Cantrip 1.9 (b)

A/N. Took a while. I would strongly suggest reading the previous chapters first to get things up to speed.

Also, the next chapter will be the last and epilogue. I plan to end the story, and then will continue it as another book, with more fore-planning this time round.

A glossary is in the works. Should be out by Tuesday...hopefully.

Much thanks to kinigget and Cailin for beta reading.

/x/

Orpheus

To be honest, with my personality I always wondered why my Mark was Taoshu of all things. A proficient traveler in the Tao was one whose mind was as serene and still as the surface of a pond in the morning mist. My default state of mind was to think of seven different ways to break down the Other in the most efficient way, while my hands were busy with my fu and other objects. All the while arguing with Dad that revolves whether I was pushing things too far. Hess, my usual partner when the PRT sees fit to latch me down, has one advantage over me in Taoshu. She can clear her mind very efficiently by entering a feral state through her Guardian Spirit. Since my Spirit however is a general worrywart for all his versatility and power, I cannot rely on his mental state for a conducive mediating environment.

Regardless, I continued to push my vision forward and in the emptiness of my mind's eye I focused on the tripod urn that burned incense back in reality. The reality where I was being ferried to a meeting with a Returner cult leader, accompanied by just half a dozen PRT troopers and a rookie exorcist barely five days into her training.

Mediation is the foundation of Taoshu, and one who walks the Tao is one who mediates regularly and removes the clutter from her mind. A cluttered mind, encumbered by mental garbage is a hard path for a Tao Exorcist to walk. Through the use of her animal spirit, Hess clears her mind thoroughly, allowing her to walk a smooth path.

The less clutter your mind, the more potent and clear your Tao. Which allows you to better apply it to your exorcism.

I figured my path resembled a minefield, strewn with shattered glass. While gnarled hands will burst out of the damp earth to pull me down into the muck.

Good thing I can come back even after I getting blown into chunks so long as my core is intact. And of course there's the urn to help me focus, pity overdosing it leaves you light-headed and missing a chunk of your memories.

So why the hell did I use it? Even Tao depletion shouldn't lead me to take this measure before facing Seta-

"Orpheus," Soothsayer's whispers gently coaxed me back to reality, and away from my worries. "We're approaching Captain's Hill."

A light thump on the roof of the Preacher truck, and I raised my hand to stop the troopers from storming out of the truck. True enough, the engraved blessings on the shields and helmets of the PRT troops glowed a soft blue to indicate a friendly exorcist nearby and the doors to the back of the truck opened to reveal Hess and her own Guardian Spirit as she leaped off the top of the truck. Her wolf huffed at us in displeasure, her black flame sputtered before exorcist and spirit sprinted off again into the darkness.

Huh. Anuman's scent from the Genbu threshold, along with a dark blue body bag that has runes painted over it. Did Hess go scrounging through my kills? Well, at least my disciple's not freaking out.

"Orpheus?"

I nodded, leaped to my feet and began to scrub out the simple Taoshu formation I had hastily scribbled on the floor. Soothsayer's eyes watered from the pungent sulfur smell of the yellow chalk I used to mark out my temporary shelter to regain my Tao, and her expression lightened considerably once the doors at the back of our Preacher truck opened. She kicked over the tripod urn in her haste to exit the cramped confines and the maddening smell of my urn, and almost pushed ahead of the seven remaining PRT troopers, before her eyes widened when she looked into the hazy night.

Useful power. Maybe she'd live a long, prosperous and peaceful life using that power in her homeworld had she not been pulled in from beyond the Veil? I followed behind her while one of the troopers retrieved the body bag and hauled it along, and I frowned when I peered into the contents of my mediation urn, I shook my head to dispel any doubts that lingered. No doubt I had prepared that urn myself.

With a knowing smile that's the reserve of smug asshole teachers everywhere, I turned to Soothsayer.

"Still feel like cutting ahead of me, Soothsayer?"

My apprentice shot me a dark look, but retreated to the middle of the triangle along with me while our escorts marched out into the night. The speakers of the Preacher truck continued blaring hymns and prayers to form an oasis of calm, but despite the hosannas proclaimed I felt ancient memories stirred as I glanced around the foot of Captain's Hill. The abandoned houses, once homes to the wealthy but abandoned since the Tear was put to good use by the Hyakki. Those inclined could stare at the shadows that lurked within the crumbled walls, or the shapes that loomed in the undergrowth of once immaculate lawns. The houses now served as wonderful strong points for cultists to barrack their Others. I felt heat from the tattoos that ran over most of my body as I reacted to the state of the world, where interlocked thresholds in the homes banded together to mimic the Other side of the Veil.

