Father Albina looked at the email signifying the detonation of ring number 143 with some concern. It had occurred outside of the local network cell, which meant that whatever had happened had taken place outside of the temple building. What concerned him more was that no-one was currently assigned on a mission and that in turn meant that he either had a delinquent, an incompetent... or a traitor.
Whichever it was, they're dead now, he reasoned. The thought gave him some comfort as he ran a search for the owner of that ring.
Dasgard's eyes opened. He was in a bed, apparently a hospital bed. His powers and senses were gone! This was not good, but far better than he'd expected. In all other ways he felt fine. Sometimes rogue Creatures were punished by countermagical charms which robbed them of their powers until such time as they had repaid their debt to society. Perhaps they had commuted his sentence at the last moment...?
Rolling over, he climbed out of bed. He was about to look for some clothes when he realised with some surprise that he was already wearing a jerkin and trousers which looked similar - if not identical - to the ones he'd been wearing when he was taken to the scaffold. As he glanced around for a mirror, his eyes suddenly locked on the adjacent bed in an expression of horror. The occupant was obviously dead, his neck bent at an unnatural angle. The body was a well-toned looking dalmatian and his spot patterning was very familiar. Das gave a little whimper of fear as everything suddenly fell into place... he was a ghost, staring down at his own corpse. He sat upon the floor and began to sob gently to himself.
"Ah, there you are..." the voice said. Das turned. The figure was looking straight at him.
"Y... you can see me?" he asked, incredulous. Then: "Are you dead too?"
"I beg your pardon?" the fox asked, looking at him strangely. Head-wings burst from his hair and then Das knew terror.
"Don't eat me!" he begged. If he was truly just a naked soul, bereft of his own 'Cubi powers and defences, the other incubus could feast upon him right now, destroying everything that he was, just like his clan's leader had been destroyed. No-one else would even know...
The Creature frowned, glanced at the body on the bed and looked contrite for a moment.
"Oops," he said. "That shouldn't still be there. No, you're not a ghost. I needed the original body close at hand to do some last-minute comparisons and checks. Anyway, I'm Niall. Pleased to see you've made it."
"Brother Niall? The monk? I did wonder if you might be a..."
"Niall Jakobsohn, actually. I find that posing as a man of the cloth is the easiest way to visit the condemned. Maybe it is wrong to impersonate a holy man, but you can't argue with the fact that I did, in a manner of speaking, save your soul."
"But my body..." the dalmatian pointed futilely at his own chest.
Niall patted him on the back. "Synthetic," he said. "You're an android replica. Perhaps it is judgemental of me, but at the end of the day, you did misuse your powers as an incubus. Now you are just a peg or two higher than a Being. But at least you're alive, and when your corpse is cremated at a private funeral later this week, the Mundesburg officials will never suspect a resurrection."
"So, Brother Abidan..." James said. "If you don't mind me asking, what exactly are you? I can't quite tell what kind of Creature you are."
"I'm a shapeshifter," the puma said simply.
"Well now, that narrows it down a bit," Azrael said coolly. "Incubus, Mythos, Dragon, Were, Phoenix, Fae... that's only about half of the known races, isn't it?"
"Cut him some slack," Ashley said impatiently. "Jakob didn't know what he was when he was growing up. Why should our friend here be any different?"
"You're right," Azrael sighed. "You must forgive me, I think we're all a little tense here. Coming to us was something you did at great personal risk and I should be far more grateful than I have been. Pray continue, if you would be so kind."
"Well, we kill and take the place of other people. The Father says that it is to help purify their souls, but..." he looked around furtively, as if the priest might suddenly appear and smite him with some kind of divine judgement. "...but I don't think I believe him."
"I fear you may be correct in your assessment," Sethir said. "But what was it that made you seek us? And whom have you replaced?"
"The Father preached a sermon against him," the Brother replied, pointing at Councillor Sanderssen. "He told us that Brother Arcuros had been executed by the Councillor for the crime of belonging to a false religion. But... somehow, I could tell he was lying. But as for my Brother's death... it was the ring, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it was. He faltered in his impersonation of the real Arcuros and then took his own life to evade capture," the Councillor sighed heavily. "What could he possibly fear so terribly? We treat our prisoners well."
