The Exorcist Doctor

Chapter 153 - Splintered Plate // Fermented Lies

While most of Bharncair didn’t seem to believe in bedtime, Bleakhearth was the sole exception Vivi had ever seen to that rule. It was like Vharnveil in that regard. The main streets still burned gold beneath the moth-shaped lamps, and the windows of the finer establishments continued to glow like jeweled eyes, but at midnight, most restaurants were already in the process of closing. Servants stacked chairs and swept away the remains of rich men’s appetites, making it difficult for her to find a place willing to take in a late customer.

Or perhaps more accurately, a place still willing to take in an Exorcist after dark.

The restaurant she found was called the ‘Velvet Chrysalis’, and it sat on the corner of a less-travelled street near all the wine-processing facilities she and Jin had been lurking around the past day. It was more a bar than a restaurant, with black lacquered walls that didn’t want to stand out and creepy statues of three-faced men standing along the walls of the main hall, but it was also grander than most bars she’d been to down in Bharncair. At two-stories tall, a glass dome ceiling, and a large circle bar in the center of the hall where anyone could drink their sorrows away, it was easily comparable to the lower-end establishments in Vharnveil… and maybe that was why she was drawn to the place.

Still, she wasn’t here to drink. She’d asked for a table by the windows furthest away from the bar, and the servers only took one look at the bloodshackle around her ankle to give her the warmest welcome. They probably wouldn’t let anyone else dine without ordering a few drinks first, but for her, anything went.

So by the window she sat alone, silking as she ate every dinner item off the menu.

There was no denying it. The dishes were excellent. Off her table that’d become a small parade of indulgence, she probably liked the gilded beef-butter fillet, the nightroot terrine, the honeyed ashpetal tarts, and the silver-silverfin dumplings the best. Those were the sweetest and richest dishes that she would absolutely order up in Vharnveil as well—if they were on the menu—but as she swallowed another forkful of silver-silverfin, she supposed the old adage was really true: if one’s heart wasn’t in it, then no matter how exquisite the dish, it’d always taste… just a little bit off.

Her attention drifted down again to the metal clasp at her ankle.

For the first time since she passed the induction exam, she was no longer connected to Jin.

Of course, she’d done this herself. Out of pure pettiness, really. When she’d first sat down in the restaurant, still bristling with anger and irritation, she’d pressed that small button by the side of the shackle and sent Jin a vibration request. ‘Detach’ was the request. It was, objectively speaking, not a function the higher-ups recommended Exorcist pairs used. Without the bloodshackle connection, both Hunter and Host could still use and control their mutations with enough training, but the Hunter wouldn’t be able to use their Art safely without risking overflowing with toxic blood, nor could the Host support the Hunter by providing their own blood for extra ammunition. The detach function was meant to be used only when the pair was absolutely sure they wouldn’t be fighting—like when the day was over and the pair had to sleep in their individual homes, or when the pair wanted to enjoy their extended vacation without the other looming over them.

Considering being an Exorcist was mostly a full-time, on-the-clock job even up in Vharnveil, most Exorcist pairs opted to sleep in dorms and do everything together so they wouldn’t have to risk being caught in battle without being connected. Thus, the detach function went mostly unused. She herself hadn’t heard of any pairs who used it liberally, so when she’d sent that request to Jin in the spur of the moment, she’d hoped—somewhere in the back of her head—that he’d come to his senses and realize he couldn’t be hunting Myrmurs out there without a partner. She’d hoped he’d deny the request and give a few good tugs on the shackle, calling her over so they could do their job together.

Instead, he’d accepted her request, and the bloodshackle had dissolved into blood between them.

Her fork pressed a little harder into her next dish, and a few servers glanced over nervously as the plate almost cracked under the force.

That’s that, then.

You really don’t need me, huh?

The thought sat unpleasantly in her chest as she chewed like a petulant child, her earlier appetite continuing to dull into something mechanical.

What, exactly, was she even angry about though?

Was it that she thought Jin was right about her being weak?

Was it that she hated being weak herself?

Or was it something much softer, and that she simply missed home?

… She didn’t even know.

Joining the Exorcists was a bold decision on her part, yes, but at least it was hers. It was something dramatic and meaningful and worth remembering. But everything that came after—meeting Gael and Maeve, stepping into the chaos of the Heartcord Clinic’s pursuit of impossibility, and chasing some thread of conspiracy through wards she’d barely learned about during training—none of that had been a part of her plan.

She’d only wanted to impress Jin and have him look at her, and maybe—just maybe—charm him enough to have him say ‘let’s go home and get married’.

That was it.

So how did it all turn out like this?

… This dish sucks.

