VG - Chapter 14 - Where there’s smoke (Patreon)

As soon as the thing was revealed, Damien’s eagle screeched so loudly that I had to fight the urge to drop my hatchet and cover my ears. Instead, I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore the sudden ringing in my ears.

“Shut that thing up!” Monique yelled. “It’s going to get us killed if it keeps doing that.”

Damien seemed to ignore her as he stepped into the room, ignoring the threat of the toxin and shouting over his shoulder. “Grey! Get your butt in here!” before pointing at the strange distended shadow. “Aquila, I authorize you to release the first seal. Do what you need to do!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the spirit spread its wings, rise to the top of the room and then swoop down upon the twisted humanoid shape. "Call your bird back; it’s going to be in the way!” Kathrine growled. 

“I don’t think so,” Damien replied coolly as the spirits collided. 

Stepping forward, I raised my axe, planning to try and get another solid blow on the shadow while it was distracted, but before I could, the pair were engulfed in a massive fireball. I immediately fell back, shielding my eyes from the intense heat. Flames leapt off the pair, licking at my arms, and as I squinted at the white-hot fireball floating just a couple of feet away, I was surprised to find neither spirit had been consumed. In fact, the eagle seemed to be the source of the flames. 

“Of course it would be the phoenix,” I growled, mentally kicking myself. “He’s the heir to the house; of course he’d have one of the great spirits.” 

As I backpedalled, Gideon burst into the room, followed closely by a man that I didn’t recognize with long black hair, dressed in full Morewin armour. 

“What is this?” Gideon growled. 

“A spectre, an abomination. I will answer your questions once the battle is done, but for now we must do everything in our power to prevent it from leaving the room,” Damien replied. 

The other man didn’t stop to ask questions like Gideon; he stepped past everyone into the middle of the room and thrust out his arm while pulling his sleeve back, revealing a glowing silver bracer. “Fenrir, come forth!”

The ghostly light jumped from the bracer, growing and taking form, and by the time it had hit the floor, it had taken the form of a massive black wolf. The beast surveyed the room, its eyes pausing briefly on me before it stalked towards the ongoing battle.

“Do you want to explain how your men managed to miss an abomination while sweeping the room, Grey?” Damien asked.

“I don’t know,” Grey replied, shaking his head. “My team checked with both our spirits and House Tarnin’s scrying crystals. You know how fast these things can adapt if given the chance.”

“I know. Still, once this is finished, you and I are going to sit down and review our procedures. This cannot be allowed to happen again,” Damien growled.

“While I’m all for accountability, could you maybe have this discussion later? We’re still in the middle of a fight!” Kathrine growled. “How do we kill that thing?” 

“Spectres are artificial spirits, ones that can be adjusted to the creator's needs,” Damien explained. “They typically have the same strengths and weaknesses as natural spirits, but considering how resistant this one is to Aquilla’s fire, I suspect that whoever left it here knew I’d be the one leading the investigation.”

“So, call your spirit back,” I shouted. “It may be resistant to fire, but we have plenty of other ways to deal with it.”

Damien frowned. “Aquilla can handle this,” he said. “This is far from his final form.”

“Yeah, well, while your bird is brawling, it’s burning everything around it. There might still be evidence in here,” Monique hissed, drawing the man’s irritated gaze. 

“So much for keeping a low profile,” Pierre muttered.

“While I loathe to agree with these backstabbers, we both know your noble spirit cannot unleash its full power in this tiny area,” Gideon said. “We have other ways to deal with it. I can cut the creature to pieces with my blade, and the Alchemists have their toxins. Let us assist.”

The two men stared at each other for several long seconds before Damien turned back to the fight at hand. “Aquilla, back, you’ve done enough,” he barked.

The phoenix took one last swipe at the creature with its claws, ripping long gashes down the spectre’s front before flapping it’s wings hard enough to shoot backwards several feet while buffeting the spectre with a strong wind. As it disengaged the fires died down, allowing me to look dirrectly at the spectre for the first time since Aquilla engaged. 

It was a complete mess, but somehow the creature was still alive. The hazy silhouette was gone, leaving something far more horrifying behind. During its fight with Aquilla, the creature's fingers and limbs had extended; now it was sporting long twisted talons and its arms hung all the way down to the floor. Its skin, or whatever the spiritual equivalent was, had become blackened and was smoking, and its face now sported a ricktus-like grin.

In fact, from what I could tell, the only good news was that it still seemed to be suffering from the original chest wound.

Fenir growled as it stalked towards the Spectre’s far side, attracting the creature’s attention away from me. I gently stroked the trigger of my axe as I slipped sideways trying to get directly behind the creature’s back. While the spirit-severing toxin was effective, covering our blades with it wasn’t. Unlike most toxins, which could be allowed to dry once they coated the blade, the spirit-severing formula still needed to be delivered in liquid form and in significant quantities to be effective. 

I’d already used about half a vials worth in my first attack, I’d only get a couple more shots at the thing.

As I snuck towards the wall, Kathrine and Gideon split up and began crossing the room, one down each side of the ruined table. The spectre's eyes narrowed as it followed the pair, and it let out a silent huff. 

While the spectre was focused on the table, Fenrir suddenly pounced. The massive wolf sunk it’s teeth into one of the creature’s arms and immediately began thrashing his head back and forth. 

The lanky spectre silently screamed, raised its other arm to strike the wolf down, and that’s when I bolted forward to strike; I wasn’t the only one. 

While Kathrine and I were still closing the gap Gideon darted forward, impossibly fast, and brought his massive blade down through the creature’s raised arm. As the two connected, the blade flashed blue as the man unleashed his aura, letting him cut through the limb like it wasn’t even there. 

The arm flew away, spiraling through the air, it dissolved into an oily black smoke. Completely disapating before the limb could even hit the ground.

The spectre stared at its arm stump for a moment in disbelief, and in that moment I closed in. The monster was so tall now that I wasn’t sure that I could get a killing blow if I went for the body again, so instead I went low. 

As I swung at the creature’s thigh I pulled the trigger, spraying the remainder of the toxin along the axe’s blade. The weapon cut cleanly through the spectre’s first leg, but because of the direction I’d approached from I couldn’t quite get through the second. That was fine though, taking one was enough. 

Now that it was missing one arm and one leg, the Spectre didn’t have enough balance to resist Fenrir’s assault, and it toppled forward; directly into Kathrine’s rapier.

My cousin stabbed her blade straight through the creature’s eye then dragged her blade downwards, ripping a jagged hole in the thing until her blade reached the wound I’d left earlier. 

With that the spectre toppled to the ground, body rapidly breaking down into the same oily black smoke we’d seen ealier. It took a couple seconds, and through the entire process it had this terrified look on it’s face, silently screaming until it had completely dissolved. 

Kathrine and Gideon simultaneously sheathed their blades while Fenrir silently padded back to its master. I let out a long breath, then gestured to the black smear on the ground next to me; the only sign that the spectre had existed. “Well, that was horrifying,” I grumbled, before turning towards Damien and his friend. “Now that it’s over, I really hope you two can explain what exactly that thing was, and what’s going on.”