The Ghost of Vermil-Chapter 52: Marco XXV

Marco threw him a glance. Blood dripped onto his shirt of which he did not possess many. All of his clothes were hand-me-downs from Marco.

He did not argue with Anastasia. He left his brother there. He pitied him but not so much as to disobey his mother. Marco feared that if he did, she would treat him the same too. And he was afraid to end up like his little brother, unloved and ignored. He should get used to his crying; for Lucas seemed to do it every day.

Lucas cried less when David Rupert arrived. He was to be fostered beside the future Earl of Gallagher. Marco ought to be his lord while David should grow up as a most loyal vassal. The red-haired boy looked fidgety at first, fearful of the House that his family had sworn fealty to. He only had one soldier to guard him. And even to him, the kid seldom talked. In his eyes, the bulls of Gallagher were about to trample him.

Yet he soon realized there was another being lower than him in that small white palace. And he was almost his own age.

Not before long, David and Lucas became thick as thieves, inseparable and always onto some sort of mischief.

"Can David be our brother now too?" Lucas once asked Marco as he joined him for supper in his chamber. He would sometimes accompany his little brother in a meal, although he had already eaten beforehand. Lucas was not allowed at the dinner table. Servants delivered his food to his room. When sometimes they forgot, Marco took it upon himself to bring him his meals.

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"Of course. He's our family now," he assured him, ruffling his soft golden hair.

"He said he lives near a river. He said it's a huge fountain of water that never stops. I want to visit there too."

"You can." Lucas was never allowed outside the gates. The time he could lay eyes upon the Gallagh river could only come after the day Grandfather would banish him.

Marco stumbled upon them one day in the garden, where he heard David laughing. "Hey, don't eat that."

He found Lucas with a raw tulip root in his mouth. "But ya sed it's going to make me grow faster. I'm going to be a Champion soon, you see."

"There's another tulip there," the red-haired pointed.

"Oh," Lucas crawled on the ground and pulled a tulip stalk, broke off the bulb and kept it under his shirt which had become sullied with dirt.

"Lucas!" Marco ran to him. He pulled the tulip from his mouth and shook his clothes off to drop the ones he hid beneath. "It's dirty. And you can't eat it."

"David said —"

"I didn't tell him to eat it," David denied.

"You tricked him, Rupert. He treats you like a brother, you know," Marco reprimanded the other boy, glaring at him as he shrunk. "Lucas, come."

"I'm sorry," David began to tear up.

"Don't be sad," Lucas cheered him up. "We'll still be hunting later."

After Lucas was cleaned up, Marco asked him, "What hunting are you two playing? Care to let me join?"

"We run around pretending to be hunters, though only one can act as the hunter while the other one is the buck."

"Is that so?"

"You should join us."

Marco could not join them for their playtime in the garden became replaced with Lucas's beating.

"I'm sorry, I won't do it again," he cried.

Marco rushed to his room where Ser Wilrick stood at the door while Wolfram Vermilon lashed at Lucas with a whip designed for horses. "What will you not do again?"

"I won't enter your chamber, grandfather."

"And?" WACK. Lucas flinched as the whip left a red mark on his shin.

"I won't touch the House's greatsword, forgive me."

"Aye, you won't, for the minute you attempt such foolishness again, the same greatsword will sever your fingers. You understand?"

"Yes, yes, grandfather," he sobbed.

Marco imagined himself touching the greatsword and being whipped in Lucas's place instead. The punishment seemed undue. Grandfather himself had shown the Vermilon's greatsword to Marco several times, telling him that one day he himself would have to wield it as the Earl of Gallagher, the Lord of House Vermilon. Whenever he entered his grandfather's study, Wolfram would be nothing but excited. He would show him what things an earl had to take care of. He would point to him the places on the map they would visit together during the shifting of the seasons.

It was then that Marco understood how different he was, how special compared to Lucas.

When he asked Lucas why he tried to take the sword in the first place, he answered, "I wanted to show it to David. He's curious about it." Marco did not blame David then, nor his grandfather. In his mind, it was Lucas's difference from him that was the culprit of his suffering.

If he were blessed like Marco, if he were in line to be the future Lord of Gallagher, he would have been treated better. Marco found such logic to be comforting and easy. In such a way, he did not have to blame anyone for Lucas's suffering. And his pity for him did not make him hateful of his family. He did not have to fear being in Lucas's shoe. Anastasia's ire toward Lucas was her love toward Marco, in the same way that Wolfram's indifference and sternness for Lucas was fondness for his only heir.

