Now that we’d found an adept of the Unbroken Sun, all we had to do was shave a handful of motes off him. To me, after seeing the dusty display cases and dirty floors in Morlan Hall, the solution was obvious. Back in our railcar, I recommended, “We can just pay him for them. Professors don’t make much, and they always need more research funding.”
At least, that was true from what I’d seen of academia. Technically, neither Sigmund nor I (nor any of our cousins, for that matter) had ever attended formal school. (Our parents had engaged private tutors from all over the Imperium to teach us natural and unnatural philosophy, history and literature, combat and spy craft.) However, the Vaasu School lay in easy walking distance of our estate. Even if House Ankhayat didn’t exactly throw open its doors for public tours – especially not for young Anixises – we’d simply impersonated students as espionage practice. I’d snuck into my share of lectures and dining halls and explored the campus quite thoroughly, all with the tacit blessing of our House. With its gleaming, metal-capped towers and marble lacework arches, the Vaasu School was obviously on much better financial footing than Charterhall University, and yet I’d still heard scholars aplenty grumbling about research funding – or the lack thereof.
Jamison Pritchard needed coin to buy lab equipment and pay his graduate students. We needed a few motes of the Unbroken Sun. What could be more straightforward than a simple exchange?
Gods, Ash’s obsession with finance was infecting my worldview.
To my surprise, the devotee of That Which Hungers shook his head with a rueful smile. “I considered that too. My god certainly thinks it’s a reasonable option, but it won’t work. Even though hurting the Church is a great cause and everyone should be allowed the privilege of self-sacrifice, we’d all prefer it to be someone else.”
The privilege of self-sacrifice, indeed. “What’s the big deal about giving up a few motes?” I objected. “Isn’t it like trimming your fingernails?”
“No, it’s more like chopping off an arm.”
“Is it?” drawled Faith from her perch on the bar. Her voice lightly mocking, she inquired, “Does that mean that when you harvested motes from the Golden Stag, you were really hacking off a haunch of venison?”
Caught in a gross exaggeration, Ash flushed and corrected himself. “Well, okay, maybe it’s more like a finger. Regardless, it’s sacrilegious to harm your god, and Jamison Pritchard is an adept of the Unbroken Sun.”
“What exactly is an adept anyway?” I asked.
Face ablaze with remembered glory, Ash explained in a hushed, reverent tone, “Adepts are those who have opened their minds to the thought-tendrils of their god and accepted its holy presence into themselves.”
Weeks ago, I’d witnessed for him as he offered himself to That Which Hungers in exchange for power. He’d never quite been the same, after that.
“With sufficient training, adepts can manifest their god and grant those around them a vision of its glory.” Ash’s eyes glowed with religious fervor, as if he yearned for the day he achieved that step. Then, catching himself, he concluded more practically, “Basically, we need to make Pritchard manifest the Unbroken Sun so we can harvest its motes.”
In an offhanded sort of way, Faith observed, “My experience with religious fanatics is that they’d rather die than allow their god to be harmed.”
“Yes, well, worshippers of the Golden Stag proved weaker in this regard,” Ash shrugged, “so who knows about the Unbroken Sun? But if it comes to torture, we’ll do what’s necessary.”
Or Faith would, at any rate. She already had the requisite toolkit.
I thought back to the spa score and how everything had gone sideways when the target’s god showed up to save her. “If we threaten or knock out Pritchard, does that mean the Unbroken Sun will manifest?”
“Probably. That’s certainly what happened with Helene,” answered Ash.
“It’s probably better to manufacture a situation where Pritchard summons his god without knowing our intentions,” Faith noted seemingly absentmindedly. She’d pulled out a notebook and was doodling wildly impractical dress designs. “Maybe he could do it while he angrily assaults an enemy cult.”
Ash considered, then embellished on her idea. “I have a proposal. It’s not the most savory of options, but we can encourage the Church to attack the cult of the Unbroken Sun. Then Pritchard will have no choice but to manifest his god to save his followers. Hopefully, we can manage the size of the assault so it doesn’t completely wipe out the cult….” He didn’t seem too concerned with the fate of his fellow forgotten god worshippers, though.
