #publicexecution #terminal5nyc #thefinalshows #deadashistory #sassdeluxe #missmachine #pennylane
So the crew from the Carnival Victory gave a song and dance 4 the last night of the cruise 🚢... but guess who stole the show... #showstealer #dancingmachine #youngentertainer #carnival #carnivalvictory #boatlife⚓️⛵️ #internationalwaters #thelastmeal #thegripplife (at Cuba Varadero)
Caked Up VLog Vol...36 The Last Meal 🥘 on the ship 🚢 #thelastmeal #familydinner #boatlife⚓️⛵️ #thegripplife #internationalwaters (at Mar Azul Playa del Este Habana Cuba)
