47. The one who Suffered

The floor was covered in a fine layer of dust. There was no sound in the building apart from the creaking of their own footsteps against the floorboards.

There was barely any light to go by. As they padded through the hall, Lace’s hand found something made of glass. Looking closer, she found it was some sort of display case.

Lace squinted and saw a bouquet of long-since withered flowers within. She couldn’t even tell what color they had once been. The petals were shriveled and ugly.

There was a tag attached to them. She struggled to make out the writing on it.

“For my favorite dunce. Love; R,” Lace read aloud.

“Who’s R?” Kiren asked.

“Reya, I’m assuming.”

“That’s, what? His wife?”

“Probably. Seems like it, based on this.”

Lace moved on. They found a staircase and proceeded up to the second floor. There were several locked doors, but they didn’t bother trying to open them. She figured their best lead to finding Excelerate was in the lit room on the third floor.

They discovered another display case as they walked along the hall.

Inside were a pair of leather goggles with thick glass lenses. Like the last one, there was a tag attached.

“I hate seeing you come in with bloodshot eyes. Wear these instead, so you can see when you’re running. Love; R,” Lace read aloud.

“Seems like a real busybody, this Reya,” Kiren said. “Kind of like someone I know.”

“Shut up!” Lace said. She punched his arm.

They got to the third floor. Firelight spilled out of a room at the end of the hall, which stood open just a crack.

Between them and the door was one last case.

Lace went up to it.

Inside was a painted metal brooch depicting a blood-red flower. Attached, just like with the others, was a tag.

“If you’re going to be a Hero,” Lace read, “you’ll need a proper Hero name. I was thinking ‘Excelerate’. Rolls off the tongue, right? Oh, and come into the other room for a surprise. Love; Your Future Wife.”

“Damn,” Kiren said.

“Why did he never talk about her?” Lace wondered out loud.

“She’s dead.”

Lace looked up at him.

Kiren just shrugged. “Obviously. Otherwise, why would he have this paraded all around the house? Why would he leave the place a mess? Why would there be no one else here?”

Lace turned her gaze downward. “I… suppose. He could have told us, though.”

“It was none of our business. It still isn’t. We’re trespassing on his past. Now, come on.”

He took her hand. They approached the final room.

Kiren pushed the door open with his foot.

A candle stood on a nightstand, illuminating the room with quavering, orange light. A bed on the left-hand side lay unused. A desk stood on the right, laden with a mess of papers.

On the floor lay Excelerate, Jorge Router, foaming at the mouth. He stared without sight into the ceiling. Next to him stood a bottle, and beneath it, a note.

“Unmaker’s tits,” Kiren hissed.

Lace was on her knees in front of her master in seconds. She put two fingers to the side of his throat, closed her eyes, and felt for a pulse.

She found one. It was weak, but it was there.

She tilted him to the side and he began coughing up foamy saliva mixed with blood.

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“He’s had the tainted love potion,” Lace confirmed, voice shaking. “What do we do?”

“We have to carry him back to the Lodge,” Kiren said. “Nothing we can do for him here.”

“It won’t work,” a third voice said.

“Who’s that?” Kiren demanded. He whirled around and drew his greatsword.

A ghostly apparition stepped out of thin air between Kiren and Lace. It had no face, its head perfectly smooth, and its hands and feet disappeared into indistinct whorls of fog. It was only a small thing, shorter than her outstretched hand.

“What you’re planning won’t work,” the thing spoke. “This man will be dead before you arrive.” She nodded towards Excelerate.

“What in all hells…?” Kiren whispered. “Am I seeing things?”

“Don’t worry!” Lace said. “This is a friend. I think. It’s a part of my Power.”

Kiren threw her a skeptical glance and did not lower his weapon.

“What can we do for him?” Lace continued, looking desperately up at the specter. “We have no medicine. No training. Without help, he’ll die all the same.”

“He’s been poisoned by the Enemy,” the specter said. “Their blood flows through him. It has to be neutralized if you want him to live.”

