Obscurity, The Twenty-Seventh Chapter
In which the mercenary discovers a rather unsettling scene.
e last read The Twenty-Sixth Chapter, in which the abbess had a premonition. If you have recently joined us, start with The Prologue.
The mercenary stepped into the residence where he was met with the most discerning silence, the kind left behind once an intruder has left. At first there was only the sound of his breath, the step of his shoe, the rustling of his cloak, and then there was a feeling to it. A creeping sensation that bled into his skin, just as the sound of a cello stirs cloyingly into one’s bones.
The strike of a match did nothing to abate it, save light the candle in his hand and illuminate a room that was not quite as he left it. Nothing was moved, and yet nothing remained as it was. There was a lingering sense that someone else had been present, had touched a finger to the brocade walls, had left an indentation on the velvet furniture, had read the widow’s letters at her desk, had smelled the scent of her perfume.
And then, there was a drip—a soft padding of condensation upon his shoulder. As he held the candle before him the darkness receded as a curtain to reveal a most troublesome tableau. Above the mantle, black with mourning, the Virgin Mother was now obscured with red. Thick blood dripped demurely down her face, seeped down her gold frame, and fell onto the hearth where it pooled in vibrant shades of crimson before cascading in rivulets to the floor.
There was another drip, and with it the sensation of an over rosined bow screeching across cello strings, plucking the sanity from one’s chest. The mercenary turned his gaze upward as another drip touched his face. He felt the blood at his cheek as his eyes rested on the chandelier, a constellation of candles now dripping with blood.
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