My brain is blah, but I decided to post this chapter because....theres nothing really else to do. This should end my rapid updating session and the next update might not be for another two weeks or more. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.

I got a lot of constructive and helpful feedback on the last chapter. Please continue it. It helps—a lot.

Oh! and people who I owe reviews to (wolfblood82). Don't think I've forgotten. I've just been busy this week, but now I'm free, so I'll get around to it within a few days.

Chapter 9:

Velsing hated the church. The way it loomed above middle city with its gleaming turrets blazing through the darkness just spoke of the greed priests were willing to splurge on mute gods while everyone around them starved. He hated the way the grim poor would traverse, everyday passing market stalls brimming with delicious food and hoist their meager loaves of bread off the passive gods who never listened to their prayers. He hated prayer, which was just another testament to mortals pleading against deaf ears. Most of all, he hated the lifeless woman whose life depended on whether or not he could get her there in time.

He didn't know what made him head to the steeples of the Appeline—the only church in the city—like a moth to lantern light. His mind wondered in rebellious silence—it was as if his body had commanded control and propelled him through the streets of the city like a man possessed.

The scent of blood rode on the wind.

Velsing could see it dotting the streets behind him like a trail as he rushed along. He could smell it—sharp, derisive in his nose—just as he could sense the woman's like snuffing out like a candle's glowing flame. Worse of all, he could feel it seeping down his neck and beneath the collar of his shirt like scarlet rain.

The woman oozed blood in the way that a leaking roof oozes rain.

The people of Lower City eyed him the way starving wolves eye a bear with a fresh kill. Dark shapes loomed just out of focus beyond alleyways he passed—no doubt desperate thieves wondering whether or not the woman was an easy target. They'd strip away everything she owned if they had the chance, such was the way of the Lower City.

A glare from Velsing quickly sent them scurrying back to their shadows.

It was the hour just before the night would fully claimed its hold over the city. Citizens raced to finish errands before the curfew, or fear would have them locking their doors until morning came. It must have resembled the way the ancients acted when they thought the world had come to an end. People looted late-closing shops, screams ravaged darkening corners as some poor bastard met their end on the cold streets—the only difference was that this was an everyday occurrence. Soldiers present at their posts just made the violence more civil—a man couldn't rob you blind, he just met your gaze as your blood ran cold.

When night did set in, it descended like some winged bird of prey. Criminals and worse did come out to play in their respective shadows, but the main city would lie quite still—as still as death. Some took this as a sign that the revolution had won its goal and the world’s balance was restored, but then again they didn't live in the lower city. The government was no closer to installing order here than they were any closer to brining a winter to Hell. Mostly everyone had gotten over it by now.

Velsing ignored everyone as he pushed a path through the crowded streets bustling with people eager to finish their own business, whatever that might be. Those that didn't move out of his way fast enough found themselves pushed aside.

People chose not to notice the injured woman slung over his shoulder, or they simply didn't care. One way or the other, it wasn't unusual for the families of victims to carry the bodies somewhere for a decent burial, even if that burial was at the bottom of the river. Though it certainly didn't make people any quicker to let him pass.

Several men playing dice in the road laughed as they saw Glordiana, though the mild relief on their dirty faces told that they were glad fate had spared them this night. Drunkards stumbling out of bars laughingly tried to corner him as he passed the empty market that edged the way to the middle city. Velsing ended up having to punch one when he didn't stumble away quickly enough.

He didn't care about the woman dying, or so he told himself. The only reason he rushed to save her worthless life was for answers. Answers that she held.

He reached the marble steps of the High Appeline just as the curfew bells began their last tolling. The white marble glowed through the strengthening darkness almost like stacked half moons. They lit the way to a gilded door wrought with carved symbols of prayer. It was a holy place, a sacred place. Velsing would have given anything to see it torn apart and doused in flames.

It wasn't like that time—seeming so long ago—when the priest just waited at the doorstep. No one waited on this cold stretch of stone. Behind the red-draped windows were only strips of unmoving blackness that moved softly in the wind as if the monstrosity called a church could breathe.

Velsing would have just thrown the woman on the stair and left, if there was any sign of anyone.

He thought that was what all churches did, waiting for poor fools to guile and trick into giving money and worship. Instead, all that waited here was silence. He froze with one foot poised over the first step as if he waited at the edge of a cliff, lined with a roaring, curling fire that existed only to claim his soul.

