The Exorcist Doctor

Chapter 117 - Chains Above // Chains Beneath

Captain Orsavian of the Mortifera Enforcers stood in their path like a gargoyle chiselled from cathedral stone. His lacquered uniform gleamed beneath the dangling lanterns, his ant mask ornate with curling engravings that seemed more fit for a reliquary than a man. The rows of Enforcers that stood behind him were equally stiff—and if it were anyone else but Gael standing in their way, he reckoned they would’ve shot him full of holes by now.

Instead, he was allowed to grin and tip his hat again, tapping his cane once against the metal bridge.

“Come on, old boy,” he said. “Just let us through. What’s the harm? Think of us as two little pilgrims under the night’s cathedral, oh, what a—”

“The harm,” Orsavian said coldly, “is that the last time you set foot in Umbracross, you left behind a ledger of crimes so full my scribes demanded hazard pay just to record even half of them.”

Gael gasped. “Crimes? How absurd. I’m sure you exaggerate. What was it, a bit of trespassing, a touch of drunken disorderly, and… wait. Did I steal a goose from your backyard, or was it the other guy?”

In response, Orsavian held out a hand, and an Enforcer quickly stepped forward to slap a scroll into his hands.

“Breaking into an apothecary vault and siphoning half their tinctures,” he began reading, unfolding the scroll and letting the paper push across the ground. “Stealing three horses and selling them back to their original owners on the same night. Counterfeiting funeral rites. Attempting to auction off the bonds for an offward graveyard—”

“That’s not so terrible—”

“Attempting to reanimate a choir of corpse-birds to sing hymns over the cathedral square, attempting to gamble away an entire orphanage in a single night’s card game, selling masks stuffed with narcotic poppies to seminarians, smuggling half-drowned saints’ bones in beer barrels, forging blood donations from corpses, counterfeiting the Church’s indulgences with ink made from grave-mould—”

“Okay, I don’t remember doing all that. Are you sure you got the right man—”

It was Maeve who whacked him on the back of his head, and as he winced, she seized him by his collar and dragged him in.

“What in the Saint’s good name did you do?” she hissed. “You never told me you were… a heinous criminal! Why an orphanage? You couldn’t have picked an abandoned greenhouse or anything?”

“First of all, I bought the deed to the abandoned orphanage, and secondly, we were pretty poor before you arrived,” he whispered back. “Also, it’s not just up here.”

“What?”

“I’m not just a heinous criminal in Umbracross. I think—I think—I’m also wanted in Ironwych, Bleakhearth, and Wraithpier.”

“Why, you—”

“I mean, it’s this guy’s fault for remembering and singling me out. So many people he can be bothering right now, and he chooses me to bother,” he said, jabbing a finger at Captain Orsavian. “I’ll have you know, heinous criminals are a dime a dozen down here. He totally just has it in for me—”

“Shut the fuck up already.” Orsavian clicked his tongue again, irritation spilling through his mask… but then his gaze shifted to Maeve, suspicious. “And who the hell is that? What is this, Raven—have you now bought yourself a slave?”

Gael barked a laugh. He hooked his cane on his arm and lifted his leg, showing the metal link connecting their ankles. “Orsa, Orsa, don’t tell me you don’t know what this means.” He rattled the chain with mocking flourish. “Do you need spectacles now, captain? Don’t you know who the lady standing before you is?”

Orsavian tilted his head.

Paused.

Studied the shackle.

Then, slowly, he raised a gloved hand and removed the upper half of his mask, and as the lanterns struck his sharp golden eyes—burning like the coins of a god who never forgave theft—he glared straight at Maeve.

Maeve stiffened, and it was pretty obvious her breath was catching in her throat.

“... So it is true,” Orsa finally murmured. “Two years of hearing rumors, and now I see it myself. The Raven who chained himself to a Caser, taking the unofficial name of the ‘Exorcist Doctor’... that’s you, then? Gael Halloway?”

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Gael bent at the waist. “Guilty as charged, your honor.”

For a heartbeat, silence clung to the bridge.

Then Orsavian straightened and began listing.

“You will not conduct experiments here. You will not sell your tinctures here. You will not corrupt the watchmen, nor swindle the merchants, nor spread your heresies through my streets. You—”

“Whatever, whatever,” Gael cut him off with a flutter of his hand. “No experiments, no swindling, no heresies, of course. You wound me with suspicion. I’ll be as pure as a church bell.”

And with that, he reached for Maeve’s hand, tugged her close, and began striding forward again.

The wall of Enforcers shifted. Like black reeds bending in the tide, they parted in precise symmetry, rifles lowered, blades tilted, and he swore he heard them gritting their teeth in irritation as the two of them were allowed to pass through without resistance.

