Gael pressed his back against the bronze vault door, keeping his bladed cane between himself and the girl giggling in front of him.

  “Alright, kiddo,” he muttered, flashing his most charming, please-don’t-murder-me grin. “Let’s put the claws away, yeah? You’ll give someone a nasty cut. Probably me.”

  No response. The girl simply stood there, swaying slightly, her flesh-dress shifting like something was crawling beneath it. The gurgling sounds coming out of her mouth was an attempt at laughter, but it didn’t land exactly. Too slow. Too hollow. Like she’d heard it once and had been practicing ever since.

  But that’s what a Myrmur is, ain’t it?

  Mimics. Doppelgangers. Parasites. The worst, the most dangerous, and the hardest to detect of the Nightspawn.

  He twirled his cane, giving the girl another once-over. She wasn’t completely botching the human act. In fact—in a vague, unsettling way—she very much resembled the girl from the paintings and murals on the banquet hall walls. She had the same nobleborn dress. The same short and wiry thin stature. Even the same little red bow tied at the collar.

  The details were just a bit off, though. Her limbs were too long. Her joints bent just a little too much. And her eyes—well, eyes weren’t supposed to be hollow. The Myrmur merely resembled a human girl.

  And yet.

  He’d passed dozens of paintings of the little baroness playing rock-paper-scissors on his way here. With her mother. With her father. There was even one where she was playing against a whole row of old, powdered nobles, like she was some kind of tiny, frilly monarch of the game.

  Maybe…

  He snapped his fingers in a hurry as she started walking forward.

  “Wait, wait, wait!” he shouted. “Let’s play a game!”

  The girl stilled.

  He lifted his hand. Gripped it into a fist.

  Rock.

  She lifted her oversized claws and made the only hand she could make in response.

  Scissors.

  Gael laughed.

  “Hey, I win—”

  Then she cheated and lunged.

  Her oversized claws—big as his torso—came scything toward him, and he barely had time to yelp and throw himself sideways before her claws ripped through the bronze vault door like it was paper.

  Metal shrieked. Sparks flared. He glanced behind her as they traded places, his bladed cane tearing up the floor as he screeched to a halt.

  Oh.

  So that’s where all the guards went.

  Inside the torn vault behind her—stacked like firewood—was a pile of rotting, decomposing armored corpses. Ten of them. Maybe twenty of them? His brain barely had time to register that’s a lot of dead guys before the girl let out a rattling, inhuman screech and spun towards him, her claws twitching hungrily.

  An interface popped up next to his head as he stared at the girl, grimacing.

  [Identification Complete]

  [Name: Robber Fly]

  [Grade: E-Rank Wretch-Class]

  [Essence Art: Brigand Armament]

  [Brief Description: The robber fly can concentrate bioarcanic essence into its limbs, temporarily increasing their strength and toughness by twice their levels]

  [Aura: ~700 BeS]

  [Strength: ~2, Speed: ~2, Toughness: ~2, Dexterity: ~4, Perception: ~3]

  … You didn't tell me these shackles can do this, he grumbled, glancing at the status interface. Damn you, Exorcist. So this Myrmur’s higher grade than the one from last night, and… its Art lets it double the strength and toughness of its oversized limbs?

  So two in strength and toughness doubled is…

  Way higher than his attribute levels, that was for sure. He still had thirteen points in his back pocket that he could put into any attribute level he wanted, but he didn’t have to be a mathematician to know he’d still be outclassed against this Myrmur.

  Time to do the ‘ol Plagueplain Doctor special, then.

  While the girl screeched again, seemingly struggling to jerk her oversized arm around, he turned and bolted.

  “Fuck you!” he shouted. “I’ve gotta be stupid to fight you head-on!”

  He charged down the banquet hall, past the paintings, past the long-rotted feast tables, past the chandeliers still clinging to the ceiling by a thread. The chain connecting him to Maeve rattled behind him, bouncing off the wooden floor. The girl’s footsteps—too light, too fast, too damn close—were already closing in, but he couldn’t just stop and fight it.

