Speaker Of Hell

Chapter One - A Lady Most Foul

Emer stood over the smoldering corpse of the perverted blacksmith, wrinkling her nose at the horrid stench coming off of it. She boiled his blood, yes, but she never wanted his skin to cook with it.

His body was a series of charred crossroads, marking the paths in which his blood flowed. That demon, Lucifer, had called it a 'vein', but she simply couldn't see how blood flow could make somebody narcissistic, lest it was from the severed head of an enemy.

Not that she'd know, of course. If she cut somebody's head off, she would have heated her blades. That would cauterize the blood instantly, making for an easy cleanup. If she was sloppy, the Church could pick up her trail, not that they had ever dropped it. Those people were so damn persistent, Emer sometimes wondered whether she should even bother with such precautions. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending how you looked at it, old habits died hard. Unlike the blacksmith, who had been so easy to take down that she received almost no pleasure in killing him.

Emer wiped her brow, and realized that a chunk of his skin from where she had contacted him had welded onto her thumb. She darted her eyes to look at his neck, which had thankfully cauterized instead of spilling onto the ground. If that happened, she would have to boil the blood again, and hope that nobody wandered near the shop for a few days. It would have been a false hope, since this was one of the only smithys for miles around, so she was glad that wasn't the case.

That being said, Emer still had a piece of his neck on her finger, so she made her way to the smoldering coals, and with her bare, unprotected hands, began to shovel a hole to the bottom as if it was merely dirt.

Once a sufficiently deep hole was dug out, she willed her hands to grow hotter. Eventually, the piece of skin melted, and landed with a soft hiss in the hole, which she covered up quickly, hoping it would mask the smell.

Another precaution that was rendered completely obsolete by the fact that the corpse of the blacksmith reeked of burning flesh. She would have to work quickly, or else the stench would become so potent that folk wouldn't mistake it for an accident.

Crash!

Emer swore as the battleaxe on the wall tipped over and cut a gash in her arm. It had torn through the fabric of her cloak and she was on the verge of bleeding out.

Wasting no time, she unsheathed one of her daggers, and gripped it tightly. The blade started to glow red, and after a few seconds, it burned white-hot. She pressed it onto her skin, cauterizing the blood, thankfully only missing a few drops.

Emer grimaced at the ugly sight, but it was necessary for now. She supposed she could have done a cleaner job with her own hands, but she didn't want to accidentally boil her own blood. She wasn't scared for her life, because she could stop at any time. No, it was because if she accidentally started to boil her blood, the skin above her 'veins' would char, and that would be even more unsightly than the long scab down her arm.

Pushing the vulgar sight out of her mind, Emer straddled the blacksmith, the pungent odor of the still bubbling skin bothering her infinitely more than the actual heat.

Just bear it for a minute or two.

She got onto his stomach, placed her hands on his shoulders, and began to chant.

"Tollite sacrificium, daemon"

The pentacle around her neck began to vibrate wildly, then straightened out, the chain digging painfully into the back of her neck.

"Corpus et Anima."

The pentacle slammed into her skin, right under her neck. She held back a vulgarity. The damn blacksmith had made the charm sharp, and it bit into her deeply.

"Reparare in porta."

The charm sank lower, drawing blood. A droplet fell between her bosom, and as if on cue, blood flowed from her ears, her nose, and her eyes. She shuddered, and spoke the last verse.

"Fac et omnis!"