Faith dismissed his idea at once. “Nah, the Church would just send spirit wardens. But…oh! We can pretend to be an upstart demonic cult that only the Unbroken Sun is capable of stopping!” Getting excited, she tossed aside her notebook and started waving her arms and legs around. “As we’re deep in the throes of a dark, depraved, blood-soaked rite to invoke a greater demon, this adept will lead a desperate raid on our lair and summon his god in a last-ditch, do-or-die attempt to stop us and save Doskvol from utter destruction! And then – then we shall striiiiike.” She drew out the last word with relish, then dimpled at both of us.
“Speaking as a member of one of these cults,” Ash pointed out skeptically, “I would hesitate to go out on a limb to protect a city that barely tolerates my worship.”
“But the Unbroken Sun hates demons with the fiery passion of a thousand…unbroken suns! He would take it personally.”
Lost in my own thoughts about blood-soaked rituals and greater demons, I’d only half-followed her theatrics. Somewhat at random, I announced, “I don’t like any of this.”
As usual, they ignored me.
“Oh!” cried Faith, eyes wide with revelation. “Oh! I have it! We kidnap one of their members to use as our sacrifice in our fake demonic ritual!”
Hastily, I pulled myself together and rejoined the conversation before my crewmates could commit me to anything more unsavory. “Just to be clear: We’re not actually sacrificing anyone, right?”
“Of course not!” Faith gave me the most innocent expression ever, full of sugar and spice and fluffy bunnies.
“But we’d be willing to, if we had to,” Ash clarified.
Faith shot him a toothy grin and leaned towards me. “We’ll hunt down one of their low-tier members – a pet, a mascot, someone they’re attached to, like Vhetin Kellis and the Hive – and kidnap them,” she explained eagerly. “We’ll leave clues of a demonic nature at the crime scene: runes scratched onto the walls, little bits of demonic flesh, a notebook, an address, whatnot. Or we’ll spread rumors of demonic worship in the neighborhood. I can make myself very obvious!” (There was no “can” about it.) “I’ll wander around in dark robes, buying copious quantities of goat blood and chanting loudly late at night!” She beamed at us, kicking her legs so her skirts frothed and swirled. “You see? We’ll disguise ourselves as a demonic cult that’s new and hence really bad at hiding! Oooh, my seamstress is going to have a field day!”
Oh, well, as long as Faith’s seamstress was happy, then obviously everything was going to be just fine.
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True to her word, Faith immediately commissioned three sets of long, black, hooded robes from her presumably enthusiastic seamstress. More usefully, she dispatched Cricket to comb the Unbroken Sun acolytes for a likely kidnappee. The little ghost identified one Marston Haig, a second-year student at Charterhall University who opted to save money by living in Six Towers instead of university housing.
Under Faith’s careful supervision, we moved into that same abandoned mansion we’d used to ambush Kamilin and adorned the ballroom with all manner of demonic-themed paraphernalia. Ash even hired a Coalridge tinkerer to rig up a flashy trance powder release mechanism on the rusty chandelier, but the crowning glory was electroplasmic decorations that would blaze up in a portal-like light show. While I lurked in a corner and looked on moodily, Faith sang and danced around our “ritual chamber,” painting the walls with intricate sigils and splattering goat blood all over her frilly white dress. Personally, I found the entire production uncomfortably reminiscent of home, even if our Demon Princes were far more sophisticated about the sacrifices they required.
A stray, amused thought that wasn’t mine drifted across my mind. No, I’d never be that vulgar. Not unless it was useful.
Trust Grandfather to get curious about our fake demonic ritual! I was about to shove Ixis out of my head when epiphany struck: Turmoil in the Church might distract the Imperium from Iruvia.
Swathing myself in black robes, I cast a “I’ll be back later” over my shoulder at my crewmates. I then proceeded to haunt the neighborhood, posing as a cult recruiter and leaving in my wake a trail of sinister tales and jittery residents. (“I think she’s secretly curious about the pleasure demons,” Faith stage-whispered to Ash when she knew I was listening.)
Two days passed in this way. Our neighbors grumbled, as neighbors would, about noise violations and the unsanitary effects of rancid goat blood. A few even half-heartedly circulated a petition for an ordinance against cultic activities in residential zones. I felt confident that word would soon reach Pritchard’s ears.
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It was late on the second night when we glanced out the ballroom window and caught sight of Marston skulking right across the street from us. As conspicuous as a torch in his bright yellow robes, he was trying and failing to hide in the shadows while scouting our mansion. Even as we watched, he stepped directly under a streetlight and signaled urgently to an acolyte on the next block.