  He swore under his breath and reached into his back pockets.

  Poison vial, poison vial, poison vial!

  Instead, he yanked out a bottle of brandy and hurled it over his shoulder. Glass shattered. Liquid splattered. The girl didn’t even flinch.

  "Tch.”

  He reached in again. A handful of stupid little trinkets. A stolen playing card. A half-eaten piece of candy. More bottles of alcohol. Where the hell were his poison vials? He had a plan to fight her, but—

  Behind him, the girl let out another ear-splitting shriek, breaking his concentration. She was closer now. He gritted his teeth and gave up on looking for his vials for now. Lunging up the grand staircase at the end of the corridor, his boots slammed against the wood, dust exploding in all directions. He could hear her oversized claws gouging into the steps as she scrambled up after him, mandibles gnashing at his heels.

  But just as he was about to sprint down the first corridor after climbing the grand stairs—a sudden, violent whiplash.

  His whole body jerked backward so hard he nearly dislocated his leg.

  The chain caught on something.

  He wheeled around, wild-eyed, to see the damn thing twisted around a massive wooden beam at the stairwell’s edge. He gave it a hard tug. Nothing. The chain wouldn’t dislodge itself, because only the Plague God knew how tangled up it was with him running haphazardly around the mansion while Maeve was probably also doing the same thing somewhere else.

  "Oh, come on."

  A second slightly desperate tug. A third slightly panicked tug. The girl screeched below. He whirled around and glanced down just in time to see her umbilical cord—that thick, twitching thing sticking out of her back—yank taut around the same wooden beam.

  Before she could leap at him and tear off his face, her own cord jerked her violently back as well.

  And for a beat, the two of them just stared at each other like two rabid dogs chained to the same post.

  Gael exhaled sharply through his nose.

  Then he grinned nervously.

  “So… you come here often?”

  The girl shrieked and swiped at him wildly, her claw tearing deep gashes into the wooden floor, but he leaned back just in time. They were both stuck in place half a meter apart, and there was no going forward for either of them as long as their chains and cords were unwilling to slacken.

  Oh, this is fucked up.

  Whose cord is going to slacken first?

  "Exorcist!" he bellowed, narrowly ducking another swipe as he continued yanking and jerking on his chain. “I don’t mean to rush you, dearest wife, but if you could stop picking your nose and actually do something—"

  Another claw swipe—so close it sliced off a lock of his hair.

  "—I’d be eternally grateful!"

  “Stop!”

  The word left Maeve’s mouth as firm as steel, cutting through the corridor like a blade, and the old man—already a few paces ahead—halted mid-step.

  He remained still for a long moment before turning around with deliberate slowness, his hands neatly folded behind him. His face was pale and sunken, the skin stretched thin over sharp cheekbones, but his milky white eyes were calm. Bright, even. There was no fear in them. No suspicion. Only quiet amusement, as if she’d interrupted him from something trivial.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze was still locked on the thick umbilical cord jutting out from the back of his right hand. It pulsed faintly as if it were breathing.

  Still fresh. Still feeding. She clenched her jaw before forcing her voice steady.

  “There’s a Myrmur inside you,” she said slowly, trying not to alert him. “I can help you get rid of it.”

  The old man blinked. Then he chuckled softly, shaking his head, as though she’d just told him something completely absurd.

  “What’s wrong with me?” he asked. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

  Then his arms spread wide as he gestured at the decaying mansion around them.

  “I have everything,” he continued, smiling warmly as his breath fogged the glass of his mask. “My mansion is still standing. My daughter is still with me, and she has friends like you to play with all the time. She’s always the seeker, you know, and the guests who come here uninvited are always very good at hiding.” Then he paused again, as if the thought had just struck him. “I’ve never found them myself before, mind you. I wonder where they go after she finds them?”

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  He laughed lightly at that, as though he’d told a harmless joke.

  Maeve didn’t laugh.

