"That was the most sincere confession I've ever heard in my life," I said, my voice dry as old parchment. Caleb didn't laugh. His chest heaved, a raw, ragged sound tearing from him as he dropped the heavy stone. It struck the wet ground with a dull thud, splattering mud and the succubus's thick black fluid onto the moss. He dropped to his knees, his hands trembling. He began scrubbing them against the cold, wet earth, a desperate, frantic motion. He wasn't just cleaning them; he was trying to scour away the memory, the violation. His face was a mask of furious disgust, eyes burning with a shame that wasn't his own. I watched the dark liquid smear his skin, then turn to streaks of rusty brown as he rubbed harder and harder, heedless of the raw skin beneath. "Iona," he choked, the name a poisoned whisper. It was ragged, the sound of a boy's trust, a boy's heart, breaking into shards. The illusion had been too perfect, too cruel. Kneeling beside the creature, I ignored Caleb's pain for a moment. My left hand throbbed, a dull, insistent ache beneath the torn skin where I had bitten down to break the succubus's hold. Blood had dried to a sticky crust, pulling at the skin. Genesis felt heavy, cold, and solid in my right, its weight a familiar comfort. Three rounds remained in the cylinder. The succubus lay still, its grotesque true form revealed. Gaunt and pale, it was a mockery of life, with that impossibly long, barbed lamprey tongue lolling from its mouth, grey-pink and slick. Its ruined dress was ripped along the back, revealing a meticulous line of black stitches. They weren't crude. They formed a perfect centipede, each segment a tiny, intricate knot, alien against the corpse-white flesh. This was no natural wound. Black-gold fluid, thick and viscous, seeped from the bullet wound in its skull, tracing slow paths through the matted hair. It caught the faint light, shimmering with an unholy sheen. I ran my bitten finger along the spine, tracing the unnatural stitches. They felt like rough silk, yet utterly inorganic, almost alive beneath my touch. This was not a creature of simple demonic possession. Near the base of the spine, where the dress was most torn and the stitches culminated, something glinted. Not bone, not sinew. I pried it free. It was a stone, perfectly round, the size of a pigeon's egg. Blood-red, and strangely, persistently warm against my fingertips. It wasn't chipped or rough like any moorland pebble I'd ever seen. Its surface was impossibly smooth, polished. Something in it seemed to move when the light caught it. A gasp escaped Caleb's lips. "What is that, Father?" His voice, sharper now, pulled me from my thoughts. He stared at the stone in my palm, his eyes wide, questioning, trying to make sense of the new anomaly. This was not part of his simple narrative. "Later," I replied, my voice flat, giving nothing away. I slipped the small orb into my cassock pocket. It settled against my skin, a persistent warmth that felt both comforting and deeply unsettling. Caleb wiped his mouth with the back of a bloody hand, then looked at the dead thing, a flicker of something close to triumph in his eyes. A desperate need to impose order. "Thomas," he said, the boy's name a quiet accusation. "The succubus… she drained him, didn't she? That's why he was so dry. And the smile… it matched her song. She killed him, Father, didn't she?" His gaze met mine, raw and pleading, seeking confirmation, closure. He needed a clean explanation, a monster identified, defeated, gone. He needed this horror to be contained, understood. My mind replayed the impossible stitches, the viscous fluid, the unique stone. They didn't fit his simple explanation. Not entirely. But he needed to believe. "It fits," I said, allowing the partial truth. The stitches, the black-gold fluid, they didn't fit the natural order. Not yet. But Caleb needed to believe this was the end of it, a simple hunt concluded. We would deal with the deeper anomalies later, when he was less shaken. I stood, hefting the Censer of Authority from the ground. It was cold now, its white smoke long dissipated into the heavy fog. The air still smelled faintly bitter, like raw medicine against rot. A final trace of what had broken the creature's hold. We left the clearing. The fog was thicker now, swallowing the trees, blurring