Of all the darker corners of the world Velsing had travelled, nothing made his skin crawl like the thought of the Appeline high on its marble hill.

Afraid, whispered a part of his mind like a taunt. Some great bounty hunter afraid of a few bits of gleaming wood and polished nonsense.

He adjusted the woman on his back with a shrug. She weighed less than a smaller bag of flour would, but he still readjusted the burden, if only to give his body something to do. Standing was just so boring when one was on the outside looking in—Velsing hated being on the outside.

Slowly, he braced one foot on the foremost edge of the first marble step. He half expected it to crack like ice under him, as fragile as the ivory stone looked, but it held. Carefully, he climbed the four tacked steps like a superstitious fool entering a graveyard at night. With each step the church grew closer and he could feel a breeze of doubt riding on the cold wind. Was the woman really worth it?

He didn't know. It was too late anyway.

The church's front greeted him coldly, like a rich snob staring down the nose of a peasant. For all the high and mightiness of the priests, he wasn't surprised that some of their haughtiness must have seeped into the stone.

While simple human traits like common courtesy and forgiveness had all but faded with the revolution, greed and snobbery hadn't. They stuck around like fleas to mice. There were even those pompous fools who still believed that they held the world in their grip and built elaborate monuments to prove it. The High Appeline had to be just one of them, Velsing suspected.

But while a rich man could always present ridiculous monuments to a starving republic, men like Velsing made sure the extravagance didn't go to waste. Those men, who couldn't live on being haughty, robbed the haughty for all they were worth. Churches were no exception.

Velsing felt a cold smile tug on his mouth at the thought. Robbing the Appeline would be easy; he could tell that without even entering the front door. Without guards at the entrance, no one would be the wiser to a sneak thief crawling through an open window, or even sneaking in the door while the night was deepest.

Churches were rumored to always hold vast stores of wealth—even at a time when most of the poor barely had a coin to spare on bread. Entering the church might have been worth just stealing a few bits of gold along the way.

Velsing walked to where the engraved stone slopped slightly into a curved bowl where the massive statue of some male god stood bathed in moonlight. Cold, grave eyes met his in a gaze carved from stone. The statue peered at him solemnly as if it would see into his very soul.

It had to be one of the wisdom gods. One of the peace offering deities, who supposedly heard the wishes of those in danger and great need. It was all a load of ripe trash, but the law-abiding poor ate it up with rusty spoons, and gave every spare cent they had to the church which, in return, provided medicine and education—or at least it was supposed to.

Velsing had yet to see any so called “miracles” be performed at the Appeline. Most of the sick who came here died, the only difference was that they did it in a creaky cot rather than on the streets. But tonight, it better produce a miracle. For their sake.

__

Rufious hated the sound of the city at night. It loomed—a cacophony of silence—like a beast outside. He would have given anything to live out the rest of his parish days in some remote hilltop church out on the borderlands. Maybe even on the wilder lands for the gods' sake. At least someplace away from the heart of Middle City.

The wind's howling screams blew in from an open window, making him shudder and wish that the priest reading steadily by candle light would close it so that they could all get some rest. But most of these decrepit old men studied the holy book with the same casualness that they spent on breathing. Which meant they did it every day, at every utmost available hour.

Tonight, Rufious was the only one of the seven priests not spread out over the antechamber reading some massive text of documents. Instead, he occupied a red velvet chair some distance away from the roaring fire and thought. Or at least he appeared to be in deep thought to the others. What really held the priest immersed within himself was fear. Fear of the cold, part of him that seemed to be awakening from some deep slumber.

He'd felt it that night when Adrian Velsing had called on his doorstep, and he felt it now. A strange giddy sensation deep in his stomach.

Typically, that feeling could have been anything. From discomfort at the amount of food—if somewhat more subdued than usual—he'd consumed earlier this evening at supper, to a sense of dread that followed him everywhere as one who dealt with illness and sorrow everyday. Anyway he sliced it, priesthood was just not healthy. Mayhap he should retire someplace quiet to live out the rest of his days...

Tap...

The first knock broke the silence like lightning: quick, fleeting—a flash of sound against the quiet. The next few, however, were anything but. Rufious would have fallen out of his chair, but the fact that his reflexes were not what they used to be, coupled with the truth that it would take more than surprise to move his gut from any position, had him glued into the velvet cushions.

Boom...Boom... BOOM!