  The Myrmur had taken the shape of someone he loved. Someone familiar. All Myrmurs were parasites that could mimic, adapt, and do everything they could to make sure their already weak, sick, and frail Host wouldn't question their presence. For the grieving Miss Alba, the Myrmur had taken the form of her dead husband. For this old man in front of her, the Myrmur was most likely taking the form of his daughter—and it was feeding on him. It was steadily draining the life from his body while keeping him in a state of perfect, passive contentment.

  But that wasn’t the worst part.

  If the Myrmur was imitating his daughter, and if his daughter liked to play hide and seek…

  The two tugs on her chain just a few moments ago likely weren't mistakes.

  Maeve swallowed back the frustration rising in her throat, forcing herself to focus as she took a slow, deliberate step forward.

  “Your daughter,” she said, keeping her voice even, measured, “isn’t real.”

  The old man tilted his head slightly, watching her with quiet curiosity.

  Maeve didn’t stop.

  “Whatever is on the other end of that umbilical cord…” she continued explaining, eyes flicking briefly to his hand, watching the way the cord twitched ever so slightly. “It’s not your daughter. It’s called a ‘Myrmur’. A bioarcanic parasite that takes the form of what you want to see most. If you don’t remove it, it will kill you slowly, and once it’s done with you, it’ll move onto someone else. It’ll hurt someone else.”

  His expression didn’t change. He only studied her with that same unreadable calm, his fingers twitching faintly behind his back.

  She took another step forward.

  “If you come with me now,” she said, “I know someone who can help you. My husba… my partner is downstairs. We can sever the Myrmur’s connection, and then we can—”

  The old man chuckled again, shaking his head with that same infuriatingly gentle smile. “Oh, I don’t need to be saved,” he murmured, almost kindly as gazed out the nearest window, though there was nothing to see but the darkened cemetery beyond the bars. “I may have been cast out of the upper city, but it doesn’t matter. As long as I have her, I am happy.”

  Then he turned back to her, still smiling.

  “You don’t have to play hide and seek with her if you don’t want to,” he said, “but I’d be happy if you did.”

  Maeve felt a slow, dull thud in her chest.

  He wasn’t here. Not entirely. Whatever part of him had once been rational—once capable of questioning reality—had been hollowed out by the Myrmur. He wasn’t afraid of it. He wasn’t even resisting it. He was just… existing, in perfect, mindless contentment.

  Without waiting for her response, he turned away from her, already beginning to walk down the hall again—but her grip on her umbrella tightened until her knuckles ached.

  Talking to him was a complete waste of time.

  She exhaled through gritted teeth, gripped her umbrella with both hands, then flicked her thumb against the button on the handle as she pointed it at him.

  It’d be easy. Very easy. He wasn’t a fighter, and he was a weak, frail, sickly old Host. If she just channeled her poisonous blood into her umbrella and fired at his back, the Myrmur chasing Gael would die with him.

  She just had to push the button.

  It was what all the other Exorcists would do.

  ‘Mercy is a lie the weak tell themselves. The curses do not spare, and neither do we’.

  Just kill him and be done with it. It’s not every day a Host is left this defenceless by its Myrmur.

  Don’t ask questions.

  Don’t think.

  Don’t hesitate.

  … But she hesitated.

  Her hands were shaking.

  ‘Neither do we.’

  ‘Neither do we.’

  A real shame, Gael thought, swaying slightly as he watched the girl’s umbilical cord slither longer and longer. Her Host was getting closer. More slack meant more movement, and more movement meant more attempts at his life. His own chain? Stubbornly taut, no extra length to work with. Maeve wasn’t moving.

  He sucked his teeth.

  How annoying.

  Then the girl moved, a blur of black chitin launching straight for him. He was still rummaging in his back pockets for a little something-something, barely had time to mutter a curse before—

  A last-second tug yanked at his ankle.

  His own chain extended as well.

  Finally!

  He pushed off his heels just as she came crashing toward him, ducking low, his boots skidding across the floor as she flew over him with slashing claws. He barely felt the wind of her passing before she collided headfirst into the wall behind him, ripping through the wood and stone like a feral animal.

  That could’ve been his face. He didn’t love that. Definitely didn’t love that. He reached deeper into his coat, fingers curling around the cool glass of a vial, and grinned again.

