The Exorcist Doctor

Chapter 139 - The Spider // The Loner

Ten minutes later, every Saint’s Hand dragged every ragtag notebook, receipt slip, torn ledger page, grease-stained tally sheet they owned into the prayer hall and laid it all out in a semi-circle beneath the altar of the crooked Saintess—all so Vivi could stand in the middle awkwardly and look down at the clinic’s financial corpse.

Everyone was quiet. The Saint’s Hands were gangsters who’d stab a man over eye contact, but now they were all watching a timid Vharnish girl like she was about to perform a miracle. Gael, however, sat on a side bench with Maeve and Jin, legs spread, cane leaned between his boots, a bottle of alcohol in hand.

Maeve was close enough to elbow him whenever she felt morally obligated.

“Stop getting drunk in the morning,” she muttered.

“I’m not drunk,” he said, chugging anyway. “I’m spiritually lubricated.”

Maeve made a sound in her throat that meant ‘one day I will bury you myself’, then folded her hands in her lap, not wanting to disturb Vivi. In the centre of the ledgers, still, Vivi stood with her shoulders tucked in and her fingers fidgeting as she stared at the circle of ledgers around her. Gael watched her breathe—watched her swallow—and watched her hesitate like she was waiting for someone to give her permission to speak.

But even she realized eventually that Gael was not in the mood to talk, so she lifted her chin and beckoned two Saint’s Hands forward with a small curl of her fingers.

“Come here.”

The two gangsters shuffled forward like guilty students. Vivi crouched, selected two ledgers with alarming precision, and flipped them open.

“This entry here,” she said, tapping at the first ledger, “was recorded as outgoing stock, but it was sold. It should be counted as revenue, not expense. That error repeats, here, and here, and…” Her finger moved in a pattern. “This one is double-counted. This one is missing the proof-of-distribution signature entirely. This one uses the wrong unit price.”

The two gangsters stared down at their ledgers as if the numbers were starting to crawl. Vivi didn’t pause to comfort them. She started calling over the rest of the gangsters one by one, including Fergal and the Five Fingers, and all of them listened with the seriousness of men learning how to disarm a bomb. A few of them even took notes as Vivi pointed out their errors here and there, which made Gael chuckle a little.

Vivi was suddenly… bigger. Not physically, of course—she still looked like she might faint if someone raised their voice too loudly—but something inside her had straightened. When she pointed, people moved. When she spoke, the gangsters shut up. That was what made it interesting to him. He rarely saw anyone who could make a room full of gangsters go quiet with arithmetic, and the only other person he knew who could do that was Cara.

But while Vivi worked the ledgers, the other half of the clinic still bled. At the back of the building, a whole bunch of Saint’s Hands were still struggling to patch up the massive hole in the wall. They were hauling bricks that didn’t match, mixing mortar too wet, and setting scaffolds crooked and uneven. It was embarrassing to see how clumsy they were when it came to anything but violence, but thankfully, Jin tightened his jaw and looked even more irritated than Gael watching the gangsters work.

“I can’t take this anymore,” Jin muttered.

Then he stood, walked past the altar, and reached the back of the clinic. A few gangsters working on mixing the mortar stiffened immediately, eyes narrowing at the new arrival. Suspicion moved through them like a draft.

Some of them looked back at Gael for approval, so he lifted his bottle in a lazy salute and shrugged.

The gangsters hesitated a beat longer, then handed Jin a rolled blueprint: the basic layout and build for the wall patch, scaffold to come first so proper repairs could come later. Jin took it without a word and unrolled it, scanning the paper quietly.

This place is pretty old even compared to the other buildings in the neighborhood, so I can’t really blame the boys for struggling with the brick and mortar mix.

But if Jin can do it…

Behind Gael and Maeve’s bench, someone heavy dropped down with a groan. Gael didn’t even have to look to know who it was. That particular sigh had interest rates in it.

“What’s up, old man?” Gael chirped, glancing behind him briefly. Old Banks took off his top hat and wiped his brow, lightening the filters on his brass tube gas mask.

“Glad to see you two back safe and sound,” Old Banks said, voice dry. “The clinic’s investors have been pestering me for weeks, asking where the hell the owners disappeared off to without so much as a word.”

Gael snorted. “I told people I was leaving.”

“You told some people.”

“Why do the investors care where I go anyway? Now I’m back, and it’s like nobody missed me to begin with.” He cackled to himself and took another pull of alcohol. “Maybe I should disappear for two months next time. That’ll teach you to be grateful for my presence.”

Old Banks leaned back on his bench with a slow creak, his gaze drifting to Vivi being surrounded by ledgers and two dozen gangsters twice her size.