In concert, Ash and I exploded out the front door.
Flapping his robes like a giant bat, Ash prowled around Marston. With a flourish, he produced an oversized, saw-toothed dagger whose point gleamed wickedly, and mumbled to himself, “Yes, oh yes, that should be seven, maybe seven-and-a-half liters, a bit scrawny, but he should do….”
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While the poor student cast fearful eyes at the knife and edged backwards, I snuck up behind him and seized him in a chokehold. Panicking, he wheezed and swatted uselessly at my arm, displaying a complete ignorance of self-defense skills. Realizing that there was no risk he’d squirm free, I loosened my hold slightly and allowed him to draw breath to scream.
He didn’t disappoint. “Please, let me go! Help! Heeeeeeelp!”
Down the street, the other acolyte tensed and gripped handfuls of her robes, raising them from her boots and preparing to sprint to his aid. All of a sudden, a glowing blue form zipped into her, and she spun on her heel and tore off down the street instead.
The commotion was attracting attention from the spectral denizens of the neighborhood. All around us, translucent, ragged forms began to rise from chimneys and drift out of attic windows.
Faith’s silhouette appeared in our doorway. Nonchalantly, she flicked her lightning hook once, and all the ghosts stiffened and froze in place. Then she twirled it in a tight circle, and the horde immediately streamed into the top floor of our mansion as if sucked by a whirlpool.
While the Whisper dealt with the neighbors, so to speak, I hauled Marston unceremoniously into our ritual chamber and heaved him onto the altar, which she’d streaked liberally with dried and fresh goat blood. Our kidnappee gibbered and flailed and smeared blood all over his robes, but made no effective escape attempt.
Acting as if he were deeply offended by the sacrificial victim’s lack of dignity, Ash complained, “We may need to reconsider the value of this offering. His cowardice will not be pleasing to our demonic lord.”
“Please! Oh, please!” gasped Marston, too terrified to form a coherent sentence.
“But demons are capricious, after all. We shall simply have to see if he will accept this tribute.”
Flipping Marston over, Ash ripped open the yellow robes to reveal an expanse of soft, pale skin. Then he pulled out a glowing blue crystal and started to chant nonsensically while etching very familiar runes into the student’s back.
“Wait!” I protested, starting forward. “What are you doing?”
Grabbing my arm, Faith tugged me to the side. “Shhhh!” she stage-whispered. “Not in front of the sacrificial victim!”
“What’s he doing?” I hissed. “I thought we were just using him as bait!”
She waved at Ash to continue, and he happily increased his volume. He even attuned to the ghost field to call forth dark wisps that swirled around the two of them like a malevolent fog.
“He’s only going to take, oh, fifty percent of his life essence,” Faith assured me. “The boy will be just fine.”
As Marston pleaded piteously for his life, the crystal tip halted abruptly as if Ash just had a sudden revelation. Turning the student back over, he raised his arms, his wide sleeves rippling dramatically in the lamplight. “Give this benighted young man a glimpse of the greater god!” With one coal-black fingertip, he touched the very center of Marston’s forehead.
Marston’s eyes rolled back and he went completely catatonic.
“Ugggh!” Faith stormed over, poked Marston vigorously, and tsked in what might have been actual annoyance. “Ash,” she complained, “we wanted him conscious and screaming. Now how will we lure in the rest of his cult?”
“Well, That Which Hungers was slightly more overwhelming than expected,” Ash defended himself. “It sometimes happens like that the first time.”
Faith rolled her eyes to express her opinion of religious fanatics and deliberately turned her back on him and the altar. “Cricket, darling,” she trilled, and the little ghost streaked out of a corner of the ceiling. “Do be a dear and possess this human, will you? We need him to scream very, very loudly.”
Obediently, Cricket started to sink into Marston. At once, she recoiled and whimpered, “It burns! He’s full of god tendrils!”
“Well, I did warn you the work would be dangerous, didn’t I?” Nevertheless, Faith had to help the little ghost wriggle into Marston’s body.
Just as Cricket opened his mouth and loosed a blood-curdling shriek, six cultists in identical, ill-fitting yellow robes burst into the ritual chamber.
