The Exorcist Doctor

Chapter 150 - Luxurious Lives // What We Doing Again

Velvet curtains hung like flayed tongues on the walls of the Gilded Wraith Picturehouse. As its name suggested, it was a giant movie theatre lacquered entirely in tarnished gold and obsidian, located just a few blocks off the Mothlight Theatre. It was the epitome of luxury heaped upon luxury, but well, they did say Bleakhearth didn’t build anything without gilding it first and asking moral questions later.

Inside the main atrium, the theatre’s brass signage curved in some weird script above Gael and Maeve’s heads. Lanternlight painted the marble atrium in warm gold, and the smell of sugared almonds being sold by vendors to the sides made Gael crave for a midnight snack. Unfortunately, while it may dead in the middle of the night, there were still tons of people queuing up for the ticket counters. Getting a cup of sugared almonds would take years. Not that he was complaining—he was one of those people lining up for a counter too.

“... Well?” he muttered, tapping his cane lightly and pointing at the posters pinned along the walls to their sides. “Choose our sacrament, dearest wife. What’re we watching first?”

Maeve stood straight-backed beside him, umbrella tucked beneath her arm as her eyes moved across painted faces and dramatic lettering without much awe.

“What does any of this have to do with finding artificial Myrmur Hosts?” she asked.

“Absolutely nothing,” he replied.

“Then why are we here?”

“Uh. Because we just concluded business with a century-old mask made up of mothlight lanterns, and if I don’t sit down and let my brain rot for two hours, I might begin vivisecting the furniture out of boredom?”

“You’re impossible.”

“I’m cultured. Come on, pick something already.”

She turned away to stare at the posters again. A few people cast strange and furtive looks at the two of them—they were wearing half of a Raven mask each—but he ignored them and watched her expression carefully.

“But how do these ‘movies’ work, anyways?” she eventually muttered. “I understand theatre. We had those up in Vharnveil. It’s all puppets and stage tricks and people standing behind curtains, but… what’s ‘film’ supposed to be?”

“Okay, so first you take a sequence of still photographs captured in rapid succession and put them onto a strip of treated film—which is typically cellulose nitrate or acetate coated with a light-sensitive emulsion of silver halide crystals—and then you run that strip through a projector mechanism at a standardized frame rate, typically twenty-four frames per second for the smoothest illusion of motion, but…”

He trailed off as she stared at him blankly.

“... There’s a fairy inside the film box thing, and when we feed it peanuts, it gets happy and shows us moving pictures,” he finished.

She scowled, elbowing him in the gut with her umbrella. He feigned pain and groaned. “I’m not dumb,” she grumbled. “You will explain it to me properly.”

“I just told you. There’s a fairy that—” She raised her umbrella again. “—to show the movie, the projector mechanism shines bright light through each developed frame while moving the strip of film. There’s this rotating shutter that briefly blocks the light between frames so the motion appears smooth rather than flickering, and then bada-bing, bada-bong, your eyes and brain merge those rapidly changing still images into the illusion of fluid movement.”

“Thank you for teaching me, dearest husband.”

“No problem,” he said as she pinched his ear. The two of them moved forward again, getting closer and closer to the counter. “We really gotta lock down a movie, though. What strikes your fancy?”

Her gaze slid back to the posters, lingering on one where a pale woman framed by dark arches stood in some sort of abandoned cathedral. Beneath her was scrawled the title: ‘The Hollow Bride. A shadow bloomed in the woman’s throat like a black flower.

“That one looks kinda interesting,” she said.

Gael raised a brow. “A… horror?”

“Yes.”

“You wanna pay money to be frightened by light and fabric?”

“I want to see the adaptation.”

“What adaptation?”

“The subtitle says it’s based on book one of the Ashen Psalter Chronicles. I’ve been reading that one for years.”

He had to tilt his head back and think for a moment. “The series I bought you when we first met? The one where the girl cries and moans about her uncurable disease every third chapter? Like, Saintess, just shut the fuck up and deal with it, lady.”

“She does not cry every third chapter.”

“She is exactly like that. Lame series, probably a lame movie as well.” He gestured lazily toward another poster. “‘The Sugar-King of Umbracross’. Now this is a movie”

Maeve glanced at it and frowned. “It’s about… a drug lord?”

“An artist of vice. At the height of the Sugar-King’s power, he had control over half of Bharncair’s salt supply that came in from the far south. A terrifying man. I knew the guy back when he was still alive, you know?”

“The Sugar-King controlled the salt?”

“Yep.”

“Why’s he called the Sugar-King then?”

“He doesn’t like to get high off his own supply, but he’s still expected to like his own product, so he used to snort salt in front of his captains to fool them into thinking he’s snorting sugar. Long story short, he died of atherosclerosis from salt-overconsumption. I probably could’ve saved him if he didn’t refuse to come into the clinic, though. Must’ve been scared of my mask or something.”

“... So you already know the plot of the movie, then?”

“Probably.”

“We are not watching that, then. You’ll spoil it for me halfway through,” she grumbled. “The Hollow Bride.”

