Marco IX

Rain splattered on his face as he raced through the Pilgrim Road. Lord, please deliver my brother safely to me. Behind him, he heard the thunder of other horses. Ser Gerald and his soldiers had followed him. Marco spurred his mount to a faster gallop.

A shadow moved into the illumination of the light orb, a man in the steel armor of the House of Vermilon, an oxen sigil on his chest plate.

"Ser Harol!" Marco called.

The knight had lost his horse, and his strength. He dropped to the ground face-first before Marco could reach him. Alighting from his mount, Marco ran over to the dying man. A long gash opened both mail and muscle on his back. Raindrops kept washing the blood onto the ground, revealing the white of his spine.

Marco rolled his body over only to find another slash that tore a wound on his armor and stomach. A huge wood splinter was lodged upward his ribs.

"What happened? Speak!"

Blood bubbled out of his mouth when Ser Harol tried to answer. "He's... demon... kill..." More blood gushed out, choking him. Marco let him down. He was back up onto his mount by the time Ser Gerald caught up.

"Is there a blessed child among you who can heal him?" Marco asked them.

"I can try, my lord, but I doubt that he will make it," Felix trotted forward.

"Try. One shall keep Felix company while the rest of you can join me. Hi-yah!" He rode on without looking back on who followed him, no patience for anyone.

It did not take long for him to find the carriage with one of its wheels broken. A lamp burned inside faintly. When the light orb cast light onto it, Marco spotted black shadows feasting on mutilated corpses of escorts and horses alike. "GRRR!" They bared their teeth at him before they dashed into the dark, wary of his holy light. Same long gashes were present on the bodies strewn around the carriage.

"INVIOLABLE EDICT!" In a burst of light, Marco gained command of the water around him. Every raindrop the light had touched stopped falling and followed his will. They clustered into sharp pointed javelins that glowed under the orb's illumination. He launched them, CHIKK, managing to take down at least two.

"Lucas! Lucas!" He yelled but nobody answered. He poured more holy energy into the orb, causing it to glow more intensely. STAR OF PROVIDENCE! Both corpses and shadows— even the canopy far off into the forest — were cast in light. Wolves? Their fur looked uneven and burned. Some of them had exposed flesh and wound. The dead wolves at the Cobalt Passing! The rain had smothered the fire before they could be consumed by it. They had become cursed beasts. But which demon had inflicted the curse on them?

Marco shot more water javelins immediately, but the wolves had leapt away, more afraid of the light than of him. Still, they didn't retreat, only hiding behind the trees.

"Ser Gerald, take care of them!" Marco jumped down and scurried to open the door to his brother's broken carriage. "Lucas!"

Under the bench, clutching his trusty gas lamp to his chest, Lucas was curled up on his side with his eyes open. But he didn't seem to hear or see. Not until Marco approached and touched his arm did he seem to break out of a trance and utter, "Marco."

"What happened? Where is Alice?"

Lucas seemed to look around, searching. "I don't know."

Lumen Veritatis told him that it was true.

"What happened to your escorts?"

"I don't know." Lucas sat up, strangely calm, void of any shred of terror. On the other hand, Marco's pulse was racing.

What is happening? "Lucas, I'm your brother, you can tell me. I found Ser Harol at death's door. What happened to him?" He had probably passed away by now. Yet his last words were referring to a demon.

"I don't know. Is he alright?" He acted as though he had not the faintest clue of what was happening.

"There are cursed beasts outside, Lucas. The dead wolves at the Passing had risen as cursed beasts."

"They were dead. How?"

How? Only a demon or a demon's incarnate could animate dead creatures. "There must be a demon after us."

Even then, Lucas appeared calm. He said, "Do not worry. They cannot defeat you. You are most blessed."

Suddenly, the agitation raging in Marco's heart was lifted. He chuckled.

Lucas regarded him, puzzled. "Is that an odd thing to say?"

"No, I was worried about you, you fool."

Lucas smiled. "Really?"

"Why are you glad? Do you like causing me worry?" He jabbed him on the arm. "Come, this carriage of yours is crippled."

Ser Gerald and his troop had slain all the cursed beasts, lining them up in the rain.

Marco counted them. "Where's the other two?"

"They were too elusive that it required pure holy power to capture them. They had disintegrated on contact," Ser Gerald answered.