“The investors care because every time you leave the clinic to go somewhere, you bring back someone weird,” Old Banks murmured. “Where’d you find the Spider?”

Gael shrugged. “Ironwych.”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

“I’m not.” Gael tipped his head. “Well, technically, we first met her down in the pipes a bit over a month ago, but we formally asked her to come here when we found her again in Ironwych.”

Old Banks’ mouth tightened. “Okay. But why did you invite her here?”

Before Gael could answer, Maeve turned her head sharply, brows knitting. “What’s this ‘Spider’ thing you guys keep talking about?” she asked. “Do you two know who Vivi is? Because I’m from Vharnveil, too, and even I don’t know who she is.”

“You don’t know anyone from Vharnveil, period,” Gael interjected.

“Not my point.”

“You also don’t have friends outside of the clinic—”

“Shut it.”

Old Banks huffed a laugh like he’d heard something adorable. “Oh, I don’t know the girl’s name,” he said, pointing at Vivi’s wrist, “but I do know the mark.”

Maeve’s gaze flicked to Vivi’s wrist as well. Sure enough, there it was—when Vivi’s sleeve shifted—a little marking of a spider, golden ink against pale skin.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“House Thornebed’s crest,” Old Banks said. “One of the Four Black Baron Households. For the record—since you lot still act like nobody up top matters—the Four Black Baron Households are the most influential Blood Baron Households in Vharnveil. First in name is House Veydris, the Flesh Architects, who design and control the city’s infrastructure. Second in name is House Raevenholt, the Iron Lords, who control the city’s armories, weapon forges, and mercenary companies. Third in name is House Morhaime, the Undertakers, who control the city’s catacombs, burial rites, medicine, and death studies. Finally, we have House Thornebed—the Spiders, who control the city’s flow of information. Members of these four households are pretty easy to recognize. Just look for their wrist markings.

Maeve’s frown deepened. “So the Spiders are… Vharnveil spies?”

Old Banks shrugged, as if ‘spy’ was too small a word. “The Spiders of House Thornebed are many things. Spies for mercenary companies, brokers of clandestine information, gold and silver bankers, business owners of luxury goods and illicit wares… if there is one thing that is true and consistent of all of them, though, it is that their webs are spread far and wide. There isn’t a sector without at least one Spider pulling the strings behind the scenes. Of the Four Black Baron Households, House Thornebed is the one with real moving power. They’re the ones who rule the sky.”

Maeve turned back to Vivi, her brows knitting.

Gael knew what she was thinking. He could probably finish her sentence.

“She doesn’t look like someone from that powerful a household, though,” Maeve muttered. “She seems…”

“Weak?” Gael said pleasantly, lifting his bottle for another pull.

Maeve shot him a look sharp enough to cauterize, but she knew he was right. Old Banks let out a dry chuckle behind them.

“The Four Black Baron Households are enormous households,” he said. “They’re full of branch lines and lesser households that still answer to the name, even if they don’t sit at the head of the table. Blood spreads thin at the edges.” He tipped his head, mildly smug. “Hell, I’m Bancroft Veydris, and I’ve only seen the head of my household once or twice in my life. Did you both already forget that?”

At the mention of his surname, Maeve blinked and looked back at him, startled anew. For his part, Gael just kept chugging and wiped his mouth with the back of his glove.

“I never forgot you were a Veydris,” he said easily. “I at least knew about the Four Black Baron Households.”

“Then why bring a Spider here at all?” Old Banks asked, face hardening. “If you’re serious about keeping the existence of your symbiote elixir hidden from Vharnveil, then inviting one of House Thornebed’s brood into the clinic is a spectacularly bad move. What if she’s here to gather information about us?”

Gael didn’t answer right away.

His eyes drifted back to Vivi as well. He saw how she pointed, how the gangsters leaned in to hear her speak, how she seemed like such a different person now that she wasn’t being told to follow Jin into battle—so in response to Old Banks, he could only give a thoughtful hum.

“I’ve got a feeling Spiders don’t crawl all the way down into the Gulch Pipelines just for information,” he murmured. “She wants something, and until she gets it, she won’t poison the web she’s standing on. That’s what I believe.”

Then he grinned and rubbed Maeve’s shoulder, pulling her close.

“And besides,” he said cheerily, “I trust my dearest wife when she says she trusts the girl. I trust you, right?”

Maeve clicked her tongue at the sarcasm dripping from every word, but before she could retort, another sudden commotion rippled through the clinic—loud enough to pull every head towards the back of the clinic.

