Chapter 27: I Summon You

Chapter 27: Unto You, I Send the Call

"My, did you take my money?"

The old woman's eyes were completely milk-white, devoid of pupils.

Under her gaze,

Karen felt his body as though cast into an icehouse, a bone-chilling cold seeping into his skin, eroding his bones, and finally surging from all sides to seal his heart.

Even his thoughts, which should have been free and flowing, were at this moment like a frozen river surface—still moving underneath, but entirely "severed" from his actual self.

It was a bizarre sensation,

You felt you were still you, yet you had forgotten who you were;

You felt you could still think, yet you could conceive of absolutely nothing.

If the previous entrance into Mrs. Molly's "sleep paralysis" due to Jeff was a layering of a dream, then this moment before him was a further vivisection of his soul and consciousness.

It was not trying to scare you,

Nor was it trying to intimidate you,

Much less searching for some flaw within your heart to amplify, or seeking a crack in the dam to exploit and ultimately breach your mental defenses;

In the mere fraction of a second of that "first glimpse," it directly "petrified" your consciousness.

"You took my money, didn't you?"

A sliver of a smile appeared at the corners of the old woman's mouth, not particularly sinister, perhaps even bearing a semblance of kindness, but the conflict of this visual dissonance was enough to make one's mind and body twist with discomfort.

It was not that Karen desired to stand frozen like a wooden doll, but rather that he had lost the opportunity to react;

It was clearly happening right before your eyes, right upon your body, yet you were like a mere bystander;

A masterpiece of world art hung before you, and you were admiring it, yet you could offer no critique, because you were a character inside a painting directly opposite it.

"My money, you must return it to me..."

The old woman's face shifted backward slightly;

Immediately following,

A withered hand reached out from the hole, seizing Karen by the throat.

Karen's upper body remained suspended off the bed, one of his palms still propping himself against the floor tiles, yet he simply could not alter or influence anything, fit only to perceive the icy sensation at his neck.

The hole before him, which could only accommodate a single face, now began to continuously extend, extend, extend, transforming from a profound depth into an abyss, while he himself was like a sacrificial offering about to be presented.

"My money... my money..."

The tiles began to melt like softened chocolate; the bedframe, the table, and everything else within sight were shifting from reality into fluid, and Karen's own body was now integrating into this rhythm as well.

This hole,

Seemed intent on sucking everything above it down into its depths.

Just then,

A dark mass fell from the bed ahead of Karen, and just as it looked about to be sucked into the mouth of that hole, the dark mass suddenly moved.

"Meow!!!!!!"

Karen was a man who deeply favored quietude; whether in his past life or this one, he rejected clamor.

Yet this high-decibel cat cry before him,

Sounded to his ears like celestial music.

Under the resonance of this single meow, the surrounding "fluid" rippled with chaotic waves, and Karen's consciousness seemed able to reclaim a portion of itself at this moment.

"My money... my money..."

The old woman's voice carried a stubborn resolve, desiring to take everything back.

But Purr, having just cried out once,

Crouched right at the edge of the hole,

The claws of its left front paw slipped out,

Raised,

Then swept down!

"Ah!!!!!!!"

A distinct, bloody scratch from a cat's claw appeared across the old woman's face, and she let out a wretched shriek.

The suction that had previously pulled at everything froze entirely in an instant,

And then,

Rebounded backward,

Like an explosion!

Boom!

...

"Thud!"

Karen fell from the hospital bed, a wave of pain flaring from the joints where his body struck the floor, followed immediately by a secondary wave of agony as the wound on his chest was wrenched.

"Hiss..."

Letting out a sharp cry of pain, Karen's body suddenly recoiled; he instinctively believed there was a hole beneath him, but when his gaze darted downward, he found the floor tiles under the bed perfectly intact;

They might have been a little dirty, but there was absolutely no gaping hole.

And at that moment,

With a sharp "click,"

The overhead light turned on.

Purr stood upon the bedside table, one of its paws just dropping away from the light switch.

Before Karen could speak,

Purr spoke first:

"An aberration. A beguiling aberration."

Saying this, Purr's gaze fell upon Karen:

"You weren't experiencing auditory hallucinations this morning. Beneath us, there is a beguiling aberration. This is a matter of gravity; we need to notify Dis."

"Before notifying Dis, you could help me press the call button," Karen said.

Purr blinked its feline eyes,

Extended a paw, and pointed toward the door of the ward,

"Before pressing the button, I think you should first move the barricade away."

"Sigh..."