"Thank you for your hard work. Let me take care of the rest then so they don't rise again." STAR OF PURGING! The light orb above seemed to shrink before glowing an intense orange. It floated to Marco who had unsheathed his sword. The orb dissolved into the engravings of the blade, making them glow. He stabbed each of the wolf cadavers, turning them into ash that got washed away by the rain. Anything touched by the STAR OF PURGING, so long as it contained demonic energy, would burn.

The Ashwood Forest was cast in darkness again.

Every inch of Marco was soaked by the time they arrived back at the Tattling Wife.

Ser Gerald reported, "We have lost five men, my lord, including Ser Harol, and seven horses. Your... brother's attendant is missing. We did not find her body anywhere."

"Thank you, captain. Identify their names as well. Send word to my grandfather. Tell him we will continue to West Bismuth. Report the cursed beasts on the Ashwood Forest. They have to raid it for other cursed beasts if need be, lest we endanger other travelers. But make sure word of their presence doesn't get out or else we will lose tourists and business."

Marco steeled his resolve. They lost almost half their party. But no, we cannot go back. If we do, Lucas might not be able to have this opportunity again. We press on. I have to press on.

"My Lord..." Ser Gerald sought his attention again.

"Yes, Captain?"

"Just unwarranted counsel from an old knight, if I could. The wounds on our soldiers, it appears to me, could not have been caused by the wolves. Even as cursed beasts, they did not have the capacity to inflict such massive gashes. The branch lodged up Ser Harol's chest could not have been done by the cursed beasts, as well."

Indeed, death came for them first. The cursed wolves second. Images of the long scratches on Lucas's walls came to Marco's mind.

"Thank you for your wisdom, Captain. Please also include on your letter that a demon could be at large in Gallagher. Although they might not be able to exorcise it, knowledge of its existence is still better than ignorance."

Ser Gerald did not seem to take him at his word. In the knight's mind, the demon was with them. They were leading it to the Arayan Capital.

"I will do so," the old knight bowed and left.

Marco remembered that Lucas touched one of the wolf corpses. Was it then that the curse was placed? But my instincts would have alarmed me? Am I really caring for a demon? Marco stood in the middle of the small room, deep in contemplation.

The long claw marks in Lucas's building.

The lies he told the inspectors.

His involvement with Father Pietro.

The shadow in his room.

And now this massacre of which he had no memory of.

Marco desperately ached for a hot bath, but he visited his brother first in the room next to his. "Lucas, make sure to have some sleep. We still have two days left to our journey. We leave at the break of dawn," he told him.

"I will." He seemed cheerful whereas Marco was constantly perturbed. The incident had not daunted him at all, because as he had claimed, he did not remember it.

"Can you really not remember anything?"

Lucas's expression darkened. "I'm sorry if I can't remember it." He cast his eyes to the floor again.

No, don't! Don't say sorry. I don't need you to be sorry. I need you to remember! Now the doubt that Lucas's apologies were not of humility nor submission took root in Marco's mind. It could instead be avoidance.

Marco heaved his chest, bracing for the consequences of his next words, "Lucas, I sincerely want to help you. And to help you I have to know for certain. That's why I'm going to ask you: did you kill Father Pietro?"

Lucas's face perked up, his eyes rounded in shock. There was hurt there and sadness and disappointment.

Marco could feel the rift between them widening again. That rift opened when Marco started to believe Mother's claim that Lucas was not her son, not his brother. That he was not a person that should be named. It only grew wider when Lucas gave him the scar and almost took his eye. Marco was desperate to bridge the gap between them that was why he was too hesitant to confront him in the first place; because no matter what Lucas said, Marco could tell whether it was the truth or a lie.

That's why he needed the Inspectors to ask instead, but they did not. And Marco was relieved they didn't.

Because Marco had been afforded a closer look into Lucas's world, the hope of reconciliation burned anew. He thought Lucas looked up to him. He thought Lucas pined for the care he never got as a child. Marco saw and grabbed the chance to give it to him. It was the reason for all of this. But these efforts and lives lost were all in vain if the rumors surrounding Lucas were well-founded.

Lucas gazed down. He muttered, "I didn't do it."

Marco waited for the Light of Truth to judge his brother's truthfulness. But then it never came. Lumen Veritatis gave no answer.