Eldritch Exorcist

We moved into the side streets, making sure to steer clear of any noise. We went as fast as possible, hoping to catch up to the first group—and, to our relief, we managed to do just that.

They were a few streets away from the gate, standing in one big group alongside the party that had gone there. They weren’t in the best shape. Curiously, they weren’t missing anyone, but all of them had similar injuries—hits to the head, a few broken arms here and there. The guards had most likely tried to drag them deeper into the city, but without killing anyone.

The moment we rounded the corner, they tensed, but when they recognized us, the anxiety quickly turned into relief.

“You’re back quickly,” Ophelia said, looking at me as William ran to Luna.

“Yeah. It was pretty easy,” I said, giving Clementus a look that he returned with a light smile. I had a strange sense that the man was scheming something, but I had no idea what. Whatever it was, he kept his word. Pulling the vial of blood from his robes, he approached Luna. We could all sense the power radiating from the decorated glass. Clementus popped it open, and I felt a seal give way without resistance.

William looked to Luna.

She nodded weakly, and he tore the black icicles from her body.

A large portion of her abdominal flesh was frozen to the projectile, forming one jagged mass. Even though I couldn’t feel the pain, watching her fight through tears to stifle a scream made my throat tighten.

Anger at the thing in the sky welled up. It was dumb, blind anger, weirdly hard to let go of. Luna lay there, eyes barely open, fighting through the agony of having a chunk of her body missing. William pried her mouth open, and Clementus let a drop fall into her throat.

Will looked like he was about to rip the vial from the man’s hand and pour it down Luna’s throat, but before he could, something changed. Luna closed her eyes, and her body began to spasm.

Vampires fed off life energy by converting it into their brand of undead energy, and she had a lot to convert now. I watched blood form into a scaffold-like structure within the open wound as flesh slowly grew around it. The process was slow, but the life energy kept her alive even with wounds this severe. She was unconscious, but stable—for now.

It felt like a boulder had been lifted off my shoulders. The sensation was so real, I actually stood a little taller as my muscles loosened. Then I heard a low hum, almost like a battle-horn. It took me a second to realize it was Darius sighing beside me.

“Don’t forget our deal,” Clementus said as he tucked the vial back into his robe.

I raised an eyebrow, wondering whether he meant my debt—or the other deal, since Jacob was still alive.

“So how does the situation at the gate look?” Helga asked from beside the pope.

“Not good,” Aron said. “The gate is sealed with something, and there’s a whole patrol in front of it not letting anyone through. There was a sizable crowd when the fighting started, but they got escorted deeper into the city. We almost did too.”

“How did the guards look?” I asked.

“The same as the escorts, though there were a few standouts: the undead ones we saw by the city entrance, and something like a captain. It wore armor and was giving orders. But that’s all we got from a distance.”

“You think the silver pieces will work?” Nathan asked.

A few others shook their heads. The barrier was the problem. The city was sealed, and the dome over our heads could take and stop attacks from the kind of people who ran the ancient world. I doubted even a guard captain would have a key for a barrier like that.

“Do we wait for the battle to be over?” Aron proposed.

“No. This isn’t a battle. It’s a reenactment—a memory symbolizing what happened. It could go on until the next change, or forever for all we know. We have no idea how the singularity adjusts. We should get out before the next change happens,” I said.

“The seal on those gates should have been placed by the church. The crosier should open it,” Clementus added.

“Will the guards let us through?” Leo asked for the first time.

Turning to him, I saw he’d moved to the side, close to his paladin, looking subdued. His question was met with silence. We had no idea.

“One way to find out,” Helga said.

We formed a rough battle formation—fighters in front, then mages and the wounded—and moved toward the gate.

Once close, we left the side alley and stepped onto the main road. The patrol waited ahead—a mix of normal escorts with eye-columns, headless guards trailing behind, and a creature in decorated armor reminiscent of church paladins—though forged from an unknown white metal with golden decorations. Some were purely ornamental, others threaded with live runes.

“Stop. Turn back. We will escort you to safety.” The eye-column leaders barred our way, speaking over one another as the headless creatures behind them echoed.

A few moved forward as if to grab us, but Clementus raised his crosier, and the staff glowed golden.

“In the name of the Holy Father. Let us through,” he said.

The creatures stopped for a second, as if pondering, then continued toward us—no longer speaking. Their postures turned hostile, hands outstretched. I readied to fight. Helga stepped in front of Clementus, the Jester at her side.

But Clementus spoke again, loud and clear.

“In the name of Saint Peter’s successor, I command you to let us through!”

To my surprise—and everyone else’s—the patrol reacted. The eye-columns froze for a second, but the armored paladin and the decorated guard moved.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“We welcome the Holy Father,” the paladin said, dropping to one knee. The decorated guard followed.

We gave one another looks.

“Let us through,” Clementus said.

“Give way,” the paladin commanded, still not raising his head.

The eye-columns shifted aside—but as they did, they began twitching in jerking motions, hissing something unintelligible. We walked past in silence. Most of the fighting now seemed concentrated over the center of the city. Once we were out, we should be able to run for the gate.

I felt the eye-columns watching our backs.

Clementus approached the metal gate and, in the tense silence, touched his crosier to the center of a sealing rune.

A click.

The dome barrier didn’t give way, but the complicated seal on the gate out of the city began to unwind.

Sadly, things rarely went according to plan.

“Can’t leave!” the patrol screeched.

They began rocking back and forth, twitching like broken machines.

“No, no, no. Can’t leave. Alive—alive. Alarms—can’t leave,” they shrieked.

I looked at the seal. An array that complicated wouldn’t come undone instantly. We needed more time. Thankfully, Clementus wasn’t a fool.

