Chapter 26

The altar, the crucifix.

Cecy, bound to the cross, was lowered to the ground. Sobbing, she flung herself at her older sister, Olivia, and clung to her desperately.

Olivia wrapped her arms around the little girl just as tightly. The two of them pressed together like a pair of orphaned kittens, not a single word spoken between them.

The village chief stepped forward with the rest of the villagers and bowed to Olivia, offering his apologies and promising to pay whatever price his crimes demanded.

Macquire muttered under his breath, "First they were dead set on murdering the kid, now they're begging for forgiveness. Hypocrites, the lot of them. Am I right, L?"

Baron merely smiled and said nothing.

The village chief looked at the sisters locked in their tearful embrace, drew a short knife, and tried to place it in Olivia's hand, but she only wept harder, her small face wet with grief.

"I don't ask for your forgiveness, Cecy, Olivia," the old man said, voice trembling. "What I've done is unforgivable... I failed as your grandfather..."

Every demon-hunter nearby froze. The same village chief who had demanded the child's death—he was actually her grandfather?

Shock rooted them to the spot. By the time anyone realized what was happening, the old man had already pressed the tip of the knife to his own chest—the same blade that had almost taken his granddaughter's life.

"No!"

The warning came too late. The old man drove the short sword into his chest, the blade sinking deep.

Villagers and hunters alike gasped.

Olivia's vacant eyes snapped back into focus. She scrambled toward the village chief.

"Don't! I forgive you, Grandfather—I forgive you!"

A searing pain blossomed in his chest. The blade had buried itself half an inch when, suddenly, the pressure stopped. Opening his eyes, the village chief saw the black-eyed hunter gripping the hilt, staring down at him with calm indifference.

"Your granddaughter may forgive you," Baron said, "but I don't. Let the wound in your chest serve as your punishment."

The village chief collapsed, tears streaming down his weathered cheeks, his ragged breaths echoing in the night. Beyond the young man's silhouette, he saw his granddaughters still clinging to each other, their thin cries stretching out like cords that slowly tightened around his heart.

"I... I've sinned against the gods..."

Even now, his thoughts turned only to his faith.

From a distance, Baron saw the little novice nun, Olivia, silently mouthing something to him. No sound reached his ears, but he understood it all the same.

Thank you.

With the matter settled, Yalilan organized the party. She distributed the promised bounties to the hunters, planning to break camp at dawn.

When it was Baron's turn, Yalilan smiled—a rare sight. "Your name?"

"L, ma'am. His name's L," Macquire cut in, looking proud to speak for him.

"L... an interesting name..." Yalilan's eyes glinted. Clearly, it was an alias.

She motioned to her servant, who handed over ten silver coins—far more than the posted bounty. "Your reward."

Baron accepted it without hesitation, then tossed two coins each to Zod and Macquire.

Zod weighed the silver in his palm. "Why the extra?"

"That one's for drinks," Baron replied with a faint smile.

Macquire scratched his head. "I... I don't really drink."

Zod clapped him on the shoulder. "Then it's time you found yourself a woman."

Laughter rippled through the hunters. Macquire's face flushed crimson, yet no words came.

Yalilan laughed along, then turned to Baron. "Aren't you curious why I paid you so much?"

"You still had to extinguish the God's Punishment Fire," Baron said. "Fair's fair."

A flicker of unease crossed her servant's face, but Yalilan merely nodded thoughtfully and let it pass.

Baron allowed himself a small smile, privately grateful that, after all these years, he hadn't returned every scrap of high-school chemistry to his teacher.

The instant he'd seen the blue flames, Baron had recognized the so-called God's Punishment Fire for what it really was: the will-o'-the-wisp common to the countryside of his past life. In high-school chemistry class—taught with the express purpose of stamping out superstition—his teacher had explained that the will-o'-the-wisp was nothing more than burning phosphine.

Baron was glad he'd paid attention that day; he still remembered the details: the ignition temperature, the fact that a concentration of at least 1.8 percent phosphine in the air was required for sustained combustion, and the typical locations—swamps or graveyards. Swamps fostered phosphine formation thanks to their oxygen-poor environment, while the dampness lowered the ignition point. In cemeteries, calcium phosphate from human bones decomposed during putrefaction, reacting with organic matter to produce phosphine. The gas seeped through cracks in the soil, mixed with air, and burned as pale blue flame.

Something occurred to him. Casually, he asked Yalilan, "When you first encountered the fire, was the forest nearby a swamp?"

Yalilan hesitated, then shook her head.

"A cemetery, then?"

Another shake.

Baron's expression grew graver. "Did you find a large number of dead animals or decaying plant matter?"

