Forget Me Not

I've Got No-one But Myself To Blame

Within the mangled remains of the tour bus, the ghouls began, with caution, to test their limbs for damage - stretching and uncoiling their dark, infernal bodies. Their demonic strength allowed them to push aside glass, metal and broken furniture, the weight of which could have easily pinned or even killed a human. It was Swiss who was the first ghoul to try to stand, legs wobbling briefly as he braced himself against the flimsy remains of a wall. Raising his head, he sniffed the air with alarm as he sensed blood, both human and ghoul. Wiping his own away with his palm from just above his right eye before it blurred his vision, he turned from side to side looking for even the smallest flash of red fabric.

"Papa?"

He called out as best he could; his voice hoarse, strained and gravelly from a throat coated with dust and racked from cries of pain and panic as the rolling of the bus had thrown them all around the interior like rag dolls. Thankfully, by Mountain's recommendation, they were all buckled in for the worst of it but even some of the seatbelts had snapped at the violence of the roll. His words were drowned by the whistling wind and fell to only silence in response.

"Papa!"

He shouted again, louder and stronger this time as he scanned the still-settling wreck for any sign of him.

Dew was the next to clear a space around himself with Cumulus and Cirrus immediately to his left, still buckled to their seats. The bus had miraculously come to a halt on its wheels, not that much seemed recognisable anymore, leaving the three ghouls relieved that they were in a seated position, rather than hanging upside down. Unbuckling the belts with hands trembling with shock, all three took care not to push debris onto each other or their beloved Papa.

"Where is he?" Swiss begged his packmates, his demonic features creased with stress and concern and his ears pinned back as far as they would go. "Look for him! Don't just sit there, look for him!"

"Calm down, Swiss, we'll find him, he'll be okay!" Rain now replied from behind him, irritating the other ghoul with his overconfidence without evidence.
"You don't know that!" Swiss growled in return.

Rain's expression fell at the words and Swiss could see that the water ghoul was just as scared as he was.

"No, but I need to believe it," Rain explained, almost choking on the words.

With Aurora and Phantom now having surfaced from the mess, a full scale search was mounted, each taking a different section of the bus, desperate to find their Papa unharmed. Chairs were upturned and luggage was pushed to the side as they dug through rubble.

"There!" Cirrus cried, elated as she noticed a scrap of bright red under what appeared to have been a table at one point.

Scrambling through the debris, Swiss and Dew headed in the direction of the hint of red, both ghouls concerned about the quantity of wreckage piled on top of the scarlet cloth. It was a painful procedure trying to be both swift and careful as they tore at the ruined furniture in a flurry of claws, their tails lashing in frustration behind them.

The fruits of their labour revealed only the bright red cardinal's biretta. Picking up the hat in his claws, Dew held it and stared in a reverential way at the cloth before offering it to the visibly forlorn Swiss.

"We'll find him," he insisted. "We will."

It felt more like an attempt to convince himself than anyone else but it was the impetus that everyone needed to continue their search.

***

With the arched stained glass windows and flying buttresses, the church that now loomed into view was an imposing and ancient gothic building located not far from Linköping Castle. It was known locally to be occupied by a group of somewhat insular clergy who never held an open mass and rarely, if ever, interacted with the locals.