Seraphiel jumps towards Madarame, grabbing him in his arms as he falls.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he cries out, pressing his hand on the wound.

  Madarame grins, wide-eyed.

  The blood around them bubbles and boils as the wound on his neck becomes animate, the stygian fleshy pieces weaving themselves back together—like a spider spinning its broken web. The blood pools once more. It burns through the ground, creating a fleshy hole resembling an oesophagus. Madarame stands straight up, cracking his neck awkwardly as the spider emblem comes into the light on his eyepatch. He grabs Seraphiel’s hand and pulls them into the hole in the ground.

  Seraphiel screams in horror while Madarame laughs in sadistic joy.

  They fall for four minutes straight, and as they pass through the other side they launch out of the ground as opposed to falling out, landing on a field of short, sharp grass. Seraphiel looks around, then looks up at the tree bark in front of him—the leaves hair-like and the bark old and wet. This was no tree at all; in fact, it was the Tengu from the illustration. It reared its hunched head down towards them, its eye resembling an inky pool of matte black—an earthly black hole—peering at them. It spoke.

  Not in a language they could understand. It clicked, cawed, and cooed in a voice so deep the bass shook their chests every time.

  “Pst, pssssssttt.” Madarame is trying to get Seraphiel’s attention.

  Seraphiel turns his head, mouth agape. “Take your eyepatch off.”

  Seraphiel removes it.

  The Tengu releases a prolonged caw followed by rapid clicks, as if laughing or crying.

  “Are you ready?” Madarame asks.

  Seraphiel had the utmost trust in this man; he had no reason to doubt him.

  He swallowed. “Yes.”

  The bird hunches back and its neck twists. Its entire neck spins like an owl while its eye, the size of a pond, stays directed at the hole in Seraphiel’s face.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  It launches at Seraphiel.

  Snap.

  Crack, crack, crack—its neck retracts back and forth while it chews.

  Seraphiel’s mangled leg sticks out from the corner of the bird before it licks it back into its mouth.

  Madarame takes his boot off and empties the blood that had pooled in it.

  He taps it on the grass and looks at his watch.

  The bird began to change.

  It bends in all directions. Its hairs stand up as if lightning were impending. Its beak breaks, its neck shoots back, and it shrinks rapidly.

  Ten whole minutes this Lovecraftian show goes on as Madarame is engrossed watching it.

  Finally, a bundle of hair is left where the beast was. Madarame walks up, plunging his hand in and grabbing another hand.

  It was Seraphiel.

  He was calm and unfazed, apparently.

  “Tada!” he says.

  Seraphiel glares—not in hatred. He knew that the horror he lived through, those few seconds of suffering, were worth it for powers like Madarame’s. He glared because he was struggling to decipher what Madarame was saying. In his head, the bird was clicking rapidly and capriciously.

  Strangely, he would intuitively understand it.

  “Cairnreach royal, haha—haha—haha—haha—” Again and again, like a parrot. “Return soon, haha—haha—haha—” over and over.

  He blocks it out.

  “Your powers—you are aware of them, yes? Just as you are aware of your own arm and don’t even understand how you can manipulate it at will, but you can.”

  Seraphiel nods vacantly.

  “Get us out of here, king,” Madarame pleads.

  Bony wings sprout from Seraphiel’s back. They tear through his flesh, the wings and their bones crooked and coated in the same dead, wet hair the Tengu had. He flies forward at blinding speed, snatching Madarame and flying through the hole, returning in just ten seconds.

  Madarame gasps. The speed at which he flew rendered it impossible for him to breathe. Seraphiel did not appear to have such an issue.

  Only now did he notice Seraphiel’s eye had the same blackness as the Tengu’s. It unnerved him. The recipes were unnecessary for those from ancient Verez or those who were royalty belonging to Cairnreach. Madarame did not entirely know why, but he realised he should have exercised more caution. Perhaps the optional ritual method was more contaminating than he anticipated.

  They return up the stairs to the ground floor of the chateau, sitting to eat.

  Madarame avoids eye contact with Seraphiel; the look in his eyes disturbs him.

  “So,” he chews on the steak, “what now? Verez is a while away. I suppose it’ll be nice to train with the sword, but your powers render that somewhat redundant.”

  Colour bleeds back into Seraphiel’s eyes.

  “Ah,” he says, grabbing his limbs and checking they remain. “What was that? Is it over?”

  Madarame looks up, confused.

  He chews some more and simply repeats the question.

  Seraphiel grounds himself. “Erm… well, there is something I want to do. Really badly.” He scratches his head. “I really want to go to Verez—to the Cradle of Life, where man was touched by its superior.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, man?” Madarame grips the tablecloth and lunges forward.

  Concern has vandalised his face.