This time it was Andre who answered. Seeing Baron and Yalilan standing so close only sharpened his irritation. "What exactly are you getting at? All we saw in that forest were the bluish flames you mentioned—and, apart from the twin moons overhead, nothing but trees and more trees."

As expected... Baron's heart sank.

Yalilan sensed something was wrong. "L, what did you find?"

"I can't be sure yet," Baron said. "But I have a theory. Allow me back into the forest for a look."

...

In the forest, Baron walked with solemn focus, tapping the ground with a wooden stick as he went. Zod and Macquire flanked him, shovels in hand, still unsure what he was after.

At last Baron stopped before a patch of earth whose color differed from the surrounding soil. "Dig here," he ordered.

"Don't tell me there's buried treasure," Macquire muttered, rolling up his sleeves and driving his shovel into the ground.

Zod shrugged. "Good way to sober up— Huh. Feels like I hit something. Could be a stash of bandit loot..."

With a grunt, he heaved upward. Dirt sprayed as the buried object emerged into the open air.

"Well, well," Zod muttered. "Treasure of a sort—though more likely to give you nightmares."

Hunters hurried over. When they saw what lay in the dirt, their brows shot up and their faces turned solemn.

One after another, the naked bodies of young girls came to light.

Yalilan's expression hardened. She turned to her servant. "Ride to the mayor of Mondra. Tell him to send doctors for the autopsies—and to organize a full excavation here in Wiesenmoor Village. Bring a priest—"

She paused, eyes on the pale bodies. "—no, bring a nun instead."

A sudden commotion drew her attention. Andre and L were arguing.

Now, of all times...

When Yalilan arrived, Andre immediately protested. "Per your orders, the bodies were cordoned off. Yet this Fern insists on violating their souls—"

Yalilan looked past Andre's men to Baron, who stood apart from the rows of corpses.

Baron spoke without preamble. "Most of the dead were young women, aged roughly sixteen to twenty-eight."

"We can see that for ourselves," one of Andre's men scoffed.

Baron continued, unruffled. "Time of death is approximately one week ago—"

"Says who? You're no doctor—"

The man fell silent under Yalilan's icy stare.

"Simple," Baron said. "Bodies don't lie. Their condition tells the whole story."

He gestured toward the nearest corpse. "Livor mortis fixes within twelve hours. Green discoloration of the abdomen appears after twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Skin slippage begins around the third day, and by one week the marbling of putrefactive veins becomes visible..." He paused. "Have any of you noticed the maggots already feeding on some of them? Excuse me."

The ring of hunters—including Andre—parted automatically. They watched the young hunter crouch beside a partially decomposed body, seemingly unbothered by the stench, and motion Macquire closer.

Macquire pointed at himself. "Me? You want me to pick up a maggot?"

They're disgusting! He was a proud demon-hunter, for crying out loud...

Yalilan spoke up. "Assist L, and I'll double your bounty."

"Ten of them enough?" Macquire scooped up a handful and deposited them on his palm.

Before anyone realized it, they had all slipped into the rhythm of Baron's forensic demonstration.

Baron cleared his throat. "Blowflies lay eggs between zero and twenty-four hours after death. Larvae—maggots—develop over one to seven days, growing at roughly 0.04 Prol inches every two hours..."

"These maggots average one inch in length and are already beginning to pupate. Given Mondra's hot, humid weather, pupation may have started even earlier..." He gestured along the bodies. "All of these corpses have been moved post-mortem."

This time Yalilan interrupted. "How can you tell?"

"Livor mortis," Baron replied. "It forms half an hour to four hours after death as blood settles. It's fixed by four to ten hours. If the body is moved afterward, the lividity will appear on the wrong side. These girls are lying on their backs, yet the lividity appears on their fronts—evidence they were repositioned after death."

He leaned closer, fingertips brushing a victim's skin. "What puzzles me is the cause of death."

"What's strange about it?" Andre asked, unaware he'd become a student in Baron's impromptu lecture.

Baron ran his hand over the girl's body. "No obvious external injuries—death appears non-violent. Yet the livor mortis isn't the typical purple-red. It's pale, almost pink. That only happens when hemoglobin concentration drops sharply."

He opened the corpse's mouth and examined the hands. "Look at the lips and nail beds—notice how pale the mucous membranes are. That indicates sudden loss of circulating blood volume..."

"So what did kill them?"

Yalilan didn't understand what Baron meant by "hemoglobin," but she could tell the young man had already reached his own conclusions.

Baron didn't keep them guessing. "If my assessment is correct, every one of these corpses died from sudden, massive blood loss."

Sudden blood loss... without a single wound.

The hunters exchanged glances, and every face blanched to the same ghastly white as the girls' bodies.

Macquire whispered, "It's a blood fiend."