  “Alright!” he exhaled sharply, dusting himself off with a wicked grin. “Time for an alchemy lesson!”

  Some men carried knives. Others, bioarcanic guns. Gael? He carried fun little glass balls of disaster. He’d learned his lesson after last night: never get caught unarmed when a Myrmur was around, which meant his pockets were now his personal traveling laboratory, stocked with whatever chemical nightmares he’d managed to mix up in a drunken haze just hours ago.

  First he flicked a glass sphere into the air and caught it between his fingers, letting the dim light glint through the thick, bubbling purple liquid inside.

  “This,” he announced, “is ‘Necridic Solvent’ derived from the bile of a Deepcrawler Angler! It breaks down most freezing organic matter explosively, which is super nasty when you’re close to the explosion, but it has all the reactivity of lead on lead when it’s securely contained in a warm glass container like this! It’s mainly used in selectively burning away necrotic tissue on a cursed patient!”

  Another vial. A flick of the wrist. Another catch. This second glass sphere contained a thick, orange-red liquid that clung to the glass like syrup.

  “And this,” he continued, eyes gleaming, “is ‘Rimeshock Bile’, condensed from the venom glands of a Frost Centipede! It freezes upon exposure to air, which makes it really useful as a field anesthetic when you don’t have access to an ethervein machine! Both reagents are harvested, of course, in the Drowned Parish docks of Wraithpier! It took me five days to get up there and eight days to get back, because that fucking angler fish just kept snapping at me—”

  The girl lunged again, claws raking forward.

  Welp, it doesn’t wanna listen!

  System! Shackle thing! Whatever you’re called!

  Raise all my attribute levels to two, and then put the rest into toughness!

  An interface flickered in the corner of his eye for the briefest moment.

  [Strength: 1 → 2]

  [Toughness: 2 → 3]

  [Dexterity: 1 → 2]

  [Perception: 1 → 2]

  [Points: 11 vBe → 0 vBe]

  … He wasn't dumb enough to let his newfound strength get to his head, though. He wasn't going to try to fight the Myrmur head-on. It simply put them on equal physiological footing for a bit so he wouldn’t get blitzed down.

  As the girl’s claws raked at his head, he smashed both glass spheres at his feet. There was a breath. A hiss. A crackling surge of chemical reaction.

  Then, the explosion at his feet swallowed them whole.

  Violet mist and burning frost met in a violent, shrieking reaction, sending out a wave of pressure that blasted through the floor. Wood warped and collapsed, turning brittle under the force of the blast, and then the entire hallway caved in.

  The dark banquet hall welcomed them back with a crash.

  Gael hit the ground hard, rolled, coughed, and blinked up at the broken remains of the ceiling. His ears rang. His lungs burned. He tasted smoke and something bitter—oh, blood, maybe.

  He clawed to his feet quickly, rolling his shoulders, testing the damage. Nothing broken. It was a damn miracle that being thrice as tough as a normal man meant he barely survived being turned into a smear on the floor right now, but in front of him—somewhere within the mound of rubble—he could still hear the girl groaning and growling. She’d shaken off the worst of the point-blank explosion as well, but just like him, she was injured.

  Good enough.

  “Now!” He laughed, reaching for a third glass sphere and rolling it between his fingers. “Time for the grand finale!”

  He lifted it above his head, letting the dim light catch on the swirling, iridescent gold liquid inside.

  “This one,” he said, watching the girl steady herself with a manic grin, “is called ‘Griefmaker’s Ichor’! It’s a real wicked organic mixture that reacts defensively when it detects something trying to break it down, which means it’s not very often used in medicine, nor is it particularly easy to activate its special property!” Then his grin sharpened even further as he watched the girl throw off a slab of rock with her shoulders, hissing and glaring back at him with glowing purple eyes. “But lucky for me, I’ve already set the stage, and the only reason I brought this with me is because of bitches like you!”

  He crushed the final glass sphere in his palm as the girl lunged at him again.

