A/N: Beep!
(8)
Hrist told Madam Crow where I am and now she has come to badger me as well. She is not so easy to send away, however. She has been asked to leave my benefactor's abode but she lingers in the surrounding lands and I cannot leave the fortress without her becoming my shadow. My friend seems more angered by her presence than I, however. He believes that her constant vigil is an indicator that they do not trust me on my own, that they feel I must always be watched lest my blood show through. Why else would they be so desperate that I return to the High Priest? Would he have such interest in a mere human? No. He would not. These words make too much sense.
Is that what I am to the High Priest? An obligation? It must be. How could he truly have called me 'friend'?
~ Excerpt from Rorek's memoirs.
(O)
Chapter 53 – Ouroboros
Time had passed. Somehow she knew this even before she fully opened her eyes. But based on the effort it took to just lift her eyelids it felt as though she'd taken a 1-hour nap after staying up for two days straight. She was tired. Her brain was tired. Everything from her head to her feet was tired. Like she was only now laying down after a long day of training and some high-energy mission all rolled into one. She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and go back to sleep, but memories of the last time she was awake surfaced and presented questions that she wanted answers to. So she took a deep breath and concentrated on waking up. She opened her eyes fully and took stock of her surroundings.
Let's see, body that felt like it had been put through the ringer – check.
Arm whose existence was only notable because, phantom limb syndrome notwithstanding, amputated limbs couldn't possibly hurt this badly – check.
Comfortable bed with just the right amount of back support – check.
Sky-blue walls and ceiling of an Azarathian infirmary – check.
One hot white-haired dragon boy sleeping with his head on her bedside desk – check.
One hot black-haired dragon boy – no check. Where was Malchior?
Fortunately the desk was on her right side so it wasn't too much of a chore to reach over and nudge Rorek's head, though the actual nudge took a moment because the softness of his hair distracted her. She found herself playing with it a little, running her fingers through the snowy locks and rubbing some strands between her thumb and forefinger. She wondered what kind of shampoo he used. Same kind as Nightwing, probably, though with the added bonus of its natural health and beauty. It was as soft as feather down. Was Malchior's hair this soft? She was pretty sure it wasn't.
Her ministrations were enough to wake him. He sat up, his scarf slipping down off his face in the process. He smiled at her and took her hand in his. "How are you feeling?" he asked, kissing her palm.
"Tired. And my arm hurts. Actually everything hurts but my arm's the worst of it. What's happened?"
"Quite a bit. You've been asleep for about three days. I think all of Azarath tried to come visit on that first day but very few decided it was worth Malchior's snarl to insist." he told her.
"So…what's going on with the Church of Blood?" she pressed. Rorek sighed and explained.
They found out from Red X that the people who were harvested in that mansion in Gotham had all been members of the Church of Blood. So were those in Batman's pictures. They drained their actual victims slowly because they believed the power was in the blood alone and they could get more that way; you could recover lost blood after all. Mother Mayhem destroyed her cult for power. Half of it in that mansion and then the other half she killed when she brought them into the Rotthurst. So that was what she meant when she was talking about how the new church wouldn't question her. Raven felt sick. Apparently even other Blood Magic practitioners were cattle to Mother Mayhem. No one and nothing was sacred. There was no limit, no line, no boundary where you said 'thus far and no further'. And that was what destroyed nations.
Now, though, the monks were focused on hunting down the rest of the cult. Most of the people they were finding in the network had nothing to do with magic of any sort and, further, had only been part of the Church for the power such illuminati-esque connections brought them. The mass murder in Gotham, however, freaked most of them out and Zanith believed they would not be a threat. After all, without a Mother Mayhem or Brother Blood there simply was no more cult.
There were a few more Blood Magic practitioners, though, and Rorek was going to assist the monks in their hunt as soon as he was satisfied that Raven would be alright without him.
"Where's Malchior?" Raven asked, wondering why they couldn't just tag-team stalk—er, watch over her, like they usually did.
"He is…back at the T-tower." Rorek answered awkwardly. This seemed to be a question he didn't want her to ask. "By the way, your mother arrived with these two paintings that she gave to us, have you seen them? They—"
"Rorek, what's wrong with Malchior?" Raven cut in sharply. Rorek winced.
