Zeke froze after the abrupt announcement as Aida and Shadow halted and moved back to Violet.

“Go? Go where?” Aida asked eagerly.

“Ezequias…” Violet grabbed Zeke’s hand and gave him an intense gaze. “Solve this, okay?”

“You’re just going to ditch us?” Aida barked.

Zeke gently slipped his hand from Violet’s grip and studied her troubled expression. “What’s going on? Did something happen—?”

She shook her head, forcing a smile. “No, no. You don’t need to worry about that. Just worry about using that big brain of yours to stop the plague, okay, Rulitos?”

“Is this Angel-Killer related?” Aida questioned. “What is it? A detector spell? That lets you know when a vulnerable angel is close by, is that it?”

Violet instantly switched out her sweet, meek demeanor for her usual hostile one as she glowered at Aida. “It’s none of your business.”

Aida stomped up to Violet and grabbed her shoulder. “You’re really that bloodthirsty; you can’t put your killing spree on hold to help people—?”

“Don’t touch me,” Violet said with a frightening vibration in her voice. She wasn’t looking at Aida when she said it. Her eyes were unfocused and smoldering.

Aida ignored Shadow’s barks as she squeezed Violet’s shoulder. “There’s only one carrier left. At least help us get them to Yaalon’s clinic.”

Zeke scanned the crowd; some glanced, but nobody was focused. They were too wrapped up in trying to catch their flights.

Violet smacked Aida’s grip off her shoulder. “I’ve got something to do.”

“Violet!”

As Violet started walking away, Aida went after her, screaming, letting go of the leash, “Hey, I’m speaking to you! Don’t just walk away! I still have something I need to say!”

Violet sped up and continued to ignore her.

“Violet! Violet! Violet!”

“Your yapping is so annoying!” Violet said without turning around.

Zeke and Shadow followed the girls.

“Violet! Violet! Violet!”

“If you love acting like an annoying dog so much, then why not just become one?” said Violet, turning back to Aida with her hand glowing and making a magic sign. A ball of pink light hit Aida in the forehead, making her brain visible for a moment as it radiated a sparkling light. It was alarmingly quick, and none of the travelers looked their way until Aida hit the floor.

“She’s fine. Overworked, but fine. Just a bit dramatic,” Violet said to the crowd in perfect German.

Shadow started whimpering as Zeke crouched to Aida. She was breathing heavily, and her eyelids were flickering. “Violet! What did you do?” he asked.

“She’ll be fine,” she said dismissively, pulling Zeke up by grabbing his arm. As Zeke turned his head over at Aida, Violet forced it back into place while cupping his face. “Ezequias, you know the angels are all bad, right?”

As the image of Nananiel’s amicable face appeared in Zeke’s mind, he was unable to give an answer.

Violet went on, “Rulitos, I’ll need your help soon. I can count on you to help when I need it, right?”

“What would you…?” He stopped himself from finishing the dumb question. What she wanted from him was made clear months ago, and he had already made it just as clear to her that he wasn’t interested in aiding her campaign of celestial carnage, so why was she asking again?

“Ezequias…” Violet said in a brittle voice and then repeated the request in Spanish, “You’ll help me, right?”

The ball was in his court, and Zeke didn’t even know what game he was playing. He felt as if he was being held hostage under that devilishly beautiful look of hers. The way her pink, cupid-bow lips delicately curved into a spellbinding grin rendered him powerless.

“Yes…” he muttered. “I’ll help you.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie, so Zeke didn’t have to feel too bad about it. Getting a wet kiss from Violet following his answer made Zeke even happier he gave an answer.

The girl of his dreams wrapped her arms behind his neck and embraced him before walking away.

Afterward, Aida tackled him. They fell onto the floor.

And Aida licked him.

Zeke looked confusingly at Aida as she held her tongue out and panted heavily. He noticed people staring, probably disgusted by their fetishistic public display of affection. If they didn’t have security uniforms, somebody would be yelling at them by now. As some smartphones were exposed to film the two, Zeke escaped from under Aida and got up, observing her as she sat on the floor like a dog awaiting orders. Her focus snapped to the side as a child dropped a rubber ball. Aida went after the ball, caught it in her mouth, and bolted the scene.

Shadow’s barking pulled Zeke’s focus from Aida. The demon dog was barking and jumping around an irritated, suited man.

The Carriers were the main priority.

