Despite my best efforts, he lay dead and bloody in my arms.
Funny thing, curses. Sometimes they creep upon kings in heavy fortresses like assassins in the dead of night. Other times, upon unlearned peasants of unassuming hamlets during the sermons of travelling clergy. At this stage, soaked through with the man’s blood, there was but one course. For even though the era of kings and peasants had long passed, the old ways still lingered. In fact, if one considered the CEOs in their steel and stone towers, and the working poor in their endless ratrace, all that had really changed was the surface. The church, too, had survived, and given my role within it, my task remained the same: to find the man’s next of kin. It was the right thing to do.
Around me, people stared in shock, screamed in abject terror. Someone frantically dialed 911. I dismissed these reactions; they were of no use now. I continued my examination of the young man–first with my eyes, and then with the divine arcane. While I had not the power to inflict such a powerful curse, my apprenticeship to the church, and prior that, the apothecary, had taught me a thing or two about the ichors of life. I pulled on that knowledge, and it took a moment, but I managed to reveal the link. Good.
In theory, reading the bond within this poor sap’s blood would lead me back to wherever he was from. I could not glean from the crimson mess who precisely had cursed him, nor why—perhaps that was for the best. When a man unceremoniously falls upon you in a shower of gore, better not to seek the one who can so casually make such happen. So, having cleaned myself up, I sent a message to my Superiors to inform them that I was beholden to make a detour in my evangelism; I’d need the company car for at least a week or so longer. With that settled, I set out to make things right. My gut squirmed a little.
Six days I traveled, hauling his still-warm corpse with me. And, six nights I conducted the rites of purification. Given the circumstances, I did not have the luxury of hotels, and so these rites were performed on the dark edges of rest stops, or backwater lots so desolate only weary truckers would stop through. Perhaps it might have been easier to forego these rites; Even were I not compelled to do such as a man of faith, my personal virtue would not permit me to rest without performing the rituals. It was the least I could do to stifle the feelings welling up inside of me. Those still, soundless nights in the dark unsettled me enough, even without the dread crawling in my gut at the thought of being unable to fulfill my obligation to this poor man’s family. All in all, the journey passed with tension; I spent it watching the long miles still to come, with far too frequent glances to the body wrapped in garbage bags.
On the seventh day, body aching, spirit tired, I pulled into his hometown. The blood told me so. In fact, the vestiges of the link led me straight to the home of his mother. Relief washed over me, a cool bath soothing my feverish journey. Finally, I had found his family.
“W-what happened?” she asked. Understandably, her face turned as pale as I pulled away the trash bags. Her eyes, wide with grief, matched the lad’s dying expression. Quite the family resemblance, I’d say. Her tears poured endless as I gave my explanation.
“A blood curse,” I told her. I glanced down at the body, now largely harmless. “A potent one, unfortunately. Seems like someone powerful had a bone to pick.”
She clutched at his body. Held him close, as would any loving mother who had lost her son.
“I truly am sorry,” I told her. “Truly.”
Honest, even. While no one wants to see the lifeless body of their child, just as surely, no one wants to deliver that spot of ill news. Yet here we were.
“As I said, it is a powerful curse. There was nothing I could do.”
Through the journey, I had done my very best to purify her son for this moment. Now, I began to perform the last rites; after all, six days had already come and passed. The sun hung on the edge of the horizon. The ritual could not wait a moment more. As I worked through the ceremony, I could feel the tingling under my skin, the agitation boiling in my blood. It quickened with every pulse, as if irked by the effort. However, even with my blood thundering in my eardrums, even with terror strangling my heart, I kept myself calm and collected– if not for her sake, then for mine. Thusly, I completed my final task, and the sensation abated.
“It is done,” I told her.
She looked up at me, body shuddering with sobs. “Thank you.”
I breathed deep, and bowed deeper. “You have my condolences. May you find peace.”
By now, the sun was slipping beyond the horizon, and even the passerby who had stopped to gawk had begun to hurry about their way. In the mother’s grief there came a subdued, numb tranquilness—but only for a moment. The very next, her expression shifted to confusion, and the next, twisted into pain. I needed not imagine what transpired. Having driven here six hard days, staving off the encroaching, inevitable affliction, I had felt my fair share of torment. I could see her skin bubbling in response to the blood boiling away beneath it—a rather ghastly affair to watch. I turned away. With business concluded, I had no reason to linger. In fact, better to be anywhere far from here.
Awful things, blood curses.