Chapter 3: A Sanguine Sacrament

Chapter 3: A Sanguine Sacrament

The alley was a throat, swallowing the city's light and sound. It stank of rot and stagnant water. Above, a single fluorescent tube flickered and buzzed like a dying insect, bathing the cracked concrete in a sickly, jaundiced glare. This was the demon’s lair. The perfect, profane place to perform its final defilement. Elias slipped into the narrow opening, a shadow detaching from other shadows, his heart a cold, heavy stone in his chest.

Ahead, silhouetted against the alley's dead end, were the two figures. The demon had pressed his angel against the cold brick wall. Her back was to Elias. The man—Leo—leaned in, his handsome face a mask of predatory lust in the stark light. He murmured something, and Seraphina let out a small, choked laugh.

To an ordinary man, it might have looked like a lover’s embrace, a stolen, intimate moment. But Elias saw the truth. The venom in his veins was an elixir of pure perception, and it showed him the scene for what it was: the final moments of a struggle. The demon was whispering threats, not sweet nothings. Her laugh wasn't one of joy; it was a gasp of terror, a desperate, last-ditch effort to appease her captor. Her body was tense, her hands flat against the brick behind her as if trying to push herself through the solid wall to escape.

This was the precipice. He had arrived not a moment too soon.

"Get away from her," Elias’s voice was a low rasp, a sound alien to his own ears. It was the voice of something old and righteous.

The couple sprang apart. Seraphina spun around, her eyes wide with shock and confusion. Leo stepped in front of her, his body instantly shielding hers. His easy-going demeanor vanished, replaced by a hard, protective glare.

"Who the hell are you?" Leo demanded, his voice echoing slightly in the confined space. "Get lost, creep."

Elias’s lips pulled back in a semblance of a smile. The demon was arrogant. It didn't recognize its executioner. It used its profane voice to issue commands, as if it had any authority here, in this holy ground Elias was about to consecrate.

And Seraphina… she was looking at him with fear.

His heart ached. Of course, she was afraid. She didn't understand. The demon had poisoned her mind, filled her with its filth. She saw a strange man in an alley, not her savior. She couldn't see the light of his purpose. He would have to show her.

"I said," Elias repeated, taking a slow, deliberate step forward, "get. away. from. her."

"Buddy, I'm going to give you three seconds to turn around and walk away before I make you," Leo said, balling his fists. He was bigger than Elias, broader. A creature of brute, physical force. It meant nothing. Elias was powered by divine will.

He saw Leo glance at Seraphina, a silent communication passing between them. Then Seraphina screamed. It was a piercing, terrified sound.

"Leo, let's just go! Please!" she cried, tugging at his arm.

Elias's delusion clicked into place with perfect, terrifying clarity. She wasn’t screaming at him. She was using the distraction, trying to pull her protector—Leo—away from the danger she perceived. No. She was trying to pull the demon away. It was a final, desperate plea for it to release her. Her cry wasn’t for Leo to save her; it was her telling Elias that the demon wouldn't let her go.

The venom ignited. This was the sign. The sacrament had to begin.

Elias’s eyes darted around the filthy ground. His gaze locked on a loose chunk of concrete near the wall, a jagged-edged piece of the broken city. He moved. His lunge was not born of practiced skill but of pure, obsessive force. He scooped up the rock—it was heavy, real, an instrument of judgment—as Leo started towards him.

"You crazy son of a—"

Leo never finished the sentence. Elias swung the rock in a wide, desperate arc. There was a sickening, wet crunch as it connected with the side of Leo’s head. The demon grunted, a sound of surprise more than pain, and staggered back. A dark line of blood instantly appeared in his hair, stark under the buzzing light.

Seraphina’s scream ripped through the night, no longer just fearful but raw with primal horror. "Oh my god! Leo!"

She was calling the demon’s name. A final, terrified symptom of its brainwashing. Elias had to complete the exorcism. He had to sever its hold for good.

Leo shook his head, trying to clear it, and charged, a wounded animal. He was strong. His tackle sent them both sprawling onto the grimy concrete. The impact knocked the wind from Elias’s lungs, but the venom was a fire that burned away the pain. He was on his back, Leo’s weight crushing him, fists raining down on his face and shoulders. The blows were distant, unimportant thunder. All that mattered was the mission.

He still had the rock.

With a surge of strength born from madness, he bucked and twisted, bringing the jagged stone up and slamming it into Leo’s temple. The demon’s assault stopped. His body went rigid. Elias shoved him off, scrambling back to his feet.

Leo was on his hands and knees, shaking his head, blood now pouring down his face, painting one side of it a grotesque, glistening red. He looked up at Elias, his eyes glazed with pain and confusion.

"Sera… run…" he choked out.

Elias saw it not as a selfless act, but as the demon's last curse, trying to send the angel away from her savior.

"The sacrament requires a sacrifice," Elias whispered, his voice trembling with the force of his revelation.

He raised the rock high and brought it down again. And again. And again. Each blow was a prayer. A punctuation mark in a holy verse written in blood and bone. He was no longer a man. He was a priest, performing a bloody, necessary rite. He was cleansing this holy vessel, Seraphina, by destroying the filth that had clung to her. The wet, rhythmic sounds of the attack were the only sounds in the world, a sacred drumbeat accompanying his work.

When it was over, he stood panting, his arm and chest spattered with a hot, dark liquid. The demon lay still, a broken effigy on the concrete altar. The buzzing of the fluorescent light seemed impossibly loud in the sudden, profound silence.

He had done it. He was victorious.

Slowly, reverently, he turned to his angel. He expected… he didn't know what he expected. Tears of gratitude? Awe? A silent, knowing understanding?

Seraphina was pressed against the far wall, as far away as she could get, her body wracked with violent, silent sobs. Her face was a mask of pure, crystalline terror, her wide, horrified eyes fixed not on him, but on the mangled thing that was once her boyfriend. She didn't see a savior. She saw a monster.

But Elias, in his sanctified state, couldn't perceive her terror for what it was. He saw the aftermath of trauma. He saw an angel in shock, her spirit shattered by her long and terrible captivity. The demon was dead, but its poison still lingered in her system. She was free, but she didn’t know it yet.

He took a step towards her, wanting to offer comfort, to explain the gospel of her salvation.

She flinched violently and let out a thin, wretched whimper.

He stopped. No. It was too soon. The ritual was complete, but the divine work was not. She needed to heal. She needed time. His appearance now would only deepen her trauma.

His duty was clear. He had performed the bloody sacrament. Now began the vigil.

Without another word, Elias let the concrete chunk drop from his numb fingers. It landed with a heavy thud. He turned and walked out of the alley, leaving the buzzing light, the dead demon, and the weeping angel behind him. He melted back into the night, his soul alight with the terrible, holy glow of his deed. The venom in his veins was quiet now, sated by the sanguine sacrament. For now.