Content warning:
The following story contains nonconsensual sex, mind-break, and the on-screen death of a supporting character.
***
Sister Nina's fingers idled at the hilt of her ceremonial dagger. Saints willing, she wouldn't have to use it. She was trained with it, like all of her fellow hunters, but invokers like her weren't really expected to involve themselves in the bloody business of combat. When the target was bound and vulnerable, it was the ranking officer's duty to deliver the final blow.
Tonight, that duty would fall to Brother-Inquisitor Godfrey, a glowering, square-jawed titan of a man. He was already bracing his shoulder against the flimsy wooden door of the decrepit townhouse. Nina didn't much like Godfrey. He was a swaggering lout who treated his fellow hunters as accessories to his own glory, and the flexibility of his vow of chastity was an open secret among the serving staff back at the monastery. But his strong sword arm and fearsome disregard for physical pain made him a natural paladin, and, by all accounts, his hunting record was genuine.
"Brothers and sisters," he said, keeping his voice low. A squad of armoured zealots hustling down an empty street wasn't exactly subtle even if they tried, and Godfrey rarely tried, but he maintained the fiction of stealth regardless. "Behind that door is a wayward soul, an
intellectual
" - he spat the word like a curse - "whose meddling with the Beneath has borne blasphemous fruit. We know not what ruin she has brought upon her body, but it now stains the beauty of the world."
Nina clutched at the cluster of silver icons that jangled softly at her waist. She recalled the briefing, the Abbot's lurid descriptions of the kinds of mutations they might expect. Summoned horrors and laboratory creations were one thing, but this was Nina's first possessed target, and the mere thought of a human form warped by hellish influence was disquieting.
"Such a twisted wretch demands St Ashildr's mercy," Godfrey went on, "and it falls to us to deliver it. Who will stand with me?"
With a soft clatter of steel plating, the Knights of St Ashildr raised their fists skyward in unison, saluting. Nina took a deep breath as she joined them, trying to steady her racing heartbeat. It was easier to be brave with so much armoured bulk between her and the demon.
"To arms, then," grinned Godfrey, drawing a bastard sword from the scabbard on his back. Even in the dim lamplight, Nina could make out the battle-psalm carved along the length of its blade. Two of the paladins drew shorter swords of their own and hefted shields, while the other two drew back the levers of their crossbows and loaded them with blessed bolts.
Nina, of course, needed no weapon. With a moment's focus, she offered up a prayer to the saints. Even after a thousand repetitions, the heady tingle of holy power flowing into her palms still gave her a little thrill.
Sister Estelle, one of the shieldbearers and Godfrey's second in command, pressed her ear to the door and whispered a prayer of her own, checking the corridor ahead for traps. "Nothing," she said.
Godfrey nudged her aside, lined himself up, and took a couple of steps back. Estelle shot Nina a quick glance, rolling her eyes. Of course he had to be first in.
He rushed forward. The aged wood practically exploded from the impact, and a couple of Knights flinched to avoid flying debris. But then he was inside, and they poured in after him: the shieldbearers first, then the marksmen, and finally Nina, hands sheathed in divine light, eyes aflame with heavenly rage. Whatever evil lurked beyond that doorway, the saints would carry her to victory.
A few breathless seconds later, they were in the living room and spreading out into formation - Godfrey in the middle, shields on the flanks, and Nina and the marksmen screened behind them.
Once she'd had a moment to take in the surroundings, Nina felt some of the adrenaline starting to dissipate. Her time with the Knights of St Ashildr had taken her to dark and terrible places, from blood-soaked cult strongholds teeming with dark magic to stinking, monster-infested grottoes nestled in forgotten corners of the realm. By contrast, this place seemed to be little more than an untidy, poorly-maintained study. Much of the furniture was broken and caked in dust, shoved to the edges of the room to make way for three desks pushed together at its centre. The tabletops were invisible beneath a thick layer of loose paper, some water-stained, some lightly scorched, and a black puddle where an inkwell had been knocked over. A single lantern balanced precariously on one corner was the only light source, casting everything else in fidgeting shadows.
Behind the amalgamated desks was a chair, and in that chair was a woman. She was tallish and full-figured, and wore only a threadbare grey robe. Nina put her at thirty or thirty-five. If not for her vacant, open-mouthed stare, and the unholy runes etched on her cheeks and forehead, she might have been quite striking. She barely seemed to react to the intrusion, simply casting her wide, hollow eyes from one side of the hunting party to the other and back.