The filigree on the great oak doors trembled as if there were a beast fighting its way into the chapel. Then all at once, like an ill-configured dance, all of the priests scrambled from their chairs and dashed to their respective corners beneath the high-domed ceiling, leaving all but one—Rufious—still seated in their wake.

Life as the High Priest grows tougher and tougher by day, Rufious thought as he grumbled from his chair, the old bones in his legs creaking with exhaustion. It was his job to greet worshipers, no matter what time of day—a fact that the other priests held against him. No doubt he could feel of them them watching him waddle toward the antechamber with a barely suppressed glee. With any type of power always came those jealous of it, or so he told himself.

Drunks and others were known to cause havoc most nights, some more than others. Part of the allure and holiness of the church led some to repent their sins as the result of too much alcohol singing through their veins. Ah well, a church took what sinners it could, and one thing the lower city did not have a shortage of was sinners.

Rufious grumbled and shuffled across the cold marble floor that felt hard beneath his slippered feet. Out of the corner of his eye he shot every withered old priest he passed a glare that should send them praying that he didn't retaliate. It was bad enough that they'd kept him up by reading into the fading hours of sanity before midnight set in, now they pushed him to deal with the unpleasant task of turning away a drunkard.

He sighed a heavy sigh that shook his weary bones. With one hand he rummaged in his robes for the ring of iron keys.

The door's aged locking mechanisms were a complex interlocking chamber that needed three keys in succession just to open it. Once it was a thing of pride before the revolution, now it was just a painful hassle to lock and unlock every morning and evening.

But it was the church's only defence against the criminals and scum that ruled the corners at night. Rufious and his priesthood brothers weren't stupid; they knew that thieves and worse would no sooner hesitate to killing a holy man than stepping on a bug. Still, unlocking the doors was a pain.

“It’s too late in the day for this,” he grumbled. Even the single lantern flame illuminating the entry way seemed to tremble with exhaustion.

Slowly he inserted the first glinting iron key into the ornate lock and gave it a sharp twist—the rumble of the ancient tumblers twisting filled the corridor with its hum. The second key was no problem; it fit easily into the same lock and turned even more swiftly than the first. It was the third key that presented the real challenge. It lumbered in a hulk of twisted iron and it took considerable muscle to force it into position—muscle that most of the priests lacked.

Rufious bit back a curse as he wrestled the remaining key into place—it wouldn't budge. A bead of sweat slid down his forehead as he strained for leverage to the best of his ability, though years of considerable meat pies between meals had no doubt diminished that a bit. Mercifully, the pounding on the door had ceased. Perhaps the drunk had passed out? One could merely hope.

At last, the rusty lock caught hold and, with an eerie creak, the doors lumbered open. Silvery moonlight bathed the chamber in its glow, all except for a shadow cast like a stain from a hulking body waiting just beyond the doorway.

Instinctively, Rufious took a step back and hastily crossed himself in the warding of the Gods. It had begun to rain—that he could see and feel. A torrential downpour that had most likely started as flecks of moisture washed the grime from the streets in a cleansing river. Such storms were part of life in this city. It could be bone dry one minute, and the next a man struggled not to drown in rain.

Rufious could feel cold drops speckle his skin as he stood back to bar the way of the drunk. Or was he? The shadowy bulk of the trespasser almost shallowed the entire door passage. What little light there was leaked passed him and made his shape all the more intimidating.

Rufious puffed himself up deliberately so that the man—whoever he was—could clearly see the church emblem embroidered in red on his robes. What are you doing here on this night? he wanted to ask.

The words never left his lips.

All at once that creeping, sinking sensation took control of his limbs with an iron grip. He could only stand there, in place, as the other man's face became apparent.

Adrian Velsing.

Hard eyes, blacker than night, glared into Rufious's with so much hate that he almost took a step back—or he would have if whatever had seized control of him would allow it. The man loomed above like some unholy demon, and maybe he was.

A blade of lightning cut across Velsing's cold face as the rain began in earnest. Winter's fury, combined with the unusual warmth from earlier, created a raging downpour that drenched everything in its path. Growls of thunder rumbled like some awoken beast that sent the few people wandering the streets dashing for shelter at the nearest comfort Inn.

Velsing stood within the midst of it all, unflinching, as if he had called the rains himself.

Rufious's mouth moved as if held together by a rusty hinge. “What do you seek within this place?”

Rufious flinched at the words leaving his own mouth. Rarely did he, or the other priests, address a peasant so formally, and neither did the peasants expect it.