The Hyakki had set up a masterpiece of interlocked defenses. Seta, you've always been better than me at threshold construction.

The painted runes on the shields and helmets of the PRT troopers glowed like it was day in response, and Soothsayer kept her eyes on the backs of the troopers that surrounded her. In the distance, the Preacher trucks of the remaining PRT and Order forces blared their imminent arrival and the prospect of Seta being taken by someone else.

Good choice, considering how she reacts to sudden bursts of Whispered speech. After all, the entire Hill is almost the Other Side of the Veil now.

Then I got closer to Soothsayer, and wondered if she's actually suicidal when I saw her scrying the night sky with a bronze mirror. I raised my right fist to halt the formation, and Soothsayer stared at me with a blank look as we came to a halt.

"Which will get you first?" Soothsayer's licked her lips at my gaze, "Your brain bursting from the Whispered Speech, or your sanity from the mortal fear you're facing now?"

"I hate not knowing."

My apprentice has a ghost of a grin on her lips, even as the rest of her recoiled in mortal terror. Marks on her world are killer, if hers is any indication. I wonder how much of the desire to know more of Seta's threshold is Soothsayer, and how much is the nature of her power?

Or maybe their Marks simply choose their hosts right? No, I'm getting side-tracked. Focus on the mission.

"Here in our world," I flipped the mirror away from the sky and pulled my apprentice in closer, my hand rubbed her back to calm her trembling, "knowing too much will make you beg for death."

"The screaming corpses we trod through clued me in on that, yes." Her eyes met mine, as she pulled herself away from me. "I can continue now. Shall we go, Master?"

Hmm, cheeky. The lead trooper, bless his imperiled soul, didn't need me to prompt before we resumed our march on a faster pace. Behind us, the Preachers got louder and I hastened the group further in. Inked skin gave way to a deathly pall, as my tattoos burned away before they reasserted themselves upon me the further in we went. I counted my heartbeats to time myself, as the approaching sounds of the PRT reinforcements disappeared when we went past the first house when the waves of Others fell upon us.

/x/

Soothsayer

For all her faults, Taylor-Orpheus- has proven herself a capable, farsighted mentor. I felt the warmth from the Penelope Shroud sewn to the underside of my jacket every time another wave of Others crashed against the aegis that was the PRT trooper formation. It reminded me of the time when I was huddled in the corner of my room while a blizzard raged outside, and Reggie did his level best to comfort me from my hysterics. I was...eight I think, and it was things that were the reason for those complicated feelings I felt towards Reggie. Especially-

"Your mind's wandering, Soothsayer," Orpheus barked even as she tapped the fu in rapid succession against the back of the troopers who were cutting a swathe through the tide. When her hands left the yellow paper charms, they erupted in a small fireball, and the lights on the trooper's equipment glowed with renewed vigor.

"A dangerous thing to be sure, especially if you start imagining things again."

"My brother's not with them, Orpheus," My mentor's fleeting smirk before her grim mask reasserted itself reminded me of the gulf in knowledge of this world between the two of us. "I'm not falling for that one again."

"Good. Believe your brother and the weight you carry to be at rest, rather than among them."

I allowed my eyes to wander beyond the glowing figures of the PRT troops, and felt the walls scream as my power tried to devour the knowledge it knew was there and the Whispered Speech knocked against my defenses in their eagerness to make themselves known. I should be so flattered I'm so desired.

"Soothsayer," Orpheus said. "Save your strength, and brace yourself."

I wasted no time in asking questions, as the troopers came to a halt and planted their shields into the soft earth. I knelt with them, and Orpheus' Relic dagger burned like a black sun when my mentor raised it above our heads. Charon manifested himself, and the wraith once her father spread out his cloud to envelope us before the ground exploded. As the cloud closed, I heard the whistling of something dropping from up high onto us.

"Dracul works fast, as always." Orpheus huffed as she sat on the ground. Whispered Speech in my head dimmed as the tattoos crept up her neck, but I kept my buttocks firmly above the ground that was soaked with the damp remains of myriad Others that we had dispatched on our way in. A few troopers apparently felt secure enough that they removed the mirror visors on their helmets and began to chomp noisily on protein bars, despite the constant quakes of the earth as the world exploded around us. Huh, humans really can get used to anything, even having a quick snack despite being almost knee deep in paranormal guts.

"Take your time and regain your wits, Soothsayer," I grimaced as Orpheus' gloves dripped with Others remains when she lifted her hands, then immediately wished for the slight discomfort when her hands smoked and the goo vanished in the sudden heat. My eyes watered from the noxious stench, and I envied the strong stomachs of the troopers who continued eating and drinking without a care.

