Chapter 147: Night Terrors

William Oh once sneezed near a Climber Possessed by an evil spirit.

‘Bless you!’ the evil spirit said reflexively, not daring to be rude around William Oh, and in the process exorcised itself.

• Jason Salazar

The floor wrapped around Will’s heel and propelled him forward at full speed, straight towards the floor-to-ceiling window.

Will threw his axe ahead of him, guiding it with his Phantom Snakes.

Crash!

The axe punched a hole through the strangely strong glass, and Will followed behind, smashing through the weakened hole face-first, using his mask as a battering ram and tumbling through the window.

There.

The body had fallen another thirty feet in the fraction of a second it had taken Will to jump out.

Will sent the Phantom Snakes streaking down, easily catching up with the man and wrapping around his waist, bringing him to a gentle halt to avoid snapping his spine.

Who are we dealing with? Will thought, landing on a platform of air as he turned the man around, prepared to cuss him out for playing chicken on the edge of the building or whatever stupid game the young men in the caravan liked to get up to.

Will froze as he came face-to-face with something out of a horror story.

The man’s face was contorting wildly as though the muscles were struggling against each other, his eyes and mouth oozing black substance reminiscent of the undead spread across the road beneath them.

Kline, I think his name is. One of the Carpenters.

As he saw Will, he gave a black-ooze grin and slipped a civilian dagger out of his belt. The kind they might use for whittling, cutting bread or rope.

He whipped the dagger up-

Will’s middle snake wrapped around Kline’s wrist an instant before the dagger plunged into the man’s own eye.

Why is he trying to kill himself?

Will put it together in an instant. Whatever was messing with his head was trying to secure a win by killing its host. Which meant there was a way it could be removed, as long as the body stayed alive.

Otherwise it wouldn’t be in such a hurry to kill its host. If It couldn’t be removed, it would gloat.

Kline stuck out his tongue, and Will shot forward, jamming his hand into the possessed human’s mouth before he could bite off his own tongue and bleed to death.

Will winced as the black teeth sank into his fingers. Carpenters were, as a rule, modestly strong, but it didn’t outmatch Will’s Resistance.

It hurt, but it didn’t break the skin.

Crack!

Will felt the teeth shift minutely as one of the man’s molars cracked against Will’s finger. The monster puppeting his body was able to muster more force than a man could sustain without injury.

Even if they saved his life, Kline was going to have a bad day.

Will secured the man’s arms and legs with four Phantom Snakes, then used the armor of the fifth one to create a metal gag, preventing him from biting down before withdrawing his hand.

Will glanced up and saw at least a dozen civilians and Climbers staring down at them in dismay.

Will sprinted back up to the rooftop, carrying the possessed carpenter along with him.

Kline was hyperventilating as he struggled against the Phantom Snakes, but the carpenter didn’t have any combat Abilities that the creature could use to get him out.

“Is anybody else-“ Will said, gesturing to the snarling man beside him.

“No, thank the gods,” Brenna said, the aged seamstress holding her family tight.

“What happ-“

“KLINE!” one of Kline’s party, presumeably his wife, shouted as she rushed towards him.

Will took a step forward and blocked the young woman before she got within range of the infection…if that were a concern.

“Let me…see him!” The woman shouted, trying and failing to muscle past Will.

“Not until the Priests of Holdna fix him,” Will said. “Where are the priests of Holdna!?”

“Right here!” The ancient saint Charnesa shouted, approaching with two other priests. Her expression soured as she spotted Kline behind Will.

“Lay him down.” she said, gesturing to the floor. “And don’t let go of him.”

Will did so, and the three priestesses knelt beside the struggling man, their hands glowing faintly as they pressed down against him.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Will asked, trying to divert the distraught woman’s attention towards himself rather than her husband, who had begun twitching and vomiting black bile.

“H-he said he felt tired and was going to go to bed early. I went to bed with him. He got up a while later and said he was going to pee off the side of the building. I-I didn’t think anything of it.”

“No black stuff when he got up?” Will asked, gesturing to his face.

“I’m sorry – it was dark,” She said, her voice trembling from barely restrained sobs.

“It’s fine, she can touch him,” Charnesa said, arriving beside Will and tapping him on the shoulder.

The saint’s gaze followed the young woman enviously for a moment as she collapsed beside her writhing husband, before turning back to Will.

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“We need to talk.” The Saint’s words provoked a cold sweat. “Over here.”

“We can get the spirit out of him, but there are problems.” Charnesa whispered as they ducked out of earshot.

“Tell me.”

“Removing possessions like that are a bit like yanking a root system out of the ground without damaging it.”

Will frowned.

“The thing has laid roots inside him, and if we pull it out thoughtlessly, it will damage him beyond repair. Also, if we miss a piece of the root, it will regrow. Maybe not into the same demon, but something that will cause him to hurt himself or his family.”

“What are you getting at?”

“It’s going to be slow. Hours.” Charnesa said. “I would understand if you wanted to cut our losses here.”

Will understood what she meant. The excitement, noise and most importantly, the Charge expended at the top of the building would be like a signal fire, attracting the undead.

Staying in place for hours would definitely result in a confrontation.

“Could I just keep everyone in midair while you get the thing out of him?” Will asked.

“It’s an option, but there’s still the issue of the spirit, and whether or not there are more of them.” Charnesa said.

Will glanced around, not seeing any more spirits.

“What do you mean?”

“I think we’re dealing with a night terror. Undead that don’t have physical forms. Can’t see ‘em, can’t touch ‘em. They’re not even ethereal, they’re entirely separate from our plane of existence. They’ll trail after a Party until one of them goes to sleep, and then pounce. If the person sleeping isn’t particularly strong of will, they’ll be possessed.

“And is there a reason you didn’t warn us about them?” Will asked.