Edited by: Tommyjl7

We moved toward the village’s center. We walked quickly, though the exhaustion from a few sleepless nights started bearing its mark on me, every now and then my vision blurred a little. It was a warning – I needed to rest. The problem is, I can’t just rest when in the cellar of a particular hut there is a tied up devil next to the bud with a few corrupted seeds. And that at the same time my woman is laying in the bed with miasma flowing in her veins. Even if her condition was stable. Even if I left Lanele with her. All of the above made my current situation quite… busy.

We got to the village’s square… which is funny, mostly because it was made in the shape of a circle. The four main buildings were towering here – the biggest building served as both warehouse and granary, the other one was the inn, in which after long day the villagers could spend the day with a mug of ale. There was also the house of village mayor-elder and a chapel. Not big enough to be called a temple or church, not even big enough to allow all of the villagers to pray at the same time. But it didn’t matter, as most of the citizens wouldn’t pray that much. Only recently – after the forces of evil started attacking, did the village church gain some meaning. I talked with the mayor before. He noticed what a great help the priest was doubling the hours of prayers allowing every citizen to say their gratitude to the goddess and allowing them to gain a piece of divine protection.

The only person that gained something during the whole crisis.

We have entered the back room of the chapel were priest was preparing for another lecture which was about to start soon.

- “Your holiness, mind coming with us?” I asked. My words were filled with sarcastic venom which I tried to hide.

- “To be called holiness by the Oracle feels… wrong. Or at least not right. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to help I can’t leave my sons and daughters in faith alone…”

- “I believe that your cooperation could save them – once and for all.”

His hands started shaking a little. He tried to find out if we knew about his deeds

- “How could I be of help to someone as spiritually blessed as yourself?”

- “You could start with explaining how you manage to corrupt an altar despite not being a mage.”

There was no point in hiding anything. I have already scanned him and whole room looking for any possible threats. I found none.

- “You… you understand me, right? As a fellow priest, even more – a priest of a forgotten goddess!...”

- “You are greatly offending me just by comparing me to yourself.” I hissed quietly

- “I did what I had to! Look at them! Look! A month ago they were faithless! They were strolling the roads, looking under their feet! With no goal! No greatness! No purpose! They were members of the same village, yet there was no… unity! And look at them now! They are rushing into the chapel so they could grab each other’s hands and sing gospels! Now more than ever they are a society! A society that can withstand anything!”

- “Except for claws and fangs of devilish spawn.” I said. I wanted to deal with him and carry on, but as every villain that had his purpose doing what he did, he needed to say his bloody monologue, trying to convince others to his point of view.

- “No! You see nothing! The faith that they generated, can’t you feel it? The whole building is filled with it up to the roof! I wanted to use it to bless the weapons and charge on forces of evil! With faith, with unity, we would prevail over a single lesser devil, but the lesson they would learn – about Luxia’s protection, about the advantage of looking at yourself not as an individual, but a member of something bigger would…”

- “What with those that would die during the battle? You can’t possibly think that there would be no casualties. What with Johann who, knowingly or not, you fed to the devil?”

- “I…” he hesitated “… I was praying for forgiveness for myself and mercy for him. Yet those who would gave their life fighting with devil would be embraced by Her Light! And the rest of the village would see them as heroes…”

- “It is so very brave of you to sacrifice lives of other people...”

- “YOU JUST DON’T GET IT! I have studied her teachings! As a society following the Sun we could overcome our own weaknesses! But to become it we have to leap onward – into her embrace! Even if it means that few will not be able to see the glorious end! If there was another way I would gladly…”

- “There is…” I stopped him “… come with us and turn yourself to the devil. He cannot leave until he either conquers the village, would be ultimately defeated or… you would not meet your end of a bargain.”

- “But that…”

- “…Would mean that he would take your soul.” I finished “… yes. But, you have just said that the sacrifice of a few is a reasonable price for… how did you call it? Making the whole village see the glorious end. I would tell them that despite beating the devil we were unable to banish him. We would tell that you gave your life to cast him off this world. The village would learn their lesson, you would become a hero, and casualties would be reduced to a single person as I also hope to save Johann.”

Priest froze in place. His mouth kept opening and closing.

- “… But, it would mean my damnation…”

- “What’s wrong, your holiness? What happened to your zealousness? You could continue your crusade in hell, you know, that would be even holier… more holy or holier? Which version is correct?”

I asked turning my head to look at Rupert. Another psychological play – by getting distracted by such silly problem I showed how much I cared about his life. I tried making him think less about his own life. That could work if he wasn’t a hypocrite.

- “I have dedicated my life serving the Mother of the Sun! I will not corrupt myself with…”

- “So you didn’t corrupt yourself already with devil summoning?” Once again I didn’t let him finish

- “You… You left me no choice…” his face darkened “…You will know the divine punishment! I will use the faith stored in this temple to smite you down! Know the divine’s wrath!”