She sulked and pushed her first plate aside. The act alone made a few servers flinch from across the restaurant, but she really, really didn’t want to force something she didn’t find delicious down her throat.

In fact, she could say the same for every dish she’d had so far.

It’s not as good as the ones back home, after all.

Crouched on the edge of a slanted roof, Jin watched the worker’s district below him for red in his eyes. The streets at this hour were still alive with workers hauling crates, merchants moving between storehouses with ledgers tucked under their arms, and carriages passing by every so often. He was sure there were more Myrmurs hiding in this district than just the two from the fabric warehouse, so all he needed to do was let his passive mutation do the work.

So far, this method of scouting out Myrmurs in Bharncair hadn’t betrayed him.

In Ironwych, Myrmur Hosts were relatively easy to locate. The suppressants the Steelborn sold kept things tampered down enough that a Host could pretend they were fine right up until they weren’t, but that didn’t stop his passive mutation from working on them the moment he saw them. In Blightmarch, Myrmur Hosts were extraordinarily easy to locate. Most Hosts there looked half-dead even before their parasites started getting ambitious, so they were simple enough to spot even without his passive mutation. In Bleakhearth, though…

Everyone here hid things for a living. It was called the Western Ward of Masks, after all, and here people put on smiling rots to pretend they were straighter, dressed better, and more noble than their neighbors. Even the sick and desperate ones wanted to die prettily. That made his job of looking for Myrmur Hosts a little irritating.

If I recall correctly, Grand Medicus Rhaenwald Odris once wrote that a man accustomed to acting also makes it so they’re harder to detect as a Myrmur Host. Our Wasp Class eyes don’t flare red as easily when we’re only glancing at them.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

What’d he call it? The Volitional Masking Phenomenon?

In short, people who didn’t want to be found as Myrmur Hosts and also had the acting chops to make it so were people who could easily bypass the Exorcists’ eyes. That meant he had to stare at every person below him for a good ten seconds before he was sure they weren’t a Myrmur Host, and that was more tiring than anything he’d had to do in Ironwych and Blightmarch.

Suddenly, another gust of wind slid over the roofs, and this time it struck him off-balance—just enough to make him shift and almost topple off the roof.

He blinked.

What… was that?

He’d been trained to be stronger and more stable than that. Was it because he was no longer attached to Vivienne, and toxic blood was starting to build up inside him, weakening his physical ability?

No. That shouldn’t be it. He wasn't using his Art, so there shouldn’t be any toxic blood in his body. At best, there was still some left over in his body from the fabric warehouse battle that hadn’t been drained and purified by Vivienne, but a little bit shouldn’t have weakened his balance that much.

Then another possibility pushed in, and it was so… unwelcomingly soft.

Am I… just tired?

He went still for a while, staring down at the street while the thought sat in him, sour.

‘Tired’.

The word still annoyed him. She’d said it like she knew him. Like she could read him. Like she had any business measuring his limits when she could barely keep her own feet under her.

His jaw clenched.

Of course she wasn’t right. What the hell did she know about his limits? She’d spent the past few days getting in his way in most of his battles, and then she ran off in a sulk because he’d finally said what was obvious.

I’m not tired.

He dragged a breath in through his nose and forced his shoulders to settle. He had to find something here. Since Ironwych, he’d been circling the edges of this artificial Myrmur Host mess without getting a proper hold on it, and he was already sick of coming away with scraps. Bleakhearth had something. He could feel it in his gut.

No more fucking around in Blightmarch with the Heartcord Clinic.

There has to be… something…

His vision flared slightly red.

There.

Below, moving along the street with a heavy, workmanlike trudge, was a fat man in overalls and cheap laborer’s clothes. There wasn’t anything strange at first glance. He looked just like a warehouse hand, or a cooper, or a cellar worker—the sort of man people stopped looking at after half a second.

But then Jin’s eyes pulsed red again, so he started tracking. The man turned off the main thoroughfare and headed towards an older building wedged between two more modern storehouses. Judging by the high windows and the thick timber frame, it was a processing facility of some sort.

Jin moved to get a closer look.

He crossed the rooftops fast and low, one jump flowing into the next. Before long, he landed on the roof of the old building, crouched near the ridge, and edged forward until he could poke his head down and peer in through a high side window.

Inside was a wine processing facility. Rows of barrels were everywhere, and they were all sorts: stacked old oak casks, giant fermentation vats, measuring tables, hanging lamps, and neat little checklists pinned beside inventory boards were the least of them. Even though he was outside, he could already tell the whole facility smelled of old fruit, yeast, and wood soaked in years of labor. He’d visited more than his fair share of wine processing houses up in Vharnveil, so this reminded him of them.

