Chapter 35

Sheila and Al had already left. Baron took his leave of the little novice nun and Cecy.

Cecy couldn't bear to see him go. With a charcoal stub she scratched a black stick-figure on the ground, then a smaller one beside it, jabbering at the taller figure and pointing at Baron.

Demon-hunter L understood the child. He stroked her hair, gave a quiet smile, and melted into the hushed night.

His destination: Mondra Prison. There were questions he intended to have answered—face to face.

——

Mondra Prison stood in a hamlet just outside the town. Once guarded by the local jailers, it had fallen under the watch of Yalilan's demon-hunters after the arrest of the Baron and the Baroness.

"Halt! Who goes there at this hour?"

Torchlight revealed the thug who had tried to elbow Baron earlier—only to have the blow turned against him. Now he recognized the newcomer.

"L! So it's you!"

Steel flashed as he leveled his blade at the slim silhouette that seemed spun from the moonless dark.

"Without orders from the Viscountess or Lord Andre, no one may approach this prison! Trespassers will be counted among the accomplices—cut down on the spot!"

Blades whispered free; silver light splashed like liquid mercury. The demon-hunters drew their alchemical swords. Black alchemical circuits crawled across their faces, grim and terrible.

"Stand down, L!" the thug barked.

L's face was unreadable, his voice flat. "I have urgent business inside. If you doubt me, ask the Viscountess—and your Lord Andre—yourself."

No one answered. The blades remained unsheathed, moonlight sliding along the steel and turning every face a deathly white.

The thug grinned. Since Andre had bowed to Baron earlier, he had found no opening to strike; now fortune had dropped one in his lap.

L swept his gaze across the line. Every hunter looked ready to kill at a word. They answered to Andre, yet obeyed the thug—one of their own—without question.

A vassal's vassal is not my vassal... even in another world, the old rule held.

L's lip curled. Without hesitation he drew a revolver and squeezed the trigger.

Boom!

The blast roared like a beast. Smoke rolled over the courtyard; the hunters staggered back, ears ringing, blades nearly slipping from their hands.

"You forced the gate and tried to murder your comrades!" the thug shouted through the haze. "I'll report this to the Viscountess; you'll hang for it!"

Yet when the smoke cleared the crater yawning at their feet rendered his threat hollow. The sheer force of the explosion drained every face of color.

L leveled the gun at the thug and his men. "I won't repeat myself. Stand aside. I have business."

This time it wasn't L who spoke, but the thug himself, roaring at his comrades: "Clear the way! If you delay His Lordship's case, you'll answer for it!"

L ignored the chameleon shift in attitude and ordered the hunters to wait outside. Then, twin revolvers in hand, he stepped through the gate.

For an instant the thug thought he saw thin threads of gold swirl in L's pupils.

Time slipped away. When the moon grew hazy and the guards fought sleep, the outsider finally emerged.

The thug hurried over, ready to ask what L had found.

But L only retreated a weary step and leaned against the gate, staring at the rising mist that heralded the coming Backward Day.

"Got a smoke?"

The thug produced a pipe and lit it for him. A single cloud drifted from L's lips—one sentence that drained every face of blood. Without a word the hunters rushed inside like wild dogs, then burst out again, wilder still.

"They're gone..." the thug whispered. "The Baron and the blood fiend have escaped. I must warn the Viscountess—"

"Sir," a hunter said quietly, "the Backward Day is minutes away. Once the fog rises, every creature within it will be hunted. It's already too late."

"So we just watch the blood fiend kill?" the thug snarled. "Saddle a horse—this news must reach the Viscountess!"

A horse was brought, yet the thug did not mount.

"It's too late..." The hunters stared at the second moon now climbing the sky.

"The Backward Day fog is here! Blades out! Blades! Blades!"

Three times he shouted the command, then, after a brief hesitation, tossed one of his own swords to L, who stood unmoved.

Steel flashed free all around. Hunters' eyes blazed. Before they knew it, the world had vanished into white. The jailers, roused from their cells, arrived yawning, still half in dream.

White mist, thick and heavy. Something growled within it—low, hungry, tasting of blood.

"Beast! It's coming!"

Young hunters screamed. They saw thick, glistening cylinders—tentacles—sliding through the haze.

"Dream-Eater!" the thug roared, flipping through a worn booklet. "It feeds on memory—don't let its suckers touch you!"

L recognized the book: the Sin Ledger, unique to the Silver-path. To advance, a Silver-path hunter needed demonic blood for elixirs; the ledger recorded the true names of slain fiends and the recipes each corpse could yield.

From the darkness behind the fog a vast shape uncoiled—huge, serpentine, a thousand sea-snakes braided into one. The Dream-Eater fixed its gaze upon them; tentacles dozens of yards long lashed out.

Blades met tentacles. Blue blood spurted. Shouts, clangor, chaos—no one yet had seen the monster's true face.

L struck flint to his sandalwood pipe and flung the burning brand into the mist. Hundreds of jade-green eyes snapped open—like a girl's eyes—glimmering in the dark.

Thunder seemed to roll inside every chest.

"Bronze... a Bronze-rank fiend! We can't win—run!"

A jailer, reading the color of those eyes, dropped his sword and fled toward the prison. Others followed; the iron circle broke.

A young hunter was snatched from behind, hoisted screaming into the sky. The scream cut short; hot rain pattered down.

The thug wiped his face—blood.

"Andre's dead! Andre's dead!"

A tentacle whipped toward the grieving hunter. The thug lunged, but his blade failed to bite. Then a shadow swooped like a swallow; moonlight flashed blue on a drawn sword.

L flicked the fiend's blood from his blade. "I've lamp oil. Burn it."

Before the thug could answer, L upended a cask over a descending tentacle.

"Torches! Flint! Don't let a Fern steal our glory!"

A torch arced through the air and struck the monster. Fire roared. In moments the Dream-Eater became a twisting pillar of flame; the eyes burst like chestnuts and were stamped out under hunters' boots.

"Fire works—keep it burning!"

Yet before they could savor a victory against a higher-ranked foe, hoofbeats shattered the fragile hush. A rider burst from the shadows and vanished into the night.

L.

The thug hurried to the smoldering corpse. His torch still burned on the ground. He found the cask L had used—still a little oil inside. He doused the torch; the flame died.

He stared after L. The fog was thinning; a moonlit road stretched away, deep and mysterious.

——

Baron arrived at the clearing where the hunters had gathered that morning—no one in sight. He hesitated, about to ride for the manor alone, when shambling steps sounded from the darkness.

He drew his revolver and aimed into the mist.

A thud. A boy carrying a girl in twin braids collapsed. Tears or blood streaked his face. "Dead..." he rasped.

"Who's dead?"

Baron's eyes fell on the limp girl. A cold premonition gripped him.

"Sheila..."

"What happened to Sheila!?"

The boy cradled the lifeless girl like a rag doll. "Sheila's dead. Killed by the blood fiend."

Baron's mind went white with a dull roar.