“Move to stop them,” he ordered the kneeling paladin.

The gate guards and the armored paladin executed the command without hesitation. But that was also a signal for the patrol. The fight began with the abominations’ shriek. The eye-column patrol was more numerous but thankfully weaker than the guards.

The paladins intercepted, but some of the headless creatures behind them slipped past. One leaped into the air toward Clementus.

Darius’s massive kopesh flung it out of the air. The blade bit into its flesh but didn’t cut deep. The thing skidded aside—only to be replaced by another charging at us.

The fighters surged forward while the other casters and I began firing spells. I focused on physical attacks and control. One of the patrol got past the paladin and swung at the Jester. I caught its leg with Death’s Grasp. The Jester—no longer protected by his paladin armor, in his usual apparel—pulled out two sickles and brought them down on the creature’s throat, the sharp edges barely biting into its strange skin.

It didn’t go down. It grabbed the attacking arm and swung at him. The Jester barely blocked. It followed with another strike, but then a massive white weasel lunged from the back line, raking a claw into the wound the Jester had opened, taking the creature’s head off. I heard Aiko shouting commands as the weasel went for another target.

I switched targets and fired Bone Spear into another enemy, pinning its still-squirming body to the wall.

Helga was forced to leave the pope’s side and join the Jester to stop enemies from pouring into our backline.

Clementus started casting too, and for the first time, I saw his magic clearly. Support spells activated, followed by sudden flashes of light, as weapons and claws gleamed right before deadly strikes, now tearing deep instead of leaving shallow wounds. The chaotic clash lasted barely half a minute, but it felt like hours. We dumped our strongest spells just to keep the patrol from advancing past the guards.

I saw Nathan stumble back as a kick nearly took his head off. He glanced toward Clementus—then froze.

So did I.

Clementus was moving forward. Slowly but surely, he advanced into the second line—right beside me—just behind the fighters. We were being pushed into the gate, packed so tightly the front and back lines began to mix.

And then the first screams of the dying sounded in the air. The weaker ones couldn’t keep up with the battle’s tempo. I saw Bolesław retreat half a step, wiping blood from his face, only for two of Jean d’Arc’s nobles to fall to the ground, killed in one fast attack. Bolesław’s saber glowed bright with the pope’s light, reminding the man to bring it up to block.

Nathan looked like he wanted to rush in, but then we saw it.

One of the front guards holding back the stronger enemies fell. An eye-column swung its elongated head like a massive club, crushing the creature, and used the opening to plow forward—straight toward Clementus. I spent third-circle mana without hesitation, casting Death’s Grasp. Multiple hands latched onto the enemy, but it was too strong—I barely slowed it.

Helga stepped into its path only to be swatted aside as if she weighed nothing.

“Fuck,” I swore, starting to shape eldritch magic—but before I could fall into myself, an aura of light and order radiated beside me.

Nails of light appeared in front of Clementus. Before the creature could take another step to swing its elongated head like a mace, two of the four nails pinned it to the ground.

It stiffened for a second.

“No!” roared the paladin, acting as the guard’s captain, still locked in battle with eye-columns.

He raised his sword high and let the enemy strikes land. Claws and heads slammed into his armor hard enough to shatter bone beneath, but the paladin didn’t fall. Instead, golden flame exploded from him, setting the enemies ablaze. Right after using the spell, the aberration collapsed, and the clank of the decorated metal armor falling on the stone road was followed by a deep thump as the final seal came off the gate behind us.

“Run!” Clementus commanded, turning to the doors.

Unlike the seal, the gate’s metal wings jumped aside in a split second, revealing the exit. Everyone bolted through as creatures burning with the white light wailed behind us.

I turned to follow—then stopped.

I couldn’t cross.

The moment I tried to move, I felt it. A strange resistance. No physical barrier, but as if my soul was stuck to the ground. When Clementus pivoted to run, he lowered the staff and fired the last two of the orbiting nails from the crosier—into my legs.

There was no wound, no pain—just the sensation of my soul being pinned, like I was trying to move my flesh while my spirit stayed behind. Everyone was already through. We were squeezed against the gate, so it took them only a few steps to cross.

The first to notice was Ophelia. Halfway through, she turned, eyes snapping to me. The others followed—William was furthest away, Luna in his arms. Ophelia took a step back toward me without hesitation, back into the city, but then a sudden variation on the Force spell fired by the pope shoved her back.

Clementus was already touching his crosier to the gate.

I thought about risking eldritch magic—about tearing through the pinning spell—but the look in Clementus’s eyes stopped me. He met my gaze with a light smile as the gate closed. The metal doors snapped together as fast as they had opened. Even if the seal took a minute to fully re-knit, no one could slip through now.

But the strangest thing in all of it was the pope himself—he stayed with me inside the city.

Behind us, I heard screeching as the burning patrol died in the golden flame. The paladin and guards died alongside them, using sacrificial magic. Ahead, I could hear banging as the rest tried to pry the gate open from the other side.

Then the nails released me.

I stood, staring at Clementus in a mix of confusion and anger.

“I would like to call in that favor,” he said with a mild humor in his voice.

“That’s a big fucking favor.”

“That’s a big fucking sacrifice—to give up a true saint’s blood for a friend of the opposing faction’s leader.” He shrugged. “You owe me a big favor. And all I need is a quick detour.”

“No use saving Luna if they’ll be killed staying at the gate.”

“They won’t be let into the city. They can bang all they want. Assuming they’re not idiots, they’ll move to the corridors and wait there in safety. Are your friends idiots?”

“No.”

“Then no worries.”

I tilted my head. “So what’s the favor?”

He looked toward the mansions visible on the stone shelf beyond the walls.

“I need an escort.”