"Dracul's homunculi will continue their bombardment for another-" A slight pause, before my mentor resumed. "Another ten minutes."

I opened my mouth to speak, when-

&%#$%! %^&## #!

Reptilian heads and smoke from their snouts, with worm-like bodies covered in bronze scales. They twisted in the alien dusk, their numbers obscured by the glow of the lights from the gaps between their segmented bodies. Their jaws opened, and gouts of flame followed by orbs of smoky iron crashed onto the teeming ranks of the Others. Each group of the Hyakki that suffered the assault was reduced to paste, but yet more tears in the Veil opened and the Others crawled onto our plane. Cracked lips from which blasphemies flowed, muscle, tissue and bone lumped into distorted parodies of life crawled out and joined the teeming sea of humanoid shapes bloated bellies, pencil thin necks and mouths the size of a needle's head. As one they emerged from the ether, and the skies swarmed with silver flies, human heads partially rotted with lines of flesh that trailed below them. The flier Others massed, and they descended on the homunculi like snowflakes in the storm. The Others, which embodied that which was wrong with the world met with the homunculi, alchemy which was the unraveling of the secrets of the world. The sky tore open with smoke, heat and light; before the bits of flesh fused with metal rained down to devour yet more thresholds and Others. Alchemic steel and heat seared the unnatural off the face of the world, only for more Others to emerge from the world's newest wounds caused by the attack.

A purple flame burned like a pyre in the summit of Captain's Hill. Carapace that shone like lacquered wood spread out across the hillside Northeast and Southwest from the summit of the hill.

"Soothsayer! Sarah!"

My nose burned with the bitter tang of ammonia, and I saw white crystals caked Orpheus' fingers when my eyes flickered open. I barely noticed when Orpheus slipped a bottle of smelling salts as well as the concoction she used to link me to the Gigul network back into my reagent belt, and I nearly hurled when I noticed the slime of Other's remains that dripped down my back and hair.

"Urgh..."

"Stop complaining," Orpheus said, before her face softened. "What did you see?"

"You-"I shut my mouth before the words left. Of course she knew. "It was crazy. Lemme tell you, in full detail."

Orpheus' usual nonchalant mask morphed into one of worried musing as I spelled out the vision I just saw. As I continued to speak, Orpheus brought her silver dagger to her left middle finger, and cut open a small incision. Her blood flowed down the length of the blade, and Charon's cloud that surrounded us throbbed violently. Orpheus pulled me to my feet once I finished my speech, and the cloud disappeared back into Orpheus just as the troopers finished preparing.

"Seta's learned his lesson from back then," Orpheus muttered while I looked around.

What was once an endless ocean of Others and threshold strong-points were now scattered islands surrounded by remains of the once endless Hyakki Other hordes, and even those came under heavy assault by groups of PRT troopers, Sentinel Circle exorcists and the allied Orders. Orpheus grimaced as she saw Vulcan move uphill from our right; his alchemist's staff trembled with a wreath of red light around it while he rode on a tide of mercury. A winged serpent eleven feet long made of bronze hovered alongside him, and Whispered Speech streamed into my ears when I gazed upon its slit eyes and agape jaws.

The Others, once dazed from the bombardment by the homunculi soon rallied, the presence of the exorcists inflamed them. The shattered groups of Others and Hyakki cultists roared out their challenge, while the pasted remains of the Others blasted into the ground bubbled before more emerged from the muck anew.

My head throbbed from the tide of Hidden Speech and the pain as I quickly shut down my power before seeking refuge with Orpheus and the trooper squad. To my surprise, Neither my master or the troopers bothered to prepare for another hard slog through the opposition. Rather, the Hyakki wave cleanly ignored us while they fell upon the pushing exorcist forces.

"Dracul's bringing out her big guns, drawing all the Others and their cultist minders." Orpheus said while she eyed the homunculi and Dracul's winged avatar raining shells and boiling silver on the Others. " Pity she might be a bit too late."

"Too late?"

I kept my curiosity suppressed as I eyed the battle between exorcist and Other. For those Others who survived the shot, claws and burning wave of Dracul's homunculi, the exorcists waited their turn and struck. The mercury tide on which Vulcan rode formed into an axe-head, then a mace, and then a wrecking ball to batter the Others into submission as they tried to stop his advance, while he calmly dipped the tip of his gnarled bronze staff into the mangled shapes of the Others to collect samples.

Carlos, the young exorcist who calls himself Chimera tore open his sleeves and revealed his tattoos, and when a long haired female Other clawed off his left forearm, the tattoo disappeared into the bloody stump before it turned into the paw of a lion fifteen feet tall and wide to smash the offending apparition into the dust.