“The Sugar-King of Umbracross,” he countered.

“Hollow Bride.”

“Sugar-King.”

As they moved further and further up the line, arguing over their last slice of cake, the Bleakhearth patrons around them started casting more obvious glances at their bickering. Brass masks tilted and silk fabrics rustled, but nobody dared intervene in a quarrel between a Raven and an Exorcist. By the time they reached the ticket counter, Gael had enough of arguing with words. He unsheathed his bladed cane. Maeve gripped her umbrella like a blade in kind.

“You are not serious about watching a movie you already know the ending of,” Maeve warned. “We get to watch one movie. Just one. And you wanna pick the only one where you can spoil my first experience of the ultimate Bleakhearth luxury?”

“I am serious. The Ashen Psalter Chronicles sucked ass. I said I wanted my brain rotten, but even I have limits.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

A pair of wealthy patrons nearby stiffened. The receptionist behind the counter froze as well, hands hovering above a stack of tickets as she tried to mediate.

“Sir, madam, please. This is a theatre. If you wish to fight, there is a dedicated quarreling room for married couples down the hall to the right—”

“We haven’t done this in a while,” Gael said cheerily.

“No, we haven’t,” Maeve returned cheerily. “One last chance. The Hollow Bride, or—”

Ladies first didn’t apply in Bharncair. He swung before she could finish her sentence.

Elsewhere, the Velorium Market glittered like a vein of gold running through the middle of the ward’s busiest district. Like the Mothlight Theatre, every storefront was lacquered in tarnished gold and blackwood, and every street lamp was shaped like a cathedral’s spire, which was far, far more luxurious than the run-down lamps in Blightmarch. Even the cobblestones were clean and the air was fresh, Vile Eaters sucking in the poisonous mist from buildings out of sight. Liorin didn’t even want to think it, but this placemightjust look a little better than the district around the Heartcord Clinic—and he was responsible for making that district look good with his trees and flowers.

“Look at this place!” Evelyn said, gaze darting from window to window. “They even make dust look expensive!”

The two of them marched through the market like they owned the place. The bags of coin Gael had pressed into Eveyln’s hands before telling them to go off and have some fun clinked with every step, and she let them swing wide on purpose. Without them, the passersby around them would be giving them weird looks, thinking they were poor or abandoned or a mix of both. Instead, storeowners and merchants called out to them as they walked alongside the midnight crowd, begging for their patronage.

“Oh, Saintess. You see that?” Evelyn pulled him off to the side. The shop here was ‘Mourne & Marrow’s Cabi-netry’, and the display windows showcased an enormous mahogany armchair fitted with brass levers and tiny gearwork beneath the armrests. A placard boasted about ‘pos-tu-ral re-cali-brat-ion’ and ‘the-ra-peu-tic spinal per-sua-sion’.

He was still learning how to read. Gael wasn’t a very patient teacher, but he did use a lot of big words.

“Chair’s got more mechanisms and functions than a trap.” Evelyn pressed her face closer to the glass, eyes gleaming with greed. “I want one. I wanna put it in my room.”

Liorin leaned in cautiously. “It… look dangerous.”

“Rich folks love payin’ to get tortured politely. That’s what a ‘massage’ is. Ever had one before?”

“That the one where you get bones popped?”

“Not that one.” She laughed, already moving on to the next window before he could answer. This shop was called ‘Hallow-grave Beastworks’, and it displayed collars lined with black velvet and inlaid with silver rune plates. Some glowed faintly, while others hummed almost imperceptibly with stored enchantments. Liorin frowned at them. They almost felt like the ‘bio-arcanic’ equipment Gael carried with him.

“And look at these collars,” Evelyn breathed, pressing her face to the glass again. “Imagine our hellhounds wearin’ these back home. They’d look like royalty, no?”

“Yes?”

Liorin pictured their snarling, soot-furred three-headed beasts in velvet and gemstones and felt a flicker of amusement. Other shops like ‘Gravesong Pro-vi-sions’ advertised dried meats infused with stamina charms and flasks of glowing tonic guaranteed to lighten one’s body for a limited duration. Nearby, ‘Noc-ti-lume Con-fec-tions’ offered candied fruits that claimed they’d make skin shimmer faintly in darkness.

There was no end to the strange shops, and Evelyn was radiant in a way the market couldn’t polish away—eyes bright, steps quick, every new window was another possibility to blow their money on. It was her first time in Bleakhearth, and she devoured it eagerly.

Beside her, though, Liorin’s shoulders grew tighter with each block. It wasn’t the shops that made him feel out of place, but everybody’s masks were ornate works of art. His own mask was simple carved wood with flower patterns, but the passersby wore brass etched with vines, silver filigree shaped like wings, and some even seemed to be wearing pure porcelain painted with delicate tears. Against the glittering faces around him, he felt like a splinter. He looked like a splinter, and his clothes didn’t help. His fabrics were loose and practical, leaving skin exposed while everyone else was swaddled in layered coats and tailored vests. Eyes slid toward him and away again.

