Chapter 43: Through Night and Wind

  That kid wants to kill him.

  Dante's hand found Ace's armoured shoulder and pressed down on it. His bloodlust was dull, radiating from him in pulses, but Dante knew that if he did not quell it, it would become razor sharp.

  Ace would not know how to wield such a blade.

  Under Dante’s fingers, Ace’s shoulder shifted. He held out his staff further away from his body, ready to attack. His eyes were dark, wholly locked onto Faust.

  Dante shifted his weight, stepping closer, but not quite blocking Ace’s path. He squeezed his shoulder once. Twice. Then he moved his hand to the centre of Ace's chest, just over his heart.

  Stay back.

  Ace stepped forward, pushing against his hand.

  Dante cast a warning look at his student. Ace's eyes were wild, burning with something darker than simple anger. But he met Dante's gaze and held it.

  Dante blinked once and shook his head. Ace stopped pushing. His fist uncurled. His breathing slowed, deepened. The Essence coursing through his armour went back to a lighter blue hue. Dante's hand remained on Ace’s chest a moment longer, then fell away.

  Ace seemed to have understood.

  Across them, Faust snapped his fingers.

  The doors to the operating theatre dragged open once more with a rasp. Dante's hand tightened around his sword hilt, locking eyes with the young boy standing behind the doors.

  It was Faust’s son, Oliver.

  Condensation curled around the child's legs like grasping fingers. He clutched a stuffed clownfish to his chest, his breath turning to mist in the cold air. He sneezed into his clownfish and wiped his nose with it. “Come on.” Faust crouched down, inviting his son forward with open arms. “Don’t be shy.”

  Oliver stepped forward.

  A piercing scream echoed through the space.

  Something heavy slammed against the floor beyond the doorway. Kayla landed on her side, the lower half of her body blocked by the door. She thrashed in her restraints. “Oliver—” Her voice cracked. “Oliver, stop—please—”

  “I won’t hurt you,” Faust murmured. “Calm, be calm, child.”

  Oliver shuffled forward. He held his stuffed toy close to his chest. Faust held Oliver’s face. “Good boy.”

  Dante’s gaze snapped to Ace. The white strands in Ace’s hair quivered as he took in ragged, uneven breaths.

  “Let them go,” Ace growled.

  “To whom? You, a stranger masquerading as a valiant hero?” Amber slowly coloured Faust’s grey eyes like watercolour across a blank canvas. The amber only made him look like a devil or a snake, or perhaps both.

  “He’s your son!” Ace implored.

  The amber flickered for a moment but quickly returned as Faust hardened his gaze. He spun his son around by the shoulders. Oliver’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “My son? He may look like me, but a simple DNA test showed that I wasn’t even a full match,” he snarled. “Biologically, he’s my nephew.”

  Ace freed up a hand. His fingers flexed and contorted into something that resembled the head of an animal. The runes on his arm covering started to sputter, and his Essence started to churn violently. Dante’s gaze darted to the shadows Ace cast on the wall. He could see the slit of light that formed the eyes of the beasts Ace was bent on summoning. Their shadowy fangs sharpened rapidly, curving inwards.

  Dante summoned his whip, blocking Ace this time. “Stand down.”

  “No.” Ace’s eyes narrowed into slits.

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  “Look at Oliver’s body. Faust is not using his ability on him just yet,” Dante lied as best as he could, hoping that Ace would fall for it. “We cannot afford to endanger them. Stand down.”

  The aura enveloping Ace flickered. The shadows lurched and spasmed as Ace’s stance broke. Their formation collapsed into erratic, twisting shapes that writhed against the wall before melting into nothingness.

  As Ace was regaining his calm, a surge of Cursed Essence erupted through the space.

  The stench of plaster dust, rust, and decay all mingled together, thick and suffocating. As though on cue, the walls crumbled and another horde of half-thawed corpses burst out of them. The building itself had become part of the corpses, or perhaps the corpses had become the building. Ribs protruded from load-bearing beams. Skin was stretched thin over plaster. Limbs tangled with pipes that had become extensions of their rotting anatomy.

  Faust is out of corpses, Dante deduced.

  Dante readied his sword, but the corpse before him ducked.