It was nearly a year after David arrived that an incident shook House Vermilon. Marco heard the commotion and rushed to it on instinct, silently praying it was not Lucas causing trouble again. What awaited him there was more than trouble. It was the dying body of David Rupert bathing in his own blood, some of his innards visible as more than a couple of wounds covered him. One slashed his face running over one eye, his nose, and his lips, exposing his rear teeth and the white of his jaw. Another gash exposed his ribs and stomach. As he twitched, his guts threatened to spill out. Another wound revealed the bones of his thigh. At least one of his toes was missing. It did not look like the work of a human.

The servants said they had to pull Lucas off of the young Rupert. But his brother was not in the scene anymore. He had run back to the palace, they said.

A priest was called in, the best one in all of Gallagher — Father Pietro. Even to a six-year-old like Marco, it was clear that the boy was beyond saving.

While the whole palace was in hysteria, Marco went to his brother's room. He knocked, noticing the smear of blood on the handle. "Open up, Lucas. It's me." He swung the door open himself when Lucas answered him with sobs. The little boy was hunched in a dark corner.

"What happened, Lucas? Can you tell me?" He asked.

He just kept on crying.

He neared him, patting him by the arm. When he did, his brother lurched, swinging at him with scissors clasped in his tiny fingers covered in blood.

Marco was able to dodge. "I'm not here to hurt you, brother. Just tell me what happened."

Lucas lowered his arm, and looked up at him. Marco had noticed that a single streak of black hair hung over his forehead. He wondered if it was always there. His brother mumbled, "Does Mother hate me? Is it because I'm stupid? Am I ugly? Is my hair too bright? I want to look like you. I want to be smart like you."

"Mother doesn't hate you," he consoled him with a lie. He bridged the distance between them and embraced him. Lucas loved hugs. It was one way to stop his bawling.

Somebody banged open the wooden door. "Get away from him! You devil!" It was Mother's voice.

It was at that moment that Marco felt something change within his little brother. Like a twig snapping. His perception caught onto it. It suddenly felt as though Marco was embracing an utter stranger. On instinct, he shoved him away. He saw the streak that Lucas's hand traced in the air. It swung down for his face, aiming for his eye. He pulled his head away but the scissors' sharp point grazed his cheek, touching his bone, awakening a pain there he had never felt before.

Then bursting in tears, Lucas dashed past their Mother and out the door, leaving Marco in shock as he clasped a throbbing bleeding gash on his cheek. When he came to, his little brother was gone — never to be seen again until a month later.

The memory resurfaced back fresh in his mind as Marco watched Lucas rampage. Somehow, this demon felt familiar. He felt the same sense of danger then as he did now. This was the same stranger who swung that pair of scissors at him then, leaving him with a memento for all of the world to witness.

Which is the real you, Lucas? Was that brother I cared for even real?

He had slaughtered innocent citizens in cold blood, cutting their bodies open like pigs. Marco could glimpse no shred of humanity left in him anymore. As if to convince himself of this belief, he sent bullets of concentrated energy to try to subdue him, although whether he wanted to kill him was still unclear to Marco himself. He felt the need to speak with him to ask, Did you even consider me a brother at all? Lucas had never divulged his feelings; perhaps that his identity was now laid bare, he would start to talk.

Lucas instantly healed each injury. Every hole. Every cut. Every bruise. He could even regrow an arm.

But it was only so long as he had energy in store. And luckily for them, Lucas did not seem to possess a power on his own, so he needed to steal from people, artifacts, haloes and puppets to replenish his reserve.

The Gabrielic exorcists were quick to organize attacks. In less than an hour they managed to corner Lucas twice. They would have restrained him back inside Demach if only Marco and Apple had not interfered. Because of their ignorance, mutilated bodies littered the demon's wake. Marco had a part in their deaths. Diana Rupert was right. I am stupid. I fell for his childish cluelessness. His disguise of weakness.

Even as Lucas became bound, the events of the night were yet to sink in. He could not make sense of it all.

They surrounded the demon that had become of his brother. Apple's puppet walked into a circle like an obedient summon. The fact that Apple was not even human made the whole encounter feel much more like some messed up nightmare.

Yet it was real. The smell of blood below was real. The demonic energy emanating from his brother was all too undeniable. The screams of the commonfolk from earlier as they were cut down were earsplitting and real.

After a prayer, a waterfall of light soon poured from the night sky, illuminating the whole of the square.

"We shall take his corpse," Apple's father told him, bidding goodbye. "You are a good brother..."

Am I? I failed in raising him. I did not care for him enough. Would his love have mattered to a demonic entity? He doubted. Even then, he was the farthest from a good brother, he thought. I was blind. I was delusional. I saw all the signs yet ignored them.