"Raven, before I tell you, you have to promise me to wait until you've recovered more. You are in no condition to move from this bed right now. Understand?"
"What happened to Malchior?"
"Promise me."
"Rorek!"
He sighed in defeat, suddenly looking very old and very weary. "He is…in a bad way. He has sequestered himself in the strong room that had been built for Red X and is refusing to allow anyone who…who contributed to enter. Miss Terra, Red X, and Cyborg are making sure he has food while I am here. He is asleep right now, but I'll let him know you woke. That will give him some comfort." he said.
"Contributed? Rorek, you're not making sense. What's happened to him?" she demanded.
"The Blood Magic." Rorek answered grimly. "Perhaps…perhaps it would not have been so bad had he not been tainted with the other kind, the stolen kind, but…call it 'withdrawal'. He is craving blood, he is craving the power. And when I say he is craving it, I mean that his very body believes it will die if he does not have more. It is not as bad as it would have been had he stolen that power, but it is very bad nonetheless."
"I want to see him." She tried to sit up. She got about three inches off the pillow before her body expressed a very emphatic lack of enthusiasm for this idea and she fell back.
"No." Rorek's response was gentle, but it had a firmness that brooked no arguments. "You need to rest. This may come as a surprise to you, My Love, but you are human – if only a little bit – and it is going to take some time for you to recover. It may be that your power will return swiftly, but your body was heavily damaged; especially your arm. Until you are at least able to sit up by yourself you are staying here. That is the agreement. Once you can do that much then you will be released back to the tower in a wheelchair and no arguing. Cyborg is even now building a hovering chair with as many comforts and interesting amenities as he can think of since you will be using it for a few weeks."
"Weeks?-!"
"Considering the fact that the average dragon would be bedridden the rest of their life after a strike of half as much power, I would count my blessings." Rorek stated. "You were hit with enough Blood Magic to take down a god, Raven. That you are recovering at all is amazing and very likely due solely to the fact that you were wearing one of the original Nibelungen rings."
She sighed. She was too tired to argue and, deep down, she knew he was right. "So…what have the others been up to?" she asked. Then memory threw up another card. "Is Damien alright?"
"He is still a bit disoriented but Patriarch Zanith is confident that they have cleansed him of anything that was left over even after Mother Mayhem's death." Rorek answered. "As for the rest of the Titans, most of them have returned to Jump City to keep the peace, as it were. However, a temporary door portal has been erected in the tower's basement leading to a nearby section of the Citadel so that we might come and go as we please while you are here." he explained. "I believe things are returning to normal, or as normal as they can be without the three of us for the time being. Still, Terra is quite powerful, Ophelia is staying with us, and I believe Kid Flash intends to take up permanent residence in the city, albeit he intends to live in one of the Wax Ribbon's spare apartments."
"Does that mean Jinx is—" Raven began but was cut off by the door to her hospital suite slamming open. Raven looked over, the slight elevation of her pillow allowing her to see that the doorway now revealed the very sorceress she'd just named.
"Speak of the devil and she shall appear!" Jinx declared dramatically. "Just kidding! Raven! Glad you're awake! You've got to read this, this is hilarious!" she said, waving her communicator in the air. It had a webpage of some sort open but Jinx didn't bother trying to get Raven to read it. "I was coming to show Rorek so he could pass it on to Malchior but you'll probably get a kick out of it too. So, like, you remember a week or two ago when Kitten tried to blackmail Malchior into going on a date with her? Well it appears as though she decided to post on the White and Black Knight's official fan site, saying that everyone should stop fangirling over Black Knight because he tried to kill her. Guess what happened."
Raven thought she could guess but decided to give Jinx the satisfaction of telling them. "What?" she asked.
"Black Knight's popularity is now officially neck-and-neck with White Knight." she answered. "Before it'd only been about half as high since he hasn't been around quite as long and people are still trying to figure him out."
"Let me get this straight: Malchior threatens and attempts to carry out said threat on a young woman's life and he is liked for this?" Rorek asked.
"Fangirls are crazy. Besides, Kitten's identity was somehow leaked. No idea how that happened." Jinx said with wide, innocent eyes. Said eyes then focused on a point somewhere to the right of Raven's head. She grinned widely. "Are you two holding hands?" she asked.