Despite the losses among the mundane PRT troopers who got caught out of formation or beyond immediate assistance of an exorcist, I didn't need my powers to see that the exorcists and the PRT had won the skirmish handily.

But how? The combined Circle-PRT numbers alone shouldn't be able to-

I sniffed the air, and the coppery smell had my power hinting I should pay closer attention to Orpheus. The brown powdery pills she popped before she burnt the silvery wrappers got my rapt attention as I focused on them.

"So Dracul had cold iron mixed into her rounds. Those pills. Are those…mud pallets?"

"Made from freshly dug earth of a grave, great for countering the effects of Dracul's attacks." Orpheus handed me a handful, her eyes pitch black while her hair slithered around like a nest of vipers. "Want some?"

I grimaced at the stark reminder of my master's inhumanity buried under the facade of a teenage girl, and turned back to the battle when Vulcan pushed into the lawn of a disused mansion, and stuck his staff into the turf. The urge to keep my eyes fixed on that location was almost overwhelming, as a sense of relief washed over me as the barrage of Whispered Speech ceased knocking against my mental walls when I looked at the purified land.

"Looks like they're just in time, Orpheus," I fixed my master with a sardonic glare while Vulcan glanced in our direction before he moved to assist Chimera and several nuns with another Others stronghold. "Or is there something else I'm not seeing here?"

"I don't blame you," Orpheus' hair swayed when my master shrugged her shoulders while her left feet pointedly began to shuffle on the gooey ground to reveal something hard beneath. "Your powers must make being exposed to Whispered exceedingly unpleasant."

Revelation struck me and I gingerly used my gloved hands to push the sludge on the ground aside. The goo was thick, damp and cold when I parted them to reveal a polished shining surface and I gave Orpheus the evil eye, only to get another indifferent shrug in response.

"Orpheus," I said as I knocked against the shiny surface that we stood on, "how the hell are we going to beat this?"

"You act like you've never fought monsters the size of a mountain before."

"Not really no," My mind wandered to what I've heard and knew of the Endbringers back on Bet. "Especially not when standing on them."

I stepped back, when Orpheus' tattoos on her neck receded and the sense of the Other in her increased. Then she reverted to her usual self, and I had to resist the temptation to use my powers when she tapped the pouch on my reagent belt before she retracted her hands. The smell of sandalwood tickled my nose, but I ignored the distraction and focused on my mentor.

"By now," Orpheus' gaze was gleeful as she watched the Circle exorcists push further uphill towards the summit. "Vulcan and Dracul would have noticed the nature of Seta's threshold, but are too deeply invested in the plan of attack to change their approach."

"But you planned the whole assault with Vulcan and-"

"I planned their assault, Soothsayer. Not mine."

The temptation was great, and I shuddered for a bit as my hand hovered over the kill switch Orpheus had given me. But a part of me makes me want to trust the person who took me in. The part of me I thought had died when Rex did. Funny how this things go.

I shuddered as I began to form a possible theory on what her plan was. If only I knew more about Returners and my master, I could-

"Don't."

"Wut?" I said eloquently. The sharp command she barked out derailed my thoughts, and left my ears still rang as she gazed coldly at me. Whispered Speech burst into my head, and I raised my face skywards when blood flowed down my nose.

"My head hurts."

"I know what you're doing, Soothsayer. We're on top of him, and here it's more important than ever to guard your mind. But since you can't because you didn't have time to learn how, it's important that you keep nothing valuable inside for Seta to steal."

Nice one, Orpheus. Drop that bombshell at the worst possible minute!

"And the troopers?" I asked, my speech slurred as I forced my mind to focus despite the pain. "How are they going to prevent our target from picking their minds."?

Orpheus slid her hand past the body armor of a trooper, and handed me one of the protein bars he was munching on. That the trooper didn't flinch when Orpheus snaked her hand into his clothes was curious, but I found my answer when I clumsily tore open the packaging and stared at the powdery, half eaten bar.

So that's the secret they didn't let me have a bite. Can't plan and react if my mind became zombified after all. I stumbled at the sudden smell of ammonia and my vision began to swim.

"The effect's temporary. Or rather we can reverse it as long as the change is not too far gone."

"Define too far, Orpheus." I hissed out as I grabbed onto the unflinching body of a nearby trooper. My mentor's eye's was oblivious to my distress as they wandered towards the summit of Captain's Hill, the purple flame I saw in my vision now becoming visible.

Which is sorta good, since I'm not seeing much else as a shadow began to fall over my vision.

"If we all make it back down the mountain," Orpheus' voice was distant. "Then it's not too far."

