“We can’t just go in there and kick this thing’s teeth in, can we?” Hunter said. “I mean, if it even has teeth.”

Those were two things they all had agreed on from the get-go. The first one was that Sister Finch was gone. The woman on the dais–Mother, Hunter had dubbed her, though that might have been a little insensitive towards Sister Peregrine–was more or less an extension of the creature Hunter had seen. Fawkes and Peregrine had seen it too. It had been for just a moment and they were both under the effects of some kind of stupor enchantment, but the glimpse of it they’d got was enough to get its alien image burned into their minds.

The other thing they’d agreed on was that the odds seemed to be overwhelmingly stacked against them. It wasn’t just Mother and the thing that puppeteered her. There were dozens of praying faithful in the Sanctum, too; it hadn’t taken them long to shake off their trance once Hunter attacked Mother, Fawkes pointed out, and they had tried to cut off their escape. It would be logical to assume they’d do even more than that if it came down to an all-out, kill-or-be-killed fight.

Then there were the spear-wielding low-ogres, the ones Hunter thought of as Mother’s honor guard. The feral low-ogre they’d faced before had been one great pain in the ass to take down, and it had more or less acted like an angry, oversized gorilla. These ones were relatively intelligent, coordinated, and armed with spears the size of street lamp posts. Hunter expected them to be on a whole other level.

“Maybe I channel Yaneskvar again," offered Brother Aurochs, but Sister Peregrine’s incredulous reaction was enough for him to shut up. He was barely strong enough to sit up and prop himself against a wall. Whatever his transformation to beast and back to human had done to him, it had left him in shambles. Without his buffalo skull headdress to hide it, his face looked like a bomb-ravaged battlefield, like a map of deep lines and scars. His weather-beaten skin was tough like leather hide. His nose had been broken crooked. The dark circles under his eyes were the red and black and blue of bruises. Still, he somehow still managed to look gentle, peaceful.

Hunter, Fawkes, and the Sister were huddled around him, holding an impromptu war council of sorts. Not that there were many ideas being thrown around; they all were too tired, too shaken, too overwhelmed.

“It’s obvious we can’t expect to just kick down the doors, walk in there, and start killing” said Hunter. “We’d probably never even make it anywhere close to Mother. Maybe we could try to sneak in, reach her undetected.”

“I don’t see how this could happen," Fawkes shook her head. “Reiner is… Reiner was a skillful infiltrator. If he got caught, we wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”

“Maybe we could set the whole Inner Sanctum on fire, let some of the things in there burn, then, and smoke the rest out.”

“Set it on fire how?”

“I don’t know, oil?”

“Do you see any oil lying around?”

“Hey, I’m just spitballing here," Hunter said. “You got a better idea, go on and say it.”

Fawkes frowned. Apparently, she didn’t.

“Sister?” Hunter turned to Sister Peregrine. “Do you think you could use anything from these vaults? Surely there must be something useful or powerful enough somewhere in here.”

Sister Peregrine frowned too, then shook her head.

“It’s not a good idea. That creature in the Sanctum… it’s probably something that had been contained in one of the vaults in the deeper levels and somehow broke out. If we take anything else out of containment, we could simply be trading one problem for another. It’s too big a risk.”

“Look, I think…” Hunter started to argue, but then changed his mind. “No. I see. I guess everything that’s stashed in here is stashed in here for a reason.”

“Indeed.”

“Your fire idea was not all too bad, actually," Fawkes interjected.

“Uh… so, do you see any oil lying around?” Hunter made a half-hearted attempt at snarking. “Or, I don’t know, anything else of the sort?”

“No, no. Fire is out of the question, at this point. Taking all or most of them out in such a manner is a good idea, though. I think we could do that, after all.”

“With what?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“With this," she said and pulled a couple of glass flasks out of seemingly nowhere. One was filled with a viscous dark crimson ooze, the other with a clear liquid. “If there’s anything that can do the trick, it’s this–though I’d rather only use it as a last resort.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s called a Phage philter. It eats away at flesh, leaves nothing but fumes behind. A few drops are enough to devour a body in a matter of minutes.”

“Have you been carrying something like this around the whole time?” asked Hunter. “And you never thought to mention anything about it?”

“I carry many things around, a good part of them valuable, deadly, or both,” said Fawkes. “I don’t make a habit of mentioning every single one of them just to make idle conversation. Do you take issue with that?”

“It’s just an awfully convenient thing to pull out of your ass in the eleventh hour, don’t you think?”

“When you have lived as I have, lad, pulling awfully convenient things out of your ass in the eleventh hour, as you say, is a survival skill. That’s something that would serve you well to take to heart.”

“No, I mean… it’s just bad writing.”

