Arc 7: Chapter 14: Saint of Curses
I struggled futilely against the Saint’s grip. He barely seemed to notice. His fingers — he had seven on each hand — tightened a fraction, and the ensuing groan of stressed metal and pressure against my lungs made me go still. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited.
We did not have to wait long. It began with a bubbling sound, like a pot left on too long. It came from the altar’s basin. Chamael studied the stone bowl a moment, then approached it while still holding me. He moved by gliding, his bird-like foot hovering just off the ground and his four wings drifting behind him like streamers.
The murky water inside the altar bubbled and spat like a vat of alchemical acid. It looked on the verge of overflowing, the liquid inside risen to the brim and emitting an acrid steam that made my eyes itch as we drew closer.
“Who did you pray to?” Chamael asked me without taking his eyes off the bowl. “I know Eanor is your patron. And her traitor sister. This reeks of Nath.”
“No one… specific.” I had to gasp out my answer. “I’m not picky about that sort of thing.”
“You should be mindful of your prayers, mortal, lest they be heard by the wrong ears. Many are the pretenders who would masquerade as a divine messenger to mislead you. Did you not already learn that lesson?”
That last comment made me angry, and the anger clouded out my better judgment. “Maybe it’s Lyda?” I suggested. “This is her shrine.”
Chamael’s main face frowned, but he didn’t answer. In all honesty, I had no idea what lurked inside the bowl. It was big enough to be a large bath, and the boiling water now spilled over the edge as a green-tinged fog.
Without letting me go, Chamael leaned over the brew to study it more closely.
Which was when an enormous hand burst out from it and grabbed him by the face.
The hand had to have belonged to something huge, bigger even than the seraph. It had dark gray skin, warty and spotted, with gnarled fingers tipped in yellowed claws. Those sharp digits clamped around the angel’s head and pulled. He reacted in a flash of violence, bringing his elaborate polearm to bear, but more hands emerged. They were long as tree trunks, many-jointed, all monstrous in appearance. They grabbed Chamael’s arms, his shoulders, reached for his wings.