Chapter 11 #3
I blinked and refocused on him, more troubled than I would ever admit.
He glanced at Eleni who was regaining her composure, her eyes losing their glazed over appearance.
She gently pushed off my chest, and I reluctantly put her back on her feet.
Looking far steadier than I expected, Eleni slightly distanced herself from us—or more specifically from Paulus.
Her intense gaze as she stared at him screamed with distrust. While empathy and compassion didn’t feature particularly high on my list of qualities, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the pain the Templar felt at that rejection.
“I drank his blood, which he voluntarily gave me,” I said in a gentle voice. “He loves you. Everything he did was to protect you.”
She jerked her head towards me, her eyes flicking between mine, searching. I held her gaze unwaveringly. Eleni blinked before looking back at Paulus with a troubled expression.
“Why did you allow this?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“I didn’t think it would go that far. I begged you. Carpe noctem. Esto quod es,” he said in an apologetic tone.
“Be what I am?! What I am is evil!” Eleni exclaimed. “I can feel it inside me, trying to take over. Look at what I’ve done!” she added, waving at the charred corpses and impaled Elders.
“You eradicated true evil,” Paulus said in a tone that brooked no argument, taking both of us aback.
“You could not go on hiding from yourself. For the past decade, I’ve tried to convince you to embrace who you truly are.
Darkness is no more evil than light. It is what you do with it that determines its nature.
You are strong enough to control it instead of letting it control you.
You could have killed Sister Martha and me.
But you didn’t,” he added, glancing at his companion.
She removed her mask, revealing a woman in her late forties, early fifties.
“You broke the circle so that I could attack the witches and disabled the other circles protecting the cultists,” Eleni said dismissively.
“I did,” he concurred. “But an evil beast wouldn’t have cared or even taken that into consideration. Their bloodlust would have dictated for them to kill everything and everyone for the sheer pleasure of spreading chaos and destruction.”
She frowned, her eyes cast down as she weighed his words. Her hand reached for the amulet dangling around her neck.
“But I’m broken now,” she whispered. “How do we fix it? The Oracle said she would take over my body and eventually return me to it once she got an upgrade. How?”
His shoulders slouched, and he gave her another apologetic look.
“The Oracle possessed unique powers inherited from the underworld creatures that contributed to the DNA of her current vessel. That power included soul transfer. The only people who I know capable of doing something somewhat similar are necromancers. But your specific situation is unique. I’m not sure they can help. ”
“My brother’s mate is a powerful necromancer,” I interjected. “We can ask her for help. She’s human. Therefore, the Covenant shouldn’t affect her ability to assist us.”
Although he smiled with gratitude, something in his eyes hinted that he wasn’t convinced.
“That would be wonderful!” Eleni said, looking at me with hope.
I smiled back, then sobered as I glanced at the countless corpses surrounding us. “We should get out of here.”
“Go,” Father Paulus said with a nod. “The Order is sending us backup to thoroughly search this place for any sign of the missing clerics and clues as to where that man took the Oracle.”
Eleni stiffened, an air of sudden understanding descending over her features. “My assignment to this mission… It wasn’t a coincidence, was it? You deliberately sent me here so all of this would occur. Didn’t you?”
He nodded with the conviction of a man who believed he had made difficult but necessary choices.
“I have spent two decades infiltrating this cult and trying to destroy it from within,” he explained. “Demetra—the Oracle—never stopped hunting you down. They were tracking each of your assignments, waiting for an opportunity to abduct you. We secretly intervened, thwarting their plans.”
Eleni gasped. “What?! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We couldn’t let the word out. And you were too proud to accept being protected in the shadows.
If the Curia found out, they would have forced us to eliminate you, like they wished to do from the moment I brought you back.
They’re terrified of what you might become or how you could be used to cause harm. ”
Before she could answer, a barely audible strangled moan had my head jerking towards the throne.
Only then did I realize that one of the impaled Elders still hung to life by a thread.
I resolutely marched towards him, my claws lengthening into vicious blades.
Grabbing both his hood and hair, I yanked his head back, exposing his torso.
In one swift movement, I punched into his chest and tore out his still weakly beating heart before devouring it.
Countless images flashed through my mind’s eye.
One of them retained my attention. It looked like a dungeon with ten women hanging from the ceiling, held by chains.
Below them, a bloodied stone altar faced a gaping hole into an abyss.
There was no question they were the abducted clerics.
But where the fuck is that place?
Like with the memories from the Onis, the Elder had accessed that place by travelling to a waypoint.
Except, this time, he spoke a word of power to open the hidden entrance.
The problem was that Eleni previously made us appear at the waypoint with an incantation.
The Elder had broken a single-use teleportation stone to take him there.
I had no idea where that entrance was located, let alone where I could get more of these stones.
I turned back to my companions. While Paulus kept a neutral expression, Sister Martha failed miserably at hiding her discomfort with my actions.
I couldn’t help the malicious grin that stretched my lips.
I doubted the fiendish side of me that loved to needle people—especially those of the clergy—would ever abate.
I related to them what I had seen, including projecting the image in the hopes that, as moles within the cult, Paulus and Martha might have visited that place. Unsurprisingly, they both shook their heads. That would have been too easy.
It will have to wait.
For now, I needed to take my woman to see Kali. With luck, Pharos’s mate would be able to mend Eleni. As if reading my mind, Paulus glanced towards the entrance of the Sanctuary.
“You should leave. The others will soon arrive. I do not want them to see Eleni like this. Her new powers radiate with too much intensity. I want to limit her interactions with the Order until she’s fully whole and in control.”
“Let any fool come at her, and they will deal with me,” I hissed menacingly.
Eleni placed an appeasing hand on my arm although her gaze remained locked with her mentor.
In that instant, I would have given anything to be able to read her mind.
Despite that, I felt an undeniable shift.
Something had not just changed, it had flat-out broken.
She spent her entire life trying to fit in.
But embracing her true nature likely now made her a pariah, maybe even something to be hunted.
“Go, child. I will be in touch,” he said in a gentle tone. “The portal back to the waypoint is over here,” he added, pointing at it.
Eleni gave him a stiff nod. Then, without another word, she walked towards the magic circle, which served as a transportation portal. And I followed in her wake.