“It’s just bad what?”

“Nothing, nothing. So, Phage Philter. Do we have to make her drink it or what?”

“No," Fawkes explained. “See this reddish slime? This is the actual phage. It’s a living thing. It’s normally inert, hibernating. Mix with the catalyst philter, though, and it will start consuming all flesh it comes in contact with, rapidly multiplying and spreading in size.”

“That sounds… unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant? Lad, outbreaks of this have taken whole towns out in a single night. Yes, it’s unpleasant. In fact, it should probably be stored in one of these vaults and be guarded by a dozen Kannewik.”

“And how come do you have it, then?”

“Because the Lodge doesn’t have a vault and a dozen Kannewik to spare, and keeping it close was the best available alternative. Never mind that. What we should focus on is how to find a way to get the phage on the woman and the creature that’s controlling her.”

“Will it be enough to take her down?” asked Hunter, looking at the flasks with doubt.

“Enough? Lad, have you been listening to what I’ve been saying? Just a few drops, if left uncontained, will continue to devour any and all flesh it comes in touch with until there’s nothing left.”

Hunter gave it some thought, then nodded.

“If you say it’s enough, it’s enough, I guess. How about throwing it on her, then? Would that get the job done?”

“Unfortunately, it’s a bit more complicated than that," Fawkes frowned. “The Phage takes a few minutes to become active–to awaken, as it were. It’s the one thing that makes containing it somewhat manageable.”

“If it gets going, though, it won’t stop. Right?”

“Not if there’s flesh for it to consume. It will go on and on, propagating until it’s eaten every single scrap and morsel it can find. Then it will become inactive again.”

“Dead flesh, too?”

“Living, dead, the Phage does not discriminate. In fact, it has sometimes been used to purge the bodies of plague dead.”

“That’s… interesting," Hunter said, grinning despite himself as the beginnings of a plan started forming in his mind. It was the kind of grin–the kind of idea–that would make Packman facepalm. “Very interesting indeed.”

“Grimnir’s beard, lad,” Fawkes shook her head, slowly catching on. “Why do you have to be like this?”

Hunter’s grin only widened.

***

“That’s stupid," Sister Peregrine said. “Insane, even.”

“We have a saying, where I come from," Hunter said, still grinning like mad. “If it’s stupid and it works, it’s not stupid.”

“It pains me to admit it, but the lad has a point," Fawkes said. To her credit, she’d actually waited to listen to what Hunter had to say before dismissing the plan as bonkers. And it was a bonkers plan, as likely to fail or backfire as it was to work. Even Hunter himself had to admit that. Still, neither Fawkes nor the Sister had come up with anything better.

“There’s only one point I could not possibly agree to," Fawkes went on. “The part where you go in there alone.”

Hunter knew she’d say that. He wasn’t sure whether it was her warrior’s pride or sense of camaraderie, but he sure wished she’d stop and see things from a utilitarian perspective.

“You said it yourself. If things go wrong and I get killed, I barely get a timeout. If it’s you, it’s game over. It’s the sane thing to do. Why can’t you see it?”

from Brother Aurochs too. “This is not your fight. We neither need nor want you to fight it for us.”

“Don’t you?” Hunter raised an eyebrow. “I was under the impression that was what you brought us down here to do in the first place.”

“This is not what I mean," the woman said coolly. “It is not that we do not value your offer and assistance, but to us this is a matter of life and death.”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you–it does not have to be! Just… just put your pride aside, will you?”

“Again, you do not understand," she shook her head with disapproval. “How could you? All this is like an entertaining dream to you, like the ones brought by mushroom wine. It is not my pride that talks. It is my duty and conviction. What worth is this life I’ve lived, if I am not willing to risk life and limb for what truly matters?

Hunter opened his mouth to say something, but Fawkes cut him off.

“This is not up for discussion, lad. The Sister is right. Sometimes the end justifies the means, sometimes it does not. In this case, it is the latter. How can you ask of us to sit back here and twiddle our thumbs? We have…” Her voice cracked, and she paused just enough to swallow, as if her throat had gone dry. “We have lost people to whatever lurks in those halls. How can you ask of us not to honor them? Even if that boneheaded plan of yours does work as you hope it will, that will be nothing but an empty victory. Nothing risked, nothing gained. No. We go as one.”

Hunter still wanted to fight them on this, the Brethren and Fawkes, but her words rang with a tone of finality. There was no point in pushing the subject any further, not unless he was willing to tie them all up and leave them locked in a vault–and he wouldn’t be able to pull that off even if he wanted to.

No, he’d just have to accept their right to choose for themselves and do his damnedest to make sure his plan worked.

Piece of cake, right?