Violet said Aida would be fine.

He had to believe her. So Zeke turned to the dog and moved towards it.

He caught something in the corner of his eye, forcing him to stop. The figure stood out in the crowd like a potato in a cabbage garden.

Zeke turned to Kian, and just by looking at the yellow-white of his sickly, dark eyes, it was evident he wasn’t open to civil conversation.

The Infectiologist plodded towards him with a terrible, hunched posture. He looked notably sicker than before.

Remembering every negotiation segment of the role-playing games he played. Zeke raised a hand and kept his voice measured. “Kian. Let’s talk about this.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Why? I’ve made up my mind, and I know you can tell that.”

“I just want to understand why you are—“

“No, you don’t,” Kian said, stopping before him. He wheezed harshly. “You don’t want to listen; you just want me to stop and do what you want. I’ll save you time and tell you right now

you aren’t changing my mind with the award-winning speech you prepared on your way here, Rosario.”

Shadow came running back to Zeke and pulled him by the pant leg with his teeth.

“That’s what you’re using to find the Carriers, huh?” said Kian, looking down at the dog. He made a hand sign and tapped the dog’s head.

Grotesque fungi mushroomed across the dog’s face. Shadow trembled and whimpered as the symptoms worsened, spreading to his legs. The creature barely had enough energy to panic and cry. He silently fell to the floor on his side.

“Shadow! No!” Zeke crouched down to the dog, but there was nothing he could do. Shadow weakly moved his legs in a final effort to cling onto life but lost the battle seconds later.

All travelers and airport personnel were watching the scene, utterly rapt by the horror of the dead dog being consumed by fungi. Yeast, molds, and mushrooms spread across the floor, causing some to scream and run.

As a fuming Zeke got up to face Kian, he was hit in the chest by the Infectiologist’s erect pinky and ring finger.

Zeke saw his body fall frontward. He scanned the airport, and it was chaotic. Luggage was abandoned, and people were crashing into each other. Turning his eyes back to his body, lying face down in front of him, clenching his doctor’s bag in hand, a dreadful feeling took over Zeke.

Kian was staring right at him and then started walking away.

Zeke caught up to him and swung his fist at the back of his head. It went through it, making no impact.

“You can’t interact with the physical world anymore, Rosario,” Kian said.

He tried to hit again from the astral plane, but no dice. Zeke stopped to put his brain to work, allowing Kian to look for his Carrier in the pandemonium.

There was one thing Zeke was curious to try while in his ghostly form. He raised his hands and clapped them together, surprised they didn’t just go through each other. Lowering his forefingers and pinkies while pushing them together, keeping the tips of his middle fingers and ring fingers aimed upward and thumbs downward, he summoned, “Vesklepios!”

Zeke’s security uniform was replaced with his Healer’s Garb. A blue thread slipped out from his sleeve, and he swung it at Kian from behind. Still no hit.

Intense pain struck Zeke, making him double over and clench onto the side of his head. It was an all too familiar razor-sharp sensation that felt like someone was cutting through his skull with a power saw and into his brain. He screamed as the agony stretched from the center of his brain to his left inner ear; it was as if someone was slowly dragging a knife between the two regions (just like last time).

Following the pangs, his vision blurred and went green, and then he could feel a cosmic entity communicating with him in a way that didn’t involve words, yet, he understood anyway. There was also something else he inexplicably understood without a doubt.

It was Vesklepios communicating with him.

The Healer’s Garb just emitted noises in a nightmarish voice that was just gurgled gibberish. Zeke was able to interpret the instructions from the gibberish.

Vesklepios let Zeke know that Healers can go in and out of the astral plane as they wish as well as take others there with them, whether they consent or not. In the astral plane, it is possible to interact with the tangible. For people like Healers with a sublime affinity to Mana, all it took was a focused thought to determine what is tangible to you or not.

Only then did Zeke realize he was subconsciously floating mere inches off the ground, or else he would’ve fallen into the floor and the dirt underneath.

Zeke’s head was ringing from the cosmic emission, but he endured as he mimicked the hand sign Kian made, keeping his pinky and ring finger up while the others stayed down. He stormed towards the Infectiologist from behind and thrust his fingers into his shoulder blade.

Kian’s body arched forward, stressing his spine as his spirit popped out.

The plague-maker’s astral form caught its footing as his physical form flopped face-first into the floor.