Orpheus' arms were surprisingly gentle as I fell into them, and visions of red and black began to drown out everything else. Her damp fingers began to streak across my cheek, smearing them with some kind of paste I vaguely remembered was connected to.

To...to...fuck. Can't remember. It's something to do with-

"I made the formula as gentle as possible, considering how you divination types tend to be extra sensitive. Remember your part in the plan when you wake up."

Plan? What plan? What're you talking about, Taylor!

"Of course you won't remember anything, Sarah," What about that name taboo? Hello? Giant mind-reading demon we're stepping on? "I don't remember anything either except that there's one."

/x/

Seta's grip on the tea bowl tightened, the cracks on it's surface that's filled with gold spread as the earth shook when he huffed in annoyance. A slight splash of tea on his white robes, and Seta set down the priceless vessel in a huff. Segmented carapace bulged beneath the white outer robes and red hakama, while two amber compound eyes where human ones should have been. A Insectoid leg the size of a fern tree that dripped with slime skittered in the unnatural dark, as a red haze clouded the wooden pedestal Seta stood upon. Words that spelled profane curses and rage were scrawled over the light brown of the wooden floors and stairs, their angry brush strokes reminiscent of splotches of a victim's blood at a crime scene. Black lacy dresses and robes once a pristine white but now caked with filth laid in piles across Seta's domain, and the piles twitched in place as Others rolled around within.

Seta sat with a taut, ready to pounce and the skin of his arms peeled off as he spread them. The fires from the forty-four braziers blazed at his gesture, and the air filled suddenly with the voices of screams, cries, the thud of wood and metal against damp flesh and bone. Seta hissed, and the legs dug deeper into the earth as they expanded.

Then the earth shook again, and Seta deigned to turn his gaze towards the sounds of battle that approached.

So they've noticed that it was water instead of glass they struck, but are stuck with only hammers. Inevitable. Those hunting dogs of the Order had all their intent and thoughts open to me like an open book the minute they stepped onto the soil of my hill.

Seta turned away from the approaching exorcists, for other matters now demanded his attention.

Now, where's my beloved sworn-sister. The way she ripped into the other thresholds was superb.

One of the brazier's toppled over, as the flame shot upwards into a pillar as two draconic homunculi shot out of the darkness. Two large cavities in the sky left in the wake of the draconic intrusion were engulfed in purple flame, before they sealed up like a blinking eye. The homunculi charged, their glossy sheen marred with soot and their horns soft lumps of metal that swayed as they advanced. The cult leader's mandibles clicked ferociously in delight, and his elation grew when a shadowed figure on all fours emerged from between the braziers and fired volleys of wooden shaft. The pedestal arose to shield Seta, the engraved curses a murderous red before metal and wooden bolt both hit the cult leader's shield together.

A white cloud burst open with the hiss of air at Seta's attempt to shield himself, and the cult leader howled when his left mandible and eye was pulped by the cloud with a single touch.

Orpheus- you've finally arrived!

Flesh melted as Seta's vision turned white and pain ate at his face. The braziers burned with greater intensity while Seta's face reformed from the attack. Seta ran his thumb across his newly formed face, and sniffed the white, coarse powder left behind. The shadows that lurked behind the light of his flames stirred, but Seta paid them no heed.

I recognize this exorcism mixture. Daniel's scent is all over the blessed ash!. Orpheus, only you will-

Seta's mandibles slowed in their movement, as the shadow came into view and the cult leader noticed the wolf and its rider hidden a darkness that lingered like a cloak.

"So it's just you, the stray the Clear-Eyed had picked up."

Seta's voice echoed and screeched at once as he spoke, and the dark wolf and its rider heeled before the transformed Seta. Volleys of bolts were loosened as the wolf rider leapt mid-air, before the ground erupted around Seta and the shafts splintered against carapace that rose from the earth.

"My name is Schwarz, host-slayer!"

"Among myriad things I would care enough to remember and mind? Your name and what you call me are low on the list," Seta said as a low growl emanated from below the pedestal." But you'd begrudge someone who pursues the Tao for his single-mindedness?"

Thick mucus dripped from the mandibles as Seta shook his head, and the ground hissed and smoked when the ooze touched it.

"No wonder Daniel took you in. You're just as distracted from the Tao as he-"

Schwarz raised her bow; before a ribcage tore open the ground she stood on and ran through the exorcist and her steed. The slime that dripped from Seta slithered across to swallow Schwarz as she was dragged into the earth, ride and all.

"Like I said," Seta turned his gaze and attention towards the far end of the stairs that led to his pedestal. "Distracted."

The wood of Seta's platform stirred, and the Others that lurked in the shadows scurried away as segmented legs colored in angry dark red began to dart in and out of the light cast by the brazier fires that remained.