the path ahead until it was barely visible. Each step sank into the saturated earth, mud sucking at our boots with a sickening sound. The wood was silent, a muted, dripping world, the only sound the slow slosh of our passage. Caleb walked ahead, his shoulders hunched, his pace a weary shuffle. His silhouette, already indistinct in the fog, seemed to sag with exhaustion. I followed, listening to the squelch of our footsteps, the steady beat of my own heart against the unfamiliar warmth of the red stone in my pocket. The walk felt endless. The path wound through dripping ferns and skeletal branches, the air heavy with moisture and the distant, almost imperceptible scent of peat smoke. My cassock, already damp, grew heavier with every step, clinging to my legs. My bitten hand ached, a dull, insistent throb that mirrored the unsettling warmth in my pocket. I could feel the silver-jacketed rounds heavy in Genesis, but the weight offered little comfort. The creature was dead. Yet, the stitches, the fluid, the impossible stone… they gnawed at the edges of my relief, a growing unease. Sounds of the inn reached us long before the building itself. A low hum of voices, the clink of a glass, the faint, comforting smell of peat fire and stale ale. They cut through the damp silence of the moor like a lifeline. We emerged from the wood, stepping onto the muddy track leading to the Shepherd's Rest. The inn, a low stone structure, seemed to huddle against the encroaching fog, its solid presence a stark contrast to the swirling gray. Its single lamp cast a weak, yellow glow into the swirling gloom, barely pushing back the darkness. Caleb pushed open the heavy oak door. Heads turned. A sudden, palpable hush fell over the small taproom. My blood-splattered cassock, Caleb's stained coat, the exhaustion etched onto our faces, it was not a sight for a quiet evening of drinking and gossip. "Saints preserve us!" cried the innkeeper, his eyes fixing on the dark streaks on Caleb's face, then on the dried blood on my sleeve. A small group of villagers, huddled around the hearth, shifted uneasily, their faces pale with unspoken fear. "A rabid dog," I announced, my voice steady, cutting through the sudden silence like a knife. "Attacked us in the wood. Vicious thing. It was a close call, but we managed to put it down." His hand flew to his mouth, his eyes darting to the fearful faces of his patrons. "Rabid? On the moor? There's been no such thing in years!" "It is dealt with," I assured him, my gaze sweeping over the frightened faces, hardening slightly. "Nothing to worry yourselves about now. But perhaps a strong drink for my verger, and a basin for washing." Murmurs rippled through the room. They looked at us, then at each other, their fear still tangible, but slowly receding into a grim acceptance. Rabid animals were a known evil, an understandable threat. Easier to believe than what they truly suspected, than the things they feared in the dark. A short while later, after Caleb had scrubbed himself raw at the pump outside, wincing at the cold water on his torn hands, and changed into a spare, ill-fitting coat, and I had swilled a glass of lukewarm ale, the innkeeper brought her. Maeve Hart. A wisp of a girl, no older than Caleb, wrapped in a too-large, threadbare shawl that seemed to swallow her small frame. Her face was pale, drawn, her eyes darting like trapped birds, never settling. She held her hands clasped tightly, wringing them in a nervous, repetitive motion. Her hair, once a vibrant brown, looked dull and lifeless. "She worked at Blackwood Manor," the innkeeper whispered, pushing Maeve gently towards our table by the fire. "Fled a few days ago. Says things weren't right." Maeve sank onto the bench opposite us, shrinking into herself, her shoulders hunched. She refused the tea I offered, her head shaking almost imperceptibly. Her gaze kept flickering to the shadows in the corner, as if something still lurked there, just beyond the firelight's reach. "The house," I prompted softly, my voice low and even, hoping to draw her out. "What wasn't right?" Her voice was barely a whisper, thin and reedy, a dry leaf rustling. "It felt wrong. After the landslide. The air… it changed. Heavy. Cold, even by the fires. Like a breath. A bad breath that clung to everything." She shivered violently, pulling