“I’m not in the mood yet, and my scythe needs a bit of cleaning,” Haroth replied nonchalantly.
He whipped out his scythe—a single blade on the long staff made of bone instead of the two blades linked by a bone chain that Pharos used. He then started picking at non-existent dirt around the base of the blade.
I snorted, and Lyall chuckled.
“Keep doing what you’re doing,” he said to Elliot. “I’ll get back to you shortly. Anyway, in your stead, I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to embark on your next journey. I assure you that where you’re headed is going to be far less enjoyable than whatever this is.”
He then glanced in my direction and grinned with a mischievous expression. I raised an inquisitive eyebrow, curious as to what would come out of his irreverent mouth.
“That’s a rathercreativeapproach, little sister… I like it. I look forward to admiring more of your future work,” he added teasingly.
I burst out laughing, the tension I didn’t even realize had been stiffening my spine fading away. Yes, I was a bit of a freak with a newfound streak of sadism. But being fully accepted bymy adoptive family further healed the wound and insecurities that plagued me.
The Oracle’s endless stream of screams suddenly shifted in pitch, reclaiming our attention just in time to see her plummeting towards the pit. The magic rope, weakened by Elliot’s earlier attack, had finally snapped under Demetra’s constant thrashing.
“And away she goes,” Haroth said wistfully as she vanished into the dark depths up the pit.
Horrible clicking, crunching, and slurping sounds reached us from below as she screamed even louder before going quiet. In the end, the surviving Gerus got their meal after all.
“Don’t go anywhere, my friend. I’ll come back for you soon enough,” the Grim Reaper said tauntingly to Elliot before walking towards the edge of the pit. “And one villain to reap!”
With that, he dove into the whole, flying down like a Wraith to go harvest the dreadful woman who had made my life a living hell.
As soon as he vanished, Lyall released me from his embrace and flew up towards the remaining women dangling from the ropes. I unraveled the magic keeping them bound, and he carefully brought them back near the exit at the base of the staircase. He then went up the ledges to bring back the three Templars, still unconscious.
A quick examination revealed how Elliot had managed to disable them so quickly. It wasn’t his touch that had knocked them out, but a powerful sleeping and paralysis spell etched on a vellum. A simple incantation sufficed for me to free Paulus from its clutches. As Elliot had claimed we would be replacement for the women we’d taken away, I suspected we would find the same type of vellum or an equivalent sigil on the rescued clerics.
I was halfway through freeing Martha when footsteps resonated up the stairs. My wards went off again, indicating our allies had finally broken through and found their way back in.
This time, it was the joint forces of the other two Templars who had gotten locked out previously and Prefect Ewan along with his Inquisitors. Considering the deplorable state Elliot now found himself in, his magic had likely sufficiently weakened to allow our allies to unravel it.
“Nine Hells!” Ewan exclaimed, horrified as he gazed upon Elliot. “What have you done to him?!”
“I merely reversed his leeching spell,” I said with a shrug. “Everything else, he did to himself.”
“Then end him!” Ewan said in a self-evident fashion, seeming shocked—if not outraged—that I hadn’t already done so.
“No,” Lyall said in a tone that brooked no argument. “He is now the Grim Reaper’s problem.”
“But—”
“No buts,” I interjected, interrupting the Prefect. “When he’s ready, the Grim will reap him in his own time, as he stated moments before you arrived.”
The Templars and Inquisitors recoiled upon hearing that comment. Visibly uneasy, their eyes flicked this way and that around the room, looking for signs of his presence.
“You saw him and spoke to him?” Paulus asked, his voice hesitant.
I nodded. “We both did.”
He swallowed hard and warily assessed me. I gave him an indulgent smile.
“All is well, Grand Master,” I said with the appropriate level of deference in the presence of Ewan’s team. “He wasn’t here for me. My life’s thread is in no danger in the foreseeable future.”
My heart swelled with love when his shoulders relaxed with obvious relief. That man truly loved me as a daughter. I didn’tknow how much I would be able to reveal to him about the new family I had entered into. But I hoped that, even as the path ahead of me veered in a completely different direction from his, our bond would never be severed.
“I’m glad to hear it. But what about the Oracle?” he asked, glancing at the now empty ropes still dangling from the ceiling.
“She ended up as Geru food at the bottom of that pit,” Lyall said with a shit-eating grin. “Good luck recovering her remains, if that was your intention.”
