One Silver Coin For a Pound of Demon

Chapter 37

Draft
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You realize you're shaking when Lemuel kissed you.

Did you start shaking when he touched you, or did you find yourself shaking after he kissed you? You don't quite know. Your body is shaking, your teeth are chattering, and you're more cold than scared. The flames in your bones receded, the december chill reappeared, and your sweat-soaked fabric and hair began to cool, shrouding you like a cloak. The arm you used to hug Lemuel trembled, as if you had lifted something too heavy, you couldn't stop it.

The weather is so cold, the liquids exposed to the air quickly became sticky and frigid, such as sweat, such as blood. The blood that Lemuel rubs against your face is also losing temperature, only the area covered by his palms are still as warm as ever. Your hands are no cleaner than his, ink and blood (and perhaps brains) are strewn across your hands and sleeves. You look down uncontrollably, the corpse at your feet horribly dead.

You killed him- it's only now that your mind registers this clearly.

You've killed countless demons, and they're all evil beasts, not people. Now you've killed for the first time a servant of God. This sin is monstrous and unforgivable. Lemuel lifts your chin again, preventing you from looking down at the corpse of your work. His palms are warm, his lips soft, and some kind of scary but charming flame is beating inside his red eyes. You close yours, as if you've just woken up with Lemuel in some precipitous morning, even with the greatest willpower, it was hard to immediately move on.

"I'm fine." After a few minutes, you say with difficulty and push Lemuel, "Leave here, there might be reinforcements."

Lemuel lets go of his hand and looks at you inquisitively, this time you acted carefully according to the Holy See's the operating mechanism. If no signal is received, there'll be no large-scale blockades. After all, most of the search this time is for purpose of casting a wide net. The larger the net, the sparser it is, there's always a way to leave. Lemuel listens intently, nodding frequently, and finally he suggests that you should deal with the corpses.

"Don't be too careful, as long as there's enough time to let us go far." Lemuel narrows his eyes and twitches the corners of his mouth, "Just fertilize your garden."

That smile is rather cold, but at the same time calm. Just like when you looked up at him just now, it was the look of someone who knew exactly what they were going ot do. His eyes are reassuring, making people believe that all problems will eventually disappear, and even if not, he'll solve them one by one.

There are four corpses here, only the one you made looks particularly appalling. The other three (including the one who was stabbed by Lemuel after being knocked unconscious by you) basically died of a broken spine, they died cleanly. Lemuel is indeed proficient in killing. You take the corpses that didn't bleed much to the garden, you have to find a means of transport to secure the one that bleed all over the place. You open the utility room to find a stretcher, but Lemuel sees something else, he points to the trolley in the corner of the room and laughs.

"I remember this, you used it to bring me back," He says, shaking his head gleefully. "Oh, what a wonderful world."

Sometimes you just don't understand his sense of humor, he laughs at his own scars like they're really funny. But you agree with the second half of the sentence, what a wonderful world. A year ago you brought back a half-dead demon with that trolley, and a year later you were complicit in hiding away a clergy's corpse together. Six years ago you couldn't have imagined the life of an ordinary priest, a year ago you couldn't have imagined yourself so depraved, so free, so intensely emotional, a few minutes ago you couldn't have imagined that you can continue to standing besides Lemuel, talking, kissing.