the shawl tighter around her thin shoulders, despite the warmth of the hearth. "Like a chill that got into your bones." "What kind of change?" I pressed, leaning forward slightly, keeping my tone gentle. "Did you hear anything? See anything unusual?" "Sounds," she breathed, her eyes widening, reflecting the firelight in their dark depths. "From behind the walls. A scraping, sometimes. A low thumping, slow. At night, mostly." Caleb leaned forward, concern etched on his face, his earlier exhaustion forgotten. "Did you see anything? Any of the family?" "No," she shook her head vehemently, tears starting to well in her eyes. "But the other servants… they either left quick, without a word, or they stopped speaking. Stopped looking at you. Just worked, like ghosts. Their eyes were hollow." She didn't know what happened to Sir Silas, only that he hadn't been seen for days before she fled in terror. Her fear was raw, palpable, a living thing in the small, warm room. "The kitchen," I asked, my voice low, hoping to ground her in concrete details. "Where did you prepare the meals?" "Rear kitchen," she mumbled, staring at her hands, still clasped tightly. "Near the stores. At the back of the house, away from the main hall." "And the cellar?" She nodded, her gaze lifting slightly, a flicker of fresh terror in her eyes. "Wine cellar. Beyond the kitchen. But… it was always locked. After the landslide. From the inside." "Locked from the inside?" I repeated, the detail catching my attention, sharpening the unease in my gut. That was no mere oversight. That was deliberate. "Yes. No one went down there. Not for days. No wine brought up." Her voice dropped to a barely audible whisper, her eyes wide with remembered horror. "But I heard the thumping, sometimes. From behind that door. Low. Slow. Like something heavy trying to break free." She closed her eyes, a fresh shiver running through her. "A slow, rhythmic pounding. It shook the walls, sometimes." I exchanged a glance with Caleb. His face, still pale from his ordeal, now showed a new kind of apprehension. His earlier relief had completely vanished, replaced by the grim shadow of a fresh, unknown threat. Maeve was led away by the innkeeper, back to her small, cold room, still trembling. The innkeeper gave us an apologetic look, his brow furrowed. "She's been through too much, poor lass. Needs her rest." Silence settled over our table. The peat fire crackled, its warmth now a hollow comfort against the chill seeping into my bones. I pulled out Zeke's crumpled newspaper clipping from my coat pocket, flattening it on the scarred wood of the table. The headlines stared up at me, stark and accusatory: 'Landslide at High Moor,' 'Tragic Death of Young Boy,' 'Missing Livestock,' 'Strange Household.' My fingers traced the faded print, connecting the disparate threads. The landslide, which had torn open the manor grounds. The air changing, Maeve's bad breath. The sounds behind the walls, the low thumping. The missing villagers and livestock. Thomas, his body drained. The scorch mark on the stone at the boundary wall, the melted mortar, the unmistakable smell of burnt fat. It wasn't a succubus that had caused all this. That creature was an opportunist, a scavenger. Or perhaps something worse, a lure. A guard dog. A diversion. The true horror was still within the manor, untouched. The pieces clicked into place, forming a terrifying mosaic. "It's not over," I said quietly, the words barely escaping my lips, my voice hoarse, a grim acceptance of the truth. Caleb looked up, his gray eyes shadowed with exhaustion and a dawning understanding. "Father?" "We're going back," I told him, pushing the clipping aside, the decision made, cold and certain. "To the manor. Before dark." His jaw tightened. He didn't argue. He understood. The brief respite, the false closure, had evaporated like mist in the morning sun. There was no escaping it. We stood and walked toward the inn's rear entrance, out into the biting fog that clung to the evening. The air bit at my exposed skin. My left hand ached with a deep, persistent throb. The rear kitchen door was swollen and cold. From the other side came a slow, heavy knock, then another. Caleb looked at me. I put my hand on the iron latch. The red stone was still warm in my pocket.

Chapter 12: The Long Walk Back