Chapter 218
Chapter 218. The Thwarted Summoning
A firm hand supported my arm. Turning my head, I first saw Jonathan’s bright, gentle face. His expression, full of concern, looked ready to lecture me about my recklessness.
While he checked on my wellbeing, Lucita had instantly approached the man, satisfyingly cracked his skull with her musket, and pinned him down to prevent any movement.
After briefly fingering the sword as if savoring the sharp sensation of reclaiming his weapon, Liam came over and returned it to me.
“Well done, Liam.”
Liam smiled briefly in response.
The man’s downfall was his arrogance in thinking he knew everything.
He didn’t know us. Honestly, no matter how much he monitored us through brain leeches or investigated us, he couldn’t possibly know everything about where Liam and I met, what we went through, what lives we lived. The secrets Liam and I share are known only to the people here.
Pinned under Lucita, the man clutched his wrist while spewing curses and hatred at us.
“Shut up.”
Jonathan squatted by the man and coldly snapped while striking his head hard (exactly where Lucita had hit with her musket). Seeing this, Saint-Germain quipped about whether police were allowed to hit people, earning himself a scolding from Jonathan. As for me, well, whatever. I was too tired to think anything of it.
Amid the chaos, Liam Moore kicked away the scepter still clutched in the man’s severed hand. It was a thoroughly meticulous finish.
As the medium that had been supplying and maintaining massive magical power left its position, the magic circle gradually lost its light.
Perhaps because tension drained away with the situation’s resolution, my head throbbed and my bruised body ached all over. But knowing everyone here would only release me after making me undergo every possible hospital test and getting a clean bill of health, I wasn’t too worried about my health.
Liam seemed equally unwell. Blood was gradually seeping through his cream turtleneck sweater, perhaps from his stitches tearing or reopening due to overexertion.
“What do we do with him now?”
Ian asked with a tired face.
Yeah. That was the biggest problem. We couldn’t hand him over to the police without evidence of being a cult leader, but we couldn’t deal with him ourselves either. While Lucita, who lived outside the law’s bounds, suggested we could just take care of it quietly and look the other way, Liam and I had something called conscience.
“Let’s get him out first. We can’t leave him here. And the fire…”
“Ah, right. The fire.”
Just how much oil had Jonathan doused? The fire we’d started to stop the tree branches had consumed them all and spread to the scattered chair debris. A hell-like inferno was already raging behind us.
“This is bad.”
I could only stare in disbelief at Jonathan’s calm statement.
“Should we pour water?”
“You can’t use water on an oil fire…”
“I know, sis.”
This is insane. We need to survive first. If we stay here any longer, we’ll all die from toxic gas inhalation or bronchial burns. We decided to escape through the wall that had been destroyed by the storm and thrashing tree branches.
One by one we escaped the chapel, and just as Liam and I were about to pass the cult leader outside, it happened. Flash! The discarded scepter on the floor emitted light.
Huh?
Why was it glowing?
It shouldn’t be glowing. It should be discharged? You can’t have power after unplugging the cord, so to speak. The same should apply to a medium.
After the scepter glowed, the floor began to rumble violently. It felt like we’d pressed a bomb’s detonator. The man in our grasp now had his eyes closed and mouth completely shut. His already corpse-like face was now almost chalk-white from blood loss.
“Open your eyes! Tell us what this is before you die!”
While I repeatedly slapped the man’s cheeks demanding explanations, Liam looked around and muttered in dismay.
“Looks like the summoning caused some ground stability issues.”
Right, the ground had been shaking like an earthquake when the magic circle activated. I nearly tore my hair out as I shouted.
“What? Then what do we do?”
“…Run for our lives?”
There was me, aching all over from hitting the wall. Liam with his gunshot wound. And this man bleeding like an open faucet.
The problem was that all three of us left here could barely take care of ourselves, let alone run.
I squeezed my eyes shut. The accident had already happened. First, I shoved the groaning Liam through the collapsed wall while struggling to drag the cult leader along.
That’s when the floor began to cave in. The ground was gradually collapsing. A sinkhole, steadily expanding its circumference, swallowed the chapel’s outer walls, statue, and floor debris one by one. It would undoubtedly grow larger than the building itself in no time.
“Run!”
With my desperate shout, we quickly escaped outside and ran for our lives to where the car was parked, avoiding the spreading cracks.
We shouldn’t have parked near the mansion! Should’ve parked further away!