  Slick, heavy golden droplets sprayed outward. They caught in the air, spattered against the wrecked floor, the broken stairs, and the girl’s carapace.

  For half a second, nothing happened.

  Then the remnants of the necridic solvent and the rimeshock bile still clinging to most of the banquet hall reacted with a violent hiss. A deep, gut-churning whoomph. The air itself twisted and broke apart as the elements met, bonded, shattered, and birthed something entirely new. Thick, dark fumes exploded outward from thin air, rolling in waves of gas so heavy it clung to the ground like fog. The scent was immediate: sharp and acrid, a chemical reek of bile and rot, metallic and wrong, burning into his throat like smoke from a thousand dying fires.

  The girl choked the moment it hit her. She coughed, staggered, and tried to back away, but her limbs locked up, her teeth snapping uselessly as her body convulsed.

  Gael smirked.

  “Ah, yeah,” he said cheerily, stepping back with one hand over his mouth as he watched her writhe. “That’ll be the Griefmaker’s Ichor. I said it reacts defensively to anything that attacks it, right? Well, when it detects anything trying to break it down, it’ll catalyze the attacking reagent into a hyper-toxic nerve agent, and then release it as a thick, toxic mist. This, the necridic solvent, and the rimeshock bile are three of the four main ingredients used for the symbiote elixir. The rimeshock bile chills the sick man down, lowers his blood pressure, and keeps the necridic solvent activated, while the Griefmaker’s Ichor amplifies its potency by adding a toxic component to the decomposition. The last ingredient—”

  He also choked. Hard. His lungs clenched as he accidentally breathed in some of the fumes, and the back of his throat burned as well.

  Ah, shit.

  Monologuing’s killing me, too.

  Forgetting he was standing in his own poison? Rookie mistake. He swore under his breath and bolted back, crashing through the banquet doors and into the mansion’s kitchen. Fresh air hit his face, but he didn’t have time to savor it. He wheeled around, grabbed the nearest overturned table, and shoved it against the door. Then a cabinet. Then a whole damn shelf.

  The girl screeched behind the barricade, slamming against it hard enough to make the entire thing rattle. The door cracked, splinters raining down.

  He coughed, wincing as the poison mist still burned his throat. The fumes had a short half-life when exposed to the air like that, but for the first sixty seconds? Utterly catastrophic. Even he wasn’t completely immune to something that deadly, so neither was the Myrmur, trapped in the banquet hall filled to the brim with it.

  Nope.

  Need something… to wash down the fumes.

  He reached into his coat, pulled out a thin bottle of 52% alcohol, and popped the cork. “Down the hatch,” he muttered. The alcohol didn’t burn—didn’t taste like anything, really—but it helped vanish the sharp pain in his chest. He exhaled, long and slow, testing his breath.

  There. Problem solved.

  The Myrmur shrieked again, hammering against the barricade. The door groaned, splintered. He took another slow swig from his flask and let his head thump back against the cabinets.

  “... And even when it’s weakened like this, it’d still be stupid for me to fight it head-on,” he grumbled, listening to the barricade crack under the Myrmur’s onslaught. “I mean, come on. I’m the Host, and you’re the Hunter. Ain’t that our professional relationship, Exorcist?”

  Silence in the kitchen.

  The barricade gave one last shudder, so he sighed, pushed himself away, and took a step forward—right as Maeve kicked in the door on the opposite end of the kitchen, darting through the room like a bullet and heading straight for the Myrmur behind him.

  As she passed, she whispered, “Old baron on the third floor.”

  Gael grinned.

  He lifted a hand. She slapped it as she rushed past him.

  And then, without breaking stride, she hit the barricade at full speed and bashed straight through it with her umbrella. Wood, metal, and stone blasted outward, and the Myrmur girl had all of half a second to react before Maeve crashed into her like a wrecking ball.

  He didn’t turn around to see them duke it out in the banquet hall. Another set of stairs was right in front of him, outside the kitchen, so he bolted for it with his bladed cane unsheathed.

  This was way too much work for a mere ten thousand Marks, so he’d be sure to extract every last coin he could from the old baron.