With strength Gael didn’t realize she still had, Maeve kicked up his walking cane, unsheathed his blade, and swung it at his ankle in one smooth motion.

  Breaking away from their kiss, Gael immediately tackled her and knocked her flat to the ground. He moved too quickly. Maybe hit her a bit too hard, because the interface next to their heads vanished instantly.

  She cried out in pain as she dropped his cane, and while he kicked it further away so neither of them could reach it, something flew at his face.

  A fist.

  Oh, bollocks—

  She punched him square on the jaw, his head whipping back with a loud crack, and he choked out an irritated laugh as he fell backwards as well.

  His right ankle stung where his end of the manacles was wrapped around, but while he groaned and Maeve tried to push herself onto her feet on all fours, he could already tell she was getting better.

  Her facial complexion was much less sallow. It was a prettier, paler shade on her cheeks. She wasn’t completely healed, of course, but the common poison that was ‘Alchemist’s Bane’ wasn’t going to murk her anymore.

  “See?” he muttered, rubbing his jaw as she staggered onto her feet, gasping for breath, scrubbing her lips furiously. “You’re looking better already. That’ll be fifteen Marks—”

  “What…” she rasped in between breaths, fangs hanging out, her dark hair falling before her face like some feral ghoul, “did you… do to… me?”

  He gave her a blank, pointed squint. “A mix of bríognacht's bloom, draoidhroots, and hollowroot stems. You’re welcome, by the way. Can you help me up now?”

  She growled and mumbled something under her breath, stumbling forward with her briefcase in hand, and she looked like she was about to murk him when her eyes flipped the white. She staggered only one more step forward before her knees buckled, and her whole body collapsed onto his. He caught her, but not willingly. She simply would’ve crushed him if he hadn’t immediately sat upright and grabbed her into a hug.

  Whispers and cold curses drifted into his ears as the lady herself drifted off to the realm of sleep. He rubbed his jaw for only a few more seconds before sighing aloud, staring down at the bloody manacle on his right ankle.

  The chain connecting the two of them didn’t look that long, but as he shook his leg around and kept hers still, the chain lengthened from her end of the manacle.

  What the hell is this thing?

  Now, he had no idea how so much length was being stored inside the thin-looking band of steel—and he had no idea how to get that interface thing to pop up again—but right now, he had more pressing matters to attend to.

  One was the unconscious Exorcist in his arms, and the other was the old lady lying face-down a few steps away. The Myrmur host.

  … Welp.

  What now?

  Gael grumbled under his breath as he carried Maeve on his back and dragged the unconscious old lady by her legs, pulling them into the foyer of his clinic. Then, it was across the prayer hall with dozens of rows of empty benches and then past the slightly elevated worship area at the back of the building, where the giant, broken statue of Saintess Severin loomed over the dark hall.

  As usual, her veiled head was sitting lopsided at a perfect forty-five degree angle on her neck, and the way she was staring at him as he struggled and heaved for breath with her hands clapped together, it was almost like she was praying for him to trip on his feet.

  Fuck you too, Saint. I ain’t ever hiring someone who knows how to fix your neck.

  Behind the altar, though—ignoring the giant stained glass window backlighting the Saint—the giant statue hid a door to the storage room and two flights of rotten wooden stairs on both sides of the walls. The right stairs led up to the belltower, but the left one led directly up to the bishop’s office converted into the surgical chamber, so he dragged both ladies up, up, and away until he pulled both of them into the chamber.

  Then, he hooked the door shut behind him with his foot, only for the rotten old thing to immediately snap off its hinges and fall outwards, tipping down the stairs and crashing into the altar.

  He winced as he heard the door smashing into a dozen wooden fragments, but then he chuckled under his breath and carried on. Cara wasn’t here to help him carry the ladies, but she did say she was going to dispose of the corpse outside, so he let out a breath of relief when he saw the surgical table in the centre of the dimly-lit chamber was already wiped clean.

  Now, he could put one of the ladies on the table and toss the other somewhere else, so which one should he treat with more respect?

  Well, the Exorcist’s already ‘treated’, so she can go in the slammer.