Of course, Orsa didn’t miss the chance to get one final word in as they passed by him. “I have my eye on you, Raven. You may be a big shot in Blightmarch, but remember: Vharnveil is where all Ravens are born, and I have fought your kind before.”

Gael waved him off again. “Yes, yes, upstanding citizen, model resident, choir boy of Umbracross. I’ll even polish the cobblestones with my knees if it pleases you.”

Maeve glanced at Orsa as she passed. His eyes flicked to hers as well, stern and cold, making her swallow and look away quickly.

Mortifera Enforcers tend to have that kind of effect on people.

“Men, disperse!” Orsa barked once they passed the wall. “Return to your stations!”

Boots stamped, rifles clattered, and the formation dissolved into squads peeling away into the dark. Orsa was the only one who lingered a bit longer, golden eyes burning holes into Gael’s back until they advanced too far forward into the mist for anyone to see them anymore.

And Gael, cane tapping against the bridge, only whistled off-key as they stepped off the Wild Bridge.

Once they were off the bridge, they were technically in Umbracross already, but the street at the end of the bridge was a wide, empty street of black stone, quiet as a crypt and empty save for stray fog and the soft hiss of lanterns dangling overhead. The buildings lining the sides of the street were completely dark and abandoned—if he recalled correctly, this was supposed

to be the residential district in Umbracross, but given how tiny the ward was, most locals simply settled for sleeping where they worked—so the only other people around them were fellow travelers heading to and away from the beating heart of Umbracross.It was easy to find where that was. All they had to do was follow the cluttered hanging lights in the distance.

“Who was that?” Maeve asked as they went down the street. “He called himself… Captain Orsavian?”

“Captain Orsa of the Umbracross Mortifera Enforcers, our dear shepherd in this ward of ledgers,” he said. “Since Umbracross is the ward directly beneath Vharnveil, the Mortifera Enforcers decided they needed a handkerchief here. Now, it’s not like War God Graves or Vice-General Morwenne can come sit down here in person and polish the benches, so they sent Orsa down here instead to keep the peace.”

“He’s that important?”

“He’s the bell and the rope that rings it in Bharncair. Everyone in Bharncair plays by his rules when they step into the shadow of Vharnveil. Even the four leading gangs in the four cardinal wards have to tuck in their knives when they come here, and you best pray they don’t cause too much trouble in their respective wards, because if they’re too loud, the captain might just pay them a visit under the guise of peacekeeping.”

She considered that, mouth pursed, then frowned even deeper at him. “Then why’d he let us pass after learning I was an Exorcist?”

Gael shrugged. “Because he’s Vharnish at heart,” he said. “He knows the strength and the value of an Exorcist. The reason he let us pass is probably the same reason Juno sold me the Vile Eater when she learned you were my wife.”

“That is…”

He slanted her a grin, tipsy and fond. “Mortifera Enforcers are strong—they’re disciplined, they’re well-fed, and they’re damn good with those bayonet rifles of theirs—but they’re not trained to deal with Myrmurs. And since I heard the top brass of the Symbiote Exorcists aren’t exactly in bed with the top brass of the Mortifera Enforcers, Orsa can’t petition Vharnveil to rain more of you down here. He can’t wave a paper and summon more Exorcists to help him keep his ward clean.”

Maeve grimaced. “So he’s… hoping I’ll help him keep his ward clean?”

“Well, he’s not expecting you to do much. Just the presence of a powerful Exorcist is enough to keep most Myrmurs away from even thinking about making their Host cross into Umbracross," he said. “Orsa’s not doing us a favor. I bet he’s heard about the increasing presence of Myrmurs in the four cardinal wards, so he’s just fixing the roof before the water pools over his bed.”

However, as Gael wondered why Captain Orsa had waved them through so easily—when he’d been quite looking forward to the polite ritual of slipping a bribe into a man’s pocket—a voice came from the shadows of a wall to their left.

“Long time no see.”

Both Gael and Maeve flinched, their ankle jingling with the suddenness of prey startled in an alley.

The shadow stretched, peeled itself off the brick, and became a woman. Juno’s ladybug-patterned cloak shimmered faintly where the armored beetle plates gleamed, and while the right half of her face was still crystalized and grotesque as ever—Gael still had no idea how she got that crystal mask—the charming smile she wore on the left half of her face was enough to make him uncomfortable.

Imagine what she could do if she had both halves of her face.

“... Evening, Exorcist Doctor. Headed to the Hanging Market?” Her eyes flicked to the ankle chain that bound them, amusement dancing in her gaze. “If so, may I join you?”