The Exorcist Doctor

Chapter 138 - Home // Sweet Home

The four of them left Arnell’s forge at dusk the previous night, which meant, by dawn, the four of them finally crossed the Wild Bridge and returned to the vegetation-strangled southern ward.

When they stepped off the bridge and the sickly green sunlight hit their masks, Gael immediately took a deep breath.

“Ah.” He sighed, eyes half-lidding behind his mask. “Feels just like home.”

Maeve loosened the filters on her mask as well. “I won’t miss Ironwych’s smoke-choked air anytime soon, that’s for sure.”

“Me neither.”

As they strode through the overgrown streets and down south towards the clinic, Jin and Vivi followed them, eyes wide and wary. People around the ward knew Gael and Maeve, but there were more than a few pairs of eyes behind windows, vines, and pillars pretending like they were only counting the number of pouches on their belts. The briefcase Jin was carrying was a dead giveaway. They knew Maeve was the only Caser in the ward, so another Exorcist’s presence was a little more than… unwelcome.

Nevertheless, Jin walked firmly, while Vivi kept close behind him as if his shadow was a cloak.

“Um…” she mumbled, holding her bag of snacks in both hands as she looked around nervously. “Do you think the people in your clinic would enjoy my gift?”

Gael glanced sideways, peered into her bag. The word ‘no’ almost rose to his tongue—because of all the snacks she could’ve bought from Umbracross while they were passing through last night, she picked cookies that were cleanly sweet, which most Bharnish hated with passion for being a Vharnish taste—but Maeve beat the back of his head, sensing his rudeness, before giving Vivi a gentle nod.

“Cara loves sweets, and I think so do most of the younger Saint’s Hands,” she said, smiling with her eyes. “Don’t worry about it.”

Vivi’s relief was immediate. “Oh. Thank you.”

Maeve’s elbow found Gael’s ribs a second later as she leaned in close. “Look at her. She’s already stressed enough,” she whispered angrily. “Don’t make it worse.”

“Well, if she can’t handle Bharncair, she shouldn’t be here,” he muttered back. “What’s a Spider doing down here playing as an Exorcist, anyways?”

Before Maeve could frown and demand an elaboration, though, they rounded into a dark alley—a shortcut that smelled like wet stone and old blood—and Jin immediately froze.

His head tilted a fraction.

“What is it?” Maeve asked, glancing around.

“Incoming,” Jin said flatly.

His briefcase snapped open, metal unfurling into gauntlet form that quickly wrapped around his right hand. Both Gael and Maeve frowned before turning back around, facing the alley. As far as Gael himself could tell, there was nothing in front of them, but…

He looked up, squinting hard.

A winged shadow was soaring straight towards them, shrouded in the murky morning Vile.

“Oh,” he said. “That’s not an attack. I mean, the speed at which she’s coming in will certainly kill a normal man, but there are no normal men in Bharncair, and least of all—”

The shadow folded its wings at the last second—

And Evelyn crashed into Gael, sending both of them into a mountain of empty trash cans by the side. Metal crunched and shattered. On a much lighter note, Liorin hopped off Evelyn’s back at the same moment and crashed into Maeve as well, though she didn’t stagger because she was stronger than Gael—and also because she hadn’t drank herself to death last night in Arnell’s forge. He was still a bit light-headed, but well, when wasn’t he?

As Gael peeled himself out of the trash cans, he shoved Evelyn off his chest with one hand.

“You lunatic,” he grunted. “You trying to kill me or hug me?”

Evelyn pulled off her flower-patterned gas mask for a brief second to flash him a stupid grin. “Maybe both,” she said. “You missed me, right?”

Maeve gently eased Liorin back by the shoulders. “He won’t say it, but he missed you,” she said warmly. “As did I. You two—are you alright?”

Liorin nodded too fast, his wooden mask threatening to fly off his face. “We is fine!” he said, then stared at Evelyn pointedly again. “But she nearly killed me. Again.”

Evelyn snorted. “Shut it. You loved ridin’ on my back.”

“I love not breaking bones.”

“Then you fly next time.”

“You’re the one with the wings.”