Seta hissed in joy, and his body stirred and became less human before his budding frenzy stilled when he felt a tug in the back of his head. A tug that came from the edge of his threshold.

Downtrodden, Seta sat what's left of his human form on the elevated dais, while the darkness twisted before the shadows pulled open to reveal two teenage girls, one blonde and the other with wavy black hair. Seven PRT troopers stood behind them, their shields slung behind their backs and their weapons put away. The blonde's face was covered by a white handkerchief with a rune written in mud pasted on her forehead, while the last trooper dragged a body bag along.

Seta's eyes glowed red, as Orpheus bowed slightly and gestured to Soothsayer.

"A guest arrives bearing gifts, dear Kenta. Would you deny a blood-sister who did you no wrong hospitality?"

Smoke and shadow that clung to the floor parted, and Orpheus remained still at the pristine, almost shining path of wood and stone revealed that led upwards to the pedestal.

"If you're truly a guest, rather than a thief in the night? Welcome, honored guest. Scion of Daniel the Clear-Eyed."

"Surprised you can speak my father's name without stuttering, Typical of you to omit my name in your infinite ego though."

Orpheus lingered beyond the opening, while Soothsayer swayed side to side with a blank look on her face. The exorcist smirked at Seta, before Orpheus took a single stride pass the opening and onto the path.

"The curse didn't take you," Seta remarked as Orpheus' footsteps echoed along the bridge to his pedestal. "Well played, Orpheus."

"The way you spat out my runic name, Seta. It's almost like you weren't the one who suggested it to me when I first began my descent into becoming an exorcist."

"And you've learned well," Seta said as Orpheus walked towards him, her disciples and retinue trailed behind her swaying like a drunk. The trooper at the end dragged along a body-bag. "You and your disciple harmed not a single one of my minions or shikigami. Pity about your manners though."

"Manners? I've been nothing but a model guest and former intimate since you allowed me in." Orpheus sniffed as she sat cross-legged opposite him in the guest's position. "Or has becoming mostly centipede affected your sense of taste in every meaning of the word? Centipedes can't taste as well as humans, can they?"

Seta's gaze fell on the gathered troopers outside his personal threshold. Orpheus nodded in understanding, before she waved away Seta's veiled rebuke.

"Oh those? They're my retinue, to protect myself from your more bestial, impulsive servants."

"They attacked those that are mine. Are you saying you're responsible for them, Taylor?"

"Going with real names now, are we?"

The darkness twitched as they surrounded Taylor, who smirked and shrugged.

"Feel free to take them, though I doubt you'd find anything you'd find worth taking."

"I will be the judge of that." Seta snarled before he was on top of the offerings.

Smoke covered Soothsayer and the PRT troops as they were lifted by claws that emerged from the cloud, before Seta growled and his shadows retreated.

"Worthless!" Another dagger-filled glare at Orpheus while claws dropped Soothsayer and the troopers like sacks of meat against the wood. "Empty!"

The wood around Orpheus' feet bubbled as glops of dark green slime fell and ate away the floor, Seta's human face glowered at her from above the mandibles and segmented carapace that once resembled a centipede but was now more a bulge of meat and shell shaped into a sausage. Taylor ignored the mass of flesh, teeth and venom that menaced her while she focused her gaze onto the cracked tea bowl that laid upon the tatami mat Seta had sat on.

"Do not think I'd be so rude as to enter another's threshold without paying my dues, Kenta." The centipede followed Taylor's gaze, "you still have yet to make Father's Relic yours, haven't you?"

"You will hand it over to me, Orpheus?" Seta's voice echoed in the darkness that surrounded them, a thousand men, women and children speaking at once. "You will complete my desire to surpass the Daniel-no-Seimei, the Clear-Eyed?"

"Equal exchange, Kenta. I will have something in return for relinquishing my birthright to my father's legacy."

"You wish for me to stop the Bloodmoon?" Seta's serpentine form arched back languidly, like a worm in the mud. "You've become a good little exorcist I see."

"No, nothing so altruistic. I'm shocked, Kenta. You should know how much of a vindictive bitch I can be." Taylor sneered. "I want you to recite a Lamentation of Repentance for being a host-slayer."

Seta lunged forward, but stopped inches above Taylor when she raised her head to meet his gaze. Her hair and clothes fluttered from the breathing of the centipede about to devour her.

"Even a Returner cannot remain on this side of the Veil if I devour your core and use your corpse as a reagent to seize the Clear Eyed's Relic, Orpheus."

"And then you'd break the protection offered by the threshold if you harm a guest. All your years of preparation to invoke a Bloodmoon and obtain it's power, gone. In return for a chance that using the blood and flesh of my father's line would allow you to dominate his Relic at last?"