In the lead was Pritchard himself. When he caught sight of us arrayed around the bloody, half-naked figure of his acolyte, he bellowed, “There they are!”
As if they’d rehearsed the move for a classroom skit, the five acolytes whipped out revolvers and pointed them at us.
Electroplasm steaming off her in waves, Cricket tumbled out of the Marston’s body, collected herself, and looked determinedly at Faith for further instructions.
In a cold, clipped tone, Pritchard ordered, “Surrender now. You’re badly outnumbered. Perhaps we’ll be lenient.”
At that, Ash unleashed a truly evil cackle of glee.
Faith, on the other hand, threw open her arms and flung back her head, rapture written in every line of her body. “With the power of a greater demon behind us, we will never need to surrender to anyone ever again – especially not some meddlesome kids! O demonic lord, smite them with thy demonic powers! Any second now!” To the cultists: “It’s too late to stop us!”
Pritchard gestured sharply, and the acolytes fired at her.
Two bullets smashed into the wall on either side of her, one somehow buried itself in the ceiling, and then Cricket whipped around in a blur of blue light and slapped the rest out of the way. Little metallic clinks sounded from the floor as metal struck marble. If that pitiful display were any indication of the cultists’ fighting skills, then they were very badly outmatched.
“Hehehehehe!” cackled Ash.
“The strength of our righteous conviction shall serve as a shield that can never be shattered!” proclaimed Faith, sounding as if she were quoting from a penny dreadful. “One true believer is worth a thousand infidels!”
Pritchard ran an exasperated hand through his thinning hair. The poor man looked as frustrated as a professor dealing with students who never showed up to class, never turned in homework, never took exams, and yet somehow still had the gall to protest that he couldn’t just fail them. “Cultists!” he spat. “This always happens. They always think they can summon a massive demon and it will be more than I can handle because I’m just a flabby, balding, middle-aged academic – because they don’t realize that I can manifest a god!”
And he did.
The most beautiful golden light I’d ever seen – warm and comforting and terrible all at the same time – poured from his skin and lit the room like the fires of U’Du.
Apart from Faith, everyone, including his own acolytes, froze in place and gaped at him in awe. A formless dread rose like smoke to cloud my mind, but I’d already experienced that with the Golden Stag and knew how to react. Ruthlessly, I stomped it down.
Beside me, Ash shook his head hard, as if rejecting a heathen idol.
After a moment, the acolytes began to stir again, blinking and murmuring reverently.
“We stand resolute and uncorrupted in our devotion to our demonic lord!” trumpeted Faith. “Infidel! Did you truly believe that you could deceive us with pyrotechnic light shows?” Nodding regally in my direction, she commanded, “Unleash the hounds!”
Whipping out Grandfather, I lunged at the nearest acolyte in an attack I’d learned from one of Mylera’s sword masters, a flashy sequence designed to intimidate rather than kill.
I can help, offered Grandfather, sounding as if he relished the novelty of dueling forgotten god cultists.
No thanks.
The acolyte, a pale, bookish sort, promptly dropped his gun and fumbled with his sword, which got stuck in its scabbard. Wrestling with the hilt, he cried, “Help me!”
Two of his classmates shook off the last of their ecstasy and staggered forward with half-raised blades. How cute.
Meanwhile, Ash began to chant harsh, guttural syllables while glowering at a fourth acolyte. Hiding the motion behind his robes, he flipped a switch on the altar, and a plume of white powder spewed out of the chandelier. Three acolytes, including two of the ones I was “fighting,” crumpled to the floor, giggling and mumbling incoherently. Unfortunately, Pritchard had been barely in range of the trance powder trap, and he leaped backwards as soon as the chandelier rattled.
I drove my last opponent into a corner and pinned him there.
Unnoticed off to the side, Faith picked up Ash’s knife, patted the still-catatonic Marston on the chest, and told Cricket, “All right, here’s how this will go: The awesome power of his god will wake him just before I plunge this sacrificial dagger into his heart. He’ll roll off the altar, stagger over to his friends, and then collapse into their arms, overwhelmed by his ordeal. Go!”
Cricket gamely crawled back into Marston, fitting herself in between all the god tendrils. An instant later, his eyes flew open.
Faith stabbed downward with all her strength, “Marston” uttered an incoherent cry and tumbled to the floor, and the blade shattered on the altar right where his heart had been seconds earlier.