They started bickering instantly, as if their tongues were drawn blades that couldn’t stay sheathed, so Gael tossed a pebble at their heads and made both of them yelp.

“How the hell did the two of you know we were coming back this early?” he asked. “We didn’t cross the Wild Bridge until… like, a minute ago. Were you spying on us?”

Evelyn puffed her chest out, wings twitching behind her. “I got more points from eatin’ Myrmur meat, so I strengthened my perception and unlocked new perception-based mutations! I heard you comin’ in from half the ward away!”

“She lying,” Liorin muttered. “Fergal placed a few Saint’s Hands lookouts in Umbracross. They saw you coming last night and told us you would probably be back this morning, so we were just waiting for—”

“That still counts!” Evelyn argued. “I was the first to hear the message with my ears, wasn’t I?”

“That’s not a perception mew… mutation, then. That’s just listening.”

While the two of them went right back to bickering, Gael glanced around at Jin and Vivi, gesturing at the children.

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

“They’re like this all the time,” he said. “Anyways, this is Evelyn and Liorin. Say hi, kids.”

Evelyn threw a two-finger salute like she was greeting fellow criminals. “Hi.”

Liorin offered a stiff nod. “Hello.”

Then Gael hooked his thumb at the newcomers. “And these two are tagalongs. The broody guy is Jin and the quiet girl is Vivi. Get along… or don’t, but don’t stab each other until after breakfast. Hey, speaking of breakfast, why didn’t you guys bring us anything if you knew we were coming back—”

“Oh!” Evelyn said suddenly, eyes lighting up in what could be surprise and what could be… guilt? “Actually, about the clinic, we… uh…”

“Clinic in danger,” Liorin said, grabbing Maeve’s hand and tugging her along the alley. “Go back quick. Need you two.”

Gael frowned at the sudden change in behavior. “And what’s wrong with the clinic?”

“Cara,” Liorin said. “She’s sick.”

Gael imagined a lot of things when Liorin had said the clinic was in danger. ‘Danger’ could’ve meant an attack from a rival gang, an audit from a Vharnveil faction, or a plague outbreak from one of their medicine cabinets, but as Gael and Maeve stood blankly in the clinic’s prayer halls—staring down the statue of the crooked Saintess—he realized it might’ve been better if someone had attacked the clinic, because then he wouldn’t have to blame one of his own for being stupid.

The metallic forest outside the clinic was well and nourished as ever, and the Vile Eater behind the statue was chugging along as usual, giving enough fresh air to the clinic that nobody had to wear their gas masks inside… or so that should’ve been the case, because behind the statue, the entire back wall of the clinic had been blown out. Shattered. Wrecked and ruined and busted to the seven hells. Fresh air was leaking out, toxic air was leaking in, and a cluster of Saint’s Hands were swarming the hole like ants, trying to patch it up with the wrong kinds of bricks and the wrong kinds of mortars.

Gael’s eye twitched.

“What the fuck did you do to my forge?” he asked aloud.

Before Evelyn or Liorin or any of the Saint’s Hands could even answer, though, a man snapped upright on the bench beside him. It was Gloam—the blindfolded man, and one of the Five Fingers of the Saint’s Hands—who’d just been sleeping there before the six of them came in.

“Sorry, boss,” he mumbled, yawned, and rubbed his face. “Some of your machines in the back just… blew up last night. Probably ‘cause it ain’t been maintained in a month. The big machine with the glass pipes was the one that set it off, I think.”

“... The big machine with the glass pipes feeding to a jar on the ceiling?”

“That’s the one.”

“Fuckass Juno,” he grumbled. “I’m never buying heavy machinery from her ever again.”

While he cursed her a few more times for good measure, Maeve patted his shoulder. “Well, that’s why you hired Arnell to be your new private engineer and smith, right?” she said soothingly. “And hey, this isn’t a completely terrible turn of events. The forge should’ve never been inside the clinic to begin with. Let’s just outsource all of the forging and machinery work to Arnell from now on.”

He scowled back at her. “You just don’t like the smell of machinery and engine oil. You’ve never liked it.”