The skin on Taylor's cheeks swept backwards, revealing her gums as Seta snorted, before the centipede bit down and swallowed her in one bite. The sounds of crunching bone formed a dissonant chorus with the wails of the Others as cloak of darkness that covered the pedestal melted away with the threshold. Freed from bondage the Others turned on each other, they devoured, slew and danced in an frenzy of violence. Ichor, blood, slime and shell splattered and flew in the writhing mass of Other, while a few misguided strays wandered into the range of Seta's claws before being swiftly dispatched by a purple cloud belched from between the segmented carapace.

The centipede lumbered towards the tea bowl- the stolen Relic of Danny the Clear Eyed, before Seta disgorged lumps of damp meat, bone and chewed cloth around the tatami. The centipede purred, as he encircled the bowl protectively with it's eyes fixed on the Relic. It's feelers twitched in anticipation, as the blood soaked into the wood and patterns of the mat the bowl was placed on.

"I'll take that chance, Orpheus. What good is the Bloodmoon when I can obtain my desires by using you?"

Six dragonheaded rockets streaked across the night from above, showering Seta and the remaining Others with iron shot and boiling mercury. The sky lit up with white flame and echoed with prayers, while Seta hissed in pain and puffed another layer of purple smoke to ward off the rain of wrath from the exorcists and the Order. But Seta's eyes remained fixed on the Relic, as if hoping to will it into something.

Sukhavati! Obey your new master!

"Useless."

Despite the din of rocket fire and divine fire, Seta heard the footsteps from the soulless husks of Orpheus' retinue and disciple as they sprung to life when a phone's alarm went off. He turned towards them, and could only watch as the continued rain of fire and iron prevented him from advancing. Soothsayer tore off the handkerchief as the mud written charm faded into nothing, before she unzipped the body-bag to reveal Taylor in her exorcist uniform sans the jacket.

"Orpheus!"

"Thanks for falling for the bait, Seta," Taylor dusted off her shirt before she unsheathed her silver dagger. Charon emerged behind her in a cloud, while the troopers got their shields up. "I certainly couldn't have done it better myself, smashing aside all your painstakingly built defenses in one stroke like this."

"How!"

Seta's roar was hoarse, as more rockets rained and shattered his shell to reveal brown throbbing flesh beneath. Charon reached out, a trail of black smoke that sliced off the lower end of Seta causing him to collapse and smash part of the pedestal. One of the troopers reached beneath his armor and took out a flaregun, and the rain stopped when light and sound lit up the sky after he squeezed the trigger.

"Honored guest," Taylor shook her head, while she stood above next to Seta's head three times her size. " So confident were you, that you didn't follow the basic rule of inviting someone into your threshold. Always check the name."

"Impossible," Seta's voice wavered. "I would have known if you're a fake. Your intentions the minute you stood on my soil would have-"

Soothsayer tapped her phone, and a muffled ringtone played from deep within the severed half of Seta. Taylor grimaced, before she dug into the flesh and fished out a phone covered in ichor and flesh. The exorcist then flipped the phone backwards, and revealed strands of straw stuck to the back of the phone.

"Same trick I used on Gui, but with split part of my soul contained in a straw doll as bait so the illusion worked. Of course, a cheap trick like using that Thai boy Anuman's corpse wouldn't have worked in a threshold as strong as yours if you bothered to check, or even wondered how I of all people would approach you without several back-up plans."

"Split soul," Seta heaved, "Hun and po."

"Very nice. At least you're not a complete disappointment." Taylor clapped slowly before she lifted her dagger above her head, the gunk from Seta's body dripping down the blade. "You remember the first tenet of Taoshu philosophy, but not enough to accept your end was inevitable."

Seta's eyes turned to the Soothsayer and the troopers, pleading.

"If you care about the world, do not let her do it."

"Rich coming from a guy that nearly flushed this city into the freaking netherworld," the red glare of the moon cast a pall over Soothsayer's freckled cheeks and vulpine grin while she eyed him with contempt. "This is just sad."

Taylor plunged the knife in between the eyes, and with a cry pulled out what was once a man but now skinned muscle and bone. Soothsayer stared entranced as Taylor straddled the flesh mannequin using the hilt of her dagger as a handle, while the PRT troopers turned their backs on the scene. Charon hovered next to Taylor, before he nodded at Soothsayer and gestured for her to approach.

Soothsayer approached her master, the one above a man shaped mess next to a collapsing pile of putrid shell and flesh before she came to a stop seven steps away. Soothsayer clenched her fists at the cold sweat that formed spontaneously on her palms, and wanted to move her legs but found them frozen.