“Get to the point, then, whatever you are,” Kiren growled. “If you have some way to help, then help. Otherwise, shut up. Like you said, he doesn’t have much time.”

“We can remove the poison,” the specter said. Though its countenance was completely smooth, Lace felt like it was looking right at her. “Together. Although, this…”

“I’ll do it,” Lace said. “I’ll do anything. Just tell me what you need.”

“There’ll be some residual damage,” the specter said. “I can’t guarantee that any of us will come out of this unscathed.”

Lace set her jaw. She looked down at Excelerate’s face, wrinkled with silent agony as blood leaked from his mouth and nose. “I don’t care. We have to do it.”

Something like a sigh came from the specter, and the energy that made up its form shivered for a moment.

“Alright, then,” it said. “Let’s begin.”

The specter shot forward, driving itself through Lace. The energy melted into her body, and there was a rush almost like the sensation she had felt when jumping off the wall, of intense vertigo and wind rushing past her face.

“Put both hands on his face and tilt it upward,” the specter told her.

Lace did so. She wiped a bit of blood from Excelerate’s cheek with her thumb, but more dribbled out.

“Now put your face close to his.”

Lace did this, as well. Her hair hanging down over the old man’s face.

“Open your mouth.”

Lace opened her mouth, and a tendril of white, glowing energy extended past her lips. It dispersed on Excelerate’s face and passed in through his eyes, nostrils, and mouth. Bit by bit, more of it was pushed into the old Hero. He coughed and thrashed, but Kiren got down next to her and held him reasonably still.

“Now,” the specter said, “breathe in as hard as you can and imagine something nice. Something pure. Keep that in your mind.”

Lace sucked in a deep breath and searched for something wholly pure among her memories.

The first thing that came to mind was her and Kiren, laying in bed together. They weren’t doing anything special. She could simply feel herself wrapped up in his warmth and his breath on the back of her neck, making the hairs prickle.

The specter’s energy began to reverse back into her, a multitude of strings like a tangle of soft hairs. They had been soaked with something black, however, and it tasted of ash on her tongue.

She coughed and wanted to throw up, but kept it down.

“Keep going!” the specter coaxed her. “You have to complete the purification!”

Lace took deep breaths, forcing the tainted energy out of herself and into Excelerate. The nasty taste grew more intense, and she began to feel a heat like burning coals at the back of her throat.

Then, suddenly, it all stopped, and the energy dissipated, accompanied by a woman’s scream that echoed through the room.

A white brilliance exploded out of her, hundreds of shards that faded into the air and disappeared entirely.

The room grew silent, and Lace rubbed her throat as she coughed. When she had recovered, she ran her fingers over her tongue but saw no trace of the black Beast-blood when she withdrew them.

Excelerate was still unconscious, but he breathed more easily.

Kiren helped Lace stand, and she panted as she looked down at the supine Hero.

He looked small. Small and old. Her heart twanged with sadness, seeing him like that.

“What the fuck just happened?” Kiren asked.

“I don’t quite know,” Lace admitted. “But I think he’s well enough to carry him back to the Lodge.”

She didn’t know what had happened to the specter at the end of that, but it seemed like it was in pain.

While Kiren struggled to lift the limp Hero over his shoulders, Lace made a quick scan of the room. She brought the candle over to the desk and looked through the papers on it. She picked the one at the top and started reading it.

“I’m sorry, Reya. I can’t do this anymore,” Lace read. “This house is too empty without you. I’ve done everything I can for the city. No one can say differently. I’ll be with you soon. Love; Jay.”

The other papers were different iterations of the same letter. All were addressed to his wife.

“Sounds like this was what he wanted,” Kiren said. “What weakness could compel a man to do such a thing?”

“Not weakness,” Lace said, turning around to face him. “Just pain.”

Kiren pursed his lips but didn’t say anything.

She went over to the bottle Excelerate had left on the floor and pulled out the note pinned beneath it.

Reya, it read. This is the one. I finally did it. There was more, but the words scrawled off into nonsense.

Lace put the letter on the bed and let out a deep sigh.

“Okay, we’re done here,” she said. “Let’s get him back to the Lodge.”