Cullen let out a heavy sigh, first letting his body rest completely flat against the floor. Waiting until the sharp, agonizing ache gradually ebbed away—or perhaps until it became a pain he could finally endure—he slowly pushed himself up. He limped toward the doorway, shoved the wardrobe aside, and then removed the mop handle that had barred the entrance.

Purr pressed the call bell.

Cullen sat down on the edge of the bed, first examining the wound on his chest with meticulous care. Fortunately, though the flesh had been tugged and strained, the gash had not burst open.

"A demonguile... is that a sub-species of aberration?"

Aberration was likely a broad, catch-all term, much like how the human race was divided into various ethnicities.

"Yes, but demonguiles are exceedingly rare. To a certain extent, the Alfred you know—even though he possesses the Incubus Eye—cannot truly be considered a demonguile.

Guile is no longer about merely swaying a person's emotions and intellect through illusions or dreamscapes; it can directly sever and command your very consciousness, reducing you to a puppet under its total control in an instant.

Compared to a demonguile, the entity that possessed Mrs. Hughes, or even Miss Molly who simply scares people to death or devours the odd human, could practically be called harmless, innocent little darlings."

"So, why did she come looking for me? I am absolutely certain I did not steal her money."

Every debt has its debtor and every wrong its author; why was I the one subjected to her "visitation"?

"Before this, I might not have known how to describe it, but after she showed up at the door, I understood."

"Understood what?"

"That overflowing talent of yours. It is so full it is practically spilling over, much like how Lunt woke up early six months ago, face flushed red, to secretly wash his underpants in the washroom."

"..." Cullen remained silent.

"It isn't that she deliberately wanted to cross paths with you; rather, a demonguile inherently possesses an incredibly sharp soul sensitivity, and you happen to be so very close to her. Therefore, if her field of vision is a void of pitch-black darkness,

then you,

are a glaring, obnoxious spotlight blaring right in front of her eyes."

"Then your action just now...?"

Cullen licked his lips,

and continued:

"Just now, you were truly incredible."

This was genuine praise. If it hadn't been for Purr's swift claw strike, Cullen felt as though his soul would have already been peeled away and extracted by someone else.

"She just had bad luck," Purr replied with considerable humility. "When it comes to actual fighting, I am indeed useless, but in this particular domain, I still retain some of my... instincts, I suppose."

"Instincts?"

A subtle smile played at the corners of Purr's mouth—the smile of a black cat, thoroughly drenched in an eerie, unsettling aura:

"Because, in the past, I too was a grand demonguile, and a noble, pure-blooded one at that. She is not."

"Do aberrations have lineages too? I thought only cats and dogs cared about pedigrees."

"Mind your language, especially in front of an elder who has just saved your life."

"Very well."

"Lineage is a process of evolution. Aberrations can seek a breakthrough in their own life tier through various means to achieve purity. The clergy are exactly the same;

though they constantly clamor about wanting to become the servants of God, what they actually desire in the depths of their hearts is to one day stand upright upon the divine altar themselves."

"Which means, you can't resolve this? I mean, the one downstairs."

"I am merely a cat. If it comes down to a brawl, we would be better off dragging that foolish golden retriever from home over here." Purr shook her head slightly. "Never mind, that retriever is even more of a coward."

"Mm," Cullen nodded in agreement.

"Call Diss here. Demonguiles are a rare breed now, and they always have been, from the past to the present. But every time one appears, regardless of how it came to be, once it loses control and runs amok, it brings immense destruction.

The one that possessed Mrs. Hughes only killed a handful of people.

Years ago, a powerful demonguile actually managed, through speeches and elections, to become the head of state of a country, establishing a brief and exceptionally cruel empire."

Just then, the ward door was pushed open, and a female nurse stepped inside.

Myna worked the day shift; tonight was not her night to be on duty.

"Sir, how may I help you?"

"I want to make a phone call to my family. It is a matter of great urgency," Cullen said.

Staying in a VIP ward meant that as long as the request wasn't utterly outrageous, it would generally be accommodated.

Of course, if you were on the younger side and still unmarried, you might even walk away with one of the young nurses who cared for you by the time you were discharged;

consequently, the turnover rate for nurses in the VIP wards was quite similar to that of receptionists in large corporations.

"Certainly. Your telephone number is..."

Cullen looked at the nurse before him with a hint of suspicion. Logically speaking, even if he weren't staying in a VIP ward, the nurse's station would undoubtedly possess the records of a patient like him, and his status as a "VIP" should have been singled out explicitly;

she shouldn't be asking him this question at all.

"Meow!!!"

Suddenly, Purr let out a sharp screech and lunged directly at the nurse's face, striking downward with a vicious swipe of her claws.