‘Foreigner’, they were thinking. And they were right about that. Suddenly, he didn’t feel like he was enjoying the luxuries of Bleakhearth all that much anymore… but that was a selfish thought. He didn’t want Evelyn to notice. She was laughing. She was having fun. Shy and embarrassed as he may be, he did not want to be the weight that pulled her back down to Blightmarch.

Still, as they left a confectioner’s shop where Evelyn had spoken passionately about some glow-in-the-dark sugar, he let out a heavy breath for the first time in hours—and she noticed.

Her pace slowed. Her head tilted slightly. Masked as he was, he tried to fix his expression before she could read it.

Too late.

“... Come on.”

Without a word, she reached over and grabbed his hand. He didn’t even have time to feel slightly flustered as she dragged him forward, pulling him through the crowd towards a clothing store that neither seemed too high-class or too run-down. It was the kind of store he could expect to find in Blightmarch, though there were still mannequins through the display windows wearing thick travel coats and reinforced trousers. He’d never find any mannequins in Blightmarch.

“What are we doing here?”

“Just follow my lead.”

The bell above the door chimed as they entered. Behind the counter, a shopkeeper in an immaculate brass mask looked up and frowned faintly.

“This shop isn’t for children,” he said coolly. “Try further down the Velorium—” Evelyn lifted her bags of coins and jingled them. “ —Apologies, sir and madam. How may I be of service today?”

Evelyn pushed Liorin gently forward, her hand still around his. “We need durable, water-proof travelin’ clothes for him,” she said, jerking her chin at his mostly bare torso. “And for me too. Any recommendations?”

Liorin wanted to turn and ask what Evelyn was doing, but the shopkeeper’s tone warmed instantly. “Certainly. Allow me to show you our finest wares for rough terrain. How rough, though, are we talking about here?”

“Pretty rough, I think.” She squeezed his hand once more and winked at him. “I bet you’ll love the place.”

The longer Fergal looked up at the Master of Masks, the more he realized he was utterly normal as a boss of a gang compared to the bosses of the Three-Faces and the Steelborn. Sure, he had six arms and masks and cloaks patterned with interlocked hands, but he couldn’t claim to control a hundred mothlight lanterns as his expression like the Master of Masks could, nor could he claim to be an immortal merchant of death like Steelhorned Calvos could.

In that sense, maybe Cara would be better suited to lead the Saint’s Hands.

The Mothlight Theatre’s grand central stage had been turned into her fiscal war room. The two of them hadn’t come in here with satchels, but somehow she’d managed to scatter dozens upon dozens of accounting ledgers around her, columns of ink stacked atop each other. She sat cross-legged in the very middle of the stage, rifling through the accounting books, and if he didn’t know any better he’d say she was born here—she talked like she was born here, too.

“The symbiote elixir will remain capped at its current production ceiling,” she said crisply, flipping to another page. “We can increase minor tinctures and parasite suppressants by fifteen percent without straining the clinic, but the elixir must stay controlled. If you flood Bleakhearth with it, collectors will treat it like a novelty wine instead of medicine.”

High above, the Master of Mask’s xpression cycled into an indulgent smile. “Ah, restraint. So terribly unfashionable in this ward.”

“We’re not in the fashion business. We’re in the survival business.”

“Bleakhearth prefers the illusion that those two are the same.”

“Then Bleakhearth can pay for the illusion. Take my advice if you want, don’t if you don’t.”

The Master of Masks rippled with soft laughter, and then the two of them kept on with their business talks. Fergal, on the other hand, sat beside Cara with his arms folded. In name, he was still the boss of the Saint’s Hands, but he was here more as a guard to the negotiations than anything else. In truth, he hadn’t processed a single number Cara had said in the past two hours. She had better knowledge of his gang’s books than he did, so he let her do all the talking.

She was formidable in speech. He’d known that already. He’d seen her stare down suppliers and argue contracts into submission against exiled barons and nobles, but there was just something about watching her talk head-to-head with the Master of Masks that tightened something familiar in his chest.

“... And what are you staring at me for?” she suddenly asked.

He blinked.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Not true.” She turned her head mid-scribble just enough to glance at him. “You’ve been staring for the past five minutes.”

He considered deflecting. Instead, something far less strategic slipped out.

“You’re really cool when you’re confident.”

And for a heartbeat, Cara Halloway—sharp-tongued, iron-spined, and entirely unflappable—went still. Her quill dipped slightly in her fingers.

“That’s… ridiculous,” she muttered, eyes shifting away first.

“It’s not.”

A faint flush touched her cheeks, and she cleared her throat and adjusted a ledger that didn’t require adjusting. “Well, I can’t fight like any of you,” she said quietly. “I can’t lead boys into death alleys, and I can’t break bones for a living. If I can’t at least run the clinic properly, then what use am I?” Then she turned back to the ledgers quickly. “We’re still discussing margins. Let’s not derail the conversation before we’re finished—”

“Let’s go on a date,” he blurted.

The Master of Masks immediately shifted to a fake ‘shocked’ expression, and Cara’s quill stopped moving as she looked at him again.

“... What?”