Jin had lifted his gauntlet and began spraying his toxic blood. Not wildly, though, and certainly not chaotically. His blood struck the edges of the gaping hole in the wall and immediately hardened into a dark, viscous mud, steaming faintly as it settled into form. He sprayed with meticulous precision. His wrist was steady, his shoulders were squared, and he followed the blueprint on the rolled-up parchment in his free hand down to the smallest notch and support line.

Gael raised a brow.

Well, I’ll be damned.

The mudblood eventually layered itself into clean structural ribs, arches forming where arches should be, seams filling where mortar had once failed. When the entire hole was sealed, Jin stepped sideways, adjusted his angle, and sprayed again to reinforce the first layer with even more mudblood. Every line was deliberate. Every support was intentional. The Saint’s Hands standing around him gawked like men watching the Saintess perform a healing miracle.

Five minutes. That was all it took. When Jin finished, the hole in the clinic wall was gone, replaced by a perfect mud replica of the original structure down to the texture of the bricks and the slight inward lean the old wall had developed over decades.

He lowered his gauntlet and looked at the nearest gangster.

“For repairs,” he said flatly, “just lay the bricks over this mold. Once they set, break the mud out from behind. You people do

know how to work with mud molds, yes?”The gangsters blinked. Then they looked at each other. Jin closed his eyes for half a second and sighed, taking a rolled poster from a man’s hand and flattening it against a nearby crate so he could begin sketching diagrams directly onto it. Gael caught a few glimpses: cross-sections, load-bearing points, and step-by-step instructions on how to build with mud molds. The gangsters around him listened even more intently as he explained how to do it.

Old Banks leaned closer to Gael. “And that man’s impressive in his own way,” he muttered. “Who the hell is he?”

Gael snorted softly. “I was hoping you’d tell me.”

“I haven’t been back to Vharnveil in over a decade, but I’d remember a household with black-haired members.”

Gael’s gaze flicked between Jin and Vivi, who was still calmly directing gangsters before the altar.

“... Then that is the question, isn’t it?” he said. “How does a golden-haired Spider end up with a black-haired nobody, and what are they doing poking around artificial Myrmur Hosts when every other Exorcist in Bharncair’s got their head buried in the ground?”

No one answered.

After a beat, Gael finished the last of his bottle and stood up, slapping his knees.

“Well,” he declared, “that’s a mystery for future me. Present me had a miserable night walking across Umbracross and wants a nap.”

He grabbed Maeve’s hand and hauled her up with him, already trudging toward the stairs next to the altar.

“Banks,” he tossed over his shoulder. “You’re Vharnish. Make yourself useful and help Vivi with the finance explanations, yeah?”

… Except Old Banks followed the two of them up the stairs. So did Fergal. And so did his Five Fingers.

Gael didn’t stop going up, but he did glance around at his merry troupe and frowned.

“Why are you guys following me? You wanna fight or something?”

But he didn’t wait for an answer. Before anyone could answer, he shoved open the door to the surgical chamber—

Confetti exploded in his face. Metallic petals rained down, glittering under the chamber lights, and both Gael and Maeve froze mid-step.

The surgical chamber had been transformed. Metallic flowers were woven into every railing and hanging hook, every surgical table around the chamber—every spare, every auxiliary surface—was laden with food. Steaming dishes of Bharnish stews, skewers of spiced meat, trays of fried rootcakes, bowls of pickled fungus, and trays of dark bread were stacked high atop each other. Miss Alba sat calmly in the corner with her two children, slurping breakfast noodles like this was the most normal thing in the world, while two other children charged straight at Gael and Maeve.

“Welcome back!” Evelyn and Liorin shouted in unison. Evelyn crashed into Gael with a hug that nearly sent him back down the stairs. Liorin latched onto Maeve, hugging her softly. It was almost an exact repeat of what’d happened when the two children first came to meet them at the Wild Bridge, only this time…

“A feast?” Gael said, pushing Evelyn back as Fergal, Old Banks, and the Five Fingers walked past them to start helping themselves to the food.

“It has been a month,” Cara said hoarsely, bundled in blankets as she sat atop the central surgical table with a bowl of plain porridge in hand. “I figured you two hated Ironwych food and Ironwych air, so I thought we’d celebrate you making it back alive.” Then she sneezed, sniffled, and dabbed her nose with a cloth. “We can talk about what I heard the hells you two got up to in Ironwych later. Eat first.”

And as the room buzzed with chatter, laughter, and metal clinking against plates, Maeve squeezed Gael’s hands tighter and smiled.

“We’re home,” she said softly.

Gael stared at her.

Then he sighed.

“But we just had a feast last night at Arnell’s,” he grumbled. “Couldn’t we have been welcomed back with a hundred sacks of silvers on our table—”

She smacked the back of his head without hesitation. “Don’t be ungrateful and just start eating already.”