The wind carries rot tonight — not the quiet rot of damp timbers and coal smoke, but the crawling stink of dying bodies piled under soiled sheets. Flies hum at the eaves of every boarded cottage. The fog chokes the village square, clinging to wooden crosses nailed to every door. Salt lines the thresholds, half washed away by the rain that never stops in this kingdom.
They say the plague here is not a sickness of lungs or blood — but of the soul. They say the Devil himself seeds his children in the bellies of the dying and feeds them on the prayers of the desperate.
They say a priest is coming to pull the devils out.
They don't say his name out loud.
---
Malachai Kael stands at the edge of the square. One foot in the mud, the other in a puddle that mirrors a broken sky. His coat is old — black wool patched at the shoulders with scraps of oilskin. His collar is turned up to hide the raw brand that still burns under his shirt whenever the wind shifts wrong. A cigarette pinches between cracked lips, smoke curling lazy spirals around his hollow eyes.
He watches a funeral cart roll past. A child's arm slips from under the tarpaulin, skin blue with rot, tiny fingernails cracked and black. No one runs to fix it. The man driving the mule does not look at Kael — only mutters a prayer under his breath that Kael does not care enough to listen to.
Kael flicks ash into the puddle. The reflection splits. The rats at his boots scatter under the cart's wheels.
---
At the far end of the square, the church crouches like an old hound — stone ribs sagging under a slate roof that leaks when it shouldn't. Candles gutter in the narrow windows. Somewhere inside, the faithful gather. They do not want him here — but they want what he carries in the inside pocket of his coat more than they want him gone.
He lets the cigarette drop into the mud. Steps on it without looking down. Pushes the heavy door open with his shoulder.
Inside, the air sours with tallow smoke and stale breath. Parishioners huddle on pews — mothers clutching children too fevered to wake. Men clutching hats to chests. No one meets Kael's eyes. They don't have to. They know what waits under the collar of his coat. They feel it — that wrongness that leaks off him like steam from a slaughterhouse floor.
At the altar stands Father Rook — a local shepherd, robes patched, hands raw from scrubbing plague sores with holy water that hasn't worked in months. He looks up when Kael enters. Flinches. His fingers trace a hurried cross over his ribs.
Kael stops halfway down the aisle. He doesn't kneel. He doesn't bow. He only breathes, and the draft that follows him snuffs two candles on the side altar.
> "You're late," Father Rook whispers, voice trembling like the wax that drips onto the altar cloth.
Kael lifts one shoulder — a shrug that might mean aye, or no, or why do you care?
> "Is it here?" His voice scratches the air raw. The Cockney twist hasn't dulled — if anything, it's sharpened over the years, each word dropped like a brick in a grave.
Father Rook swallows. His eyes dart to the side door. "Aye. The child. She—" His voice fails him. He tries again. "She won't eat. Or sleep. She whispers in dead tongues. The cross burns her when she sees it."
Kael rolls the cigarette pack between his fingers. Doesn't light it. Doesn't need to. He lifts his eyes — dead glass marbles — and flicks his chin at the door.
> "Show me."
---
The room behind the altar is small. Stone walls sweat with damp. A single straw pallet squats in the corner, piled with moth-eaten blankets. On the blankets: a girl no more than ten, hair matted to her temples, lips cracked and dark. Her eyes flicker open when Kael steps in — and behind her pupils, something old and vicious grins.
Her voice is wrong. It doesn't belong in a throat so small. It slithers between teeth that should be missing for baby ones, but aren't.
> "Rotten priest," it rasps in Latin that stinks of grave dust. "Hollow shell. Rotten. Empty. Open door—"
Kael doesn't flinch. He crouches by the pallet, coat brushing straw and rat droppings. He looks bored. He always looks bored. He pinches the child's jaw open with two fingers, leans close enough that the thing behind her eyes can see the truth behind his ribs.
> "Name." One word. Flat. A drop of iron in stagnant water.
The child's pupils stretch wide — no whites now. The grin splits her chapped lips too far. Her teeth clack together like dry bones.
> "Legion…" she hisses. Then something squeals behind the word, a dozen voices snarling from the same throat.
Kael lets her jaw snap shut. Stands. Rolls his shoulders under the coat. The brand over his heart itches — burns — then goes cold.
Father Rook presses himself into the corner, breath fogging the stone.
> "Father Kael— what— how—"
Kael doesn't answer. He doesn't care. He fishes in his pocket — pulls a small iron vial, corked with black wax and bound in a strip of torn scripture. He breaks the wax with a thumb. The smell that spills out is salt and blood and something older than salt or blood.
He kneels again. Pins the girl's shoulders to the straw with one broad hand. She does not struggle — yet.
He tips the vial to her lips. A single drop hits her tongue.
The reaction is instant — the body arches, the voice behind her eyes howls. Her spine bends backwards, bones popping like wet twigs. Latin vomits from her throat — curses, bargains, weeping prayers for slaughter.
Kael's expression does not change. He mutters under his breath — words twisted in the same broken Latin he carved into rotten floorboards years ago. The mark under his shirt pulses in time with the child's screams.
When the thing tries to flee — he feels it. Like a worm slithering up his palm, biting at his skin for a way out. He doesn't let it. He draws it through himself — his eyes roll back just long enough for Father Rook to cross himself three times and wish he'd never called this man.
The thing writhes inside Kael's chest — claws at the ribs, the lungs, the mark it wants to claim. He breathes it out through cracked teeth — a cough that tastes like iron filings. The air shudders, goes still.
The girl's eyes flutter shut. She exhales — no more teeth clacking, no more voices crawling round her skull. Just sleep. Deep, normal sleep that smells like salt and rat droppings and the damp stone walls that have always been here.
Kael stands. Wipes the blood from his chin with the back of a filthy sleeve. His eyes drift to Father Rook.
> "The council?" One word. Flat as always.
Rook nods, mouth working, no sound coming out for a heartbeat too long.
> "Father Severin sends his blessings," the priest breathes at last. The lie trembles in his teeth. "He says— he says the Vatican thanks you for your sacrifice."
Kael lights the cigarette now — the match flares, sulfur curls round his hollow stare. He drags smoke into lungs that still taste Legion's bile.
He does not thank Rook. Does not nod. Does not forgive.
He flicks ash on the stone floor, watching it fall.
In his chest, the mark smolders — a gate waiting to open.
---
END OF CHAPTER TWO