The Ghost of Vermil-Chapter 27: Apple VII

The less damp stretch of the woods close to Gallenport was a tangle of scents. The earthly smell of towering trees about to shed their leaves mixed in with the rich fertile scent of the soil and silt carried by the distributaries of the Gallen River. Wildflowers and ferns opening up and dispersing their seeds, nocturnal creatures up in the foliage and on the soggy undergrowth — their essence wafted to Apple's nose, demanding her attention. The appalling odour of the fleeing cursed being contrasted with the heavenly fragrance of divinity that emanated from the blessed children making their names inside the dark forest or exacting revenge or getting in the way of it. She felt overwhelmed just breathing them in. However, the most prominent scent of all was of this dark golden-haired noble whose holy power smelled like a vast endless sea.

She had encountered sacred power like this only once before. It was when she was birthed into the world, her vision covered in dazzling light as though the sun had wandered close. She remembered his most dreamy redolence, the very first scent that tickled her nose even before she knew how to smell. She remembered the blindingly white feathers of the wings that adorned his back, spanning the edges of her infantile vision when they unfolded. He was the first face she had ever laid eyes on, before she even noticed her Father who held her weeping in joy. Despite the years that passed since then, she still remembered him vividly. His shape. His face. His scent. Archangel Gabriel.

Marco Vermilon's blessing was a strange one. His holy power transferred from his body to the trees, and along with it, his scent. The willow he touched became drained of its earthly odour, in its place wafted Marco's fragrance. It was as though the tree became a part of him.

The hunt for the cursed being had taken an unexpected turn. Marco chose to run to his friend, taking Apple with him. Even if she were against it, she knew there was no way for her to coerce him to continue on their pursuit. He's way more powerful than I am. Besides, he is the leader.

Apple's quarry was the cursed being in the woods. But she never thought she would encounter Diana here. She was hell-bent on taking the justice she believed was due.

But a more pressing concern emerged right before her.

"Lucas of Vermil is your brother?" She couldn't help asking. Apple pieced the puzzles together. By the way they talked about him, it was as good as certain. Yet, she had to ask him anyway, to confirm it beyond question.

Marco turned to her, eyes glinting with the threads of holy power enveloping him. "I prefer to keep it a secret. I hope you understand."

She could not understand. She honestly was at a loss as to why he would keep it a secret. Is prying more going to make him upset? I could not care less about his feelings, though. She opened her mouth again, "By blood?"

He nodded. "Now I need to find him. Help me lift her onto my back."

He bent down to his knees while Apple strained to drag the sophomore's body onto his back.

"Thank you," he said, securing his friend's body by looping his arm around her leg. He turned to Diana who glared at him in defiance. "Are you going to fight me? We set aside the Houses we belong to and face each other fairly. I will not hold it against your House, nor should you against mine. Nothing at stake but my brother's absolution."

She raised her chin and proclaimed, "I will get my justice soon. And you won't be able to stop me." Her eyes jumped to Apple and said, "I see, you've chosen to become his puppet now."

Apple wanted to retort but Marco spoke first, "Lady Rupert, what has happened in Vermil should be left in Vermil. Lucas travelled all the way to the Capital to change his life. I implore you to give him the chance. Now at last, there is a future for him."

She chuckled, "Change? Future? With all due respect, my lord, there is no future without a reckoning of the past."

"He has been disowned. He has no name, no House, no gold. What more can you take from him?"

"His life," Diana answered as she swivelled on her feet, decloaking the shroud of holy energy. "Just as life was taken, life is to be paid."

Marco turned his back to them, walking in the opposite direction. Apple followed behind him, her mind flooded with questions, sensitive ones that might rouse the aurochs from within him. But the direst question of all was: Is he really a murderer?

She could not make out his expression in the dark, but his utter silence was enough to know that some change had taken hold of him. He was lost deep in thought as his friend snored and slobbered on his back.

He abruptly froze, saying, "Apple. Close your eyes. Don't speak of this to anyone."

If it was not about the pursuit of the cursed being which they probably already lost, Apple had no reason to take orders from him. But then he added, "Please."

She shut her eyelids and perceived the earth with her nose instead.

A sudden burst of holy energy — one uncontained yet with purpose — nearly blasted her senses out of her soul. It was a deluge that threatened to drown her senses, an aroma so potent it hurt her nose. Then it receded and became diluted. Creepingly, it washed away the world around her, the smell of turf, blossoms, stones, grass and trees. It filled the forest with its own heavenly fragrance until it was the only scent that was left. Then, it vanished. The world as it once smelled to her returned.