  Letting go of the old lady for a moment, he trudged over to the side of the chamber and kicked the bedroom door open, eyes snapping between his side of the shoddy double bed and Cara’s side. He chose Cara’s. He threw Maeve onto her side facing the window, watched as her back slammed against the mattress with a loud thud, and then immediately darted back out to pick up the old lady.

  Of course, he paid attention to the chain connecting their ankles as he left the bedroom. It extended two metres, five metres, then ten metres. By ten metres, he reached the surgical table. There was still slack in the chain to go.

  The inquisitive part of him wanted to find out just how long, exactly, the chain could extend, but once again, there were more important matters to settle first.

  “Knives, shiny bonesaws, ghoul pins, ethervein pump to stabilise her condition…” he mumbled, placing the old lady gently onto the surgical table before he started yanking open drawers in the walls, cabinets on the floor, and even more compartments on the broken, leaky roof. “Oh, right. No shiny bonesaws. Curse you, sis. You should’ve been the one to sell your shitty makeup kits to that old hag. My bonesaws were signed by the Righteous Doctor herself—”

  The old lady suddenly convulsed on the table, bones cracking and veins popping all across her skin. It made him flinch and drop his box of surgical tools, but he stayed his course on the current best thing he could do right now: the ‘Triple R’ of restrict, restrain, and reinforce.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  As the lady continued writhing on the table, he bolted for the drawer right underneath her, yanking out several dozens of Marks’ worth of belts, buckles, and chains. Half-grimacing, half-grinning, he wrapped the chains around the old lady’s torso, waist, and legs, pinning her arms to her sides with additional cinches and belt buckles.

  It wasn’t like she was a ghoul or anything, but her skin was turning so deathly pale, all she had to do was start snapping at his face with rotten fangs and she’d complete the part.

  You don’t gotta be a doctor to tell she doesn’t have a lotta time left.

  Now, where the hell did I toss the ethervein pump—

  “What… are you doing?”

  The voice shuffled closer, accompanied by a faint clinking of chains, and Gael turned his head just enough to see Maeve in the bedroom doorway. She leaned heavily against the frame, her face a ghostly mask of exhaustion, but despite that, she still clutched her briefcase in both hands like it was some sort of treasure.

  “... You should be in bed,” he said cheerily, ignoring her as he continued securing the old lady’s chains. “I’m prepping for surgery to remove the Myrmur from her body. I figure if it can’t be murked with blades and poisons on the outside, it must be sapping essence from its host somehow, so if I can just remove the point of connection, I can beat it. So shoo. Go the hell back to sleep. The doctor says you’re in no condition to be up—”

  “No.” She shook her head weakly as she took a single step forward, the movement looking like it might topple her. “I… I can get rid of it now.”

  Gael sighed, tossing a bent pair of forceps onto his surgical tray. “Get rid of what? The Myrmur? Don’t be stupid. You can’t even walk properly. Go back to bed before you keel over and make my job harder.”

  Ignoring him, Maeve continued stumbling forward, her eyes narrowing as she stared at the old lady on the table. “It’s… still weak. F-Rank Wretch-Class according to my system.”

  “Great deduction, doctor,” Gael mumbled, turning around, dashing over, and blocking her in the doorway. “Now get back to your bed before you get your guts and blood all over my floor. As you can see,” he gestured wildly across his surgical chamber, “I don’t exactly have the highest quality floorboards, so the wood rots very, very easily.”

  “You don’t get it,” she hissed, gripping her briefcase like a lifeline as she looked up at him, sweat beading down her pale, sickly face. “Myrmurs are parasites. They drain strength and blood, biomass and bioarcanic essence, using their Host as a… living, beating source of energy.”

  “No shit. I got that much from their name—”

  “But when they’re young and weak, they can only parasitize people… that were already weak. Frail, sickly people that can’t resist them entering. When it first parasitizes them, it’ll give them a bit of strength at first, just enough to extend their life, but as…” She wavered, one hand clutching her chest as she heaved in pain, covering her mouth with her palm. Specks of blood flew into his coat as she coughed violently. “But as it gets older, it starts taking more than it gives. It’ll start hurting the Host. By the time it decides to leave to find a new Host because it’s sucked everything it needs out of the original Host, the original Host will die.”