Then in a heartbeat they were gone, leaving nothing but the imprints of the rune-covered artifacts they planted, and the aftermath of a demon's rampage right at the heart of the city — dead citizens, flattened houses, broken wooden puppets, and Lucas's severed limbs.

Marco looked up to the night sky, sighing in exhaustion. He could hear a mob of people approaching, shouting commands and keeping order. Above him, a dark patch of cloud inched ever closer to cover the moon, together with it an overcast that slowly crept among the stars, extinguishing their glimmer. We might be getting more storms in the days to come, he thought.

* * * * *

Rain pattered down onto the roof of a bakeshop. Marco sought shelter there, pretending to scan what bread they sold. It was a week after the incident at Gallenport. Demach has closed for a month while it did repairs. Before heading to Gallagher, Marco took the chance to stop by a town in West Bismuth called Lugin.

Marco tipped his hat down as he approached the proprietor and his wife.

"How is the business going?"

"All is well, young sir," the owner replied.

The wife glanced at him curiously. Marco raised his head, meeting her in the eye. She froze. "My lord."

"Apologies for not recognizing a noble," the husband bowed.

Alice the Maid, who had now resigned to selling bread, lowered her head. "How can we be of service, my lord?"

"I'd like some sweet honeyed pies and loafs for my company. You can put them in this sack until it's full."

The husband enthusiastically gathered pies and loaves whereas Alice stood silently in front of Marco. He was right in asking for Philip's help. The exorcist, together with his talent from Handilen, had visited the Ashwood Forest to look for traces of spells and power. But because whatever power that was used then was so minuscule, his companion could not glean the truth of what had transpired. There were traces of holy spells used by soldiers who had died. And along with them the hints of a vile demonic energy albeit not too strong to belong to a true demon. Philip's team though was certain that that same demonic energy had caused the soldiers' deaths. 'The place was unusual,' Philip had said. 'The soldiers were definitely stronger but still, they succumbed to it.'

At least, they managed to track Alice's whereabouts. Though it was a mystery when they said she was already gone even before the slaughter happened.

Although Marco could already deduce the tragic events on that stormy night in the Forest, he wanted to hear it from Alice. And how she survived exactly, when the strongest knight in his brother's escort that night had perished. Did Lucas spare her? She might also have a clue why Lucas had run amok then in the first place.

"I am sorry, my lord," she suddenly whispered, as her husband filled the sack, voice taught with tension. "I'm living an honest and contented life. Please don't take it away from me," she begged, almost teary.

She's more truckling than I expected. Then there is no need to threaten her. "I do not mean to. But care to explain why you suddenly disappeared, Alice?"

Alice was about to speak when her husband approached, "Shall I bring it to your carriage, my lord?"

"Your wife can take them."

"Ah," he looked confused. "I'd be glad to—"

Alice grabbed the sack, strainingly hugging it to her stomach. "As you wish, my lord."

Once outside, Marco created a flimsy shield to protect the bread from the downpour. He turned to Alice. "So, how did you survive?"

"Survive?"

"That night in Ashwood Forest. How did you escape?"

"Oh, the soldiers let me go, my lord. They wouldn't harm me as long as I don't show up again in Gallagher, or in front of you."

"I don't understand. Did the soldiers protect you? From Lucas?"

She flinched at the name. She was not familiar with it. They ever only knew him by his reputation as the Ghost. "Your brother? I'm sorry for what happened to him, my lord. Forgive me. If you wish to take revenge on the soldiers, I am not aware of where they are. I swear." All her words were truthful, the Light of Truth declared, yet they did not make sense to him. Revenge? Why would I seek revenge on the dead?

He stopped on his tracks, perplexed. Her words painted a different story than what tragedy actually took place then. Rain pattered on the thin barrier of holy energy above them, coating their sudden stillness in a lull noise.

"What did the soldiers plan to do then when they let you go?"

She started to look puzzled as well. "Did they not... Your brother is still alive? Then, why did you come looking for me, my lord?" She stepped back in fear.

"All the soldiers and servants that let you go died then. You were missing. I have no clue what happened. Their deaths were a mystery. I was hoping you could shed some light, Alice. Tell me the truth. Did they plan to kill him there?"

She lowered her head, trembling, as though she committed a grave mistake. "Aye, they did."

"They failed, Alice."

He did not know whether what terrified her more was the death of the soldiers or Lucas's survival. She looked up at him with rounded eyes.

Marco glared down at her. "Tell me, who paid you to run away and start a new life in West Bismuth? The soldiers would not have let you free if it were not somebody else's orders. Someone wanted my brother dead. Who is it?" He asked her, though he feared he already knew the answer.

She swallowed a lump in her throat, and replied nervously, "It was your mother. It was Lady Anastasia, my lord."