"You're scared, Sarah?"

"Terrified," Soothsayer stared at what's left of Seta. The words of Hidden Speech howled against the walls she erected, and it was so tempting to let them in.

"Just do it then," Sarah's head snapped back at Taylor, "it's pretty obvious what you're thinking of. Your Mark's making it almost painful to resist, isn't it?"

"I guess," Soothsayer licked her lips, "it's more a matter of my own issues."

Soothsayer focused on Seta, and let down the walls. She hissed at the onset of the intense, but now familiar pain and began to take apart the mystery.

A Mark, similar to Taylor's own. But there's something wrong, tainted. Not just a Returner like Taylor's, but a black stain that follows Seta around.

Soothsayer crumpled to the floor, and she found it hard to meet Taylor's gaze.

"So now you know what kind of person your master is, Soothsayer. Do you regret it?"

"Didn't have a choice," Soothsayer snapped. " Being foolish and easily misled isn't something to feel guilty over, Taylor. Seta misled you into stealing the tea vessel from your father."

"Takes a fool to know a fool, or to sympathize with one," Taylor snorted at the flash of anger on Soothsayer's face while she dabbed her right hand's index finger in Seta's blood. "You're ready."

"Are you sure, Taylor," Charon said.

"Who else but her, would be suitable to inherit the gift of the Sight? The complete you, the Clear-Eyed would enthusiastically push her to get it earlier."

Taylor got up, and left her dagger stuck in the skull of Seta while she walked over to Sukhavati, She stood over the Relic, before she stomped it into pieces and took the larges shard to cut open her left palm. Soothsayer winced at the sight, before her master walked over rubbing her palms.

"You ready, Sarah?"

"No."

Taylor nodded, before she splashed the combined blood of Seta and her own at Soothsayer's face. With the cut hand, Taylor forced open her disciple's jaw before Seta's remains bubbled into a thick stew and surged like a wave down Soothsayer's throat. She gagged and rubbed her sore jaw, before she fell flat on her back, her vision dominated by the blood moon that lurked in the sky. Soothsayer convulsed and floated inches above the floor, before she screamed out the one word appeared before her eyes.

"Soothsayer," Taylor intoned. "Speak the name of your Guardian Spirit."

Chi

螭

Demon. Dragon. Bug.

The Lights descended from the sky, as they converged to wrap her in a cocoon. Then, the lights vanished and Soothsayer crashed to the floor while she heaved and coughed. A bright red worm crawled out from thin air behind Soothsayer, and it was as thick as her arm and twice as long as she was tall. A pair of bright ivory mandibles clicked excitedly at the presence of it's new mistress, before Soothsayer brushed it aside. The worm spit a gob of slime, and it slithered out of sight into the hole created.

"My Spirit's a worm that spits venom," Soothsayer shuddered. "Joy."

"You do have an acid tongue," Taylor said before one of the trooper's radios crackled to life. The trooper ripped it out from her webbing, and everyone present converged around the radio.

"Orpheus...Dracul...Bloodmoon...tipping...Tear...ope-"

The Bloodmoon glowed, and all found themselves awash in crimson moonlight.

/x/

Soothsayer

We found ourselves back in the Hebert house, fresh from the gunk and stench you'd expect battling legions of demons and undead. Soft sepia twilight filtered in from the glass windows that had their drapes half pulled, and I could smell the aroma of meatloaf from the kitchen. The troopers who had accompanied us to hell on earth were missing, and I reached for my gun while Chi crawled out of my mind and circled me protectively.

The house was pleasant and warm. The furniture was neat, but lived in while the walls were spotless and every glass surface polished. The TV was on, showing some inane program with nary an ominous warning of the paranormal in sight.

I glanced at Taylor, and her pale face and the shivering she failed to hide confirmed my fears. This house was wrong, and a death trap.

"Oh, Taylor."

The voice was sickeningly sweet, and my ears twitched at the sound of a soft slippers against the carpet mixed with the clanging of a wooden spatula against glass. A woman with long wavy black hair walked out of the kitchen, a mixing bowl in her arms while she stirred with a wooden spatula. A perfect image of a domestic tranquility, if not for the stiff, wooden jerks as she lifted her head to face us. Pitch black eyes stared at me, while her lipsticked mouth opened to reveal rows of serrated fangs.

I shivered, as Chi rose up and hissed at the female figure. I turned back to Taylor, and her Returner features were in full bloom as well as a mirror image to the Other who took us here.

"Sarah, I'm so glad you're friends with my child, but do try to look at people when they're speaking to you?"

I felt my neck being turned, and I saw the Other beam proudly at us with her hands behind her back.

"Welcome home, Taylor. I missed you so much."