  Gael frowned. “So once the Myrmur enters the Host, you can’t remove it without also murking the guy?”

  Maeve nodded shakily, staring up at him with a defiant glare. “And since the Hosts are always deathly sickly before they were parasitized, there’s no saving them. We Exorcists… kill both the Host and the Myrmur. Now get out of my way. Killing that lady… before the Myrmur inside recovers and comes out to fight me is the only way to do my job.”

  She took another step forward, but faltered, her legs buckling. Gael caught her arm before she hit the ground.

  “What’s your deal, by the way?” he mumbled. “I just cured you of your Alchemist’s Bane. You got lung tumours or something? I can treat that, too, but it’ll cost you. Should’ve known better than to go outside without a mask.”

  Maeve’s glared at him for a moment, and then her gaze dropped to the chain connecting their ankles. Her lips thinned into a thin line. “All Exorcists… have toxic-based classes. That’s how we’re able to fight Myrmurs. Our toxic blood gives us a certain level of immunity against their cursed attacks, and our toxic-based Essence Arts allow us to temporarily weaken their regeneration in combat.”

  Gael blinked. His mind immediately flashed back to his own fight against the Myrmur. It was true that even though he’d decapitated it with his silver blade, it’d simply regrown a completely new head without showing any signs of fatigue.

  I see.

  So the Exorcists have abilities that can hurt them real bad.

  “But our blood…” she continued, swallowing hard, “is extremely poisonous. Even to ourselves. We can’t just keep accumulating blood in our bodies, which is why…” She shook her left ankle slightly, showing her the thin steel cuff. “We all wear these cuffs. We always have to be chained to a partner. A ‘Host’ to our ‘Hunter’. When connected, the Hunter can continuously drain their toxic blood to lessen their burden, and the Host will accept some of their blood through the chain. In return, the Host receives some of the Hunter’s abilities and powers. It’s called a—”

  “Symbiotic relationship, hence the name of your lot,” Gael mused, his eyes flicking down to the cuff on his right ankle. “That is fascinating. Also horrifying. But fascinating. What’s up with you, then? If we’re already connected, why isn’t your poisonous blood flowing into my veins?”

  “I’m suppressing the blood transfer,” she whispered, her voice cracking as she started heaving, gasping for breath. “My class and blood is worse than other Exorcists’. Far, far more poisonous. Before I met you, I’ve... already killed many people with my poison. None of them could endure it.” Then she sniffled and looked up at him, forcing a pained smile onto her face. “At this rate, I’ll die if I don’t give you my blood, but I won’t kill anyone with my poison ever again. I’ll kill that Myrmur alone if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Her grip on her briefcase tightened, her knuckles paling against the worn handle as she pushed it into his chest. Gael didn’t say anything. Didn’t budge. He watched her quietly, lips pursed as she tried her damndest to push him out of the doorway.

  And she was the one saying she was in good enough condition to fight a nigh-unkillable monster?

  Bullshit.

  There were two things Gael found more irritating than anything else in the world: people who don’t know their limits, and people who say they know their limits, but don’t actually have the faintest clue what it is.

  So, without warning, he lifted his walking cane and bonked her on the head. The metal sheathe bounced off with a loud thud. Maeve let out a sharp, indignant yelp as she staggered back, clutching her head with a bloody glare.

  “What are you—”

  “If you say righteous shit and have the strength to actually back it up, then go ahead and be as righteous as you want,” he said, scowling behind his mask, “but if you don’t have the strength to back it up, then you’re just plain old annoying.”

  Maeve twitched an eye, but before she could say anything more, he drew his blade and pointed it at her throat.

  “Rule number one in my clinic: don’t you dare say you want to die in my clinic. That’s bad advertising,” he said. “And secondly, I’m the doctor here, so don’t make my decisions for me. I’ll be your Host, and you’ll be my Hunter. You give me your blood so you can fight, and I’ll deal with the side effects while supporting you from the side. Hell, I’ll even tolerate being chained to a damned Exorcist if it means I can get rid of that Myrmur, but on one condition.”

  “And?” she said slowly, angrily. “What would that be?”

  “Marry me.”