Eldritch Exorcist

I looked around while similar scenes played out. Darius was the easiest. His dense muscles slowed the spread. But Luna looked the worst. The ice had penetrated her abdomen and her chest. It looked like the shard had caught her liver and a lung. If we pulled it out, we would tear out a sizable part of her organs with it.

“No, no, no!” William shouted, hovering over Luna—who was trying to heal William after he ripped a shard from his side and started bleeding onto the floor.

“It’s okay,” the vampire said in a low, even voice.

She raised her hands to heal William, but he swatted them away, screaming, “Heal yourself!” as he tried to press her own hands to her lower abdomen.

Luna only shook her head.

“I can close wounds,” she said weakly. “I can’t regenerate organs. You know every inch of me. You know that, too,” she told William.

He shook his head in denial, tears welling, as he fumbled for the wine we found. Luna only gave him the same sad smile.

“How about blood?” Ophelia suggested weakly, staring at the wounded woman.

But we all knew the answer. Vampires fed on life essence in blood. Rebuilding an organ would take a mixture of life and mana that none of us could provide—not like this. Everyone was too drained. I was the only one with magic integrated into my flesh after ascension, but I would have to bleed myself dry to provide enough power.

“If—” William turned to me. “If you let her drink your blood—maybe we can escape and then someone outside… we could—”

I looked at my friends, my mind racing for a solution. I did have the healing factor. Could I produce enough blood? It might be possible—if I kept drinking potions and—

“Don’t,” Luna said. “I can smell your wound from here. Your blood has a scent of poison.”

My face tightened. The same abyssal bloodline that made my body the only viable option was likely the thing turning my blood into poison for her. The weight in my stomach sank further.

“How about my blood?” Darius proposed. “I have a lot of it still.” He tried to sound steady, as if he didn’t have two wounds in his back bleeding through his clothes.

“Thank you,” she said. “But there’s no point. I can feel this ice spreading inside. Let me use my magic to heal all of you for the last time, and then rip this godforsaken thing from my body. I don’t want to die like an icicle,” she added with a smile.

“No,” William said firmly. Then he turned toward the church party. “Your priests, right? You must have healing artifacts on you. A pope wouldn’t go without one.”

I looked to them, giving Clementus a questioning stare, but the man shook his head. A thought of attacking him flashed through my mind. We weren’t friends—he could be holding some life-saving artifact back.

“A-a pope’s blood, then?” William threw out another idea, desperate.

Silence answered, broken only by the muffled chaos outside. A pope’s blood—no matter how special—still didn’t carry mana. All we had were basic potions. They could close wounds and knit broken bones, but not close a gaping hole.

And I could see the ice slowly creeping further.

“Some other blood? Maybe if we mix it with the wine. Or maybe—what if we get a body of one of the fighters in the sky? They must have special blood, right?” William kept throwing ideas, while Luna watched him like she was trying to memorize every detail of his face.

But we didn’t have— I paused. Special blood was available.

“How about ancient saints’ blood?” I said, louder than I meant to.

“Yes!” William shouted. “Do we have that?”

“No,” I shook my head as I looked to Clementus. “But we can.”

“You will not feed the blood of David to a vampire—” Leo didn’t finish.

Jacob blocked a dagger going for his shoulder, and I couldn’t tell whether the strike was meant only to injure or if William simply missed the heart in his state. The massive paladin planted himself in front of the stunned Leo, but didn’t counterattack. It was clear who stood on which side—and which side was losing.

“What do you say?” I asked the proper pope. “You do want that blood. If it’s as strong as you say, all we need is a drop.”

“Heh,” Leo scoffed. “You’re out of your fucking mind. You think this coward—”

“You’ll owe me one,” Clementus said.

“I’ll owe you whatever,” William blurted, but Clementus shook his head. No hesitation—just a cold calculating expression on his face.

“No. He’ll owe me one,” he said, looking at me.

“Deal,” I said without thinking.

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The feelings in me were strange. A mixture of sadness and desperation, unlike anything I knew. My list of friends was short, and the thought of shortening it further hurt in a way I wasn’t used to. It was as if it made me more human just to give me the ability to suffer in a new way. I hated it, and yet… it was like the first time Helen opened her doors and held my gaze. It was strangely fulfilling.

Before we could move, a knock came from the storefront.

“We are evacuating everyone to a safe place,” a hoarse voice called. “Please come out.”

Hearing his voice unbroken by constant detonations, I realized the sounds of battle outside had died down. They were still there, but distant. We all stared at one another, no one moving an inch.

“Please come out,” the voice said again, louder, followed by footsteps approaching.

Panic passed through the room. We were in no state to fight.

“How would the skinwalker get away?” Ophelia asked.

I turned to her, eyebrows snapping up. She was right. I’d been so focused on the blood that I’d forgotten the rest. The skinwalker needed a way to move us to the second circle without interruption. I looked at the crystalline corpse.