The lights were on, but there were only a few people inside. A family by the looks of it. A round woman and two equally round children moved from barrel to barrel with tally sheets and chalk in hand, checking lids, markings, and fill lines before scribbling something down on their sheets. Most Vharnveil wine processing houses were family-run businesses, and it seemed lke this was one, too. There was nothing interesting at first glance.

Until his gaze shifted higher.

There, atop several smashed-open barrels near the back of the facility, crouched the fat man he’d followed—only now the normal human act had peeled off. The fat man had torn apart the wooden lids and was hunched over, drinking straight from the casks with both hands plunged into the spilled wine. He gulped and choked and gorged himself on the wine with frantic, ugly gluttony, so—just to double-confirm once more—Jin stared at him for another ten seconds.

Red.

His eyes flashed again.

Myrmur Host confirmed.

He’s probably the husband and the father, but the rest of the family doesn’t know.

I’ll do this fast.

He didn’t waste another second thinking about careful entry and just drove his boot through the window. Glass exploded inwards, and the wife and children jerked around in alarm as he swung in, landed on the top of a barrel, and launched himself straight at the fat man across the facility.

The Myrmur Host immediately whirled. His brass gas mask—and his social, human, normal one as well—was gone now. His face was sickly and warped in a way that made the skin look too tight in some places and too loose in others, the features swollen by the parasite living under them. Jin hit him full force in the stomach anyway, tackled him off the barrels, and drove him into the floor hard enough to shake the nearest racks.

He landed straddling the man’s chest. Around them, the wife and children gasped in horror. Jin ignored them. One hand pinned the Host down, and the other went into his coat for the tools: one enhanced symbiote elixir vial and one exoparasitic flower. Vivi was usually the one who did this, but since she wasn’t here, he had to get the exoparasitic flower to take root himself before the Myrmur inside the man could manifest and start fighting back

So he brought his gauntlet’s claw down at the man’s forearm to cut a shallow wound, intending on jamming the flower inside before forcing him to swallow the elixir—but then his claw scraped and bounced off the man’s skin.

He frowned.

That should’ve gone through cleanly, but maybe he messed it up. He pressed harder and cut again, putting more force into it this time to open up a small cut—but this time, what showed inside the wound wasn’t normal flesh and blood.

The man’s flesh was pinkish-purple, dense with large muscle strands, and completely, inhumanly wrong.

… Oh.

He’s a—

The fat man under him shrieked in laughter, and then his whole body expanded. Jin felt the shift before he properly saw it. Mass surging, flesh bloating, pressure exploding outward. Then he was flung sideways by a massive punch from a limb that hadn’t existed a second earlier, and he crashed hard into the side of a wine barrel.

Wine sprayed out in a sharp, sour burst that splashed across his sleeves and the floor. He swore, pulled himself out of the cracked barrel, and staggered forward on his feet.

By then the thing had already risen as well.

The fat man’s body was warbling, skin twitching and clothes splitting under rapid growth as the disguise finally gave way. His normal human flesh became discolored as black and orange chitin shoved through in thick plates. His normal human frame swelled wide and grotesque, becoming a giant humanoid bug with four arms, black spots on orange wings, and filling the lane between the rows of barrels as it straightened to its full height.

Jin grimaced as the Myrmur’s back split open for a second, and out fell a normal fat man in the same overalls, slick with sweat and slime as he gasped on the floor. An umbilical cord trailed from his back to the Myrmur’s, so pretty quickly, Jin got a grasp of the situation.

The Blight-Class Myrmur was wearing him like a skeleton. He must’ve been trapped inside for days.

But that means…

The disoriented Host sprawled there for only a second before his eyes landed on Jin.

Fear hit his face like a brick.

“Exorcist!” he screamed, scrambling onto his feet. “Run! Run! He’s going to kill us all!”

As he bolted for the front doors in the distance, his wife and children also jerked their heads sideways—and then all three of them started to swell as well. Their bodies warbled and expanded in the same awful way, clothing straining as giant orange-black bugs pushed out from their disguises. Their backs split open after a while as well, dropping out the real wife and children. All three were every bit as sweaty and panicked and disoriented as the husband, umbilical cords dragging from their backs as they looked wildly around at Jin in terror… before they, too, saw the fat man running and decided to join him in flight.

While the Myrmur Hosts ran for their lives from the scary Exorcist, the four Blight-Class Myrmurs surrounded Jin with chittering mandibles and cracking segmented arms, as if they were warming up for the inevitable fight.

… But that means these Myrmurs were waiting for me. This was a trap to lure me in.

How?

And who?

He clenched his jaw and began channeling his Art nevertheless, filling his body with toxic blood.

Whatever.

I’ll figure it out after I beat them, trapped or not.