But, instead of looking pleased, Velsing only scowled as if he'd spat on him. Rufious shuddered deep within his soul, but he couldn't feel any other part of him reveal the movement. He felt like stone.

Velsing's cold eyes gazed him up and down, narrowing with every inch. Rufious could almost feel the raw hatred like a slap across his portly face.

“You,” the mercenary growled. But rather than take a step back, he moved forward, almost stealthily like a lone wolf sizing up a spooked deer. He brushed past Rufious until his bulk stood within the entryway, making the priest shudder at the coldness he radiated. Almost as if a fire of pure, lethal ice smoldered within him.

“Heal her.” The command resonated almost like a physical punch. It was only then that Rufious saw the woman dangling over Velsing's shoulder like a bag of flour.

Water dripped from her lifeless form, tinged with scarlet.

Rufious blanched inside, but he knew that his face wouldn't show it. The woman's face, though hidden from him, flashed before his mind's eye like a wraith. Plain features, brown hair. Something within him swelled to his throat, making it almost impossible to breath. The strange feeling inside seemed almost gleeful.

Rufious Borgio, High Priest of the Appeline, was never gleeful unless he was tormenting heathens with thoughts of their sins. A choked gasp caught in his throat like a fly.

Velsing eyed him warily as he stalked to a table in the great chamber. The plain wooden surface still held the dusty texts of one of the other priests who shivered in his corner as those black eyes swept over his holy learnings.

With a careless swipe, the mercenary sent the pile of hundred-year-old documents to the floor like day old rubbish. With a similar motion, he tossed the woman onto the table and stretched her out so that she lay on her back—almost as still as death.

When Rufious didn't follow, the man shot him a dark look from the corner of his eye. Rufious's legs lurched forward at the slow, casual pace befitting a priest—though in reality, he wanted to run as fast as he could out of the chapel.

“I'm waiting, priest,” Velsing said, spitting out the word as if it were a curse. He brushed a calloused hand across the woman's brow with detached emotion. “Don't get any funny thoughts either. One false move, and I will kill you.” The threat barely seemed to have any effort put into it, but Rufious knew deep in his soul that this man didn't jest.

The other priests eyed them both like frightened mice from the corners of the chamber. One stepped forward with bravery that must have taken all of his four feet to muster, for it barely surpassed a whisper. “W-we do not offer healing at this time of n-night...” He trailed off as Velsing's cold eyes passed over him as if he weren't even worth looking at.

“Then I suppose you'll just have to change your policy,” the mercenary replied on a sigh. “Or I'll just have to find other ways to make you comply...”

The priest returned to the corner with a scarcely suppressed squeak. None of the others jockeyed to mimic his move, and huddled in clusters at the edges.

“I'm waiting, priest!” Velsing snarled toward Rufious, whose casual pace kept him out of rage of the mercenary's path. “Or does all of your potential lie in withering flowers?”

So he does remember, Rufious thought faintly. He had just assumed that the man lashed out at everyone with equal hostility, but he seemed to save a special reserve of disdain just for the High Priest.

The first thing Rufious noticed as he drew level with the table wasn't the blood leaking from the woman's mouth and sides to pool beneath her—the wooden grain would remain scarred forever beneath the vibrancy. Neither did the hungry way Velsing's black pits-for-eyes hovered over the blood like a starving man catch his notice. All he could see was the pallor of the woman's flawless skin—an ivory so pale that it rivaled moonlight.

An icy chill slid down the High Priest's lace collar, where it travelled down his spine like a stiffening finger. For some reason he wanted less to touch the woman than he feared Velsing. If he had been in control of his mouth, he would have cursed that man till glory-day came if it would only keep him from coming near her. Some part of him knew that if he touched her, all would be lost, like shards of dust on a galling wind.

“She’s lost a lot of blood,” Rufious could hear his own commanding voice say. “That and trauma have all but withered her away-”

“Nice eyes,” Velsing hissed. His hand withdrew into his coat pocket so fast that Rufious didn't see the dagger until its blade lay pressed against his skin. “Now how about you give her some medicine?”

Rufious took a step back and pressed his robes together for smoothness. They billowed out over his fat belly before receding to cover his narrow legs.

“I do not know what she needs,” he could hear himself reply gravely. “We do not typically heal at this hour-” His hand shot up as Velsing stood from his chair. “But I do know where we can help her.”

The mercenary seemed wary but jabbed his dagger back within his coat. He looked from the woman slowly to the priest and then crossed his arms. “Where?”