She scowled back. “I don’t like the smell. It’s also not good for the patients. A clinic should have clinic stuff, not…” She gestured vaguely at the massive hole in the back of the building. “Double-dipping into forge stuff.”

“But it’s my building. I can do whatever the hell I want with it.”

“It’s our building.”

“The deed doesn't have your name on it.”

Before Maeve could open her mouth to argue, a commotion to the side dragged their attention sideways.

Off to the right of the prayer hall, another small swarm of Saint’s Hands were clustered around tables and pews, sitting and standing with pages upon pages of documents and notebooks spread in their laps. They were talking over one another, shouting at each other, and pointing at the numbers in their documents like they’d personally offended them. Gael couldn’t make heads or tails of what they were talking about, so he turned back to Gloam.

“And what’s up with those guys?” he asked.

Gloam didn’t answer immediately, because four more bodies snapped upright from pews around him as well—Toneless, Tongueless, Aether, and Flay, the remaining Fingers of the Saint’s Hands—and all of them rubbed their eyes before looking at Gael apologetically.

“Sorry, boss,” Aether said, voice rough with fatigue. “There’ve been some… accounting problems as well.”

“The medicine we’ve been selling and distributing across the ward aren’t bringing back the right amount of profit,” Flay continued. “And even after the money comes back, it’s not being paid out to the Saint’s Hands correctly. We don’t really know how much we’re earning, so… how can we pay everyone properly?”

“So the clinic hasn’t been open for business for… a week now,” Tongueless signed with his hands. “Medicine business is still new to us. We don’t… uh, really know how to run the finances.”

Gael stared at them. “No shit. I knew most of you guys were dumb as bricks. That’s why Cara handles all the accounting and finance, so where the fuck is she?’”

A croak answered him from above.

“Up here.”

Gael and Maeve whipped their heads up.

Cara was leaning over the second-floor railing, wrapped in thick blankets like a spiteful ghost. Tissue rolls were stuffed up her nose, and her face looked pale even in the sickly sunlight flooding in through the stained glass windows. Fergal stood beside her—looming like a guard dog in human form—and he held more than a few books in his two hands and six spider claws, muttering under his breath as he wrote and jotted notes down.

“... The hell happened to you?” Gael shouted up.

Cara sneezed suddenly, making Fergal flinch.

“Not much. Just came down with a common cold last week, so—” She sneezed so hard again the blankets bounced on her shoulder, “since then, I haven’t really been able to… work.” Then she turned her head towards Fergal, eyes narrowing. “Been trying to teach him and the Five Fingers how to run a medicine business from the finance side, but if they were good with money, they wouldn’t have been gangsters to begin with.”

Fergal didn’t even look up from his accounting books. “Well, sorry for being a bad learner,” he muttered. “I suppose I am better suited to strong-arming people and beating people up.”

The Five Fingers nodded sadly below, a synchronized little tragedy.

Gael, however, stared at Cara again, disbelief now layered over irritation. “Just take some medicine, then. We’re in a fucking clinic.”

“No can do. This is the type that needs time to go away.” She shooed him and Maeve away. “If you’ve got nothing better to do, help rebuild the wall first so all the clean air doesn’t leak out. Or, you can help me teach Fergal how to run the business and manage the accounts. Your pick.”

Maeve’s head turned sharply towards Cara. “Do you really want Gael to teach gangsters about finance, though?”

Cara paused.

“On second thought, that does sound pretty dumb,” she muttered. “The common cold’s getting to my brain, I see.”

Gael’s head snapped up. “Excuse you?”

But this time, before everyone could start bickering at each other about what to do with the clinic’s troubles, a small cough broke through the growing arguments behind them.

Everyone turned once again.

To Gael’s surprise, Vivi was still half-hidden behind Jin’s rigid silhouette. While Jin was frowning openly at the chaotic clinic, her hands were clasped tight against her dress, her shoulders tucked in like she was ready to apologize at any given moment… but her gaze flicked between Gael, Cara, and the scattered mess of ledgers in every gangster’s hands, looking like she knew something they didn’t.

She took a careful breath before peeking out just enough to be seen.

“I… um,” she said softly, “I think I can help with the finances. And the accounting. Could I just… take a look at the clinic’s ledgers?”