“Nooooooooooo!”
Faith screeched with diabolical fury as “Marston” scrambled towards his friends and fainted right on top of the fifth acolyte. The college student desperately disentangled herself, hauled him to his feet, and supported him out of the room. “I’ll get him home, sir!” she called over her shoulder at Pritchard.
The adept spun around, realized that all his allies had been neutralized, and raised his palm. I prepared to duck, but he shot a bolt of blinding light at Faith. Dropping the broken dagger with a clatter, she mostly jumped out of the way, but the edge of the fireball caught her and washed over her and bathed her in flames. The horrible smell of burnt silk and flesh filled the room. Then the fire went out, leaving her limned in a faint golden glow.
While Pritchard’s attention was on Faith, Ash charged him. “The star of your cult is falling fast! Even unmanifest, the raw force of my demon easily overpowers your god!” He began chanting to start the mote-harvesting ritual.
As Pritchard spun around and turned on Ash, I darted forward and waved my blade to distract the adept. (Behind me, the acolyte scurried out the door.)
I wasn’t fast enough. Pritchard channeled a blast of concentrated sunlight at Ash, who didn’t have time to dodge. Fiery light rolled over him the way it had Faith, and the awful, charred smell grew stronger. Ash’s hand trembled, but he gritted his teeth and traced runes in the air.
Slipping up behind Pritchard, I struck him on the back of the head with Grandfather’s hilt.
He collapsed to the floor. Tendrils of the Unbroken Sun began to drain out of his body, pooling on the marble like liquid fire and vaporizing.
Leaping forward, Ash grabbed for the golden light. It streamed between his fingers, but he managed to twirl a few wisps into little shimmery balls, which he captured in a bottle like so many fireflies. Gasping for breath, he screwed the lid tight and sealed it with a rune.
And then the Unbroken Sun was gone, leaving behind his unconscious adept and three snoring acolytes.
I glanced around, assessed the room quickly, and finally sheathed Grandfather, exhaling in relief. A thin filament of her usual self, Cricket edged through the doorway and sidled up to Faith, who was smiling in an exceedingly smug manner. Tucking the bottle securely into his pocket, Ash rolled Pritchard onto his front and tore open his robes.
“Ash, what are you doing?” I asked incredulously.
“It’s just to make a mockery of their god,” he assured me. “To show that even unmanifest, That Which Hungers is more powerful.”
“Please, no,” I begged, exhausted beyond belief. “Ash, let’s just go.”
In response, he started to inscribe the first line.
Faith’s voice broke through his concentration. “Ash! We’re failed demonic cultists. We need to maintain our role,” she reminded him. When he hesitated, she began to declaim loudly so all our neighbors could hear: “We have failed as cultists! We may have won the battle, but it was a pyrrhic victory! Our summoning was interrupted and everything we have worked for has been dissolved! Our hopes, our dreams are in ruins!”
“Oy! Keep it down, you crazy cultists!” Glass smashed as an irate neighbor hurled a bottle at the side of the mansion.
Faith grinned. About to continue her monologue, she exclaimed all of a sudden, “Oh no, we forgot our electroplasmic light show! I was really looking forward to it too. It would have been sooooo impressive.” For a moment she looked utterly crushed. Then she shrugged and flipped the switch. “Might as well enjoy it now.”
Brilliant blue swirls flowed down the sides of the altar and raced up the wall behind it, pooling in the fake sigils until they danced with unholy light. Slowly, a single spot of blue in the center of the wall began to expand, sucking in electroplasm and growing faster and faster. At once, all the sigils went out as if extinguished, and on the darkened wall, a ravenous mouth gaped open, filled with rows upon rows of jagged teeth.
“Mmmmmmm,” sighed Faith, satisfied. “That was impressive. We’ll have to remember to trigger it next time.” Then she howled out the nearest window, “Curses! Our plots have been foiled! Fellow faithful cultists, gather all the ritual possessions and flee! We have been discovered! It is no longer safe here!”
Hopping onto the altar, she perched on the edge and surveyed all the unconscious Unbroken Sun followers. With a wink, she made a little shooing motion at Ash and me.
“Run along now, while I make sure my faithful ghosts disperse without eating anyone.”
For a change, it was Faith we abandoned at the crime scene.
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