"Riiip..."

It sounded like a pencil tearing through an exercise book.

Purr's single claw strike tore a piece of skin right off the nurse's face; it didn't fall away completely, remaining dangling against her cheek.

Yet the nurse did not utter a single cry of pain. Instead, she maintained her previous expression perfectly, but her hands instantly lunged to seize Purr.

Purr executed a spring, simultaneously lashing out with another claw strike directly at the nurse's hands.

But pain could not deter her movements in the slightest, and her hands gripped Purr nonetheless.

Then,

lifting Purr high,

toward the floor,

she slammed her down!

"Smack!"

Purr was hurled violently onto the floor.

The nurse followed up with a vicious kick. Though her shoes were flat-soled, they were made of hard leather.

"Thud!"

Purr was kicked flying, crashing into the corner of the wall. Her entire feline form curled up instantly, and fresh blood began to pool on the floor.

The nurse continued walking toward Purr, reaching out her hand to grab her again.

From the moment Purr leaped up to strike, to being directly caught and slammed down by the nurse, everything had unfolded far too quickly—so fast that Cullen simply hadn't had time to formulate a reaction.

But now, bracing his hands against the edge of the bed, Cullen tensed his body and delivered a sharp kick right into the nurse's waist.

The nurse was knocked to the ground, her head smashing directly against the floor tiles with a resonant crack.

Cullen scrambled to his feet, frantically scanning the room for any handy object to use as a weapon.

However, the nurse who had just been kicked down extended her hand with almost no hesitation or delay, locking her grip around Cullen's ankle as her body lunged forward.

Knocked backward by her impact, Karen tumbled upon the hospital bed, and the nurse, like a tangled vine, lunged directly over him—or rather, planted herself squarely upon his chest.

"Hiss..."

As the squeeze bore down on his wound, the searing agony nearly plunged Karen into unconsciousness; perhaps blacking out from the pain would have been a grand escape, a natural defense mechanism, yet Karen knew all too well that if he closed his eyes now, he might never open them again.

The nurse extended both hands, clamping them around Karen’s throat, her visage remaining eerily placid without a hint of malice, though her execution was ruthless.

Karen began to thrash violently, the wound on his chest tearing open as a great bloom of fresh blood soaked through his patient gown.

Yet, this vessel of his was inherently frail, further weakened by a period of convalescence, and it held absolutely no advantage against a nurse who seemed entirely impervious to pain.

Groping blindly along his side with his left hand, Karen’s fingers brushed against "I Bound Your Heart," the book Mina had lent him; thank heavens, it was a hardcover volume.

Gripping the book and aiming with its sharp corners, Karen swung it straight at the face of the nurse throttling him!

Thud!

Thud!

Thud!

The corner of the nurse's eye split open under Karen's blows, her nose battered askew and mottled with several dark bruises, yet the vice-like grip of her hands never slackened in the slightest.

Karen himself began to feel increasingly powerless as asphyxiation took hold, his final desperate swing sending the book flying from his grasp.

In the corner, Pur still lay curled tight.

And within Karen's mind, a succession of thoughts flashed:

How wonderful it would have been if the previous 'Karen' had exercised more,

How wonderful it would have been if he had supplemented his protein and trained from the very first day of his awakening,

How wonderful it would have been if Dis had never stabbed him.

But now, every 'if' seemed to arrive far too late.

Sensing the strength gradually draining from his limbs, he could only swing his arms in a display of futile, powerless fury, his fingertips merely brushing the nurse's face or neck each time, lacking even the strength to deliver a proper slap.

Yet,

Just at that moment,

Karen suddenly perceived another identical nurse standing right beside the one atop him, the two matching feature for feature, save for the fact that the newcomer bore none of Pur's scratch marks or the bruises he had inflicted.

She stood there looking utterly bewildered, like a young girl who had just lost her coin purse and knew not what to do.

In that instant, the scene in the home basement between 'Mr. Mosang' and Mr. Mosang flashed into Karen's mind.

Was it coming,

Had it triggered?

With no time for hesitation, Karen began to turn his face—or rather, to shift his gaze—and correspondingly, the silhouette of that girl began to move with his vision.

Finally,

Just as Karen felt himself on the verge of ascending, his conscious soul nearly severing from his flesh as his suffocating body reached its absolute threshold,

The silhouette of that girl,

Was brought by him to a perfect... alignment over the nurse pinning him down!

All at once,

The nurse’s hands released their grip.

"Gasp! Gasp! Gasp!"

Karen began to draw in desperate, greedy breaths of the air, an intoxicatingly sweet nectar, followed by a fit of coughing so hysterical and violent that it allowed him to ignore the screaming pain in his chest wound.