"You can open them now," she heard him say.

Apple did, with an astonished look on her face. Whatever he did left no trace on the landscape. Elms stood still, leaves rustled in the wind. The ground was just as wet. But earlier, their scents had been erased, taken over completely by Marco's will.

"I found him but we need to make haste," he told her with urgency. He created another orb of light and set off.

Even with a whole person on his back, his pace did not dwindle. Instead, he surged with more swiftness than before. Apple had trouble catching up.

After a while, she caught another smell — the familiar one she had just lost moments ago. She figured then why Marco was in such a hurry. Bile rose from her stomach when she neared it. She covered her nose, bracing for the pain in her head that was about to hit. She almost stumbled but she picked herself up and followed after Marco who seemed so absorbed that Apple wondered if he was still aware she was right behind him.

He had turned so quiet that she feared he'd finally snap at her if she ever uttered a single word.

The stench of the cursed being who seemed to have stopped fleeing lingered in the air yet even then, the immeasurable vastness of Marco's divine blessing overpowered it.

"Lucas!" He cried out.

A figure crouched under the weeping branches of a white willow tree. Under the light of the orb, his stark golden hair seemed to have a glow of its own.

"Lucas," he kept calling as he stepped over to his brother's hunched figure cautiously.

Apple felt she was obliged to keep silent, to disappear or blend in with the vegetation. This was a family's delicate moment and she was intruding on them simply by being there.

Lucas of Vermil had his back turned to them, his dark cloak covered in soil, leaves and twigs as if he had just rolled around on the detritus. He cast a sidelong glance their way, face pale as bleached parchment, blue eyes glinting with the orb's light. "We should bury him," he said in his eerily calm voice.

Marco Vermilon edged closer and gasped, "Lucas, what is it?"

In the orb's luminosity, Apple could make out the lifeless arms and legs of a child on Lucas's lap. When she moved over to behold it clearly, her jaw fell open.

It was less a child and more of a monster now. A snout protruded from its face. Its head was topped with the hair of a human but its ears were that of a rat. It had the spindly claws of one too. When she thought this night could not be more bizarre, a more jolting scene unfolded right before her eyes. Its snout flattened back into a face belonging to a little boy, its ears shrinking to that of a human, claws growing shorter until all that remained was an ordinary child clothed in rags lying peacefully on Lucas's lap. He couldn't have been more than eight years of age.

"We should bury him," Lucas muttered again.

Something's not right. The cursed being was dead but the reek was still there.

It was then that Apple realized that what vileness she sniffed emanated from Lucas of Vermil himself.

"Your chest is bleeding!" Marco blurted out, "We should go." A broken dagger lay just beside him, its toothed blade riddled with cracks, its tip smeared with blood.

"I know, but we should bury him first," he insisted, pleading with both his brother and Apple as though she would have a say in the matter.

Marco reasoned with him, "We cannot bury him. He's a cursed being, Lucas. He might still come back as an undead. Remember the wolves in Ashwood? I'll set his corpse on fire instead."

He shook his head adamantly. "No, I'll bury him."

Marco looked to the lamp at his brother's feet. "Let me borrow the fire from here."

"No, Marco, please..." Lucas looked to him and then to Apple, entreating her with his innocent eyes that bore the shade of the ocean.

Despite his supplication, Marco chanted his spell INVIOLABLE EDICT. A tendril of holy energy reached into the flame which slightly grew in size and began to crawl its way to the dead boy.

Lucas was left with no option but to leave him on the ground upon Marco's stern order.

Apple watched as fire consumed the corpse of the cursed being, the smell of burnt flesh and hair wafting to her nose. She did not like it. She never did.

In the quiet of the forest as puzzles after puzzles racked Apple's mind, she picked up another scent she had sensed before. It was faint compared to the smell of Marco's divine power and the malodour of the cursed being. Perhaps that was why she could not notice it before. It belonged to one with a gigantic lumbering frame, a tall hat with a veil that concealed his face, and a stain splotched sack on his back. She whirled around, searching for his figure from within the shadows.

Marco seemed to have noticed him too for he turned to her, saying, "He's here. He's been here before us."

This content is taken from fгeewebnovёl.com.

But Uncle Patrick's bulky figure never appeared. He did not step out. Yet she could tell he was there looking on. As the child's remains smouldered into ashes, the smell of the Gabrielic exorcist faded and disappeared. All that was left was the scent of charred flesh, the fragrance of Marco's immense blessing and Lucas's demonic stench.