Chapter 208
Chapter 208: William Osmond, Dead! (2)
Saint-Germain had promised us just one signal.
When he spotted a cultist, he would touch his lips.
My eyes met Saint-Germain’s. The person he indicated was a man who appeared to be in his mid-to-late fifties.
Though his forehead was expanding as if M-pattern baldness was just beginning, his hair was still thick. With a slightly protruding belly and sagging cheeks, he had a somewhat malicious appearance. His black suit was impeccably neat, but his complexion was pale like someone who rarely went outdoors, and he kept wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.
What caught my attention was his unusually smooth hands, unfitting for his age. How could there not be a single wrinkle on the backs of his hands? While not impossible with intensive care, the man’s hands were thin-skinned with long fingers and slim knuckles—like someone who had never aged past their early twenties.
And most tellingly, there was something off about the skin on his nape. There was a faint line visible, as if it didn’t quite belong to him.
Saint-Germain, who had met the man several times before, seemed to notice this discrepancy too.
“…Doesn’t it look like he’s wearing some kind of mask?”
Jonathan nodded at my words.
We carefully approached the man, passing people who were laying flowers for Liam. Jonathan firmly gripped the man’s shoulder and spoke politely.
“If you don’t mind, sir, could we move somewhere quieter?”
To prevent chaos in the church, we planned to quietly move him to a secure location for questioning. We had endless questions about when, with whom, and why he had collaborated. Getting answers to everything would take at least a full day.
But suddenly, Jonathan’s hand on the man’s shoulder began turning black and shriveling. I immediately recognized this as one of the curses Ian had explained to me earlier.
“Jonathan!”
This happened unexpectedly in the solemn funeral hall. Most people here were magicians sensitive to magical power. We’d tried to avoid exactly this kind of confrontation.
People quickly fell into confusion. No one here would have expected a magical attack in such a place. From a distance, another executive shouted:
“What are you doing, Mr. Huxley!”
As I got closer to him, I caught that fishy stench. The same damp, musty smell from the Westminster mansion. No, it was the stench of something rotting. An image of algae-filled water flashed through my mind.
‘That one,’ that ominous ‘one’ would smell exactly like this.
“…”
Then the man called Huxley opened his mouth. He began shouting, endlessly repeating words in a language we couldn’t understand. Though the bizarre sounds were incomprehensible, I could vaguely sense he was ‘praising’ something.
All trace of the mourner paying respects to the deceased was gone, leaving only a deranged madman. Why had he suddenly changed? Was he planning to go down fighting now that he’d been discovered?
I checked on Jonathan’s condition first.
“Jonathan, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, sis!”
He didn’t look fine at all.
His arm was turning black as if rotting by the second. The curse would likely spread throughout his body if we didn’t stop the caster. Though Jonathan’s body was Saint-Germain’s creation…
Saint-Germain was watching from a distance, his eyes gleaming. Jonathan clicked his tongue once while looking at his blackened arm, then firmly grabbed the man. Meanwhile, Ian was continuously expanding a thin barrier to protect the people around us. Perfect division of labor.
A brave magician was helping Jonathan subdue Huxley by lending his power, but everyone was shocked by the continuous barrage of spells.
The man was cursing his opponents as if there was no tomorrow. Even though it would leave him neither truly alive nor able to die peacefully.
“Mr. Huxley will go mad at this rate!”
Someone else murmured.
“Isn’t there a way to subdue him?”
“He casts spells whenever anyone gets close…!”
I gripped the air, praying Liam wouldn’t burst out of his coffin. Perhaps summoning the sword here would be the best option.
…Should I eliminate him? But I didn’t want to resort to that.
As I half-drew the sword, his gaze fixed on my hand. His clouded, milky eyes widened at the sword, as if he knew what I held.
That’s when the church doors burst open with a bang.
People forgot about the curse-spewing madman before them and turned toward the sound as one. It was that kind of sound.
Unlike typical London weather, today was unusually bright. Naturally, light poured in through the open doors like a waterfall. If I’d been a 19th-century theist, I surely would have called out to God in this situation.
I tried to adjust my eyelids like a camera aperture to adapt to the flood of light. People squinted or grimaced as they turned.
Soon, everyone present could make out a figure in that light.
It was a woman in a black dress. The design exposed her shoulders and chest, but a fur coat draped over it prevented it from seeming too revealing.
The black silk dress rippled with each step she took. Her fierce features were perfect like a marble statue, and her clear, sharp eyes pierced whoever she gazed at. Her wavy golden hair sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight, and her skin shimmered in various colors like opal.
And those red eyes with fully contracted pupils—
“Lucita…!”
It was Lucita.
‘The First Serpent,’ ‘The Most Ruthless Invader’!
Her entrance just now made it clear why people gave her such titles.
Lucita walked between the rows of church pews with perfect posture, a musket slung over her shoulder. Light scattered in all directions with each step she took. Her charisma was as intense as witnessing the sun descending to earth.
A chilling click echoed along the metal. Though the muzzle seemed to point at me briefly, I—along with Saint-Germain, Jonathan, and even Ian—knew Lucita had no intention of shooting me.
“Hello.”
Lucita’s thin lips curled upward. A reddish tongue showed between them. She lightly licked her lips as if suppressing the joy of the hunt, then pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The bullet shot through Huxley’s mouth mid-scream.
The man was silent for several seconds. No blood flowed from his gaping mouth. Then his body collapsed with a thud.
…He was probably dead.
When I tried to approach Huxley, Jonathan raised his hand. As if there was something he wanted to check.
He felt around the dead Huxley’s nape for a while, then grabbed something and pulled hard. The layer of aged face peeled away, revealing an surprisingly young face beneath. A face I’d never seen before.
“There’s no blood…”
Jonathan muttered.
He was right. The man looked like he’d been dead for a long time. A fatal gunshot wound should have left the church floor covered in blood. But there was only minimal bleeding.
“…But that’s impossible.”
As I muttered in disbelief, Jonathan answered.
“How could someone long dead move like he just did, right?”
Then, a hand lightly touched my shoulder.
When I turned around, I saw Lucita’s smiling face. She’d clearly heard me call her name. Like Saint-Germain, she hadn’t aged at all, her face still youthful. It felt like meeting someone I’d seen just yesterday. In other words, it felt as if only about a day had passed in Lucita’s time.
She spoke:
“Hello, Miss Jane.”
“Hello, Lucita. It’s been a while.”
Lucita continued smiling while looking at me affectionately.
I wondered how Lucita had ended up here, but then I saw Saint-Germain waving enthusiastically from a distance. That fox-like old man must have been up to something again.
Lucita handed her musket to someone who’d been following behind her. It seemed she’d found a new butler already.
“Hmm.”
Lucita hummed as she turned over the dead man. Rather than using her hands, she mostly kicked him over with the toe of her shoe. While this showed no respect for the dead, no one dared comment. Until now, everyone had been too busy trying to understand the situation, barely daring to breathe.
At a gathering of executives, someone wearing Mr. Huxley’s face had appeared instead of Huxley himself. Moreover, this person had attacked and threatened others before being shot dead.
All of this clearly came as a shock to the cautious and conservative magicians.
“Look, Miss Jane.”
I followed Lucita’s pointing finger. Something white was oozing from the back of the fake Huxley’s head.