"Summary decapitation," the Brother said fearfully. "The Father has oft told us of a room filled with the stuffed and mounted heads of the Councillor's enemies. But one day when I was purchasing supplies for the Father, I bumped into you and felt I could trust you. I know it sounds silly, but I just knew... don't ask me how."
"Your gut feeling was quite correct," Sanderssen said. "Ha'Khun has not had the death penalty for several centuries, and even during the despotic reign of Cross, that power was kept for his own use exclusively."
"And exercised less than a dozen times," Jakob chimed in.
"Whatever. If I did have some kind of head collection, I'd be looking at some serious jail time the moment it was discovered. The last thing a successful psychopath wants to do is to brag about it if he intends to stay free."
"I notice you've avoided the second question, Brother," James said pointedly. "If your kind slay and replace others, have you done this yourself? Was there really a Mr. Abidan whom you've murdered?"
"No!" the puma squeaked. "I haven't! It's sort of like... a rite of passage. But I attended one of the rituals. I knew then that the Father would soon call me to do this myself and I had to know the truth first..."
"We'd all like to know the truth," Ashley started and began to make a curious gesture with his hands. "What you've done has been invaluable in giving us a far clearer picture of what's going on. Now, let's see if we can't work out what you are," he said, passing the Brother a sheaf of papers and a pencil he'd pulled from mid-air. Sethir looked at him enviously for a moment.
"This is one of our standard employment forms. If you can fill out as much as you can, we should be able to get some idea of your capabilities, and deduce what kind of a Creature you might be."
"Souls eaten?" the puma queried a few moments later, with a nervous chuckle. "You can't eat a soul... it's not a physical object..." his voice trailed away as he realised that the others weren't laughing.
"I'm afraid you can," Sethir told him gently. "There are spells which allow one to remove the soul of a Being or Creature. There are good uses for this, but generally you only get to hear about the bad ones, people having their very existences torn from their screaming bodies to be stuffed into a jar as a trophy or devoured like... like snacks. It's one of the reasons Creatures are feared so amongst Beings, and I pledged my life to help stamp it out. I had thought all this was common knowledge."
"I have lived what you might call a sheltered life..." the feline began and then faltered. "Did you... is it only Creatures who can do this?" he queried, looking from face to face nervously. "You're all Creatures, aren't you...?"
"Basically yes, on all counts," Azrael said. "Though there was this one Being guy... Elvis of Melbourné or somesuch... he had an enchanted sword that allowed him to suck out the souls of his victims and consume them to prolong his own wicked existence."
"That's horrible!" the brother said and shivered. "What happened? Is he still out there?"
"Him? He was found soulless in the middle of his ballroom by one of his descendants. They think he cut himself with it one day while training, and that was it for him. The sword was destroyed there and then, but even so, no-one was quite sure if his spirit passed on or not. Good riddance... To the sword, I mean," he added hastily. "It's far too easy to have a nasty accident with a horrible thing like that, as he discovered to his cost."
"My Children," Father Albina called out, "The Wheel has granted me insight last eve and the tidings I bring are heavy." He lowered his head. "Our poor Brother Abidan has strayed from the path and wanders no more upon this world." A muted gasp of horror ran through his flock and he waited a moment for it to die down.
"How came this to be, Father?" one of the elder Brothers asked.
"He has in sin made a pact with the forces of Evil, and foolishly sold his immortal soul to a Demon, the foul Councillor Sanderssen."
The Brother made a gesture of horror, blessing himself.
"It is true. For his pains our poor dear Brother's head is being stuffed as we speak, ever to remain a trophy in that hall of the damned. His face is terrible to behold, my children," he said, choking slightly. "Pleading for mercy, an eternal regret that can never be fulfilled..."
"Know you all, that Evil never keeps its end of the bargain," he warned. "One cannot compromise with Demons."
"Jakob..." Dorcan called out, and suddenly noticed that there were two grey wolf incubi at the desk instead of one. He looked a little surprised but soon recovered.
"You're talking to Ha'Khun, right? Is Joshua there? Martha's got Commander Hanson on line three. He wants Josh to testify at Keaton's trial."