"No." Raven answered in face of the evidence.
Still grinning, Jinx turned her communicator on its side. Rorek, who seemed to be catching on to technology, got his scarf up swiftly. Raven sighed.
"Jinx, please don't film this."
"But you two look so cute together!"
"I'm in a hospital bed wearing a tacky outdated hospital gown. I don't want this on the internet." Raven stated.
"Come on, Raven. It'll show people you're actually mortal like the rest of us."
"Bad idea." Raven said. "Then the fangirls will think this means they can kill me and, for their own sake, they shouldn't try."
"Why? 'Cause Malchior will kill them?"
"That too." Raven said. "Jinx, turn the camera off."
"Awwww, but I can't film anything in the tower!"
"What makes you think you're allowed to film in an infirmary?" Raven demanded. She sighed. She was too tired to deal with this right now. She both wanted and needed to go back to sleep, but she wasn't about to let Jinx get away with this. "I warned you." she said lazily. And then she…made a request.
Jinx let out a scream and dropped her communicator. Raven grinned and started chuckling. "What the crap was that?-! Raven! That was not funny!" she shouted.
"What did you do?" Rorek asked. Raven was still laughing, but she was swiftly running out of energy.
"Sort of…corrupted the file." she mumbled.
"Oh good gawd, it's still recording! Stop! Stop!" Jinx cried out, picking her communicator back up. She waved it at Raven and shouted something angrily but Raven was already too far gone to hear.
(O)
Cyborg was busy working on a difficult part of that chair he was building for Raven, Terra and Beast Boy were…out, and Rorek was in Azarath glued to Raven (big surprise). That meant Malchior was alone, and that didn't sit right with Red X. It was bothering him. A lot. In fact it surprised him how much it was bothering him. He tried to put it out of his mind, tried to tell himself that he was probably the last person Malchior wanted to be around right now. Red Eyes and Cyborg had similar tastes in video games while he and Terra apparently shared some similar past crime – though X had no idea what that could possibly be. Terra just didn't seem like the kind of girl who was capable of the kind of crimes a guy like Malchior could cook up when he had no reason not to. But maybe that was only his opinion.
X's knee was going up and down rapidly as he sat there watching some documentary about fungus that Starfire had asked them to turn to. Lady Eisen had left already but Nightwing, as per the standard contract of boyfriend-ship, was stuck where he was. X just had nothing else to do.
No, actually he did. And his conscience – which was getting more and more annoying lately – was just flat out not leaving him alone about it.
Finally, swearing inwardly, he got up, dug around the Titans' DVD collection for some Action/Adventure stuff that had plenty of guns and explosions and no magic, and left the living room. Nightwing, who probably assumed he was going to watch the movies in his own room, didn't even glance his way.
Red X tapped his foot as the elevator took him down to the lowest level of the Tower and then he jogged down a few flights of stairs before coming to a door that had once been his for all of a few days. He knocked on the door. "Yo! Red Eyes! I have some movies! You like big fiery explosions, desperate situations, and most people winding up dead, right? Ever seen Pitch Black? It's pretty good." he called.
No response.
He knocked again. "Come on, man! It's boring as crap up there! All the interesting people are occupied and my hilarious movie commentary needs an audience. Hello? Yo, Red Eyes! Are you alive in there?" He decided to try the door. To his surprise it opened right up. "Red Eyes? Are you—" He stopped abruptly and stared. "Damn." he swore, dropping the DVD cases.
He had just enough presence of mind to close the door and lock it behind him before rushing over to the heap on the floor. He let out a long stream of swearwords as he knelt down next to Malchior and yanked off a glove so he could feel for a pulse, just in case. He wasn't too surprised when he felt it, but he was relieved all the same.
"Dang, man, what happened? You get into an argument with yourself or something?" Red X asked. Malchior opened a crusty eye and growled at him. Apparently he wasn't in the mood for humor. X swore again. "Alright, alright, come on. We can at least get you washed off, right? Up we go." He pulled one of Malchior's arms over his shoulders and levered the dragon up onto his feet. The dragon didn't protest or struggle. Instead he managed to get his feet under him and feebly walked a little while leaning heavily on Red X for support.