  “Ace, run!”

  Behind him, Ace launched himself backwards, creating distance. “Keep your head down!” He held his staff horizontally in front of him. “Vision Manifestation: Sleipnir!”

  The steed erupted into existence above Dante in a burst of shimmering Essence, its ethereal form solidifying just as its hooves struck the ground. Ace landed atop it, using his staff to twist the reins. The Vision wrenched itself into a turn so sharp that its body nearly went horizontal. Hooves scrabbled for purchase, gouging deep marks into the floor as momentum fought against direction. Its muscles bunched and coiled, and then it launched down the opposite direction, passing through Dante and disappearing in a streak of luminous Essence.

  The corpses gave chase, hot on Ace’s heels, brushing past Dante as though he did not exist. When the dust settled, it was just him and Faust. In the chaos, Faust had somehow sent his family elsewhere.

  ”You’re sharp.” Faust applauded slowly. “And I see that you’ve nurtured a very capable student.”

  ”I’d rather not take compliments from someone like you.”

  “You knew, didn’t you?” Faust asked. “Unfortunately, children are a bit more difficult. Too full of life, too full of optimism and far too dense, figuratively and literally. Nice lie, by the way, very effective.”

  Dante tightened his grip on his sword. “It seems that your darling can’t bring himself to kill humans. You reek of the same hesitation,” Faust continued to gloat. “Now, it’s just that strange ring and sword against all I’ve-”

  Dante whistled between his teeth.

  Before Faust could even complete his sentence, Hollow Sparrow made its landing known in his neck. The strike was so swift that Faust’s vocal cords continued vibrating for half a syllable after the blade had already passed through. His head tumbled onto the floor with a wet splat, the final word dying in his throat mid-articulation. It rolled once before coming to a stop, his amber eyes still wide with the expression he had worn a heartbeat before. They stared blankly at the ceiling, unfocused and confused, while his mouth remained frozen in a hard ‘O’.

  Hollow Sparrow returned to Dante’s waiting hand, its hilt slapping against his palm.

  “You have another ace up your sleeve!” The mouth quickly contorted into a sneer. “And this time, you weren’t using the little ring. Just that little blunt sword.”

  “Blunt?” Dante turned towards the doctor’s body, flicking the blood off his dulled blade. Sinews of muscle from the neck were already reconnecting to the head. The pool of blood was shrinking as fibrous tendrils pulled it back into the body. Self-dismemberment. That was how he was able to escape from his restraints. Scarlet cannot bind what it thinks is dead.

  “You aren’t going to stop me?” Faust asked as he snapped his head into position.

  Dante whipped his sword sideways and cleaved the doctor in half right above his navel. Just as he thought, there was no core in sight.

  An old feeling came back to Dante, and it made his hair stand on end. There was something oddly familiar about the scene laid out before him, but he just could not place his finger on it. “Coward,” he spat without a second thought.

  Faust hugged his bleeding belly as he stitched himself together, letting out a deep laugh. “You can’t kill me,” he sneered. “She told me all about your laws. You simply aren’t allowed to.”

  The written law flashed through Dante’s mind — and in the same breath, Faust said it aloud.

  The power of judge, jury, and executioner shall be vested solely in the Elders.

  “Only the Elders hold my life! Only the Elders can kill me!”

  A strange sound burst through Dante’s lips. It was a low, hollow sound. His lips curved upward slightly in a crooked smile. A shiver ran down his spine as his mind wrapped around the incredulity of his expression of amusement.

  For the first time in ages, Dante found himself laughing.

  What law? The only ‘law’ that applied to him was the kill-on-sight order that came from the Elders. He caught himself, wiping the amusement off his face. “Since you have heard so much, you would know about the guillotine over my head,” he revealed to Faust.

  “Of course,” Faust smirked. “I’ll spare the Elders the effort and send your head on a platter once the barrier falls.”

  “Don’t waste your time. I’ve no intention of granting you, or them, that pleasure.”

  Faust cocked his head. “You’re a strange man,” he said. ”You seek death, but when I offer it to you, you reject it.”

  “I dislike leaving behind unfinished business.” Hollow Sparrow sang as Dante brought his sword to bear. “And you are not strong enough to kill me."