An intense staredown between the two Healers lasted for only a couple of seconds, and then Kian called for his Healer’s Garb. “Plaga!” As soon as the gothic, feathery getup finished forming, he initiated his attack, which was an acidic, purple liquid beam shooting out of his hand and right at Zeke.

With impressive timing, Zeke had red and blue veins quickly wrap around his arm until it became a huge mass of muscle. He blocked Kian’s first attack with his giant arm, but the stream of viscous goop shooting from his hand wouldn’t stop, like a broken firehose.

Zeke started to notice clusters of flesh-eating bacteria leaving gaping holes all over his veiny arm. He detached himself from the colossal arm and watched it deteriorate on the floor due to the efforts of some aggressive bacteria.

Before he could do something else, Kian unleashed a rat plague that scuttered its way toward Zeke. The pack of black rodents climbed up Zeke and went for his eye.

Zeke screamed in pain as the rats began chewing on his eye. He pulled as many rats off him as he could, crouched, and pressed his hands into the floor. A red and blue venous network sprawled across the ground as his eye healed. Letting out his war cry—thick, rubbery blue and red blood vessels sprouted from the floor and outstretched in every direction, creating a grid of arteries and veins.

The panicking crowd at the airport were completely unfair of the hectic battle happening in the astral realm.

An undaunted Kian, having mastered what was tangible to him and what wasn’t, ran through the arteries in his way and touched Zeke on the side of his neck.

It swelled painfully, bringing with it aches all over his body and a brewing fever. Zeke pushed Kian away with a blind kick to the gut.

Kian came running back as Zeke’s mumps healed.

Zeke concentrated on a vein near Kian’s side and made a fist. The vessel clotted, and a ball swelled until it burst. The bloody explosion sent Kian flying.

As the infectiologist tried getting up, Zeke made three more clot explosions, which made him fly all over the place. Then, a blue vein zipped from Zeke’s sleeve and wrapped itself around Kian’s neck. Zeke went behind him, pulled the vein, tightening its hold on his opponent’s throat, and then launched it upward. It looped around a structural beam near the steel roof of the airport. Dashing over to the other side of the beam, Zeke caught the end of the vein and pulled it down.

Like a flag, Kian was hoisted upwards, gagging as the vein snaked around his neck continued to choke him out.

Coming up with his next move, Zeke looked up at Kian as he choked and blood dripped from under him like a downpour.

His idea came to him, and he acted on it fast. Zeke pulled down his mask, held onto the end of the vein between his teeth, and shot two veins to his side—they were thicker than usual. With the tightest grip he could manage on the veins, Zeke pulled back like a slingshot and let go, propelling him forward.

He blasted into Kian and wrapped his veins around him as they jetted toward the roof. Zeke closed his eyes and concentrated.

Once he opened his eyes, all he could see were dark, clouded skies. He took a fist to the jaw and lost his grip on Kian. What followed was a freefalling fist-fight between the two before crash landing onto the slightly slanted roof of the Zurich airport.

They got back up and stood on the glass slope, facing each other without losing balance. Thanks to their astral form, they casually defied gravity.

“Do you feel good about killing Aida’s dog for no reason, huh?” Zeke said.

“You brought the dog here to disrupt my plans,” Kian defended. “I don’t enjoy killing, but I’ll do what I must when it comes to things that get in my way.”

“Just like Yaalon?”

“I didn’t kill Yaalon.”

“You admitted it to us!”

“The only thing I admitted to was spreading my specimen, but I had nothing to do with Yaalon’s death.”

“¡Malparido!” Zeke exclaimed. “We know you killed Yaalon because he was investigating you. He got too close. Why lie about killing him if we already know that you started the plague?”

“Exactly.”

Zeke froze with widened eyes and then got lost in thought. Once he returned to reality, Kian was charging at him, equipped with a strange sword. Zeke dodged the first couple of swings and observed the weapon as Kian stopped and took on a sword-wielding stance; there was a regal-like quality to how he stood and held the blade.

The sword’s blade was completely covered in black and green mold with a colony of multicolored and multi-shaped bacteria, large enough to see, overlaying it. They pulsated calmly, expanding and retracting like lungs. Each wriggling and twisting with their own creepy movement. Bacterial-infected fluid leaked from the handle.

Zeke had two long veins slip out of his sleeve, holding them like whips.

The fight continued.