X managed to get him into the tub. Malchior wasn't wearing any more than his pants and those were in tatters so they were now more like shorts. Clinging to a brace bar for support, Malchior stood there as Red X turned on the faucet and waited for the water to warm up. When he was satisfied with the temperature he turned on the shower head, pulling the curtains across so the water wouldn't get all over the bathroom floor. Malchior pulled himself under the spray. Crusted and caked blood, much of it still fresh and glossy, started running freely down his white skin and draining out of the shower. "Hotter." he rasped. Red X obliged and adjusted the temperature a bit. "Hotter." Malchior insisted. Shrugging, X turned the temperature up until the water was practically scolding. Only then did Malchior seem satisfied. He sighed. "Technology is a wonderful thing. Hot springs were such a bugger to find in my millennia." he said, his voice sounding better.
"You look like hell, man. Wanna tell me what happened?" X asked.
Another sigh. "It is called the Ouroboros. It is the one and only way to wean oneself off of Blood Magic. Unfortunately it comes with its own dangers."
"Ouroboros, right, explains everything, that does. Hey, why don't we play a game? Let's pretend I don't really know all that much about magic and everything you just said went right over my head, shall we?"
This time Malchior chuckled. "The phrase 'Feast of the Serpent' has two meanings in the magics of my time. The first is the meaning prescribed to it by Blood Magic practitioners. The serpent, a traditional symbol of evil, feeds upon the weak to gain strength. The second meaning is the Ouroboros, the serpent swallowing its own tail, feasting upon itself, you might say. In human lore the Ouroboros is a symbol of cycles and eternity and other such things, but for dragons it means something very different. The serpent, the symbol of evil, bites its own tail so that it does not harm anyone else. Evil choosing not to be evil; choosing to destroy itself rather than harming an innocent.
"Blood Magic is an addiction like no other." he went on. "One taste is all it takes, and you will crave it down to your very bone. Too much and your body will believe that it is going to die without it. Too much and this invariably becomes the case. But there is a cure, one cure, and that is to take your own blood."
"But…Blood Magic doesn't work like that." Red X said.
"Exactly. No power is gained, no Blood Magic is used, but your body thinks it is getting the blood it demands even though it isn't; it doesn't even soak in properly."
"Wait, so the cure for Blood Magic is cutting?" Red X demanded.
"Like I said, it comes with its own dangers. It can become addictive in its own right."
"Uh, how?"
"Because it releases endorphins." Malchior turned and gave X a wry smirk through his damp locks. "At least, that's what science claims."
"Riiiiight, creepy. Well, here's a washrag and some soap. I'm going to clean up the living room and make some popcorn."
"Very well, then. I shall stand here and bleed to death, shall I?"
"Uh, no man. You're going to get cleaned up and watch Pitch Black with me, and we are going to commentate while I record our hilarious banter with this communicator. Afterwards we shall post the video up on YouTube and get thousands of subscribers. There is no space in this timetable for bleeding to death, got it?"
Malchior chuckled. "Very well then. Only one question."
"What's that?"
"When did you become a Teen Titan?"
"Uh, I didn't. I just got the communicator because…because…" Pause. "HOLY FREAKING CRAP, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?-!"
(O)
When Raven opened her eyes a second time she felt much better. Rorek wasn't there but Arella was. She tried not to feel too disappointed. Rorek was probably out hunting Blood Magic-users and it was nice to see her mother. After all, not long ago she thought she'd never see Arella again so it was a plus.
Raven sat up without thinking and managed a good upright position for about five seconds before her body said 'that's enough', and she gently laid herself back down. Arella looked up from the easel she'd brought into the suite with her and smiled. "Feeling better?"
Actually no, she wasn't. She felt stronger and better rested, but a few moments of consciousness revealed to her that the pain was worse and it was practically everywhere, especially in her immobile left arm. Raven found herself wincing a little. She wondered if Azarath has discovered the wonders of non-magical painkillers yet. If they had it was probably little more than ibuprofen and the amount of ibuprofen it would take to dull this would probably be lethal. Besides that, Raven had never actually gotten any results from the weak drugs. Only opiates seemed to work on her and she didn't like the effect they had on her mind. Actually opiates worked on everyone, even Starfire. Even Malchior! That was a bit worrying. It kind of made you wonder what in the world they were doing to normal humans.