He raised his hand in the air trying to command the pure faith.

But, faith was not a mana, it needed some time before it could be used to perform a miracle. I didn’t really let him finish. In three quick leaps in reduced the distance between us and smacked him in the head with a hilt of the sword. The chubby older man fell on the ground.

- “I don’t really know what you need my help for. You handled it pretty great.” Rupert said scratching his beard

- “Oh, your help starts now. The priest is fat and looks heavy, and I am already quite tired…” I ended the silent suggestion with a tone.

- “Tsh. Ain’t you the young one here? Making an old man carry ballast….” He shakes his head disappointed, yet he squatted next to unconscious man throwing him over his shoulder “… it makes me feel dirty.” He said after the moment.

- “Pardon me?”

- “We are about to give a human being to the devil. He may be a scum… but…”

- “Rupert. You are a good man. Naïve. One day this is going to kill you.” I said with true sadness in my tone.

A snort was my only answer.

In the next 30 minutes we managed to get back to Johann’s hut. Carrying fatty to the ceiling appeared to be quite a problem too. We could have just dropped him off the ladder, but we would risk breaking his spine and accidentally killing him. And we needed him alive, at least for the next minute or so.

As we entered the last room I noticed, that sigils written on the floor were changed – instead of covering just the area surrounding the werewolf it was not covering the whole room. Because the symbols were less dense in structure, the werewolf regained partly his ability to move more or less freely within his new prison.

We dropped the body at his feet.

A quiet growl of approval echoed across the ceiling waking priest up.

- “Do you remember our pact, Derek?” werewolf hissed delightedly

- “Wha…WHA…!?!?” the priest barely conscious didn’t yet grasped the situation he was in.

- “The next time we would meet, we were forced to have a battle, the victor claims the village…” he looked in our direction “…but… you own no one here. I acknowledge that you lied to me while pact-making. You are not a shepherd of this herd. Thus, I consider our pact to be… broken. You are at fault for this. This is why I call for the satisfaction for my loss. In other words… You. Belong. To me.”

- “N-no! NO! We were supposed to fight! It is not a fight! I demand a…”

Huge paw grabbed man by his throat and lift him off the ground. Priest called Derek started choking.

- “Demand? You dare to demand anything from me?”

The wall on the other side of the room started brightening up with fire glyphs, thought completely different than those which were meant to protect us from devil’s influence.

- “Your pact was broken. Because of that, the pact that I made with that witch had to be erased too. The hell is one soul short. Do you know what it means, Derek?”

The man was painfully dropped on the ground, then, the vessel of devil started sparkling with miasma, it looked as if his spirit started leaving the body – like a snake losing his skin. The miasma took shape of huge barghest made of smoke. The creature’s paw smacked the body tearing the structure of reality. Its claws dug into the body ripping the spirit off it. Soon Derek’s astral body was standing next to his corpse. Devil-wolf brutally grabbed the soul of the priest and started walking toward the red-glowing portal which appeared between sigils. One last time the devil turned back and looked at me.

- “I will not forget about this humiliation, Zariel the Oracle. If our path would cross again…”

- “You will face exactly the same fate. Anthony.” I mocked the beast one last time

- “IT IS AGERO… “ the devil didn’t finish, for the portal already shut itself trapping the devil and the priest in the other realm. The stench of sulfur filled the whole room.

Yet, just for a moment before the hell-glyphs perished, a single trickle of crimson smoke travelled back to the vessel left by werewolf.

It slowly started turning back to its previous – human form. Very slowly.

- “Would you be so kind and strap him back to the chair?” I asked looking at Johann’s body “… we don’t know if he will be very friendly after his awakening.”

- “Will do.” Rupert nodded before he started giving out orders to his brothers in arms with few fast gestures.

- “So. It’s over, is it?” he would ask watching the fur dropping off the body.

- “Depends for who. It’s definitely not over for this village, nor for Johann or Marie.”

- “But it is for us… At least here.”

- “What are you going to do?”

- “March out immediately. The world is a dark place. There will be more people summoning devils, knowingly or not, there is always a graveyard in which dead men don’t want to lie in peace, there is always another vampire or succubus draining people’s life. We cannot rest… But you can. And you should. You look like seven miseries.”

- “I will. I definitely will…” I nodded “…I just need to change Gisele’s bandages… and burn the seeds… and…”

- “That elf girl and few villagers are taking care of your friend… Seeds aren’t going anywhere neither does Johann. Go to bed. Or I will strap you to one.”

- “Rupert.”

- “Yes?”

- “Be careful out there. There are many nasty creatures lurking in the dark.”

- “You don’t say!?” he tried to mock me “… how can you tell?”

- “I am one of them.”

I gave him last pat in the shoulder as I started moving back to the village. I decided to follow his advice and rest… But I am still going to at least check on Gisele. And if Lanele screwed up a single thing I left her with, then may she beg heavens for mercy, for I will have none.