This wasn’t working. Supporting this man was slowing Liam down. I sent Liam ahead, then forgot my own pain as Lucita and I grabbed the man’s limbs and ran. Well, limbs minus one, but we could worry about that once we were safe.
I don’t know how we made it to where the car was parked. Only after everyone had somehow gotten into the car did we close the doors. Jonathan, who’d arrived first, was frantically trying to start the engine. The sound of the starter motor kept rattling on and on.
The now vast sinkhole had swallowed the mansion, already ruins from the storm. What’s more, whether from the tremendous impact or something else, even the surrounding ground, cracked like a spider web, was sinking into the hole. Like quicksand.
The ground where our car stood was shaking madly, gradually being pulled toward the sinkhole. I could see the color draining from Jonathan’s face even from here.
“Why, why won’t it start! Damn it!”
As Jonathan, desperately turning the key while holding down the brake, finally started pounding the steering wheel, I urgently stopped him.
“Hey, hey, Jonathan! Don’t hit the car!”
“Ah, shit!”
The sinkhole’s edge was right in front of us now. As the surrounding ground sank, the car began tilting as if being sucked into the hole.
We tried to move toward the trunk to shift the center of gravity back even slightly. We’d saved the world and caught the cultist—we couldn’t die in a sinkhole. Everyone here was probably thinking the same thing.
“Got it! It started!”
In this critical moment, a loud engine roar split our eardrums. Finally, the engine had started. Jonathan shifted into reverse and slammed the accelerator. We could feel the wheels, after spinning uselessly in the dirt for a few moments, finally grip and push against the ground forcefully.
Jonathan drove like a madman, backing away steadily. And when we finally escaped the sinkhole’s danger radius, we collapsed in our seats cheering like NASA employees after a successful space mission.
The joy of survival was short-lived as sudden exhaustion hit.
The others seemed to come to their senses too. From one side came Saint-Germain’s complaints about blood staining the floor mats. Liam was groaning, clutching his torn side. Ian sniffled quietly, tired from using magic. Lucita rummaged through her coat’s inner pocket, probably wanting a cigarette. It was complete chaos.
They hardly seemed like people who’d just escaped being pulverized in a sinkhole. …Maybe I just attract crazy people.
Just, I don’t know. Everyone was tired. I briefly felt intense regret, wondering what kind of wealth and glory I was expecting to achieve by doing this with these characters.
Anyway, we’d somewhat stopped the summoning, and France was safe. That’s what mattered, right?
We left that place in our dust-covered car.
“Is everyone okay?”
In the moving car, Ian asked carefully. He’d found some sports drinks somewhere and was holding them. Seeing him looking like an angel checking on everyone’s condition while helping them drink, I suddenly felt very sorry for dragging him into this. Sorry, Owen. Sorry, Ian. Your family seems to get exhausted whenever involved with Liam Moore. I should tell you to cut ties with Liam Moore later.
My vision was really getting blurry now.
“You guys handle the rest…”
I muttered that and then passed out against Liam’s broad shoulder.
* * *
When I woke up again, I was in a hospital. A week had somehow passed.
I don’t remember at all how we got from France to England. Whether I was experiencing narcolepsy as a side effect of being consumed by hallucinations, or if part of my memory had been knocked out from hitting my head. I couldn’t recall anything about what happened after resolving that incident.
Saint-Germain, wearing a white coat, diagnosed me and casually said not to worry too much, that it was just a common ‘temporary madness’ symptom.
What’s that? Why is that common? Should that be common…?
“Am I better now?”
“Probably. I recommend spending some time peacefully enjoying a relaxing rest.”
“…What about the hospital bills?”
“…”
Saint-Germain, who had been quietly smiling, told me:
“…It’s better not to know.”
A chill ran down my spine.
Getting injured in a foreign country is scarier than grotesque monsters or human sacrifices. I definitely shouldn’t ask. Just thinking about the consultation fees, treatment costs, and a week’s hospitalization made me dizzy.
Unlike our country’s health insurance system, I remembered hearing that hospital bills abroad were astronomically expensive. I remembered doctors’ house call fees in 19th century London, but I wasn’t sure about 21st century British hospital charges. Anyway, as I was resolving to shamelessly raid Saint-Germain’s pockets without asking any questions, the door suddenly opened and Liam walked into the room looking light-hearted.
“Got my stitches out!”
“Already? Your soul might be old, but your body’s still the same!”
As I muttered in amazement, my elderly husband in his prime grinned.