Raven sighed. Of course, she didn't really need drugs, did she? She was a bit leery about doing it the other way, though. That was always risky. Pain was there for a reason after all. But there was a lot of pain and it was steadily increasing as her awareness grew. So she closed her eyes and…adjusted things.
It wasn't that she took the pain away, exactly. No, that wouldn't really work. The pain would always come back one way or another and, in any case, where could she take it to? What she did was simply put it off to the side. She was aware of it, but it did not touch her. It was like having a bucket of water standing next to you. You were aware of the water being there but you weren't actually wet. The pain was still there and she knew it was, but she felt it as though it were the memory of pain rather than the actual pain itself. She relaxed and opened her eyes. There, much better. She'd have to watch it, though. There were records of people who had died doing this simply because they didn't keep track of it and forgot just how sick or damaged they were.
"I've been better." she finally told Arella.
"Not a huge help, but I suppose you're not obligated to give your mother details." Arella mused, putting her brushes and little paint box to the side. She then turned her easel about so Raven could see what she was working on. "What do you think?"
Not for the first time did Arella's skill amaze Raven. It was unlikely that she had gotten much more than a glimpse of one or the other of the twins with their scarves off, and yet there they were with what appeared to be every scar in place with an accuracy that matched Raven's own memory – which was pretty good considering she'd been seeing those markings quite often lately.
Arella had them standing side-by-side and angled slightly away from one another. They looked exactly the same in every respect save for the coloring and the look in their eyes. Somehow, Raven simply couldn't figure out how, she had managed to give Rorek an expression of calm serenity, as though he could simply stand and watch for as long as necessary. Malchior, however, had the look of someone ready to leap right out of the portrait and make inventive use of the first sharp object he came across.
Another interesting part of this portrait was the way she'd done their hair. Arella was good at doing hair. It was probably her favorite part of a portrait. In this she had their hair positioned in such a way that it looked like the strands were connected at the ends with white turning slowly into black and vice-versa. The background was a basic cast of gray texture with a hint of blue behind Rorek and a hint of red behind Malchior. It wasn't entirely finished; it looked like she still needed to touch up on some bits of armor and Malchior's eyes. Even so, it was already breathtaking. And it wasn't as though the twins made bad material, either.
"Is that for me?" Raven asked, pretty sure it was.
"You? Why would it be for you? No this is mine. My future sons-in-law."
Raven's face went very red. "Mother!" she exclaimed, glad no one else was in the room.
"I'm just kidding. Yes it's for you. I can be happy with all the pictures I found on your communicator."
Eep! "You…went through my pictures?" Raven groaned.
"Rorek tried to very politely stop me if it makes you feel any better. He seemed quite surprised, and rather pleased, when he found out that the majority of your album featured him and Malchior." Arella giggled, probably because of the look on Raven's face.
Daanik…she'd been hoping no one would find out about all those pictures. No Titan ever snooped through another Titan's communicator – especially not with Raven getting so good at mixing magic and technology – so she'd never felt it necessary to put a password on hers. They weren't even all the pictures she'd taken, either. They were just the ones she liked to look at. And there happened to be a lot of them. A lot more of them than there was of anyone else, point of fact. And, up until now, she was pretty sure no one knew just how often she was taking pictures while appearing to be idly toying with her communicator. She'd been hoping to keep it that way, though she wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe it was because she didn't want Jinx to complain about Raven's lack of photo restrictions. Maybe she was a bit embarrassed and didn't want to be teased. Or maybe she didn't want Malchior to start posing every time he spotted her innocently messing with her communicator (because that was definitely something he'd do). Whatever the reason, it looked like the jig was up now.
"I think my favorite is the one where they fell asleep leaning against one another. It looked so sweet, especially when compared to all the ones of them having some sort of scuffle or glaring contest. Do they fight a lot?"
"Not nearly as much anymore, but back in the beginning it seemed like they couldn't go a single day without some sort of contest or bout of fist-fighting. The term 'fighting with myself' has taken on a whole new meaning for us."
"Did they fight over you?"
