The moment the two women stepped out into the pouring rain, the succubus raised a hand and whispered a brief incantation.
A soft, almost inaudible gust of wind swirled around their bodies.
The air parted before them, rain no longer lashing at their faces, as an unseen force propelled them forward at such blinding speed that Veyrsend's muddy back-alleys blurred past like watercolor smears.
A trek that normally would have taken a solid half-hour was crossed in barely a few minutes.
They skidded to a halt before the wrought-iron gate of the church on Wax Lantern Street.
Clutching the cold, wet bars of the wicket, Mina panted heavily and glanced back over her shoulder to show Liliane the way to the sacristy.
Yet the woman in the purple gown had vanished.
Where the tall, curvaceous demoness had stood barely a fraction of a second ago, only a thin wisp of violet smoke lingered, washed away almost instantly by the downpour.
Mina blinked in sheer bewilderment.
Suddenly, from the shadows beneath the low stone church wall emerged a small, remarkably nimble creature.
It was a sleek black cat with glossy, velvety fur and a pair of enormous emerald eyes that stared up at Mina with brazen, unmistakably familiar amusement.
Before the girl could squeak in surprise, the cat kicked off the mud-slick stone with breathtaking grace, sailed through the air, and landed softly upon her shoulder.
Sinking tiny claws into the wool of her gray cloak, she coiled around Mina’s neck like a living, warm scarf.
A velvety, lazy voice echoed directly inside the priestess’s mind, vibrating with a teasing chuckle:
“Easy, little blossom. Even in these slums, every idiot knows what a succubus looks like. As a cat, I won't draw prying eyes.”
“A cat?... You turned into a cat?!” Mina hissed under her breath, slipping through the gate and glancing nervously down the dark street.
“A very expensive, high-maintenance cat that demands petting, my little debtor,” Liliane purred telepathically, resting her little muzzle right against the girl’s bare collarbone.
Gritting her teeth, Mina ignored Liliane and hurried toward the churchyard garden.
The rain-drenched yard was a scene of grim turmoil.
Three burly porters, Mrs. Lawrence, and little Allie stood huddled around the well, teeth chattering from the cold in their soaked, coarse linen shirts.
Following Mina’s orders, they had discarded their work doublets in a heap against the cemetery wall, their skin scrubbed raw and red with ice water.
At the sight of the returning priestess, tears of relief welled in the woman's eyes:
“Mother! Praise the Sun, you’ve returned! We thought you abandoned us!”
Suddenly, little Allie tugged on her mother’s wet sleeve, pointing a tiny finger toward Mina’s neck:
“Mama, look! Sister Mina has a kitty!”
Mina froze, forcing a pristine, saintly smile onto her face:
“Yes, darling... She's just a stray. Lives up in the attic and catches mice.”
In that exact fraction of a second, the black cat slithered down slightly.
Taking full advantage of Mina’s soaked cloak parting over her chest, Liliane shamelessly slipped her forepaws beneath the wool, planting them squarely on the priestess’s monumental left breast, barely restrained by the sheer silk of the habit.
And with a loud, contented purr, she began rhythmically kneading the plush flesh, digging the tips of her claws lightly into the swollen tissue.
Mina stiffened as if struck by lightning.
A scalding crimson flush rushed across her face in a split second.
Every press of those paws triggered an explosion of heat across her hypersensitive nipple, threatening an immediate leakage of fresh milk beneath the fabric.
Digging her fingernails into her own thighs, she fought for air, straining with everything she had to keep her voice from wavering in front of the parishioners:
“Mrs. Lawrence...” she choked out through clenched teeth, glaring with homicidal fury at the purring furball.
“Take the little one and the men to the washhouse in the back. Stoke the hearth and change into dry vestments from the storeroom. The cold water washed the worst of the dust from your skin. None of you are going to die, I promise.”
“May the Sun reward you with many children, Mother!” the woman wept, ushering her daughter toward the warm outbuildings.
The moment they rounded the corner, shameless purring resonated in Mina’s mind:
“Mmm... so deliciously soft. That little body of yours smells sweeter than the richest cream, priestess. I could knead this dough until morning.”
“Get those paws off me, you degenerate beast, or I swear I'll drown you in the horse trough,” Mina hissed furiously, peeling the cat away from her cleavage.
Liliane hopped back onto her shoulder, but her emerald eyes abruptly sharpened.
The cat turned her head toward the discarded clothes piled against the wall and the rainwater draining into the gutter.
With a swift pulse, she activated her magical sight.
In the energy spectrum, the contaminated rags still smoldered with a pale, venomous azure, but the bodies of the people entering the washhouse were clean.
Promptly stripping off their garments and scouring their skin with freezing water had drastically retarded the ether’s absorption into their bloodstreams.
Liliane bored a piercing stare into Mina’s profile.
“Little Mina...” she murmured in her mind, the succubus’s tone stripped of all mockery. “No orthodox academy in the capital teaches such methods. When a core breaches, scholarly mages erect convoluted barriers and panic while mortals rot around them. How does a simple girl from a backwater parish know such bizarre procedures? Who are you, really?”
Mina felt a cold prickle at the nape of her neck.
She reminded herself that this world had never known Chernobyl or civil defense manuals.
“I read a lot,” she cut in coolly, nudging the chapel doors open with her hip. “Now help me patch them up before Lawrence croaks in my church.”
Inside the church, chilly twilight reigned, pierced only by dying candles at the altar.