“Please come out,” the voice now came from behind the curtain.

I quickly shifted the plates against each other, twisting the thing like a child’s wooden toy snake. Something fell out—a spatial artifact. Very small—ring-sized. Thankfully, that meant it was hard to seal properly. I forced my mind past the simple seal and pulled out a cross-like object we all recognized as a gate key—along with a few pieces of silver. They were silver coins with a man’s head on one side and an eagle with Greek lettering on the other.

Before I could connect the rest, Clementus moved. He snatched the coins from my hand and approached the curtain. I didn’t stop him. Neither did his guards.

He pulled the cloth aside, revealing a creature with a column of eyes on the other side. Its hand was already outstretched halfway through the opening. Clementus used the moment to place one of the silver pieces into its palm.

“Nothing to see here,” Clementus said.

The creature closed its hand and retracted it, pocketing the silver.

“Nothing to see here,” it repeated.

“Nothing to see here,” the rest of the patrol echoed as they turned and walked away into the street.

We stared at one another, then out through the storefront. Scenes like that were happening across the city. Groups of people were being called from their homes and marched toward “safety.”

“I imagine we don’t want to be moved to that safety,” Helga said, staring out the door.

I could see where the processions went in the flashes of magic over the city—they were being moved deeper.

So that was how the creature would do it. It would get us into the “safe spot,” then trigger the disaster. This store might protect us from stray attacks, but apparently, the patrols were checking every place. Then we’d be escorted deeper, the skinwalker would bribe the men, and we would end up at the research center.

I could also see why the battle over our heads became muted. Now a barrier shone over the city, creating a see-through dome. The fight was still going on, but the stray spells stopped at the barrier.

“Okay, we need to hurry,” William said, hauling himself up.

“Hurry to the exit,” Leo argued, pointing to the key and the silver. “We have the key.”

“We’re going after the blood,” William said, ignoring Luna’s protests about the danger of this unnecessary move.

“He’s right,” Clementus said.

I looked at him, expecting cold feet, but his eyes were calm and focused.

“We need to rendezvous with the other group that went to the gate. They might be getting escorted deeper right now. If they’re moved toward the passage to the city’s second circle, we should try to intercept them and bribe them back. The streets look relatively safe now, so we might have a window of opportunity—and I don’t want to know when it ends.”

“What about those who went to the safe spot deeper in the city?” Nathan spoke. “Maybe we can make a detour?” he proposed, unsure.

“We don’t have time,” I said, peering out the window. “We don’t know if the guards in the second circle can be bought like that.”

Everyone nodded. No one wanted to say it aloud.

I knew my plan might have sent them to their deaths. I might have signed their death warrants without realizing. But someone had to check the spot—especially since there were no bodies of the previous expedition here.

We quickly split into two groups to speed things up.

Clementus, the Jester, Helga, Will, and I would go to the church. The rest would go for the gate and try to find the other group.

I hesitated about leaving Leo with them and the key, but I trusted Darius to handle Jacob. And if the key was all that was needed to leave, I doubted the other expeditions would have so much trouble returning.

Finally, I looked at Astrid. She sat by the wall, unmoving. I wasn’t good at the emotional stuff, and I had no idea how to tell her she needed to move. I took a step toward her, but before I could force the words out, Astrid spoke.

“I’ll go with the gate group. Don’t worry,” she said without looking at me, her gaze empty.

I nodded and turned to get ready, but her weak voice stopped me.

“Why did you want to cross the street?” she asked. I thought she would blame me, but her next words stopped me cold. “It was because of the oracle I told you, right?”

I stood there for a second before just saying, “We need to move—now.”

She nodded and stood up, joining the others.

The rest went toward the gate while we went the other way, toward the church at the end of the shopping street, just over a hundred meters away.

We waited for the patrol, herding people deeper into the city, to pass. Once the coast was relatively clear, we went to the church.

It was a massive building in the city's strange architectural style. It was a mix of soaring, cathedral-like structures that later inspired Gothic architecture, with the engineering prowess of ancient ages, further enhancing the decorations and scale, making some of the sculptures seem to defy gravity.

Inside was beautifully decorated. Frescoes and statues covered the walls and high ceiling, while the floor was filled with the faithful—men, women, and children—moving in a constant stream toward the altar in the middle. When they reached it, they fell into piles of ash, swept by gusts of wind to the back, where they reformed and joined the procession again in an endless cycle.

And it was that altar that caught our attention. It was a carved marble piece with runes snaking around it in patterns so complex that it was hard to keep an eye on it. In the middle was a hollow space where, behind a transparent crystal, a red vial was visible. I could sense the divinity of law and order radiating from it.

Retrieving it was far easier than we expected.

The entire time we stayed on edge, expecting an attack, but Clementus simply approached the altar, touched it with his crosier, and took the blood out. And in a slightly confused silence, we turned back toward the gate, hoping to catch up with the others—while I kept my eyes on the pope, a light frown on my face.