Apparently so, though they'd had the decency not to make it obvious. She didn't say that out loud, though. Instead she answered, "They fought over anything. Sometimes I don't think they even bothered to find a reason first." She'd recorded a few of their arguments and scuffles, but those video files were tucked away on her computer and were not currently on her communicator (thank Maartuz).
Arella chuckled and turned her easel back around so she could continue working on it and still face her daughter. "Well, they seem quite comfortable with one another now. Or, at least, they do whenever I'm around. I hope you don't mind, but we've been spending some time together. Well, Rorek and I have. It seems Malchior's battle fatigue caught up with him a day later and he insisted on being treated at the Tower by Cyborg. I think the healers might have spooked him."
"Does Healer Teresa still have the life-size animated skeleton puppet that talks?"
"I'm afraid so."
"That would do it." Oh not the skeleton itself, of course. Skeletons wouldn't worry Malchior. Especially not the magically animated puppets with a magically animated voice box controlled by the magic-user. What would worry him was the fact that one of the healers felt it necessary to walk around the infirmary with one following along behind her making suggestions that she, herself, was giving it to make. And having conversations with it. And admonishing it for making rude jokes. And dressing it in overalls. And calling it 'Bill Door'.
There was only so much one could take before they decided house calls were worth the expense.
That wasn't why Malchior was staying at the Tower, though. Raven knew that, but Arella didn't need to.
"Where's Rorek right now?" Raven asked.
"Getting some sleep. I insisted. I told him I would go and fetch him when you woke up again but since that was only a few hours ago I think I'll leave it for now. Patriarch Zanith has been running him ragged, though I don't know what for. I know he's missing you a lot right now. It seems you were some kind of buffer between himself and the world and now he's having to deal with the world without you. His temper has been showing as a result. I thought he was going to cut off Madam Crux's head when she came by! Thank goodness the Patriarch was here to tell her off or he might have done it." Arella chattered.
"Madam Crux? What did she want?" Raven demanded.
"Raven," Arella began warningly, "You let me deal with Madam Crux." she instructed. "She is not the overpowered leader of a cult, she is not an inter-dimensional demon, she is not even a particularly powerful sorceress. She is a petty pompous windbag that, regardless of her restricted world views and opinion that said world is going to be as she wants it to be despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, does not deserve to run headlong into you. Eventually she is going to realize that her actions and attitude are driving away her own family and that revelation will be hard enough to deal with without it being slapped in her face. It will be punishment enough all on its own. Please, Raven?"
Raven deflated. "Alright." she sighed in defeat.
Arella smiled. "Incidentally, did you know that dragons don't have marriage ceremonies? Apparently their bonding rite is a private affair. They believe the only necessary witnesses to the marriage is this entity they call Iiam Bormah, who sees and knows everything, and the god they call 'Maartuz', who is invoked by a particular litany. I found that very interesting. I asked Rorek if they objected to ceremonies and he said—"
"MOTHER!-!-!"
Raven was saved from her mother's bout of laughter when a healer came into the room wearing a set of pale blue scrubs with a flower pattern on them. Well that was new. Last Raven remembered, the healers all wore white robes with red crosses on the back and a whole lot of pockets on the front. Scrubs must be suddenly in. She smiled when she saw Raven, who had sat up in her indignation and found herself flopping back down onto her pillows. "Ah, good, you're awake again. How do you feel?"
Raven got control of herself and, fortunately, so did Arella.
Knowing that healers, like doctors, hated vague answers like 'fine' or 'been better', Raven took a moment to consider the present wad of pain she was keeping carefully off to the side. "Like my arm was shoved into a portable meat grinder while the rest of me got caught up in a tornado that had picked up a knife-making factory on its way and my only protection was a single layer of plastic shipping wrap. Oh, and I think I've got a bad headache on top of all that but it's a bit hard to tell because my arm is demanding most of the attention." she explained.
The healer frowned. "Is the pain that bad? You don't seem to be—oh, I forgot, you've had monk training. Well at least you admit the pain is there. That's a blessing. I can give you something to dull it if you think you'll need it."
"It won't be worth it. Only opiates work on me. I've tried just about everything else with no results." Raven said.