Lawrence lay limp across the pushed-together pews.
His breathing was shallow and rattling, thin foam dribbling from his lips.
Kneeling on the flagstones beside him was young Kevin.
The boy trembled from cold and terror, clutching his swollen, bruised arm weeping with ruptured blisters.
“Miss Mina...” the boy whimpered at the sight of her. “It hurts... it burns so bad...”
Mina shed her cloak, remaining in her scandalous habit.
She stepped over to the afflicted, dropping onto her knees between them.
“Easy, Kevin. We're going to extinguish that fire in a moment,” she said softly.
She had to keep up appearances.
In the eyes of Kevin and any potential onlookers, it had to be the Daughter of Light performing a miracle, not a demoness from the infernal pits.
The girl laid her right hand over Lawrence’s scorched chest, and her left upon the young docker's festering forearm.
In that exact moment, the black cat glided soundlessly from her shoulder.
Settling onto Mina’s lap, she placed her small, velvety paws with solemn gravity directly over the backs of the girl's hands.
“Hold on tight, little one,” came the curt warning in Mina’s mind. “I'm going to channel mana through your circulation. This won't be pleasant.”
And then she struck.
The condensed, overwhelming magic of a Witch of Desire flooded into Mina’s body like molten iron.
The girl was simply not a vessel conditioned to withstand such a titanic influx of energy.
Mina arched back in a taut bow, throwing her chin to the ceiling as a loud, wet, breathless moan ripped from her constricted throat:
“Aaaahh... n-nngh!”
Thanks to the passive skill Tender Sermon, that cry of pain and sheer overload didn't register as agony.
It warped into an extraordinarily deep, throaty, sensual timbre - a sacrificial hymn steeped in intimate passion that rolled beneath the gothic vaulting.
Despite the fever ravaging him, Kevin locked his wide, glazed pupils onto Mina.
The sight of a stunning blonde arching over him in apparent ecstasy, tears tracking down her flushed cheeks, her monumental bust heaving inches from his face beneath sheer silk, drove the young lad into a state bordering on religious ecstasy.
The cat’s black paws flared with a violet-gold luminescence.
The condensed energy surged into Lawrence’s and Kevin’s veins, acting like a colossal filter.
Free, venomous particles of azure ether were seized, shattered, and neutralized in a split second.
Right before Mina’s eyes, the festering, weeping blisters on the men’s arms began to dry with a hiss.
The severe swelling subsided, the mangled skin knitting together into smooth, dark, healthy scabs.
The cat lifted her muzzle and exhaled - a wave of warm air rippled through the nave, purging the space of any lingering airborne dust once and for all.
Mina collapsed limply onto her heels, gasping for breath and dabbing sweat from her cleavage.
Suddenly, Lawrence twitched.
The man’s eyes snapped wide, and he bolted upright, greedily sucking air into his lungs like a drowned man hauled ashore.
Still dazed by the nightmare, he began thrashing his arms wildly, shouting in a hoarse, ragged roar:
“Run! Run from the furnace! There’s no fire in there... A plague took root inside! It’s alive! That shit is alive and eating the iron!”
The cat on Mina’s lap froze solid in a fraction of a second.
Her ears pinned flat against her small head, emerald pupils collapsing into lethal slits.
As an ancient being, Liliane knew one undeniable truth: an ordinary etheric reactor, no matter how terribly engineered, was inanimate machinery.
It had no business birthing a “plague” that devoured iron.
Mina placed a steadying hand on the docker’s shoulder, calming him:
“Calm down, Mr. Lawrence! Please lie back! You are safe, within the Church of the Holy Sun! You have been healed!”
The man blinked, slowly coming to his senses.
He looked down at his forearm.
In place of burning lesions and sloughing flesh, he saw only dry, healing abrasions.
“Healed?...” he choked out through tears, brushing his fingers against the smooth skin. “I’m... I’m truly alive? Merciful gods... I’m alive!”
Lawrence dropped to his knees before the pew, folding his calloused hands in fervent prayer.
He looked up at the breathtaking, if scandalously dressed priestess with the black cat perched on her lap:
“Thank you, Sister... Lili! May the heavens reward you! You saved my life!”
Mina winced slightly, her eyelid twitching:
“Mina. My name is Mina, Mr. Lawrence.”
Yet almost immediately, her accountant's instincts overrode her pride.
If the man was swimming in bottomless gratitude, it had to be converted into tangible assets.
“Your salvation demanded an immense expenditure of divine energy,” she said coolly, yet tinged with maternal clerical concern. “I will expect a generous offering toward the parish the moment you collect your dock wages. And for now...”
Reaching into her cloak pocket, she produced two small vials of liquid.
“You will purchase these two restorative elixirs. Twenty coppers each. They will expedite your recovery.”
“Of course, Mother! I’ll pay for everything! Every last copper!” the overjoyed porter swore, kissing the hem of her skirt.
At that very moment, a familiar cascade of cheerful system chimes rang in Mina’s mind:
[Lawrence regards you as the living embodiment of a divine miracle. Faith +25!]
[Kevin swears to lay down his life for you (and frantically fantasizes about your smile). Faith +15!]
[Witnesses to the healing are captivated by your divine might. Faith +30!]
Mina smiled wide, feeling triumph bloom in her chest.
She failed to notice, however, that the black cat seated on her lap was staring into a shadowed corner of the chapel with grim, icy focus.