Meanwhile, the nurse knelt upon the mattress, her hands extending forward only to snap back halfway, thrusting forward again only to be yanked back once more.

In the next breath,

She clamped one hand around her own throat while her other hand beat frantically against the opposing arm, her jaws snapping open to savagely tear at her own fingers, rendering the entire spectacle incomparably bloody and mad.

It was like two mortal enemies locked in combat, with the sole exception that both were fighting using the exact same body.

Pur, coughing blood from the corner of her mouth, slowly and painfully lifted her head to witness the scene on the bed,

And cried out:

"Control... her..."

The indispensable ability of an Inquisitor of the Order—to make the dead... awaken.

She had seen Karen make Mr. Mosang sit up with her own eyes in the basement; she knew Karen possessed this power, but she understood even better that Karen lacked the ability to truly govern this 'talent.'

Yet now, that mesmerizing aberrant demon was clinging to this nurse's form, and if they could not utilize the 'chaos' of an awakened corpse-consciousness to suppress it, the demon would soon regain total mastery over the body.

Though this vessel was now battered and bruised,

What could a gravely injured cat and a pretty boy who was still recovering from his wounds

Possibly do to contest an possessed adult female who felt no pain?

Karen did not actually hear Pur's voice, for the sound she could muster now was far too faint; rather, amidst his violent coughing, he noticed the nurse’s eyes beginning to shift from their initial bewilderment back toward him, while her 'self-strife' grew steadily weaker.

The phantom of that girl seemed on the verge of detaching from her body, as if evaporating, dissolving away.

"Heh heh heh..."

From the nurse's throat emerged a sound resembling laughter, and disregarding the hand that continued to twist her own neck, she lunged toward Karen with her free arm.

Karen’s eyes widened,

And he bellowed:

"Kneel!"

Thud!

The nurse's forehead slammed directly against the wooden bed frame; her other hand kept clawing forward blindly, but since Karen was huddled in the far corner of the bed, she could not reach him.

Having shouted the command and seen her actually comply, Karen himself froze for a brief second, but daring not to waste a moment, he shouted again:

"Freeze!"

In the next instant,

Even the arm that had been continuously groping toward him went perfectly still.

Nothing remained,

Save for the dull, muffled sounds still echoing from the nurse’s throat, which resolved into a single, repetitive syllable:

"Money... money... money..."

"Silence."

The voice that had tortured him with nightmares for nearly an entire day finally fell still.

Karen did not dare touch the nurse's motionless body, her forehead still pressed against the bed,

But shifted his weight and gingerly climbed down from the mattress,

While Pur, on her side, managed with immense difficulty to stand up.

"How long will she remain quiet?" Karen asked.

"Not for long," Purr replied, unable to gauge how long Karen's "art" could maintain the seal.

"I'm going to call Dis."

Karen stepped out of the ward. Paradoxically, despite the violent commotion that had just shaken the room, the corridor outside remained steeped in stillness, broken only by the occasional, distant cough of a patient.

It was as if his room had been completely severed from the rest of the world.

Clutching his chest, Karen made his way to the nurse's station, where he found the young night-shift nurse unconscious on the floor. Atop the counter sat a row of indicator lights, each corresponding to a ward below, with the VIP rooms listed separately.

Upon receiving a summons, the nurse on duty would normally switch the light off before heading over, yet the lamp for his own room still burned bright.

Karen made no attempt to revive the struck nurse; instead, he lifted the receiver and dialed his home.

After a lengthy ringing, the line clicked open, and Aunt Mary's voice came through:

"Hello, Inmemiles Funeral Care Company."

"Auntie, put Grandfather on the phone."

"Karen? Has something happened out there?"

"Put Grandfather on the phone."

"Grandfather isn't home tonight. He's been spending these past few evenings visiting Mr. Hoffen. Mr. Hoffen's condition has taken a turn for the worse already—"

The line went dead with a sharp click.

The moment he learned Dis was not home, Karen cut the connection. It was not out of rudeness, but simply because he truly had no leisure to explain things to his aunt, let alone the time for idle pleasantries.

Frustratingly, in the absence of mobile phones, trying to locate someone away from a landline was a difficult and agonizingly slow endeavor.

However,

without a moment's hesitation after hanging up, Karen immediately dialed another number.

This time, the connection was swift, answered on the very first ring.

Then,

a deep, resonant male voice drifted over the wire:

"Hello?"

Karen exhaled a long, slow breath.

Speaking into the mouthpiece, he said:

"I am summoning you now."