"Well, a magic-user in Germany found an alchemical combination of Mandragora root and mint leaves that has had marvelous results on every patient who's tried it so far. Want to give it a go?"
Raven thought about it and decided that, yeah, she'd give it a try. She preferred not to take the risks involved in ignoring her pain like this and healer looked eager to further the progress of magical development. If she could find a non-opiate that'd take away her pain then that would be all the better for her, right?
Too late she remembered that Mandragora root was a hallucinogen.
(O)
The Order had tracked down four Blood Magic practitioners connected to the Church of Blood. Rorek, however, found two more. The Order insisted that there were no others. They even took into account the masking drug that Red X told them about. Rorek had insisted and acted on the belief that there were more. He had been right, the Order had been wrong. This was because Rorek was not hunting alone or even by his own power.
From the moment he had begun this search he felt their presence alongside him. They continued to gather and press in around him as he had neared his first target and, when he got there, he found the practitioner in a state of heightened paranoia and fear – which befitted someone who was being stalked by their own shadow.
Free will meant that people were free to sink into the very bowels of their sins and commit terrible acts against those others whose worst crime was, perhaps, the occasional scuffle with their neighbor over an overgrowing hedgerow. Free will meant that you were free to learn and practice this terrible magic. But you were also free to face the consequences of it as well.
Malchior had told Rorek of the whole problem with pollution in this modern day and something called 'global warming'. They'd both had a good chuckle about that. The very idea that mortal beings could truly do such damage to the world's ecosystems and atmosphere so indirectly, believing that they had never done so before in one form or another, was so arrogant and preposterous that Rorek had to sit back and simply marvel at it. The world as a body could deal with pollution. There was no such thing as this 'global warming', though. Such changes to the atmosphere's aperture was completely normal. They knew this because it'd been about that size a thousand years ago. The world could take care of itself. That was rather the problem because some of the ways it did so was with violent acts of nature. Storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and so on.
As far as he understood or cared to understand, the shadows were the incorporeal equivalent of such storms.
One by one he hunted, found, and caught the remaining practitioners. Walking with the shadows, aided and guided by them but never touching and never being touched because he was not the Dark Keeper, not personally. But it seemed he had become her adjutant. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it was simply that the shadows were accompanying him as two travelers might who were on the same road aiming for the same destination. Perhaps his connection to Raven only meant that they knew him as an ally of sorts. What did it mean to be the Dark Keeper? What was the purpose of there being a Dark Keeper in the first place? Were there duties that a mortal being was necessary for? There were speculations about this but no one knew for sure, not even him. It was not something that Hrist spoke of willingly and he doubted Raven would tell him more.
Finally he came upon the last practitioner. In all actuality the man ought to be half-crazed with paranoia but he still managed to cast a veil of normalcy over the world, thinking he was dealing with Rorek and only Rorek even though, by now, he ought to know better.
"Wait! I—I have information!"
"I do not need it."
"Money, then! I can give you—"
"No."
"I'll give you whatever you want! Just tell me what you want!"
"The calm of the storm that rises from the taint of you and all your kind."
"Wh-what? No! Wait! I—"
The scream went on for quite some time. Rorek did not even touch the man. And when it was done he felt the shadows dissipating, a storm blowing over.
You could not hide from the light, and where the light did not shine there were the shadows. Shadows were of the light. But the shadows were in darkness as well and the guilty have more to fear from the dark than do the innocent. In fact, the innocent had nothing to fear from them. But no sentient being of corporeal existence is truly innocent. Rorek certainly wasn't. And that was why he relaxed with relief when the shadows left him.
That was it. It was over. All over.
…No, it wasn't. The gods would never stop trying, would they? But they had been thwarted this time. Blood Magic had been eradicated. The world would heal, strengthen, and (he prayed) the seal would become too strong for them to reach Raven any longer. Finally they might find peace in this new life.
Well, as much peace as could be found by those who made it their business to keep it. And now it was time to return to his Lady.
(8)
A/N: You guys do realize that when I say 'the next story' I'm actually talking about the sequel, right? Okay good, just wanted to get that cleared up. ^_^
I'm a bit rushed today so I'm afraid I don't have time to pick out a 'Coming up in the next chapter:' phrase. Sorry!
