Children of the Clergy

Season 1 | Episode 20 | The pyre

"Please! I-It didn't work! I have to go back and try again! Please!"

Mephistopheles sighed as he listened to his healer's continued begs and pleas, "I agreed to let you return momentarily. Returning a second time is completely out of the question."

"But my condition was that I could return momentarily to heal him! And, since he has not been healed, my conditions have not been met! Meaning that I do not yet belong to you!" Errapel cried. Mephistopheles paused for a moment, turning the thought over in his mind, "You have to let me go back. I promise that I'm not just trying to find a way away from you. I just...I keep promising that he'll be safe soon but I am yet to actually fulfill that promise."

Mephistopheles crept over to the healer, who was knelt on the floor as he continued to beg. He knelt in front of him, gently placing his hand underneath his chin as he tilted his head up to face him, making him go quiet.

"This is your last chance. If it is not removed by the time you return, I don't care. I won't be letting you try again."

The door to Primo's room was gently pushed open and Terzo peered around the corner, "Fratellone?"

Primo was sat at his desk, silently reading from a small blue book. His ghouls stood in a circle around him. Their heads were bowed, but it wasn't due to it being a rule for them at the time. Instead, it was due to sorrow.

Despite not sharing a bond with them, Terzo could feel their dispair. Zephyr, being a quintessence ghoul, was practically radiating it.

Primo glanced over, slowly beginning to register the concerned look on his brother's face. He smiled sadly at him before closing his book and walking over to the small boy. He knelt in front of him, pulling him into a tight embrace, "I was still connected to him when he died. I felt him fade. I felt the bond snap. It feels...quiet now, without his added emotions in my soal." A tear ran down the older boy's cheek. His voice cracked slightly as he spoke and Terzo stroked his back gently as he tried to comfort him.

The ghouls crept over, circling around their papa. Zephyr placed a hand on Primo's head sending him a wave of his mojo to help ease the pain. The Emeritus boy smiled up at him sadly. The ghouls were hurting too, maybe even more than he was, and yet they were still trying to help him. He who had been controlling them since they'd met.

Primo wiped away his tears and stood up, "Was there something you wanted to ask me, brother?"

Terzo stared up at him, pondering over the question for a moment, "I just wanted to check on you. You were really upset and I havn't seen you all day."

The ritual had been held in the early morning so, after it had failed, they'd agreed to take the rest of the day off to regain their energy and then try again the next day.

The ghouls had carried Motley's body out of the chapel and it was now lying on the edge of Primo's bed, covered with a spare white bed sheet. He'd been heart broken when Papa Nihil had told him that they weren't bothering with a funeral for the ghoul kit. They were "too busy tending to Anya's injuries". She wasn't even that hurt. There were no marks on her except for a few mild bruises on her neck and her side, where Motley'd knocked into her. Primo had begged them to at least put the body in the mortuary but they'd refused. It had brocken him to realise just how little the Clergy cared for the ghouls.

"What were you reading?" Terzo asked, peering over at the blue book on Primo's desk.

"Oh, it is a book about magical energies. I hoped it would have something that we could use to increase the power of the ritual when we try it again tomorrow." The older boy explained.