Nina felt a faint chill rattle through her when the woman-thing's eyes met hers, though it was hard to say whether this was the work of impure forces or her own nerves. She raised her right hand, straightened her fingers, and murmured the first few words of the Invocation of St Osra, an ages-old abjuration against the unclean. It would take only half a second to finish the prayer, trigger the working, and send a soul-scorching ripple of light through the fiend. But she held the last syllables back for now. The target hadn't met them with violence, and the Invocation was no use against such a peaceful foe.
Godfrey stepped forward, holding his sword menacingly across his chest, ready to strike. The saints might have rules about when their powers were to be used, but cold steel was not so selective. "Lyra Highmarch," he growled, "we, the Knights of St Ashildr, charge you with the crimes of demonology and defilement of the self. How do you answer these charges?"
Lyra - if indeed she could still be called that - focused her eyes on Godfrey and tilted her head slowly to one side. The motion reminded Nina of a bird of prey.
"How do you answer?" Godfrey repeated, clearly irritated. At this point, most antipriests and occultists would be fighting back, fleeing, or collapsing and sobbing in utter defeat. He wasn't equipped to deal with this new, fourth option.
Lyra righted her head slowly. She hadn't blinked yet.
Godfrey pounded the desk with his open palm, trying to goad Lyra into some sort of reaction. "Answer me!" he bellowed. "How do you plead? Answer me, witch, or we cut you down here and now!" Nina heard a click on either side of her as the marksmen readied their crossbows and trained them on Lyra. She held her breath and let the Invocation hang in her mind, ready to complete it at the first sign of retaliation.
After a few long seconds of agonising silence, Godfrey let out an inarticulate bark of rage and leaned forward, reaching out to grab Lyra by the lapels.
What happened next was almost too fast for mortal eyes to follow. One moment Lyra was sitting stock-still behind the desk; the next, she was on her feet, leaving the robe behind as she vaulted up onto the desk with preternatural grace. Her naked form was pale and statuesque, stained with ink and ichor and covered with wicked runes of the same kind that marred her face. Nina spoke the word she'd been holding back, flooding the room momentarily with a nimbus of golden light. But the runes flashed blue in reply, and she was stunned as she felt her divine assault slamming into a cold, inflexible barrier.
When Nina recovered her senses, Lyra's hand was wrapped around Godfrey's throat, and blue flames leapt from where her skin met his. With an inarticulate scream of pain and rage, Godfrey brought his sword down with a wild overhead swing. Nina watched in horror as Lyra raised her free hand, caught the four-foot blade without spilling a drop of blood, and twisted it back on itself as easily and casually as a scribe folding a sheet of paper.
The shieldbearers had overcome the initial shock, and began to advance towards the desk, but Lyra was holding Godfrey too close for them to land a solid blow on her without risking collateral damage. One of the marksmen lost his nerve and fired, sending a blessed bolt whistling across the room at blinding speed. It flew wide, embedding itself in the far wall, and drew only a disdainful glare from Lyra, who tossed the ruined sword at the offending Knight. Her fingertips burned with the same blue fire that tormented Godfrey, and, as the flames travelled up her arms, they seared away her sallow skin, leaving scaly blood-red hide and clawed fingertips in their wake. This horror had been wearing what remained of the mortal Lyra Highmarch as a flimsy disguise, and now, it seemed, she was done with her old body.
Godfrey roared and struggled, but his wildly swinging fists bounced off Lyra's burning body without leaving a mark. Far from appearing hurt, now the fiend was
smiling
, baring teeth that lengthened and sharpened as the flames scoured her face of its humanity. Black horns sprouted from her temples, coiling like a ram's, and the rune at the centre of her forehead opened into a third eye, which burned with blue radiance so intense that the knights shut their eyes reflexively against it.
Nina planted her feet and began to recite the Invocation of St Osra again, stumbling over the intensifier mantras as she summoned up every ounce of her power. She kept her eyes closed and tried to tune out Godfrey's cries and the rising crackle of ambient power swirling around Lyra. Surely this would break the demon's wards. It had to.
She had made it halfway through the final verse when a thunderous telepathic shout shattered her concentration, almost knocking her off her feet. The Invocation died on her tongue. She was dimly aware of clangs and yelps as her fellows were similarly stricken, but all she could hear, all she could feel, was a single word, spoken with the voice of thousands directly into her soul.
GUILTY.
There was a sudden, intense rush of heat, a quiet rumble of flames, and then a loud clatter. Nina opened her eyes and looked down to see Godfrey's armour heaped on the dusty floor, empty and inert.
And looming over him, knocking over the lantern as two pairs of dark feathered wings unfurled from its back, was a figure that struck despair into the hearts of the Knights of St Ashildr.
